Something the Cat Dragged In (2 page)

“What made you think of coming here?” Ottermole wanted to know.

“Where else would he be? They had the Balaclavian Society meeting last night, didn’t they? For whatever that might be worth.”

There was meaning behind Mrs. Lomax’s sniff. The Balaclavian Society was an organization neither she nor her late husband had ever been invited to join, notwithstanding the fact that one Perkin Lomax was well-known to have been among the founders of Balaclava Junction and she herself had been a Swope from Lumpkin Upper Mills. Why any group claiming to be “dedicated to the preservation of our heritage” had passed up its chance to take in both a Lomax and a Swope at one swoop was something she’d never understand to her dying day, not that she’d ever demean herself by letting them think she gave a hoot.

“Besides,” she went on, “my house is no great distance from here if you cut through the back yards, as you well know. I didn’t think Edmund would have drug that hairpiece any great distance. Edmund’s not one to strain himself, any more than Professor Ungley used to be. What gets me is how the professor got out here, unless somebody brought him. If he left the meeting under his own steam, you’d think he’d have gone out the front way to the sidewalk, where there’d be plenty of light and easy walking. There’s no other way out except the service door around on the far side, and that’s overgrown with weeds and the sill rotted away. They haven’t opened it in a month of Sundays, far’s I know. Why should he risk breaking his neck on those broken steps last night of all nights?”

“She’s got something there, Ottermole,” the doctor admitted. “I had to be out on a late call myself, and I can tell you it was no time for a man his age to go prowling through the back yards. The sky was overcast and there was some ground fog in spots. I don’t see any path he could have followed. Ungley was weak in the eyes and none too steady on his legs the last time I examined him. Where’s that silver-headed cane he always carried, by the way?”

“Stolen, most likely,” said Mrs. Lomax.

“Now, just a minute,” Ottermole protested. “Are you trying to make out he was mugged and robbed? Don’t you think I’ve got brains enough to think of that myself? Well, he wasn’t, see.” Fred held out the old man’s wallet so they could see the bills inside. “There’s fifteen bucks and change in there. The cane fell down, that’s all. It must be here somewhere.”

He began pawing among the weeds. After a moment, he straightened up waving something around. “See, what did I tell you?”

Dr. Melchett reached for the cane Ottermole was brandishing. “Mind if I take a look? Lord, this thing is heavy. I’d hate to get whacked over the head with it, myself.”

He fished out his reading glasses and put them on to take a close look at the cane’s handle. Then he bent down to peer at the harrow.

“There’s blood on that peg his head’s resting against,” he pointed out. “Not much, considering the way a scalp wound bleeds, but some. See it?”

Ottermole and Mrs. Lomax both admitted they could see the stain, now that Melchett had pointed it out. Nevertheless, the doctor kept on turning the cane over and over in his hands. Though worn at the ferrule and scarred on the shaft from much use, it was still a handsome thing of its kind. Its silver handle was not the usual knob or hook, but went straight back at a right angle to the blackthorn staff. It was carved in the shape of a running fox, with the forepaws bent to make the joint with the staff and the tail and back legs molded together into a rather formidably pointed end.

“Professor Ungley set a lot of store by that cane,” Mrs. Lomax remarked. “He always claimed the fox was solid silver.”

“Maybe so,” the doctor grunted, “but I’d be more likely to believe it’s been made hollow and filled with melted lead, myself. Strange thing for a respectable retired professor to be carrying, but then Ungley was a strange man in some ways. If that harrow hadn’t been right there for him to fall against, one might have wondered—”

Melchett said no more. He himself was not a strange man but a most discreet man who knew only too well how much havoc an ill-judged remark by a reputable doctor could create among his practice.

Fred Ottermole took the cane back. “There’s no blood on the fox,” he insisted, “and there is on the harrow peg. Seems to me all that fancy carving would have collected stains fast enough. Let’s have a look at that hairpiece.”

“There’s not a speck to be seen,” Mrs. Lomax told him. “I’ve already looked. And don’t try to claim Edmund licked it clean because he wouldn’t have been able to. It would still be matted up, which it isn’t. Anyway, Edmund’s mighty particular about what he puts into his stomach.”

“Huh,” said Ottermole, who knew better but wasn’t about to rat on a pal. “Okay, so the hairpiece fell off when Professor Ungley tripped on the harrow, that’s all.”

