The Dishonest Murderer (31 page)

“An old man, girl,” he said. “Old enough for your grandfather. Great-grandfather. Don't mind me. Where
is
the old fool?”

He looked into the pen which was the home of the black kitten, almost as if he expected to find Mr. Halder sharing the pen. “Where is he, Electra?” he said, in a quite matter-of-fact voice. “Where's the old man? Sleeping it off?”

The little cat looked up at him, opened her pink mouth widely, made a very small sound. The cockers in the next pen began to clamor loudly. The little man listened, moved in front of their pen, and looked at them.

“You've got no water,” the man said. He spoke almost accusingly, as if it were a fault of the cockers. They spoke together, in a frenzy of assent.

The little man turned sharply to Liza O'Brien.

“Something's the matter,” he said. “They haven't got water.”

He turned again and began to walk rapidly down the room toward a door at the end. He walked so rapidly it was almost as if he trotted.

The room in which Mr. Halder lived was empty. The bed had been made up, rather sketchily, since it was last slept in. The little old man went to shelves by a refrigerator and looked at the dishes on them. The dishes shone.

Liza had gone to the door, had stood in it watching the little old man. Now, as he turned and started toward her, she moved aside to let him pass. All the wrinkles on the little face seemed even deeper than before; she saw that he was very disturbed, perhaps even frightened.

“J. K.!” he called into the shop, in a high, ancient voice. “J. K.!”

There was no answer. It took them only a few minutes to find out why. Mr. Halder, dressed in black and white, folded so that his knees were against his chest, lying on his side, was in one of the pens. A young boxer in the next pen was as far from him as she could get; she was curled up and she was shivering.

Even as, involuntarily, Liza O'Brien shrank back from the pen in which Mr. J. K. Halder was so grotesquely folded, she heard the little old man beside her suddenly begin to cry. He cried gaspingly, like a child.

And Liza turned to him, involuntarily, as she would have turned to a child. She was shocked, and frightened, to see how the little wrinkled face had changed; how, between one moment and the next, life seemed to have gone out of it. The blue eyes which had been so sharp were now strangely vacant, seemed almost like blind eyes, as if the tears forming in them had washed away sight. The wrinkled cheeks, where color had been bright under the thin, aged skin, were now a kind of yellowish white. The little old man groped around him, uncertainly, as if he were indeed blind, and she reached out to steady him, but he made uncertain gestures which seemed to ward her off. Then, on the other side of the room, she saw a wooden chair and moved quickly and put it within his reach. He sat on it, still uncertainly and then turned in it, resting his arms on the back of the chair and his head on his arm.

“Are you all right?” she said, her voice hurried, carrying the message of her shock and fear.
Why
, she thought,
he's going to die right there, sitting there! Something terrible is happening to him!
And she felt, hopelessly, that there was something to do, some aid to give, and that she, in her terrible youth, her utter lack of knowledge, was uselessly letting him slip into death. She looked around the room in a kind of desperation, trying to see in it some means of helping the little man but not, in that first shocked uncertainty, knowing what she sought. Then it came to her—a stimulant, brandy, perhaps. She remembered the room in the rear and said, “Wait! I'll get something!” and thought the old head, still resting on the arm, moved in agreement. She went quickly into the room in which Mr. Halder had lived.

She found a glass quickly, in one of the cupboards, but it took her much longer, opening doors, pulling out drawers, in a desperate conviction of the need to hurry, to find the bottle she sought. Then it was whisky, not brandy, but she almost ran as she carried the bottle and the glass back toward the room in which it seemed the little man was dying. She pushed open the door and started to speak as she entered the show room and then, blankly, stopped. The chair was empty.
It's happened
, she thought,
oh
—But then she saw that the little man had not slumped from the chair to the floor; was not, indeed, anywhere in sight. Still carrying the bottle and the glass, she searched rapidly through the room, looked finally, when it could no longer be put off, in the pen in which the body of Mr. Halder was hideously folded. But there was no other body there and she turned away quickly, feeling, as her anxiety flowed away, almost indignant, almost angry. Why, she thought, I've been—fooled. He's just gone; he just got up and went away.

