The Case of the Weird Sisters (12 page)

"The fire was almost smodiered with fresh coal last night," he said, "and closed up tight Gas just pouring off."

"Who tends the furnace?"

"Mr. Johnson. The handyman around here."

"Ah, yes. Mr. Johnson." Duff lingered over the name. "Does he drink?"

"I don't know," said Fred, "but that's not the point

Look. Every one of these pipes has a damper. Well, Innes got the full dose. The other rooms were like ice. Because somebody had carefully gone around down here and turned all the dampers shut but one. That wasn't any accident"

Duff pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. He wandered among the pipes. "Which one goes to the room where Innes is?"

"This one."

"How do you know?"

'They've got labels scratched on them. See. 'Papa's room.'"

"Oh, yes."

"You'd never know otherwise," Fred said. "Gee, it's some contraption." He stood, feet apart, gazing contemptuously at ihs, heating plant.

"It more or less heats a house," Duff said mildly. "You are of the new era. Too bad we can't get fingerprints. But I suppose not."

"Mine," Fred said. "Believe me, I had some fun scrambling around here trying to find all those cocks to turn."

"That one is certainly rather well hidden," Duff said thoughtfully. "Where does it lead, do you know?"

Fred looked at the scratches. "Kitchen."

Duff thrust his hand between two of the enormous pipes.

I'Look out," said Fred, "they may be pretty hot."

"This one was turned, too? You're sure'?"

"I'm sure," Fred said.

Duff pulled his hand away. "Filthy,'' he said. "Can you tell me how a hand and arm could reach in there and not come back smudged?"

"It comes back smudged," Fred said. "Greasy dirt. I got it on me." 

"Where?"

"Where? On my arm." 

"Your forearm?" 

"Yeah."

"Did anyone, last night, have any smudges on any forearms?" 

"No," said Fred. "Lord, I'd have been onto that. They were all in their nightclothes, and I took a look. But I don't know that it matters. They had plenty of time to wash."

"I believe Miss Isabel Whitlock has only one arm?"

"That's so."

"Which?"

"Her left one's the good one."

"Do you want to put your left hand on there, or shall I?"

"What's a little dirt on the hired help?" Fred said, grinning. He hauled up his sleeve, reached in, and touched the damper of the kitchen pipe. When he pulled his arm back there was a greasy smudge on it about six inches above the wrist, on the upper bone.

"Did you try to get dirty? Don't try."

"You can't help it," Fred said, "not if you go in all the way to the damper. Do it yourself. You simply can't help it."

"I see," said Duff thoughtfully. "What's your name?"

"Fred Bitoski. Call me Fred."

"Fred," said Duff, "how does a woman with one working arm and hand wash her only forearm?"

Fred stood still, turning his left hand on the wrist. "I don't know."

"Soaks it, does she? Let's water run over it? Rubs it on a soapy rag that's fastened somehow?"

Fred crooked his arm and twisted it. "She'd have to damn near stand on her head. That kind of dirt takes scrubbing, too. But it doesn't mean so much, Mr. Duff. She wears long sleeves. Even her nightgown. all the time."

"Sleeves. Damned awkward to make a survey of the sleeves in this house."

"I've got a lot of respect for detective work," Fred said earnestly, having quite forgotten he was hired help by this time. "But honestly, I don't see what you can do. You can't prove anything. You can't make them tell you anything, or let you look around, even. What can you do?"

"As for proof, proof can wait," Duff murmured, "But I'd like to know. Wouldn't you?"

"Sure, but how can you know, and what good would it do? All I can see is, keep the boss alive and get him out of here. Heck, all three of them coxild be in on it, one one time and one another."

"Do you think they are working together? I take it we agree to suspect the Whitlock sisters."

"Yeah, and it's one of them, or two or three." Fred shrugged. "They don't even have to be working together. Just working on the same idea, separately. It's so darned vague."

"You interest me," said Duff. "Why should it occur to you that they're working at the same idea separately?"

"I dunno."

Duff stood with his tall head lost among the pipes. He seemed to be musing. In a little while he began to muse aloud.

