The Ring of Truth

by George Harmon Coxe

  The killing of Jess Flemming, a minor-league hoodlum, brings Dr. Paul Standish, a physician who doubles as the city medical examiner, into an affair that implicates some prominent members of the community. To Police Lieutenant Ballard the case is cut and dried. The obvious suspect is Ralph Estey, a jazz trumpeter who has disappeared. But a second murder alters the situation markedly. Standish, compelled by a desire to learn the truth, not only as a medical examiner but as a man, conducts his own investigation. His inquiry into an accidental death of the previous year, in which Flemming ran his car over a well-known businessman, puts his own life in jeopardy before he is able to piece together the puzzle, which includes some entangled family finances and a surprising love affair.

  Once again George Harmon Coxe has written a well-plotted, suspenseful story that tests the reader’s faculties to the end.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  GEORGE HARMON COXE was born in Olean, New York, and spent his youth there and in nearby Elmira. After a year at Purdue and one at Cornell, he worked for five years with newspapers in California, Florida, and New York, and did advertising for a New England printer for five more. Since that time he has devoted himself to writing—for two years with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, then as a freelance, selling numerous short stories, novelettes, and serials to magazines as well as to motion-picture, radio, and television producers.

  He is past president of the Mystery Writers of America and winner of its Grand Master Award in 1964.

  January 1966

  THE

  RING OF

  TRUTH

  GEORGE HARMON COXE

  NEW YORK

  ALFRED · A · KNOPF

  Copyright © 1966 by George Harmon Coxe.

  All rights reserved.

  For Carol

  1

  TO CERTAIN HABITUÉS, Hennessey’s was known primarily as a restaurant, even though the food service was limited to dinner. Others, more concerned with drink and entertainment, looked upon the establishment as a nightclub because of the music which was offered after nine o’clock, and the tiny dance floor for odd couples who could not resist the driving beat of Ralph Estey’s five-piece band.

  On this particular Friday night in late April, Dr. Paul Standish belonged to the second category. He had been a fan of Estey’s since he had heard him blowing his trumpet as a sideman at Nick’s in New York’s Greenwich Village when he himself was serving his first year of internship in one of the city’s hospitals. In the past year or more that Estey’s group had been established at Hennessey’s, Standish had stopped in on the average of once a week, sometimes to have dinner, sometimes to listen, sometimes with Mary Hayward, who was his nurse, secretary, and girl Friday, but more often alone for a drink while Estey played a set or two of his solid Dixieland music.

  Now, having paid his check during the last intermission, he was about to leave when he became aware of some commotion behind him. His small table was not far from the entrance foyer and checkroom, and what he heard first was a woman’s voice that sounded shrill, alarmed, and furious. Turning at once, he saw the street door closing and knew that the cry had come from the sidewalk outside.

  “Stop!” That was what he heard first. “Stop it, I tell you!”

  He was on his feet as the door closed off the sound and, stepping round the slatted partition, aware that two other men had risen and were moving behind him, he noticed that Sheila Keith was not in her accustomed place behind the checkroom counter.

  He saw her as he opened the outer door. She was standing beside the uniformed doorman, who seemed to be restraining her. A big, bareheaded man who seemed vaguely familiar was standing on the sidewalk, hands on hips, his head outthrust and slightly bent. Stretched out in front of him, on his back with his head on the curb, was Ralph Estey.

  For another second or two no one moved. The immediate conclusion that came to Standish was an obvious one, but it was as a doctor that he stepped to Estey’s side and went to one knee. Behind him he could hear Sheila Keith saying: “Oh, damn you, Jess Flemming! Damn you!”

  In the next moment the trumpet players head moved. He raised it a few inches, the eyes opening. As he struggled to sit up, Standish helped him but prevented him from rising.

  “Take it easy, Ralph. Easy boy. What happened?”

  “I got clipped,” Estey said with some bewilderment.

