Rules of Murder (13 page)

“He’s a good chap for all that,” Drew said. “Stout fellow, give you his shirt in an instant, but rather likely to forget your name or where he’s left your car.”

“Don’t do that,” Nick repeated, a sudden earnestness in his eyes.

Carrie smiled, promising nothing, but she squeezed his hand before letting it go. “I’ll send you a postcard.”

Watching them, Madeline smiled to herself.
She’ll be back.

“See you soon,” Muriel said, pressing her cheek to Madeline’s. Then, with a quick glance at Drew, she winked. “Keep your eyes open, Madeline, honey. That one’s a real smoothie.” She got behind the wheel and started the car. “Come on, Carrie, or we’ll be driving all night.”

“I’d better go,” Carrie told Nick.

He escorted her down to the car, opened the door, and helped her inside. “Do be careful.”

“I’ll try my best,” she said, and without warning, the car lurched into motion.

“Toodles,” Muriel called, and then with the grinding of gears the little roadster clattered away.

Madeline stood there with Nick, watching until the sight and sound of it were no more, and then Drew came down the steps and linked arms with them both.

“‘How now, my hearts!’” he quoted. “‘Did you never see the picture of “we three”?’”

Nick laughed, but Madeline was only puzzled.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Merely a bit of Shakespeare,” Drew said. “A little quip from
Twelfth Night
.”

“Oh, now I remember,” she said. “But I never did understand that line.”

“They say it’s likely based on a public-house sign picturing two fools with the inscription ‘We Three.’”

She pursed her lips. “I’m sure I’ll hate myself for asking, but if there are only two fools in the picture, where’s the third?”

“Well, darling,
someone
had to be looking up reading the sign.”

Madeline smiled.

“And I’m sorry to say it, Miss Parker,” Nick added, “but you’ve been standing here looking up at two fools for at least five minutes now. Shall we go in to lunch?”

This time she laughed.

They spent the meal puzzling over recent events, and afterward, while Madeline chatted with her uncle about his last visit to America and the adventures they’d had, Drew pulled Nick aside.

“Keep your voice down,” Drew said.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Shh. Nothing. I thought you’d like to motor up to Winchester with me.”

“What for?”

“I’ve been thinking, added to everything else, it’s a bit of a coincidence that we had another death just two weeks ago.”

“McCutcheon.” Nick glanced over at Madeline. “I thought the police hadn’t found anything all that suspicious there. Just an accident.”

“I don’t know. I’d feel better, though, if we had a look round his flat and his office.”

“You know his address?”

Drew tapped his breast pocket. He’d charmed the information from the breathless Miss Stokes in personnel via telephone just that morning.

Nick grinned. “What about our Miss Parker? She’ll want to come.”

“I told you about that. It’s too distracting.”

“She won’t like it, knowing she’s been left once more to fend for herself.” Nick glanced toward her again. “She’s coming. What are you going to tell her?”

“Just keep quiet. I’ll think of something.”

“We’re going to look at the horses,” Madeline announced as she strolled up to them, Mason in tow. “We may go riding. We went all the time when he used to come visit me at school. I think it will brighten up both of us.”

Drew smiled. “That sounds good. I’ll get my hat.”

“No. I mean . . .” Madeline bit her lip. “I’d love for you to come. Always. But I thought this time just Uncle Mason and I . . .” She put her hand on his arm, appealing, consoling.

Drew let his smile fade. “Well, of course, darling, if you don’t
want
me along . . .”

Nick grinned and then quickly began studying a loose thread on the sleeve of his coat.

Mason patted Madeline’s hand. “Perhaps you young people ought to—”

“No,” she insisted. “I’ve hardly had you to myself since I’ve been here. You understand, don’t you, Drew?”

Drew felt a pang of guilt at the pleading look in her eyes. His expression warmed, and he stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You go, darling. Have a lovely time, both of you.” He nodded at Mason. “Do you a world of good, sir.”

Mason looked at Madeline with a fond smile. “Yes, I believe it will. Shall we go, my dear?”

Madeline gave Drew a swift, grateful peck on the cheek, and then she and her uncle went out across the garden.

“You hound,” Nick breathed once they had gone. “The poor girl thinks she’s broken your heart. Or at least bruised your ego.”

Drew hurried with Nick into the corridor, toward the garage
and away from the stables. “I doubt she’ll give it another thought.”

