The Case of the Weird Sisters (21 page)

"Do you mean they have a conspiracy?" said Alice, troubled.

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I can't imagine that."

"Neither can I," said Fred. "They're so kinda separated."

"Disconnected," agreed Alice.

"I can't imagine a conspiracy, either," admitted Duff, "because I truly believe that neither Gertrude nor Isabel would admit to her sisters that she was a murderess. Not even to themselves," he said, ''will they admit anything. So how admit a thing like that to anyone else?"

"Maud would, though," said Fred.

"Maud might."

"Well," said Alice, ''maybe Maud could have done it all, with Mr. Johnson helping."

Fred's eyes flickered. Duff said, "Please don't bring up Mr. Johnson."

"He moves awful quiet," said Fred disobediently. "Maybe he sneaked up the back stairs and pushed the lamp."

"He didn't," groaned Duff. "He didn't move the detour

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sign edther. He's got an alibi for attempts number one and two."

"What?"

''Oh, yes. Oh, yes. The most perfect alibi. He's only got one pair of pants in all the world and they . . ."

"Were torn!" cried Fred. "Say . . . ! He was hanging around the car, caught his pocket. . .'

"Don't," begged Duff, "mention it'

"All right, but why wouldn't he have turned the dampers?" said Alice, bringing them back to their muttons.

"Josephine says not."

"Why not?"

"The back door makes a racket, even if he doesn't. And don't talk to me about the front door. I'll tell you right now that if he did it, I'm licked. Because I do not imderstand Mr. Johnson."

Fred grinned. "Look," he said, "the trouble with him is, there's nothing to understand. He's practically a blank page. He just says the first thing that comes into his head. He's a simple-minded guy. Not crazy, I don't mean that. But he just barges along from one minute to the next. He doesn't worry, he doesn't even think. He's simple. That's all."

Duff said, "I am too civilized. I have often suspected it."

"Most people are," said Fred generously. ''Say, you've got to see that Indian two or three times before you can believe in him."

"Thank you," said Duff humbly. Alice opened her mouth again.

This Fred! she thought.

21

Shadows were longer across the road. Duff lit another cigarette. "Now, let us deal with the faking business. Are any of them faking? Can we tell? Do we know?"

"Isabel hasn't got a real right hand," said Fred. "We know that"

"Yes, we know that''

"About Gertrude," said Alice. "She must be blind.'' "I see nothing to deny it," said Duff. "She didn't trip on color. Remember, I miscalled the color of the ash tray? There's nothing in her room to indicate sight. If she can see, she is far more wUy and devious and subtle and deliberately maHcious than we think."

"Well, I think she probably is wilier than I think she is. I mean . . ." Alice began to flounder.

"Irish bull, Brennan," said Fred. "Get to Maud. Old happy-go-lucky."

"It's possible," said Duff, "that Maud is not deaf, or at least not as deaf as she makes out."

"But for heaven's sake," said Alice, "if she can hear, why go to all that trouble of making people write things down and learning finger talk and all the nuisance! Why would anybody do that? If Maud's so lazy, I should think ..."

"Wait," said Duff. "Imagine Maud, years ago. Bring up the past. I'm used to it. You try. Remember, one sister is blind. As such, she gets special service, doesn't she? And she is exempt from duty. The other sister has only one arm. Special service again. Exemption from duties. Leaving the third sister, who is whole, in the position of the only one in the lot who might be expected to run errands, attend to small chores, deal with tradespeople, take responsibilities, be the general overseer. There are many small executive duties connected with the running of a house. Interruptions and nuisances. Do you imagine Maud taking kindly to them? On the contrary, I think Maud's laziness perfecdy consistent with a gradual fake loss of hearing. Her sisters say, "You go, Maud"—''Maud had better"—"Maud, will you"; but pretty soon, Maud stops hearing these requests, stops being useful. Maud loafs.

"Maud develops a psychological deafness. By not attending, by a deep inner loafing, she really doesn't hear. Or, at the very least, she seems not to hear. But I really don't know how you are going to prove that she doesn't"

"Likewise," said Fred gloomily, "how are you going to prove that she does?"

Duff sighed. "We can go on guessing," he said. "Did you notice anything in her room, Alice?"

"I looked as hard as I could," she said. "There's no

alarm on her clock, but then, Maud's not the type to have an alarm clock. I'll bet she doesn't care when she gets up. I must say, she didn't seem to hear you when you were being mysterious about the telephone call. You were trying to trick her, weren't you?"

"I wonder if I didn't," said Duff.

