The Tenth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Has your father published anything before?”

  “A few monographs and articles in scholarly journals. He’s also an habitual writer of letters to the newspapers. Would you care for more sherry, Mr. Bigg?”

  “No, thank you. That was delicious. Mrs. Stonehouse, your son is not here tonight?”

  “No,” she said. “He’s…”

  She didn’t finish that, but leaned forward to fill her glass.

  “My brother doesn’t live here,” Glynis said evenly. “Powell has his own place in the Village. He stayed over the night Father disappeared because we were all so upset.”

  “Your brother and father didn’t get along?” I asked.

  “Well enough,” she said. “Powell comes to dinner two or three times a week. In any event, the relations between my father and brother have nothing to do with your investigation.”

  “Powell tried so hard,” her mother mourned.

  Glynis leaned far across the couch to put a hand on her mother’s arm. Her body was stretched out, almost reclining. I saw the bold rhythm of thigh, hip, waist, bosom, shoulder…

  “We all tried hard, Mother,” she said softly.

  I closed my notebook, put it away. “I think I’ve asked you ladies enough questions for one evening. But before I leave, if I may, I’d like to see Professor Stonehouse’s study, and I’d like to talk to your housekeeper for a few minutes.”

  “Of course,” Glynis said, rising. I followed her over to a door on the far side of the room. It opened into a dining room, cold and austere, lit dimly.

  There were two doors in the opposite wall, one the swinging type used in kitchens.

  “That one to the kitchen?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And the other one to your father’s study?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Your mother told me that your father went into his study before he went out. But they couldn’t have seen where he went. He might have gone into the kitchen.”

  “You’re very sharp, Mr. Bigg,” she said. “Mrs. Dark was still cleaning up in here after dinner, and she saw him go into his study.”

  Glynis opened the study door, reached in to turn on the light, then stood aside. I stepped forward to look in. For a moment I was close to her. I was conscious of her scent. It wasn’t cologne or perfume; it was her. Warm, womanly, stirring. I walked forward into the study.

  “I won’t disturb anything,” I said.

  “I’m afraid we already have,” she said. “Looking for Father’s will.”

  “You didn’t find it?” I said.

  She shook her head, shiny hair swinging. “We found his passbook and checkbook, but no will.”

  “Did your father have a safe deposit box?”

  “Not at either of the banks where he has his savings and checking accounts.”

  “Miss Stonehouse, are you sure a will exists?”

  “Oh, it exists,” she said. “Or did. I saw it. I don’t mean I read it. I just saw it on his desk one night. It was four or five pages and had a light blue backing. When Daddy saw me looking at it, he folded it up and put it in a long envelope. ‘My will,’ he said. So I know it did exist.”

  “Does your mother know what’s in it?”

  “No. Father never discussed money matters with her. He just gave her an allowance and that was that.”

  “Did your father give you an allowance, Miss Stonehouse?”

  She looked at me levelly.

  “Yes,” she said, “he did.”

  “And your brother?”

  “No,” she said. “Not since he moved out.” Then she added irritably, “What has all this to do with my father’s disappearance?”

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully, and turned back to the study.

  It was a squarish chamber with a high-beamed ceiling. There was another tiled fireplace, built-in bookcases, large cabinets for oversized books, magazines, journals, rolled-up maps.

  There was a club chair upholstered in maroon leather, with a hassock to match. Alongside it was a drum table with a leather top chased with gold leaf. A silver tray was on the drum table bearing a new bottle of Rémy Martin cognac, sealed, and two brandy snifters. A green-shaded floor lamp stood in back of the chair.

  In the center of the study was a big desk with leather top and brass fittings, littered with papers, charts, maps, books, pencils and pens in several colors. Also, a magnifying glass, a pair of dividers, and a device that looked like an antique compass.

  But it was the far wall that caught my eye. It was covered, from chair rail to ceiling, with model hull forms. I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen hull models. They’re made of hardwood, the hull sliced longitudinally. The flat side is fixed to the plaque. Each plaque bore a brass plate with the ship’s name and date of construction. I stepped closer to examine them. I had never seen so many in one place, and never any as lovely.

  Glynis had noted my interest. “Father had them made by a man in Mystic, Connecticut. When he dies, there won’t be anyone left in the country who can carve hull models from the plans of naval architects.”

  “They’re handsome,” I said.

  “And expensive.”

  But if that room had something to tell me, I couldn’t hear it. I turned toward the door.

  “Your father didn’t have a safe?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “And the drawers of his desk were unlocked.”

  “Did he usually leave them unlocked?”

  “I really don’t know. Mrs. Dark might.”

  I was wondering if she’d want to be present while I questioned Mrs. Dark, but I needn’t have worried. She led me into the brightly lighted kitchen and said to the woman there: “Effie, this is Mr. Bigg. He’s looking into Father’s disappearance for the lawyers. Please answer his questions and tell him whatever he wants to know. Mr. Bigg, this is Mrs. Effie Dark. When you’re finished here, I’m sure you can find your way back to: the living room.” Then she turned and left.

