Death of a doxy, p.14
Death of A Doxy, page 14
I don't think she heard me. I had moved up a couple of the yellow chairs, and she went to one and sat. Julie went and took the other one, and I returned the pistol to my pocket, sat at my desk, and told Julie, "You have met Mrs. Fleming."
She nodded. "That was in her bag? How did you get it?"
"Took it. It didn't fire those shots Saturday night." I eyed Stella. "Your husband shot at Miss Jaquette Saturday night, but missed. That's why I asked where he keeps his rifle."
She gawked at me. "What? My husband what?"
"He tried to kill Miss Jaquette. That's breaking it to you gently, Mrs. Fleming, there's much worse to come. I told you on the phone that I have found the right man. The reason Miss Jaquette is here is that she helped me find him. I guess the best way is to show you a copy of a letter she sent to your husband last Friday." I opened a drawer and got it. "She wrote it by hand; this is a typewritten copy. Shall I read it?"
She looked at Julie. "A letter you sent my husband?"
"Yes."
She put a hand out. "Let me see it."
I passed it over. She went through it fast and then read it again, slow. She looked at Julie. "What's it about? Who is Milton Thales?"
Julie looked at me, and she shouldn't have. She was supposed to be collaborating. I widened my eyes a little, and she went back to Stella. "Your husband," she said. "He is Milton Thales. I said in that letter that Isabel told me everything, but the one thing she didn't tell me was the name of the man who was paying her bills, so I have to call him X. You're the only one she told his name to, and –"
"She didn't tell me his name."
"She told me she did tell you. Isabel wasn't a liar."
That was more like it. What a girl. She was going on. "So when X got a phone call from a man who knew all about it and told X to send him money, a thousand dollars a month, to mail it to Milton Thales, General Delivery, and X told Isabel, she knew Milton Thales must be your husband. Because no other man could know what Milton Thales knew. Isabel knew you must have told your husband, and he –"
"I didn't tell my husband."
"You must have, because if –"
I cut in. "It's no good, Mrs. Fleming. That's nailed down. Your husband got that letter Saturday morning. At one o'clock he phoned Miss Jaquette at her hotel. At half past two he came in person. I was there with Miss Jaquette. He told us he hadn't brought the five thousand dollars he had screwed out of X because the bank wasn't open. He said he would bring it Monday. Today. What time did he get home Saturday night?"
No answer. She was staring at me.
"I know he got home late, because at half past one he was behind the wall in Central Park with either a rifle or a revolver, shooting at Miss Jaquette across the street when we got out of a taxicab. I brought Miss Jaquette home with me, here, so we don't know if he has tried to get in touch with her today, and we don't care. The point is, you did tell him X's name, and he did blackmail X, and Isabel knew it. That's settled."
She was clawing, but not at me. Her hands were resting on her knees, with the fingers curled, and she was scraping at her palms with her nails. "I can't believe it," she said, so low that I barely heard. She said louder, "I can't believe it."
"That's hard," I said, "but there's harder. This isn't nailed down, but it can be. As it stands now, it's what Isabel told Miss Jaquette. She not only told her about the blackmailing, she also told her that she was going to tell your husband that she had decided to tell you about it. When I first heard that, from Miss Jaquette, I wondered why the police were holding Orrie Cather instead of your husband, but then Miss Jaquette told me she hadn't told the police about the blackmailing at all. You can ask her why; I think it was because she didn't realize what it might mean. The police would have realized it. If she had told them about the blackmailing, all that Isabel told her, your husband would now be in jail, either along with Orrie Cather or instead of him, as a murder suspect. And when we tell them about his coming to see Miss Jaquette Saturday afternoon, and his trying to kill her that night, that will settle that. They'll get the evidence, for instance his movements the morning Isabel was killed, and he'll be booked for murder, and tried, and probably convicted. I told you on the phone that I have found the right man, and I have. Barry Fleming."
She had stopped the clawing and made fists, and had nodded three times as I talked – little involuntary nods, without knowing she was doing it, like the shake of her head when I told her that Orrie Cather might have been the one who was paying the rent. Now she whispered to herself, "That's why."