Alice drew her brows together. "When?"

"When I dropped my voice and got, as you say, mysterious. She stopped chewing."

"But . . ."

"Ever eat Melba toast?"

"Certainly."

"It makes," said Duff, "a terrible racket in your own ears."

"Sure. Like celery, only worse," said Fred, "She stopped chewing, did she? lin."

"Oh, go on. It could have been just a coincidence," said Alice.

"It could," said Duff. "But she did stop chewing on her Melba toast. If she can hear, then she arranged to be able to hear, when I appeared to be telling secrets. She's curious, you know. If she had gone on eating, I should have thought her truly deaf, or utterly indifferent Alice is right of course. It's no proof. Either way," he added wearily.

"So we're still guessing," Alice said.

Duff cleared his throat. "Did you notice a funny paper stuffed into her window, into the crack?"

"Yes."

"Why do you stuff a newspaper into a crack?"

"To stop a draft," said Alice promptly.

"In which case, you stuff it carefully along the length of the crack, do you not?"

"I guess you do."

"But she didn't."

"No, she didn't."

"Then, do you think of another reason?"

"To stop a rattle," said Fred. "By gum!"

"That," said Duff, "is what occurred to me. A deaf woman?"

"Well, it makes you wonder," said Fred slowly, "doesn't it?"

"That's dreadful," said Alice, "to think of her hearing as well as anybody, and grinning to herself, and making all that fuss."

"I don't suppose there's much to make a fuss about, ordinarily," Duff reminded her. "The excitements of the last two days are rare. Ordinarily, being deaf would be more convenient than not being deaf. Isn't that so?"

"Do you think she can hear?"

"I find cause to wonder," Duff said, "that's all. Well, suppose we go over the attempts again. Let me see. The first one, the lamp falling. We had decided that it was not Maud, possibly Gertrude, possibly Isabel."

'We were wrong," said Fred.

"I did wonder how good Gertrude's perception is, in three dimensions," Duff said thoughtfully. "Especially since the bathroom off the lower hall was put there since her blindness. Could she know that a man emerging from that door would come, in just so many steps, exactly under the crossing edge of the upstairs hall? Judgment of distance, at least three-dimensional distance, depends so much on sight. Doesn't it strike you as difficult for a blind woman?"

"She could hear," said Alice. "Maybe the sound changed. His footsteps would seem louder when he got out from under, into the open hall."

"Perhaps," said Duff. "Still, it would seem that such a change would warn her too late. She would have to touch the lamp just before he emerged."

"That's when it fell," said Fred, "just before."

"Perhaps I am being too subtle," Duff admitted. "After all, we don't know how accurate the timing was, because you jumped first. Well, well say it's possible for Gertrude to have tried that. Even though her room is not upstairs and it meant, for her, planning to get up there. Being there, surely, before anyone could know that Innes would go into that bathroom at all."

"I see what you mean," Fred said, "but it couldn't have been planned by anybody. It was grabbing the chance. And she might have gone upstairs just for instance."

"Attempt number one, not Maud, possibly Gertrude, possibly Isabel."

"That's wrong. It could have been Maud.
If
she can hear."

"But not if Gertrude is blind."

"Why not?"

"Maud," said Duff, "was probably—and surely, if Gertrude is blind—downstairs at the time, in the parlor, behind the curtains, reading the newspapers."

"How do you know?"

"You couldn't see her face, could you?"

"No. That's what I told you."

"Why not?"

"Because she was holding the newspaper up."

"Was it a tabloid?"

"No."

"Then wilh how many hands was she holding it up?"

"With two hands," said Fred. "So, of course, it wasn't Isabel. I see."

"But . . ." Alice stopped herself.

"A blind woman, you know," Duff purred, "doesn't read the newspaper."

Alice and Fred looked at each other.

"Yes, but how did you know she was holding the thing spread out?"

"It must have been spread out, to hide her whole face and head. Try to hold a newspaper in one hand when it's spread out."

"One to you," said Fred. "O.K. Even if Gerty can see a little, she wouldn't be reading the newspaper. I give up. So it wasn't Maud." He leaned back, looking gloomy.

"Therefore, let us say in the case of attempt number one, only Maud couldn't have done it,"

"Go on," said Fred.

"Attempt number two, the accident to the car, the moving of the detour sign. Not Gertrude, was said."

"But possibly Maud."

"Especially if she can hear. If she did hear you say which road you'd be taking."

"That's right"

"And possibly Isabel, of course. Then let us say of attempt number two, only Gertrude couldn't have done it,"

"Go on," said Alice.