  “Jess slugged him,” Sheila Keith snapped, and glared at the big man.

  “He swung first,” Flemming said.

  “Ralph hit his head when he fell,” the girl said, her voice bitter and contemptuous.

  “I’m all right,” Estey said, still struggling to rise.

  “Stay put!” Standish ordered. “Let me look.”

  He took out his pencil flashlight and examined the back of Estey’s head, noting the abrasion beneath the thinning hair, the incipient swelling. He glanced up, addressing no one in particular.

  “How long was he out?”

  “Ten, twelve seconds maybe,” the doorman said.

  Standish shifted the flashlight to bring the beam on Estey’s face. He noted the bruise on the cheekbone and. Over the other’s protest, examined first one eye and then the other to see the reaction of the pupils.

  Estey wrenched his head away and spoke irritably. “Look, Doc, I’m all right.” Again he tried to rise. This time Standish helped him and spoke severely.

  “You’ve had a concussion, and concussions are tricky things. As your doctor”—Standish had treated him professionally for a touch of virus some months ago—“I’d advise you to go to the hospital. I can run you over there in—”

  “No.”

  “Spend the night. Just for observation. If there should be a delayed reaction—and there often is—we can take some X rays—”

  Estey’s objection was softly profane and then, his voice suddenly hard and vicious, he addressed Jess Flemming.

  “Okay, Jess. Tonight I moved out of my class but what I said still goes. Keep bothering Sheila and I’ll call you again. Only next time I’ll be carrying a gun. Put your hands on me just once and I’ll kill you.”

  “Sure.” Flemming grunted derisively. “Carry your gun, little man. Just stay out of my way.”

  Sheila Keith watched him open the door and step inside, her young face tight and her eyes stormy. She seemed about to call after him, then turned to Estey.

  “I’m sorry, Ralph. You shouldn’t have bothered him. I told you what he was like.” She stepped close and put her fingers against his cheek. “Does it hurt?”

  “No.” Estey pulled his face away. “I’m all right, I tell you. Look, Doc—”

  But Standish was no longer listening. A third man had joined the group while he had been occupied with Estey, a slender well-dressed fellow with metal-rimmed spectacles. The shadowed face seemed familiar but when he could not place it he addressed the two men who, like himself, had stepped outside to see what was happening. He did not know them but it did not matter and he spoke with authority.

  “I’m a doctor,” he said. “I want a better look at him. Help him into the men’s room and keep him there. I’ll be with you in two minutes.”

  He turned then, ignoring Estey’s muttered protests, and crossed the street diagonally to the parking lot where he’d left his car. When he had unlocked it, he took out his doctor’s bag and recrossed the street.

  The two strangers were standing just inside the doorway to the men’s room when Standish entered. The attendant, a stooped and ancient Negro, was watching Estey as he stood before the mirror examining the bruise on his cheekbone.

  “If I slap a little powder on it,” he said reaching for a can of talcum, “you’ll never notice it.”

  “Take off your coat, Ralph,” Standish said. �
�Roll up your sleeve.”

  Estey lowered his hands and turned. He drew a visible and elaborate breath and seemed about to protest. His dark eyes had a truculent look but Standish stared him down, standing perfectly still and saying nothing until the breath was expelled noisily and Estey started to peel off his jacket.

  There was a single wooden chair in the room and Standish motioned Estey toward it as he opened his bag and took out his blood-pressure apparatus.

  Estey eyed it with distaste. “What the hell is that?”

  “If you want the proper name, a sphygmomanometer.”

  “To take my blood pressure?”

  “Right.”

  When Standish had taken Estey’s pulse and found it strong and somewhat rapid, he wrapped the expanding cuff around the bare arm and pumped air with the rubber bulb, pumped again. He read the scale and released the pressure.

  “What’s it say?” Estey asked.

  “One seventy-eight over eighty-two.”

  “How’s that stack up?”

  “How old are you?”

  “Forty the next time around.”

  “A little high.”

