After Denise and Bart left the kitchen Lieutenant King sat in a deep silence for a few minutes. The electric clock on the wall emitted a small metallic sound at intervals. Everybody smoked. The telephone in the breakfast room rang. King said, “Take it, please, Mr. Abbott.” Patrick went to answer and King spoke to Seth Godwin.
“If that’s your baby case, turn it over to some other doctor.”
“I can’t very well do that, Lieutenant.”
King’s expression did not change.
“You’ll have to.”
Seth’s jaw hardened.
“I suppose there is no way in which I can persuade you that I had no part in the murders of Dick Mallory and Mildred James.”
“Not until we prove somebody else did it, Doc.”
Patrick came back and said, “It’s for you, Seth.”
“Leave the door open, please,” King said. “Mind what I said, Doc.”
We could hear Seth’s voice. “Dr. Godwin speaking … Yes? … Have you been timing the pains? … Call me back when they’re only a few minutes apart … You might as well go to the hospital whenever you like and call me from there … Yes, I’ll still be here … Good-bye now.”
Seth came back to the kitchen. King’s eyes were cold and accusative.
“You didn’t obey my orders, Doc.”
“Lieutenant, that child won’t be born for hours.”
King’s voice was brusque.
“And it will be more than hours before you’re running around as usual. Call the number back and tell her or him that you can’t take the case.”
“Nope. After she’s in the hospital there will still be time enough. The doctor on call tonight can handle it then. I’ll phone him in due time.”
“You’ll phone him now, Doc.”
Seth faced King with a look of bottomless contempt. But he strode back to the telephone and rang up a Dr. Greenway and asked if he would take over the case.
“I still hope to get there, Doctor. I’ll call again.”
He came back into the kitchen and without so much as a glance or word to anyone resumed his perch on the same stool. King was filling his pipe. I had closed my notebook and was hoping that I wouldn’t be needed longer as reporter when Patrick, hitching up on another stool, asked, “Have you considered the possibility that Sarah Mallory did these murders, Lieutenant?”
King’s eyes were sharp as he put the pipe between his lips and eyed Patrick above it.
“Why?”
“She’s a woman of matchless self-control. If she found out about the will—and it’s possible—she might have had it in her to destroy her son, and in such a way that Jane Mallory would seem guilty. She sent the telegram. She brought Jane here, even though it was her son who requested it.”
King put a light to his pipe before he said, “I think it most unlikely.”
“It would be darned hard to crack her if she had,” Patrick said, and Seth spoke up and said, “Mrs. Mallory would never have done it. The one soft spot in her armor was Dick. Dick and Denise.”
“Denise,” King said thoughtfully. He avoided speaking to Seth. “What do you make of her performance here a few minutes ago, Mr. Abbott?”
“I think Dr. Godwin is right. She’s panicked.”
“Why?”
“Maybe she scares easily. What do you think, Seth?”
“She’s very unstable, Pat. This affair is too much for her, I suppose.”
“She’s scared,” Patrick said. “In my opinion she knows more than she’s admitted. She’ll break, if she does, and talk.”
“Like that nurse,” King said. “I wish I’d let her do her talking when she wanted to. That thing she said about ethics.” He slid a sidelong glance at Seth, who ignored it, and said, “I’d better get hold of Hollister and have him keep a special eye on Miss Clarke. She’d better not go roaming around alone in the dark. I’ll fetch Victor Mallory back here myself.”
He went out, smoking his pipe, and Seth said, “That so-and-so. He honestly thinks I’m guilty. Good God!”
“Well, we know better,” I said. “Don’t worry, Seth.”
“I’m not worrying. I’m mad. Why do you think Denise knows more than she’s told, Pat?”
“I’m sure she knows or suspects who did the murders. She’s afraid to speak up and say so.”
“Who could it be?”
“She’s very close to Mrs. Mallory, Seth.”
“I can’t imagine anybody being such a fool as to take Denise Clarke into his or her confidence.”
“That’s not it necessarily. Perhaps she senses the truth. She took a lot of trouble to slip back to destroy the jar of cyanide in Uncle Victor’s place. You can be darn sure that she didn’t do it for Uncle Victor’s sake. Amelia had the same idea and Amelia was genuinely out to protect her Uncle Victor.”
As he spoke, the breakfast room door opened and Uncle Victor himself entered ahead of Lieutenant King. Uncle Victor made it an entrance, as always. He stood straight and small and elegant and at ease when King leaned against the sink and started firing questions at him. He motioned to me to go on taking notes.
King spoke with the pipe stem still between his lips.
“You knew all about your future inheritance, didn’t you, Mr. Mallory?”
“My dear sir, not all about it. I thought my nephew was joking.”
“You knew that his mother had restored his property to him?”
“I was told so, Lieutenant. I didn’t believe it entirely. Of course, as I have said, I’m certain that my sister-in-law will find a way to break that will. Its provisions will never be carried out.”
