“To have found out that grandmother kept those pink shells in that old chest, of course! You must have gone into things,” she said, “much more thoroughly than I’d suspected! I suppose you found pink slivers in the cracks of the chest, or in the corners, and put them under a microscope, and discovered it that way?”
“Er – not exactly, ma’am.” She seemed so awed by what she thought was his discovery that Asey didn’t feel like disillusioning her. “I used a sort of different method, like. Al, how far is the pond from this house, anyway?”
“Oh, a three-minute walk, I’d say. There’s a path down through the woods.”
Asey nodded. “I see. It was a good drive for me in the car, but I was takin’ the long way around the far end. Huh, I don’t know’s I ever realized the lay of the land here before. I always thought of that pond as bein’ a lot farther away – Mrs. Turnover, the church clock’s strikin’ three. Are you about ready to come along back to Mrs. Sanford’s with me?”
“Certainly not!” Mrs. Turnover said hurriedly. “I’m staying right here!” She sounded, Asey thought, like a small child who’d forgotten for a moment that she was mad. “Right here! And,” she added as she started to flounce back up the walk toward the house, “you’re making a big mistake in not arresting him, even if your cousin did buy that knife! If I were you, I should arrest him! Even if I’d bought that knife myself!”
The door slammed behind her with a resounding bang, and Asey saw the blue flashlight’s beam moving toward the back of the house.
Apparently Mrs. Turnover really intended to remain there.
“Well, I guess,” Al said in a creditable imitation of her voice, “I guess you’ve been told! And I certainly don’t know why a detective who’s had the whole thing told him, simply thrust at him on a silver platter, can’t understand when he’s been given the solution! What,” he added in his natural voice, “do we do about her now – let her stay there with the mice?”
“I think I got just about enough energy left,” Asey said, “to go untie Riley’s man, an’ get home to bed. I don’t think I want to tackle her again. Bein’ with her is sort of like watchin’ the tanks out on the Porter provin’ grounds. After a while you feel terrible tired in a vicarious sort of way – perhaps you’d like to stay an’ look after her?”
“Unless you want me to, no. I’m tired myself. My car’s in the lane, and if I don’t fall asleep before I get to it, I can probably manage to get back – Mr. Mayo.”
“Uh-huh?”
“I don’t quite know how to say this, but seriously, I’m sorry you heard – well, I suppose you’d call it a family spat, wouldn’t you? I’m sorry it was your introduction to Aunt Harriet, unless you count her hysterics this afternoon over at your house. She’s really a well-meaning and good-hearted soul. I’m sure she had a lot of fun nosing around for Uncle John’s money, and I’m just as sure she never expected to find it. And she doesn’t need it, either. Uncle Gilbert Turnover was a very successful engineer, and he left her very well off. I think she bought this house not to hunt for money she still thinks is in it, but because she likes the place. Her son, who’s the apple of her eye, adores it – he’s in Iceland – and I think she largely bought it as a present for him.”
“I s’pose that’s all true,” Asey said. “I mean, I don’t doubt that her heart is pure gold an’ a yard wide. But on the other hand, she’s a peppery sort. She admits she went to see Solatia Spry this mornin’ – an’ I can just imagine the sort of peppery snit of a temper she’d hurl herself into if she thought Solatia knew where John Alden’s money was hidden, an’ wouldn’t tell her.”
“You’re thinking of her pitching that little whatnot through the window!” Al said. “Aren’t you?”
“Nope, I’m thinkin’ of some flat tyres an’ a mutilated phone wire,” Asey told him. “I don’t feel your aunt’s capable of what you might call a deep an’ sustained passion. She boils, an’ un-boils, an’ then boils over again. But while she’s at the boilin’ point, she don’t care two whoops what she does or what she says.”
“I agree with you, while she’s erupting, she can be very harsh with words,” Al said, “and she’s very tough on inanimate objects, too. She’s a vase thrower by nature. But she’d never hurt anyone physically. She couldn’t possibly have killed Solatia Spry, if that’s the idea you’ve got in the back of your head. Aunt Harriet is one of those persons who wouldn’t, in the vernacular, hurt a flea.”
