Puzzle for Wantons

by Patrick Quentin

  “Lieutenant, there’s something I want to ask you. I—well, I happened to be out in the hall just now when Chuck called the police. They’re coming tonight, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” I said. “They’ll be here in about an hour.”

  He looked down at his boxer’s hands. “I’ve been wondering. I mean, are they coming just on account of this accident of Fleur’s this afternoon?”

  There wasn’t any point in keeping things dark any longer. “We’re calling them,” I said, “because someone tried to murder Fleur this afternoon and because someone did murder Dorothy and Janet.”

  That didn’t seem to surprise him. “I guessed as much, Lieutenant. I figured Dorothy must have been murdered after all when that thing happened to Janet.”

  Arbiters of elegant behaviour might have expected him to register shock at the fact that his wife had been murdered, but I knew Bill had been more than glad to see the end of Dorothy and he knew I knew. We understood each other on that point at least.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he said suddenly. “That crazy will Janet made leaving all her dough to me, you’ve got it, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, wondering.

  “I don’t like it.” His voice was gruff. “She didn’t hardly know me. She just left me everything on a kind of fancy. I don’t feel I’ve got a right to it. Lieutenant, I want you to do me a favour. I want you to tear that will up and forget it.”

  “Tear it up? Bill, I can’t tear it up. Janet left it to me in trust.”

  He stared at me stubbornly. “I don’t want her dough.”

  “Listen, Bill, you’re crazy to feel that way. Janet left you her estate because she wanted to make up to you for what Dorothy had done and because she didn’t want her own husband to get it. If I tore up that will, Laguno would inherit the whole works. Do you imagine Janet would have liked that?”

  He smiled faintly. “I guess she wouldn’t—not much.” The smile faded. “But it’s a ritzy woman’s dress shop she had, wasn’t it? Lieutenant, I can’t go fooling around in a woman’s dress shop.”

  “You can sell it. It’s quite a place. What with it and the rest of the money, you stand to be comfortably off for life.” I glanced down at the flapping end of trouser where his leg should have been. “It’s not going to be easy for you to get a job—not to begin with. Don’t be a sucker. Take what’s coming to you. And if you find yourself getting too high-minded, you can always endow a home for superannuated welterweights or anything you like.”

  He seemed puzzled. He stared at me and then shook his head. “Well, I guess—if it’s that way, I’m sorry. Sorry I brought it up. Forget it.”

  He turned on his crutch and started limping away.

  I called, “Seen my wife, Bill?”

  “Yeah. She’s in the library—reading.”

  I hurried past him into the hall. As I did so, I saw Chuck Dawson stalking down the stairs. His face was dark and stormy. He reached me and I said, “So Lorraine isn’t listening to explanations yet, eh?”

  He didn’t say anything. He just scowled, swung past me to the front door, and went out, slamming the door behind him.

  Iris was alone in the library, sitting under a fan light, a ponderous tome on her lap. She put it down when she saw me, stood up and came towards me. Just walking across a room, she could do something to you. No wonder Hollywood and Mr. Finkelstein had made a star out of her.

  “Peter, whatever’s been happening? Everyone’s been running upstairs looking sour. Mimi, then Lover, then Lorraine, then Chuck.”

  “Plenty’s happened,” I said.

  “You called the police?”

  “Yes. They’ll be here fairly soon. What have you been reading?”

  “Oh, I’ve been trying to find out some more about curare. I’m sure the whole solution lies in that beginning thing. If only we could once get it straight how Dorothy was poisoned, I think the rest of it might make some sense.” My wife shrugged dispiritedly. “I haven’t been getting anywhere, though.”

  “There’s no need to get anywhere any more, honey. It’ll be up to the police now.”

  “I know.” My wife didn’t look particularly pleased. “It’ll be a relief having them here. There won’t be that feeling of danger. But Peter, I guess I have a tidy mind. I hate leaving things in midstream.”

  She looked so earnest that I bent and kissed her. “Iris Duluth, the glamorous Hollywood sleuth now under contract to Magnificent Pictures.”

