Corpses at Indian Stone

by Philip Wylie

  The safe was empty.

  Its interior was some seven feet in height, about eight feet deep, and four feet wide. If it had once contained pigeon-holes and strong boxes, they had been removed.

  There was nothing in it. Nothing at all. He amended that. On the floor were sprinklings of saw-dust. Wisps of straw. A few chips and fragments of pine--bits that might have come from boxes. He had finished his journey. He was startled by his discovery, because it was dramatic. But it was not altogether unexpected. He swung his light once more around the interior of the safe, then he was stabbed by a desire to get out--out of the safe, the hidden room, and the wine cellar. He could imagine the great iron door closing on him. He leaped from the place. That relieved him, partially. He closed the iron door and spun the dials. His hands were shaking. He switched off his light and listened, realizing that his rigidity and concentration were less for good hearing than for recovery.

  "Claustrophobia," he said soundlessly to himself. He hurried to the door, unlocked it, stepped into the passage, closed the door, and started toward the back of the wine bins.

  His sense of agitation returned. He had thought of the cellar in terms of a forest, or a jungle, where he could hide and watch without being seen. Only when he had started down the winding stairs had he begun to consider his own exposure.

  He hesitated, before pulling open the bin door. Finally, standing behind it, with his light out, he drew it back. It squealed dolefully. The wine cellar was black. Holding his torch at arm's length, and shielding his body, he pushed the switch. There was the vinous, moldy aroma. Nothing else. If someone were crouching behind the tiers of bottles, then Aggie had only to cut off his light and he, too, could so conceal himself. He would have as good a chance as the other person of making a run for it.

  He shut off his light. He would stand there, in the blackness, behind the movable shelves, until he was ready. Then--a flash for a bearing and a rush into the vast, low chamber. He could feel sweat on his lips and inside his hands as he prepared himself.

  There was not a sound anywhere--except one: his heart was audible in that absolute silence. He came around the door and stood in front, without closing it. He aimed the flashlight. He turned it on.

  Instantly, he shut it off and dropped to his knees. The light, shooting down the aisle toward the entrance, had touched something that filled him with horror. In the center of the aisle along which he had come, stood a bottle of wine. A tall, thin, green one.

  Hock. The bottle had not been there before.

  Aggie was scuttling along soundlessly on his hands and knees--away from the Calder bins--away from the bottle; toward the far wall. He expected a light, then, at any instant. A light--and a shot. He swore at himself for not bringing a gun.

  He agreed with Danielle--in a savage effort to right his senses by self--

  condemnation--that he was a mere professor and no man to skulk through the night on the trail of a murderer. Somebody had followed him. He stopped and listened frantically--as if listening could be extended by passionate effort. Somebody had put that bottle in the aisle to let him know he had been followed. To scare him? Panic him? To make him race through the room--a perfect target? It hardly seemed reasonable. Anyone who wanted to kill him would not put out a warning sign. Such a person would merely hide, and wait for him to come back--walking upright--silhouetted by his light. That would be the thing.

  This bottle" on the floor, then, was merely to let him know that he had been observed.

  He reached the opposite wall and felt along it until his hands turned the corner of the stairway entrance. He was trembling from head to foot and moving with more regard to speed than to silence. As he wound his way up the stairs, however, he reversed those tactics. For half a minute, he stood at the top of the flight, mopping his face, and listening. There was no sound at all. Nothing. He opened the door with a push. He had not quite closed it. The same awesome squeal assaulted the night. A wink of his electric torch showed the corridor to be empty. He hurried along and, presently, he was in the main cellar.

  There, he decided, the person who had set out the bottle would have his best chance-if, indeed, that person had any idea of attacking him. Aggie crouched low and moved among bulky, invisible objects toward the stairs. He hit something and felt it yield and fall away. The feeling was followed by a crash. He had tipped over a wheelbarrow loaded with broken flowerpots. He swore and recklessly switched on his light, from behind a pillar. He shot it around the vast, crowded, dusty furnace room. Nothing there.

  He kept it on and raced toward the steps, past the furnace. He had nearly gained his objective when he stopped. His light held on the ash-strewn floor for an instant. A bone--

  a veal bone--lay in the dust. A bone gnawed bare--or boiled bare--he did not have time to determine.