But, dash it all, the girl could make him feel like the most abysmal scoundrel with just one trusting look. Little wonder he’d made no headway in the case. Still, it was a pity this was such a serious matter. It would be profoundly satisfying to spend his days doing real investigations instead of just trying to solve made-up cases one step ahead of the detectives in the novels he read. So much more engaging than the usual empty whirl of high society.

“Come on,” he told Nick. “I want to see what we can turn up at McCutcheon’s.”

A
rthur McCutcheon had been hired on at Farlinford Processing fresh out of college based on his exceptional promise as a chemical engineer. But despite his perpetual assurances that he was on the verge of a great breakthrough, his three years with the company had proved unfruitful. Then in one careless moment, he was gone.

Drew had found out that much from talking to Mason and Rushford. He shared the information with Nick on the brief drive to Winchester and the nondescript block of flats where McCutcheon had lived.

The door, appropriately marked
MANAGER
,
was opened by a stubby little boy of perhaps ten. Bespectacled and fussily dressed, he looked annoyed at being disturbed when more than half of his Marmite sandwich was yet to be eaten.

“Yes?”

“Hullo,” Drew said with a cheerful smile. “Might we speak with the building manager?”

“I am the manager,” the boy told him. If it were possible for anyone to look down his nose at someone of a greater height
than himself, Drew was certain this boy would have done as much. He’d make a fine civil servant one day.

“Are you?” Drew asked, not altogether concealing his surprise. “That must be an interesting job.”

“Not very. Is there something you wanted?”

“I’d like to see number twenty-seven,” Drew replied, still smiling. “Mr. McCutcheon’s flat.”

“And I’d like a motorized bicycle,” the boy said disdainfully, “but I’m not likely to get that, either.”

Nick grinned. “Well, aren’t you a cheeky little—”

Drew cleared his throat. “Might we have a word with your father?”

“Certainly,” the boy replied, and then he smirked. “He’s at his office in London.”

“Your mother, then,” Drew said, a little less patiently.

The boy jerked his head toward the street. “She’s across the road, listening to
More Scenes of Domestic Bliss
on the wireless with Mrs. Dunlap, and you won’t half catch it if you go to see her before it’s over.”

“Oh, that twaddle,” Nick muttered.

“Look here,” Drew told the juvenile manager, “this is a serious matter, and it’s quite important that I have a look round up there.”

“I’m not to let just anyone into any of the flats unless it’s the police or someone of that sort. Are you with the police?” the boy demanded.

“No, not as such,” Drew admitted, and then he lowered his voice conspiratorially. “But you give me five minutes up there, and I’ll give you a shilling.”

The boy shook his head.

“A pound?” Drew offered.

“A pound!” Nick protested. “Half the population of Britain doesn’t make that for a day’s work.”

“A motorized bicycle,” the boy countered.

“What?”

The boy crossed his arms over his stocky chest, endangering his fine shirt with the sandwich he held. “A motorized bicycle. Get me one, and I’ll let you in.”

Nick glared. “Well, I like that.”

“Now, Nick, old man, let’s hear him out.” Drew smiled sweetly at the boy. “So, if I get you a motorized bicycle, you’ll let me up in Mr. McCutcheon’s flat, no questions asked?”

The little scoundrel nodded his head. “All right.”

“I would be very happy to give a deserving and helpful lad a nice new motorized bicycle,” Drew said, still smiling. “But you’re a nasty, greedy little toad, so you shan’t have one. Come on, Nick. We’ll pop round to this Mrs. Dunlap’s and see if the lady of the house mightn’t be more reasonable.”

With a tip of his black Homburg hat, Drew turned and, with Nick in tow, made his way back into the street. The boy shot out after them.

“Wait! Wait! I’ll let you in! I’ll do it for a pound!”

“I fear that offer has been withdrawn,” Drew said sunnily as he tapped on the front door of the house opposite.

“A shilling then,” the boy pleaded, unwittingly squeezing his sandwich into a pulpy mess. “Don’t! Her program is on!”

The little girl who opened the door merely stared at the two strangers. Drew could hear a man and woman talking from the radio inside.

“Good afternoon,” he said with a slight bow. “Might I inquire whether this is Mrs. Dunlap’s residence?”

The girl nodded solemnly.

“And is there another lady with her right now? Listening to the wireless?”