"Yes, it's a disadvantage when the murder hasn't succeeded. One can't be as bossy as one would like. Nevertheless, it's the same problem. Just the same. Somewhere there must be a motive or a wish. There have been methods, even though they haven't worked. Times and opportunities and all that. Here, also, we have three women very peculiarly limited, each in her separate way. I would like very much to know which of them has tried murder, and how many of them—outside of making it a little easier to keep your boss alive, once we know. These three sisters, half-sisters of his, I understand. They aren't in triplicate? They're not all alike?"

"No," said Fred, "but there's not much choice."

"Still, they're different."

"Like different brands of poison," Fred said.

"What's the motive?"

"His money."

"And yet they're different," Duff said. "Do they all fit that motive?"

"In different ways."

"Is that so, indeed?" EhifTs voice was warm and curious. "Do you know them well?"

"I don't know them very well at all," said Fred, "but it don't take long to learn not to love 'em."

"I shall have to learn," said Duff. "I think I'll stop over in the kitchen."

"Alice and I ... I mean, Miss Brennan and I figured out a few things. We . . ."

"We'll talk about them," Duff promised. "But let me linger by the kitchen door now, before they wake.''

13

MacDougal Duff set himself to charm Josephine. He begged her hmnbly for a cup of coffee and would permit no fuss. He would drink it here, he said. Before long it became apparent that Mr. Duff was very much interested in the problems of a general houseworker from a new and fascinating point of view. Chat got around to the types of mistresses one drew. It seemed that Duff, in a broad, almost scientific kind of way, had made a study. People were fascinating, anyway. Aiid a houseworker's job was so bound up in himian relations. So much life to be lived on the job. Her boss made more difference to her, her boss's foibles, her boss's character. Josephine, drinking all this in, expanded when she found Duff ready to hang on her words. Of course, her experience was great, he implied. She, Josephine, must know a great deal about women. A very great deal.

Well, Josephine had been on this job for fourteen years, except for one year when she'd gone off to Mrs. Dr. Follett. But she'd come back after one year of rebellion. That was all the jobs she'd had. Still, insisted Duff, with three mistresses at once, as it were, that made four women in all, each a type. Josephine must have observed them well.

Josephine bloomed under this mind-broadening discussion. Her latent self-pity lent emotional force to her observations. She didn't quite complain, but she began to talk.

Mrs. Eh". Follett, now, she was the kind who was all the time reading up about some fancy things to cook in the Ladies' Home Journal, and she'd come out in the kitchen and mess around herself, and they never turned out good, never, just a lot of waste, mostly butter and sugar. Honest, it was a crime. And decorating the table. Mr. Duff wouldn't believe the crazy things she'd do. Have to stand

up a banana in the hole of a piece of pineapple and stick a red cherry on top so it'd look like a candle! Dumb things like that. As if it was going to taste like anything but a banana and a piece of pineapple. Besides, they had to knock the banana down to eat it, didn't they?

Duff sympathized. He understood the scorn of the professional for the enthusiastic amateur.

Of course, here it wasn't any easy job, she told him. Duff surmised shrewdly that there was prestige attached to being the Whitlock drudge, that somewhere in the village Josephine was thought of as one who moved among mysterious luxuries. Because, as became plain, Josephine was a drudge.

"They don't bother me wanting to do no cooking," said Josephine. "None of 'em ever wanted to go so far as to boil an egg, as far as I know."

How different people were from each other, murmured Duff, keeping the high impersonal plane.

That was right. Now, you take Miss Gertrude. She was the kind who hadda have everything just so. Oh, yes, even if she was blind, she could feel dust with her fingers. Kinda spooky, she was. Well, she wanted everything just so, you know, just so; but she never thought about the time you had to do it or how you was going to get it done, either. She didn't care, just so it was done. And done right.

Strict, suggested Duff. There were women like diat Fussy?

Well, no, she wasn't so awful strict. She'd tell you, that's all, and you'd have to try, but it was just that she . . . Well, now, for instance, she'd always think about how it was going to look if somebody came. You know, everything hadda always be ready for company. She didn't have so much company, for the land's sakes. But that's how she was. Always sitting so stiff and straight, just waiting like, for somebody to happen to come in and find her sitting nice and straight.

"A proud woman," said Duff. "Ah, yes."

