Rex Stout (4 page)

“Yeah.” The inspector sounded sour and doubtful. “I’d like to ask, are any of you playing a favourite?”

Police Commissioner Humbert put in abruptly, “The Indian did it.”

“You mean Woodrow Wilson?”

“I do.”

“Motive?”

“You’ll get it in the reports. Carew was about to forsake the memory of Tsianina and get married again.”

“Okay.” Cramer turned back to the district attorney. “Okay?”

“No. I doubt it.” Skinner hesitated. “It’s a damned complicated case. Anderson had the Indian in jail for two weeks, and then turned him loose when Guy Carew got Sam Orlik on the job. There’s no good line anywhere.”

Cramer regarded him, and after a moment said slowly, “I wish to admit one thing. I said I knew nothing about it, but the truth is that on the train to-day I got into a little discussion with fellow passengers, just as a citizen. I heard a lot of scandal, nothing to it of course, but has anybody showed an inclination to try putting Guy Carew in jail?”

A swift glance passed between the two officials. Cramer grinned and continued, “Let me tell you. Once upon a time, long before there were any Indians around
Mount Kisco, a fellow had his throat cut and died. When an honest detective found out who did it, it turned out to be a philanthropist named Izzy Gazooks, who owned both banks of the Hudson River and was vice-president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Politicians. So the detective moved to the country and kept chickens. Well, I suppose it is understood that I don’t like chickens?”

The police commissioner spluttered, “You’re crazy. We wouldn’t have hauled you back from Canada if what we were looking for was a cover.”

“Good. Then Guy Carew is just folks?”

“He is,” Skinner snapped. “And since you’ve put it that way, I may as well tell you that I think Anderson fumbled on him. Guy Carew is half Indian. Tsianina was his mother, and his father was about to marry again. Guy inherits the entire fortune. His father had for years furnished him large sums for the work he was doing among the Indians, and Guy learned that that generosity was likely to be stopped. Guy had just returned from the West and was there on July 7th, in the house at Lucky Hills. I would have advised Anderson to charge him two weeks ago, but for one thing, his alibi.”

“Oh. Good one?”

“Well. A woman was in his room with him from 2 a.m. until the Indian arrived to report the murder.”

“A good woman? I mean good for credibility?”

“I would say yes. Portia Tritt.”

“Don’t know her. Do you?”

“I had met her. Handsome and smart. She had hooked old Carew. He was going to marry her.”

Cramer grunted. “And she was in Guy’s room from 2 a.m. on. Nice picture. Is Guy a roving stag?”

“Not by reputation. There was something years ago with Portia Tritt—you’ll read it here. Since the murder
he has seen a lot of her. Then recently he took up with another one, another smart one, a gal by the name of Jean Farris, a designer. It’s all in the reports. Of course we’re on him all the time, and for the past week we’ve had a tail on this Jean Farris too; the case has got to the point where you could call it desperate. Portia Tritt’s alibi for Guy Carew may be a phoney, but try and prove it, or even guess why it should be. Besides those two, there were four guests at Lucky Hills that night: Leo Kranz, textile importer, an old friend of Carew’s; Amory Buysse, curator of the National Indian Museum, which Carew had endowed and was supporting; and Melville Barth and his wife, of Barth & Pomeroy, Wall Street and railroads. But it’s quite possible that they’re all innocent; any one who knew the place and knew Carew’s habits could easily have got into the grounds and to the tomb without being seen—except by the Indian, and he was knocked cold. So he says.”

“Nothing left for the sweepers?”

“Damn little. Just two things, and Anderson claims that first-rate men did the job. Fingerprints of Portia Tritt were found in four places: on the brass door of the tomb and its lever handle, on one of the relic cabinets—not the one where the knife had been—on the glass top of Tsianina’s casket, and on the handle of a lance. The lance was hanging in its proper place on the wall, and its iron head showed no sign of recent use. Portia Tritt says that Carew had taken her there a week before his death.”

“I thought only the son and Buysse and the Indian were allowed to enter.”

