The Rotary Club Murder Mystery (10 page)

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Authors: Graham Landrum

BOOK: The Rotary Club Murder Mystery
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“It is always in the lock on the inside of the door.”
“And was it left in the lock when the door was locked?”
“Yes, it was.”
Then it would be impossible to go from the basement upstairs when the door was locked, even if the intruder had a key.
“I suppose the gun club would know when your husband was not planning to be in town,” I said.
“I really don't know,” she replied. “I suppose they would.”
We had come back upstairs and Alice had gone into the kitchen to get us some coffee. I took the opportunity to go through the house—said I was going to use the powder room, but really I just wanted to see the house. There wasn't a stick of furniture in it that I would have wanted if you gave it to me—all modern—selected, I imagine, by a decorator and very expensive. All in good taste. But impersonal. That was the word:
impersonal
. With all the wonderful things that people can have nowadays, it seems to me that they are often very impersonal—no continuity. There was Charles Hollonbrook going from one woman to another. Nothing personal there. And dear little Alice, whatever she had been before she got together with Hollonbrook, he had made her life impersonal. Impersonal people
living in an impersonal house with an impersonal marriage. But the personal will break through. It's like lava inside the mountain. The cold exterior can hold it only so long.
Back in the living room with our cups of impersonal instant coffee and our impersonal Pepperidge Farm cookies, I asked Alice about the first Mrs. Hollonbrook. Had there been any recent friction there?
Only about the children.
“It isn't as though Chuck has not supported them,” Alice said. “More than supported them. And if they were just a little grateful, he would have given them anything they wanted.”
“Let's see,” I said, “I believe I was told there were two girls. Tell me about them.”
“One is eighteen, and the other is fifteen,” she replied. “They would soon have expected Chuck to shell out the money to go to an expensive college, though neither one of them would have the grades to get into a really good school.”
“Are they often here at the house?”
“Oh no.” Alice was very definite about that. “Their mother has poisoned them against me.”
“Eighteen and fifteen,” I mused. “The youngest must have been little more than a baby when the divorce broke up the family.”
Alice bridled just a bit at that. And I liked her better because of it. Whether she broke up the marriage or did not break up the marriage—that was her version, you see—she was uncomfortable with the way I had stated it. There was just a little conscience there.
My ways are the old ways, and I don't care who knows it. When I was a girl, there might as well have been a picket fence around me, the way I was protected. And don't think I wasn't rebellious. I gave my parents many an anxious moment. But the man I wanted and got was Lamar, and he was such a darling. I could never even look at another man. And he just better not have looked at another woman.
So there was Linda. And Maud said Linda talked about how she had been mistreated, while Alice said that Linda's constant nagging had broken up the marriage. What kind of woman was Linda? Could she have been behind the murder? Wasn't that the way it was in that poem about Edward that I had to learn back there at Catawba Hall? It was one of my elocution readings. Nobody nowadays even knows what an elocution reading is.
 
Why does your brand sae drap wi bluid
Edward, Edward … ?
 
