“Oh, it does, and I agree with you entirely, Aunt Harriet.” Al was obviously making a tremendous effort to keep the peace. “But this is an ‘L’—”
“Alden Dorking, you listen to me! The sun rises over there, doesn’t it?”
“Er – well, rather more over this way, I think, Aunt Harriet.”
“Are you trying to tell me I don’t know where the sun rises in my own grandmother’s house that I slept in as a child? It rises right over here!”
The wall against which Asey was leaning was given a terrible thump.
“Do you dare to say it doesn’t, Alden Dorking?”
“I am sure you know best, Aunt Harriet. If you say the sun rises there, that’s where it rises. That’s east. But I point out to you,” Al added slyly, “that’s left, and you said east was right!”
“If you wanted to go three blocks east of Fifth Avenue, would you go three blocks west of Fifth Avenue? Of course with everything topsy-turvy the way it is nowadays, perhaps you would! If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times, not since the days of poor dear Mr. Coolidge has anyone done anything that wasn’t topsy-turvy. Now, east—”
Asey slid down on the floor of the little room next to the parlour, and stifled his laughter by stuffing his handkerchief into his mouth. If the cheese-cloth gag had only been handy, he would willingly have stuffed that in, too. Furniture polish and all.
“And over here,” Mrs. Turnover continued inexorably, “is west. And here is north. And here we are back at east again.” The wall behind him was thumped once more. “Now, east is east—”
He ought, Asey told himself weakly, to be putting a stop to all of this nonsense. He ought to be pulling himself together and sending this pair packing home. He ought to be getting on to his job of finding out who the man with the limp was, and where he had disappeared to.
“There!” Mrs. Turnover said. “North, south, east, and west. That is not an ‘L.’ That’s an ‘E’ EAST! Now, Alden Dorking, for goodness’ sakes do get started, and don’t waste any more time arguing about east!”
“I – I – I—” Al paused, and Asey wished that he could see the expression on his face. “All right, Aunt Harriet,” he said brightly. “Let’s get on.” He paused again, rather as if he were afraid to continue. “Well, the next direction is the third brick down.”
“Would that be the third brick down from the first third brick, or the third brick down from the top row of bricks? Now, let me think! If it’s the third brick from the third, then – one, two, three – then it’s this! But if it’s the third brick from the top, then it’s this other one, over here. And,” Mrs. Turnover said acidly, “I don’t like either of them!”
“Why not, Aunt Harriet?”
“No wiggle.”
“No what?”
“No give,” Mrs. Turnover said. “No wiggle. They don’t even wiggle. If there was anything behind either of them, they’d wiggle. And they don’t. You can try them yourself. I’ll bet you can’t make them wiggle, either! The trouble is, Al, you didn’t start out right.”
Asey heard Al Dorking’s sigh.
“Aunt Harriet, I tried—”
“Al, I never thought! They changed it!”
“Changed what?”
“East!” Mrs. Turnover said with triumph.
“Who changed east, Aunt Harriet?”
“John and that mason. Not a capital M Mason, but a little one. The fireplace used to be over there, and something was wrong with the chimney – it always smoked. So they took all the bricks down and tore it out, and then moved it over here! Don’t you see? That would make east left. Not right. Try it that way, Al. The third from the east, and the third down – now count, Al! You don’t want to get it wrong again! One, two, three—”
If by some streak of fate this pair actually should happen to stumble on a cache of John Alden’s money, Asey decided that Al Dorking certainly would have earned his right to his half. He, personally, wouldn’t care to take on Mrs. Turnover for less than eighty-five per cent of any possible buried treasure in which she also was involved. And not even then, if he could avoid it!
“I never understood why John should want to keep his money around loose in the house, behind a lot of bricks or something,” Mrs. Turnover said. “Why he couldn’t have had a box in a bank vault, like anyone else – on the other hand, you wouldn’t be bothered with going to the bank, and you wouldn’t lose keys, I suppose. I’m always losing my vault key, and everyone’s always so tiresome about it. You have to have that man with the drill come, and sit there while he drills away. It’s worse than going to the dentist’s, because you have to listen to that horrid sound, and there’s nothing to show for it when you’re through. No fillings or anything, I mean – why, Al, isn’t that smart!”
