Puzzle of the Pepper Tree (6 page)

That lady’s remarkable patience and calmness, however, were not shared by the seven marooned individuals who were still waiting at the airport for a bus to transport them on to the village of Avalon.

The great Ralph O. Tate took it hardest. With a small and brittle twig which he had torn from a nearby bush he whipped viciously at the sleek black leather of his riding boots. Before him stretched a blue ocean, with a haze that was California in the far distance. Behind him were the yellow villa and the barrier of mountains. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Tony and George, his two satellites, busily matching coins. They had run through dimes to quarters by this time.

Beside him, her well-rounded body resting upon well-rounded heels, Phyllis La Fond chatted companionably—inevitably. Now and again Tate flung a stone at the water, but most of his missiles refused to skip. That, too, was in key with the rest of his morning—for at the other end of Catalina, Tate knew all too well, there was a moving-picture company on location. Waiting since sunrise this morning—waiting for him. At something like two hundred dollars an hour.

“Someday,” Phyllis was saying—“Someday I’ll get my chance in pictures. Somebody will look at me and realize that there’s something hidden in me, something that everybody doesn’t see—”

Tate surveyed her form-fitting plaid suit impartially. “I don’t know where you’d hide it,” he remarked.

At that moment a siren sounded from the gateway beside the village—a raucous yet welcome blast from the red bus which had just coasted down the slope to a skidding stop.

“It’s about time,” emitted the great Ralph O. Tate. “All right, boys!” He rose to his feet, replaced the blue beret upon his shining poll, and made off up the beach.

Phyllis picked up a small oval stone, looked longingly at the back of his skull, and then spat daintily upon the pebble and sent it skipping across the water, to her deep inward satisfaction.

Then she, too, followed the procession.

“It’s all right, folks,” Manager Hinch was announcing. “The bus finally got here. Step lively, please!” Phyllis needed no invitation to step lively.

Hinch had had a bad hour and had finally locked himself in the office where no one could get at him. But now he was himself again, distributing smiles.

Captain Thorwald Narveson tapped out his corncob pipe against the stones and rose to his feet. Around him was a little circle of dottle and match stubs, but he was otherwise just as he had been left an hour or more ago. The innocent blue eyes still twinkled, and the freckles on his ears and forehead stood out even darker than before. The captain tossed his duffle bag on the bus and then placed himself heavily and firmly in the rear seat.

Ralph O. Tate was the next on board, followed by his two assistants and the baggage. He took his seat between them, effectually preventing Phyllis from any further promotion of her fortunes. Philosophically, she joined the captain on the rear seat, defeated but not dismayed.

Last to come were the newlyweds. Desperate shouts from Hinch and a series of earsplitting blasts upon the horn beneath the thumb of the fat youth in overalls finally brought them forth from the shadows of a eucalyptus clump. The redhaired girl was still cool and comfortable in sweater and blue trousers, and in her hand she gripped tightly a wilted bouquet of nondescript flowers. The young man was busily combing his hair. Without further mishap they scrambled aboard, and the girl hastily set about wiping orange lipstick from her young husband’s nose.

“All aboard!” shouted Hinch cheerily. He seemed to be washing his hands. “All aboard!”

The motor bus roared, and then Phyllis suddenly rose to her feet, shrieking.

“Wait—wait!” Her hands waved, wildly. “I forgot my baggage. It’s—it’s in the office!”

“It’ll be safe there until you come after it,” Hinch shouted above the roar of the moving bus.

He waved the driver on. After all, he had received his instructions, and if Chief Britt wanted these people to question, he could have them on the double-quick. The sooner the better, said Hinch.

The bus lunged forward as the plump youth noisily shifted into second gear, and then roared up the slope. Phyllis sat down, hard, and only the thick hand of Captain Narveson kept her from rolling off sidewise.

Phyllis murmured something impolite. The captain nodded in hearty agreement. “Yas, indeed,” he said. His blue eyes twinkled more than ever.

Phyllis grinned in spite of herself and then calmly took his arm and clung to it through the rest of the ride.

They were deposited before a doorway marked “Curios—Pottery—Postcards—Chief of Police,” just as the town carillon located on the hill above Mr. Zane Grey’s summer residence sounded the first hour of the afternoon.