  Standish replaced the apparatus and reached for his ophthalmoscope. He told Estey to look at a certain spot across the room and snapped on the light beam, leaning close as he examined first one eye and then the other. He saw nothing particularly alarming but when Estey started to rise he pushed him back, holding him there with one hand on top of his head while he reached for his otoscope. “What are you doing?” Estey demanded.

  “I’m going to put this in your ear. Hold still. . . . I’m also,” he added when he had examined both ears, “going to put a light up your nose. Tip your head back.”

  Estey did so, grumbling. Finally he said: “What the hell are you trying to prove?”

  “That you don’t show any outward signs of a fracture.”

  “Would I still be conscious if I did?”

  “You might. What I’m looking for is any sign of blood or cerebral spinal fluid.” He straightened. “Luckily I don’t see any. I still think it would be wise to—”

  “Sure.” Estey rolled down his sleeve as Standish began to repack his bag. “But it’s like I told you, Doc. I’m okay. A little headache maybe but a good belt of booze will fix that. Also”—he put on his jacket—“I’ve got to get the next set started. One thing that bastard Flemming could have done and didn’t. If he’d slugged me in the mouth and split a lip I’d be out of a job for a month.”

  He combed his thinning hair and adjusted his tie, a fraillooking man with a long bony face and prominent ears. A small eyebrow-width mustache contrasted strikingly with the grayish indoor complexion, and when he stood erect his torso had a flat-chested, almost concave look that made Standish wonder where he got the lung capacity to blow a horn the way he did. Now, turning from the mirror, he grinned and tapped the doctor’s shoulder.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Stick around and I’ll buy you a drink.”

  As Standish followed Estey out and turned toward the foyer, he decided he could have another drink and listen to one more set. It was not because of Estey’s suggestion, which he understood was not really an invitation as much as something to say. But it was Friday night and, barring some emergency calls, tomorrow should be an easy day. This is what he told himself but in the back of his mind and not yet admitted for argument was the thought that he wanted one more look at Estey’s eyes after a strenuous half hour of blowing the trumpet.

  At the checkroom he put his doctor’s bag on the counter, giving Sheila Keith a moment of quick inspection as he asked her to put it with his coat. No more than average height, she had a trim and well-proportioned figure, with a nicely defined bust and shapely legs, the noticeable firmness of the calves suggesting that she had done some dancing. Above the demure but snug-fitting dark-gray dress with the white collar her hair was ash-blond and looked natural. The eyes were greenish, the brows upward-slanting to lend a look of sexiness to her face. Her mouth was small but lipstick helped it and her chin was determined except when she smiled.

  In her line of work this was often, for she had learned the value of the proper approach. She had a mildly flirtatious air which seemed guileless but was in fact studied and part of her act. When she said good evening, when she took your coat or held it, there was a look of intimacy in the eyes and the curve of her mouth that promised something. She made you feel it. You knew somehow that you would never get this promised reward but it was nice to contemplate and made the quarter tipper put a half dollar in the tray more often than not. But at the moment the smile was forced and she wasn’t trying very hard.

  “Is he all right?”

  “I think so,” Standish said. “I want another look at his eyes after the next set but I don’t believe there’s anything to worry about. Did Flemming leave?”

  “Any moment now.” She gave a small jerk of her head. “He’s having some words with Mr. Hennessey.”

  Estey had tapped his group into a chorus of “Back Home in Indiana,” and as Standish stepped back he saw Jess Flemming at the near comer of the bar. Standing close was Hennessey, a short but stocky man in his fifties with a pink face and not much hair. Across the bar but leaning over it was the head barman, a tall and beefy man named Larry. Standish, deciding against a table this time, moved behind the trio. They took no notice of him as he slid upon the next stool, and though they kept their voices down he heard the end of the conversation.

  “I’ve warned you before, Flemming,” Hennessey was saying. “This time I mean it. Stay out of here. Don’t come in again.”

