“Bronson’s gone to the servants’ house,” she said in reply to my question. “He wasn’t feeling well.”
I asked her if she’d found the cleaver, and she said she hadn’t. She said she was going to spend the night on the third floor with Mrs Spotswood to quiet the old lady’s nerves.
“Won’t that be very hard on you?” I asked.
“It’s not bad at all. There’s a studio couch in her sitting room which I use for a bed. It’s quite comfortable, thank you.”
“And you’re not afraid of someone breaking in the house?”
“It isn’t someone outside, it’s someone inside the house I’m afraid of.”
“Why, Mrs Bundy, what do you mean?”
Her face was very red and serious. “Well, it’s a funny sort of madman that can break into a house by unlocking a window from the inside, now isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean, unlocking a window from the inside?”
“I mean that the window in the pantry where the footprints was found had been securely locked when I went to bed. I know, because I locked it myself.”
“Well, that certainly is odd.” I felt she was telling the truth. “Why didn’t you speak to the sheriff about it?”
“I did, but the old fool wouldn’t believe me. He said I must have overlooked it and as much as accused me of making up the story of my locking it so’s not to be blamed for my neglect. I’d get no blame anyway; it’s Bronson’s duty to see that the house is locked up at night.”
“Do you have any idea who unlocked the window?” I asked.
“None at all. Though I suspect that Bronson had something to do with it; he turned pale as a ghost when I told him about it.”
“Well, don’t worry tonight. We’re going to take turns guarding the house, and there’ll be someone up all the time.”
“I won’t worry,” said Mrs Bundy resolutely. She brandished a large carving knife. “I’m taking this up to bed with me, and if anybody should try to come in …” She made an unpleasant cutting motion in the air with the knife.
I walked over to the servants’ quarters and found Karl and Bronson and Mr Bundy sitting in front of an open fire in the combination library and sitting room my great-uncle had furnished for the servants.
“Don’t get up,” I said. “I simply wanted to ask Karl if he would take a shift at guard duty tonight.”
Karl Norberg’s blue eyes were friendly. “Sure, I’ll be glad to watch the house.”
I explained to him that we were going to watch in pairs and told him that he and Burton Coffin would be on from four o’clock until breakfast. He said he would be ready then.
“How about me and Bronson?” asked Mr Bundy. “We’ll be glad to help out.” He was a small man with a jolly round crimson face and straw-colored hair. He was smoking Prince Albert in a briar pipe.
I told them we had already arranged the guard duty for the night and said that they could consider themselves reserves, held in readiness for emergencies. I said good night to them and went back to the house.
“You’re just in time, Professor,” called Miss Harvey as I entered the living room. “We’re going to have a game of hearts.”
They had a table with five chairs around it in a corner of the room, and with considerable misgiving I noticed that Miss Leslie and Burton Coffin were preparing to play.
“I don’t believe I’d better join you,” I said. “I’m a very poor card player.”
“Aw, come on,” begged Miss Harvey. “It’s more fun with five.” She made her red lips pout.
I could see that Burton Coffin didn’t want me to play. Miss Leslie’s face was noncommittal. So I played.
I remembered the game fairly well from my college days. The object was to keep from taking hearts and the queen of spades and at the same time to take the jack of diamonds. Or better yet, to take all the counting tricks and thus score the equivalent of a grand slam. The Harveys played intensely, squabbling over the score, exulting when they were able to hand a heart or the black queen to someone and dropping into a slough of despair when they were forced to take a trick. Miss Leslie played an alert game without the emotional virtuosity of the Harveys, but Burton Coffin’s mind seemed to wander.
I played carefully, but one or the other of the Harveys continually handed me hearts on the tricks I took, and I kept going down on the score sheet. I took this as an unusual run of bad luck until I happened to catch a covert look flashed by Dan Harvey to his sister. I saw then that I was being—I think this is the correct word—“framed” by them. They were undoubtedly doing things with the cards that the better bridge clubs would consider unethical. If they were not actually cheating they were at least in combination against me.
I tried to think of a way which would defeat their purpose, which was to drive me down to the minus one hundred point on the score sheet, a position carrying with it the unenviable title of Dumb Baby. I did not want to be known as Dumb Baby; it was bad enough being called Butch.
However, the problem of avoiding this was a neat one. I have never learned any trick shuffles with a deck, and I did not know how to palm cards, so there was no way I could cheat for myself. I needed assistance. I decided to approach Miss Leslie, whom I had seen glancing curiously at the Harveys on several occasions. It was impossible to speak to her, but on the next hand I devised a way of letting her know I wanted help. Instead of passing her the three worst cards in my hand, as is the custom, I gave her two high diamonds and the deuce of hearts. When she looked at me in surprise I winked at her and then let my eyes roll in the direction of the Harveys.
For a moment her face was blank, but she quickly thought the matter out. My look at the Harveys told her I knew they were cheating, and my gift of valuable cards was a sign that I wished to win her friendship. Her eyes became amused.
