During a period of solemn stillness through all the Mallory house the body of Mildred James was carried out on a stretcher and taken away. It was an awesome interval in time. Doors opened and closed softly and men walked with slow careful steps, their faces masks, their voices silenced. Members of the household kept out of sight, leaving the supervising again to Bart Wayne. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Barton,” Sarah Mallory afterwards proclaimed. “You’ve been the only Wayne left for some time. Now you’re all I’ve got to lean on, my dear boy.” I couldn’t imagine Sarah doing any leaning. Certainly she had never leaned on her son Dick.
After the ambulance was driven slowly along the lane and into the pike the house came back to life, and in the kitchen Patrick and I were once more alone with Lieutenant King and Seth Godwin. Deputy Hollister was again posted outside the house.
King’s manner towards Patrick was one of studied coolness. He needed us both but he hadn’t yet forgiven Patrick’s standing aside while Seth Godwin beat him up. “Can you explain that missing capsule?” King demanded of Seth.
“I cannot.”
“Where was the prescription filled?”
“At the local Rexall drugstore. It’s possible that the pharmacist’s count was wrong. If you’re hinting that Jane Mallory took a capsule from that bottle and put it in her bag, you’re crazy.”
“That’s not what I implied,” King said, slyly. “Are you taking this down, Mrs. Abbott?”
I nodded, sick of my task, certain now that King wouldn’t be satisfied with less than the arrest of both Jane Mallory and Seth Godwin. Maybe he was right about Jane, who was proving to be very determined. But surely too level-headed to leave cyanide in her nightcase! Still, they always made some foolish mistake.
But he was wrong about Seth. I wished that Seth hadn’t won their fight, because King was going to make him pay for that, too.
I glanced at Patrick. He had crossed the room to the exhibits and was eyeing Uncle Victor’s jar of cyanide.
“What did you mean, Lieutenant?” Seth asked.
King looked down his nose. His smile was brief. When he went on his manner was again correct and patient.
“The best, the quickest, the most sensible thing for you to do is to tell the whole truth, Doc.”
Seth lit a cigarette. He made no reply. His attitude was intentionally insolent.
Patrick asked, “Did you keep that scrap of blue wool, King? The one I gave you before … before you and the doctor had your argument?”
King fished the wool out of his jacket pocket. Patrick laid it beside the cyanide jar and said, “A doll like Denise Clarke must have been in a pretty bad twit to cross the fields on foot in the night and try to make her way to Uncle Victor’s cabin before somebody else beat her to this jar of cyanide.”
King leaned against the sink. He was attentive, but he wasn’t through with Seth, though he may have been glad for this interlude. Patrick went on.
“Ankle-strap sandals, too. Sheer stockings. Everything about Denise appears to be frail and childish. That pretty baby face. Yet she knows about cyanide, and she is worried enough about the supply in the cabin to walk a rough path in the dark and give my wife a hearty push to get her out of the way. Why?”
I said, even taking down what I said, “Uncle Victor says the cyanide in his jar isn’t the stuff Denise gave him. Why would he change it?”
“He didn’t,” Patrick said. “He’s being gallant. He loves the Denise type. Says she reminds him of his dead wife.”
“Wives,” I corrected him.
“The old guy’s a goon,” King said. “I’ll bet he knew all about that will. They all did, except old Mrs. Mallory.”
“Seth Godwin didn’t know about it,” Patrick said.
“That’s what he says,” King said, as if Seth weren’t present. Seth didn’t comment. “Well, Miss Clarke did run in and out and around so I guess I’d better have her out here. She may know more than she’s told. I think it’s a waste of good time, but fetch her, will you, Abbott? Thank you.”
Patrick went out. Now the lieutenant was getting somewhere. I hoped. I wondered if he would bring Uncle Victor here, too.
I liked the kitchen. It was old and very large but everything in it was as efficient as in a first-class hotel kitchen. There were no antiques in this kitchen, which was probably the reason that Ada Rollo could run this house efficiently with only two maids, and at the same time keep an eye on Amelia Mallory.
Amelia Mallory? What about Amelia?
The door from the breakfast room was flung open. Denise Clarke entered in a temper and started venting it peevishly. Patrick, arriving behind her, took a place near that door. Denise stood straight in her high heels. Her voice jarred.
“Now what?” she demanded. “What the hell do you want to ask me now? You’re nuts.”
“Just answer the questions, Miss Clarke,” King said, politely.
“Why not? But I know nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Mrs. Mallory made that statement earlier, Miss Clarke,” King said.
“She was right. I don’t know a thing, nothing.”
“You know what cyanide is, don’t you, Miss Clarke?”
“Accidentally, I do.”
“Please explain that.”
“Gladly. The stuff was used to fumigate our greenhouse not long ago. We were all warned for days to keep out of the place. Some of it was left after the fumigation was finished and I gave it to Uncle Victor for his spider room.”
“Why?”
“Why not? He wanted it. I had it.”
“But cyanide was available here in this house, in a photo laboratory which was not even kept locked until I locked it up tonight. Why should you provide Uncle Victor with what he could so easily procure right here?”
