Corpses at Indian Stone

by Philip Wylie

  "Long as that, eh?"

  Wes nodded. "He went out--in 1905. They told me that much. He was about twenty-six or so, at the time. He'd be over sixty--now--and not showing it. So--he found out something about Calder he couldn't stand. Argued. Maybe even fought. Calder was a pugnacious devil. Maybe Bogarty banged him one. Killed him, anyway. Then--what?

  Make it look like an accident. Bogarty is a woodsman. The deadfall dodge would naturally occur to him. He took an ax--and Calder's body--and pushed up on the side of Gamet Knob. There was a moon. He could have used a lantern or a flashlight, too.

  Nobody around. He chopped down those trees--fixed up a deadfall--put Calder in it--

  tripped it on him--"

  Aggie looked annoyed. "Oh, sure. Then he drove away--ran his car off the road here--and beat it. Look, Wes. If he did that, how did he know we'd find his car-and assume he was dead?"

  "Maybe he just didn't want us to find it at all. Wanted us to think, instead, that he'd never come to Indian Stones. That he'd vanished."

  "How did he know you'd had enough trouble with local trappers to make the deadfall plausible in those woods? I've never seen one up here before."

  "I have. Smaller ones. But--I said--Bogarty had lived in rugged country most of his life. A man stumbling into a deadfall would be his idea of a good cover-up for a killing. He's the sort who might easily kill his man. Perhaps he has before. Perhaps he's even seen somebody killed accidentally in a deadfall. It has happened, you know. He evidently doesn't care for cities and society--"

  "A sound quality," Aggie muttered.

  "--so--if we grant he killed Calder--we can assume that he would try to make it look accidental--erase his own tracks--like an Indian--and scram back to British Columbia--or some other end of the earth."

  Aggie's lips were pursed and his forehead was wrinkled. "It could be," he answered. "But--since he called on Sarah before ten--and Calder left us, alive and kicking an hour and a half later--he 'hung around' somewhere a long time. Still--I Find Bogarty, hunh?"

  "Absolutely."

  The scientist frowned himself into abstraction.

  "I'll insist on getting everything about him, now--whether we pull up his body or not. I've got photographs coming."

  "Ever consider Calder and Bogarty might have both been killed?" Aggie asked absently.

  "We'll skip that--till we have something to indicate it, hunh? What the devil are you dreaming about?"

  "About why I thought that fox was a dog," Aggie replied. "Look. The bait? The honey--and the bread?"

  The trooper grinned. "I was expecting you to come to that. The bread--half a loaf-

  -sold locally. Popular kind. Some of the same in most of the cottages. My men worked on that through the servants, of course. The honey is the same. I mean--a common brand.

  We didn't find an open bottle of that particular sort in any house. There was a full, closed bottle of the same kind--clover--at Waite's place. But there was also some at the club-where anybody could have borrowed it--in the big pantry. A dozen bottles. Untouched.

  Ready for the season. And a dozen on the inventory. But an additional bottle could have been a carry-over from last year. Oh--hell. We can skip the bread and honey angle, because anybody with fifty cents could have both--and would likely get those brands, if he didn't specify."

  Aggie had shut his eyes. Sun fell in slanted rays through the pines. It touched his face and accentuated the concentration there. Then, suddenly, one eyebrow twitched and his beard moved with the impulsion of a smile.

  "I've got it, Wes," he said quietly. "It'll be easy to check the places Bogarty stopped en route here. A cinch."

  "Yeah? How?"

  "Because he was carrying in that car a silver fox with a collar. A thing people would notice, hunh?" The trooper's handsome face was indulgent. "And that brilliant deduction comes from what, doctor?"

  "Deduction? Nonsense! You can't deduce facts like that! It's a memory. Why did I think the fox was a dog? I was sitting on the veranda rail and I said to myself, 'There's a dog.' I was sure of it. The beast saw my pipe smoke and turned. 'No,' I said to myself, 'it's not a dog. It's a fox.' Then Dr. Davis came from Sarah's room and I dumped the whole matter out of my head. Well--I've thought back. That fox had a collar on it."

  "Collar!"