I didn't ask her why what, because I wasn't after evidence. You want evidence in order to prove something to the District Attorney or a judge or a jury, and that wasn't the program. Her "why" was probably something, or things, he had said or done – for instance, where he had said he had been, but hadn't, the morning Isabel was killed. Whatever it was, it made it a lot simpler than I had thought it would be. I had expected her to throw at least three fits, especially after finding the toy in her bag, and there she was whispering to herself.
Julie said, "You don't have to club her."
That was unnecessary, so I ignored it. What the hell, she had brought a gun, even if she had had no idea what for. Probably to mow me down if I called Isabel a doxy. "You may wonder," I told Stella, "why we wanted to discuss it with you. Since it's practically certain that he killed Isabel, why didn't we just tell the police? Of course we'll have to, but I haven't forgotten what you told me that day, that your sister's reputation was the most important thing in the world. I know nothing about your relations with your husband, but I thought it was possible you could do something. You might persuade him to go to the police and admit he killed her, and give an entirely different reason, some reason that would leave out the blackmailing and X and everything you don't want to come out. I don't know if that's possible, but I thought you ought to have the chance. We can't wait long, not more than a day or two. Say Wednesday morning."
"This is Monday," she said. She was getting her voice back.
"Right."
"I want that letter."
It had dropped to the floor when she started the clawing, and I had picked it up and put it on my desk. "It's just a typewritten copy," I said.
"I want it."
I got it, folded it, and handed it to her. She said, "The gun."
"When you leave. Whose is it, yours or your husband's?"
"It's his. He has medals for shooting." She put the letter in her bag, looked at Julie, and said, "You. It was people like you."
"Nuts," Julie said. "Anybody can say that to anybody. You mean I was bad for Isabel. I was a lot better for her than you were. I really loved her, but what about you? From what she told me, what –"
That did it. I had relaxed some, and she was so damned sudden. Her lunge at Julie was so fast that she was on her before I moved, and again it wasn't my fault that Julie didn't get hurt, at least some good scratches. Julie jerked her knees up, and with her feet off the floor the impact toppled her and the chair backward. Stella would have been on top, but by that time I was there and had her shoulders from behind. I pulled her off and up and pinned her arms, but she said, "I'm all right," and she was. The fit had gone as fast as it came. Julie scrambled up, took a swipe at her hair, and said, "You can club her, for all I care."
Wolfe's voice came, his coldest voice. "Mrs. Fleming."
We all turned. He was in the doorway. "Mr. Goodwin was too generous," he said, "giving you until Wednesday morning. Tomorrow morning at the latest. Get her out, Archie." He headed for his desk.
Stella's eyes followed him to his chair, then she looked around, evidently for her bag. I picked it up from where she had dropped it, put the gun in it, said, "I'll give it to you at the door," and moved, and she came.
Chapter 16
At four o'clock Julie was in a chair by a window in the South Room, deeply interested, if you go by appearances, in a magazine, and I was standing in the doorway. We weren't speaking. I had asked her if I should ring the Ten Little Indians to tell them she wouldn't come this evening, or would she rather do it herself, and she had said neither one, she was going, and I had said she wasn't. The conversation had got very outspoken. At one point she had asked me to tell her Saul Panzer's number so she could call him and ask him to come and take her, since I didn't want to expose myself. At another point I said that I doubted if more than half of the customers would leave when they learned that she wouldn't appear. At still another she asked if I actually meant that she was being held there by force, against her will, and I said yes. By four o'clock it became apparent that we weren't going to be speaking.
Then the sound came of the elevator groaning its way up, and she raised her head to listen. When the groaning stopped and the sound came of the door opening above, she tossed the magazine on the table, got up, and walked. As she approached the doorway I politely moved aside, and she passed through, went to the stairs, and started up. She was either going to appeal to the owner of the house or help him with the orchids, and as far as I was concerned it didn't matter which. I went down the two flights to the office, called the Ten Little Indians, and said that Miss Jaquette had a cold and wouldn't be able to make it. I didn't say where she was because they might send someone with flowers and she didn't need any up there.