Asey pricked up his ears as he heard her appreciative tongue cluckings.
“Tch, tch, tch! Of course it doesn’t wiggle, the way I expected. I was sure it would wiggle. One brick would, I mean. Isn’t that smart, those three bricks all coming out together on that thing!”
Asey got to his feet, and hurriedly tiptoed to the door.
“They’ve been halved and put on a wooden backing that’s hinged like a door on the end, see?” Al said excitedly. “But you’d never guess, would you. Unless you happened to know just which bricks! Uncle John’s mason must have been a honey. You just swing it aside—”
“And there’s a real box inside! Why, it looks just like my own vault box! The same size and shape and everything – how much? Quick! Look in, Al!” Mrs. Turnover’s voice was shrill, all of a sudden, and very high. “Look in! How much?”
Neither of the two noticed Asey as he slipped quietly into the parlour. They were so thoroughly preoccupied with the long, flat tin box that Al Dorking had just extracted from the side of the old brick fireplace, Asey decided, that they wouldn’t probably have paid any attention to anything short of a large block-buster bomb.
“It’s empty.” Al’s disappointment was plainly written all over his face, and his tone was flat and expressionless. “It’s empty, Aunt Harriet. There isn’t a damn cent in the thing.”
“Empty?” Mrs. Turnover pushed him out of the way, and peered into the box herself. The odd bluish beam of the flashlight made her seem even larger than she was, Asey thought. She appeared to be on all sides of Al Dorking at once. “Isn’t there anything in it? Not even due bill? Not a dollar?”
“You can see for yourself, can’t you?” Al said. “It’s empty.”
There was a little moment of silence.
“I know! You took it!” Mrs. Turnover said triumphantly. “You took it!”
“I? But I—”
“You took it!” she repeated. “When you found those directions on that paper in that book of John’s you bought, you rushed right over here and opened up that door thing, and you took it, every cent!”
“But, Aunt Harriet—”
“Don’t you Aunt Harriet me! You took it all, and then you came and told me about the paper with the directions you’d found, and made me sign my name to that agreement about sharing with you! I see now why you did that! You did it so if my money is found any time, you’ll make me give you half! It was a trick!”
“Aunt Harriet, will you listen to me, please?” Al said. “Just let me—”
“A trick, that’s what!” Mrs. Turnover was practically panting with anger. “Gardner told me to watch out for you! John always said you were a tricky sort! And your own poor mother told me before she died that sometimes she wondered if you wouldn’t go too far with your tricks, one day, and disgrace the family’s good name! Your poor mother told me about the cheques you forged—”
“See here, I never forged any cheques, and let’s leave mother out of this!” Al was beginning to lose his temper. “I found those directions in one of Uncle John’s books that – I bought at the auction, I brought that paper over to you in good faith, and I told you what I thought it was – why, I broke my neck getting it to you, because I f
elt you had a right to know! And if I hadn’t, Aunt Harriet, you never would have known about that fire-place safe in a million years! Why you should suddenly take this attitude, I don’t know! Ten minutes ago you were calling me the only thoughtful and considerate relation you had!”
“But then I thought you were being honest,” Mrs. Turnover returned, “and now I realize you’ve tricked me into signing an agreement so that if any money’s ever found, you’ll claim—”
“Aunt Harriet, I never tricked you into anything! I explained where I’d found the directions. I told you I thought it might mean that this fire-place was where Uncle John had kept his money. I said that if the directions actually worked, didn’t you think that I deserved a share – and believe me,” Al said bitterly, “you were glad enough to say ‘yes ‘! You suggested the fifty-fifty arrangement. I didn’t!”
“You bullied me into signing that agreement, and now if any money’s ever found, I’ll have to give you half! If that isn’t a trick, then I don’t know what a trick is! And you’re a tricky, deceitful swindler, that’s what you are, Alden Dorking!”
Before Asey could guess what was coming, Mrs. Turnover’s right hand swung up and smashed Al full across the face.