Skinner shrugged. “That’s her story. There were no prints on the knife or the war club. The other thing Anderson’s men found was a clue that seemingly should lead to the answer, and maybe it should but it hasn’t.
Clutched tight in the fingers of Carew’s left hand was a piece of thread—or yarn or whatever you want to call it. It was wool, dark red, an inch and a half long. The bets are on the probability that when he got the glancing blow on the cheek Carew grabbed for the intruder and pulled that piece of thread from his clothes, and the next blow smashed his head in. So you’d think with modern laboratory methods that thread would lead to the answer; and to some extent it has. It has been identified as a piece of the yarn that Indians in the South-west used two or three centuries ago. They called it bayeta. While he was trying to trace it Anderson kept mum about it, not wanting to tip the murderer off that he had it, but he got nowhere, and last week we decided to turn it loose in certain quarters but not to publish it. That was a mistake. We didn’t find out anything, and day before yesterday it got to a reporter somehow and he made the rounds with it. We had to bear down hard to prevent publication, but the damn reporter had already done plenty of harm. He spilled it—but here.” The district attorney returned the batch of papers to the folder and shoved it across. “You’ll read the reports on it.”

Cramer sighed, lumbered to his feet, reached for the folder and tucked it under his arm. “I guess I will,” he growled. “I had an Indian guide up in Canada. I’d like to catch the dirty pup that swung that war club and ruined my vacation. Hell, I will—with that swell clue you’ve got, you might say his life is hanging by a thread. Ha, ha, ha.”

He stamped out.

H
ow did it happen that the press showing of Bernetta’s fall line (sports, town informal, travel) was held at the elaborate country place of Mr. and Mrs. Melville Barth near Portchester, with cocktails under the trees from five till seven-thirty? Such a puzzle was no puzzle to the initiated, who knew that Bernetta’s real name was Ivy, that she was a first cousin of Mrs. Barth, and that Mrs. Barth had sunk $60,000 of her husband’s money in the Bernetta business before it had begun to pay. It was worth a few hours’ time, a few dozen cocktails, and a little wear and tear on the grass, to help keep it paying.

Not that Mrs. Barth was ashamed of the connection or tried any camouflage. For instance, at six o’clock that afternoon, she was saying to Jean Farris, “Yes, thank goodness, it’s better than ever. Every one is here except the
Herald Tribune,
Ivy says, and I understand she’s peeling, got it at Southampton last week, the sun there can be
very
bad. They are all raving about the sport ensembles Ivy made from your things—such fabrics! I tell Ivy she should have priced them at three hundred at least, but she likes volume. At two-fifty she might as well be giving them away. And speaking of ensembles, I
never
saw anything like the stuff you’re wearing! Did Ivy make it?”

“No, Krone.”

Mrs. Barth nodded. “I thought so. His jackets always sag on the right. But
such
material! Your own, of course. The placing of that stripe is sheer genius. And the stripe itself is incredible! I never saw such a colour. Unique! Ivy was telling me the other day that you pick up yarns in the most out-of-the-way places, that you even go to second-hand stores….”

Jean, finishing her cocktail, made a pretence of listening. She was bored and a little irritated, but not really in a bad humour, for Ivy-Bernetta had made intelligent use of her designs on the whole, and the praise had been even handsomer than usual. She let Mrs. Barth rattle on, and looked around. There were perhaps a hundred women, and half as many men, scattered around that corner of the shady lawn. White-jacketed servants moved among them with trays; one wheeled a serving wagon. In front of the main group two professionally lovely models, wearing tailored woollen dresses, paraded and smiled; and as they disappeared into a gaily coloured tent, two others emerged in slacks and long flaring jackets. A genteel murmur floated over the lawn and up among the leaves; certain individuals could be seen scribbling on pads of paper, glancing up at the models, and scribbling again. Those, all women, were the elite and exclusive source of the river of publicity in American feminine fashions. The presence of three press photographers with their cameras testified that an Ivy-Bernetta showing was an event.

Some of the men looked as if they belonged there; others looked silly. One of them, middle-aged and above middle size, with black eyes and an arc of his tanned pate
showing, detached himself from a group and approached Mrs. Barth with a bow.

His voice was pleasant: “I’m sure you hadn’t noticed, but I haven’t paid my respects. You were surrounded, as usual, when I came in. This is very nice”—he waved a hand—“very successful, I congratulate you…. I must congratulate you also, Miss Farris. When I first saw your things, four years ago, I told myself, ‘Here is a little girl who got hold of a clever idea in Vienna; it will last a season, or possibly two.’ But how wrong I was! You get better all the time. Those things here to-day—marvellous! A quiet assurance to their beauty—no freakishness! The sort of thing that lasts and grows. You are going to bankrupt us importers.”

