Knocked for a Loop

by Craig Rice

  Malone said, “Of course,” again and tried to say it with conviction. Oh well, the future was Carmena’s own business and not his, and if she wanted to gamble on Hammond Estapoole’s devotion, that was her own lookout. Besides, he had a hunch that she could hold her own against a whole convention of blondes.

  “Nothing had been discussed with Leonard,” Carmena Estapoole said. “Not yet. But I had no anxiety about the outcome. I know Leonard—I knew him. He would have agreed, kindly and tolerantly, and there wouldn’t have been any difficulty. And I wouldn’t have felt too sorry. He had a great deal to interest him besides me, and all of it very important to him.”

  “He also had a great deal of money,” Malone pointed out. “And all of it is important, too. This way, it’s all going to be yours.”

  “I also have a great deal of money,” Carmena Estapoole said. She gave him another altogether delightful smile. “When we were married, Leonard established a very handsome trust fund for me. He did it, he told me, because while he felt sure I was marrying him for his money, he wanted me to feel perfectly free.”

  Yes, Malone reflected, the late Leonard Estapoole would have done something and said something exactly like that.

  “So you see,” Hammond Estapoole said, pouring more of the excellent Scotch, “there wasn’t any possible motive.”

  No, Malone had to concede to himself, on the surface of things there appeared to be no motive at all. And he had a feeling that everything would turn out to be the same down under the surface, no matter how deeply he dredged.

  Against his better judgment, and against his every personal instinct for survival, he felt pleased about it. The situation was rendering his best theory a complete shambles, and it was not only his best theory, but the only one he had. But still he felt pleased.

  Carmena Estapoole was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, and an extraordinarily fascinating one. Just a little bit too much on the abundant side to strictly suit his own personal taste, but he appreciated her. What was more, he liked her, which was even more important. He was sure, too, that she liked him.

  As far as Hammond Estapoole was concerned, he knew and liked a hundred, two hundred of him. Charming, friendly, agreeable, not particularly ambitious, born, brought up and living on the fringe of great wealth, a suburbia of wealth, as it were. A little weak, perhaps, but never vicious, there wasn’t any harm in a yachtful of them. Their native habitat was luxury liners, Lake Shore Drive apartments, Lake Forest estates and the like, always as permanent guests. They turned up largely in the better night clubs, on polo fields and at gambling tables. In their aimless way they contributed something to the color of the world, if not its substance. Malone knew and liked a lot of them and he particularly liked Hammond Estapoole.

  They made a notably handsome couple, and he hoped with all his heart that they would be a happy one, even if they had squashed his one and only theory flatter than yesterday’s champagne. Perhaps they would come and visit him in jail when he was serving a life term for the murder of Leonard Estapoole, and bring him books and candy and homemade jam.

  He shook off these morbid fancies with an effort and reminded himself that he wasn’t going to give up quite so easily. And there were still a few more things to settle here. Helene, for example.

  He answered Carmena Estapoole’s smile with one of his own, and said, “Admittedly I’m asking a lot of questions, but you can’t blame me for being curious. Since after all, I seem to have been pretty much involved, without my knowledge.”

  “The least we can do is apologize,” Hammond Estapoole said.

  “The least you can do,” Malone told him, “is to fill me in on all the details. The kidnaping, for instance. How was it arranged and where did you hide Alberta?”

  Carmena Estapoole frowned. “It almost went wrong, Malone. We knew we could trust Tony and his brother-in-law. In fact, Al turned out to have some close friends, or cousins or something, who were anxious to have that envelope of stuff destroyed. He seems to have a lot of cousins. And Tony has a lot of affection for me.”

  He would have, Malone thought. Any male in his right mind would have. Meanwhile an unpleasant suspicion was beginning to grow in his mind. “Just what is Al’s last name,” he asked, “and who are his cousins?”

  She frowned again. “Di Angelo. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Malone said casually, “I happen to know a few di Angelos. Go on.”

