Puzzle of the Red Stallion (27 page)

Piper shrugged. “All right, you win. Regarding Mrs. Thomas you win, too—because we’re all satisfied that she didn’t know what was going on. So she’s being sent to some relatives upstate. But never mind them, Hildegarde. What about Thomas?”

She smiled at him. “Thomas? I told you, he was the murderer!”

“Yeah, I know, I know. But how did he pull it off? Don’t hold out on me, Hildegarde. The reporters will be swarming up on the first train and it wouldn’t look well for me to stall when they ask me how I did it.”

Miss Withers climbed wearily out of the car. “It’s been a long time since I wandered around in the courthouse square of a country town,” she said. “Come along, let’s stroll in the park where the reporters won’t be able to find you until you know all….”

Because of their fatigue and nervous reaction everything in the fresh and dewy morning seemed intensely clear to the two oddly assorted collaborators, clear as a landscape seen after weeks in a darkened sickroom. The inspector, like most city-dwellers inclined to avoid walking as the plague, found a park bench beneath a spreading elm and lit his last cigar. “Well, Hildegarde?”

“It was a murder among murders,” she said thoughtfully after a moment. “Getting at the killer was like peeling an onion—there was always another layer. Yet it
was
Thomas, Oscar, who killed Violet Feverel!”

Piper nodded impatiently. “I know that—the guy even brags about it now. But how did you figure it out? He didn’t even have a ghost of a motive. Family servants don’t kill because somebody did a bad turn to the old master or his son….”

“He had a motive,” Miss Withers said. “But let’s go back for a moment. We know Thomas came from Australia twenty years ago, got a job with Gregg when he was a wealthy breeder of race horses and stayed. He watched over the son of the household, watched him ride his bicycle and shoot his air gun. He attended horses; while his employer was away at the tracks he ran the place. And he saved his money.

“But life holds more than working and saving, Oscar. Even for a dried-up, dingy little man. There was a cook in the Gregg household, the fair fat Mattie. Proximity will work wonders—but it took twenty years for Mattie to win Abe Thomas. They were married last year—and it would be my own guess that Mr. Thomas at once decided that he had—er—come a cropper is the term, I believe. That large and sentimental woman would make any man desire to throw it all away and go back to his native homeland. Without the wife of his bosom, naturally—yet he couldn’t go back without his ‘pile.’ So—”

“Meanwhile Don Gregg left home and married a professional model about the time the two old family servants underwent matrimony. Nor did that marriage turn out too well. The young couple were divorced, but the bride kept her wedding present from her father-in-law, that big red race horse. She kept him out of vanity and perhaps out of spite….”

Miss Withers shrugged. “Anyway she kept the horse and tried to have him schooled into a lady’s saddle mount. She also managed to get the court to award her a big alimony from Don Gregg, who couldn’t pay it. Neither could his father, for the old man had been guessing more wrongly on the races than he liked to admit.

“And then, Oscar, Abe Thomas saw his great chance. In an announcement of the season’s big race at Beaulah Park, only a mile from home, he saw that one of the horses—a nag so dubious that bookmakers were even then offering almost thirty-to-one on him—was entered under the name of ‘Wallaby’!”

“So what?” demanded Piper.

“Wallabies come from Australia,” Miss Withers explained. “Like the koala or honey-bear, the animal carries a certain sentimental meaning for the native of that far continent. I noticed today that almost every better risked his money because of some hunch, some sentimental association connected with the name. Wouldn’t it seem reasonable that when Abe Thomas finally broke his lifelong rule against gambling on the races, he would plunge on the horse which symbolized the continent ‘Down Under’ which he longed to revisit?”

“Okay—so he bet on Wallaby,” said the inspector impatiently. “But where’s the murder motive …?”

“Not so fast,” she told him. “Remember the notations made by Pat Gregg on the back of the race-track announcement? I found out through Eddie Fry that the old man had been sounding out bookmakers on where to get the best odds for a large sum of money on a long-shot in this race—and we know now that Pat Gregg didn’t have a large sum of money of his own! He was placing the money as a favor to his old employee, Oscar.” She sniffed. “Only—he
didn’t
place it.”

The inspector was waking up. “You mean—he gave it to Violet Feverel to bail his boy out of jail?”