  “Peter, don’t make fun of me. It just makes me mad having people murdered to left and right and not being able to figure out why. We’ve got Dorothy’s glove with the smear of curare on it. I’ve been thinking about those gloves and they’re leather, darling. I don’t believe she could have pricked her finger through them. They’re too tough. That means the glove must have been smeared when she put them away in her pocketbook. But we’ve got the pocketbook and there’s no curare in it. If the bag was fixed as a poison trap then someone must have gotten at it later and taken the trap out. But then anyone could have gotten at the pocketbook after Dorothy died.” Iris looked indignant. “Oh, dear, it’s all so exasperating.”

  She was right about the poison trap. Wyckoff had made that plain. An autopsy was not going to be enough to prove that Dorothy had been poisoned with curare. And if they couldn’t prove that Dorothy was poisoned, they were going to have a tough time proving that Janet’s death wasn’t accidental.

  My wife tossed her dark hair defiantly. “Peter, if I don’t find out how Dorothy was poisoned, I’m going to become frustrated and my neck’s going to shrivel. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then don’t give up just because the police are coming. Go on helping me. And, to begin with, tell me what’s been going on.” She sighed. “It isn’t fair. You get in on everything. I’m always left out.”

  “All right, honey. I’ll tell you everything, on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That we get out of this grisly library and go upstairs to our room where I can kiss you whenever I feel so disposed.”

  Iris slipped her hand into mine and we moved out into the hall. It was deserted. Once the house had been too full or people. Now Iris and I seemed to have it to ourselves.

  As we started up the great stairs, however, the figure of Mimi Burnett appeared, hurrying down from the second floor. She wore a ratty fur wrap over the medieval gown. She was carrying a suitcase.

  When she came to us, her little black eyes fixed on me coldly. “I’m taking Chuck’s car. If anybody wants me, I’ll be at the Riverview in Reno.”

  She swished past us and hurried out of the front door, leaving it open. Iris stared after her.

  “What on earth is she doing?”

  “That’s one of the things I’m going to tell you,” I said.

  We reached our room and flopped down on the beds. Everything else in the room was too angular and modernistic for comfort. I gave my wife a colourful account of my brief encounter with Bill Flanders over Janet’s will.

  “That’s the works,” I concluded, “except that Chuck’s got an Inspector Craig coming up. Apparently he’s a good man and he’ll try to keep things quiet—if anybody can keep three murders quiet.”

  Iris was lying on her bed, her head propped on her arm, staring at me solemnly. “I never dreamed Lorraine was married to Chuck. He’s just the sort of man with muscles and things that heiresses always seem to marry. But why on earth have they been keeping it secret?”

  “It seems to have been Chuck’s idea. He didn’t want the world to know he’d married Lorraine without a cent to his name. Lorraine lent him the money to open the club. They were waiting for it to be a success. Then Chuck could appear in print as the wealthy Nevada business man or what have you.”

  “But surely the Club must be successful enough by now. It’s been coining money for a long time.”

  “That’s it. They were all set to announce the marri
age, anyway. That’s why Lorraine asked the mythical Mr. Throckmorton to come. She was going to let him be the first to know and give his guardian’s blessing. Incidentally, that’s why she lugged us here and the Lagunos and the Flanders and the Wyckoffs. She wanted to reconcile them all and to have everybody happy to celebrate her own wedding.”

  Iris smiled wryly. “Poor Lorraine, things didn’t pan out, did they?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “But it’s Mimi I don’t understand, darling. Why on earth would Chuck fool around with a little fake like Mimi just now of all times when the marriage was going to be announced? I’m a woman. Maybe I don’t know about these things. But is Mimi the sort of heady siren that makes men forget love, honour, and the Pleygel millions?”

  “So far as I’m concerned, she wouldn’t make me forget a five-cent candy bar.”

  “Then what was her strange power over Chuck?”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Iris’ gaze started to rove aimlessly around the room. It concentrated on the dressing-table. “Peter!” she exclaimed.

  “What is it?”

