The Penguin Pool Murder (The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries)

by Stuart Palmer

  The Rift in the Lute

  MISS WITHERS SLOWLY DREW the garnet hatpin from her bonnet and extended it toward the Inspector. To her eyes it did not seem as glittering as usual.

  “I suppose this will be Exhibit A?” she asked.

  Piper did not move.

  “Snap out of it, Inspector,” she said acidly. “If you are going to be stupid enough to think that I committed the Lester murder, why don’t you put the handcuffs on me now?”

  He shook his head. “Shut up a minute, please, will you? I’m just trying to think. You say that you lost your hatpin yesterday, and that you had your whole natural history class looking for it all through the Aquarium?”

  Miss Withers nodded. “And my little black Abraham—a fine boy, Abraham—found it on the lower step of the stair above the penguin tank. Heavens, man, I’ve got fifteen witnesses to prove where I was every minute of the time down in the Aquarium. That class of mine sticks to me closer than the proverbial leech. I wasn’t out of their sight for a second until we started to leave the place and I found that my hatpin was missing.”

  “How about afterward?” Piper wanted to know. His usually smooth voice was thin and tense.

  “Afterward?” Miss Withers stopped short as Piper took the hatpin from her hand. “No chance of prints on it now, anyway,” he observed. “But as a matter of form I suppose that we ought to see if it fits the hole in Lester’s skull. And the analyst ought to find traces of blood on it somewhere.” He wrapped it carefully.

  “Tell me again,” he said to Miss Withers. “You say that you weren’t out of sight of your class until you started to leave the place and found the pin missing? That was after the pickpocket episode, I gather. And then you started your class after the hatpin?”

  “That’s right. And I followed along behind.”

  “No doubt at all,” said Piper genially. “But a district attorney could make a jury believe that while your little demons were hunting the hatpin, you had time to slip in and puncture Jerry Lester with it, while he lay unconscious. Then you might have dropped it on the stair where one of the kids would find it.”

  “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  Piper shook his head. “My dear Miss Withers, a detective has no beliefs. He either suspects or he knows. I have to suspect everybody and everything. But I don’t mind telling you that I suspect your hatpin had more to do with the killing of Gerald Lester than you did. There’s a certain lack of motive for your killing him.”

  Suddenly he stopped, and his green-gray eyes clouded. “Wait a minute. Didn’t you tell me that you’d stopped teaching school somewhere in Iowa to come to New York?”

  “Of course. Why?”

  Piper said nothing, but crossed swiftly to the desk and fumbled through one of the dead man’s drawers. He found what he was looking for, underneath several folders of a “Summer Cruise Through Norway’s Fjords” and other assorted literature. His eyes had rested upon this bit of card for only a second, yet they had noted it well.

  It was an old postcard addressed to Gerald Lester, and the message typed on the reverse began “Dear old alumnus—just a ‘line’ to let you know of the ‘big doings’ at dear old Boggs Memorial High School on October 15th, with a Homecoming football game and a general ‘feed’ afterwards. Let us know how many of the ‘folks’ you are bringing with you. Here’s for a big time,—signed—Horace Fleetwit, Pres. Boggs High School Alumnae Association.”

  The postmark of the card was “Cedar Rapids, Iowa.”

  “Where was your home in Iowa, Miss Withers?”

  “I was born in Dubuque. Christened and schooled and graduated and taught in Dubuque. Why?”

  “Just idle curiosity on my part,” the Inspector told her.

  Miss Withers marched over to the desk drawer and dragged it out. Before Piper could stop her she was reading the postcard.

  “Hmmp! So I did do it after all, huh? Because we both happen to come from the same midwestern state, the murdered man and I! People have to come from somewhere, don’t they? I’ve been in New York for years, and never yet have I met anyone who was born in this town. Figure it out for yourself. Gerald Lester left Cedar Rapids, which is in the center of the state, to come east to college some years ago. It must have been long after I was given my first-grade certificate at the end of five years of teaching in Dubuque, which is so close to the Iowa state line that it is practically in Wisconsin. The two towns are farther apart than New York and Philadelphia!”