  The cellar lights flashed on and a voice at the head of the stairs called, "Who's that?"

  "Me! Aggie!" He felt enormously relieved. "It's me, Jack!"

  The manager of the club was standing at the head of the stairs with a revolver in his hand. He was wearing a dressing gown and bedroom slippers. He grinned faintly.

  "My God, Aggie," he said, "how you do get around! What in the world are you doing there?"

  "Trying to get out," Aggie said honestly. "And somebody's in this hole--

  somewhere." He was running up the stairs. He pulled Jack into the pantry, slammed the door, and locked it. "That ought to hold him. I'll call Wes and--"

  He broke off. In the club kitchen, staring at him, were several people. Beth and Martha and Bill Calder. Ralph Patton and Byron Waite. Most surprising, Wes Wickman, in his uniform, looking extraordinarily disheveled. There were grass stains on his hands and there was dirt on his shoes. He was breathing hard but unobstrusively, as if he had recently been engaged in some form of work, and as if he were trying to make that fact unnoticeable. Loaves of sliced bread, a leg of lamb, mustard pickles, were ranged on the center table.

  Wes said, "Who's in the cellar, Aggie?"

  "I don't know. I--"

  Beth said, "You look as if you'd been pulled through a knothole! A filthy knothole. Walking in your sleep, I suppose?"

  Wes leaned against a huge refrigerator. "Just what in the name of sin does this mean, Aggie? You were first to find Calder. First to find George Davis. First to send out the alarm. And now--while I'm frantically at work over at the Davis place--I get a frenzied message from Sarah via old John saying to go save your life in the club cellar.

  What's there?"

  "Somebody," Aggie answered. "Look. For heaven's sake--get your men and have that cellar searched."

  The state trooper considered. "All right."

  Jack spoke. "There maybe was somebody down there, at that! Aggie-did you notice if the windows in the furnace room were open, when you went down?"

  "No. They were not, that is."

  "Open now. Two of 'em." Aggie swore. "I didn't see that. Then--the person's gone."

  He looked from face to face. All the expressions were doubtful, accusative. Even the trooper's. That increased his feeling of frustration and of defeat. He needed sleep. He was weak and nervous. He was angry, too. "Hell. Why ask me what I was doing here?

  What are all of you doing?"

  Byron Waite said nastily, "I presume you expected me to go back to sleep after the racket you raised at my place? I went over to the Davis house. All the lights were on.

  I sat with the servants."

  "We went there, too," Beth said. "We heard the sirens, Bill and Martha and I. As soon as we could dress. We left Martha's mother asleep--at least--she didn't get up when we did. Wes shooed us away and so we all came up here."

  "I was just getting up," Jack said. ''They began banging on the door. I let 'em in.

  Nobody's going to sleep any more tonight--so we're making sandwiches. Heard a crash in the cellar. I got the club gun. The Lord knows we're all on edge!"

  Wes said dryly, "I think, Aggie, that I ought to ask the questions. Don't y
ou?"

  Aggie was on the point of answering when the pantry door was shoved open.

  Several more people in various stages of dishabille tramped into the club kitchen. They were asking, "What's wrong?" and "What's happened at the Davises?" with the ad-libbed unanimity of a stage crowd. Aggie looked at them disgustedly.

  ' You go down to your house, Aggie," Wes said. "I'll come along as soon as I take a squint in the cellar. Five minutes. I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you bad."

  CHAPTER 12

  When Aggie re-entered his aunt's cottage--at a dogtrot--he saw that Danielle had gone. It gave him a brief sense of dissatisfaction. Sarah had a good fire going. There were sandwiches on the coffee table-and cups. The old lady was lying back in the inglenook, and she greeted him acidly. "You've been gone a thundering long while!"

  "I had a lot of ground to cover."

  "Well?"

  Aggie knew what she meant. He sat down on a bench and leaned over the coffee container. "Gone," he said. "Nothing in the safe."

  Sarah pursed her lips. A thin, pensive whistle came through them. "Gone, eh?"

  "How much was it, Sarah?"

  She shrugged. "The last statement showed--around a million."

