Any Shape or Form (21 page)

“Do you remember the circumstances, Walter? The situation was strained; the ladies seemed to feel a good deal less than regard for each other. My remark might have produced an ironical comment from Miss Malcolm. I'm all for peace; I decided to let the episode pass, and to acquaint Miss Malcolm with the pin's secret at some safer moment.”

“But Mrs. Malcolm talked about a secret,” said Blanche irritably. “She said it was that concealed locket in the back of the pin.”

“Which is no secret at all. She pointed out a secret, but she didn't know what the real secret was. Well, it wasn't surprising that she didn't; Mr. Archibald Malcolm mightn't have known it himself—a man doesn't always know unimportant things about unimportant pieces of old family jewelry. But she said there was a secret, and mentioned the wrong one.”

“Funny,” said Redfield.

“But not funny enough to impress me at the time,” said Gamadge. “I'm not pretending that this ornament gave me the name of the murderer. I'm only saying that after I had formulated my theory, the Regard pin helped to strengthen it.”

Blanche gave a high, tremulous laugh. “Why Henry,” she said again, “what
do
you
mean
?”

G
AMADGE SAID: “I
mean that that having cleared the danger to Miss Malcolm out of the way—think what it would have meant if the police had found this and had asked questions!—we may now proceed to the main business of this meeting. You all realize that the murderer is with us here. Shall we—or rather will you—hold a court of your own? I must prosecute, but you are judge and jury. The defendant will offer us what extenuating circumstances there may be. You will then decide whether to call in the police and hand the accused over to justice, or to act in another way that I shall suggest.”

“An escape could be managed?” inquired Malcolm, looking about him with a smile.

“We haven't reached that stage of the proceedings, Mr. Malcolm.”

Drummond got up again. “Are we to take your word for it?” he asked. “About who's guilty?”

“I only intend to present you with the evidence, Walter. You must act on it as you see fit.”

“I'm wondering about the possibilities of a flight,” insisted Malcolm. “There's a policeman behind every bush.”

“Leave that to me, and let us get the trial over with. I open the case for the prosecution by reminding you that the accused is one of us; not an habitual criminal, therefore, but on the other hand not excusable on the score of having lacked privileges, education, and the teachings of tradition and civilized life.

“And though the accused may have acted twice under some dreadful provocation, perhaps even without premeditation in either case, we must offset that by the fact that this pin was planted here for one base purpose—to incriminate Miss Malcolm. Miss Malcolm had a very strong motive for doing away with her stepmother, she had the means and the opportunity for both crimes. This piece of evidence in my hand would certainly have turned the scale and condemned her to death.

“And this piece of evidence was meant to be found. If the police hadn't found it some hint would have sent them looking for it. The murderer, of course, couldn't find it or hint too strongly—that might suggest a plant, and that would be fatal to the person who had arranged the plant. Well, I've opened for the prosecution. We'll waive formalities. Anybody want to say anything now before I go on?”

Drummond said: “Gamadge—about the frame-up.”

“Yes, Walter?”

He cleared his throat. “I'm a lawyer; if I were speaking for the defense I'd make a suggestion here.”

“Let's have it.”

“Suppose the accused picked that pin up, as you said, on the road outside or somewhere. Wherever Cora dropped it. Stuck it in a lapel, say, as one does, meaning to return it. Then came in here to do the shooting, and it fell—where you found it; the party may have started by running that way, and then remembered that C—Miss Malcolm was up there.

“It would be an awful temptation afterwards—when the party realized it had been dropped—to say nothing and hope it wouldn't be found. I mean the frame-up mightn't have been premeditated, and for all we know the thing
wouldn't
have been found. The party may have meant to come back as soon as possible and get it. Nobody's had a chance yet. This is the first time anybody's been allowed to set foot here.”

“So it is. There's a slight element of coincidence in two people's dropping the thing—”

Cora said: “The catch is loose. I mean there is no safety catch.”

“Cora can't believe in the frame-up yet,” said her brother. “She never believed the pin would be found here.”