Jean laughed. “Don’t turn my head, Mr. Kranz. Thank you for the kind words. What did you bring in last year, a million yards?”

Leo Kranz grimaced at her. “Not half of that. God be praised, I’m old and bald and I got my share before you appeared on the scene. As a matter of fact, I’m letting down on textiles and spending most of my time at my art gallery. But textiles are my first love.” He faked sudden anxiety. “You don’t paint in oils, do you?”

“Nope. I sell by the yard only.”

“Well, that’s a relief—I tell you, Mrs. Barth, this girl’s a menace to the trade. Whereas you are only a menace to happiness. My resp—I
am
sorry!”

Backing for a bow, he had stepped on an approaching foot. Its owner, one of the white-jacketed servants, pardoned him and circled to address Mrs. Barth:

“Two men to see you, madam. They were told you are engaged, but they insisted. Mr. Beesy, who has called twice when you were out. There is an individual with him.”

“Beesy?” Mrs. Barth was frowning. “What does he—
Oh. I know.” The frown deepened. “That old nuisance. Why didn’t you—” She stopped. “Where is he?”

“On the east terrace, madam.”

“Well, tell him—” She stopped again, and looked helpless. “He’ll sit there all day and all night. Will you please ask Mr. Barth to come here? He’s over there by the horse chestnut—no, that one.”

The servant went. Mrs. Barth sighed and turned to Jean: “I suppose you know I was at Lucky Hills, with my husband, the night Val Carew was murdered. Mr. Kranz was too.” She shivered a little. “It still affects my stomach to speak of it, I suppose because the news of it came before breakfast. My stomach isn’t much before breakfast. And all the questions and the publicity, and this man keeps coming, though there isn’t a blessed thing I can tell him—”

She broke off at the approach of a lean little man with a leathery skin, grey hair, and chilly blue eyes. But she waited until he was closer to speak: “Mel dear, did Ferguson tell you? That man Buysse is here again. He asked for me and he’s on the east terrace. There’s someone with him.”

The eyes of most men grow either warmer or colder as they regard their wives, but Melville Barth’s did neither; they merely retained their chill. He inquired quietly, “Who is with him?”

“I don’t know. Ferguson said, an individual.”

“Well? See him and get rid of him.”

“But I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk about it. You know very well what I thought of going to Lucky Hills at the time, and then that awful thing happened—after all, if business required it—it isn’t fair that
I
should have all the unpleasantness—”

Barth’s shoulders moved with the suggestion of a shrug, and he turned to where the servant discreetly
waited. “Ferguson? Please. Those men are on the east terrace? Bring them here.” He disregarded the beginnings of expostulation from his wife, and turned again: “How do you do, Miss Farris. You look very charming.” But the eyes remained the same. “Don’t go, Kranz. Stay with us, if you don’t mind. Let’s see what’s biting this fellow Buysse; he’s making a nuisance of himself. By the way, I don’t believe I’ve seen you since that—that morning. Of course they’ve been hounding you too?”

Kranz nodded. “I’ve been asked a million questions by a dozen different people.” He sent his black eyes directly into Barth’s blue ones. “Naturally, I wouldn’t mind the hounding as much as you. Since I was an old and close friend of Carew’s, I am perfectly willing to be annoyed in the effort to find out who killed him, whereas your only connection with him was a business one….”

The sentence came to a halt on its way uphill. Barth smiled thinly in cold amusement. “Quite so,” he agreed. “You mean, it is being said that I was summoned to Lucky Hills that night, and my wife’s presence was requested as an added touch of humiliation because some years ago she snubbed Carew’s Indian wife. And that I had to go because Carew had me in a hole on Western Chemical. That’s what they say. Is that what you had in mind?”

“Not prominently.” Kranz was unperturbed. “I only meant I am apt to be more tolerant of the hounding than you are. For you Carew’s death may have been the source of serious annoyance, but for me it was personal calamity….”

Jean, feeling intrusive and uncomfortable, had half arisen to go, but had been restrained by Mrs. Barth’s tug at her sleeve and a vocal remonstrance which she only half heard. She was uncomfortable because she knew that these people could not be aware of her private reason
for intimate and intense concern with the sensational Carew murder case; but she submitted to the tug at her sleeve without further protest because the two men talking—not to mention the woman—had been at Lucky Hills when it happened, and a third was coming.