“I’ve no idea why he didn’t get it here. However, he says that cyanide in his jar now is from the lab upstairs. Uncle Victor said that what he had now is not what I gave him.” She turned to me. “You heard him. Why don’t you say so?” Her voice was intentionally nasty.
I wrote it down without making an answer.
“I don’t believe that,” King said. “I suspect Mr. Mallory was lying to protect you, Miss Clarke. Was the cyanide used in your greenhouse sodium or potassium cyanide?”
“How should I know? I’m not a fumigator.”
“It might have been mentioned.”
“Well, it wasn’t. So what?”
“You gain nothing by that attitude, Miss Clarke.”
Denise tossed her golden hair.
“I’m not accustomed to this sort of thing,” she said, in the same disagreeable tone. “I’m also not accustomed to gentlemen sitting when I stand.”
King was leaning against the sink, not standing, but he straightened up before he said, “All those exhibits will go to the analyst tomorrow, Miss Clarke. If the cyanide you gave Mr. Mallory …”
“Which he no longer has!”
“… is a different kind from that used to poison Dick Mallory and Miss James, it may clear you entirely.”
“Clear me? Are you crazy?”
King went right on.
“That’s not my immediate concern. You left the house tonight against my orders. You drove away. You walked back secretly to …”
“Secretly? Well, how else could I come here, with that dumb Earl Hollister hanging around outside half the time? He’s a moron, yet he pushes me around as if he had the right. You tell him to keep his dirty hands off me, hear? People of that class make me sick.”
King continued calmly, “You came back secretly because you planned to take that jar of cyanide away from Mr. Mallory’s cabin. What did you intend to do with it?”
“What difference? I didn’t get there in time.”
“It is the same jar you gave him, isn’t it?”
“How can I tell? It’s an ordinary quart canning jar. So was mine.” Denise’s voice became shrill. “Look here! I won’t put up with this. You’ve no right. I didn’t kill Dick Mallory or that silly old nurse. Why should I? They never did me any harm. I never intended to marry Dick Mallory. I only said I would to please Aunt Sarah. She had her heart set on it but it would never have come off. I couldn’t stand him. He was madly boring and drunk most of the time. Do you think I’m nuts? Well, I’m not. Even Jane left him, though you may have noticed that she hopped right back first chance she got. All set for what happened, and when the nurse caught her in the act, caught her murdering him …”
“You’re hysterical, Denise,” Seth Godwin said.
Denise whirled on the doctor.
“You’re just like the rest!” she shrilled. “You’ve fallen for Jane, just like Bart. She’s dreadful. She ruined Dick’s life. She’ll ruin Bart’s. At a time when Aunt Sarah needs him so. She’s got all the money now, or most of it, and poor Aunt Sarah …”
“You’re frightened, Denise. You’re panicked,” Seth said. He was standing near the table of exhibits.
“I’ll handle this,” King said. “Stand away from that table, Godwin. Go on, Miss Clarke.”
“I’m glad to go on. I know what happened. There we sat, in the hall, Aunt Sarah and I. Jane walks in cool as you please, walks upstairs, stays alone with Dick a few minutes, then crosses the hall to the bathroom to fix up her face, then down she comes, hat and gloves and all, and she was sailing out of this house when the nurse found Dick dead. Was Jane upset? Not a bit. And then in no time at all she’s kissing Bart and the nurse sees her and tells and the nurse knew a lot more, I bet, so she gets hers. That’s all there is to it. You ought to arrest her and take her away.”
“You can prove that, Denise?” Seth asked, quietly.
“Go ahead, Miss Clarke!” King cut in.
“Go ahead? Why should I be subjected to this vulgar questioning? Why don’t you take her away from here and lock her up? You all treat her better than you treat me.” She began to quiver with rage. “I refuse to answer another question. I’m leaving this room.”
She jerked around towards the breakfast room door. Patrick stood there. She stopped.
“Get out of my way!”
Patrick said nothing and King said curtly, “Miss Clarke, I’m the one to say when you’ll go. You’ll save yourself trouble if you try to help me. Nobody has accused you of anything except that you disobeyed orders, left the premises, and came back secretly. You concealed yourself behind a hedge and for some reason you pushed Mrs. Abbott so that she fell to the ground.”
“I didn’t do anything of the kind.”
“You admitted it a while ago, Miss Clarke.” Patrick had reported to King Denise’s remarks to us in the living room.
“So those sneaks ran and told you, did they? Fine thing! Snooping around where they have no business to be and running to you with their lies. Why? What right have they to be here?”
“What right had you to push me?” I asked, putting it down in the notes.
Denise asked spitefully, “What right had you hiding back of that hedge?”
King answered her. “I sent Mrs. Abbott to fetch Amelia Mallory to the continued inquiry. Amelia had gone to the cabin to dispose of Mr. Mallory’s jar of cyanide. Mrs. Abbott had a perfect right to be where she was. She was co-operating with the police. You are not, Miss Clarke.”
Denise tossed her head again.
“What was Amelia doing out there?”