  My wife jumped off the bed and started running around the room, inspecting the dressing-table and then the highboy. She came back to me.

  “Peter, someone’s searched this room.”

  “Searched it?”

  “Yes. Things have been moved around on the dressing-table. I always keep that perfume bottle on the left and—then the drawers in the highboy. I left them all shut, I know. Look, two of them are a little open. You haven’t been in here since dinner, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Then it has been searched.”

  I got up. “Anything missing?”

  “I’ll be able to find out in a minute.”

  Iris made a feverish search of our belongings. “No, darling. Nothing’s gone. I’ve looked everywhere except the locked drawer.”

  “The locked drawer?”

  “Where I keep my piggy bank. Where we put Janet’s will. I’ve got Dorothy’s bag in there, too.”

  Iris scrambled around in her pocketbook for a key and unlocked the drawer of the dressing-table. I hurried to her side.

  Everything was there. The blue piggy bank leered fatly up at us. Lying beside it was Dorothy’s silver pocketbook and a folded piece of paper which I recognized as Janet’s will.

  Iris looked up excitedly. “Peter, it must have been the will or the pocketbook they were after. They must have been in too much of a hurry to risk breaking the lock. Lucky I locked it, isn’t it?”

  I was thinking. “No one knew we had Dorothy’s pocketbook except possibly Wyckoff. I can’t see any possible reason why he should try and steal it. It must be the will.”

  “Bill Flanders,” said Iris. “Maybe Bill came up here hoping to be able to destroy the will himself. And then, when he couldn’t get at it, he went to you.”

  “Or Laguno. If this will was out of the way he’d inherit, under the old one. I wouldn’t put anything past that man.” I bent and picked up the will and the pocketbook, putting them on the top of the highboy. “In any case, whoever tried once will probably try again. They’re much too dangerous, both of them, to keep in a drawer with a ten-cent lock. As soon as the police come, we’re going to turn both these little items over to them.”

  Iris looked meek. “I guess you’re right.”

  She pressed the clasp of the pocketbook, springing its mouth open so we could see its interior. She pulled out Dorothy’s gloves, and then stared at the little hoard of roulette chips. She smoothed out the right-hand glove, revealing the reddish smear on the middle finger. Suddenly she gave a disgruntled exclamation, picked up one of the chips, and fled into the bathroom.

  “What on earth—”

  I heard the sound of running water. Then my wife appeared again. She held the chip in one hand and a white face towel in the other. She brandished the towel at me miserably.

  “Look, Peter.”

  I looked at the towel. Scrawled across the white linen was a reddish stain, very like the stain on the glove.

  “Darling,” she said, “and I was so sure that was curare on the glove!”

  “But what—?” I began, fuddled.

  “Look at the colour of these roulette chips—reddish brown, the same colour as the curare. They’re made of cheap stuff. I just poured water on this chip in the bathroom and wiped the towel on it. Don’t you see? One of the chips Dorothy played with at Chuck’s must have been wet. That’s how she got the stain on her glove. It isn’t curare—it’s dye.”

  She sank down on the edge of the bed. “Oh, Peter, there goes everything. We’re back where we started from. The autopsy won’t be able to prove Dorothy was killed with curare. The station wagon will probably be so burnt up they won’t be able to prove the brake cable was filed through. There was never anything to show that Janet was murdered, anyway. The police will come. But what will we be able to prove? Just that three people had three accidents and that it’s all very suspicious. That’s all. No evidence of murder. Nothing. Darling, you may be a hero in the Pacific. I may be a movie star in Hollywood. But as detectives, we’re—from hunger.”

  She was right as usual. The stain on the glove was about the only tangible thing we had to show the police. Unless something definite could be proved somehow. Inspector Craig would be just as stymied as we were.

  I didn’t care about it as much as Iris did. She had the detective bug worse than I. All I wanted right then was to be able to take her away from this plague-ridden spot and snatch a few days of peace with her before I had to return to my ship. That’s the way it is with leaves. In the first days, I felt I had all the time in the world, time enough to dabble around in other people’s mysteries. Now I was thinking in terms of having to be gone. Time was infinitely precious. I was grudging every second that wasn’t a second with Iris.

