Late Monday morning, October 9, 1950
The Savage house
“Did either of you want coffee?” Mrs. Savage said.
“No, thank you, ma’am,” Skip and Henry both said.
“All right. I’ll get the cake and then you can tell me what’s happened. I’ve been so anxious.” She disappeared into the kitchen, returning shortly with three generous servings. “Here we are,” she said, setting the plates down on the dining room table where they had gathered. “Now, tell me everything.”
“Well,” Skip said, “presented with the evidence, the detective arrested Mr. Rutherford and Miss Banning.”
“Who’s this Miss Banning? You never did tell me. And what evidence? Those awful photos you found inside my piano? Start at the beginning, please, gentlemen.”
“It is a bit involved,” Henry said, taking a generous forkful of layer cake, “but we’ll try to explain it as best we can.”
“Right,” Skip said. “You see, Mr. Rutherford’s been dating Miss Banning, whom his mother despised. I think Mr. Rutherford came up with the idea to kill his mother several months ago. He couldn’t stand that she had partial control of the family fortune, and he probably resented her constant comparisons to Arthur, and her frequent criticisms of him, as well as the fact that she was trying to keep him and Miss Banning apart. Of course, he realized his mother was a bit dotty, but certainly still mentally competent, and could live for years. That’s most likely what gave him the idea to hurry things along by slowly poisoning her with mercury, driving her mad and eventually to her death over a matter of a few months.”
“The mad hatter syndrome, just like I said earlier,” Mrs. Savage said.
“Yes,” Henry said. “I spent a bit of time with a doctor in the Army when I was a medic, and he told me that over time inhaling mercury vapors can cause damage to lungs and kidneys, and it can induce kidney failure if ingested.”
“It’s unlikely an autopsy would be performed if it wasn’t a suspicious death,” Skip said. “But he needed it to appear to the outside world he was doing everything he could to care for his mother, so he enlisted his girlfriend, a trained actress, to portray Sister Barnabas. Miss Banning was probably only too happy to help. I’m sure she knew with the mother out of the way, she could marry Ambrose and be set for life, keeping the old house for summer use, but setting up permanent residence in New York City.”
“So, the original plan was that when Mrs. Rutherford died,” Henry said, “a few days later, the nun would turn up dead, or rather the real Sister Barnabas’s body would be found with a red bandana about her neck, and they would claim Jake killed her. And then sometime later Marjorie Banning could safely return.”
“Yes, that’s right. But to pull it all off, Mr. Rutherford needed a nun’s habit, and he needed a real nun. Therefore, he contacted the Reverend Mother and most likely drove to the convent on the excuse of wanting to interview potential caregivers himself,” Skip said.
“Whatever for?” Mrs. Savage said.
“Because he wanted to select a nun who was similar in age and height to Miss Banning. Of course, Sister Barnabas was heavier, so they used stuffing to fill out the clothing. Encased in the wimple and tunic, free of any makeup, her eyebrows bushy, her bosom strapped down, wearing Sister Barnabas’s glasses, clothing, and a set of false teeth, she was transformed. When she reappeared later as Marjorie Banning, we didn’t recognize her. And of course, the phony French accent helped, too.”
“How fiendishly clever,” Mrs. Savage said.
“Yes. He chose Sister Barnabas and arranged for her to come on a day when Miss Grant, Jake, and Joe Bitters were all out. He picked her up from the convent, but upon their arrival at the house, Joe Bitters showed up unexpectedly and carried her bag. I’m sure Mr. Rutherford sent him on his way, then made sure Miss Grant and Jake were still out and his mother was asleep in her room. Then he most likely lured the sister to the basement where he strangled her, stripped her naked, and put her body in his walk-in freezer, locking it securely. After that, Marjorie Banning donned the nun’s habit and her glasses. Remember how she was always peering over the top of them?” Skip said. “It’s because she couldn’t see through the lenses.”
“That’s horrible,” Mrs. Savage said, though she was eating up every word, her cake almost forgotten on the plate in front of her. “But wouldn’t anyone who had met the fake sister, like the two of you, for instance, or Miss Grant, recognize the woman in the freezer was a different person when she was eventually discovered?”