  She paused for breath, and then plunged on. “I must be anyhow ten years older than Gerald Lester was. So how can you make me out as the deserted little hometown sweetheart in a gingham apron, waiting patiently among the lilacs?”

  “I guess I can’t,” said Piper. “Nobody’s arguing with you, ma’m.”

  “I started this business because it thrilled me,” said Miss Withers slowly. “But now that I’m in it, I’m going to stay in it till we know who did kill him.”

  “Listen,” said Piper. “You’re going to stick with this investigation whether you like it or not …” He almost added the word “now” on the end of the sentence. “Well, I must be getting along.”

  They came out of the offices marked “White and Lester,” pausing in the downstairs lobby to look out at a swirl of sooty rain. “I’ve got to take this hatpin up to HQ,” Piper announced. “Want to wait somewhere for me, and then in about half an hour we’ll go to the Aquarium and ask Hemingway why he didn’t tell us he had had business dealings with Lester?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’d rather do,” Miss Withers offered. “I’d like to have a chat with that Seymour boy. There’s something he hasn’t told, and maybe I could get it where you couldn’t.”

  “Talk to him all you like,” Piper told her. “If you get another confession out of him, one that will hold water this time, I’ll make you a deputy.”

  “That’s not a fair test,” Miss Withers protested. “Because I told you that the boy was no murderer, and I still believe it. What man would kill anybody with a hatpin? That’s more like a …” She paused.

  “More like a woman, eh?” Piper nodded. “I was thinking that, too. Well, let’s get on with it. I’ll drop you at the Tombs, and then pick you up when I get through with the routine stuff in my own office.”

  There was a good deal of red tape to be brushed aside, and then at last Miss Withers was shown down a long corridor, from which opened cells on either side, most of them empty and all of them dark, even at noon. Here and there a face leered at her from between half inch bars of steel. At the farthest end of the passage stood a wooden chair. “Here’s where I usually sit, ma’m,” the guard explained. His name was Schmaltz, and he was fat and cheerful. “That is, if my work doesn’t call me somewhere else. Not much need for a guard over these boys in here, because if they did get out they couldn’t get through the cell block and into the main hall. I’ll just give you my chair inside the cell, so you’ll have a place to sit, and run along while you talk to your son….”

  “He’s not my son,” snapped Miss Withers.

  “Beg pardon, ma’m.” apologized the guard. “I need some new glasses pretty bad, I do. Well, I’m supposed to search you, but as long as the Inspector sent you in I won’t. You can stay twenty minutes, according to rule….”

  He turned an old-fashioned key in the big lock of a cell in the middle of the row, and then shoved Miss Withers and the wooden chair through into the dimness of the interior. Then the door clanged.

  Philip Seymour was sleeping, sprawled out on the canvas cot which hung by two chains from the wall. His hair was tumbled, and he had not shaved.

  He moved restlessly, and then opened his eyes. “You’ve come from Gwen? You’ve brought me a message? She sent you?”

  Miss Withers killed the appeal in his eyes with a shake of her head. “No, Mrs. Lester didn’t send me,” she said. “I’m meddling on my own.”

  He sank back listlessly. “I know you,” he told her. “You’re the school-teacher wh
o didn’t think I looked like a murderer. Still feel the same way about me?”

  “Yes, I do,” lied Miss Withers. He certainly did look more like a murderer now. “But whether you look like a murderer or not, tell me, are you one?”

  Seymour was instantly on the defensive, Miss Withers could see. “Didn’t you hear my confession yesterday?” He motioned at the stone walls. “Why do you think they put me here, in durance vile?”

  “I know why you’re here,” Miss Withers told him. “So do you, but it isn’t for killing Gerald Lester. At least, not the way you confessed to it. Because he didn’t die from a crack on the head and he didn’t drown.” Miss Withers searched Philip’s face for a sign, but he kept it passive.

  “No?”

  “No! Gerald Lester died from having a hatpin jammed through his ear and into his brain, while he lay in the runway, unconscious.”

  She paused, for a dramatic effect. This time Seymour started for an instant. “And so they found that out, eh?”

  She nodded. “Just this morning they found it out. The weapon was my own hatpin, which I lost for a time in the Aquarium. Now you see why I’m involved.”