“Trying to protect Mr. Mallory by hiding the cyanide, Miss Clarke.”
“Well, so was I. That’s all there was to it. He’s a sweet old man. Now, I’m going out of this room, hear? I refuse to answer any more silly questions.”
King said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “Mr. Victor Mallory fared very well in Dick Mallory’s will, Miss Clarke.”
Denise shut her lips tight. She said nothing.
“Had he spoken about it to you before Dick’s murder, Miss Clarke?”
No answer. Denise’s baby face was frigid. Her babyblue eyes looked glazed.
“Of course, Mr. Victor Mallory says he won’t get the money, that Sarah Mallory will see to that. Has Mrs. Sarah Mallory discussed the will with you, Miss Clarke?”
Denise was silent.
King said, “I hear that Mr. Mallory is already planning a long trip of some kind. Do you think he’ll part with his spiders?”
No reply.
“Let’s have him in here, Mr. Abbott, please. Thank you.”
Patrick nodded.
“Just one question first if I may, Lieutenant,” he said. “Miss Clarke, you weren’t trying to protect Mr. Victor Mallory, were you? You went to the trouble of sneaking back here …”
Denise turned on him, her fists clenched.
“Shut up!” she screamed.
Patrick continued without a break. “… to hide the cyanide jar to protect somebody, but I’m certain that somebody was not Victor Mallory. You were protecting yourself, weren’t you, Miss Clarke?”
Denise screamed incoherently and tried to run out of the room. Patrick caught and held her. She beat him with her fists. She screamed three times before he clapped his hand over her mouth. A couple of twists and he held her helpless, her head against his shoulder, facing the Lieutenant.
King managed a grim grin. He turned to Seth Godwin and changed the subject, purposely.
“What ails the tall babe, Doc? The Amelia character?”
Seth shrugged. “Nothing in particular, Lieutenant.”
“What are those fits, then?”
“Amelia has invented her own means of getting what she wants, Lieutenant.”
Denise frowned at Seth. Patrick took his hand away from her mouth as King asked, “Just what do you mean exactly, Doc?”
“Amelia does not suffer from epileptic seizures, if that is what you mean. Incidentally, Mrs. Mallory won’t allow the words epilepsy and fits mentioned here. And she shouldn’t, even though she herself is convinced that her daughter is an epileptic, and yet goes to great pains to pretend it isn’t true. She doesn’t pretend to me, and at the same time she refuses to believe me when I say that Amelia is merely putting on an act. You witnessed one, in the parlor. Amelia didn’t want to be questioned, so she went into one of her so-called spells and presumably had to be led out of the room.”
“My God!” King said. “What next!”
Denise said, from Pat’s shoulder, “I’m going to tell Aunt Sarah what you said, Seth. It’s unethical. She’ll never let you enter this house again.”
“Denise, as I just said, I’ve been telling Mrs. Mallory the truth about Amelia for years. Those spells are her way of getting even with her mother for breaking up her love affair twenty years ago.”
“Well, you don’t say it to other people. It’s not ethical,” Denise repeated.
“My God!” King said again. “The Amelia character is okay and puts on that act to make people think she isn’t. Now I’ve certainly heard everything.” He expelled his breath in a long sigh. “Sit on that stool over there, Miss Clarke. Fetch in Mr. Victor Mallory, will you please, Mr. Abbott?”
Denise went along meekly and sat on the stool. Patrick was reaching to open the breakfast room door when Bart Wayne came through it and said, “Mrs. Mallory sent me, Lieutenant. She thought she heard a scream and …”
“You dirty double-dealing bastard!” Denise snarled. She jumped off the stool and ran to Bart. She slapped him. He caught her hands and held her away.
“What do you mean, Denise?”
“You didn’t have to let them question me, Bart. You could have stopped them.”
“I’m afraid I couldn’t, Denise. And please don’t make things more difficult for everybody.”
“Everybody? Hell. What about me?”
Bart spoke patiently.
“We all have to answer the lieutenant’s questions. We were all in this house when Dick was murdered. Please be good, Denise. I’ve had a rugged time with Cousin Sarah. She knew it was you who screamed. It was all I could do to keep her from coming out here herself.”
“The old bitch!” Denise shrieked. “She’s the cause of all the trouble in this house. All of it. I hate the sight of her. When I leave here this time I’m going far far away. I never want to see that ugly old crone again.”
“Denise!” Bart’s voice was a reproof. “She loves you so, Denise.”
Denise laughed harshly and hysterically. She went to the stool and sat down. She kept laughing. King stood watching her, his eyes narrowed. Bart seemed bewildered. Patrick looked on. Seth Godwin went to her finally and slapped her cheek hard. She began to cry and Seth helped her from the stool and had started to guide her to a chair when King spoke up.
“Take her out of here, Wayne.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Bart said. “I’ll take her to Cousin Sarah. Denise will be all right with her. She didn’t mean what she said here.”
“I know that,” King said brusquely. “I detest hysterical females,” he added, when Denise was out of earshot. “You wouldn’t expect a pretty girl like that to put on such an act.”