“That, I think, is why he beat her face when the body had warmed up. He wanted the bruises to be fresh, and for her face to be altered in case we saw the body,” Henry said.
Mrs. Savage pushed her cake away. “I just lost my appetite, but do go on.”
“All right. Mr. Rutherford introduced the fake Sister Barnabas to his mother, and she began giving her increased doses of mercury, saying it was medicine. Breathing in the mercury fumes along with wearing someone else’s glasses probably contributed to Marjorie’s headaches. But they figured his mother would die soon enough, especially with higher doses.”
“Diabolical,” Mrs. Savage said.
“Most certainly. But then Bitters decided to nip into some of Mr. Rutherford’s vodka stash in the basement freezer. He went down and picked the lock easily, but instead of booze, he found the body. It must have been a shock, but since he had met the real Sister Barnabas, he recognized her and figured out at least some of what was going on. I recall you saying, Mrs. Savage, that Joe told you the second time he’d run into the sister she was cold and rather rude, keeping her distance. That was deliberate, of course, so he couldn’t get a good look at her and realize she was an imposter.”
“It makes sense,” Henry said.
“The day after he found the body, he came back with his camera and the morning newspaper to prove the date, and took photographs as evidence,” Skip said. “When the photos were developed, he put some of them in an envelope with a note and hid the envelope in your piano, because you’re one of the few people he trusted.”
“And he confronted Mr. Rutherford,” Skip said, “with copies of the photos and a demand for blackmail.”
“I’m afraid so,” Henry said. “My uncle was at the point of no return, having already killed the real nun, so he arranged to kill Joe, too. He visited Joe in his quarters late one night on the premise of discussing the terms of the blackmail. According to my uncle, Bullseye had died earlier that day, and Joe, heartbroken, was quite intoxicated by the time he arrived. When Joe passed out, my uncle lit a fire and escaped under cover of darkness. He assumed the photographs and negatives were burned up, too.”
“But Bitters made a point of telling you before that, Mrs. Savage, that he had found something out, and gave you the puzzle clue,” Skip said.
“Except I couldn’t figure it out,” she said.
“You may have eventually,” Henry said. “Anyway, with Bitters out of the way, my uncle and Miss Banning could continue their plan.”
“Yes, but then dear Aunt Lillian got into the act,” Skip said, “insisting her sister be put into a nursing home and making arrangements for her to be admitted to Forest Glen. Ambrose knew if that happened, a doctor would most likely examine his mother and discover the mercury poisoning. And even if he didn’t, Mr. Rutherford knew she could linger for years in a nursing facility, eating away at the family fortune until there was virtually none left.”
“That would be a problem for him,” Henry said.
“Yes. Even if she’d been declared mentally incompetent, he’d still have to pay for her care, not to mention I think he truly did despise her, so Ambrose decided to up the game and kill her outright the night before she was to be taken to the nursing home. He needed a scapegoat, though, and Jake was the most likely suspect, especially since he’d already planned on pinning the real Sister Barnabas’s murder on him eventually. And then, of course, we entered the picture, which Miss Banning saw as a problem, but your uncle saw as an opportunity.”
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Savage said.
“Marjorie was upset that we had come, thinking we would spoil their plans. But it seems my uncle told Marjorie we would make perfect patsies. They would stage a few accidents, the chandelier, and the trip wire, making it look like Jake was out to murder him, and we would be the witnesses. Each of them, in turn, told us how angry and unstable Jake was and how he seemed to have a vendetta against my uncle. I think we both fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I know I did, anyway. If necessary, I would have sworn to all that in court,” Henry said. “Scary to think about.”
“I admit they were convincing,” Skip said, “though I did have my doubts.”
“And I should never have doubted you,” Henry said.
“It’s okay, I sometimes wondered if I wasn’t just imagining things, to be honest.”
“But how did they kill poor Gabria?” Mrs. Savage said.