Again the girl nodded. Then she looked at the boy and very quietly asked, “What’s he done now?”

“He’s been good enough to send me over to talk to his mother,” Drew said, and he handed the girl his card. “If you would be so kind, please take that in and ask her if she would come have a word with me.”

“Her program’s not over,” the girl said, still solemn.

“Susan!” a woman’s voice scolded from inside the house. “What did I tell you about talking to salesmen?”

“I’m not selling anything,” Drew called back. “I’ve just come to speak to the lady who looks after the building across the street.”

The little girl scurried inside with the card, and a moment later a dowdy-looking woman wearing bright red lipstick came to the door.

Drew removed his hat. “Good afternoon, Mrs. . . . ?”

“Newton,” the woman said, eyeing him with suspicion. “Is there something you wanted?”

“I do beg your pardon for disturbing you. My name is Drew Farthering. You were letting rooms to a Mr. McCutcheon who worked for my family’s company, Farlinford Processing.”

“That’s right. So you’re
that
Mr. Farthering. Well.”

“I’d like see the flat for a moment, if that’s possible. I was hoping to gather some information about a project McCutcheon was working on for us.”

“Is that all? The police came round when he passed over and then locked everything up tight until yesterday. I couldn’t even go tidy much less show the place to be let again.” She turned to her son. “Clarence, show the gentlemen number twenty-seven.”

“We’d like to ask a few questions as well, if we might,” Nick added, and the woman glanced back into the house. The couple
on the radio were arguing viciously now to the accompaniment of melodramatic music.

“Well . . .” she began.

“Or,” Drew offered, “dear Clarence could let us into the flat and then we could come back later and talk to you.” He looked at his watch. It was eight minutes to the hour.
More Scenes of Domestic Bliss
would be over soon. “Say in about ten minutes?”

“That would be lovely,” the woman told Drew, obviously relieved. “Go on, Clarence,” she scolded. “You could have just taken them up to Mr. McCutcheon’s without disturbing my program, couldn’t you?”

She hurried back inside, the little girl shut the door, and an unwilling Clarence trudged across the street once more. Drew and Nick followed him back to his own flat to fetch the key to McCutcheon’s rooms, and then the three of them went up to the first floor.

Number 27 was an unassuming little flat at the back of the building, overlooking a burgeoning vegetable garden and the unrelieved brick of the block behind it. Pajama bottoms were strewn across the rumpled bed, and an unwashed plate and teacup had been left in the sink, signs of nothing more sinister than a hurried departure for a usual day’s work. There were a number of books on chemistry, physics, and mathematics, along with a dog-eared collection of fantasy and horror novels. Other than a reproduction of a hideous surrealist painting, there were no pictures on the walls, only a little framed photograph on a side table. It was signed
To Mackie always
.

“Looks as if he left someone behind, after all,” Drew said.

“I’m sure she has a jolly nice personality,” Nick observed, studying the face of the bespectacled young woman with impossibly bushy hair and a crooked smile.

Drew responded with an impatient frown. “I say, Clarence, has anyone been in here since the police came?”

The boy sneered at him. “Of course not. Do you think we let just anyone poke about our flats?”

“Well, that’s all right then.” Drew smiled and pocketed the key. “We’ll let you know if we need anything more.”

“But—”

“You go back to your sandwich, there’s a good lad, and we’ll make sure to give the key to your mother once we’ve finished up here.”

“And we’ll make sure to tell her what a great help you’ve been,” Nick added, and he hustled the boy into the corridor and shut the door after him.

“All right,” Drew said. “See if there’s anything in that bureau.”

It didn’t take them long to go through the sparse furnishings. The contents told them nothing but what they knew already: Arthur McCutcheon was mired in his work and had little interest in much of anything else.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Nick asked as he rummaged through a shoebox full of old papers he had found in the top of the wardrobe.

“I don’t know exactly. Anything that would show a connection between McCutcheon and Lincoln or Constance. Besides Farlinford, of course.”

Nick opened an envelope and looked at the slip of paper inside. “It seems Mr. McCutcheon’s debt to the Winchester Bank & Trust in the amount of twenty pounds was paid in full on the twenty-seventh day of April, 1931.” He put the slip back into the box and took out an engraved invitation. “Elizabeth Myrtle Cubbins and James Arthur Davies requested the honor of his presence at their marriage this past February.”

