A Rare Murder In Princeton (9 page)

Then she set about getting organized for her next day’s class, and reading the students’ first essays. Their assignment had been to interview a person who was an expert in a specific subject—and it was easy to find such experts at Princeton. In fact, she looked forward to reading all her students’ stories on these people, and the ordinary task of evaluating their work helped to calm her.

When Clark arrived, he looked at the dresses and thanked her profusely. “I never could have found such a treasure trove,” he said, with no idea how aptly he spoke.

“What’s the play?” she asked him. He was a nice kid from Chicago who dressed a little more neatly than most of the other students.

“It’s a Molière,” he said. “
Les Femmes Savantes.
”

“
The Learned Ladies
—lovely,” she said.

“We’re doing it in modern dress,” he said. “Well, fairly modern. These dresses will make all the difference.”

“That should be fun,” she said.

The phone rang three times while Clark was there, but she did not answer it, knowing that her voice mail would take messages. After he left, she checked and found that George, Nat Ledbetter, and Dodo Westcott had called.

George first. He wanted to make sure she was all right. “I couldn’t talk to you when I saw you in the library. And I didn’t know you found the body,” he said.

“I saw it through the glass darkly, that’s all.”

“And raised the alarm,” said George. “I must say you looked quite shaken when I saw you this morning. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m all right. Honestly.”

“I’ll be home at a decent hour,” said George. “I’ll cook.”

“Fine. Shall I go to the store? I tried to get Chester to come to dinner tonight, but he’d rather I brought his supper to him. He lives close by—on Hibben Road. But I think I’ll call him and urge him again to come.”

“Chester? Oh, Chester Holmes, Philip Sheridan’s assistant. Sure, McLeod. Whatever you think best. I guess he is all alone now.”

McLeod called Nat Ledbetter, who told her that Rare Books would be closed to researchers for the rest of the week at the request of the police, who wanted it as undisturbed as possible. “They’re looking for the murder weapon,” said Nat. “It’s an all-out search, Lieutenant Perry said.”

“I see,” said McLeod. “I understand about closing Rare Books. Are there any out-of-town researchers who will be seriously inconvenienced?”

“One gentleman from California is working on Allen Tate material, but he says he can go to other libraries tomorrow and Friday and come back here Monday. I hope we’ll be able to reopen on Monday. And Barry Porter can easily wait until next week.”

“I hope so, too,” said McLeod. “Do the police know who did it yet?”

“No, they don’t. No obvious solution.”

“Thanks so much for calling me, Natty. I really appreciate it.”

Dodo Westcott was at home. “The police finally got around to talking to me,” she told McLeod. “It was a good thing you didn’t wait for me—they took forever. I couldn’t help them much. They wanted to know when I saw Philip last, and I said about four o’ clock Tuesday. I went in to talk to him about the annual dinner for the Friends of the Library. I had decided to see if he wanted to spring for champagne. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Champagne at a Friends dinner? We’ve never been able to afford it before.”

“Did he want to?” asked McLeod, interested in spite of herself.

“Actually, he did not,” said Dodo. “Rich as he is, or was, you’d think he would, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know. Rich people seem to be the most careful with their money. That’s why they have a lot of it; that’s what my father used to say.”

“I suppose so,” said Dodo. “Anyway, you must plan to come to the Friends’ annual dinner. It’s quite an occasion. But that’s not what I called about. Today the police kept asking me about when I left the library, or left Rare Books. I told them I was late getting away. Late for me, I mean. Of course, Philip was still alive when I left—I’m sure of that. But they want to talk to me again. McLeod, I’d like to talk to you before I see them again. Can we have lunch tomorrow ?”

“I can’t, Dodo. My seminar starts at one.”

“Would it be all right if I came over to see you right now?”

McLeod looked at her watch; it was four-thirty. She wanted more than anything to get home and have a drink with George and see about Chester, but Dodo sounded odd. “Sure, come on over,” she said.

Dodo said she’d be there in minutes. McLeod tidied up her desk—she thought she had better do this since she couldn’t close a door to hide the clutter—and decided she’d lock all the student papers in the file cabinet with the mysterious objects from the carton of dresses. The world seemed to have gone mad.

DODO WESTCOTT ARRIVED, looking somewhat worn, her cherry-colored suit rumpled and her face tired and lined.

McLeod met her downstairs and suggested they sit in the glassed-in sunporch since her office was so spartan and so open. It was close to five o’clock and the staff was leaving Joseph Henry House as McLeod and Dodo settled on a sofa. Frieda, the dark-haired, dark-eyed secretary, poked her head in the sun parlor door to explain that the doors were on automatic locks. “Just make sure the door you use is closed tight when you leave, McLeod.” She paused and declaimed dramatically: “ ‘O, it’s broken the lock and splintered the door . . . Their boots are heavy on the floor.’ ” In a more normal voice, she said, “That’s from Auden. Of course, we hope no one will break the locks, but at least we can lock the doors, can’t we?”

McLeod promised to close the door tightly, and turned her full attention to Dodo.

“This
is
nice of you to stay and talk to me. I’m terribly upset by what happened today . . .”

McLeod agreed that murder was unsettling.

“You see, I thought the world of Philip Sheridan,” said Dodo. “He was such a
gentleman.
There’s no other word for it. And he was so generous to the Friends . . .”

McLeod noted that just a little while ago Dodo had not thought Philip Sheridan was so terribly generous, when he turned down her request for champagne for the Friends’ dinner, but she had apparently decided not to speak ill of the dead again.

Dodo continued, “I don’t know what we’ll do without him. I can’t imagine who would want to kill him, can you?”

“No, I can’t, but then I don’t know anything about him, really. I presume he did get along with everybody at the library.”