“I think Mr. Rutherford stole a couple of Jake’s bandanas and gave them to Marjorie. Then Saturday night he came home from dropping off Mrs. Waters and went upstairs, where Marjorie was waiting at the connecting door between her room and Mrs. Rutherford’s. Mr. Rutherford knocked on my door and pleaded with me to come to his mother’s room.”
“But why?” Mrs. Savage said.
“Because he wanted it to appear he was the intended victim, not his mother, and for that to happen she had to be in his bed, and he felt it better if he had a witness. So, with me in tow, he knocked on his mother’s door. That was the signal for Marjorie to slip into Mrs. Rutherford’s room, unplug the bedside lamp, and smash the window using one of the brass bookends.”
“Why did she unplug the lamp?” Mrs. Savage said.
“Because she was afraid that even with a sleeping draught, Mrs. Rutherford might wake up at the sound of the breaking glass and turn on her bedside lamp, exposing Marjorie,” Henry said.
Skip nodded. “Yes, you’re right. After the window had been broken, Marjorie went back into her own room in the dark. I think Mrs. Rutherford awoke and probably saw her from the rear, assuming it was a ghost. Meanwhile, Mr. Rutherford, claiming the hall door was locked, went through his room into his mother’s, turning on the overhead light and letting me in so I could witness everything.”
“And then he put her to bed in his room because of the broken window, and he went to sleep in the drawing room,” Henry said.
“Sometime during the night, Marjorie slipped into Mr. Rutherford’s room, probably via his mother’s. Using one of the stolen bandanas, she strangled Mrs. Rutherford, making it appear Jake was out to kill Mr. Rutherford in his sleep.”
“From there they just had to wait for Miss Grant to discover the body the next morning,” Henry said.
“But how did they get Jake to run away? And why?” Mrs. Savage said.
“I think their plan would have worked if he’d stayed, but running away certainly made him seem more guilty. So, Marjorie, still pretending to be Sister Barnabas, asked Jake to help her fix the clasp on her cross, which she had deliberately broken. The two of them went to the basement, where he fixed it, getting his fingerprints on it. Then, and I’m just guessing here again, I’m willing to bet the sister told Jake that Mr. Rutherford was angry about Gipper and was going to fire Jake’s aunt and have the dog put down. She probably suggested to him he run away with the dog. That scared Jake into action, no doubt, and he ran upstairs, gathered up the dog, and took off.”
“And I’m willing to bet that note he supposedly left was actually written by Mr. Rutherford, who placed it up there after Jake had fled,” Henry said.
“Why?” Skip said.
“It should have dawned on me earlier, but it was written in plain block letters, with bad grammar, making it appear it was penned by a poorly educated person. But it had a semicolon in it, not a punctuation mark a fairly illiterate person would use.”
“Sure, that makes sense. Your uncle wrote it to make it appear Jake felt bad for killing Mrs. Rutherford.”
“I think so,” Henry said.
“And after he left the note, Mr. Rutherford went down to the cellar, got the body out, dropped the other bandana on the floor, and wrapped the gold cross about the dead nun’s naked neck, careful not to disturb Jake’s fingerprints.”
“That’s logical, but I remember my mom defrosting a big piece of meat once,” Henry said. “If he just took her body out then, it would have still been mostly frozen by the time the police discovered it.”
“True, but I believe Mr. Rutherford unplugged the freezer days earlier. When I explored the basement and the ice room the other night, it was eerily silent. I should have heard the freezer motor running. I didn’t think much of it at the time.”
“Ah, so he unplugged it ahead of time, allowing the body to thaw out slowly.”
“Correct. After he removed the corpse to let it warm up to room temperature, he went back upstairs to have breakfast, and Marjorie went up to her room to transform herself back into Marjorie Banning. At some point, maybe when he supposedly used the bathroom, he went back down to the cellar, beat Sister Barnabas’s face, and dragged the body to the workroom.”
“I remember when he came back to the dining room, he looked flushed,” Henry said.
“Yes, he did.”
“But what about Gipper?”