  "Yeah. He came down the road in the early light--and he was wearing a collar. I must have seen the glint of metal--or the curve of leather. So I thought of dog. Anyway, I remember he had a collar. Then he turned, and I saw it was a fox, and I erased the collar from my mind. Foxes don't have collars. Because I became certain it was a fox, I assumed I'd been mistaken about the collar. That's how people think, Wes. At least--such loopy processes are what pass for thinking among us. Bogarty raised silver foxes--a hobby--and this one must have been a pet. Or a present. He brought it along--"

  The trooper was impatient, again, to enter the discussion. "I'll check that at once.

  And if Bogarty did have a fox along--and didn't shoot off into the lake here, in which case the fox might have escaped with its life but it would hardly have come around the lake to Indian Stones in order to bite Calder on the back of the hand--then Bogarty carried it into Calder's house--"

  "Or led it on a leash--"

  "--and they scrapped--and the fox bit Calder--and got away--" The trooper stared toward the water. One of the boats was moving into shore. "All right," he continued.

  "We've doped out a lot. Bogarty did see Calder. The bite makes that pretty clear. Always assuming he was traveling with one of his faxes, of course. And you happened to spot the fox in the morning--which is lucky for me--because it means that I want to find out where this Bogarty guy is, in the worst way." He raised his voice. "Yes, sergeant?"

  The man at the oars of the boat called back, "We've covered every possible inch, Captain!"

  "Keep on, though. Might be a current that could move the body. I gotta be positive Bogarty isn't lying on the bottom of that lake."

  "How is the bottom?" Aggie asked.

  "Eh? Oh. Sandy. Some rocks. Muck--farther up. Snags. But when we quit, it'll be because we are pretty certain Bogarty isn't in that pond! I must say, Plum, I'm grateful to you. Sort of relieved, too. You know--those people are all good friends of mine. And they're pretty good people--as people go--excepting one or two. I hate to see 'em in a mess. And it gives you feathers in the stomach when you find yourself--in the line of duty--wondering which of your best friends might be guilty of a murder."

  CHAPTER 8

  Sarah had taken to her bed; her mumps were undoubtedly worse. It seemed to Aggie, however, that her physical decline was due more to mental causes. She greeted his statement that Bogarty's body was probably not in the pond with a sullenness he had never seen in her. She said she was too tired to talk. The afternoon had faded into a yellow sunset across which streamed bluish clouds in long, horizontal pennons. It was a northern sky. Aggie went to his room and looked at it awhile as he dressed for dinner.

  He reflected that the act represented a complete change of his original program. A double change, in fact. He had at first been loath to dine at the clubhouse; he had agreed to do so because Sarah had wanted to know the minor scandals brewing there. Then he had revolted against that, because the scandals had risen to vast if shadowy proportions.

  Now he was preparing to go voluntarily to the club because of his own consuming interest. He had become, indeed, a prototype of--his aunt--an enlarged prototype--full of curiosity, eager to pry into anybody's intimate life.

  He went up the steps· of the clubhouse almost blithely. His absorption had submerged his social awkwardness. There were people in the dining room and people in the solarium. Jack Browne was standing near the front door, talking to Mrs. Drayman.

  When he saw Aggie, he left her.

  "Glad you're up," he said amiably. "Place' is like a mausoleum. I mean--rather--a haunted house. Everybody has the jitters." He grinned boyishly. "You know, Aggie, that beard of yours gave me a shock,
the day you checked in. Did I show it?"

  Aggie smiled back. "Moderately."

  "I'm sorry as the deuce. Beth's around. Looking for you.

  Talking about you like a windmill. You've made a conquest there, pal."

  Aggie's grin precipitated. "Where is she?"

  "Playing table tennis--with Ralph--as usual. I'll go out with you--"

  Aggie shook his head. "I wanted a bearing on her--to go the other way. She intimidates me."

  The club manager chuckled. "Beth's all right. Not what you'd call soft-spoken--

  but--boy! If that raven, ravishing dream girl were waiting for me with the look in her eye she's got tonight--I'd run thither--and not at a dogtrot either!"

  Aggie was embarrassed. "Speaking of dogs,"--he said, "that wasn't a dog that bit Jim Calder. It was a fox. Remember you suggested that the chefs mutt was the size of a fox?"

  Jack seemed momentarily not to catch the drift of this new subject. Then he nodded brightly. "Yeah. A fox! How in the world can they tell?"