  I dropped down on the bed next to her. “Don’t get churned up about it, honey. Let them all murder each other. Who cares?”

  I started kissing her. It didn’t take me long to forget that anybody had any problems. But at last Iris drew away from me.

  “Darling, Inspector Craig will be here any minute.” She got up and moved to the window. “We’ll be able to hear his car coming if we stay here and listen.”

  I joined her, slipping my arm around her waist. Our window looked out rather unromantically on the garages, which were built in a neat white row beyond the front entrance of the mansion. The Nevada moon was shining brightly in a bare blue sky.

  I stared down at the garages. The sliding door of one of them was half open, and a small pale object lying on the gravel outside caught my eye. As I glanced at it, a gust of wind lifted it and sent it skittering across the yard. It came to rest in a square of light from a downstairs window, and I saw that it was a woman’s stocking.

  Iris said, “A stocking. It came from the garage.”

  I looked back to the open garage door. Inside, dimly visible, was a low convertible coupé. I recognized its lines. “Iris, isn’t that Chuck’s car in the garage?”

  “I think it is.” Iris stared at me. “But Mimi said she was going to take it.”

  “She must have taken one of Lorraine’s instead. But come to think of it, I never heard a car backing out of the garages, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. We would surely have heard it from here too. But, Peter, Mimi can’t have been hanging around in the garage all this time. Maybe she decided not to go.”

  “It wasn’t up to her to decide whether to stay or go. Lorraine threw her out. And the stocking! What’s that stocking doing there?”

  My wife and I stared at each other. I crossed to the highboy, picked up the will and Dorothy’s pocketbook, and locked them back in the drawer of the dressing table with the piggy bank. I tossed the key to my wife.

  “Come on,” I said.

  We left the room, locking the door behind us for good measure. As we started down the deserted passage, the door of Chuck’s room opened. C
huck and Lover came out.

  We went up to them. I said to Lover, “Did you talk Lorraine into letting Mimi stay?”

  Lover looked distracted. “Why no. I tried to talk to Mimi and then to Lorraine. They wouldn’t listen to me, either of them. It’s so unfortunate. I’ve been speaking to Chuck. He assures me there was nothing between him and Mimi, nothing at all. It’s just that Mimi’s such an affectionate child and—”

  I broke into his maunderings. “Chuck, Mimi was driving your car into Reno, wasn’t she?”

  Lorraine’s husband returned my stare defiantly. “Why not? She had to get there somehow.”

  Iris’ hand pulled me urgently forward. “Come on, Peter.”

  While the two men watched us in perplexity, we hurried to the stairs and down into the empty hall. I swung open the big front door. We ran out into the drive and around under a high white arch back towards the garages.

  The stocking was still lying, small and forlorn, near the house. Iris ran to pick it up. I hurried over to the half-open garage door. Something was lying across the threshold of the garage. I almost stumbled over it, and as I veered sideways to avoid it, I saw that it was a suitcase. Its lid was open and its contents spilled out of it in a tumbled mess.

  Iris’ voice sounded. “It’s a perfectly good stocking, darling. It must be Mimi’s.”

  “It is,” I said. “Her suitcase is here. It’s been opened and searched.”

  My wife joined me. I stepped over the suitcase into the dark interior of the garage. I could just make out a light switch on the wall. I turned it on.

  Behind me Iris gave a little broken cry.

  I felt far from steady myself.

  Mimi Burnett was sprawled beside Chuck’s green coupé on the bare stone of the garage floor. The fur wrap splayed out from her shoulders like the wings of a dead bat. The medieval gown was crumpled and askew, and her head was lying in a pool of blood.

  There was a rock with a jagged, bloodstained edge right there on the floor by her side. It was only too obvious for what purpose it had been used.

  Shakily I dropped to my knees and bent over her. Her eyes stared blindly. Her lips, elfin no longer, were drawn back in a meaningless smirk.