Puzzle of the Red Stallion (28 page)

“Leaving Gregg, as he thought, to die a slow and horrible death, Thomas hurried out of the room, locked the door, and got back to the city. He replaced the station-wagon on the parking lot where it was to be serviced by the attendants when they came on duty at six. From it he took his parcel of weapons and calmly walked down the street and appropriated the first taxicab he found empty!”

“But why a hack when he had a car?” the inspector protested.

She smiled. “Oscar, I’m afraid you’re going to flunk this course. Naturally he didn’t dare risk having his car identified. Taxi drivers often leave the keys in their cars, for who would steal a taxi anyway? So—Thomas stole a taxicab from outside a restaurant and drove calmly to the most convenient place where he could overlook the bridle path on which he knew Violet must ride if she rode at all. His plan was perfect—a BB shot must sting the horse into a frenzy and throw the rider. Before she could get up Thomas would give her a fatal blow with the horseshoe club he had designed, thus placing all blame on the big thoroughbred she was riding. The wounds would appear to be made by a horse’s hoof!

“So far he had played in remarkable luck, but here he struck his first obstacle. Abe Thomas was a poor shot, Oscar. He didn’t realize how poor a shot. True enough, as Violet Feverel cantered into range he managed to hit the big red horse. But Siwash didn’t throw his rider—perhaps he was gentler than anyone thought. So the murderer, desperate, tried again—and this time he missed the horse completely!

“Already a park attendant was coming in sight and Thomas had to decamp with his job unfinished. He had no more use for the air pistol and the horseshoe club, so he tossed them into the first pond he saw. He had no fear of there being traces, for as far as he knew he had not harmed a hair of Violet Feverel’s head!”

“Then who in blazes—” began the inspector.

“Oscar, he showed genuine surprise when he heard the girl was dead—for he had come to her apartment as soon as he got rid of the taxi and regained his own car with the natural purpose of killing Violet then and there, perhaps with his bare hands. He had to kill her—for it was necessary to cover his other murder! He might have thought of pushing her from the window, another excellent way of faking an ‘accident.’ If we hadn’t been there he might have killed Barbara by mistake. But when he saw us he instantly thought of a very plausible lie—and a lie which would cover him on the murder which he thought he had committed up at the farm.

“His amazement at Violet’s death was genuine, for he did not dream that his wild shot at the horse had struck her throat and cut the jugular. But he accepted the news as an evidence that fate was on his side and took us up to the farm to show us a dead man. He ran a fearful risk, he knew, that he would not have time to cut down the body before we found it. But he covered that neatly by rushing into the house and letting the door blow shut in our faces—by accident!

“It took him only a few seconds to get up the stairs, and here was the third trick of fate. For he found that the suspenders had broken or slipped out of the trap door, letting the victim fall to the floor where he got off with nothing worse than terrific bruises and a coma.

“Desperately the murderer tried to cover up his traces as we rang and rang at the bell downstairs. He got the sick man into the bed, placed the suspenders on the trousers and threw whatever gags and bindings he had used out of the unscreened window of the tower. By the way, he left the cupola window open, which gave us a faint hint, or should have done so. To cap it all, he locked the door—and broke it down from the outside! Sounds like a lot—but we waited outside for at least ten minutes.

“When we were coming up the stairs he rushed down crying for a doctor—and I imagine that he was much relieved when he learned that Gregg’s only memory of the whole thing was the dream of being the pendulum of a clock. You see, of course, the significance?”

“You mean, the old man got an inkling of what was going on while he was tied up feet topmost?”

Miss Withers nodded. “Just as we dream of being afloat on an iceberg when the covers slide off the bed. The mind fictionizes and elaborates. That nightmare was an important clue, Oscar. But to go on….

“Thomas was temporarily unable to continue with his real murder, mainly because there was a Gibraltar-like nurse watching over the old man. So he bided his time, letting suspicion fall on those of Violet’s friends and relatives who might have had a real reason to kill her. Who would suspect him, the humble employee of her ex-father-in-law?”

“I would have, only there wasn’t any motive!” Piper protested.