  "A tidy sum to carry off, hunh?" He dumped sugar directly from a bowl. "I wondered. You know, I forgot to ask. I generally forget all the important things. I wondered if we were talking about a hundred thousand--or some horrendous sum--like a hundred million."

  "Nobody around here has that sort of mazuma," Sarah replied. "And that gold and my platinum wouldn't just be 'carried off'--either. It weighed about--a ton, I should imagine."

  Aggie thought a moment. "So it did! Hunh. Mean several trips. How was it--

  packed? Or was it?"

  "In sawdust--in starch boxes. The starch boxes were in wine cases-four to a case.

  The whole thing was designed to weigh the same as a case of wine."

  He sipped coffee. "I honestly think--at the moment--I'm Wes Wickman's principal suspect!"

  "You!" Sarah leered. "And no wonder! Well, start talking!"

  He told her. He told her sketchily, at first, and in detail, as Wes's "five minutes"

  became ten and then twenty and at last, half an hour. They waited, when he had finished talking, with an impatience that blotted out fatigue and sleepiness.

  Wes appeared, at last. He looked grim. His face was even more dirty. "There was nobody in that cellar. One window had been scrambled over. Look. I've hardly slept since Calder died. I was out last night on Bogarty leads. I went to bed this evening and I left word that I wasn't to be disturbed for anything. My lieut woke me when you called about Davis." He grinned shortly. "I'd have demoted him if he hadn't. Now, see here, Plum.

  You found the doctor. You broke in where he was. You've rummaged all the way to that safe in the club cellar--yeah!--that's where I've just been. You're going to have the devil's own time explaining your actions--and I wish you'd begin now."

  Wes drank cup after cup of coffee. He did not once interrupt. He showed amazement at the story about the cache. He gazed at Sarah. He muttered, when Aggie described the situation in which he had found Davis's body. But he did not talk.

  After it was finished, he closed his eyes. "Aggie," he said at last, "I know darned well you're telling the truth. I'd have pushed along just about the same way you did.

  Damn the torpedoes--or the cops-go ahead! Just the same, I suppose you--and Sarah--

  realize that in the morning you're going to face a mob of reporters?"

  "I've been thinking of it," Sarah said.

  "They'll be all over the scene. Great story. A million in unlawful gold hidden away. Two peculiar deaths. A colorful, prospector missing. It'll crowd Hitler off the front pages. This place will be crammed with sightseers. Reporters will be trying to beat us--

  the police--to an answer. What is the answer?"

  "Somebody stole the gold," Sarah said.

  Wes looked enraged and helpless. "If you'll just inform who--!"

  "Hank, I imagine," she said. "It's hard to think of--but it must be! His knife killed Davis. He probably fixed the deadfall. He knew we had the gold--so he was the one who had the chance to learn where we kept it. Why don't you find him?"

  "I've been trying to," said Wes. "Night and day." He turned to Aggie. "We've got a lot! He had with him a silver fox with a collar, when he drove east. Stopped at several places. I'm sure the knife that killed Davis is his."

  "How?" Aggie asked.

  "His initials on the car. Didn't you notice? Same script. He evidently liked script initials."

  "Didn't see 'em," Aggie said.

  "You were sitting right under them! Only thing is--how did he get out of that room--if he stabbed Davis?"

  Aggie shrugged. "He couldn't have got out, man! Use your head! He may have visited Davis secretly in that darkroom. Good place-detached from the house. If Bogarty was in the woods waiting for a chance to see Davis-he got it tonight. Maybe he left his knife-and left some sort of news that made Davis use it on himself. Maybe he gave it to Davis to use on himself. You know. The way a disgraced army officer is given a gun."

  Wes said, "Phooie!" He added, "Would you--kill a man with an initialed knife? Or leave one with your initials on it, for a man to kill himself with?"

  "Perhaps, Davis wanted to kill himself and put the blame on Bogarty! Perhaps Davis was visited tonight by Bogarty and perhaps he stole Bogarty's knife--and used it on himself when Bogarty had gone. Perhaps--in the excitement of the moment--he forgot he had locked his door! Thought only of doing away with himself and leaving us a clue to Bogarty."