"Attempt number three, the coal gas, the tampering

with the furnace. What about that?"

"Not hkely Gertrude," said Fred. "She couldn't see the signs on the pipes."

"She knows everything about that house," objected Alice. "She makes a point of it. Besides, all she'd really have to know is which one went to Papa's room, and turn off all the rest."

"I had wondered," Duff said, "whether Maud could have moved as quietly as would have been necessary, if she couldn't hear her own noise. With the storm to help her, I had concluded that it was possible. But, of course, if she can hear . . ."

"Listen, old Maud could have managed that one. Gertrude's well. . . just a possibility. Barely."

"Barely," said Ahce significantly, and looked at Duff.

"But now Isabel," said Duff. "Number three, only Isabel couldn't have done it."

"Why couldn't she?"

"Whoever turned the dampers got a greasy stain on her arm when she reached for the pipe to the kitchen. No stained sleeves. Therefore a bare arm. Isabel can't scrub such a stain off her own left arm, with only her own left hand to do it."

"But Gertrude could have scrubbed it off for her," said Alice triumphantly, "with the witch hazel!"

Duffs eyes twinkled. "How true!" he said. "Gertrude denied it was her arm. Said it was her limb. A limb's a leg, isn't it? Could it possibly be anything else? However, what's to prevent Isabel from putting her hand into her bedroom slipper, shall we say. To a blind sister, her arm was her shin, or limb. Yes, it does look suspicious, especially if Gertrude is really blind. But alas, kids, Maud gives her an alibi."

"Maud says she came upstairs about eleven, when the heat was still pouring out of the registers, and that she did not go down later. At least not through Maud's room. Fred says she didn't go down by the only other route. Isabel has an alibi."

"We believe me," said Fred, "but do we believe Maud?"

"I don't know why we shouldn't," said Duff thoughtfully, "unless we beheve in a conspiracy."

"We don't, though."

"What do we believe?" cried Alice. "It seems to me that we're all at sea."

"I know what I think," said Fred, darkly. "So Maud didn't dump over the lamp. I'll grant her that But she caught on quick. I think Maud scooted down the hill in the dark and moved that sign. And when that didn't work, Maud went down cellar, between, say, eleven thirty and twelve, and monkeyed with those dampers."

"Maybe," said Alice. "But I think Isabel must have dumped the lamp. And I don't agree with you about the next one. I think Isabel must have been the one who moved the sign down the road. I do think that was Isabel."

They turned eagerly to Duff for his vote. But Duff wasn't voting. He said quietly, "Who was it that tried to poison Innes? Which one was that?"

"Poison!"

Alice said, trembling, "You mean the pillbox. You mean the pills." She took the box out of her pocket and opened it with fumbling hands. "These aren't right!" she said. "They don't look . . . No! They aren't the same!"

"Oh," said Duff lightly, "those are aspirin."

"Aspirm!"

He was smiling. "I did that while we conferred this morning. I have the others here." He took out an aspirin bottle and dumped the round white pills into his hand. "These were in your box. One of them is a trifle larger than the rest. You can hardly tell which, can you? Here it is."

"One of them," said Fred, staring.

Alice couldn't stop shaking. "And I was giving them to him! Two every three hours. Then one every six hours. I would have been the murderess!"

"What is it?" said Fred.

"Strychnine, I think."

"But only one pill," Fred said. "They'd have had a long wait, maybe. Why only one, Mr. Duff? Why not half a dozen?"

"It's safer," said Duff. "There would be no others left over in the box to show where it came from, after he was dead. Oh, we should know it came from the pillbox, but

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not, perhaps, just what kind of dose and, therefore its original source. Poison was indicated, I thought. The flavor of these crimes, the haphazard methods, combined with perfect safety to tho one who was arranging these accidents, and perfect indifference to the chance of getting an innocent victim, poison seemed terribly fitting Ln that pattern. When I thought of poison, I thought of his pills, of course. I took them on a chance. After all, aspirin couldn't hurt him. Well, the poison's there, I think."

"You mean," said Alice, half-hysterically, "one of them has been waiting all this time for him to get the poisoned pill and die? One of them has been checking up, sort of, after every dose? Oh, Mr. Duff, I'm scared now, if I never was before! It's horrible!"

"Yeah," said Fred, "a good clean revolver shot would be decent compared to this kind of sneaky .. ." "But not so safe," said Duff quietly. "But look," said Fred, "why the coal gas, then? Or were two of them operating at once, for God's sake!"