  “Tony was to pick her up after dancing school and, instead of bringing her home, take her to APs home, where she’d be safe and be looked after until it was time to turn her over to you. But when he got there, she was already gone, with a friend of the family. In fact, they were just driving away when he got there and he was able to go along after them.”

  Malone felt pretty sure he didn’t need to ask the identity of the family friend, but he did so as a matter of form.

  “Helene Justus,” Carmena Estapoole told him. “She was visiting here. She took it into her head, goodness knows why, to take Alberta to a museum that afternoon.”

  Malone had his own ideas why, too, but he kept them to himself.

  “It didn’t throw things off much,” Hammond Estapoole said. “Tony is a smart boy. He trailed them on down to the Museum of Science and Industry and somehow signaled to the child to get away and join him. Alberta is smart too. She went down in the coal-mine exhibit, got clean away, joined Tony, and they vanished. You might say that she kidnaped herself.”

  You might, Malone thought, if the question ever came up in a court of law.

  “She knew just enough of what was going on to think it was all a huge joke,” Carmena said.

  “Alterward,” Hammond Estapoole said, “Tony and A1 had no way of knowing anything had—gone wrong. About Uncle Leonard—the murder.” He didn’t seem to like the word. “They were supposed to wait for you and turn the child over to you, and they did.”

  Malone nodded. “This friend of the family—” he began.

  “She’s really a friend of Lily’s,” Cannena said. “Lily and Jane. The girls. They don’t know anything about the murder. But I suppose you’d like to talk to them too.”

  “I would indeed,” Malone said, pressing all the advantage he had.

  She sent a message by the fat-faced butler. While they waited, Malone said skeptically, “Nobody here seems to know anything about the murder.”

  “Both Carmena and I were here all evening—all night,” Hammond Estapoole stated flatly. “That’s easily proved. Neither of us could have whipped off downtown and murdered poor old Uncle Leonard, even if we’d had any reason or inclination. And even if this McGinnis guy hadn’t confessed.”

  Damn it, Malone was not going to let it go at that. “You’re forgetting something,” he said coldly. “This McGinnis guy, as you call him, could easily have been a hired killer. It fits into the pattern perfectly.”

  “In that case,” Hammond Estapoole said, just as coldly, “wouldn’t he have added that into his confession?”

  “Not necessarily,” Malone said. “As it stands now, the story as he told it gives him a pretty solid case of self-defense. And if he gets away with it—or even if he gets away with a little matter of manslaughter—he can go on comfortably for the rest of his life, blackmailing whoever hired him.” There, that ought to hold them for a while.

  “Only it didn’t happen that way,” Carmena said. “Maybe somebody did hire him, but it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Hammond. And there isn’t anything at all, anywhere, to make it look as though we did.”

  “And on the other hand,” Malone said, “there isn’t anything, anywhere, in the way of proof that you didn’t. I’m sure you must realize that.”

  There was another long silence while they looked at each other. This time it was Malone who smiled first.

  “This has all been very pleasant,” he said, “but not very productive as far as I’m concerned. Oh, not your fault at all. I just seem to have been barking up the wrong shins.”

  Carmena
Estapoole raised inquisitive eyebrows. Hammond Estapoole looked puzzled.

  “You see,” Malone told them, “just on the odd chance that McGinnis didn’t do it, it’s up to me to find out who did.” “Why up to you?” Hammond Estapoole asked. “Why not up to the police?”

  “The police are satisfied with what they’ve got,” Malone said. “But Frank McGinnis is my client.”

  Carmena said, “Oh,” and then, “But if he didn’t, why did he say that he did, and even go into all that elaborate detail about how, and why, and everything?”

  “That,” the little lawyer told her solemnly, “is going to be the question.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The two girls were introduced simply as Jane Estapoole and Lily Bordreau, and it didn’t take Malone very long to sort out which was which, unless there had been an appalling job of misnaming somewhere along the line.