  Seymour nodded. “Now what do you think of that?” His voice was heavy with irony.

  Miss Withers looked at him. “Have you heard from Mrs. Lester since you’ve been in the Tombs here?”

  “No, I haven’t. But why should I? Tell me, how is she?”

  “She’s standing your incarceration beautifully,” Miss Withers assured him. “I just thought you might agree to have the same lawyer or something. It’s usual in cases of this kind, I believe. Inspector Piper expects that the grand jury will find against both of you, as co-defendants.”

  Philip Seymour caught Miss Withers’ arm. “Tell me, is Gwen under arrest? Have they …”

  Before he could finish his question the cell-door swung open again, and the gray-clad form of Inspector Piper was silhouetted in the doorway.

  “More third degree, Inspector?” Seymour inquired.

  Piper stuck out his lower lip. “Not exactly,” he murmured. His voice was so soft, so unassuming and calm, that Miss Withers knew he was up to something. “I just got a message from the District Attorney, Mr. Tom Roche,” said Piper. “He had such interesting news that I thought I’d step right across the Bridge and let you folks in on it. You see, Seymour, he just got a phone call from Costello, Gwen Lester’s lawyer. And Costello wanted the D. A. to promise Gwen a suspended sentence. In exchange he offered her testimony against you, as state’s evidence!”

  “Against … me?”

  “You heard it right. The lawyer promised that Mrs. Lester would unburden herself of the whole story of the killing, in which she is supposed to have been only an unwilling accessory, by the way, in return for the promise of clemency.”

  Philip’s face was white. “Is the … is the District Attorney going to go through with it?”

  Piper shrugged his shoulders. “He asked my advice on the matter. You know, Seymour, it’s about time you told us the truth about you and Gwen Lester. Don’t you see, that woman is pinning the rap on you, just like Ruth Snyder tried to do on Judd Gray? She wants you to suffer while she goes scot-free … to marry Costello, most likely.”

  Piper drew closer to the cot. “Come on, Seymour. What did you do after you had laid the unconscious body of Gerald Lester on the runway? Where was Mrs. Lester?”

  Philip shuddered. “Where was Gwen? Just where she always has been, taking care of Gwen. So this is the second time that beautiful devil has made a fool out of me. The second time …”

  “Tell us, Seymour.” Piper’s voice was honeyed.

  “I’ll tell you. What difference does it make? She’d like to see me go to the chair. No, she wouldn’t. I’ll bet she’d be moderately unhappy that night, and unable to sleep until after she knew the session up at Sing Sing was over. Unless she forgot which night it was. She’s always been like that, Gwen has. And I’ve always loved her!

  “You see, a long time ago, Gwen White and I were engaged. I was in law-school then. We were sweethearts, more than sweethearts. But Gwen’s father was an old tyrant, and she insisted on our keeping it a secret. He had other plans for her, and she always said that she’d have to win him over.”

  Philip Seymour paused, and then plunged on. “She was always going to get his consent, always going to win him over. But she never did.

  “Well, we waited, and waited. Gwen loved me, as much as she is capable of loving anyone. But she ran around with a lot of other fellows, telling me that it was to keep her father from suspecting us. You see, in those days I was even poorer than I am now. And her father made money, and lived for money.

  “Then it happened. One day, without a bit of warning, Gwen wrote me a sweet little note saying that she was going to marry Jerry Lester on the twenty-first of June and that she hoped we’d always be the best of friends, and she wanted me to come to the wedding.”

  “Yes?”

  “I went to that wedding. With a gun in my pocket. And when I saw her standing there, so radiant and happy, next to big, handsome Jerry Lester, who had just been taken into her father’s firm as partner … I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shoot that beautiful, white picture-book girl … though I knew her to be a traitorous little tramp. I just sat there and watched her marry the greatest catch on Long Island, and pretty soon I got sick and walked out and nobody noticed me. And I never saw Gwen Lester again until yesterday morning when she called me up out of a clear sky and begged for my help. Hearing her husky little voice over the phone made me forget everything I’d ever sworn.”

  “I understand,” said Piper casually. “But weren’t you pretty violent about losing her when she married? Unless there was a reason why you belonged to each other?”

