“Edgar, I think the moment we get home you bad better phone Paul Ellington. We’re going to need legal advice.”
“What sort of advice, my dear?” Edgar asked.
“From the way this Bradley man talks we’ll all find ourselves in a cell tomorrow. Paul can arrange bail.”
“You don’t get bail if you’re pinched in a murder case,” said Cain.
“But he can’t arrest us unless he has evidence against us … which patently he hasn’t,” Emily said.
“He can if he wants to,” said Cain. “Protective custody, they call it. We’re all important witnesses.”
“I wonder if we are?” Edgar said. “Personally, I haven’t the vaguest notion of what happened.”
“Really, Edgar. I’m astonished at you … and at the inspector’s inefficiency. Any fool must see that the Egan boy is guilty. He was standing by the door, wasn’t he, on both trips Carol made with the glass? He had plenty of chance to poison the drink. He had a reason. Oh, I don’t mean a real reason. I’m willing to accept the inspector’s view that Bill was not involved with the Egan girl. It would certainly be pleasanter for all of us if that is true. But Egan undoubtedly knew about the telephone, call and came to his own conclusions. Why he was allowed to run free, I’ll never understand. That’s one thing the commissioner should be told.”
“What, my dear?”
“Why, that this man Bradley deliberately exposed Bill to danger by bringing the Egan boy to the party. Hadn’t he made an attempt on Bill last night? Wasn’t he guilty of carrying a dangerous weapon? I call it criminal negligence.”
“You know, my dear,” said Edgar, “I didn’t get the impression that Bradley was a fool. The Egan theory seems too easy.”
“Ready for all contingencies, that’s Egan,” said Cain. “A gun last night, poison tonight, and probably a stiletto in his sock if everything else failed.”
“Would it be asking too much,” said Carol in a biting little voice, “to change the subject? You don’t any of you seem to recall the fact that Bill … that Bill and I … ”
She didn’t finish.
“Naturally it’s been a great shock to you, Carol. I’m sorry you’ve been hurt. But I feel … ”
“Mother, please!”
They drove the rest of the way in private speculation. Richards opened the front door for them. He said nothing, but Cain had an idea that George must have phoned him. There was a question in his eyes that nobody chose to answer.
“We’ll delay breakfast until nine o’clock, Richards,” Emily said.
“Very good, madam.”
“And we will none of us answer any telephone calls.”
“Yes, madam.”
“Unless they come from the police,” said Edgar dryly. “You might as well know, Richards, that Mr. Brackett has been murdered and that we’re all in something of a spot.”
“I see no reason to discuss things with the servants, Edgar. I wish you’d call Paul Ellington at once. Perhaps he could join us at breakfast.”
“Yes, my dear.”
While this exchange was taking place, Cain watched Carol disappear into her room at the head of the stairs. Edgar went off to the library to phone and Emily followed Carol. Cain lingered in the entrance hall, smoking a cigarette. After a moment, he, too, went upstairs to his room. He stood just inside the door, leaving it open a crack.
It was about ten minutes before Edgar came slowly up the stairs and along the hall to his own quarters. As soon as he was out of earshot Cain left his room, went to Carol’s door and opened it without knocking.
Carol was sitting in front of her dressing mirror, her face buried in her hands. She had exchanged her evening dress for a dark blue housecoat. She turned at the sound of the door closing behind Cain.
“And now what do you want, Dr. Watson?’ she asked.
“A talk,” said Cain, “just a little talk.”
“No,” said Carol. “No talk. Now go or I’ll ring for Richards.”
“You could also try screaming,” Cain said. “That’s the usual thing in the case of outraged virtue, isn’t it?”
Carol stood up and came toward him. Her blue Stoddard eyes were blazing. “I’ve listened to your wisecracking for twenty-four hours,” she said. “I don’t like it. And I don’t like your assuming that my bedroom is a … is a … ”
“It’s a beautiful act,” said Cain, “but I’m not interested. Let’s cut the comedy and get down to cases. Why did you put that phial in my pocket?”