  Mrs. Dark was a tub of a woman with three chins and a bosom that encircled her like a pneumatic tube. She had sausage arms, and ankles that lopped over nurse’s shoes. Stuck in that roly-poly face were bright little eyes, shiny as blueberries in a pie. Her hips were so wide, I knew she had to go through doors sideways.

  “Mrs. Dark,” I said, “I hope I’m not disturbing you?”

  “Why no,” she said. “I’m just waiting for the water to boil, and then I’m going to have a nice cup of tea. Would you like one?”

  “I’d love a cup of tea,” I lied.

  She heaved herself to her feet and went to the counter. While the tea was steeping, she set out cups, saucers, and spoons for us. I held my saucer up to the light and admired its translucence.

  “Beautiful,” I said.

  “Nothing but the best,” she said. “When it came to his own comfort, he didn’t stint.”

  “How long have you been with the Stonehouse family, Mrs. Dark?”

  “Since the Year One,” she said. “I was the Professor’s cook and housekeeper whilst I was married and before he was. Then my mister got took, and the Professor got married, so I moved in with him and his family.”

  I watched her pour us cups of russet-colored tea. She held her cup in both hands and savored the aroma before she took a sip. I did the same.

  “Mrs. Stonehouse and Glynis told me what happened the night the Professor disappeared,” I started. “They said they noted nothing unusual in his behavior that night. Did you?”

  She thought a moment.

  “Nooo,” she said, drawling it out. “He was about the same as usual. He was a devil.” She tasted the word on her plump lips, seemed to like it, and repeated it forcefully: “A devil! But I wouldn’t take any guff from him, and he knew it. He liked my cooking, and I kept the place nice for him. He knew his wife couldn’t run this menagerie, and his daughter wasn’t interested. That’s why he was as nice as pie as far as I was concerned. And he paid a good dollar, I’ll say tha
t.”

  “All this on a professor’s salary?”

  “Oh no. No no no. He comes from old money. His grandfather and father were in shipping. He inherited a pile.”

  “What was he so sore about?” I asked her. “He seems to have hated the world.”

  She shrugged her thick shoulders.

  “Who can tell a thing like that? I know he had some disappointments in his life, but who hasn’t? I know he got passed over for promotion at the University—that’s why he resigned!—and once, when he was younger, he got jilted. But nothing important enough that I know of that would turn him into the kind of man he was. To tell you the truth, I think he just enjoyed being mean. More tea?”

  “Please.”

  I watched her pour and dilute with hot water. “They’ve been looking for the Professor’s will,” I said. “It’s missing. Did you know that?”

  “Did I? They tore my kitchen apart looking for it. Even the flour bin. Took me hours to get it tidy again.”

  “Glynis told me her father cleaned his study himself. Wouldn’t let anyone in there. Is that right?”

  “Recently,” she said. “In the month before he disappeared. Before that, he let me in to dust and straighten up. We have a cleaning crew that comes in once a week to give the place a good going-over, vacuum the rugs and wash down the bathrooms—things like that. He’d let them in his study if I was there. Then, about a month before he vanished, he wouldn’t let anyone in. Said he’d clean the place himself.”

  “Did he give any reason for this change?”

  “Said he was working on this book, had valuable papers in there and didn’t want them disturbed.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Mrs. Stonehouse and her daughter told me that just before he walked out on the evening of January 10th, he went into his study for a few minutes. Did you see him?”

  “I did. I was in the dining room. It was Olga’s night off, so I was cleaning up after dinner. He came in from the living room, went into the study, and came out a few minutes later. That was the last time I saw him.”

  “Did he close the study door after he went in?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you hear anything in there?”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Anything. Anything that might give me an idea of what he was doing. Thumping around? Moving furniture?”

  She was silent, trying to remember. I waited patiently.

  “I don’t know…” she said. “It was a month ago. Maybe I heard him slam a desk drawer. But I couldn’t swear to it.”

  “That’s another thing,” I said. “The desk drawers. Did he keep them locked?”

  “Yes,” she said definitely. “He did keep them locked when he wasn’t there. I remember because once he lost his keys and we had to have a locksmith come in and open the desk.”

  “No one else had a key to his desk?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Effie, what happened between the Professor and his son?”

  “The poor lamb,” she mourned. “Powell got kicked out of the house.”

  “Why?”

  “He wouldn’t get a job, and he wouldn’t go back to the University to get his degree, and he was running with a wild bunch in Greenwich Village. Then the Professor caught Powell smoking pot in his bedroom, and that did it.”

  “Does Powell have a job now?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “How does he live?”

  “I think he has a little money of his own that his grandmother left him. Also, I think Mrs. Stonehouse and Glynis help him out now and then, unbeknownst to the Professor.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Powell getting kicked out? More than a year ago.”

  “But he still comes here for dinner?”

  “Only in the last two or three months. Mrs. Stonehouse cried and carried on so and said Powell was starving, and Glynis worked on her father, too, and eventually he said it would be all right for Powell to have dinner here if he wanted to, but he couldn’t move back in.”

  “All right,” I said. “Now what about Glynis? Does she work?”

  “Not anymore. She did for a year or two, but she quit.”

  “Where did she work?”

