The House without the Door (25 page)

"That's it. To get it to the police without seeming to wish to get it there. Eventually I should have been able to persuade her that publicity was her best and only course." Gamadge clasped his hands behind his head and scowled. "I get madder every time I think of it."

Durfee, with a sardonic smile, said that he imagined Gamadge was a little peeved.

"A little peeved! Poor Colby."

"She took a risk with that arsenic in that mackerel. I suppose it had to be arsenic, in case the doctor wanted specimens?"

"Yes; she didn't give herself much of a dose, though. And how beautifully she had built up the stories! I could almost see her plunging down that cellar stair, and catching her skirt on the splinter."

"All to get herself acquitted of Gregson's murder by the people that mattered to her?"

"The people that mattered to her? Everybody mattered to her. I know very well how she became a woman of one idea, Durfee. She murdered a husband who had become intolerable to her, with the idea of getting his money and living a happy life; but through Cecilia Warren's evidence she found herself acquitted of the murder simply because the jury couldn't bring themselves to convict a woman with an unblemished reputation. Conventional morality made her a good woman to that jury; a love affair, just one, would have doomed her. She had no inner life; she found herself cut off from small social activities; she had only one thought to feed on."

"And you went up there last night and taxed her with all this, fondly hoping she'd confess and let you bring her down to headquarters and charge her?" Durfee's smile was one-sided.

"Certainly not. Fondly hoping she'd make the murderous attack she—er—did make. Then I could bring her down and give her in charge, as you say. Locke's car would have been found in that ravine, and whether or not she should ever be proved guilty of his murder, she wouldn't have been able to go on trying to get Cecilia Warren electrocuted for it—and perhaps for Gregson's."

"You know you ought to have come to me; if not at first, then the minute you heard Locke had keen killed."

"I held off for two reasons."

"I bet they were good ones, too." Durfee gazed at him unwaveringly.

"The best. Would a cigar still poison you?"

Durfee slowly stretched out his hand and took one from the box. When he had it going, Gamadge went on: "I had to keep Cecilia Warren out of jail; it's easier to get in than to get out again, you know, Durfee; and plenty of people still think she killed Gregson. You did, yourself."

"It was just a theory."

"When police have theories, it's time to get a lawyer. Meanwhile, with Miss Warren still out of jail, I had to get some kind of proof against the wretched woman, so that she'd never be able to use faked evidence herself. I was deucedly afraid of her. You don't know what she was like, Durfee. I didn't know what she mightn't cook up. When I first met her, you know, I thought she looked like somebody who'd never got over the shock of a hideous surprise. I was right—it was the surprise she got when she sat there at the inquest and heard Cecilia Warren say that she used to come down on hot nights and sleep in the guest-room. From that moment she knew that her plans were ruined. She felt the ground open under her, Durfee. I suppose it never felt really solid to her feet again."

Durfee said: "One of your rigmaroles. How am I to get it in shape to hand in downtown, or send up to Westchester?"

"I'll have Harold type out a complete statement. Harold!"

At his employer's summons Harold came in from the laboratory. His white tunic was buttoned neatly about his neck, and he held a forceps in one hand and a piece of parchment in the other. He said, "I dried out most of that paper Martin et."

"Good. Harold, Lieutenant Durfee wants a typed statement from my notes on the Gregson matter. I'll give you some more this morning; you ought to be able to get the whole thing down to him by three o'clock."

"O.K."

"Three copies for Lieutenant Durfee, please, and—er— half a dozen for me."

"Don't you send anything to the papers," Durfee warned him, getting up.

"Certainly not. I have files; cross references, you know."

"I'll tell you one thing," said Durfee, as Harold turned to go. "It's lucky for you, Gamadge, that the woman's hands were still gripping the wheel when they found her in that gorge."

"Still gripping the wheel, were they?"

"I'm told it was hard to get them loose."

Harold had paused on his way back to the laboratory. Durfee went on, faintly smiling: "You have no witnesses to what did occur. Before you get through with this you may need an unblemished reputation yourself."

Gamadge laughed. He accompanied Durfee to the front door, and returned to find Harold standing where he had been, and looking morose.

"I wanted to say you had witnesses," he said.