“More to the point, if you please,” Drew prompted as he rifled through the drawer of the writing desk, and then he picked up a stern-looking tome that must have belonged to a student of the law sometime in the past fifty years. “Hullo.”

Nick looked up. “What?”

“Very interesting,” Drew said, scanning the book. “It’s marked at the part about blackmail and the penalties therefor.”

Nick looked over his shoulder at the underlined passage. “Hardly a coincidence after what’s happened with Lincoln, eh? Do you think it’s motive for murder?”

Drew frowned again. “I don’t see how, if McCutcheon was locked up in his lab when the benzene spilled. I don’t know. Shall we talk to Mrs. Newton here and then have a quick look at Farlinford?”

Mrs. Newton made it perfectly clear that her tenants’ personal entanglements were their own business and none of her own, just as she had told the police. She could say nothing of Mr. McCutcheon except that he was a man of quiet habits who paid his rent on time and caused her no trouble. That seen to, Drew and Nick made their way to McCutcheon’s office, which was a little more than two miles from the flat.

Drew told Mr. Baumann, the third floor manager, that he just wanted to look at McCutcheon’s laboratory, just to see it for himself, and Baumann obliged.

Once he and Nick were left on their own, Drew looked for a place to start. The room was very typical of the research labs at Farlinford, all white and stainless steel, cabinets filled with files and notebooks, worktables covered with test tubes and chemicals marked with ominous warning labels. It looked as if nothing had been disturbed since McCutcheon had last been at work.

“According to the police, McCutcheon typically holed up in here all day with the door locked,” Drew said. “Everyone says
he was one of those intense chaps who lived for his job and always claimed he was on the verge of something big. When the benzene spilled, he couldn’t get the door unlocked before it killed him.”

Nick made a face. “Ghastly way to go west, if you ask me. But suppose it was murder. Suppose he found out about Lincoln somehow and was going to report him. Perhaps Lincoln would kill him to shut him up, but how would he manage it in here?”

“The police say this Adams who has the office next door heard McCutcheon fall, heard him trying to get out and rushed right over. They had to break down the door.” Drew took hold of a piece of wrought iron that barred the window and gave it a firm shake. It didn’t budge. “There aren’t any other ways in or out. McCutcheon’s is the last door in this wing, so no one could have gotten out without Adams or Baumann or someone seeing him.”

“Still, suppose someone spilled it on purpose.”

“Rather an odd way to dispose of someone, but I guess it would work in this environment, especially if it was meant to look as though an accident. But there’s the getting in and out to be accounted for.” Drew considered for a moment. “We’ve been through McCutcheon’s flat. Nothing there to speak of, apart from that law book, and that may not have anything to do with anything. Maybe there’s something in his files or tucked away in a drawer that will shed some light on things.”

“The police went through it all and found nothing of note,” Nick reminded him.

Drew opened another cabinet. “Maybe they didn’t know what to look for.”

“Right,” Nick said. “They’re just the police. What would they know about solving crimes?”

“Quiet, you.”

The two of them searched through the remaining cabinets and drawers and found nothing of interest.

“You’d best start on that filing cabinet in the corner,” Drew said. “I’ll look through these notebooks.”

Nick’s shoulders sagged. “It’ll take a week to get through all that.”

“Then you’d best get at it, old man.”

Nick trudged over to the filing cabinet. “I thought detecting was supposed to be all mysterious and exciting,” he muttered as he yanked open the top drawer.

Overbalanced, the heavy cabinet began to topple, and Nick just managed to catch it.

“I say! A little help here!”

Drew hurried over to lend a hand, but stopped short, staring at the floor behind the files.

“Good heavens.”

“Drew,” Nick urged. “This is heavy.”

“Oh, right. Right.”

They pushed the drawer back in and made sure the filing cabinet was stable. Then they pulled it away from the wall again, and Drew bent to retrieve the object he had seen.

“Looks as if the police weren’t quite as thorough as advertised.”

He handed Nick an old photograph of a young woman. A young woman whose clothes and hairstyle would have been fashionable a quarter of a century earlier. It wasn’t the same picture as the one in Lincoln’s bag, but it was of the same girl. Taken the same day as the other too, judging by the clothes and the room.

“That’s the girl. Marielle.” Nick turned it over, but the back of this one was blank. “What would McCutcheon be doing with this?”