  Flemming looked down at Hennessey, a tall, well-built man of forty or so with a paunch that was beginning to show. He was a flashy dresser, big-boned and not bad-looking in a coarse-featured way, but there was also an inbred streak of meanness that showed in the hard pale eyes and the twist of his mouth.

  “It’s a public place.”

  “And I reserve the right,” Hennessey said softly, “to keep objectionable people out. You’re objectionable, on all counts.”

  “If I come in, you call the cops, is that it?”

  “You come in and we’ll escort you out.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me and Larry. Now beat it.”

  Flemming took a long look at Larry, who eyed him calmly, straightened, and said nothing. Flemming gave a tug at his jacket, started to turn away, stopped for a final comment.

  “I might try it sometime. Between the three of us we might break up the joint.”

  “I’m insured,” Hennessey said. “And I understand the mob won’t be backing you any more. It’ll be just you and us.”

  Hennessey turned away and so did Flemming. Larry seemed to notice Standish for the first time. “Oh hello, Doctor,” he said. “Scotch and water? Ralph okay?”

  Standish said Ralph was fine. When he had his drink he turned his back to the bar and glanced over the room. It was still well filled and his idle glance focused finally on a table he had noticed earlier. There had been two people there at the time. Now there were three and, not meaning to, his mind went back to a Saturday night four months before. The recent presence of Jess Flemming became at once a part of the picture, and the element of coincidence, at first nebulous and without definition, became stronger as he let his thoughts move on.

  For Standish wore two hats. With one he was a young doctor with a modest but growing private practice; with the other he was the medical examiner, in a city of this size not a full-time job nor, for him, a permanent one. And it had been as medical examiner that he had investigated a traffic death that occurred on the street outside around the middle of December.

  His attention still on the table, he identified the woman as Evelyn Tremaine, the widow of the man who had been run down and killed. She was a striking-looking brunette in her early thirties, smartly dressed in her navy suit. Her companion, Warren Choate, had been Robert Tremaine’s partner in a small brokerage house and Standish had heard that Choate was
presently separated from his wife.

  They had been at the same table when Standish arrived and he assumed that they had dined here and stayed on to do a little drinking while they listened to Ralph Estey’s group. The third member of the trio had apparently stopped in recently for a drink, a slender, bespectacled man named Donald Tremaine, the younger brother of the dead man. Now, taking a second look, Standish identified him as the man who had appeared on the sidewalk while he had been administering to the fallen Estey.

  The element of coincidence that began to occupy the doctor’s thoughts came from the fact that the Tremaines and the Choates had spent the evening here on that fatal December night. The Choates had left earlier—Standish could not remember why—and the Tremaines were among the last to go. Robert Tremaine, as was his Saturday-night custom, was drunk. He had needed some help with his coat and getting out the door. Spuming the assistance of the doorman, he had started across the street toward the parking lot with his wife trying to support him. As he moved out between the parked cars, a sedan accelerating from a short distance down the street struck him before the driver could stop.

  The driver of that car was Jess Flemming, and it was Dr. Stan dish’s testimony that kept him from being charged with vehicular homicide.

  There had been a light snow earlier which had melted and left the pavements slick. Flemming had had one whiskey with a beer chaser at a workingman’s tavern down the street, and a quick blood test showed a negligible alcohol content. A prompt autopsy on Robert Tremaine substantiated the story of the witnesses, since the blood alcohol test was far above the legal maximum denoting drunkenness.

  The condition of the street, the darkness, the fact that Flemming had just started up and was still in second gear, were factors at the hearing, but the doctor’s testimony and the doorman’s story were sufficiently conclusive to absolve the driver. Flemming’s traffic record showed three convictions over a period of years, but with the absence of negligence or criminal intent the case became one for traffic court. Flemming was found guilty of reckless driving and a technical charge of “driving to endanger.” He had been fined one hundred dollars, with his license suspended for sixty days. . . .