"There had arisen a time element," said Duff. "The lawyer was coming, and they knew it. At least, Isabel did. Do you suppose she told the others?"

"Yes," said Fred promptiy, "if she's guilty she told them to help cover herself. If she isn't guilty, she told them because it's important news."

"He didn't die all day Friday," said Alice, shivering, "so they tried another way, during the night."

Duff was smiling. "It gives us a rather interesting situation," he said, "but let's first see whether we can figure out who put the poison pill in there and where she got it." "I don't see how," said Alice. "I've been in the room every time they came, I'm sure. And most of the time I've carried the box around with me. And nobody's been in my room at night. . . . I've never slept well enough yet. The only time I did, the doctor was with Innes and so were the pills. Mr. Duff, it's impossible."

Fred said, "Would the girls have a thing like that lying around the house? Something to match the stuff the doctor was prescribing? Seems to me they must have rummaged around some place where they had a choice of poisons. How about the doctor's stuff?"

"We must stop in at Dr. Follett's," Duff said. "The minister interrupted us this morning. I did mean to ask. But, tell me, did the doctor say aloud or write down what drugs he was going to administer?"

"He did say. Of course he did. Right after we got Innes to bed," cried Alice. "They were all there, too. In a row,in the hall. Then they went away. Fred, the doctor left his bag in the car while he helped carry Innes up the stairs. And you were sent for it."

"Yeah, and I put it down in the hall. You said you'd take it up. When the doctor sent me to his office."

"Yes, and I didn't take it up right away because I helped Mrs. Innes. I went down for it later. It was down there alone. And they were around. And . . . Oh, Mr. Duff, that's when I heard the funny little sound! You know. The cough-laugh."

"Ah yes," Duff said. "When something happens, you hear noises. So we are exacdy where we were, if this pill came out of the doctor's bag. They each had the chance."

"But Gertrude," objected Fred, "can hardly read the labels on pillboxes or bottles, can she?"

"She can smell?" suggested Duff.

"But nobody would know how strychnine smelled. Do ! you? Do I? Does it?"

"It doesn't," said Duff, his eyes twinkling. "No, we shall have to say it's beyond Gertrude, like everything else, unless she's a consummate actress with perfect control and a villainess of high degree."

"And Maud .. .? Heck, it's the same damn thing!" Fred pounded the seat cushion. "If she can't hear, she wouldn't know what the doctor said he was going to give him, so she couldn't go down there and put the wrong pill in the right box. But if she can hear, then she could have done it. « Isabel could manage, all right. She could open a pillbox f with one hand. How about a bottle, though?"

"If her fingers are strong."

"Her fingers are strong," said Alice grimly.

Fred looked despairing. "How are we going to stop this, Mr. Duff? How are we going to know?"

Duff chuckled. "It looks as if Innes has known how to stop it," he reminded them. "By appeasement. And don't you see? Somebody is going to have to unmurder Innes.

"Unmurder him?"

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"Of course."

"What . . . ?"

"Somebody is going to have to make sure he doesn't take the poisoned pill, after all, now that things are different. Now that the advantage lies in keeping Innes alive."

"By golly," said Fred.

Alice began to laugh.

"So if we can't catch the murderer amurdering," said Duff, "we still have a chance to catch her in the act of un-murdering."

"It isn't a crime to unmurder anybody.''

"No, but at least we'll know."

"How will we know? Shall Fred and I take turns watching the pillbox?"

"Maybe we can set a trap," said Duff. "We shall now visit the doctor and get ourselves some equipment. We'll have a try. But when we get back to the house we must act dumb. We never suspected poison. We aren't pill-conscious. Try to remember that."

Alice said, with horror in her eyes, "It's a good thing you were, though, Mr. Duff. I might have given him the wrong pill any time. It was just luck that I didn't. Can't we catch the one . ..?"

"Or the two," said Fred.

"Or three," said Alice. "Can't we? It's so damned wicked!"

Duff said gently, "Once we know, perhaps something can be done. To the doctor's, Fred."

"Yes, sir."

Dr. Follett took the biggest pill in his clean fingers. He smelled it and touched it to his tongue. His trembling left hand caught his glasses before they fell.

"My fault," he gasped. "I should never carry such a thing. Never. I never meant to. This is a dispensLng pill. It . . . it's deadly. No drugstore in Ogaunee, Mr. Duff, you see? I do a great deal of my own prescription work. People have to go several miles. I ... I... A doctor shouldn't carry a fatal dose, in one pill. I have no excuse."

"How the heck did she know it was deadly?" demanded Fred. "Who knows, offhand, how many grains it takes?