Experiment in Crime (7 page)

There is a dock where my son keeps his fishboat. He's outside fishing now. For Lord's sake, go back and see the danged ferns!"

The professor drove past the dilapidated garage and proceeded beneath the locked branches of trees toward a spot of water shining at the end of the long, green tunnel.

Inside her bee-hat, Bedelia was chuckling.

Presently she said, "There are the danged ferns."

"And the marl!"

They got out. The ruts in the road were deep. They showed signs of frequent use.

He bent over. The alternating diamonds and dots of automobile tires were plainly embossed here in the earth. "This is it," he murmured.

They walked toward the water, mosquitoes rising about them. The trees thinned and the ferns began. They were perhaps four feet in height, and the fronds of dozens had been broken off by whatever had passed on the road.

The water off the end of the wharf beyond was disappointingly shallow. Two feet, perhaps--weed beds and sand shoals. Sun-blanched tree limbs marked what was not so much a channel as the least shallow approach from the light blue sea over the distant reef and the far, purple line of the Gulf Stream. A lazy chop splashed on the low, white clay like shore. The lighthouse was a distant, dim finger. No boats were in view--nothing save the flat prospect of the ocean and the cloud-patterned sky. The dock foundation had been in place for a long time. But its jerry-made decking was nailed on two-by-eights and could be hauled inland at the prospect of rough weather.

The old man limped out on the wharf behind them. Professor Burke noticed the sag of his right suspender and the bulge in his pants pocket. "Find the still?" he chuckled.

"We found the ferns," Bedelia answered. "And small thanks to you!"

"Don't like snoopy people."

"No more do I like tobacco-chewing old gaffers!"

There was a clearing where a vehicle could be turned. Professor Burke spun his wheels in the deepest, slipperiest hole. Then they were on the road--the insects left behind. Bedelia removed the bee-hat. "Now what?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I don't believe I really expected we'd find anything.

However, we have found quite a bit. The car did go to that wharf--and that wharf is on the sea side of a Key. Boats could be rowed up to it. At high tide, one of the commercial fishermen's boats might get in. A light down there at night would be visible for several miles. But it does seem a devilishly unlikely and inconvenient place to bring anybody ashore. And if it was at all rough, it wouldn't be possible."

"Which may be the reason they use it. So unlikely."

"Quite." He drove frowningly. "What I must do, is reconnoiter."

"Reconnoiter? 'Way down here?"

"My vacation," he reminded her. "And it need be only on calm nights--as you point out. I'll watch."

"Shouldn't you go to the police?"

"They would laugh at me. We need definite information."

She shook her head. "You can't watch, Martin. Don't you realize the insects would eat you alive? Especially on the kind of nights when they could land there. Still nights.

That's probably one more reason they use such a spot."

"Insects!" he said. "Mosquitoes and sand flies! One would hardly be rendered
hors de combat
by a few pests."

It does not require a profound philosophy to expose the ironies of life. And one of the ironies is this: the good deed of a good man may be observed by thousands and will be forgotten in a day, but any appearance of scandalous behavior in a decent citizen will get itself bruited about indefinitely. The good repute of Professor Burke was caught in this process, by an almost expectable chance. On the evening of his visit with Double-O

Sanders, two undergraduates had been dancing in the patio of the Bombay Royale Hotel.

As they came through the lobby to summon their car and start home, they saw two persons emerge from an elevator.

The girl undergraduate said, "Why--there's Professor Burke--and a babe! Who would have imagined such a thing?" Naturally, they hung back a little and thus observed the good-night kiss tendered to the professor by the" young lady.

By evening of the day following, the story had progressed through a considerable portion of the student body.

Because of it, Miss Marigold Macey was listless the next morning at breakfast.

Her mother noticed it as she quietly engineered the juice squeezer, the toaster, the percolator and the waffle griddle. Her brother noticed it vaguely as he studied the brief of a law case. And her father finally became aware of it as he perused the paper. It annoyed him.

"What in hell," he enquired, "is the matter with you?"

"Matter?" Marigold temporized.