“You’d have thought his hat would keep it on,” Mrs. Lomax argued.

“The hat fell off, too, for Pete’s sake. See, here it is.”

And there it was, clutched in Professor Ungley’s right hand as if by some miracle he’d managed to catch it in mid-air a moment before his death. Mrs. Lomax said that looked mighty peculiar to her, but Dr. Melchett riposted with some learned reference to cadaveric spasm and she changed her tack.

“I wonder how he happened to fall backward instead of forward. Any time I stub my toe, it seems to me I always go straight down on my knees and ruin a good pair of stockings.”

“Maybe he caught his leg in a vine and it threw him on his—”

Ottermole’s attempt to think up a genteel synonym for backside was spoiled by Betsy Lomax’s snort.

“Maybe pigs can fly. You still haven’t come up with any reason why Professor Ungley would have been out here in the first place.”

“Oh. Well, heck, that should be pretty obvious, shouldn’t it? I mean,” Fred hesitated again, for Mrs. Lomax had once been his Sunday school teacher, “an old man like him, his kidneys might not be—you know what I mean.”

“If you mean a man who stood as much on his dignity as Professor Ungley did would sneak around behind a building right on the main street to relieve himself like a common drunk out of the gutter; you’d better rack that so-called brain of yours a little harder, Fred Ottermole. There’s a water closet in the museum as I know to my certain knowledge because they had to get my cousin Fred Swope to fix it the time the boiler went off and all the pipes froze and busted. Being a proper gentleman, Professor Ungley would have used it before he left the building.”

“But what if he’d suddenly felt the urge, if you don’t mind me saying so, after the rest had gone on ahead and he didn’t have a key to get back in?”

“He did so have a key. He was curator, wasn’t he, or supposed to be. Why don’t you take a look in his pockets instead of standing around shooting your mouth off?”

Fred Ottermole glowered, but obeyed. To his unconcealed satisfaction, no keys were to be found either on Professor Ungley’s person or anywhere in the vicinity of his body.

“Well, that’s that. Anybody got any more bright ideas, or can I turn him over to Harry Goulson?” Goulson was the local undertaker.

Dr. Melchett shrugged. “He’s all Goulson’s, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll wait here while you fetch him, if you like. Tell him to bring a death certificate form along, if he’s got one.

Mrs. Lomax wasn’t asked to stay, but she did. Her neighbors had begun drifting down Main Street on their morning errands. It was not to be supposed that any show of activity around the generally quiet museum could go unobserved, or that people wouldn’t come to see what was up. By the time the police chief got back with the undertaker, Professor Ungley had gathered quite a crowd.

“OH, HOW DREADFUL!”

That was Mrs. Pommell, the banker’s wife, got up regardless in kid gloves and a felt hat to go and buy a pound of scrod at Carey’s Fish Market. The hat was year before last’s, but it was too dressy for Carey’s nevertheless. Betsy Lomax didn’t have much time for people who gave themselves airs, though she did have to admit Mrs. Pommell was looking decently upset instead of just standing there gawking like the rest of them.

“And to think he was alive and well only last night,” the banker’s wife observed to the admiring multitudes.

“This was at the Balaclavian Society meeting?” Fred Ottermole asked her, whipping out his notebook and handsome new gold pen.

“Yes.” Mrs. Pommell took out a tissue and sniffled into it in a dainty and ladylike manner. “My husband and I were also among those present.”

“Did you both stay till the end?”

“Certainly.” She appeared surprised at the question. “After our business meeting, Professor Ungley gave us a most interesting talk about penknives. They were originally used, you know, to shape the ends of feathers that were used as pens. Goose quills, turkey quills, crow quills for fine drawing—they still sell pens called crowquills at art supply shops, or did when I was taking my fine arts courses at boarding school.”

She would have to get that in, Mrs. Lomax thought. Ottermole showed no interest in Mrs. Pommell’s school days, but the professor’s choice of topic appeared to ring a professional bell.

“Penknives, eh? How big would they be? Big enough to hurt a person with, I mean?”

Mrs. Pommell shook her hat. “Mercy, no. They were tiny things, many of them, small enough to carry on a watch chain or fit into a lady’s writing desk. After all, the tip end of a wing feather, even a turkey’s, isn’t very—surely you’re not thinking—that is, Professor Ungley wasn’t
stabbed,
was he?”