Being a warder, I couldn't go for a walk, and anyway I had to catch the news broadcasts every half-hour to learn if there had been any development worth reporting in a murder case, for instance that a man named Barry Fleming had been taken to the District Attorney's office for questioning in connection with the murder of his sister-in-law. There hadn't. I spent the two hours at the files and my desk, with the germination records. It helps, at a time like that, to have something to do that needs only one small corner of your mind, like entering on cards such items as the results to date of a cross between Odonto-glossum crispo-harryanum x aireworthi or Miltonia vexillaria x roezli.
When they came down together in the elevator at six o'clock, I was too busy even to turn my head, but I became aware of a presence near my right shoulder, and a voice asked, "Can I help?"
So we were speaking. I said, "No, thanks."
"Did you phone?"
"Yeah, you have a cold."
"Has anything happened?"
"Yes. We have made up. Apparently."
"Oh, I never nurse a huff. Anyway, I knew you were right. I just wanted to see how mean you could get. One thing I could have said, I could have threatened to call a cop. Evidently the one thing you and Nero can't stand is for anybody to tell a cop anything. It's been more than four hours since she left. Damn it, what's she doing?"
That was the second time I had ever heard a woman call him Nero, but the other time it had been a gag. For Julie it was just natural. If she stayed two days and two nights in a man's house, and ate with him, and collaborated with him, and helped him with his orchids, it would have been silly to call him Mister. If she got the fifty grand and picked a college that wasn't too far away, I might drop in after she had been there a while to see what effect she was having. It was a cinch that she would have more effect on it than it would have on her.
I accepted her offer to help with the germination records.
At the dinner table Wolfe didn't repeat his performance of the day before. It was no longer necessary to quiz her, and he put her in her place by discussing the difference between imagination and invention in literature. She did get a word in now and then. Once when his mouth was full of sweetbreads she said, "You're talking over my head on purpose. Show me one thing in one book and ask me if it's imagination or invention and I'll tell you every time, and let's see you prove I'm wrong." That's no way to talk to a man who is doing his best to prepare you for college.
While Fritz was pouring after-dinner coffee in the office, Julie said, "I'd give a brand-new dollar bill to know what she's doing. What's her number? I'll call her."
"Yeah," I said.
She looked at Wolfe. "You get on my nerves because you haven't got any. You wouldn't give a rusty nickel to know what she's doing."
"Why should I?" he growled, and sipped coffee.
It was obvious that they had had enough of each other for a while, and when we had finished with the coffee I took her down to the basement. The basement has Fritz's room and bath, a storeroom, and a large room with a pool table. I had mentioned it to her, and she had said she would like to learn how to use a cue, and it might take her mind off of Stella Fleming, not to mention mine. But she didn't get her pool lesson. I had taken the cover off, and picked a cue for her, and racked the balls, when the doorbell rang. If I hadn't caught her arm she would have beaten me to the stairs, and she was right at my heels when I reached the hall and took a look at the front.
"My God," she said, "she hashed it." I stepped to the office door and told Wolfe, "Cramer." He looked up from his book and tightened his lips. I told Julie, "Go to the kitchen and stay there." The doorbell rang. Julie went, but not to the kitchen, to the alcove, where the hole was. I said, "If you sneeze, I'll boil you in oil," and went to the front and opened the door.
From the look Cramer gave me, he was set to boil me in oil whether I sneezed or not. That was all he had for me, the look. By the time I had his coat hung up he was at the office door, and when I got there he was already in the red leather chair and talking. He was saying, "… and you knew Barry Fleming fired those shots, and I want to know how you knew. You also knew Barry Fleming had killed Isabel Kerr, and I want to know how you knew that."
Good-by, fifty grand, I thought as I crossed to my desk. They had Fleming, and ten to one they would open him up, no matter how Stella had handled him. Maybe they already had.
Wolfe said, "You're fuming, Mr. Cramer."
"You're damn right I am."
"Then you're at a disadvantage. Don't you want to compose your mind?"
"I want you to answer questions!"
"If I know the answers. You say that I knew that Barry Fleming killed Isabel Kerr. I remind you that last evening I told you that I had no evidence that would help to convict anyone of that murder, that I had only a surmise. I repeat that. I still have no evidence. Have you?"
"Yes."