"I should have strangled you before you got the words out. Nonsense."

"You might need them, at that."

"Absurd. Durfee's idea of a joke. Now don't spoil it, Harold." Gamadge patted him on the shoulder. "You did very well."

A
T FOUR-THIRTY, CLARA
was serving tea; Theodore circulated among the guests with a tray and glasses, in case certain of them should prefer something stronger. Martin was having a light refection under the tea-table. Clara's chow watched him indulgently; he could not but make allowances for a creature who dined out of a saucer.

Gamadge had just finished reading aloud from a typed statement, copies of which were in the hands of all the visitors. Cecilia Warren and Belden sat together on the sofa, Schenck next to Clara, Mrs. Stoner beside Gamadge in a deep chair, and Miss Prady, attended by Harold, on a love seat which Theodore had drawn up to accommodate them.

"You will please take your copies of this thing home with you," said Gamadge, "and learn them." He looked up in hurt surprise when Paul Belden burst into uproarious laughter. "I see no occasion for levity."

"Neither do I," said Cecilia Warren. But her face glowed as she looked at Belden. You ought to be crying with relief, Paul. You're very ungrateful, and you've spilled cocktail on your trousers."

"By heavens, I can't help it!" Belden roared again. "He's a genius, and some day he'll get hung. I've seen a man walk a tightrope before, but not with three people hanging on each side of him." He added, accepting a cocktail napkin three inches square from Clara, and dabbing at his trousers with it, "Gamadge knows how I feel; darn him, he knew how I was feeling all along. He might have given us a hint that he was on the side of us angels."

"Oh, no, I mightn't," said Gamadge. "I didn't even tell my assistant or my wife. Somebody would have given the show away, and said something to somebody else; and somebody else might have warned Mrs. Gregson that her private investigator was investigating the wrong things. I'm not sure that Mrs. Smiles couldn't keep a secret out of her face, though." He glanced at a huge basket, twined with ribbon, which stood on a side-table. It was heaped with fruit, nuts, chocolates, and preserves, and topped with a small bottle of champagne. "Decent of her to send this along."

"She loves you," said Cecilia. "I thought you thought I might be going to murder her, too."

"Not after I found out that she had no property to leave you. If she gives many presents of this sort," and Gamadge looked again at the imposing basket, "she must live well up to her income."

Clara said: "You say the most ghastly things, darling."

"I'm light-headed. It's reaction."

Miss Prady, who sat with her feet close together, her shoulders and knees knobbily defined under her thin sweater and skirt, said: "I think Mr. Gamadge was wonderful to keep us all out of it, just wonderful. If he gets into trouble I'm going to tell everything."

"Oh, Lord, you'd have us absolutely in the soup!" Gamadge was horrified.

"I'll deny it," remarked Schenck. "I'll deny it all, on oath. Mrs. Gamadge laid herself open to a charge of prowling. You can't give her away, Miss Prady."

Harold observed in a paternal tone that Miss Prady wouldn't tell. He seemed to view her with favour; so far as Gamadge knew she was the only feminine creature, except Clara, whom Harold had ever noticed at all.

"You left out something in that confession." Schenck pointed with a long finger at the statement. "You never said anything about losing a cigarette case in the Bulliters' balcony. Suppose Durfee traces you to the Bulliters; you ought to have some kind of excuse for going there."

Cecilia Warren looked at Gamadge. "Is
that
what you did with that pistol that night?"

"Er—yes. So last night, between my return from Omega and my trip to Five Acres, I retrieved it."

Belden laid his head back against the cushions of the sofa to howl: "Oh, Lord, the Bulliters!"

"Mrs. Smiles was so wonderful with the police," said Miss Warren. "Paul, you will spill that cocktail again." She took the glass from him, and went on: "She insisted on giving them coffee, and she told them they were so wonderful, and that when she had had sneak thieves they got back her acquascutum."

"Where's Colby?" asked Belden. "Isn't he going to have to learn his piece too?"

"Oh, poor Mr. Colby is miserable," said Clara. "He's going south. He's going to take his vacation now."

Gamadge frowned. "I hated to have him in it," he said. "I tried to think of some way to keep him out of it at the last."