“She give you a good whack,” Asey reminded him.
“Oh, but I’m one of the family!” Al said. “That doesn’t count! She’s really very fond of me, and just as soon as I get a job, she’ll go around beaming with pleasure and saying that she always knew I had it in me, that I was just one of those boys who didn’t get started easily, and she’ll never mention my financial problems again, ever.” He laughed. “It’s simply fate that she should somehow have discovered that I owe a car dealer one hundred and eighty-nine dollars and sixty-three cents!”
“Is that – er – the extent of your financial problems?” Asey inquired dryly.
“I’m afraid so,” Al said. “But if you refer to that as debts, in the plural, you can make it sound pretty terrific, can’t you? And – well, there’s one more thing I want to tell you. About that sea chest. And Uncle Gard.”
“Yes?” Asey said encouragingly, as he hesitated.
“I’m not too anxious to tell you this, but I suppose you should be told. I tried to touch Uncle Gard for a job this morning,” Al said. “Before I was drafted, I’d rather laboriously got through law school – in a year, out a year, back again. That sort of thing. I’d passed my bar exams, and all. But for all that Uncle Gard’s practically carrying on the firm with two elderly stenographers and a couple of char ladies, he wasn’t too crazy about the thought of hiring me.”
Al paused to light a cigarette.
“I can understand why,” he went on. “After all, I’m not his ideal of a bright young lawyer, and he’s used to taking the pick of the brilliant boys as his clerks. But just the same, I got a bit sore. After all, I’d done my best in the Army. I’d got to be a corporal before they discharged me as unfit. I haven’t any returned-soldier-should-have-the-best complex on the basis of my service, but I did feel he could at least have given me some letters to take around, if he wouldn’t give me a job himself.” He paused again. “So I got sore, and – well, the long and short of it is that I decided to play a little trick on him.”
“So? Like what?”
“I’ll admit to you frankly that I did hope I could lay hands on Uncle John’s money. I have been snooping around for it,” Al said earnestly. “I’ve worked at it! Uncle John didn’t care about money for its own sake. He didn’t care who got it after he died – if he had, he’d have done something about it in his will. I thought I had as much right to hunt for it as anyone else, and I certainly need it a lot more than either Uncle Gard or Aunt Harriet! So I’ve been snooping around, and—”
“Did you, by any chance, break into the house here last night?” Asey interrupted.
“No! Did someone? I didn’t know that!” Al said in surprise.
“Sharp told me so,” Asey said. “He seemed to think it was you.”
“Sharp doesn’t like me. I think it’s because of my nose,” Al said. “I don’t know why it bothers him so, but I’ve caught him looking at it often, with distaste and with suspicion. I wasn’t the one who broke in, Mr. Mayo! I was at the Madisons’ last night, helping to paint the kitchen purple.”
“Er – purple?”
“Purple. Mrs. Madison,” Al said, “decided at dinner to see what their kitchen would look like if it was purple instead of blue – they used to have a dozen servants there, and Mrs. Madison said she hadn’t even known what colour the kitchen was. But now she’s down to one butler-chauffeur-handyman, and she and Polly do the cooking, and they found they didn’t like that blue in the kitchen. So she and Polly and Chris and I mixed up some paint, and proceeded to pur
ple the kitchen till three in the morning – Chris drove me home then. I mean, you could check up on it easily enough, if you wanted to!”
“Sharp’s evidence,” Asey said, “wasn’t what you’d call over-powerin’. He just felt in his bones that it must be you.”
“The trouble with having a non-photogenic face,” Al said, “is that everyone always suspects you of everything. As a child, I took the rap for everyone in the neighbourhood. But to get back, I’d snooped around the house and asked a lot of questions about the money. I haven’t much working capital, but I thought if I could get a clue as to what object Uncle John might have hidden his money in, then it would be worth the effort of shooting the works to buy it at the auction.”
“I see.” Asey found himself wondering why all the Alden family were so fond of involved explanations. “An’ did you dig up any clues?”
“Not one.”