Everywhere around them, from the open counters of the little restaurants, rose the aroma of hot dogs, hamburgers, and abalone steaks, but the hungry passengers of the
Dragonfly
were herded briskly through the doors of the curio store and on toward a rear room. Their shepherd was a gaunt and slightly doddering person who announced himself, in a thin cracked voice, as “Chief Britt’s deppity.” His name, it later developed, was Ruggles, and this was his crowded hour. He made the most of it.

“Jist a little formality,” he promised them. Director Tate’s impassioned objections met only with an “I’m a mite deef …”

Through a maze of mother-of-pearl boxes, framed photographs, embalmed swordfish, and the like, went the passengers of the
Dragonfly,
coming at last to the chief’s office, where that worthy awaited them in the only chair. Dr. O’Rourke stood by the door, still in dressing gown and slippers over his bathing suit.

“Not going to take long,” Chief Britt promised them. He cleared his throat. “None of you saw anything out of the ordinary on that trip out here, did you?”

Nobody ventured a reply.

The chief nodded. Then he took a deep breath. “None of you noticed anything that’d make you think Mr. Forrest, the sick man, was anything worse than just sick?”

“Not until he died,” Phyllis offered.

“Exactly. Couldn’t have anybody—harmed him, so to speak, without the rest of you seeing, could there?”

There was a general chorus of “No.”

The chief turned triumphantly to Dr. O’Rourke. “There you are! It’s just like we figured. Now there ain’t a reason in the world why we shouldn’t put this case down as a natural death and let these people go about their business.”

Captain Narveson fidgeted a little. “Ay never saw a faller die from being seasick before,” he put in. The blue eyes turned toward Ralph O. Tate. “Maybe that drink you give him to make him feel better was bad liquor?”

Tate took off his beret and mopped his bald dome. The others were all staring at him. “Please,” he said. “You all know who I am. Why should I—I mean, I buy the best liquor that can be got. It’s smuggled in every week from a ship that comes twice a year from Scotland and lies offshore until it’s unloaded. No rotgut for me. Anyway—I took a drink after the sick man did. You all saw me!” He did not offer to display his flask.

“That’s true,” burst in the girl with red curls. She had removed the sun goggles, and her lashes were long and curling.

“Sure it’s true,” said Phyllis La Fond. But all the same she stared very hard and very thoughtfully at the great director, Mr. Ralph O. Tate.

The young man with slick hair settled that problem at once. “No matter if somebody gave a man a swig of the worst wood alcohol, death wouldn’t follow in less than a couple of hours at the quickest. I know—I used to work in a drug store. So it doesn’t matter what kind of liquor was in the flask, it couldn’t have been the cause of Forrest’s death.”

Chief Britt nodded and waved his hand. “All right, folks. Sorry to’ve kept yuh from your dinner. Mac’s place down the street has pretty good food. Tell him I sent you. …”

They made a concerted rush for the door, but it was barred by a tall, spare figure.

“Excuse me,” said Miss Hildegarde Withers, “but the party isn’t over.”

As the others pushed past her with varying expressions of annoyance upon their faces, the schoolteacher drew from its envelope a blue-and-white square of paper.

“Read this,” she told Chief of Police Amos Britt. “Read this—and then tell me again that you think Roswell Forrest died a natural death.”

Britt looked at the message, and his lips moved slowly:

NEW YORK CITY NY 5:15 P

HILDEGARDE WITHERS

AVALON CALIFORNIA

THOUGHT YOU WERE ON A VACATION WHY ARE YOU INTERESTED IN FORREST HIS DESCRIPTION FOLLOWS BORN AUSTRALIA AMERICAN PARENTS AGE THIRTYFIVE BROWN EYES DARK BROWN HAIR MEDIUM BUILD DRESSES VERY WELL NO PHOTO AVAILABLE BARNEY KELSEY FORMER BARTENDER NO POLICE RECORD SUPPOSED TO BE WITH FORREST AS BODYGUARD UNDERSTAND CERTAIN PARTIES HAVE OFFERED SPEND FIFTEEN GRAND IF FORREST UNABLE TESTIFY BEFORE BRANDSTATTER COMMITTEE WHATS UP

OSCAR PIPER

Chief Britt put down the message and whistled. “Musta cost two-three dollars to say all that,” he hazarded.

“But don’t you understand?” Miss Withers stared at him, searchingly. “Don’t you see what it means?”

“Mebbe I do, and again mebbe I don’t,” Chief Britt said. He turned toward O’Rourke, who was reading the message.

“If you ask me,” said the doctor thoughtfully, “it means that somebody earned fifteen thousand dollars this morning.”