"Nibbling at your waffle! Rolling toast crumbs!"

"Jizzling," her brother added, without looking up.

"Well," Marigold said, "I'm in love."

Both men now looked at her. Both said, "Again!"

"This time," the girl said morosely, "it's different."

"It's different every time," her mother murmured.

The judge glanced sharply at his wife--was caught doing it--and winked. His wife winked back.

"How different?" asked her brother, skeptically.

"He's older, Steve. I feel maternalish about him--and scary. And then. . . ." she rolled crumbs.

"Then what?" her father asked.

Marigold spoke petulantly. "Don't cross-question me! Ye gods! When your father's a judge and your brother's a lawyer, a girl lives practically in the witness box!"

"You brought the matter up," Steve said.

"I did not!"

"Rolling crumbs and jizzling. Perjorative behavior."

"He goes around with Other Women," Marigold said slowly. "He was seen a few nights ago--necking one."

Judge Macey folded the paper neatly. "Marigold," he said, "did you ever hear of
quid pro quo?
I mean to say--what in the devil were you doing with that Stratton boy on the porch the other night? And the long list of his predecessors? Studying the nocturnal habits of the glowworm?"

Her mother saved her from answering. "Who is he?"

"Martin Burke."

The two men looked blankly at each other. Mrs. Macey explained. "He's one of her professors. Now, Simon! Contain yourself! I met him last year at a drainage meeting." She saw she had to explain that, too. "Everglades-draining problems. He's quite young--for a full professor. He's extremely attractive, too--although he doesn't seem to realize it. His manners are simply dazzling. And he comes from New England."

The judge said, "Really?" He looked at his daughter with interest.

"Bring him around," said Stephen. "Both ways."

Her father nodded. "This is the first time I ever heard you worrying about what you somewhat hypocritically call 'other women.' It
must
be serious, by gad!"

Mrs. Macey smiled at a waffle. "With Professor Burke, I would imagine that pretty much everything is serious."

"It is not!" Marigold spoke with heat. "Do you call publicly necking a Miami Beach blonde, serious? And that's just one thing! Professor Burke only acts stuffy and superpolite. Actually--he's an authority on crime. He's been right in the midst of gang wars. He knows personally half the big shots in the underworld. He's two distinct personalities--and it's terribly fascinating."

"Nonsense," said her father. "A professor?"

"Drag him over here," Steve repeated.

"I've tried," she said.

Her brother snorted. "Lookie, cookie. If you try--he'll come. I don't know what it is. The big brown eyes, the well-made if slightly undersized chassis, or that wobble in your vocal cords. But they work, if you work them. Now, be a good kid and drag your prof over here."

She looked mournfully out of the French windows and down the arched patio, over the sun-polished Macey lawn to the garden hedge. "I'll try again," she said miserably.

Just exactly how he found himself walking home that afternoon with Marigold Macey, the professor could not be sure. He was preparing his work for the next term--a morass of pressing details. The strong easterly which had risen on Sunday evening might die down soon; if so, he would have to be absent from Coral Gables for a time. He was trying to get ready when Marigold appeared in his office.

She asked some trivial question about the work in the following term. She sat on his desk, patted his arm, batted her eyes, switched herself about, and urged him to accompany her home for tea. She did not call him, "honey-chile"; a girl has to draw the line somewhere.

Her home was several blocks away, in the opposite direction from Bedelia's--and he found himself walking with the girl at his side. She seemed very happy. And he was not displeased. He recalled the unmistakable leer he had given her in the College Inn Tearoom, the notion that had prompted the grimace, and his subsequent conclusion that it had doubtless forever alienated Miss Macey. It seemed not to have done so. On the contrary.

As they walked, she talked of this and that. "You detest Miss Orme, don't you?"

she said.

"There's something about her. The snood. Always reminds me of a beaver's tail."

Marigold chuckled. "Your star student--
but
. . . !"

"Intellectually overenergetic, if such a thing is possible." He smiled. "Going to be a social worker, she says. I have no doubt of it. I can imagine her thrusting principle and theory on the underprivileged--with all the whelming purposefulness of a bulldozer. I shouldn't make such a statement about a student. But Miss Orme. . . !"