A proud woman was right. Mr. Duff had got it exactly. She was the one that knew she was a Whitlock, she was. And a Whitlock hadda keep up to snuff. Hard on a girl, let JosephiQe tell you. Because the way she kept up to snuff was giving orders. It was funny how Miss Gertrude

could take so much credit for wanting things just so when she wasn't ever the one who went to work and put them just so. Not her! Too proud to make her own bed, though she probably could if she wanted to. She could do a lot of things, blind though she was. And awful proud of that, too. Josephine looked out the side of her eye at Duff and added quickly, "Poor lady."

Well, it was better than feeling sorry for herself, Duff suggested, and Josephine agreed glumly.

With Miss Isabel handicapped, too, Duff went on, all the little chores must fall to Josephine. How hard that must be.

"Talkiug about fussy," said Josephine, "she's the one is always at me for something. She tries to help out, though. Land, she's always flying at some job I ain't had time to get around to, but I always have to do it all over, time I get there." Josephine wrung her dishrag out slowly. "You know, Mr. Dufi, .there's two ways of doing your work. You can get it done real fast and sit down and rest and have a little time to yourself. I used to do that with Mrs. Dr. Follett. But Miss Isabel can't stand it to see me sitting stiU. She'll think of something. Something gets to worrying her. So I kinda slow up."

"Of course," said Duff. "Naturally."

"Well, if I was to go rushing around here, I'd be doing twice as much," said Josephine, "and there's too much as it is. Now she can figure out ways . . . She don't like to spend money, Miss Isabel don't, so she'll figure I can do it the hard way and save a coupla pennies. Well, I go slow, that's all. There's just so many hours. You can't blame me."

"She wants your hours full," said Duff.

"She sure don't want to waste any of my time," cracked Josephine, and Duff risked a laugh.

Josephine took it properly. They were friends.

"It seems to me you do pretty well to keep this house going at all," said Duff. "How about Miss Maud? Is she fussy, too?"

"Oh, Miss Maud! If she was the only one, it'd be a cinch. She's easy-going. A little dust don't bother her."

"If it doesn't bother her, I don't suppose she helps with the dusting, does she?"

"Her?" Josephine laughed. "She's too lazy."

"Lazy," said Duff thoughtfully. "Is she, really'?" Hesaw a qualm growing on Josephine's face and made a quick retreat to the field of psychological observation. "Tell me, would a girl rather work for a lazy mistress or for a fairly strict one?"

"Well, I'll tell you. In a way . . ." Josephine pondered. "I dont know," she confessed. "The thing is, if she's lazy and sloppy, you get so's you can't stand it yourself. " 

"I see. You feel the responsibility," Duff said. Whereas, if you're told your duties strictly, you know where you are."

"Yeah," said Josephine gratefully, "that's what I mean. I don t know's I'd like it, working for Miss Maud alone. Even If she is lazy—say, she'd live in a pigsty—she wants plenty of service for herself, just the same. You know what she'll do? She'll yell for me when she's lying on her bed to come upstairs and hand her a pillow that's across the room. That's what she'll do."

"Tell me," said Duff. "suppose she yelled and no one came? Would she get it herself then?"

"I'll never know," Josephine said bitterly. "Boy, when she yells, she yells."

She fell into a moody silence. Duff said, "There's a handyman, isn't there? He does the heavy work?"

"Oh, sure." Josephine sloshed water lackadaisically in the sink.

"Where does he sleep?"

Josephine raised startled eyes. "In the barn," she said, her voice losing body. She turned her back then.

"I was just wondering if he came home drunk last night and went down and did things to the furnace."

"Nope," said Josephine. "My room's off the kitchen. The back door makes a racket if it's opened. I'd have heard him. Besides, he don't get drunk so much."

Josephine was being less communicative, even though she said words.

"You were up last night?" Duff asked.

"I never heard anything until Fred went pounding down the cellar stairs. That woke me. Then I got up." Josephine was nearly brief.

Duff rose. "I like to chat," he said, "and thanks for the coffee."

"You're welcome," said Josephine. Her eyes were uneasy. They fixed on Duffs with some appeal. She fingered the tiny gold cross that hiing around her neck. "I been here fourteen years," she said huskily, "and I dunno where to go to get another job."

Was it apology? It seemed to be. For what? For being a doormat? For being a drudge?