After that hand the Harveys suffered the most amazing series of reverses they probably had ever encountered in a heart game. By passing Miss Leslie five and six and sometimes seven and eight of my cards, she would arrange her hand to suit herself and then slip me under the table the cards she thought would be of the greatest advantage to me. Usually one of us kept all the hearts, while the other kept a hand with high diamonds so as to snare the jack. We invariably short-suited ourselves in either clubs or spades so that we would have an opportunity of throwing a heart on one of the Harveys, and we always provided perfect low-card support when we had the dangerous queen of spades.
While Burton Coffin played his hands in stodgy unconcern, we ran the Harveys down from the plus fifties to the minus fifties in a very few minutes. Miss Leslie arranged the cards perfectly, showing rare judgment on several occasions, and I aided her as far as I was able. I suppose the Harveys would have been more wary had they been playing against younger opponents, but it never occurred to them that I could be cheating too. Bewilderment, chagrin and consternation were mirrored on their faces as their scores kept getting lower and lower. It was one of the most painfully disastrous moments in their lives.
Finally we worked them down to the minus eighties, within fourteen points of the ignominious title of Dumb Baby when luck favored me with a remarkable hand. I had six diamonds, including the ace, king, queen and jack; the ace of hearts and a small spade and two small clubs. I passed the spade and both of the clubs to Miss Leslie and received from Burton Coffin the ace of spades, the king and queen of hearts. It was a perfect hand.
Burton led the four of diamonds, and I took the trick with the ace. Then I exhausted diamonds, took four spades with the ace, and took the remaining twelve cards with the three high hearts. The coup not only netted me seventy-two points, but sent both Dan and Dot Harvey over the line into the Dumb Baby class. Their faces were studies in amazement.
“Thank you very much for a nice game,” I said, standing up. “It’s the first time I’ve played in ten years, and I’m afraid I was a bit rusty.”
“Oh, I think you played very well for the former world’s champion hearts pla
yer,” said Miss Leslie.
“My gosh,” said Dan Harvey. “Was he really the world’s champion?” His mouth fell open.
“I won the title at Vienna,” I said. “I had to play off a tie with Adamec, the Polish champion, but I was lucky enough to hand him the queen on the very first play, and he conceded his defeat.”
A telephone had been ringing in the downstairs library, and George Coffin had passed by our table to answer it. He returned and said to me, “A long distance call for you.”
I picked up the receiver and said, “Hello,” fully expecting to hear the voice of my aunt Nineveh. Instead it was the voice of a man.
“Is this Professor Peter Coffin?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“This is Colonel Jarvis Black.”
I remembered Colonel Black. He had been going through the Elizabethan chancery records in search of Shakespearean data at the time I was in London investigating court records of the Restoration. We had become quite friendly. I remember thinking he was sort of an elegant dabbler in a number of esoteric fields: the Baconian theory, Rosicrucianism, lycanthropy and the Black Mass being some of the subjects he conversed eruditely upon. He was a sardonic, Mephistophelean man, immaculately dressed and with perfect manners. I was very much surprised when someone told me he was head of a detective agency and one of the world’s greatest authorities on ciphers.
“Well, this is a pleasure,” I said warmly. “Where are you now, Colonel Black?”
“In New York.”
“Oh.”
“I telephoned to ask you about the death of your great-uncle,” he said.
“Yes …”
“I want to know if you believe it was the work of a madman, as the newspapers report.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s been a madman loose in the neighborhood. He cut off his wife’s head before he was arrested, and now my great-uncle’s head has been cut off.”
“Yes. Yes. I know that. But I want to know what you suspect.”
I glanced around and saw that the room was empty. I was far enough away from the living room so that I could not be heard there. “There have been some curious things about the death I am unable to explain,” I admitted, “but I don’t know what to suspect.”
“What things?”
“One of them is that the window through which the madman was supposed to have entered was locked on the inside.”
“And another?”
“The attitude of Bronson, the butler. He informed me this afternoon that he didn’t think the madman had anything to do with the tragedy. He said he thought he knew who committed the crime.”
“Did he tell you who it was?”
“No, he didn’t. But I think he intends to as soon as he satisfies himself it is for the best.”
“The story had a fantastic sound when I read it in the Herald Tribune this morning,” said Colonel Black There was real pleasure in his voice. “I think I’ll pay you a visit, Peter.”
“I’ll be glad to have you. But why are you so interested?”
“Well, you see, the American Insurance Company is one of my clients.”
“But I don’t see what that has to do with my great-uncle’s death?”
“But didn’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“That Tobias Coffin took out a policy last year for a hundred thousand dollars and named you and a Miss Leslie, a niece by marriage, I believe, as beneficiaries.”
“Why, that’s simply incredible!”
“It is also true.” His voice had a note of amusement. “The insurance company is naturally a trifle upset about the matter, especially as they will have to pay a double indemnity in case the death was really violent.” His tone became sharper. “Isn’t there a relative named Burton Coffin at the house?”
“Why, yes.”
“It’s curious he didn’t say something about the policy.”
“How did he know about it?”
“He sold it to your great-uncle.”
I gasped.
“I’ll see you sometime tomorrow,” continued Colonel Black. “Until then, keep your eyes open.”
“I will,” I promised.