“Yet you are already planning a long trip, I hear?”
Uncle Victor lifted his doll-like hands. His full lips smiled, and the tuft of white hair on his undersized chin quivered.
“My dear Lieutenant, that was a dream, spoken aloud. I doubt that I shall ever leave this place. I shall not mind. It is very beautiful here and my hours are interestingly spent.”
“With spiders?”
“And other pleasant companions. Amelia. Denise.”
“You lied about the source of the cyanide in that jar, Mr. Mallory.”
Uncle Victor nodded.
“That was my mistake. I realized it at once and decided to confess it to you at my first opportunity. I didn’t want Denise to be drawn into the inquiry. My sister-in-law is right when she says that the child knows nothing. She had no part in these tragic murders.”
“I’m afraid I don’t agree, Mr. Mallory. I’m very sure that the child, as you call Miss Clarke, knows more than is good for her. I’ve put Deputy Hollister to watch her all the time, so that no harm can come to her. She may be in grave danger.”
Uncle Victor shook his head.
“I can’t imagine anybody harming one hair of her pretty head. But I’m sure whatever you’ve done is the right thing, Lieutenant. I’ve a very high opinion of our state police. Trained men of your sort are badly needed. If I may say so, I think it a bit of luck that the county sheriff was absent at this time because it meant your taking charge here.”
King’s smile was sardonic.
“Thank you,” he said dryly. “Well, if you lied about one thing you probably lied about the others, Mr. Mallory. This is no time to be old-fashioned and gallant. What else do you know?”
The hands went up.
“Nothing, Lieutenant. Nothing.”
“Do you know whether Dick Mallory feared anyone?”
“Dick? On the contrary. He was fearless. Fearless. A remarkable fellow, full of humor, generosity and, I must confess, malice. But considering his sad affliction …”
“You mean his being a drunk?”
“Ah, Lieutenant, you speak harshly. I call it an affliction, a weakness. Most of us are prone in one way or another to weakness, I’m afraid.”
“Your sister-in-law is an exception, Mr. Mallory.”
“How right you are! An admirable woman, Lieutenant.”
“A strong woman. Therefore she may have murdered her son herself. And murdered the nurse because she knew the truth.”
Uncle Victor said, “Your theory is interesting, Lieutenant. But in fact it makes no sense. My sister-in-law would not do such a thing.”
“Then who would?”
“If I knew, I would tell you,” Uncle Victor replied sincerely. Yet even as he said it you knew he would do no such thing.
King gave him a penetrating glance.
“Your nephew, according to you, was an angelic character.”
“Oh, no. Far from it. I have mentioned his malice, Lieutenant. When he disliked someone he could be very trying, or even when it was someone he was fond of but wished at the moment to annoy. He was human, after all. He had his bad moments as well as good.”
That’s sure a deep remark, I thought, taking it down, and wondering if anybody would ever get anything out of wily Uncle Victor.
“He made it a special point to annoy his mother, didn’t he?”
“I regret to say that he did. And his wife. And Denise Clarke and that unfortunate Miss James, the nurse, and Amelia. No one escaped his tongue when he was having one of his irritable spells. And why shouldn’t he have such spells? He was bedridden sometimes for weeks. He suffered.”
“He always treated you well, Mr. Mallory?”
“I was no exception, Lieutenant.”
“Were there exceptions?”
“Dick never took his spite out on Dr. Godwin, Barton Wayne, or Ada Rollo. None of them would have put up with it, needless to say. As a boy Dick used to tease Bart, or so they say, but he was several years the elder and it is the usual thing with boys, I believe. He always apologized to his victims afterward. He felt deeply regretful because he had caused others pain. That was one of Dick’s endearing qualities. We shall miss him deeply, I’m afraid.”
I glanced at Patrick, then at Seth. Both were watching Uncle Victor, their eyes almost twinkling.
King gave up suddenly.
“Go back to the living room and wait there with Jane Mallory.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to throw a little light on our tragedies.”
“Maybe you have,” King grunted.
Uncle Victor bowed to me, nodded his head in turn to Patrick, Seth and King, and went out. King looked after him with narrow brows. Nobody spoke until the door between the breakfast room and dining room closed.
“A slippery customer,” King said then.
“A lifelong gambler,” Patrick said.
“A cardsharp, like as not,” King said. “I wouldn’t care to sit in on the same poker game with that old guy.” He glanced at the time. It was getting on toward two A.M. He was knocking ashes out of his pipe and evidently considering how to proceed next when Bart Wayne came back to the kitchen.
“Cousin Sarah would like to speak with Dr. Godwin, Lieutenant.”
King glanced at Seth, who didn’t bother to look back, and spoke to me. “Go with the doctor, Mrs. Abbott. Take your notebook, please. I’ll want a record of anything and everything said.”