  Philip looked up, startled. “There was. It was one of those things. Nothing vulgar about it, at the time. We were in love, and we couldn’t marry, and so we ran away one week-end and pledged our lives to one another above the Hudson River, in the moonlight. It was very beautiful, then. We lived together. There were other week-ends. It was only to be until her father could be won over, Gwen insisted. Well, he won her over.”

  Seymour drew a crumpled pack of cigarettes from under his pillow, and took one between fingers that were none too steady. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” he said with his face to the wall. “Nobody else ever heard it. But I’m through being a fool. I confessed to that murder yesterday to save Gwen Lester. It seemed the thing to do. It was a grand gesture to make, heaping coals of fire on her head and all that sort of rot. But all last night in this dark hole I was remembering things I’d read about the electric chair, and then to have Gwen offer to sell me to insure her own freedom …”

  “Will you help us, then,” said Piper slowly, “to pin her husband’s murder on her? If she did it alone, then she must pay for it alone. Suppose I could promise you clemency …?”

  “Then I’d be playing Judas, too, wouldn’t I?” Seymour shook his head. “Besides, you know the truth, if you want to believe it. I left Lester unconscious. I think his wife slipped back to kill him, but I didn’t see her. We met outside Hemingway’s office, just as I said. She was agitated. So was I. That’s all I know.”

  “Is it, now?” Piper didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, young man, it would be better for you if you’d help us. Chivalry is very fine, but not when you face the blackout. Maybe you’ll be changing your mind, and if you do, just send for me.”

  Miss Withers and the Inspector left the young lawyer lying there on his narrow bunk, with his face to the wall.

  “Still think he didn’t do it?” Piper wanted to know as Schmaltz let them out of the cell block.

  Miss Withers shook her head doubtfully. “I don’t know. But somehow, I wish he hadn’t said that Gwen did it. That wasn’t like him, not a bit….”

  “Men change their ideas when the Chair stares them in the face,” Piper told her. “Then it’s everyone for himself and the devil take t
he hindmost. Well, we’ve got to step back to my office for a minute, and then we’re off for the Aquarium. I’d still like a bit of a chat with Hemingway.”

  They passed quickly over the enclosed bridge, the famous Bridge of Sighs, that connects the Tombs with the Criminal Courts Building and offices. A few minutes later they were in Piper’s office, its walls lined with glass cases containing exhibits which Miss Withers found gruesome yet fascinating. She noted dozens of revolvers, of varying makes, a knife or two rusty with brownish stains, a coil of silk rope, a hatchet … and a sash-weight.

  “Those are murder instruments I’ve collected in fifteen years on the Homicide Squad,” said Piper. “Your hatpin will be an added feature, won’t it?” He rang a bell on his desk as Miss Withers shivered.

  “Send in Casey,” ordered the Inspector. In a moment a ruddy officer appeared in the door, and saluted before Piper’s desk. He nodded politely at Miss Withers and she recognized the uniformed man who had been on guard at the door of the Aquarium tanks with Rollins, and who had been sent on some mysterious errand involving stockings.

  “Well, Casey, so you came through? Tell us about it, and make it quick.”

  Casey reached for a well-thumbed notebook, but the Inspector waved it aside. “Just the outline, Casey.”

  “Very good, sir. I went, as you ordered, and made the acquaintance of Mrs. Lester’s maid, sir. It was the upstairs maid, a Belle Gayly, sir. Before she knew I was an officer, she had talked to me about her mistress. Telling me all about the quarrels Mr. and Mrs. Lester used to have, sir, and about the woman Mr. Lester was supposed to be keeping in the Village somewhere, and …”

  “Re-enter Marian Templeton,” hazarded Piper. “Go on….”

  “And then I told her that she’d be arrested as a witness unless she helped the police, and she consented to bring me the stockings her mistress had worn home yesterday afternoon. They’d been changed right away, as soon as Mrs. Lester got in, but they were in the laundress’ bag….”

  “Did Miss Gayly mention seeing her mistress come in yesterday?”

  “She did. Mrs. Lester was crying, said the maid. She came home about five o’clock, alone in a taxi. The extras were already out on the street, and that’s why the servants were noticing, sir.”