Carol looked at him.
“You’re insane!” she said.
“Sure I’m insane for not having told Bradley what I knew when I gave him the bottle. Why in the name of God 1 should, have waited for an explanation from you, I don’t know. But I did. And now I’ll have the explanation, if you please.”
“Are you trying to say that I put that phial in your pocket?”
“I am saying it. There was only one time and one place where it could have happened … when I was sitting next to you on the couch before they searched you. You certainly got a break. What would you have done with it if I hadn’t presented a convenient pocket?”
“Is this blackmail, Mr, Cain? Have you a notion I will pay you to keep quiet?”
“Why, you little bitch!” said Cain.
“Unfortunately,” said Carol, “I know nothing about the phial or how it got in your pocket. And now will you leave Mr. Cain? And if you want to peddle your little fairy tale to Bradley, please do.”
“I ought to sock you one,” said Cain, “so help me!”
At that moment Carol’s door opened and Edgar stood there, wearing a gray silk dressing gown.
“Heard your voices,” he said. “Mind if I come in, Carol?” He shut the door. “Did she explain it, Pat?”
“Explain what?” Cain said.
“Why, about the little bottle,” said Edgar.
“Father, what are you talking about?”
Edgar’s eyes were grave. “Look, darling, I don’t think you killed Bill. But even if you did, you know where I stand, don’t you? I don’t have to have reasons or explanations. I’m just naturally back of you. But it would be easier if I knew how you happened to have the phial.”
“Father, this is crazy! Why both you and Mr. Cain should think … ”
“Darling, let’s not play that way,” said Edgar gently.
“You see, I saw you put it in Pat’s pocket!”
3
Carol’s mouth twisted like a child’s as she dropped down onto the edge of a chaise- longue.
Her father put his arms around her. She gave way to tears.
“There, there,” Edgar said. “It’s going to be all right, baby. It’s going to be all right.”
Cain felt that he had no place in this. He started to leave, but Edgar checked him.
“No, Pat, don’t go,” he said. “We’re all in this together.” He stroked Carol’s blonde head. “But you don’t owe Carol or any of us any loyalty. Carol must have had a reason for doing what she did, I think she’ll explain to both of us when she gets this out of her system.” He bent down and kissed the tip of her ear. “Don’t try to hold it in, baby. We’ve got plenty of time.”
Cain found himself looking at Edgar … an old man who had apparently retired from life and from a hopeless battle with his wife’s energy, to polish harness for imaginary horses … from a new point of view. He realized now that all evening Edgar’s calm had been amazing. Cain thought perhaps it was like swimming. Once you’d learned, you never forgot.
Carol was quieter now, but she was still clinging to her father.
“I’m going to make a suggestion,” Edgar said. “Perhaps until we know just where we are it would be better if your mother didn’t find us in a huddle here in your room. Pat and I will go downstairs to the library and have a drink. You powder your nose, honey, and join us. We can always say we couldn’t sleep … felt like talking.”
Carol nodded assent. Edgar stood up. “I’ll see if the
coast is clear,” he said to Cain from the door. After a glance up and down the hall he beckoned to Cain.
Neither of them spoke till they reached the library. There were glasses and liquor and a thermos jug of ice which Richards had left out for them.
“This, I think, calls for emergency measures,” Edgar said. He poured two staggering shots of straight rye and handed one to Cain. They emptied their glasses and Edgar refilled them, taking his to a big armchair by the fireplace.
“I knew you’d found the damned thing,” he said, “when you came back. It was in your face … and when you asked Carol if they’d given her a clean bill of health. I don’t mind admitting I was going to take the rap if you accused Carol. I knew you hadn’t seen her put it in your pocket, so I knew you had no proof.”
“I hadn’t had it when I was in the other room with Bradley,” Cain said. “Carol was the only person I was close to afterwards. So it had to be her.”