  "A guess." Aggie wondered if he'd let out too much of the trooper's information--

  or, rather, his suspicion.

  "Do they think--that Calder was--killed?"

  Aggie shrugged.

  The other man's blue and slightly wistful eyes grew cloudy. "I hope he was! If I'd known what Calder was going to cause Dad to do--I'd have shot him myself. Which shows you that anybody--can kill a person, I suppose."

  Danielle was entering through the French doors in the billiard room. Aggie watched her. His answer to Jack was offhand. "I can imagine how you felt. Still-your father shouldn't have done--what he did. I mean-- you made an adjustment to--not having money." He stumbled on his words. Here he was, again blundering into embarrassment with Jack. "Sorry, fellow. Don't mean to hurt your feelings."

  Jack's eyes shone. "It's okay, Aggie. Sorry I popped it out."

  Danielle was coming toward them. Her words, spoken to carry halfway across the lounge, were bold. "Hello, Aggie, my duck! You swim like one, anyhow! Sorry I tipped you over this afternoon."

  Aggie had the feeling that Danielle wanted everyone to hear her apology. He was sure of it as she continued to talk--and to walk toward him--in a pale amethyst dress that made her hair seem extravagantly bright and burning-gold, brass, copper. "The rotten Davis temper! I'm proud of my education, and you shouldn't have insulted it--even if you have more degrees than Einstein."

  He had not insulted her education. She was close to him now, and she spoke in a more normal tone. "Forgive me?"

  He wondered if she was always alibiing herself in public with little, meaningless charades. "It would be hard to forgive you," he answered, "if I'd been unable to swim."

  She stared at his black dinner jacket, his shoddy black tie, his stooped figure. Her head shook glitteringly. "Golly! Under there--all those muscles! Hard to believe!"

  Jack winked at Aggie and wandered away. Danielle slipped her arm through the professor's and casually turned him around. They walked out on the porch together. Then Danielle said, in a whisper, "I'm scared!"

  Aggie responded dryly. "Really?"

  She walked to the porch rail and looked down, as if she wanted to make sure in an inconspicuous way that nobody was hiding in the lilacs. It was elaborate, like everything she did. "I told people I upset the canoe because I was mad at you. Because you'd insulted my education. You see--they saw Dad tow it in and wondered what had happened. They believed my story--" She shrugged. "Anything that sounds uncivil and impetuous--they believe about me. Just now--I was publicly nailing down that story."

  "I don't see why."

  "For Dad to hear. He's sitting in the library."

  Aggie was surprised. He assumed that Danielle had known what her father had thrown overboard that afternoon--and that she had quickly invented the "rustiness" of the alleged anchor to conceal the brownness of a pair of shoes. Now, it seemed, her invention had been intended to convince the doctor. Or--possibly this was also an act. An attempt at fake conspiracy, for the purpose of learning just what he, Aggie, had seen.

  She kept looking anxiously into the banks of lilac and sumac which grew all around.

  "What scares you?" he asked finally.

  "You don't trust me, do you?"

  "Should I?"

  Danielle considered. "I trust you."

  "If you do--then go ahead and talk. You weren't very confident in me this afternoon when you threatened to make a fool of me if I disclosed what you'd told me."

  "I'd like to quit beating around the bush."

  "Me, too."

  Danielle gazed at him intensely, shaking her head a little, as if in doubt about what she was thinking. In a moment, she chuckled, and the sound was, somehow, self-deprecatory and pathetic. "The people at Indian Stones," she began, "are used to authority and accustomed to taking matters of all sorts into their own hands. That goes double for the Davises, and triple for me. Dad has a fearful temper. Not many people know it. But most of those cold, concentrated men have tempers."

  "Yes-?"

  "He could have clubbed Jim Calder and carried him up on the hill and built the trap. Easily, I couldn't have. I don't want you to think I'm trying to establish an alibi in your mind--but--"

  "I don't think it. Because it's no alibi."