  “I think she was a secretary in a medical laboratory. Something like that.”

  “But now she does nothing?”

  “She’s a volunteer three days a week in a clinic downtown. But no regular job.”

  “Have many friends?”

  “Seems to. She goes out a lot. The theatre and ballet and so forth. Some weeks she’s out every night.”

  “One particular boyfriend?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Does she ever have her friends here? Does she entertain?”

  “No,” Mrs. Effie Dark said sadly. “I never see any of her friends. And there hasn’t been much in the way of entertaining in this house. Not for years.”

  She waved a plump hand around, gesturing toward overhead racks, the utensils, the bins and spice racks, stove, in-the-wall oven, refrigerator, freezer.

  “See all this? I don’t use half this stuff for months on end. But when the kids were growing up, things were different. The Professor was at the University most of the day, and this place was filled with the kids’ friends. There were parties and dances right here. Even Mrs. Stonehouse had teas and bridge games and get-togethers for her friends. My, I was busy. But we had another maid then, a live-in, and I didn’t mind. There was noise and everyone laughed. A real ruckus. Then the Professor resigned, and he was home all day. He put a stop to the parties and dances. Gradually, people stopped coming, he was such a meany. Then we began living like hermits, tiptoeing around so as not to disturb him. Not like the old days.”

  I nodded and stood up.

  “Effie,” I said, “I thank you for the refreshments and for the talk.”

  “I like to talk,” she said, grinning, “as you have probably noticed. A body could climb the walls here for the want of someone to chat with.”

  “Well, I enjoyed’ it,” I said, “and I learned a lot. I hope you’ll let me come back and chat with you again.”

  “Anytime,” she said. “I have my own telephone. Would you like the number?”

  As she dictated, I wrote it down in my notebook.

  “Effie,” I said in closing, “what do you think happened to Professor Stonehouse?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, troubled. “Do you?”

  “No,” I said, “I don’t.”

  When I went back into the living room Mrs. Stonehouse was alone, still curled into a corner of the couch. The sherry bottle was empty.

  “Hi there,” she fluted. She tried to touch her nose and missed.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Glynis went beddy-bye,” she giggled.

  I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes to ten. Early for beddy-bye.

  I caught the subway on CPW, got off at 23rd Street, and walked the three blocks to my home. I kept to the curb and I didn’t dawdle. When I was inside the building, I felt that sense of grim satisfaction that all New Yorkers feel on arriving home safely. Now, if a masked intruder was not awaiting me in my living room, drinking my brandy, all would be well.

  It was not a would-be thief awaiting me, but Captain Bramwell Shank, and he was drinking his own muscatel. His door was open, and he wheeled himself out into the hallway when he heard me climb the stairs.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he said querulously. “Come on in and have a glass of wine and watch the eleven o’clock news with me.”

  “I think I better take a raincheck, Captain,” I said. “I’ve had a hard day and I want to get to bed early.” But I went in anyway, moved laundry off a chair, and sat watching the 24-inch color set.

  “You get your invite to the party?” Captain Shank demanded, pouring himself another glass of wine.

  “Yes,” I said, “I got it.”

  “Knew you would,” he said, almost cac
kling. “Happened just like I said, didn’t it?”

  I took a sip of wine, put my head back, closed my eyes.

  The local news came on, and we heard more dire predictions of New York’s financial fate. We saw a tenement fire in the Bronx that killed three. We watched the Mayor hand a key to the city to a champion pizza twirler.

  I was contemplating how soon I could decently leave when the news came on. The anchorman read a few small items of local interest to which I drifted off. Then he said:

  “Service was halted for an hour on the Lexington Avenue IRT this evening while the body of a man was removed from the express tracks at the 14th Street station. He apparently fell or jumped to his death at the south end of the station just as the train was coming in. The victim has tentatively been identified as Martin Reape of Manhattan. No additional details are available at this time. And now, a message to all denture wearers…”

  “What?” I said, waking up. “What did he say?”

  7

  I READ THE STORY in the Times on the 23rd Street crosstown bus in the morning. It was only a paragraph in “The City” column:

  “Police are seeking witnesses to the death of Martin Reape of Manhattan who fell or jumped at the 14th Street station of the Lexington Avenue IRT subway. The accident occurred during the evening rush hour and resulted in delays of more than an hour. The motorman of the train involved told police he had just entered the station and had applied his brakes when ‘the body came flying out of nowhere.’”

  Rook before you Reape.

  I made it to the office a few minutes before 9:00, called Thelma Potts, and told her I had to see Mr. Tabatchnick as soon as possible.

  “You’re getting to be a regular visitor,” she said.

  “Just an excuse to see you,” I said.

  “Oh you!” she said.

  I spent an hour typing up a report of my conversations with the Stonehouses and Mrs. Dark. I tried to leave nothing out, because at that time I had no conception of what was important and what was just sludge. After reading over the report, I could detect no pattern, not even a vague clue to the Professor’s disappearance. Just then Thelma Potts called to say Mr. Tabatchnick would see me. When I entered his office, he was standing behind the trestle table, drinking from a mug that had “Grandpa” painted on it. He was in a testy mood.