“I think Mr. Rutherford wanted the dog dead because Gipper only liked Jake and Mrs. Rutherford, and for good reason, I’d say. Probably he barked or growled anytime Mr. Rutherford or Marjorie came anywhere near Mrs. Rutherford. So, Mr. Rutherford, probably hating the dog anyway, instructed Jake to kill it and bury him behind the garage. They couldn’t risk having the dog barking while Mrs. Rutherford was being strangled.”
“But Jake couldn’t do it, so he hid Gipper in the attic and buried an empty box, probably with Mr. Rutherford watching from his window to make sure,” Henry said.
“Yes, and when the dog started barking during the night, locked up in Jake’s bedroom, Miss Grant pounded on the ceiling. It wasn’t long before Mr. Rutherford realized he’d been duped, and he threatened Jake if he didn’t get rid of the dog once and for all.”
“But what if Jake had told someone Uncle wanted him to kill Gipper?” Henry said.
“I’m guessing your uncle told him he’d fire his aunt and put them both out on the street if he did tell anyone. Remember Miss Grant said Jake told her he took the dog because he thought someone wanted to harm it. Jake didn’t say who.”
“But how did you two fit all the pieces together? How did you figure it out?” Mrs. Savage said.
“The idea that Jake thought he was strangling Mr. Rutherford rather than his mother made sense, but when I was in her room that night, I raised the shade because she didn’t want to be in the dark. When I did, her face was illuminated in the moonlight. Surely, he would have been able to tell once he got close to the bed that it was Mrs. Rutherford sleeping and not Ambrose. That made me suspicious that the intended victim was, in fact, Mrs. Rutherford, not her son, and Jake wouldn’t have known she was in his bed,” Skip said. “But that wasn’t proof enough.”
“But then we found the hidden photos of the real Sister Barnabas’s body,” Henry said.
“Yes, thanks to you figuring out the mysterious puzzle clue. Finding those pictures proved she died over a month earlier than they wanted us to believe, her body frozen until they needed it. But I had to ask myself, who would have killed her and why? And then I remembered the actress, Marjorie Banning, and how she happened to appear at the back entry just after Sister Barnabas was last seen. I think Miss Banning was attempting to slip out of the house unseen.”
“Of course,” Henry said. “My uncle planned for her to change into her regular clothes and makeup after breakfast, using the items she had locked in the closet and medicine cabinet, ditch the habit and glasses in the basement next to the body, and slip out of the house and away, free of suspicion. But Miss Grant noticed her on the back porch and naturally assumed she was coming to the house, rather than away from it. Uncle never planned for us to meet Miss Banning, as it would have been too big a risk that we’d recognize her, even though we didn’t.”
“That’s right, Henry.”
“Therefore, Marjorie had to pretend she was just dropping by, and told Miss Grant she came to the back door because she was hoping to slip in without Mrs. Rutherford seeing her.”
“It must have been a shock to your uncle when Miss Grant said she was at the back door,” Skip said.
“I bet, but they covered well enough.”
“They did. If it hadn’t been for Joe Bitters’s photos, they might have gotten away with it,” Skip said.
“Yeah, good thing he hid them in a safe place.”
“But a bad thing he didn’t report it to the police, preferring instead to be greedy and try to blackmail your uncle. If he hadn’t done that, he and Mrs. Rutherford would both probably still be alive today.”
“Gosh. But you were suspicious of the nun all along,” Henry said.
“Yes, I was, but they were both fiendishly clever. Nothing seemed to fit together. I found the makeup and clothes, but Mr. Rutherford had a logical explanation that made sense. I questioned the Reverend Mother, but she assured me there really was a Sister Barnabas at the Rutherford house, which there was. We investigated the fallen chandelier and the trip wire, heck, we even dug up an empty box in the early morning hours. The fire seemed legitimate, we believed the story of little Arthur hook, line, and sinker, and I was starting to believe Bitters and his dog actually were haunting the house.”
“Who knows? Maybe they were.”
Nothing would surprise me anymore,” Skip said. “The poor French Miss Banning used was a clue, too, but mine is so rusty I wasn’t entirely sure I was correct. It was all so puzzling.”