Edgar nodded. “I’d noticed there was something the matter with her. Her color was all gone. It didn’t look like plain grief at Bill’s death. It looked as if she was scared as hell. The minute you sat down she opened her handbag. You were listening to Bradley’s oration. I saw her take the thing out and slide it in your pocket. It was a close squeeze because she was next on the searching list.” Edgar shifted his eyes to Cain. “I want you to know that If Bradley had revised his opinion about you, I’d have covered you somehow.”
“I’m sure of that,” Cain said. “Look here, Mr. Stoddard. What do you make of this thing? Got any theories?”
“I’ve been trying to figure it,” said Edgar. “If Bradley’s right that Bill was killed because he knew the man in Lydia Egan’s life, then we have to assume that man was there tonight. It’s rather a puzzling pastime to try putting your finger on him. You and the Egan boy and, for the sake of this discussion, I are out of it. Who’s that leave us? Rosokov? It could be, though if ever a man seemed wrapped up in his own woman, Rosokov is it. The representative of the Five Nations. Not likely. Beany Cook?”
“Please, Mr. Stoddard, my beads!” Cain laughed.
“Schenk?” Edgar was counting them off on his fingers. “He’s at least sixty and a colossal bore.”
“His cuffs would get in the way,” said Cain.
“Still, we can’t dismiss him entirely. But that leaves us with the two most likely suspects. Summers and Royce.”
“And Summers seems to have plenty to take care of in Margo.”
Edgar frowned. “I can’t just check him off in my own mind,” he said. “Don’t forget, whoever the man was, he wanted Lydia to keep it quiet for a while. Royce has no romantic entanglements that I know of. There isn’t any very valid reason for him to be so secretive. But with Summers it would be different. In the first place, the girl would spend a good deal of time with Summers in the course of her lessons. She would confide in him. He invites that sort of thing. Part of the technique of holding pupils, Pat, is becoming indispensable to them. And he would be a big shot to her.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Cain admitted.
“Women are crazy about him,” Edgar said, a kind of harshness under his voice. “It’s a professional asset. And I don’t think he’s unsusceptible, Margo or no Margo. If having an affair with Lydia Egan amused him, he would insist on secrecy. He would probably be charmingly frank about Margo. He would explain to Lydia that he couldn’t just throw her out. It would have to be done gently. It would take time. Until it was done they would have to be careful about being seen together and keeping everything very quiet. However, I suspect the Egan girl was as intense as her brother. That would get to be boring to a man of Summers’ sophistication. So he tells her it’s all off. He’s made a mistake. Or that he can’t hurt Margo. In any case, the Egan girl would know her dreams had gone smash.”
“So she takes a dive,” said Cain.
Edgar emptied his glass. “It’s just a theory,” he said. “But not too implausible, do you think?”
“No,” said Cain, “although it hadn’t hit me.”
“And Summers did make the drink,” said Edgar. He turned in his chair as Carol came in. “Well, darling, feeling better?”
“I’ll do,” she said. She walked up to Cain, looking him straight in the eye. “I was pretty much of a heel,” she said, “but don’t call me a bitch again if you don’t want to get hit with the furniture.”
Chapter Eleven
1
“You won’t believe me,” Carol said, “but I found it in my bag just about when Cain and Bradley came out of the studio.”
She was on the couch facing Edgar’s chair. Cain had moved around to where he, too, could see her, standing with his back to the mantel.
“When did it get there, darling?” Edgar asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t have my bag all the time,” Carol said. “I never realized how hard it is to remember exactly what you did or said when it’s suddenly important to remember. And when you can’t pop out with the answer it sounds suspicious.”
“We can fix that,” said Edgar, “By settling one point. Did you poison Bill, Carol?”
“No, father,” she said simply.
“That’s what I thought,” Edgar said, “How about you, Pat?”
“I guess it’s my womanly intuition,” Cain said, “because in spite of the facts I’ve been taking that line from the start.”
“In spite of what facts?” Carol wanted to know.
“Well, if Bradley knew you’d planted the bottle on me, Carol, you’d be cooling your heels in a cell. You did carry that glass of Bill’s back and forth. You had the best opportunity of anyone to doctor the drink. Better than Summers because you had possession of the glass longer. You try to sound very modern and woman-of-the-world by protesting that it wouldn’t have made any difference to you whether Bill was playing around with Lydia or not.”