“Hear, hear!” came from Hildegarde Withers, triumphantly.

Chief Britt looked from one to the other. Then he went swiftly to the door. “Hey, Ruggles!”

The aged deputy appeared, grinning toothlessly.

“Ruggles, you better round up the people that just left here and tell ’em not to leave the island just yet,” ordered the chief. “Tell ’em to stick around the hotel in case I want to ask a few more questions.”

“Okay, Amos.” The deputy disappeared.

“I suggest that you give the same order to Mr. Barney Kelsey,” Miss Withers put in.

“Him? Oh, he ain’t going away. Offered to stick around as long as we wanted him to. Nice feller.”

The chief relaxed in his chair again. “You showed me your telegram, ma’am,” he offered. “I sent one myself, and I got an answer, too. I may as well let you see what Mrs. Roswell Forrest had to say when she got the news.” He presented a blue-and-white slip of his own, which Miss Withers eagerly seized:

YONKERS NEW YORK COLLECT 5:35 P

CHIEF AMOS BRITT

AVALON CALIFORNIA

IF ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY WILL GUARANTEE MINIMUM FUNERAL EXPENSES FOR BURIAL THERE

MAE TIMMONS FORREST

“That word ‘absolutely’ cost me an extra sixty cents,” the chief told her ruefully.

“It certainly seems that his wife was crazy about him, doesn’t it?” Miss Withers handed back the message. “She wants him put under ground as cheaply and quickly as possible—and if absolutely necessary she’ll pay for the coffin!”

“Handsome of her, I calls it,” said Dr. O’Rourke. “Now if you will excuse me, I think my invaluable assistant will have a pan of chili on the oil stove over at the infirmary. The company is none too appetizing right now, but—” The little doctor turned toward Miss Withers. “I don’t suppose you’d care to make it a foursome?”

“Another time,” said that lady calmly. “I have things to do—and so has the chief here.”

Chief Britt nodded. “So I have. Only I’ll be dad-blessed if I know what they are!”

“I’m going to send another telegram,” said Hildegarde Withers. “And wait for another answer.”

AVALON CALIFORNIA 1:35 P

INSPECTOR OSCAR PIPER

CENTER STREET POLICE HEADQUARTERS

NEW YORK CITY

SUSPECT MURDER LOCAL POLICE BEWILDERED HAVING FINE TIME WISH YOU WERE HERE

HILDEGARDE

The answer was not long in coming, and it was to the point:

NEW YORK CITY NY 6:20 P

HILDEGARDE WITHERS

AVALON CALIFORNIA

I WILL BE

OSCAR

Chief Britt, though he did not send another message, received an answer all the same. A messenger delivered it into his hands as he bent over a steak at Mac’s Place:

NEW YORK CITY NY 6:25 P

CHIEF OF POLICE

AVALON CALIFORNIA

FORREST CASE HIGHEST IMPORTANCE POLITICALLY CONSIDER IT EXTREME FAVOR IF YOU HOLD EVERYTHING UNTIL I ARRIVE WEDNESDAY

OSCAR PIPER INSPECTOR NYC POLICE

The chief read it through three times and then folded it and put it away in a pocket of his soiled white linen jacket. He turned to Ruggles, the ancient deputy, who was mumbling away at a plate of milk toast beside him.

“You better go down to the carpenter shop,” he pronounced judicially, “and tell ’em not to make that pine box, after all.”

Ruggles let his mouth hang open.

“Y’ mean you ain’t going to send the remains over to the mainland on the steamer, Amos?”

Britt shook his head. “We’re going to hold everything till Wednesday,” he said.

But as Miss Withers could have told him, he was more than optimistic.

A
ROUND RED SUN
beat down upon a city seemingly deserted. The swarms of natives, tourists, and summer people had wisely distributed themselves between the beaches, the glass-bottomed boats, the Aviary, and their hotel rooms, leaving only a blistering Main Street, a solitary red bus, and an angular and determined lady who engaged the driver of that bus in animated argument.

“Two dollars is the price for a trip to the airport, lady,” insisted the plump driver. “Unless you want to wait until four-thirty for the regular run.”

Miss Hildegarde Withers was most emphatically opposed to waiting. Neither did she want to pay two dollars for a two-mile trip for which a taxicab in her own Manhattan would have charged fifty cents. But there were only half a dozen motor vehicles in all Catalina, and this was the only one for hire.