My mind whirling, I slowly took the receiver from my ear. I heard a click as Central disconnected us, and then I heard another far louder click. I ran out into the living room.
“Are there any extensions to the telephone in the house?” I demanded.
“In the upstairs library and in the servants’ house,” said Dan Harvey.
The others watched me race up the stairs with startled eyes. I ran into my uncle’s study, but there was nobody there. I returned to the living room.
“What’s the matter?” asked George Coffin.
I looked carefully over the small group of people facing me. Dr Harvey and George Coffin were there, as were Burton Coffin, Miss Leslie and the two young Harveys. Mrs Coffin had apparently gone to bed.
“Somebody was listening to my conversation,” I said.
Chapter X
“HAVE YOU EVER READ The Dolly Dialogues?” Miss Leslie asked, moving a trifle nearer the fire.
I looked up from my book. “Oh yes. They’re delightful.” The shadows thrown by the leaping flames alternately lightened and deepened the gray of her lovely eyes. “I’m surprised you’ve never read them.”
“Oh, I have. I happened to see a copy on the shelf, and I thought I’d read them again. It’s been such a long time I’ve almost forgotten them.”
I knew she wasn’t talking to me just to give vent to her enthusiasm for Anthony Hope, and I felt a shade of suspicion. Was she trying to secure further information from me? I would see. I continued the conversation. “I remember the suave Mr Carter and how I wanted him to have his Dolly,” I said.
“Yes, it was too bad her husband didn’t have the courtesy to die.”
“I don’t imagine Mr Carter would have known how to be a husband. I think he preferred to be on the outside, wistfully looking in.”
“Look,” she said, abruptly changing the subject, “do you really regard me as an enemy?”
There was no one in the room except George Coffin and Dr Harvey. They were passing their period of guard duty by playing chess. The others had gone to bed.
“Not as bad as that,” I replied. “But I don’t think it was quite fair of you to pump me for Burton Coffin’s benefit.”
She avoided this point. “You don’t like Burton Coffin, do you?” There were soft hollows under her cheek bones.
“Not very well.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know … unless it’s because he doesn’t like me.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing more than that? You haven’t had any”—she hesitated an instant—”business relations with him?”
“Why, no. I’ve never had anything to do with him. I never set eyes upon him before I arrived here. It’s more like Tom Brown’s parody of that little verse of Martial’s:
“I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love you, Doctor Fell.”
George Coffin, slouched in his chair, his hands in his pockets, was waiting for the doctor to decide upon his next move. He turned his head in our direction. I could see he was pleased about something; “Peter,” he said. He was having difficulty keeping his face solemn.
I said, “Yes?”
“I think the verse might go something like this,” said my cousin. “It might go:
“I do not love you, Burton Coffin,
I hope I do not see you offin.”
I fear I uttered a sound dangerously close to a giggle. Miss Leslie’s face was shocked. George Coffin turned to the chessboard, and I heard Dr Harvey grumble, “How can I concentrate with you spouting poetry all over the place?”
Miss Leslie spoke to me severely. “I don’t think it’s very nice of you to make fun of Burton behind his back.”
I h
eard George Coffin’s complacent response to Dr Harvey: “I’ve got you licked anyway.” I smiled at Miss Leslie. “You really can’t blame this on me. You started it.”
She had lovely dimples. “I suppose I did.” Her face was suddenly serious. “I’d like to know the reason you and Burton hate each other.”
“Why, I don’t hate him. It’s nothing——” I halted abruptly and peered into her lovely gray eyes. “Does he hate me?”
I could see she was genuinely agitated. Her hands gripped The Dolly Dialogues until the knuckles were white. “I don’t know.” Her eyes fell away from mine. “It’s very curious. I should be on the side of Burton.” She paused, and when she spoke again her voice was very low. “He has made some remarks about you. I thought I ought to warn you.”
“But, my goodness! What could he have against …?” I felt an overwhelming amazement. “What kind of remarks?”
“Well.” The firelight gave her soft skin an attractive flush. “You must promise not to say a word to anyone.” She put one hand on my coat sleeve.
“I promise.”
She seemed to be trying to collect her thoughts before she spoke. “I couldn’t make much out of what he said,” she continued finally, “but it was something like this: he said he wasn’t going to do any more dirty work for you, that the next time he’d put you out of the way rather than do your dirty work.” Her face was bent over so that she seemed to be examining the tip of her green slipper. “I remember he used the phrase’dirty work’ several times.”
“Why, this is insane.” I half rose to my feet. “He’s never done any dirty work for me. I’ve never even had any dirty work to be done.”
“That’s what he said.” Miss Leslie was examining my face curiously. “Moreover, he said if you didn’t clear out pretty soon he’d finish you.”
I threw out my arms in a gesture of complete bewilderment. “Didn’t you ask him what the’dirty work’ was?” I demanded.
“He wouldn’t tell me.” Her voice was solemn. “I think he regretted having told me as much as he had. He asked me to forget everything he said.”
“Well, thanks for telling me about this.” I could see her green slipper moving back and forth in front of the flames. “I appreciate it. But why did you tell me, when you are, as you say, in Burton’s camp?”
The Search for My Great-Uncle’s Head Page 10