  Jane Estapoole was a thoroughly nice girl. Trite or not, there was simply no other word for it, Malone reflected. She was nice. Nice, and well cared for, obviously the result of a lifetime of being well cared for. Her hair was brown, not reddish brown, not blondish brown, but just brown, and shining from many brushings, and it waved softly around her smooth face. Her beautifully shaped eyes were gray-blue, they not only didn’t wear any make-up, but they didn’t need any. She used just a nice red lipstick on her naturally smiling mouth. And, Malone decided, she fell just short enough of being beautiful to be very much worth looking at.

  Her soft blue dyed-to-match skirt and sweater set and tiny strand of pearls were not only exactly right for her, but for the time and place and occasion, and Malone approved of them, and her, highly. Her clothes were clearly Michigan Boulevard and not Fifth Avenue, and apparently so was she. That pleased him too.

  Her voice, when she said, “Good evening, Mr. Malone,” went perfectly with the skirt and sweater, with the smooth skin that had never known anything but the best soaps and creams since infancy, the well-brushed hair and the shining white teeth that had probably been straightened by the best of specialists.

  The other girl didn’t really look to him as though she should have been named Lily. Maybe a very small lily, he conceded. A lily-of-the-valley, growing wild in the woods. The idea pleased him, and he took a second, and then a third look at her when she said, “Hi, Malone. I’ve heard of you. But who hasn’t?” in what was a small, soft voice, but a happy one.

  She looked happy. She also looked frisky and frolicsome, and a lot of fun to know better. She was small, small all over, short and slender with almost tiny hands and feet. Her hazel eyes, more green than brown, were large, though, and there was a distinct gleam in them. Her short hair was very dark, almost black, and curled as though it had had a comb run quickly through it, dampened perhaps, and then been left alone.

  She too wore a matching skirt and sweater, almost the exact shade of the center of a dead-ripe watermelon, and her mouth was the same color, and instead of pearls she wore tiny turquoises. But she gave the impression that she would much rather be wearing pedal-pushers or an elaborate and slightly daring dinner dress.

  “So you’re Malone,” she said, looking him over. “I can’t say I’ve heard Mother speak of you. But I’ve heard Stepmother speak of you, and Stepfather. Maybe I should say, my current stepmother and my late stepfather.” She grinned at him, and he decided she’d made up her mind to like him.

  Malone blinked. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I seem to be a little confused.”

  “Think nothing of it,” she said, “I confuse everybody. You see, Malone, I’m a professional stepchild.”

  “Lily!” Carmena said, but she said it with more affection than reproof.

  “It’s true,” Lily Bordreau said. “Carmena married my father and became my stepmother. Then my father, poor old Gus, fell out of a window instead of down a manhole as everyone had expected, and it was the death of him.”

  This time it was Jane Estapoole who said, “Now, Lily!” very gently.

  “Don’t you ‘Now Lily!’ me,” the girl said, but it too was said with affection and not the slightest trace of rancor. She went on to Malone, “Then Carmena married Ridgeway Com-manday, who got hit by a car that was bigger than he was. I stayed on, though, as stepchild, and finally wound up with old man Estapoole, who disapproved of me highly, but was too nice to say so. So you see, I’m a chronic and a perpetual stepchild.” She didn’t add that she anticipated another stepfather in the not-so-distant future. She did add, “My own father was a society artist. I’m a non-society artist and a lousy one, but it gives me a reason to have a studio and be able to stay in town nights.” She winked at Malone and paused for breath.

  “I suppose,” Jane Estapoole said, “you’re completely bewildered by now.”

  Malone said, “A little,” and smiled at her. He was reminded again of the pattern of violent death that had marked Carmena Estapoole’s husbands. And yet, he told himself, the murder of Leonard Estapoole hadn’t happened the way, according to what he considered the natural law of coincidence, and according to all grand opera plots, it should have happened.

  “Mr. Malone,” Carmena Estapoole said, “is the lawyer for the man who confessed to the murder.”

  The two girls looked at him with new interest. “The poor man,” Jane Estapoole said softly. “Oh, I know. I was terribly fond of Uncle Leonard. And murder is—horrible. But just the same—” her voice trailed off.