She nodded. “He wanted the money desperately—and he was positive that there wasn’t one chance in a million of Wallaby winning. If Wallaby lost, Thomas would never know. Pat Gregg went down to the city and called on the beautiful estranged wife of his son—he paid her the nine hundred dollars which wasn’t his own and took a receipt—”

“How do you know he went down there? Maybe she came up to the farm?”

“Nonsense! He wouldn’t want Thomas to get wind of it. Besides, that blue notepaper on which the receipt was written could have come from a desk in Violet’s apartment, but never from the Gregg home. Anyway, don’t blame the old man too much. The boy was in jail without ever having broken any law and Violet Feverel had played with him like a cat with a mouse. As a climax she had the boy rearrested because he hadn’t paid alimony while in alimony jail—with the nine hundred dollars safe in her bank!”

“A nice girl!” the inspector observed.

Miss Withers shrugged. “Even though money isn’t worth much any more, people seem to want it just as badly. Anyway, the girl didn’t deserve to be murdered….”

“Yeah, why was she murdered?” Piper pressed. “Was Thomas sore because she got his dough?”

“Wait, Oscar. I thought so at first, but it was far deeper than that. Thomas had to kill Violet Feverel—in order to kill the old man!” She held up her hand. “Why did he want to kill the old man? Because he knew he was being double-crossed!”

“How could he know it—unless he was a crystal-gazer?” Piper objected.

“Worse than that, Abe Thomas was a snoop,” said Miss Withers. “Remember, Gregg collapsed on the stair when he heard that his son was back in jail. He was put to bed, unconscious, by his faithful servant—who, if I am not mistaken, calmly went through his master’s pockets!

“There was proof enough in the billfold—the receipt. Too bad we only looked through the trousers last Sunday—it might have helped us. Anyway, Thomas’s first impulse must have been to confront his employer. But he had no chance to get his money back, no chance of legal redress. He knew that it was impossible that the old man could have got hold of nine hundred dollars anywhere else, so Thomas took a tremendous plunge. He went to see Violet!”

“Listen,” complained the inspector. “Are you making all this up out of your head?”

“He went to see Violet, begging for the return of his money,” Miss Withers continued. “That was how she got the hunch to bet on Wallaby—for though she sent him away with a merry sneer, he did succeed in convincing her that the horse would win. There’s nothing easier than to let oneself be inveigled into betting on a horse…. Even I …” She sighed reminiscently.

“Violet told Eddie Fry, as a joke, that somebody had tried to borrow back money that had been paid to her, saying he wanted to bet it on Wallaby. How like her to see the essential humor in playing the little man’s horse—with his money! She would have done it, if she had lived.

“But she couldn’t live. She’d sealed her own death warrant when she sent Abe Thomas away empty-handed. Not that he blamed her for that. No—but she was the one person in the world who knew that he had a grievance against his employer. Thomas killed her to cover up the murder of his employer!”

“Oh—but Violet was killed first!”

“In most cases of double murder, Oscar, the second murder is to cover up the first, but here it was vice versa. Violet Feverel’s tongue had to be quieted at the same time or before the murderer could attack his real victim!”

“Say!” the inspector muttered. “
That
could be …!”

“It was, Oscar,” the schoolteacher said firmly. “Abe Thomas was no fool. He planned both murders to look like natural death. In the case of Violet he realized that a scapegoat might come in handy in case murder was suspected. Don Gregg had a real motive—so Thomas with the innocent connivance of his employer and his wife worked out a pleasant little plot to get Don Gregg out of jail by a fake writ on the eve of the murder!

“He planned to free the young man in order to give himself an excuse to spend the night in town, knowing that his wife would lie in his defense and that even if the truth did come out about his part in the jail-break, no one would blame him except as a very minor accessory.

“He left home that Saturday night very early—before sunset because the chickens had not yet gone to bed—and came down to the city. He parked the station-wagon on an all-night parking lot, leaving hidden there an efficient but supposedly harmless little air pistol in addition to the weapon which he had artfully concocted out of a hoe and a horseshoe. The shoe had to fit Siwash—but that was easy, for the horse had been stabled up here at the farm during many winter seasons and presumably there were old shoes about.