She put glass and bottle down on the chair in which the little old man had been sitting, and went to the door of the shop. It was closed, and she opened it and, holding it open behind her, looked up and down West Kepp Street. But the little man was not in sight. Then she went back into the shop, closing the door behind her. The little old man had, it was clear, merely got up and gone away; perhaps that was what he had all along planned to do. He had left her in this room with the animals; in the room with the grotesquely folded body of Mr. J. K. Halder. “Well!” Liza O'Brien said, aloud, in something approaching her normal voice.

Momentarily, she was tempted to follow the example of the little old man. It would be simple merely to pick up her wrapped sketching pad, go down the length of the shop and out the door into West Kepp Street and leave what was in the room to another's finding. But she shook her head instantly; even if it weren't for Brian—Her thoughts broke off. That was it. Before anything else, she must tell Brian. Poor dear, she thought; I was worrying about the little old man, when all the time I should have been thinking of Brian.

It took her only a moment to find the telephone, on a desk in a rear corner of the room. She dialed a number which, although she had used it infrequently, was familiar in her mind because, in a minor way, it was part of Brian. “Mr. Brian Halder, please,” she said to the switchboard operator. “Is Mr. Halder in? Miss O'Brien,” she said to someone else who was not Brian. And then the voice was Brian's, for the instant blank, a voice answering an office telephone; then, as he heard her voice, or as realization brushed away previous preoccupation, warm and gay. “Liza!” Brian said. “Hel-
lo!
”

“Brian,” she said and, hearing his voice, she was suddenly close to crying. “Brian—something terrible. Something—”

“Liza,” he said. “What's the matter?” His voice had changed now; held alarm and concern.

“It's—it's your father, Brian,” she said. “I'm at the shop. He's—he—”

It was hard to say.

“What is it, dear?” Brian said. “Go on, Liza.”

“He's dead, Brian,” she said. “Something—oh, I'm afraid, Brian. It's—it's so strange. So awful. He's—he's sort of fallen in—in one of the pens and—”

“Wait,” Brian Halder said. “You're there, you say?
There?
”

“I told you,” she said. “I was going to sketch a cat. I—I
found
him, Brian.”

“Wait,” Brian said. “Who else is there? Have you—told anybody?”

“There was a little man,” she said. “A strange little man. But he's gone, now.”

“You're sure he's dead?” Brian asked.

“Oh, I'm sure,” she said, “I'm—I'm afraid it's sure, Brian.”

“Let me think,” he said. “We'll have to—you say he was in one of the
pens?
” There was incredulity, and something else, in his voice.

“Yes,” she said. “Sort of—sort of folded up. He must have fallen, somehow.”

There was a moment's silence.

“I don't see—” Brian Halder began, then, slowly. But then he paused again.

“Wait there,” he said. “I'll come. Can you—just wait? You say nobody's been in?”

“Only the little old man,” she said.

“That's probably—” he began, and again paused. “Never mind,” he said. “I'll be there in—oh, ten, fifteen minutes. Not more than twenty. Will you just wait until I get there? Can you do that, Liza?”

“Of course,” she said.

“Sit down,” he said. “Don't think about it—worry about it. He—Dad was an old man, Liza. I suppose—” Again he trailed off. “Wait,” he said, “I'll hurry.” Then he hung up.

She sat for a few minutes by the telephone, feeling relief because the hard thing was said to Brian, relief because he was coming. But then she found that she was too restless merely to sit, waiting, and got up and began to walk around the room, looking at the animals. Then she remembered what the little old man had said about the cockers having no water and looked into their pen and the other pens, and found that none of the dogs had anything to drink, nor did the Siamese cat. There was still water in the bowl in the little black cat's pen. She walked back to the rear room, passing as far as she could from the body and found a pitcher and filled it with water. It was only when she tried to pour from the pitcher into the water bowl in the cockers' pen that she realized she was shaking, as if with a chill. She managed to pour water into that bowl, and into the others, but she spilled some in each pen because she could not stop her hand's shaking. Then, putting the pitcher down on the floor, she stood for what seemed a long time looking down at the black cat, trying (without too much success) to study the little animal with an artist's eye, to shut out all other thoughts. But stubbornly her mind kept re-creating another image: a thin old man grotesquely, mockingly, folded in a pen meant for a dog, a cat. Now that there was nothing else to do, nothing else to think of, she could think only of that, and she could feel her whole body trembling.