“There!” she said. “That’s what I think of you! I’ve been wanting to do that to you for years, and if your poor dear mother’d done it a few times, you’d have been a lot better off now!”
Al gripped the tin box, raised it slowly, and for a moment, Asey thought he intended to bang it over his aunt’s head.
Then he lowered his arm.
“You’re not worth it!” he said. “You’re not worth the effort, and—”
“An’ besides,” Asey interrupted, “it ain’t polite to hit ladies, particularly if they happen to be your aunts. Mrs. Post says not even if they hit you first.”
Al swung around and stared at him blankly, but Mrs. Turnover seemed to take his presence as a perfectly natural and proper thing.
“You see, Mr. Mayo?” she said. “He’s a greedy, grasping, avaricious thing! He’s money mad! That’s the trouble with young people these days – they’re money mad! They won’t work. They don’t want to work. Why, Al never put in an honest day’s work in his life! He’s borrowed money, he’s scrounged money, he’s tried to marry money – as if any girl in her right mind would marry someone with a nose like his! No, he’s like all the rest of his generation, and they all just expect money to be handed out to them on a silver platter!”
“The trouble with you and your generation,” Al told her, “is that you’re just as greedy and grasping and avaricious, but you expect everyone to leave you money on a silver platter! We know you in the family, don’t forget! We’ve seen you at funerals and will readings, and we’ve heard your comments! I wish you could have heard yourself, a few minutes ago, asking ‘How much in the box?’ I wish you could have seen your face in a mirror! No, don’t you talk about greed, Aunt Harriet, because you—”
Asey stepped, between them as Mrs. Turnover prepared to wade into battle with both fists swinging.
“S’pose,” he said, “that you two stow all this! You can finish it up to-morrow when you’re fresher an’ not quite so stewed up. No, Mrs. Turnover!” he caught her right wrist and gave her a little push away from Al. “No! We had enough troubles today without addin’ mayhem at this hour in the mornin’! Now, if you think it’s safe for the pair of you to drive in the same car, get along! Otherwise, Mrs. T., I’ll take you back to wherever you’re stayin’ in the village. Come on, now. You get goin’—”
“Why?” Mrs. Turnover demanded explosively. “Just why, I’d like to know?”
“Why what?” Asey asked.
“Why are you ordering me to leave this house?” she said. “Just why?”
“Wa-el,” Asey said, “for one thing, this don’t happen to be your house, an’—”
“Oh, is that so! Is that so! It was my own brother’s house, and my own grandmother’s, and her mother’s before her, and—”
“Uh-huh,” Asey said gently. “I know. It was your brother’s an’ your grandmother’s an’ her mother’s an’ grandmother’s. But there was an auction, remember? An’ it ain’t your brother’s an’ your grandmother’s an’ so on, any more. It’s been sold.”
“Perhaps,” Mrs. Turnover said, with rising inflection, “no one told you that I bought it?”
“You – you bought it?”
“This house,” Mrs. Turnover said, “is mine.”
“That’s true enough,” Al added. “She did buy it, Mr. Mayo.”
“Huh,” Asey said. “I didn’t know that. It’s a point no one enlightened me on.” He suddenly felt a little foolish. “Wa-el, even if it’s your house—”
“I should think,” Mrs. Turnover said with triumph, “that a detective, who’s supposed to know everything, would certainly be able to find out a little thing like that! This is my house! I bought it, I paid for it, and it’s all mine – every stick and stone of it is mine! Do you dare to deny that, Mr. Mayo?”
“No, ma’am!” Asey said promptly. “But – uh – in the interests of harmony, couldn’t we maybe perhaps call it a day, like, an’ continue this treasure hunt to-morrow? S’pose we just sort of wander along home—”
“This.” Mrs. Turnover made a sweeping gesture, “is my house. My home! And if you want to come to my own home in the middle of the night and pull bricks out of my own fireplace, I certainly shall! If I want to pull up the floor boards and tear out the plaster to find my own brother’s money that I should have had my just and due share of, then I shall pull up the floor boards and tear out the plaster!”