"Not liking her, shows good taste in women."

"Really?" He had never viewed it from that angle.

"Of course! Don't be naïve!"

They reached her residence. "We'll go in the side and around to the garden," she said. "Tea won't be ready for a while--not till Dad's home."

The garden was hedge-enclosed and contained, besides a round pool where fishes swam and water lilies floated, some aluminum furniture and a barbecue fireplace.

Marigold chose a languorous double chair and patted the place at her side. He sat. The sun was very low and the air was suffused with orange light. She took his hand. "Nice of you to come over."

"I'm very glad I did it."

"I thought you sort of--disliked me."

"Nothing could be farther from the truth."

These, and some further platitudinous remarks, along with the warm feel of the girl's hand in his own, led to a recrudescence of a recent sentiment. It became so acute that he let go of her hand and rose with the thought of sauntering over to the pool.

Marigold, however, interposed herself between him and the pool.
Why not?
his brain suggested. She was looking up at him with an extravagant brilliance in her eyes--which at least suggested she might consent to the experiment. He stepped forward, put his arms around her, and kissed her firmly, unprofessorially.

"Great gad, man!" the judge bellowed, coming through the hedge.

Professor Burke's mind rocketed back to what constituted reality for him. He loosened his hold of the girl. He thought of his situation in the terms in which he had been reared to think. The man with the grey temples, flushed face and irate voice was plainly her father. At that moment the professor felt passionately enamored of Miss Macey. So he said, rather croakingly, "My intentions are perfectly--"

"To hell with your intentions! You're trampling my pineapple!"

Professor Burke jumped.

Marigold, who was both pleased and astonished by the past twenty or thirty seconds of her existence, burst into laughter. "Father," she said, when she could, "is trying to sprout a pineapple." She pointed to its top--in a small, mulched bed. "Daddy, this is Martin Burke."

The judge said, "Delighted," fell to his knees, and began replacing the tilted plant.

"Tea is ready," he continued. "The next time you decide to kiss anybody, Marigold, for heaven's sake keep out of the flower beds. I told your mother it would root--and by gad, it's rooting!"

A short week ago, Professor Burke would have regarded even the idea of amorously kissing a young lady as something to be pushed into the nebulous future. A short week ago, he would have regarded being caught doing just that, by the girl's father, as a shocking catastrophe. He was, however, changing.

"I got lipstick on you," Marigold said. "Hold still."

Even this did not utterly dishevel him. He intended to kiss her again, at the earliest opportunity. He had tried to say that his intentions were honorable--idiotic phrase!--and he now saw that they were merely to kiss her.

Judge Macey satisfied himself that the pineapple was not ruined. He rose-and shook hands. "Don't be embarrassed," he said. "My daughter's impulses are familiar to the whole family. She's really quite a nice girl--though headstrong. Come in and meet my wife and my son, Steve."

This, in the professor's opinion, was both the civil and the mature way of looking at the matter.

"I hear," the judge went on, "that you're a New Englander. So are we.

Expatriates." No topic could have been more fortunate.

Throughout the tea which followed, they indulged in a kind of nostalgia--a fest of place names, of recipes, and of worrying over the spread of the Dutch elm disease on New England's commons. They found mutual friends--and, as was inevitable, Esperance Perthnot, who came to America just after the
Mayflower
and who was a remote ancestor of the Maceys as well as of the Burkes. Naturally, they invited the professor to stay for dinner; being a New Englander, he refused politely. Naturally, both he and his hosts realized that he would accept a later invitation.

When the professor had gone, stepping lightly into the bland dark, the judge said,

"Marigold, I really believe you're growing up. That's a very intelligent young man."

She regarded her father demurely, "He can neck like hell, too!" It was a boast rather than a fact.

The judge was a New Englander, but aware of modern trends. Hence he took no umbrage. He looked his daughter steadily in the eye. "Of course he can neck like hell.

Comes from good stock!"

"What were you and he talking about, when you spent so long showing him your den?"