Vinton shrugged. “I had thought that I was through with this sort of thing for a while. But go on, Mr. O’Breen. Glad to help you if I can.”
“Mind you, I don’t want to seem to be digging up your past; all of us here know that you’ve gone straight, and we don’t want to hold your shipboard activities against you. But I’ve got to tell you something and to ask you something.”
“Go ahead.”
“What I have to tell you, you may know already from Kay: that Garnett hired me to check up on you—remember I didn’t have any idea who you were, much less that you were Kay’s fiancé—and that I managed to give him a pretty full report on your lurid past.”
“This is an outragel” Farrington spluttered. “Lieutenant, you are placing the conduct of this case in the hands of a man obviously prejudiced against my client!
“That’s all right,” Vinton said softly. “Let it go, Max. I can understand your position, O’Breen; it was a job, and you carried on with it. It’s no more to your discredit than it is to mine when a producer casts me in something terrible. Now what did you have to ask me?”
“I gave Garnett this report by phone on the day he was murdered. But was there any possible chance that even before that Garnett knew what you had been?”
Vinton was puzzled. “That’s hard to say. Acting a part isn’t so easy in life as it is on the stage or screen. There you have the author’s lines to go by, and as long as you’re a good study with some talent it’s smooth sailing. But in real life you have to compose your own lines as you go along, and it’s easy to slip up now and then. I know that I did slip occasionally, and I think Mr. Garnett noticed it. I’ve seen him look at me very strangely from time to time. That’s probably why he engaged you, and he may have done some thinking on his own in the meanwhile. In short, O’Breen, all I can say is that he might well have known who I was.”
“That’s enough, I think. Now Mr. Harding. I don’t like to disturb you, but I guarantee that this will not be a particularly exciting question.”
“Go ahead,” Harding nodded listlessly.
“Last night you told me that Mr. Garnett had his own methods of guarding his secrets, or at least used to make cryptic references to such things. Now have you any idea what those methods were?”
“Was that only last night?” Harding tried to sit up and concentrate his attention on the question. “He did say such things, yes; but I’m not at all sure what he meant by them. No, I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”
“It doesn’t matter; I’ve a pretty good idea myself, and we can check it later. Don’t look so puzzled, Andy; it really does fit in. Now one more question, and then we go to work in earnest—fireworks ’n’ everything. Client?”
Kay tried to smile. It wasn’t much use. “Yes, Detective?”
“You said your father had serious heart trouble. How soon would that have been likely to prove fatal?”
“Dr. White said you couldn’t know for sure about those things; but he warned Father that it might be within a few months.”
“Who else knew about that?”
“I remember Father told us about it one evening when we were all sitting in the study. He seemed almost pleased, as though he had a strong new adversary now. I was really frightened. …”
“And who do you mean by ‘all’?”
“The family—Uncle Arthur and Camilla and Will.”
“And you, Mr. Vinton?”
“I don’t remember whether Kay told me, or Mr. Garnett himself. At any rate, I knew.”
“Fine. Now we can get going. Let’s start out by looking for the motive that must have been behind this whole business. That means more than just a motive for killing Humphrey Garnett. It means a complex triple motive, and I don’t think you’ll find many people it could fit. In fact, I don’t think you’ll find more than one.
“The first essential of this crime was Garnett’s death. Now who profits by that? I’m just being frank and logical, so for God’s sake let’s not have any indignant innocence. Kay, of course, as residuary legatee—which, I gather, means a great deal. Miss Sallice, for twenty thousand dollars. Did you know about that?”
“Yes. Uncle Humphrey told me when he changed the will. I remember we laughed about it and said by the time he died I’d be such a famous singer it wouldn’t make any difference to me. …”
“Will Harding,” Fergus went on, “for ten thousand. Now don’t get excited—this is just some more frankness. Although you say you didn’t know about the new will, you did admit, when we read that outdated carbon, that you’d expected some sizable bequest for your researches. Besides, still in the abstract, you could have learned earlier about the true meaning of Garnett’s secret researches and staged that big surprise scene for my benefit. This would have added an idealistic hate to your motive and made it murder for profit and conviction at once.”