There was a silence. Cecilia Warren turned melancholy eyes on him, to say: "It's awful, Mr. Gamadge, but you don't know what it means to me—to know she's dead."

"I think I do know."

"Apart from all this last terrible thing, I mean. Mr. Gregson made her take me in, but I was so unhappy there. And after I said that—about his laughing—I was always so afraid of her. I knew she would never forgive me. I used to go and see her, just because I was so afraid. But I didn't know she would do this!"

Belden said: "We were all scared; except Mrs. Smiles, of course, who wasn't let into the secret."

"I knew she'd put that pistol in my room. I didn't dare say a word, I was so afraid she'd tell about the morphia. I thought she was safe herself, and wouldn't mind telling, to get me into trouble."

"You didn't realize that she'd never tell anything, if there was any chance that it would reflect on her," said Gamadge.

"No, I didn't."

Miss Prady said: "I knew when you looked at me, Mr. Gamadge, that you were going to find out who killed Benny."

Mrs. Stoner had sat quietly drinking her tea. She now put the cup down, and said: "I blame myself very much."

"You blame yourself, my dearest Minnie?" Paul Belden leaned forward and took her hand. "What for?"

"I should have told Mr. Gamadge that Benny thought Vina had done the things herself. But it seemed so unjust to her. I was so afraid he'd done them, and Cecilia was too. You looked so angry when you came to Pine Lots, and by that time—"

Gamadge coughed. Mrs. Stoner looked at him, and coughed too. She went on to say: "But I ought to have known that you were to be trusted."

"Well—I strained your capacity for trust in me."

"That pistol!" Cecilia Warren looked at Clara admiringly. "You were wonderful, and how I hated you both!"

Clara said: "It was just so the police wouldn't find it in your room, and so that Miss Prady would be willing to go up to that awful sanatorium."

"Awful?" Gamadge looked at her in reproof. "It isn't awful, and we'd better be polite to Mrs. Tully and Miss Lukes for the rest of our lives. They've had to do some home work themselves, don't forget that. In fact," he said glumly, "there are eleven people doing home work on this thing, and eleven's a good many."

"You said eight hundred people could keep a secret if each of them wanted to."

Schenck remarked that eleven was enough, and that he thought of going south himself.

Belden's long arm went round Cecilia Warren's shoulders. He said: "There isn't much use trying to tell you people how we feel about what you've done. I can't even begin to. This girl—she's all I ever cared about. The way she's stuck to me…I don't know whether any of you know what small-town gossip is like, or how much super-abundant energy the ladies of all ages can put into breaking up a love affair between unpopular people." He took his glass back from Cecilia and drained it. "To the women of Omega, young and old; God bless 'em!"

Cecilia smiled at him. "You were too popular, Paul! That was the trouble. They all wanted you." She addressed the others rather shyly: "I don't know what I should have done without him. He was always there, and he was such fun. But I wasn't going to be a burden on him, and then the trial came, and I couldn't bear—"

"She couldn't bear the way her pictures came out in the newspapers," said Belden. "Gamadge, I wish there were something we could do for you. Do you want your backyard landscaped? Does Mrs. Gamadge need a part-time secretary?"

"I can make very nice apple butter," said Mrs. Stoner. "Poor Curtis liked it. Of course," she added, "I can't keep that annuity."

"If you think Curtis Gregson would have wanted you to give up that annuity," said Belden, "you're greatly mistaken. Besides, you're going to live with Cecilia and me, and you won't have to make apple butter. We're going to keep what ever the law lets us keep. I mean it, though, Gamadge—whatever we can do, now or in the future—"

"You can do something now," said Gamadge. "All of you. Just read the statement over once again, out loud. Perhaps you don't quite realize that it's important."

Papers rustled. Harold, looking at his copy, observed that he wanted to ask a question first.

"Question? What question?" Gamadge regarded him suspiciously.

"Well, I don't quite understand the time-table here; I mean, there isn't any." He added; "Except for Mrs. Gregson's trips."

"Why should there be any, except for her trips?" Gamadge scowled at him.

"It would be clearer if there was a time-table for your trips. On Wednesday, now; I know when you left Five Acres—I saw you go. You must have been at Pine Lots in a little over half an hour at latest; but you don't seem to have reached home until—"