“Those directions about the fire-place bricks,” Asey said casually. “Did you know the box was there an’ make up them directions to fit, or was they bona fide?”
“They’re genuine enough. I found them in a book I bought this afternoon. After I came back from the movies, I sat down and looked at it, and the slip of paper dropped out on the rug. I’m not laving any wreaths on my brow, but I do think it was decent of me to go to tell Aunt Harriet,” Al said. “I could have crept into the house to-night without anyone’s being wiser, and I admit the temptation to do just that was very nearly triumphant. Can you understand how it would have been?”
“Perfectly,” Asey said.
“If I’d found that money in the bottom of the old well yesterday, or in the bird-house the day before, or in the barn, or the attic, or any of the places I’ve rapped and sounded and gone over with a fine-tooth comb, I wouldn’t have considered telling Aunt Harriet, or anyone else. Not then. But now the house is hers. Anyway,” Al said wearily, “I couldn’t find the money. Or any clue to it. I’ve decided either Uncle John ran out of money before he died, or else he’s put it in such a bizarre spot that no one will ever find it. Or else someone’s already found it and quietly made away with it. I’ve personally given up all thought of it.”
“An’ what’s all this got to do with your Uncle Gardner?” Asey asked.
“I’m getting to that. I was sore with him for being so sniffy about getting me a job,” Al said. “I knew damn well he’d like to have that money – he’s a lot more interested in money than he is in antiques! – so I decided to play a little trick on him. I hovered around that sea chest before the auction, never moving more than a few feet away, and looking at it anxiously every now and then as if I thought it didn’t feel very well. And the old boy bit!”
“Oho!” Asey said. “I see! He figgered you’d located the money, an’ it was there in the chest!”
“Exactly. I hovered around until I felt I had his suspicions all nicely aroused,” Al said. “When I found I had him going, I worked my fingers to the bone to convince him. If I saw him looking my way, I moved away and stared fixedly out the window at the raspberry bushes. If he moved away, I moved back. Once or twice, when I was sure he was watching me, I very surreptitiously lifted the lid and peeked inside!”
“An’ what was in it all this time?” Asey wanted to know.
“Books, of course. There were always books in that chest, as long as I can remember. I – er—” he hesitated. “I sprung the lock. I might as well come clean and tell you that before you find it out.”
“You sprung it? You locked the chest up, with books in it?”
“That’s right. The spring was caught so it wouldn’t lock, and I wiggled my pocket-knife around till I got it springing again, and slammed the lid down. Then I went away. And two minutes later, Uncle Gard was there, tugging and prying at it, trying to get the lid up. I guessed then that I had him going good, and I certainly did! He never bid on a single item – he sat there waiting for the chest, you see, that he thought I’d found a false bottom in, or something. And when he opened his mouth and bid two thousand dollars for the thing,” Al concluded, “tears of laughter started to trickle down my cheeks. And when he finally took it at three thousand – well, I was too limp to leave my seat!”
“You feel pretty sure,” Asey said, “that he bid only because he thought you’d found out that the money was hidden in the chest, huh?”
“I certainly don’t think he paid three grand for it out of sentiment!” Al returned. “I thought you’d be sure to ask why he paid so much – everyone else at the auction was crazy to find out – and I thought you might like to know the real reason.”
Asey had to admit to himself that it sounded a lot more like the real reason than the memory of pink sea shells did. But Mrs. Turnover had remembered those shells, too. And he didn’t think she’d been prompted into remembering them either.
“So it was you,” he said thoughtfully, “that sprung the lock an’ slammed that lid closed. An’ at that time, the chest was full of old books!”
“No one was more surprised than I to find Solatia Spry in the thing when you unlocked it!” Al said. “I knew then that I should tell you I slammed the lid. But with Uncle Gard standing there – well, I honestly didn’t have the nerve to come out and say I’d hoaxed him into making that bid! I still hope he may turn up a job for me!”