“Well, we must make a note of Drummond's point. Anybody else wish to say anything? No. Then we'll proceed,” said Gamadge, and balanced the gold heart on his palm.

“It was not until eight o'clock last night that I had a case, or the makings of one; but from the first the sun worshiper had interested me very much. She had puzzled me very much. In the first place, why was she a sun worshiper at all? She was supposed to have been a devotee of astrology, and she had kept her astral name. I had never heard of anyone deserting a pseudo-science like astrology for something even more remote from reason. Astrology is hedged in and defined by rules and calculations, its followers consider it a true science, and are guided in their daily lives and most important decisions by its forecasts and its warnings.

“But a sun cult? For all I know, ancient mysteries may have been revived and practiced in Southern California, esoteric rites connected with the worship of Apollo may be performed there; but it would be a very different thing from astrology to live by. And this sun worshiper talked of it vaguely, not to say flightily, and—what particularly interested me—dressed for it sketchily.

“One might have accepted any kind of pseudo-classical outfit, or even the sort of shapeless affair, on the lines of the djibbah, which would remind one of the worship of Ra, if not of Phoebus Apollo. One would at any rate have expected a definite costume, premeditated and designed. Vega's costume was quite obviously a house robe or tea gown—worn at ankle length, by the way, a length I was not familiar with in such garments; they always in my experience reach the floor. She wore with it a cord from a dressing gown or bathrobe, which assorted ill with the rich materials of the tea gown; modern and fashionable sandals for beach or country wear; and a wreath.

“Last night I went up to her room and examined her wardrobe. The cord had been taken from a bathgown, as I thought. The wreath had been removed from a summer hat. The yellow garment was one of three similar costumes, of similar length.

“There was an effect here of improvisation. But there was another implication too, one far more sinister than that of a hastily assembled costume for the role of sun worshiper. Apart from the loose, ankle-length tea gowns there was a complete wardrobe of conservative clothing, normally cut for a woman of her height and build, with hats and shoes to match.

“I will add another fact. When I first entered the room I found Mrs. David Malcolm there; she had come into the house unannounced, and was looking for her husband's room; she was going to wait for him there, and have a word with him in private. We exchanged a few words, and then she asked me who the dead woman was.

“But she knew that Mrs. Archibald Malcolm had been staying at Idlers, she knew that Mrs. Archibald Malcolm was an elderly lady. Why didn't she ask: ‘Can this be Mrs. Malcolm, my husband's stepmother, through whose death he would inherit a lot of money?' The matter was of burning interest to her, but she asked nothing of the kind.

“And when I said that it was Mrs. Archibald Malcolm's body, and she looked at the dead face, her own expressed nothing—nothing—but a vast astonishment.

“To sum up my conclusions:

“The ‘sun cult' had been invented by Vega after her arrival at Idlers, perhaps after she had seen the figure of Apollo—if such it be. She built up her invention with the help of garments that hung in her wardrobe.

“But there were two distinct sets of these garments; one set, plain and conservative, with all its accessories of hats and shoes, made and cut to fit a tall thin woman; the other set consisting only of three tea gowns, with matching sandals. These might have belonged to a shorter, stouter woman, with shorter feet; a woman of lively and luxurious tastes, and the means to gratify them. They, and the sandals, and the undergarments in the dresser, were the only articles from such a woman's wardrobe that ‘Vega' could possibly have worn; their looseness could be tied in with the cord, their shortness would not be as conspicuous as the shortness of a dress, and of course the sandals were heelless and toeless.

“Looking at the things in the top drawer of the dresser, I thought again of the Regard pin. It had been bought for reasons of sentiment—because it
was
a Regard pin; and therefore its secret and the history of its purchase were intertwined. Mrs. Archibald Malcolm might have known neither; but if she knew one she must have known both. That sort of detail goes together.

“But ‘Vega,' although she pretended to know the details and circumstances of its purchase, didn't know the secret of the pin, a secret inherent in the arrangement of the colored stones and the little diamond. I concluded that she therefore didn't know its history either, and that all her talk about the pin was pure invention, the kind of invention that is always used by an imposter, if there is no likelihood of contradiction, to show intimate knowledge of the family which the impostor claims to belong to. The young Malcolms evidently knew nothing about the pin; they knew no more about it than the impostor did.