I think it was supposed to be up in the Highlands over in Scotland. Miss Langrock said it was an ideal piece for me to read. Thought I was bloodthirsty, I suppose. Anyhow, at the end of the poem, come to find out, the mother sent Edward out to kill his daddy. I guess that kind of thing has been going on for a long time.
But Edward didn't sneak around and make it look like suicide. And Jimmy Boy did not sound to me like a young man who could pull a thing like that off even if his mother gave him a map of how to do it. Or did he? Sometimes people who don't seem to have it—you know what I mean—are pretty sneaky and can do on the sly things you wouldn't think they could do.
Well, I was sitting there. And my cup was empty, and I had eaten my cookies. And I had a few more things I needed to talk about.
I said, “Since Miss Stout is in your employ still and was your husband's secretary, I would like very much for her to give me a list of people she may know of who would have known that Mr. Hollonbrook would be in Borderville on May twenty-six to twenty-seven. Would you please ask her to do that for me?”
Of course Mrs. Hollonbrook agreed to do as I asked.
“And while you are at it,” I added, “ask her where she was and what she was doing on that night. Say that we are checking the activities of everyone in Stedbury who knew where Mr. Hollonbrook was at that time.” Which, of course, was true.
Alice agreed to that, too.
“Now darling,” I proceeded, “do you by any chance happen to remember the date on the policy your husband took out on this other woman? I think you said Mayburn.”
“February 1.” From the way she answered so quickly, I could see that the poor child's mind was running in the same direction mine was.
“And the other policy—the one for you—it was still in effect. Do you know when your husband made the last payment on it?”
The answer came just as quickly. “December twenty-nine.”
To me that looked like Charles Hollonbrook decided between December 29 and February 1 that he was interested in a second divorce. But I didn't discuss it with Alice.
“And the other thing is,” I said, “this clipping.” I picked up the envelope with the clipping from the table where I had laid it when we went downstairs. “Are you intending to give it to me?”
She nodded.
“Do you know who this Kitty Herbert is?”
“Never heard of her.”
“Or Caroline Rawlings?”
“No. The clipping is a complete mystery to me. Hainsford, the place where the Herbert woman murdered her husband, was Holly's hometown, which might be reason enough for his interest in the story, but not enough to explain why he kept it in a brown envelope in the bank box.”
I had to agree: But whether the clipping was connected with Hollonbrook's death, I was not prepared to say.
As you can see, I had had a very interesting interview with the young lady. A lot of good stuff, as you might say, had just fallen into my lap.
I thanked Alice for the coffee and cookies and told her, “Now, darling, don't you worry,” and that sort of thing. Then I told her I wanted to see the dog before I left. So we went to the back door, and I saw that the backyard was enclosed in a
chain-link fence and saw where the steps went down to the basement. There was no other house in sight. I didn't know whether that would be important or not.
It is a sweet dog—cocker spaniel.
 
Now you have to understand one thing. I am a truthful woman except when I want to tell a fib. But if I make a promise, I always stick by it. A little later on in this book, as you will see, I made a promise. I said I wouldn't reveal certain things.
Now how could I write the book and keep the secret? I took my problem to Professor Landrum. He is a Rotarian—senior active—and before he retired he taught English for many years at the college here in Borderville. I asked him, “What must I do?” And he said, “Mrs. Bushrow, there is no problem at all here.” Then he explained.
It seems there is something called a roman à clef. I had to look it up to spell it. It is in the dictionary, all right, and it means just what he said. It's a novel about things that really happened, but all the names are changed.
So I am changing certain of the names in this book. Kitty Herbert is not the real name, and Caroline Rawlings is not her real name. And none of the names that are connected with her are real. But the rest of the story is all true.
And Professor Landrum told me something else I didn't know. He said detective stories are classical. I don't understand literary terms like that. All the same, it is impressive to know that detective stories are classical because they have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
While I don't know how a story can fail to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, I did understand what Professor Landrum meant when he explained that whatever has happened up to the time when the crime takes place settles what happens all the rest of the way until the mystery is solved. Then he said that the middle is the part where everything is developing and confused.
I can tell you right now: This is the middle of the Rotary Club Mystery, because I was confused. I had several notions—quite a few. And some of them turned out to be right. But there was one piece of information that I didn't even know enough about to ask for it. But it wasn't on the horizon yet, and you'll just have to wait for it.
>>
Henry Delaporte
<<
 
 
 
 
 