“You know,” Asey said, “first off, this afternoon, everyone kept askin’ ‘How’d she get into that chest?’ An’ I kept thinkin’ perhaps that wasn’t so important as who’d put her into it. N’en I sort of went so far as to tell myself that maybe who’d put her there wasn’t so important, even, as who slammed the lid an’ sprung the lock. You might almost say, as a matter of fact, that you’re the person I had in mind as huntin’ all this time!”
“However incriminating it may all seem to you, Mr. Mayo, I can only say I hardly knew her! She’s simply a person,” Al said earnestly, “whose name I recognized when it was mentioned!”
“Uh-huh. But people have sometimes been known to kill other people,” Asey said, “that they hadn’t even been properly introduced to. In my experience, you don’t always have to have known someone a long, long time an’ been often to their house for dinner in order to be inspired into erasin’ them from the face of this earth.”
“I suppose,” Al said, “that if someone had walked to the auction with me, had seen me slam the lid on those books, and knew that the chest contained nothing but books at that time, had sat next me throughout the auction until I left – if you knew that such person existed, if he were a reputable and honest citizen whose word is generally accepted as gospel truth, perhaps you might feel more secure in your mind about Mrs. Dorking’s boy Alden?”
Asey nodded, and allowed that he guessed he most probably would.
“Call up the minister of the white church up the street tomorrow morning, then,” Al said in his most amused tones. “He lives just beyond where I’m staying at Bluebell Cottage by the Sea. He’ll be delighted to reassure you. Good-night, Mr. Mayo!”
He turned, walked up toward the lane where his car was parked, and Asey strolled slowly back to his roadster in the shadow of the elm trees.
The three members of John Alden’s family with whom he’d come in contact, he thought, were probably not very different from any other trio you might pluck at random from any other family. Families might be clannish, but they weren’t necessarily unanimous. He, his cousin Jennie, and her husband might all contradict one other just as much as the Aldens seemed to.
When you came right down to it, he decided, such variations in opinion were like snap-shots taken by a family, as opposed to more formal pictures taken by a regular photographer. While the latter wouldn’t perhaps pretty people up, he would soften Gardner’s thin lips and take the hardness out of his long face. He’d drape something about Mrs. Turnover’s neck so that her chins would seem like only one chin, and the self-indulgence of her massive girth wouldn’t be so obvious. He’d tone down Al Dorking’s big nose, do something to an eyebrow to make his cl
ose-set eyes appear wider apart, and play up his pleasant smile.
But when a family took snap-shots of each other, they didn’t care how the results might look to an impartial outsider. The thin lips became thinner, the chins multiplied, the big nose became almost comic. Nobody worried about the focus, or the film, or the proper lens. Nobody pulled any punches. It was only the family!
Gardner Alden had given pink sea shells and sentimental memories as his reason for paying so much for that sea chest; Al Dorking claimed he’d hoaxed his uncle into making the purchase; Mrs. Turnover seemed to feel her brother was after the hidden money. If you believed Gardner, you felt sympathetic toward him. If you believed Al and his aunt, you felt that Gardner was a hard, greedy, rapacious man, slightly on the evil side.
If you accepted Gardner’s obvious opinion of his nephew, Al didn’t count one way or another. If you took Mrs. Turnover’s opinion of her nephew, he was a tricky, loutish spendthrift – and Quinton Sharp hadn’t held any high opinion of him either. But if you took Al at his face value, he was intelligent, apparently honest enough about his shortcomings and his desire to get John Alden’s money. And he was pleasant. And patient. Nobody could have been much more patient with Mrs. Turnover. And he alone of the Alden family seemed to possess some proof that he had nothing to do with the murder of Solatia Spry.
Gardner accepted his sister the way he might have accepted – Asey tried to think of a suitable simile as he climbed into the roadster. The way he might have accepted someone else’s sister, say, had he met her hurrying through a crowded railway station. To him, she was worth a perfunctory half-smile and a perfunctory tip of the hat. Al’s assessed value of his aunt seemed higher, and was certainly more charitable. He’d been almost insistent in pointing out her good qualities, her good intentions, and her good heart. But all the pleasant adjectives with which he’d tried to whitewash the lady couldn’t wipe out her violent little gestures, like smacking Al across the face, and tossing the whatnot out the closed window.
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