“This is no way,” said the male nurse, “to keep a guy quiet and restful.”
“Sorry. I’ll go easy. But we’ve got to get the facts clear. Mr. Vinton’s possible motives have been subjected to more than enough scrutiny already. And I suppose, for the sake of the record, we ought to include the man you’ve all known as Maurice Warriner. Tell ‘em, Colonel.”
And Rand told them.
“The man is a menace!” Max Farrington exclaimed above the resultant excitement. “Why, Lieutenant, has he not been taken into custody? There’s the answer to your whole problem!”
Jackson shrugged. “Take it easy, Mr. Farrington. We know our business, and if he’s to he found we’ll find him. But I’m not so sure the problem is as simple as all that. Go on, Fergus.”
“Thanks, Andy. We’ll take up that point later. But to resume this fascinating little analysis—there’s one flaw about all these motives that depend on the will. None of these suspects was in dire and instant financial need; and all of them except Warriner knew about Garnett’s heart. If the motive was nothing more than money, the murderer should have been willing to wait a few months and see if maybe the legacy would tumble into his lap as a gift from the gods of aneurysm.
“Now we come to the second essential of the crime—the framing of Richard Vinton. We can’t doubt that such a frame was planned. The fingerprints, which seemed at first so all-convincing, are now Vinton’s best proof of innocence. That glass was wiped off, or it would have shown at least Garnett’s own prints and Miss Sallice’s; and no murderer is going to polish up a nice bright surface just to leave an unusually clear sample of his own prints. I thought that possibly Vinton might have been inveigled into handling the glass some time that evening after the other prints had been wiped off it—I mean, of course, before the murder, because it was handled later by someone with gloves.”
Rand looked over at Vinton, and saw a sudden expression of fierce exasperation cross the young actor’s face.
“Vinton’s own evidence, however, disposes of that idea. The only conclusion left is that the fingerprints were forged with a stamp. Lieutenant Jackson has pointed out that they were far more clearly and regularly imprinted than you’d expect from ordinary handling. And despite all the popular ideas on the subject, the forging of fingerprints is perfectly possible. Check, Lieutenant?”
Jackson nodded. “It can be done.”
“But there’s even more convincing evidence of a plant, and that is the jack of diamonds which was supposed to be the dying man’s accusation of his murderer. An accidental false trail from this card led us to Arthur Willowe; but disregarding that, we see that it must refer to the notorious episode on the Cunarder. And that ties in with the telegram, another part of the plant, and its reference to a mysterious ‘Hector.’ Hector is the name of the jack of diamonds in the French pack.
“Now the effect was supposed to be this: Garnett realizes he’s been poisoned. He wants to leave a message which will proclaim his murderer’s identity. He’s already too far gone to write, so his lightning mind thinks of the jack of diamonds, which will mean Vinton-Massey to Colonel Rand
, and he grabs that card. But the flaw here is that the pack from which the card was taken was not disarranged. That pack was sorted in suits and order, so that he couldn’t have just grabbed the top card, seen that was the one he wanted, and let it go at that. He’d have had to burrow down to find it. But still that pack was stacked in perfect order, with the jack of diamonds missing from some place in the middle.
“So we can see that the crime was aimed at Richard Vinton just as much as at the ostensible victim, Humphrey Garnett. But now how about the third objective—the death of Arthur Willowe? The Lieutenant here can’t think of anything better, so he says that Willowe was killed because, as they say in the classics, He Knew Too Much. Now I doubt that, but it’s something you can’t prove either way. If Willowe did learn something by accident, only he and his murderer know what it was. But let me point out this: In hearing of the Lieutenant’s nominee, Miss Sallice announced that she had ideas of her own which she was afraid to tell me yet and that she’d sleep on them. And sleep she did, and nothing happened to her. I think the only reason why Andy holds on to this quasi motive for Willowe’s death is that he knows damned well none of you had any other reason for wishing that poor old man out of the way.