  Malone observed that her eyes were not only lovely, but very gentle. Yes, she would hate to see anyone locked up for murder, even if he deserved it.

  “Leonard was a swell guy and I was all for him,” Lily Bordreau said. “But this doesn’t seem like really murder. More like a hit-and-run driver. Not even hit-and-run, since the guy confessed. Really, just an accident.”

  But it wasn’t any accident, Malone was thinking. It had been cold, deadly, premeditated murder.

  “As Frank McGinnis’ attorney,” he began, and paused, feeling that he probably sounded unbearably pompous. He said, “There’s always a chance, you know, that the guy didn’t do it. People have been known to make false confessions, under stress.”

  He could see they didn’t come even close to believing him, but he went on. “The kidnaping. What did you know about the kidnaping?”

  There was a long and a heavy silence.

  “It’s all right,” Carmena said at last. “I told Mr. Malone about everything. Just as I told you both about it after Leonard was murdered.”

  Malone wondered if he detected a faint warning note in her voice, or if he was getting super sensitive. He asked, “Did you think it was a real kidnaping at first?”

  They said, “Yes,” almost in the same breath, and Lily elaborated, “I felt awful. We both felt awful. Alberta’s a little fiend, but we love her, little monster that she is.”

  “It’s just a matter of knowing how to get along with her,” Jane Estapoole said, but her tone implied that it might take a little doing. “And anyway, any child—”

  “Besides,” Lily Bordreau said, “I felt guilty.”

  Malone looked at her questioningly.

  “It was, well, because a real kidnaping would have been almost my fault. There was a friend of mine here, visiting me. Helene Justus, I think you know her.”

  Malone’s skin prickled. He nodded, very casually, and restrained himself from shouting, “And where is Helene?”

  “She suddenly decided to take Alberta to that museum. Heaven knows why.”

  Malone wondered if even Heaven knew exactly why. He began to think of ways to pry the information out of Helene, when and if he found her.

  Lily Bordreau shrugged her cunning little shoulders, smiled at him helplessly, and said, “And that’s where it happened.”

  Their information about the kidnaping seemed to end right there. Nobody thought to tell them that Malone had brought Alberta home.

  “The letter Leonard Estapoole got,” Malone said. He frowned and turned to Carmena Estapoole. “You are positive no one sa
w it except himself?”

  “I’m absolutely certain,” Carmena said unhesitatingly. “There can’t be any possible doubt about that. Because I gave it to him myself.”

  Hammond Estapoole nodded vigorously. “And what’s more, we wrote it ourselves. On my portable typewriter, which may have been risky, though I don’t think Uncle Leonard would ever have checked. Then Tony drove me down to the Western Union office. Tony took the letter in, to be delivered by special messenger. The letter was arriving at the house just as we got back; it was delivered direct to Carmena.”

  “And I kept it until Leonard got home, and gave it to him,” Carmena finished.

  That seemed to finish the question of the letter, once and for all, Malone decided. In fact, everything here seemed to be finished, and so far, all of the important questions were left unanswered. Well, the only thing to do at a dead end was to turn around and look for a detour. He rose and murmured something about a taxi.

  “Nonsense,” Lily Bordreau said briskly. “I’m going into town right now, and I’ll drive you. I’m staying in tonight.”

  On the way into town, he leaned back, closed his eyes for just a moment, and let the warm spring winds take over. His head still ached from last night’s combat, and he was beginning to feel a little numb with weariness. And there were still so many questions to be answered, and so much left to do.

  The papers. The legal-sized Manila envelope of papers. What had happened to it, and where was it now? In the original plans, Frank McGinnis was supposed to have described getting them and destroying them, but in his confession he had merely shrugged his shoulders. There had to be a reason, and Malone made a mental memorandum to find it out the instant he could talk with his new client.

  There was another flaw in Frank McGinnis’ confession too, and right now he couldn’t think for the life of him what it was. Malone made a few tries at remembering it and gave it up for the present. If the police hadn’t noticed it, it was probably nothing for him to worry about. He had enough worries as it was.