"Is Barry Fleming in custody?"
"No." Cramer's jaw was set. "Look, Wolfe. You've got what you wanted. You wanted to spring Cather, and you've worked it. He's clear. Now. I don't need evidence for Fleming, even if you've got it. I want some facts. I want to know if Barry Fleming fired those shots at Julie Jaquette, and if so why."
Wolfe's shoulders went up an eighth of an inch and down again. "Is that important? Important to you? Since you have him for murder – or have you? You say he's not in custody. If by any chance you think I have him here, waiting for you, I haven't. Is it –"
"You haven't got him here. He's dead."
"Indeed. By violence?"
"Yes."
A corner of Wolfe's mouth twisted up. "Mr. Goodwin and Miss Jaquette and I haven't left the house all day. So if you had any expectation –"
"Oh, cork it. He shot himself. About three hours ago. In the temple with a Bristol twenty-two automatic. It was his, he had a permit. And I want –"
"If you please. At his home?"
"Yes. I –"
"Was a policeman there? Had he been questioned?"
"No. If you –"
"Then how the devil do you know he killed Isabel Kerr? How do you know anything at all? Don't expect me to clear it up. I have told you twice, I have no evidence –"
"Goddammit, I don't need evidence. Not about Isabel Kerr. If you want it about him, okay. When he got home this afternoon, he and his wife had a talk, she says, and he wrote something and signed it. She went out to buy some groceries and was gone about half an hour and when she went back he was dead. How do I know he killed Isabel Kerr? She had it, what he wrote and signed."
He got a piece of folded paper from his breast pocket. "It has been checked with his handwriting, but the laboratory will verify it." He unfolded it. "It's his printed letterhead. Dated today." He read:
"To Whom It May Concern:
I hereby state and acknowledge that on Saturday, January 29, 1966, I struck my sister-in-law, Isabel Kerr, on the head with an ashtray and killed her. It was not premeditated. I did it in an uncontrollable frenzy of anger and resentment. The resentment had been festering for three years. She had been living in great luxury and my wife and I were paying for it. All of my savings were gone, and with my small salary I would soon be at the end of my rope, but she would not listen to reason, and my wife was so devoted to her that she would not do what had to be done. That Saturday morning I tried once more to persuade Isabel, but could not, and I lost control of myself and hit her. I did not mean to kill her, but I do not expect forgiveness, even from my wife. My wife insists that I must write this so that she will have evidence of the circumstances of Isabel's death. She has given me no promises and I do not know what she will do with it.
Barry Fleming"
Cramer folded it and returned it to his pocket. "Naturally, the first thing you'll say, and I said, is that he doesn't say he's going to kill himself. No good-by. But they often don't. The gun was there on the floor, and the bullet went through his right temple at the right angle. She talked a little to the precinct man, but now she's out, completely out, under sedation. Of course we'll get at her later, but I'm not expecting much. I'm spilling this to you because it settles the Kerr thing and you might as well know it, but it doesn't settle everything. The shots that were fired at Julie Jaquette. You told me yesterday that you didn't know who fired them."
"I didn't. I still don't."
"That's a goddam lie."
"I lie only when I must. Now it isn't necessary. I told you yesterday that I suspected there was a connection between the murder of Isabel Kerr and the shots fired at Miss Jaquette, that I could guess, but I didn't know." Wolfe turned a hand over. "Mr. Cramer. There are certain details that I don't intend to divulge, and anyway, you don't need them now and would have no use for them. The murder is solved, and the culprit is dead. But not only are you a policeman with duties, you are also a man with the itch of curiosity, and furthermore I gall you. So I tell you this: I learned, no matter how, who was supplying the money for Isabel Kerr's luxurious way of life, and certain facts about it, and that led me to my surmise that Barry Fleming had killed her. I also learned, again no matter how, that Barry Fleming feared that Miss Jaquette would disclose certain facts which he thought she had got from Isabel Kerr, and therefore she was in danger and should be protected. I did not know he fired the shots; I don't know it now. As for lying, I give you my word of honor that what I have just told you is completely true. Miss Jaquette is still here, and you may see her if you have time to waste; I presume she would chaff you as she did yesterday."