“But,” Fergus said theatrically, “I still claim that his death was an essential and integral part of the whole plot. By now, in this brief summary, we’ve learned a lot about the murderer. He wanted Humphrey Garnett dead, and for some reason other than or in addition to a legacy. He wanted Richard Vinton disgraced and put out of the way, preferably for good and all. He knew the poisonous contents of the laboratory well. He knew about Vinton’s past. He wanted the death of Arthur Willowe. He had the intricate mind which could conceive and carry out an elaborate plot, and the orderly mind which would automatically straighten up the pack from which he’d taken a card.
“Does any one of you recognize that description?”
Rand looked around the circle. There was nervous apprehension on every face, but not that of guilt. It was the terror of wondering on whom the blow would fall. Even Max Farrington, despite his recent outburst, seemed completely captured by the power of Fergus’ reasoning; and Jackson, though mental reservations showed in his frown, leaned forward absorbed in the narrative.
“There is one person in this household,” Fergus resumed, “and only one, of whom all those things can be said.”
Rand could bear it no longer. He brought forth his loudest “harrumph” to date and shouted, “Young man, will you come to the point?”
“Gladly, Colonel Rand.” But Fergus could not resist one more brief pause. “That one person is—was—Humphrey Garnett.”
XXIV
Fergus Ties the Knot
Hand grenade,” Rand thought, was decidedly an understatement to describe this revelation. For a moment the entire group was paralyzed with shock. Then they all began talking at once.
From Kay: “Not Father! He never could have—”
From Camilla: “Uncle Humphrey! I can’t believe—”
From Vinton: “By Jove, O’Breen, I think you’ve hit it!”
From Max Farrington: “Brilliant, O’Breen! Astounding!”
The restraining hand of the nurse kept Will Harding from joining in the excited chorus; but his gray eyes were strangely eager.
Lieutenant Jackson waited for a silence. Then, as the exclamations gave way to wordless wonder, he said, “Go on, Fergus. I’m reserving judgment; the idea’s too damned dazzling right offhand. How’s about a little reconstruction?”
“All right. Look. Here’s how I size it up. Garnett puts together all Vinton’s accidental slippings-out-of-character and adds them to Colonel Rand’s familiar narrative of old Vantage and the card sharp. He engages me to check up on it; but even though he doesn’t take his final step until he’s had my report, he’s pretty damned certain in his own mind. He resolves that no daughter of his shall ever marry such a man.
“But, he reasons, she seems to love the fellow very dearly. If he just ups and forbids the banns, she’ll say, ‘Father, I defy you!’ and marry him anyway. Of course, he can cut them off from his fortune; but so far as he knows, Vinton is making good money in pictures and that wouldn’t prevent the match. Besides, he wouldn’t want to alter his will until he knew definitely that Kay would disobey him; and then, with his shaky heart, the very shock of her defiance might kill him, and Vinton would come into the money anyway.
“This point—I may be getting a little novelistic in my reconstruction here, but it still makes sense—reminds him that he has to die very soon at any rate; and he conceives this devilish idea of turning his death into a weapon against Vinton. He works out the whole elaborate scheme: the telegram, the playing card, the fingerprints. Then he realizes the danger that someone might see through it. How much more convincing the whole thing will be if there are two murders! Then no one will think the first one might he suicide.
“He’s always had a complete contempt for Arthur Willowe. It doesn’t matter a damn to him whether the ineffectual little man lives or dies. And if his death could he made to serve a purpose—So Willowe gets elected as the second victim. Some time on the afternoon before his own death, Garnett sticks that curare-tipped needle into the pillow on his brother-in-law’s couch. He knows that Willowe won’t lie down there until the scheduled time for his nap the next morning—long after Garnett himself will be dead. With decent luck, he counts on the needle doing just what it did do—sticking into the skin and being lifted out of the pillow when Arthur rolls over in death, so that it looks as though somebody had pricked him with it. What he doesn’t count on is the fact that Willowe is bound to be caught up in the police investigation that morning and not get a chance to use his napping couch until the following day, when Richard Vinton is well out of the way as a suspect.