“Puzzles can be deadly.”
“Most definitely,” Skip said.
“What was the story about little Arthur?” Mrs. Savage said.
“Oh, Mrs. Rutherford made him up. He never existed,” Henry said.
“What? What do you mean? Why would she do a thing like that?”
“Only she knew for certain,” Skip said.
“But my friend Velma talked to Arthur’s spirit in a séance.”
“Maybe she was just trying to comfort Mrs. Rutherford,” Henry said.
“But it seemed so real. I was there. Perhaps it was a different boy’s spirit she talked to.”
“Perhaps. It’s an ancient house. By the way, your cake was delicious, Mrs. Savage, thank you.”
“You’re welcome, but what will happen now?”
“Now Skip and I go home, I suppose,” Henry said.
“But what about the house?” she said. “The Rutherford house?”
“I’m not sure. There will be a trial, and Skip and I may have to give testimony and all. If that’s the case, we’ll have to come back. In the meantime, I think we can leave it in Jane and Jake’s care, and Gipper’s.”
“That’s a good idea,” Skip said. “I’m more than ready to get back to Chicago and Purrvis. I had to place a long-distance call to my neighbor to let her know we’d been delayed.”
“And I had to drive Great-Aunt Lillian to the train station this morning. Poor woman, I think the shock of everything nearly killed her, too.”
“I’m glad it didn’t. You know, Henry, you may end up owning the place when Mr. Rutherford is convicted,” Skip said.
“Hard to say. Michigan doesn’t have the death penalty, so he’ll end up with life in prison. I would think he’d still have a legal right to the property.”
“Not if he is convicted of killing his mother, the rightful owner,” Skip said.
“But Miss Banning killed her. Uncle killed Sister Barnabas.”
“But they were both complicit in each killing, and he killed Joe Bitters. I think the courts will declare you the rightful heir and owner,” Skip said.
“Could be. If they do, I think I’ll use whatever money there is to fix the place up and sell it. With the proceeds from that, I can get back on my feet financially, enroll in school, and help out my mom and siblings. Of course, I’ll give a generous amount to Jane and Jake, too. They’ve been through so much.”
“You’re a good man, Mr. Finch,” Skip said.
“Thanks and likewise, Mr. Valentine,” Henry said, leaning in close to him.
“I’d say you’re both good men,” Mrs. Savage said sagely. “I’m glad Miss Grant and Jake will be okay. I’ve often wondered about her.”
“What do you mean?” Henry said.
“She’s a lovely woman, smart, too, but she’s never married, and in all the many years I’ve known her, she’s never dated or shown any interest in men. I tried to be a matchmaker once with her and the grocer, among others, but she wasn’t interested.”
“Maybe she had her hands full raising Jake, and no time for men,” Henry said.
“Or no interest. She was devoted to her sister Annabelle and was devastated when she died. Of course, they looked nothing alike and had different last names. It was strange.”
“It sounds like you’re implying something, Mrs. Savage,” Henry said.
“Oh, I don’t mean to imply. I am happy, though, that Miss Grant has Edna.”
“Edna?” Skip said.
“The new housekeeper for the Andersons over on Brooklyn Avenue. A nice woman, dark-skinned, with a kind face and bright brown eyes. She’s a bit older than Jane, but also a spinster, and they seem to have become close friends. The two of them were spotted in the park, at the movies, and they took a trip to Chicago together last summer. It’s raised a few eyebrows in the neighborhood and has been the fodder for some nasty gossip, but I’m glad they have each other. And I’m glad you two have each other.”
“Er, yes, Skip’s a good friend,” Henry said.
“I may be old but I’m not foolish, Mr. Finch. I know love when I see it.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Skip said, his cheeks flushing a brilliant pink.
“Oh, I think you do, always choosing to sit next to each other on the sofa, exchanging warm glances, almost touching. Don’t you worry, I can keep a secret, yours and Miss Grant’s. I don’t judge. You’re welcome here anytime, with open arms, and I hope to see you again.”
“I think you can count on it,” Skip said with a grin as he took Henry’s hand in his.