“Exactly! The motive hadn’t come into being yet! Anyway, Thomas bided his time. Perhaps he was afraid to trust his luck too far. Perhaps he decided to wait until the big race and see which horse won. If Wallaby lost then he had no kick coming.

“But he laid his plans, Oscar. When he failed to raise any money at the bank, a last desperate effort to follow his hunch on the race horse with the Australian name, he got ready for the big moment. There would be dramatic justice about killing his enemy at the moment of the race’s climax. Besides, the race-track event gave him a chance for an alibi unique among alibis….”

“But Thomas was at the track, Hildegarde!”

She nodded. “For a little while before the race. But I timed our trip from the track to the farm with Captain Tinker and it took less than five minutes. Thomas knew his wife would be in bed most of the day; he had nothing to fear from her. Oscar, that man scurried away from the track, leaped into the station-wagon and got home while the race was being run!”

“But, Hildegarde….”

“But me no buts. When he knew that Wallaby had won—perhaps he read the news in the face of the old man at the telescope—Thomas struck. Again he used the sock filled with sand and this time a twisted sheet instead of a rope to hang the old man with. Oscar, he repeated his performance of the previous Sunday morning and then hurried back to the track in time to be seen supposedly leaving!”

The inspector was bubbling with suppressed excitement. “I’ve got you!” he said. “I’ve found a hole in your case big as a house. Hildegarde—maybe a man could see through a telescope the finish of a race almost a mile away. I’ll even concede that with his telescope trained on the finish line he could see you and me leaning over the rail yelling at the horses. Still”—this was the inspector’s moment of triumph—“still he couldn’t
hear
what we were saying! And Thomas quoted word for word your remark when you showed me the fistful of tickets—something about how you bought a ticket on each horse to win!”

Miss Withers didn’t say anything. “Now who’s flunked the course, Hildegarde?”

She smiled. “Well, Oscar, since you ask for it—Do you remember our meeting with Thomas last Monday when we stopped him by the pasture fence and I amused you so much by tossing him an apple?”

The inspector nodded blankly. “Well, perhaps you didn’t notice, but his motor made so much noise nobody could hear anything. You told him to shut it off, that you wanted to talk to him. And he nodded and obeyed, staring at your lips….”

“What? You mean to tell me there’s parlor magic hocus pocus mixed up in this?”

“Parlor magic nothing. Lots of people can read lips without realizing it. That was one of the amusing things about the old silent films; every once in a while you would catch the hero saying something incongruous while kissing Theda Bara or chasing Lillian Gish through the foliage.

“I’ll admit,” she continued, “that I nearly went crazy trying to answer that question myself, Oscar, until I remembered what Thomas had unintentionally demonstrated previously. And that telescope is powerful enough so that the man at the other end could almost read the program I was holding.

“I myself, when looking through the telescope, noticed that I could see the clods of earth flying from the race track when it was being prepared for the race. That optical instrument brought the finish line—and we who stood at the fence at that exact spot—within a few feet of Abe Thomas’s eyes!

“He was undoubtedly searching for some gesture, something that he could mention which would prove that he was near us all the time. And then fate tossed in his lap that flash—perhaps half guesswork—of what I was saying to you. That completed his plot—gave it the little extra fillip that made it perfect. And remember, mind you, he was confident that Gregg’s death would be set down as a natural attack of apoplexy!”

There was the mournful scream of a train whistle in the distance. “Hurry, Hildegarde….”

“There’s not much more. Thomas had a shock when he learned from you that we wanted to ride over to the farm from the track. He had thought—”

“Wait a minute! Why did the old man want us to come and see him today after the race? Do you think he was getting wise?”

Miss Withers shook her head. “Oscar, he had just realized what might happen if by a miracle Wallaby won! He would then owe Thomas some twenty-five thousand dollars or more. We can only guess—but if worse came to the worst and the horse won, it is my firm belief that the old man was going to try his best to pin the Feverel murder on Abe Thomas.

“It would have been so neat—removing at one time a menace to himself and a menace to his son. For the old man, Oscar, believed that his son had killed Violet Feverel. He was sure of it, which accounts for his unwillingness to see the young man. If the improbable happened and Wallaby should win, I think Gregg intended to kill two birds with one stone and try to frame Abe Thomas to save himself and his boy!