“But it was through no fault of hers that I finally became convinced of her imposture. I became convinced of it when Mrs. David Malcolm showed amazement, nothing but amazement, at my announcement that the dead body was Mrs. Archibald Malcolm's. She showed amazement—quickly suppressed—because she knew it wasn't. At some time, and without the knowledge of David Malcolm, his sister, or Redfield, she had seen, perhaps had met, Mrs. Archibald Malcolm. It would have been like her to make the contact privately, for her own satisfaction.

“I realized at once that she was going to keep her astounding discovery to herself; and I could only think that she intended to use it for purposes of extortion or blackmail. I should never have left Idlers that night, and chanced the second murder, if I had not believed that she was leaving it too; and I had been told by Griggs that she would be under guard on her journey to Old Bridge and all last night.

“For she could only have blackmailed the one other person at Idlers who had known Mrs. Archibald Malcolm, and that person had committed murder as well as fraud, and might kill again in self defense. I might even, as it was, have been in time to prevent it, but Mrs. David Malcolm was a woman of action and had wasted not a moment in opening her campaign. Nor had her victim lost a moment before silencing her forever.

“I think the Drummonds, I think even the Malcolms will forgive me for leaving them in a state of anxiety—to put it mildly—for twelve hours. Miss Malcolm's pin was in this garden, and couldn't be found—without rousing the interest of the police—until daylight; and even by daylight I had to have an excuse for looking for it without police attendance. If they had known that it was here, no later explanation of mine might have sufficed to keep Miss Malcolm out of the case and out of the papers; and we all know that once a name is bracketed with evidence in a murder case, there will always be people to argue that the owner of the name belongs in the murder case; there are always people who can't be persuaded to forget that name; they ‘don't care what you say.'

“Moreover, I hadn't any theory until after eight o'clock last night—late for getting proofs of identification from Pasadena and the bank in Los Angeles. I wanted available proof before making my accusation, even to you; and I wanted my chance to hold this private court. So, I think, would you have wanted it, for we all liked Redfield.

“Well, Johnny.” Gamadge turned to look at him. “You were the only one of us who knew Mrs. Archibald Malcolm. You were the only one of us who might have had a legitimate errand here yesterday afternoon—if you didn't need the gardening gloves or the weeding spud, you certainly needed the basket; yours was much too full of marigolds. We know where Miss Gouch is, she's up at Idlers waiting to be viewed by a coroner's jury. But you must tell us where you buried Mrs. Malcolm.”

David Malcolm sprang to his feet, and swung to look at the piled squares of turf behind him. “Not there?” He swung back again to look at Gamadge. “Not there! The ground beneath hasn't been dug.”

“No,” said Gamadge, “not there. And not”—he put out his hand and sent the wooden image rocking—“not here. The base of this thing doesn't cover a foot of turf, and the grass hasn't been disturbed. Well, Johnny.” He turned once more to Redfield, who sat with his hands hanging between his knees, his head lowered and his eyes half closed. “Aren't you going to help us? Must I explain to your friends that it made no sort of difference whether this thing was Apollo, or Orpheus, or only a fancy figure off a bandwagon? It could have been of any shape, or form, couldn't it, so long as it had a back, and its back was turned to the woods? For who looks for a grave behind its monument?”

Redfield gestured vaguely with both hands; he did not raise his eyes.

“I know,” said Gamadge. “You don't want to look at it. But it was an ingenious arrangement; who disturbs underbrush when props are sunk in it—props to support a statue? Not your old occasional man, not the Wilson boy. Your gardener George would have been more inquisitive; you couldn't have risked the arrangement if he'd been here—he would have been sure to clear the underbrush away to see if the props were secure. What would he have uncovered? The lid of the old watering trough? Abby told me it was somewhere in this neighborhood. It would be wide and deep. It would hold Mrs. Malcolm's body, and the rest of her clothes, and all Miss Gouch's luggage.”