J
ust before President Gene struck the bell to close our meeting—I think it was the second meeting in June—he said, “Fred Middleton would like to see—whatever he calls the bunch.” He got a laugh from the club, then went on: “The detectives—the ones looking into …”
When he seemed at a loss to describe the group, Melvin Benson said, “You mean the Baker Street Irregulars, Gene.”
As we all know, the real Baker Street Irregulars were the London urchins who scurried around and ferreted out information for Sherlock Holmes. It happened that one of the television networks had recently been featuring a series about the adventures of Holmes and Dr. Watson. Everyone laughed. And those of us who were following Mrs. Bushrow's progress—I might say, with a good deal of interest—were the “Baker Street Irregulars” from then on.
About fifteen of us stayed on after Gene had rung the bell and dismissed the club.
The reason Fred wanted to see us was that he had received
in the morning mail a letter from Harriet Bushrow, and it raised some questions he thought we should consider. The letter was as follows:
Dear Fred,
Here I am at the above address staying with my dear old friend Maud Bradfield. I have a lovely room, and Maud showers me with every attention. If I didn't have to do any detective work, this would be about the pleasantest vacation a person could desire.
Which brings me to the thing I want you to think about.
Fred, I am finding a lot of things about Charles Hollonbrook that do not reflect credit on Rotary. Now you and I know how fine at least ninety-nine percent of the Rotarians really are. But we also know that there are people out there—writers and so on—who make snide remarks about Rotary—want us to think Rotarians are “operators” just grubbing for money and that sort of thing.
Well, I have to admit that your Charles Hollonbrook was an operator. Fred, I'm finding things about your district governor that, if they are brought out, will embarrass Rotary plenty—or at least they ought to.
I give the man credit—he came up in a hurry, but on the way up he did some pretty mean things to a good many people. He was a womanizer, and there are other little peccadilloes. So your friends should be thinking about whether they want me to go on with this—because what I find is bound to give Rotary a black eye.
On the other side of the question, I am as certain as can be that your Mr. Hollonbrook was murdered;
and I don't suppose we can let a thing like that go without trying to bring whoever did it to justice, can we?
I leave it up to the Rotarians. It is their club, and I'll quit what I'm doing and go home if that's what they want.
Give my love to Daisy Beth.
Faithfully yours,
Harriet Gardner Bushrow
When Fred had finished reading the letter, the reaction of the Irregulars was nothing at all. After a minute or more, Fred prompted us: “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” Keith said. (That's Keith Duncan.) “I think our district governor got his tail caught.”
“It sure looks like it,” Leon Jones agreed.
“The question is what we are going to do about it,” Fred observed.
“Apply the Four-Way Test.” This suggestion came from Milt Powell.
There was a pause before Trajan McDowell said, “In what way? I mean, how does the Four-Way Test apply to a case like this?”
The Four-Way Test is a kind of totem of Rotary. It asks four questions. First: Is it the truth? Second: Is it fair to all concerned? Third: Will it build goodwill and better friendships? And fourth: Will it be beneficial to all concerned?
“All right,” Leon said, “is it the truth?” citing the first test.
There it was. If Harriet Bushrow said it, there wasn't one of us who didn't think it was the truth. Right there in our own club, I could think of three members who had been up to the sort of thing Mrs. Bushrow's letter suggested. Who would deny that the same could be true of the district governor?
Next, was it fair to all concerned? That one had us stumped. If Mrs. Bushrow succeeded in finding the culprit, everything
was bound to come out. It would be in all the papers. Rotary would look bad, and it was sure to embarrass Hollonbrook's friends and family. Was that being fair to all?
Fred made the point that if a man had been murdered, it was unfair to him if the killer did not come to justice.
“But what makes you so sure old Charles Hollonbrook would want everything to hang out?” Trajan objected; and we all had to admit that a dead man should be allowed to rest in peace.
As far as the next test went—would it build goodwill and friendships—nobody saw how that could apply. And the fourth test—would it be beneficial to all concerned—was a sure loser. It could not benefit Charles Hollonbrook. A scandal would not be beneficial to Rotary. And it certainly would not benefit the murderer.
I think we were about ready to call it quits and ask Mrs. Bushrow to come home, when Leon said, “What do you suppose that old boy was up to, anyhow?”
“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “I want to know what he did.”
Suddenly, the mood of the group had swung 180 degrees. We were all for going on with the investigation. At that point, J. L. Garrison, a senior active—the typical gentleman of an older generation, who is also something of a character—suddenly declaimed,
“Fiat justitia, ruat caelum!
Let justice be done though the sky falls.”
That settled the matter. We told Fred to instruct Mrs. Bushrow to go on with what she was doing and to assure her that we would support her in all her expenses and in every other way possible.

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