  Danielle was startled. "Certainly--"

  "The woods were dry. The ground was hard. Did you ever hear of moccasins? Or sneakers? Anybody wearing 'em could have followed Calder that night and hit him from behind and then proceeded to rig up that trap. A woman, an old man, a kid. The wind blew all the next day. The body lay there all day. The presumptive murderer could have got up to the scene again and carefully removed any incidental signs of his or her presence. There were hours for that--hours in which we didn't know Calder was dead and nobody kept track of anybody. Such a murderer, wanting to be sure the stage was set correctly, might even have arranged a palpable reason to be in the vicinity the next day--

  just to cover any possible chance of a clue he'd overlooked. A rendezvous on Garnet Knob, for instance--"

  Danielle gasped faintly. "You can be very trying, Aggie!"

  "All right. You didn't do it. Maybe Bill did. Maybe he welcomed your bid to him to go hiking before supper--in spite of pretending not to want to go."

  "I never thought of that." She pondered. "Do you believe--philosophically--that killing a man is ever--permissible? I mean--would you hunt down a very useful man because he'd murdered a very dangerous one?"

  "I dunno."

  Danielle shook herself. "You always make me take the chances on you! It's very unsatisfying! Look here, Aggie Plum! The night Jim was killed, Dad went for a consultation to Parkawan. He left fairly late and he didn't get back till much later. There are three physicians in Parkawan. I phoned them all--this afternoon--when Dad was out in his darkroom. None of them called on Dad. The hospital didn't. That's thing number one that frightens me. Then--I had another thought. How long was Dad busy with Sarah that morning--to diagnose her mumps?"

  "Maybe half an hour."

  "Did he leave--right after that?"

  "Yeah. Shortly."

  "He didn't come home. I slept late--naturally. I'd been up most of the night, what with him out--and coming back--and you. But the cook says she's sure she heard him sneaking upstairs by the back way when she was getting up--and that was around seven--

  long after daylight. The cook wasn't sure--she just mentioned it. I didn't think anything of it at the time--I just assumed he'd stayed a long while with Sarah."

  "I see," Aggie said. "No wonder you're--scared."

  Danielle said, "I'm telling you because I'm sunk. I don't know what to do. They shouldn't--certainly--take Father's life for Jim Calder's! He's not a very sympathetic man--

  but he's a very valuable one! I never could love him--much--because I think he's always·

  felt icy toward me--since Mother left him. As if I were contaminated, somehow. Then--

  you saw him throw those shoes over
board--"

  Aggie took out his pipe, held a match for her cigarette, and made no reply.

  "They were shoes," she went on. "I've looked in his closet and they're gone. Shoe pacs--if you know what they are. Deerskin, or elkskin, or something. He always wore them for walking--and he kept some sort of oil on them that turned the rawhide brownish.

  I didn't think of the importance of the fact that they have no hard soles and no heels at all-

  -till you explained it just now. Do you suppose he was getting rid of them because there was some blood on them that he knew he couldn't get out thoroughly enough so that if Wes, or somebody, examined them with a microscope--?"

  "A pretty fancy thing to prepare for."

  ' Dad has a pretty fancy brain. He'd think of microscopic examinations and chemical examinations-all that." She sighed. "I've told you--anyway. I'm glad I did."

  "Why didn't you tell Wes Wickman?"

  "I couldn't decide whether to go to him or not. I've got the jitters--the inside kind--

  and that's the worst kind. Then--Wes was crazy in love with me, once--and I turned him down fiat. He was miserable for-ages. Maybe you won't understand--but a woman can hesitate about--turning in her own father--to a man who has loved her--a man she's hurt.

  Maybe that's nutty. And, anyway, I didn't want to make the decision about whether all this should be forgotten--or whether it should be brought out, and Dad arrested. Because, after all, he did kill Jim Calder--didn't he?"

  Aggie smoked. "It looks like it," he said. There was a long pause. "This doesn't explain anything about Hank Bogarty, though."

  ' They haven't found his body?"

  "It seems as if they won't. You can't add anything about him to what you've told me?"

  "Nothing," said Danielle.

  "Want to eat dinner with me?"

  "You're not going to call up Wes right away?"

  "Not this minute. I want to think."

  Danielle said, "I feel--better than I have--ever since it happened. Do you mind my--chucking the whole business on you?"

  Aggie grinned. "Yeah. It's quite a load."

  She sighed. "You're a very funny man. You look like a cartoon professor. In the club--you're about as comfortable as a rabbit in a lion's cave. And yet--the things you know!