  Wes gazed at. Sarah. "Good imagination, your nephew. I thought of that. At least-

  -it makes sense. Nobody could be there to stab him. He still had the knife in his hand when you found him. Bogarty's knife. Maybe Davis knew he had to die--and used that way of pointing to Bogarty, so Bogarty wouldn't escape punishment either. What do you think, Sarah?"

  The old woman answered, "Aggie, whose bin did that bottle come from? The one somebody put on the floor after you'd gone into the vault?"

  "Lord! How should I know? I shut off my light and beat it!"

  "I looked," Wes said. "Just now. It came from your bins, Sarah."

  "It ought to have fingerprints, then. I put down my Hochheimer years ago. It would be exceedingly dusty."

  "It was," Wes said. "And there were marks. Gloves. Or a handkerchief."

  "Smart," Sarah said.

  "Smart!" Wes rose and walked to the fire. He kicked a log. "I should say so!"

  "Hank was smart," she said reflectively. "He had an extraordinarily good mind.

  Clear and fast. Wonderful at whist. Chess too. I can't imagine him killing people--or making them kill themselves. If he did, Jim Calder has been a worse rascal than I ever guessed--and George Davis has been more than a clever surgeon and a stuffed shirt. Hank might-punish them. He had a strong sense of justice. His own sense of it."

  "You're talking about a man," the trooper answered, ''you knew more than thirty years ago. He could have changed in that time!"

  She smiled ruefully. "He would have. Look at me!" The trooper studied the professor. "How did Danielle act tonight?"

  Aggie described the girl's behavior. He tried to avoid the matter of having slapped her. But Wes picked that up, with a grin. "So you what?"

  "Well, I slapped her. Shook her."

  Wes chuckled. "Golly! It's a wonder you're alive! She needed it. Bet she hasn't been slapped since her mother died. I feel sorry for her now--though. Her father a suicide.

  Alone."

  Aggie stared at the fire. His aunt gazed at him. Wes yawned, stretched, and shook his tremendous frame. "I deliberately poured it on you," he said to Aggie, "up at the club.

  You see--when I tore up--after old John's message--everybody was yammering about how odd it was that you found out everything first. I mean--Indian Stones was waking up and learning all about this rumpus."

&nbs
p; "Rumpus!" said Sarah.

  Aggie chuckled. "Rumpus? At least! I thought you were really getting doubtful of me."

  The trooper rose. "Only in one way. I don't believe you'd necessarily tell me all you know if you thought you could make something of it without my help. And that's not cricket. After all, I'm the cop. When two of the nation's big shots are killed peculiarly in your district, your superiors want action. If you're holding out so much as a crumb--!"

  Aggie thought. "You noticed the Davis phone wires were yanked down?"

  "Of course. Danielle showed me."

  "I don't suppose it would interest you to know I spotted a small veal bone on the furnace-room floor? Like the one in Bogarty's car."

  "Gnawed?"

  "Couldn't tell. I was hurrying." Aggie's brown eyes were mocking. "I was nervous in that cellar, for some reason."

  "I'll check. But I doubt if it means a thing. The club garbage goes down into the cellar in cans and out through the furnace room by a door that opens on the rear drive.

  That door was locked tight tonight. The bone probably dropped from a can. You know how sloppy people are with loads like that."

  "That's right. I didn't know about the garbage."

  "I'm going back to the Davises," Wes said. "I'll leave word, after this, for you to be put through to me whenever you want me. And thanks again. Incidentally we'll make a try for Davis's shoes--tomorrow."

  Aggie conveyed the trooper to the door. Then he turned back to his aunt. "You must be bushed."

  She shook her head. "On the contrary. Now that my conscience is clear, I think I've passed the mumps crisis also. I feel full of fight."

  "I don't," he said. "I feel as if I'd never been asleep in my life! It seems weeks--

  even back to this afternoon."

  The phone rang. Aggie went to it. "Hello? . . . No. Miss Plum is ill and can't talk. .

  . . She can't see anybody--she's in quarantine . . . . This is her nephew, Agamemnon Telemachus Plum. . . . A-G-A-Lord! Look it up in Who's Who! . . . No, I won't see anybody this morning as soon as they can get up by plane! . . . I will this afternoon, and I don't care if it will be too late for the evening editions. . . . If you send a man, he will find I've thrown a guard around the house with orders to shoot! . . . Listen! I'm going to bed.