“Oh, it was tight, Oscar, tight as a drum. The man was touched with pure genius and for a while he had the luck of the devil. He got Don Gregg out of alimony jail without a hitch. Perhaps he suggested the Turkish bath, knowing how difficult it would-be to check an alibi there. Anyway, he took the young man there in a taxi and after the steam and the rubdowns and whatever they have in such places both men lay down on their cots.

“But imagine his amazement, Oscar! Thomas lay there pretending slumber until such time as the young man was asleep, and suddenly he heard his companion get up, take his clothes from the locker and stealthily creep out of the place!”

“That must have been a shock,” agreed the inspector.

“Thomas soon saw how he could turn it to account,” Miss Withers continued. “It was raining and the boy had calmly appropriated Thomas’s blue coat. That showed he intended to return before morning.”

“Hey, where did he go?” demanded Piper.

“He had one idea, that young Don Gregg,” Miss Withers explained. “He wanted to confront the woman who had been persecuting him. Most of that night he stood in the rain watching the lighted windows of the apartment that had once been his. He admitted as much to me a little while ago, after I explained that we knew he had been seen trying to follow Violet that morning….”

“Did we?” Piper asked doubtfully.

“Certainly, Oscar. He followed Violet to the stable and after her very noisy friends had departed toward Harlem, he tried to rent a horse and follow her into the park. Perhaps he meant murder, Oscar. Perhaps he hoped to catch her in a meeting with a man which would give him grounds for going back into court….”

Piper brightened. “You know, I figured she must be covering up something….”

“So did everybody else in the case,” Miss Withers admitted. “They all figured that Violet must have had a secret, passionate side to her nature. She was actually as cold as a new Frigidaire, and as empty. Anyway, Don Gregg tried to follow her….”

“And he was the guy who stole the bicycle from the Western Union boy?” the inspector burst in.

She nodded. “And took a spill on it too. Tore his clothes—because I saw Barbara mending them with stocking thread. The bicycle was wrecked and he changed his mind. He left it in the park and walked back to the Turkish bath—if he had continued on half a mile he would have come upon his wife’s dead body. Back at the baths he found Thomas gone—and began to worry. Had the man gone out searching for him? He went back to bed, being naturally tired after a night outside in the rain, and slept through the long hours of the morning.”

“That covers him,” Piper said quickly. “But hurry, Hildegarde, those newspaper boys will be here in twenty minutes.”

“We’ll go back to Thomas,” said Miss Withers calmly. “While Don Gregg was staring up at the windows of Violet’s apartment Thomas was speeding northward in the station-wagon. There was nobody at the parking lot between the hours of one and six—and the drive at that time would not take an hour. He was hurrying to the farm; he had work to do there.

“Already, remember, Thomas had done away with Pat Gregg’s faithful police dog, Rex, who always slept in the old man’s room. He did it by means of the powdered glass he so brashly mentioned to us as being used on dingoes in Australia. That left Gregg unprotected. And Thomas knew that the worst risk he ran would be of being discovered as helping a minor jailbreak, and that public sympathy is with the prisoners of alimony jail.

“Anyway, Thomas must have parked the car a distance from the house, crept up to the old man’s room and opened it with a key which he had prepared for this moment. Opening the door, he slipped quickly to the bed in the darkness and deftly knocked Mr. Gregg unconscious with a blow on the neck under the ear. Remember that pale bruise—it wasn’t a hard blow, for he just wanted to stun him. My guess would be that he used a sock filled with sand….”

“I’ve heard of it being done,” said the inspector stiffly.

“Heard of it—you probably invented it!” Miss Withers accused. “Anyway, with Gregg unconscious the murderer worked swiftly on a plot which was far and away the most clever, I might say over-clever, that I have ever heard of. He had wanted a safe and sane murder, without a trace. So he hit upon the idea of stringing the old man up by the heels and leaving him there to die from the pressure of blood on his brain!”

The inspector’s mouth opened. “Upside
down
?”

She nodded. “He knew that Gregg had had one collapse and was subject to high blood pressure. It struck him that apoplexy might be brought on artificially. He was strong enough to lift the old man, for he had done it on the stairs only a short time before. Anyway he left Gregg hanging by his suspenders. I presume they were knotted and caught in the trap door which led to the cupola. That was the only place in the room where he could have been tied up, for there was no chandelier and besides, the stairs offered an easy way to carry the victim up in the air.