“This was one of his three serious slips. The other two happen when he makes his preparations that night. After he picks out the jack of diamonds from the pack, he automatically straightens up the cards again. And he’s so eager to make the forged fingerprints stand out clear that he wipes all the others off the glass first. But he thinks he has the stage all set to represent himself being murdered by Vinton. If a poison container was to be found anywhere near the body, that might start people thinking ‘suicide,’ so he takes the glass back to the laboratory and pours the poison into it out there. At the same time he has another little task. There’s the stamp with which he makes Vinton’s fingerprints. If that’s found, the whole damned scheme goes agley. What he probably does is melt it down in a crucible and get rid of it in a trash receptacle.
“Then he comes back to the study and drinks his death, in complete and perfect satisfaction. He realizes that Kay, being young and loving, might well have married a reformed rascal despite her father’s command; but he knows that she will never marry a man who seems to be her father’s murderer—especially, of course, if the State has effectively disposed of him. Garnett has solved his dilemma by merely shoving his death ahead a month or two; and incidentally he’s worked out a problem which must have made his too intricate mind even happier than if he’d really succeeded in inventing that five-pack solitaire.”
Fergus halted and looked at the Lieutenant. “Well, Andy?”
“It’ll do for the time being. The press will love it, and it’s enough to stave Norris off and give me a free hand. I can point out to him what a good defense attorney could do with that story if we tried to pull off an arrest now.”
The grudging quality of this praise failed to alter the beam on Fergus’ face. In his contentment at having solved the case, he had quite forgotten his dutifully conceived idea of appropriate sorrow. Vinton, Rand observed, looked frankly relieved that the ordeal was at an end. Kay, however, seemed painfully torn between joy at the end of all the suspense and horror at this frightful picture of her father.
“Of course,” the Lieutenant went on, “we’ll know a damned sight more once we lay our hands on Warriner. With a record like his, it’ll take m
ore than your theory to—”
“Damn!” Fergus snapped his fingers. “I left that out, didn’t I? Sorry, Andy—you’d think I was trying to hold out on you. But I thought you’d have guessed by now.”
“Guessed what?”
“Where Warriner is.”
Jackson was on his feet. “You’ve known all this time?”
“Sure. He’s right where he has been all along—right where you left him.”
“Where I left him? Why, I’ve never seen the man in my—”
“I know. But just the same you went to a lot of trouble to seal him up in that laboratory.”
Colonel Rand, when he recalled the case later, liked to forget the next quarter of an hour. Nothing else had brought home to him so sickeningly the dull fact of death. The loss of his friend Garnett had saddened him immeasurably; he had deeply regretted the passing of Alicia’s brother, the sole remaining link to the days of his youth. Beside these sorrows, the death of such a petty villain as Maurice Warriner should have affected him not at all.
But he had not seen their bodies. Sight is more starkly convincing than hearing. It is one thing to hear that a man is dead and quite another to see stiff limbs, a strangled face, and popping eyeballs.
“Curare again!” Fergus had said instantly, and Jackson had nodded.
Rand had turned away, gagging, while Jackson had hastened to make the necessary calls to his headquarters and the coroner’s office. What was it the poor rogue had said—“the skeletal sparseness of death …” He looked sparse enough now—his gaunt body sprawled on the floor of the closet, while his goggling eyes probed blindly for the secrets he would never find. …
Then they were back on the sun porch, and Jackson was explaining what they had found. Uncomprehendingly the others looked at him. It was the efficient Farrington who finally spoke.
“But I don’t understand, Lieutenant. How did he get into the sealed room and who followed him there to kill him? And above all, why? Has this nightmarish case begun all over again?”
The Case of the Crumpled Knave Page 16