“Of course he did. He was a towering figure. Everybody adored him. That’s what I tried to tell all those policemen. We all looked up to him.” Dodo paused and looked at her scarlet fingernails a long time. McLeod looked at them, too, and wished she could manage to find time to get regular manicures and keep her nails long and red. How did other women do it? She had never been able to accomplish this simple feat. “Well, nearly everybody adored him, that is. There was one exception, of course.”

McLeod wondered where all this was going. “Who was the exception?” she asked.

“Chester.”

“Really?”

“Chester and Philip had some terrible quarrels.”

“That’s amazing,” said McLeod. “I’d say that if anybody adored Philip Sheridan, it was Chester Holmes.”

“Of course, in a way, he adored him. But don’t they always say it’s the spouse who does the murder. Well, Chester wasn’t his
spouse,
but you know what I mean. People like that—those relationships—are always charged with such tension. Those people are always so sort of unbalanced—”

“Philip Sheridan, unbalanced?” said McLeod. “Dodo, be sensible. Think about it. Were they emotionally involved ? I got the impression that Chester was a faithful apprentice figure.”

“He must have been more than that,” said Dodo.

“He was good at the work he did at the library, wasn’t he?” said McLeod. “And it must have been a great help to Philip Sheridan at his age to have a young person living at the house. They weren’t inseparable.”

“I know, but don’t you think Chester maybe
wanted
them to be inseparable? If Philip had found somebody else, wouldn’t Chester have gone berserk?”

“Did Philip find somebody else?”

“He must have. What else would make Chester kill him?”

McLeod shook her head in an effort to clear it. Dodo was going in circles. “But surely you don’t know that Chester killed him? Do you?” McLeod asked.

“No, but as I said, it just seems logical to me,” said Dodo. “That kind of relationship breeds violence. You are the kind of person who sees people in the best possible light. I guess I’m more cynical, and I just believe that Chester killed Philip. It’s as simple as that.”

“It’s an interesting point of view,” said McLeod, keeping her voice neutral.

“Do you think I should tell the police?” asked Dodo.

“Tell the police what?”

“Tell them that Chester murdered Philip,” said Dodo.

“Dodo, do you have any evidence at all that Chester Holmes killed Philip Sheridan? Motive, means, opportunity —those are the things that count in a murder investigation. Do you have tangible, provable evidence about any of those things?”

“I see what you mean. I just have this strong gut feeling, and my husband says my intuition is incredible. I just seem to be able to psych things out.”

“That’s a remarkable gift,” said McLeod, wishing she was at home having a drink with George. Was she becoming an alcoholic, she wondered nervously. Wasn’t wishing for a drink a sign of addiction?

“I knew you’d understand,” said Dodo.

McLeod, who was far from understanding Dodo, shrugged. She stood up.

Dodo stood up, too, but more reluctantly. “I was hoping we could have a nice long chat about it. A real heart-to-heart. You’re so smart, McLeod. You have a mind like a meat cleaver. You cut right to the main issue.”

“Good heavens, Dodo. I don’t have a mind like a meat cleaver. It’s more like a can of hair spray. It just seizes on a cliché and hardens it into a fact.”

“Oh, no. I wanted to talk to you immediately. I think you have good sense.”

“Thanks, Dodo, but I’m not a good adviser. I get emotionally involved—I guess everybody does—and don’t always see an issue clearly.”

“Well, thanks for talking to me,” said Dodo. “I really appreciate it. I’ll wait and think it over before I tell the police about Chester. Where are you parked?”

“Down in the garage,” said McLeod.

“Oh, I’m right on Nassau Street. I found a metered place just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“Good for you, Dodo,” said McLeod. “I have to go upstairs to get my things, but you can go out this door. I’ll make sure it’s closed tight. I’m scared of Frieda. You know, she’s a regular martinet.”

“I bet you’re not scared of anybody,” said Dodo as she left. “Thanks so much. See you soon.”

“Hope so,” said McLeod. When she left, unburdened by the box of dresses she had brought that morning, she resolutely avoided the shuttle bus and walked down the hill to the garage, wondering about Dodo as she went. Why in the world had Dodo sought her out to try to blame Chester Holmes for the murder of Philip Sheridan?

 

AT HOME SHE found George in the kitchen. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “Dodo Westcott wanted to talk to me. Have you been to the store?”

“I have. I actually got away early. We have this new guy in public relations—Chuck Hammersmith—and he’s terrific. He handled the murder with the press quite well. Tom and I both left early—Tom said there would be so much to do tomorrow we’d better get away while we could.”

“That’s great. Who is the new guy? I always liked Jim Massey. Where is he?”

“He was fine,” said George, “but Chuck is better, I think. Jim got a good job at Stanford—he’s vice president. Anyway, I went by Wild Oats and got these felicitous filet mignons. I know you aren’t crazy about steak, but these really are superb.”

“I know. They look good. I’m delighted.”

“And I got some stuffed potatoes from Nassau Street Seafood. I’m just doing a salad. We’ll have a feast.”

“Lovely. What can I do?”

“Nothing. It’s all under control. Go sit down and I’ll come make us martinis in a jiffy.”

“Splendid. What a nice life I lead. But what about Chester?”

“I didn’t forget him. I bought three of everything. Call him. The phone would be listed under P. Sheridan.”

McLeod went upstairs to dump her stuff, and while she was up there, she changed into a woolly caftan she loved. Back downstairs, she looked up Sheridan’s number and dialed it.

Chester answered and said he believed he would come to dinner after all. He had found out how hard it was to be alone in the house on Hibben Road and he was very grateful. McLeod gave him the address on Edgehill, and relayed the news to George, who sighed.

“It’s an act of charity. And it’s our duty, but duty’s hard,” he said. “Let’s have a drink and I’ll finish up after he gets here. I guess I’d better build a fire.”