“Ma’am,” Asey said as she paused for breath, “nobody’s goin’ to stop you from rippin’ off the roof, one shingle at a time, if that’s what you want to do! But right now—”
“If I want to pick up something,” Mrs. Turnover got her wind again, “and throw it out of the window, why, I most certainly and assuredly will!”
She reached over suddenly, picked up Jennie’s little walnut whatnot from the floor, and hurled it at the nearest window. The fact that the window was closed didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest.
“There!” she said with satisfaction as the sound of breaking glass ceased. “There!”
“Feel better?” Asey inquired.
“There’s nothing the matter with the way I feel! I never,” Mrs. Turnover assured him vigorously, “felt any better in my life! Now, this is my house, and nobody’s going to order me out of it! If I want to stay here till – till doomsday, I shall stay! Al, where’s your copy of that agreement about dividing John’s money if we found it anywhere in this house?”
“I have it in my wallet, Aunt Harriet. Don’t worry about it. It’s perfectly safe.”
“I want you to show that to Mr. Mayo. I want him to see my copy, too!” She fished around inside her capacious pocketbook and finally drew out a sheet of note-paper. “Mr. Mayo, you take this, and take this, and compare them! I want someone to see both copies, in case Al should try to make any changes on his.”
“But I don’t want—” Asey began.
“Read this!” She forced her paper into his hand. “Al, give him yours! Go on, now, read that! Al, give him your paper!”
“But, Aunt Harriet, he doesn’t want – oh, well, all right! If it’ll quiet you down!” Al removed a paper from his wallet and held it out to Asey. “Here, Mr. Mayo. Take it. It’s a simple enough document, and for my own protection, perhaps you’d better assure yourself that no coercion was involved. Frankly, I’m not a bit crazy over her use of that word coercion!”
Asey waved the paper away.
“I can’t see,” he said, “that any agreement between you an’ your aunt on the division of any of your uncle John’s hidden money – always providin’ you bring it to light, an’ providin’ that there was any in the first place – can have any particular bearin’ on the solution of the murder of Solatia Spry. Which, in case you’ve forgot, is the thing that I’m
tryin’ to get on with. ‘Course, a fly sittin’ on the wall for the last half-hour might have some doubts as to whether or not I hadn’t lost track of the fact myself, but I haven’t!”
“I wish you would read ‘em, just the same, Mr. Mayo,” Al said. “Here, at least compare them, and see if you can find any evidence of coercion!” He held his paper out again.
Mrs. Turnover promptly snatched it from his hand, almost simultaneously snatched her own paper from Asey’s hand, and with a quick motion, she tore both papers in two.
Then she tore them again and again.
Finally, with a little crow of satisfaction, she let the shreds fall like snowflakes on the floor.
“There!” she said. “What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander! You tricked me into signing that, and now I’ve tricked you into giving it up, and that’s the end of that! There, Alden Dorking! Put that in your old pipe and smoke it! And now, both of you get out of my house – go on, get out!”
Al looked at Asey and grinned.
“Aunt Harriet,” he said, “you’re superb. And as mother always used to say after you’d her beyond endurance, you really mean very well, at heart. Now, look! You’ve had your fun. Come along back to Mrs. Sanford’s – you truly can’t stay here, you know! There aren’t any beds, or—”
“It’s my house!”
“But don’t you think,” Asey said tactfully, “that maybe you’d be more comfortable if you was to go back to Mrs. Sanford’s for the night? You won’t be very comfortable here without—”
“Who wants to be comfortable?” Mrs. Turnover demanded. “What business is it of yours if I’m comfortable or uncomfortable, I’d like to know!”
“None, ma’am. It’s your business entirely, an’ if you got a burnin’ urge to sleep on bare, cold wooden floors, probably with mice playin’ tag around you, why just you go right ahead an’ do it. I should,” Asey said, “if I wanted to, an’ it was my house. Comin’, Mr. Dorking?”
“Oh, yes,” Al said. “I’m one who likes a bed to sleep in – you may keep my flashlight, Aunt Harriet. You ought at least to have a light.”
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