Yet it was really not much more than twenty minutes before Brian came. He came hurriedly, running down the three steps, but she was at the door, wrenching at the knob, before he quite reached it. She stepped back and he came in, kicking the door to behind him and at the same moment taking her in his arms.

“Oh Brian,” she said, her face against his coat. “Oh Brian!” She was shivering uncontrollably, and he stroked her hair, then held her closer to him, pressing his right hand against her back. “There, baby,” he said. “It'll be all right, Liza. It'll be all right.” She breathed deeply, and let her breath out in a sigh, and then her trembling lessened. But she wanted to stay there, held by him, hiding her face against him, shutting out the ugly thing deep in the room. He did not hurry her, but, almost imperceptibly, the pressure of his arms relaxed and, so signalled to, she freed herself and stood back and looked up at him.

He was tall; much taller than she. Actually, he was hardly older—twenty-two or twenty-three—and yet to her, and particularly when his face was serious, his manner intent, he seemed a great deal older. (Once she had said to him, surprising herself, and laughing in part because of her own surprise, that he looked like Abraham Lincoln. “Without the wart, without the beard,” she said, hurriedly. “And much better looking. But still—” He had said, his wide mouth in a wide smile, “Now listen, baby!” and then had laughed with her.) Now as she looked up at him his face was very grave, his wide mouth a line, his deep-set eyes darkly shadowed. Now he looked much older than twenty-two or twenty-three. Looking down at her, his hands still gently on her shoulders, he said, again, “It'll be all right, Liza.” But now his voice was different. “Where?” he said, then.

She motioned, first; then led him back to the place. When they could see into the pen she began to tremble again, and he put his arm around her shoulders. But he did not speak at first; merely stood, looking down at the body. She did not try to see what was in his face. When he did speak it was, first, only to swear in a voice much harsher than any she had ever heard from him. And, she thought unconsciously, the pressure of his hand on her shoulder tightened until it was almost painful.

“What can we do?” she said. “Can we—it's so awful for him to be there. Like that.”

Instead of answering, he bent down and touched the body, taking his arm from her shoulders as he did so. Almost at once he withdrew his hand.

“He's dead,” Brian Halder said, more to himself than to her. “It's happened. It's—” Then he broke off; then he spoke to her. “There's nothing we can do, Liza,” he said. “Nothing at all. He's been dead a—quite a long time.”

“But what do we
do?
” she said. “We can't—” She gestured at the body instead of finishing the sentence.

“We'll have to get the police in,” he said, slowly. “There's no way out I can see. He's—we couldn't move him easily even if—even if it wouldn't make things worse. You see, Liza, the—body's stiffened.” He touched her shoulder again, gently.

“Then we—” she said, but he shook his head.

“Not we,” he said. “We're going to get you out of here; out of the whole thing. Then I'll—find Dad's body. You'll not be mixed up in it.”

“But—” she began, and again he shook his head.

“It's the best way,” he said. “The only way. I'll take you home. Then come back.” He looked again at his father's body. “It doesn't make any difference,” he said. “It's just better.”

“But the little man,” she said. “He knows I was here. And, anyway—”

“Very small?” Brian said. “Very wrinkled? Very blue eyes?” She nodded to each. “That'll be Felix,” he said. “I'll take care of Felix. He's—odd, Liza.” Again he looked at his father's body. “They both were,” he said. “Dad was a strange man.”

“But Brian,” she said, “what happened to him?”

He shook his head slowly. It seemed to her that he had, somehow, suddenly, gone far away. “I don't know,” he said. “That's why, that's one reason, we have to have the police. I'm afraid—” But he did not say what he feared.