“But to return to the old house. Thomas had a flat tire on the way home and drove straight on without stopping to change it. That did not fit in with his usually careful nature. He arrived only just in time, for the others were already on the steps ringing at the door.

“He made them wait in the living room and rushed upstairs. His victim was dead—indeed, had died within a few minutes of being hung up so horribly. Thomas must have got a start when he saw that the bonds made dull marks on the dead flesh and that the upper half of the body was so livid with distended blood vessels. But that was as it may be. He hoisted the dead man up into his chair, hoping it might still appear as a natural death from excitement of watching the race.

“Again he got rid of his aids by tossing them out the window, where he could easily pick them up on the garden path. It would not take ten minutes, Oscar—even remembering that he replaced the sheet on the bed. The four who waited downstairs did not notice the passing of time, for they were watching the quarrel between Mr. Fry and Latigo Wells. (Over Barbara, I presume—though when Eddie Fry ran away at the bridle path, I think she crossed him off the list.)

“Thomas came down the stairs shouting the alarm, as he did before. And we were fooled, Oscar—fooled first by his very real surprise on finding that Violet was dead! Then fooled by his drab exterior, his sober habits—fooled by the perfect alibi of the telescope!”

Miss Withers shook her head sadly. “There were clues enough, if I hadn’t been wasting my time worrying over briar pipes and on trying to solve the murder through an attempt at applied psychology.”

“That was what we were doing at the races?”

She nodded. “I was looking for a person who would be capable of betting everything he owned in the world on a long-shot—for that’s what murder is, Oscar. I didn’t find such an impulse among our suspects. Most of them bet moderately on middle-class horses chosen on name alone. Barbara and Latigo plunged with the money which had been in Violet Feverel’s bank account and which I presume came originally from poor Thomas. But they plunged on a
show
bet—not risking the whole breathless leap. Our murderer had more daring than that, Oscar. He would have bet to win!

“Oh, I was right—only our murderer couldn’t bet because he didn’t have anything to bet with. Getting his tip third or fourth hand I won a pocketful of money which I don’t know that I have any right to keep. Anyway, that line of approach petered out….”

“We got him, which is all that matters,” said the inspector complacently. He leaned back on the bench, relit his cigar. “You know,” he admitted, “I wasn’t so badly fooled as I might have been. I thought all along that Thomas must have had something to do with that attack on Barbara Foley last Monday when her saddle was tampered with on the bridle path….”

Miss Withers smiled at him. “
Such
a report card you’re going to take home this month, Oscar! Because that ‘attack’ on little Babs was the only thing in this whole affair of which Thomas was perfectly innocent!”

“What? Then who in blazes—”

“Not Thomas, anyway,” Miss Withers told him. “He had no way of knowing that Barbara would try riding the horse because I did not put the idea in her mind until Sunday afternoon. And ten minutes after the girl fell off I phoned the farm and found him there where he belonged! No, Oscar—it was not Thomas. But knowing how badly Maude Thwaite wanted the ownership of that striking-looking beast, it is my opinion that she thought up a neat little idea for discouraging Barbara in any plans of keeping him. All the woman meant to do was to cause a fall, and not one fall from a horse in a thousand is fatal.”

“All the same—Say, there must be some way of getting her for that! Malicious assault, anyway….” The inspector was chivalrously irate.

“I’ve thought of a possibility,” Miss Withers said dreamily. She might have said more, but there was the sound of honking horns in the village street. Flashlight powder went off in a brilliant explosion just outside the jail, where Captain Tinker was posing….

“The reporters!” said Piper. “Say, I’ve got to get over there and keep Tinker from telling how he solved the case….”

“Here’s a last tip for you, Oscar,” Miss Withers called after him. “Tell the gentlemen of the press that you broke the case through a mistake that the killer made. You see,” she hastily explained, “he thought it would be a very clever idea to dig up Don Gregg’s childhood air rifle and plant it in his bedroom closet in case anybody ever noticed the BB shot in this mystery. Of course we realized at once that no young man of thirty would keep such a toy in his bedroom all those years….”