“Far as we can tell from the evidence, he fell and hit his head on this old harrow,” Ottermole had to admit. “That’s right, isn’t it, Dr. Melchett?”

“I see nothing inconsistent with your findings, Chief Ottermole,” the doctor replied.

Naturally he wouldn’t. Mrs. Lomax knew Dr. Melchett of old. He was a good enough medical practitioner, but he was a better politician. Catch him giving the wrong answer in front of the banker’s wife!

“What a dreadful pity.” Mrs. Pommell plied her tissue again as an example to the gapers. “I wonder what he was doing back here? Taking a shortcut, do you think?”

Melchett shrugged. “You knew Ungley better than I did. Was he in the habit of taking shortcuts?”

“Professor Ungley was something of a law unto himself, as you’d surely realized. We did have our car,” a vast and opulent Lincoln (the Pommells lived fully a quarter of a mile away), “but we wouldn’t have dreamed of offering him a lift. We’d suggested it several times previously and he used to get quite huffy. One must respect our senior citizens’ wishes to be independent, mustn’t one?”

Senior citizens, for crying out loud! As if that old hen hadn’t been graduated from her fancy boarding school while the then Betsy Swope was still struggling through her first reader. Mrs. Lomax straightened the fingers of her woolen gloves in a way that let everybody know she understood perfectly what was what, but was too much of a lady to say so. Mrs. Pommell made a point of not noticing, and Chief Ottermole again was not interested.

“Did Professor Ungley leave the clubhouse before or after you did?” he asked.

Mrs. Pommell reflected. “It seems to me we all left at pretty much the same time. I have a vague idea it was Mr. Lutt who locked the door behind us, but I couldn’t say for sure.”

“Mr. Lutt’s the guy who has the key, is he?”

“As a matter of fact, we all have keys. That is, I personally don’t have one, but my husband does and somehow it’s managed to wind up on my key ring. Mr. Pommell has so many keys to carry around in the way of business that I always get stuck with the leftovers. You know how it is with bankers.”

And if they didn’t, she’d certainly be the one to tell them. Betsy Lomax buttoned her lips tighter and straightened her gloves again.

“What about Professor Ungley?” Ottermole persisted. “Would he normally have a key on him?”

“Why, I should suppose so. That is—oh dear, I remember now. He took out his key ring to show us a charming little gold penknife he carried on it. Then he laid the ring out with the other knives on the table. I’m wondering now whether he forgot to pick it up before he left. If you’ll wait just one moment—”

Mrs. Pommell fumbled in her impressive handbag and brought out a key chain of her own with fancy plastic bobbles at the ends. “Let’s see, this—no, that’s the garage. Here we are. Do you want to come in with me, Chief Ottermole? It’s against the rules for non-members to enter except on visiting days, but in a situation like this—”

“Aw, that’s okay,” said Ottermole, which was just as well since Mrs. Pommell had already darted inside, closing the door behind her with an air of absentmindedness that didn’t fool Betsy Lomax one iota.

“I’ve found them,” she called out, “right where I thought they’d be.”

The clubhouse wasn’t much bigger than a bread box anyway. She was back outside before she’d finished talking, the keys in her hand and the gold penknife sticking out from the bunch.

“You see, that’s the knife he was showing us. It belonged to a great-uncle of his, so I don’t suppose the heirs will care to donate it to our museum collection, though this is hardly the time to be thinking of such things, is it? Poor, dear Professor Ungley. How we shall miss him!”

As she reached for another tissue, Fred Ottermole held out his hand for the keys. “I’ll take those for the time being, Mrs. Pommell. I expect his lawyer will want them.”

“What about the cane?” said Dr. Melchett, who still appeared to be intrigued by that silver fox.

“Why don’t I take it along and leave it in his flat?” Mrs. Lomax suggested. “That way, all his things will be together and the heirs, whoever they may be, won’t have anything to squawk about when it comes time to settle up.”

“Good idea.” Fred Ottermole handed it over to her and that, as far as he was concerned, was that.

Maybe the old geezer had got caught short as originally theorized and found he didn’t have his keys to get back in and use the facilities. Maybe he simply happened to remember a few seconds too late that he’d left his door keys, plus that nice gold penknife, inside and started around the building hoping to find a window open or something so that he could climb in and get them. It was six of one and half a dozen of the other. He gave it as his official verdict that Dr. Melchett might as well issue a certificate of death by misadventure and Harry Goulson might as well get on with the laying out.