“It wouldn’t have!”
“That’s what you say, sister, over and over again, loud and clear. Too damn loud and clear if you ask me. That gives Bradley what he would call ‘opportunity’ and ‘motive.’ All he needs to have a bang-up case against you is a connection between you and the poison. Your doting father and Mr. Patrick Gullible Cain may believe your having the phiat was accidental, but it would take a grand jury about twenty seconds to come in with an indictment.”
She looked at him without answering.
“And to top it off,” said Cain, “none of this is news to you. If you hadn’t known you were in one sweetheart of a jam, you wouldn’t have got rid of the phial in such a hurry. You would simply have said, ‘Oh, Mr. Bradley, look what I found!’ ”
Carol’s hands were shaking as she lit a fresh cigarette from the stub of the old one. “That’s only the half of it,” she said, with a bitter little laugh.
“Oh, boy,” said Cain. “What next?”
“I wrote Bill a letter yesterday afternoon,” she said, staring at the tips of her mules. “It will reach his apartment in this morning’s mail. Of course the police will see it. In it I broke off my engagement.”
“Holy mackerel!” Cain said. “All Bradley needs now is a little string and brown paper to wrap you up. What in hell did you do that for?”
Carol’s voice was uneven. “The only explanation he made about that business with Joe Egan at the club was through you. He didn’t call me … didn’t seem to want to see me. So I told him in the letter that I could forgive him for having played around with Lydia, but I couldn’t forgive him for not having told me for … for fixing it so that everyone was laughing at me.”
Edgar sighed. “That’s a pity,” he said.
“You didn’t give him much time,” Cain said. “You must have been good and burned.”
“Not because of what he’d done,” Carol said. “Then tonight … well, I hadn’t expected Bill would be there. When he asked me to go for a ride I thought, after all, he was going to play fair. I was going to tell him not to read the letter when he got it. To tear it up.�
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“Bradley will just love that one!” Cain said.
Edgar looked old and very tired. “It can’t be undone,” he said, “unless we could get to Bill’s apartment in time to intercept the letter.”
“Not a chance,” said Cain. “They’ve probably taken the place apart by now and they’ll have arranged to have the post office department hold his mail.”
“What do I do?” Carol said. “Hadn’t I better go to Bradley and tell him the whole story?”
“I don’t know,” Cain said, “because I don’t know the whole story. You haven’t told it.”
“But I have. I … ”
“You haven’t told us why you suspected Bill in the first place. You had that angle all figured out before Joe Egan turned up at the Tinsel Club with his popgun. You weren’t surprised at his accusation. You’d already made up your mind.”
Carol was silent for a minute, staring into the empty fireplace. “I hadn’t really made up my mind,” she said, “but I wondered. Joe’s accusation seemed to settle it. Bill had talked about Lydia Egan. He said she was a cute kid; that he felt sorry for her. I … well, I just wondered.”
“You jumped at it like a trout after a fly,” Cain said. “It was almost as if you wanted to believe it.”
“Maybe she did,” said Edgar.
“Father!”
Edgar got up and poured himself another drink. Alcohol, Cain noticed, had no more effect on the old man than spring water. “Darling, I know you pretty well. Know some of the things you’ve been up against. This informal engagement of yours to Bill has been running on and on. If it was as red-hot as it should have been, you’d have been married long ago.”
Carol looked at her father with a kind of awe.
“Bill was fun. You liked being with him,” Edgar said. “But I never thought you were really in love with him, baby. If it hadn’t been for Emily …”
“Oh, father!” Carol cried. She jumped up from the couch and was in Edgar’s arms.
“There, there, baby. I know how it is. Sometimes you do things you don’t want to do to keep from being steamrollered. That was why you went all out for Bill, wasn’t it? You and he would have just been friends if your mother hadn’t raised holy hell about your running around with a band leader.”
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