Authors: Charlotte MacLeod
“You told me not to ask no questions! I—why should I, anyways? It’s no business o’ mine.”
“That’s rather a detached attitude for a man in your position, isn’t it? Very well, then, although you still haven’t asked, I’ll tell you. Miss Fewter was killed by being hit over the head with a rock sometime shortly after midnight on the Treadway place. She was wearing a dress which until that same afternoon had belonged to Mrs. Elizabeth Druffitt. Since Mrs. Druffitt has a reputation for never giving anything away, and since Miss Fewter bore a striking resemblance to both Mrs. Druffitt and Miss Emery, it’s been suggested that the dress fooled the murderer into mistaking her for one of the other two in the dark. Since you’ve already been caught trespassing at the Mansion once and since you’ve expressed such determination to get your patent back, you must surely realize what sort of position that leaves you in.”
“I damn well don’t,” Bain snarled back.
“Then suppose we examine the situation a little further. You’ve paid at least two visits to the Druffitt house since Dr. Druffitt’s death. Is that correct?”
“Just two,” Bain mumbled.
“Thank you. On both occasions, Marion Emery was present as well as Elizabeth Druffitt. On the second occasion, you were seen leaving the house looking, as a witness put it, like the cat that swallowed the canary. You’ve just now intimated that somebody is trying to put something over on you regarding the patent, so we can assume the person to whom you refer is either Marion Emery or Mrs. Druffitt, or possibly the pair of them working in collusion. Do you follow me so far?”
Bain’s Adam’s apple made a couple of quick trips up and down his skinny throat.
“Good,” said Rhys. “You see how neatly everything fits together. Now, a prosecuting attorney might take the angle that having failed in your first raid on the Mansion and being by now convinced a scheme was afoot to trick you out of your property, you attempted a second raid under cover of darkness. Perhaps you knew your son was taking Gilly Bascom out for the evening.”
“I never!”
“In any event, you, being a sensible man, would have waited till you thought everybody was either away or asleep. You would therefore have been startled when you met a woman on the lawn who looked like one of those you believed to be plotting against you. You might have become enraged, as you were seen to do on the previous occasion. You might have been alarmed at being caught trespassing again. In either case it would have been reprehensible but not unnatural for you to strike out at the woman with the first weapon that came to hand. As it happens, she was struck on top of the head. She was a tall woman, but you are taller. Would you care to save us a lot of bother and make a confession?”
“No! I never! You got no case against me. It’s all guesswork. I was right here in my own bed.”
“Can you prove it?”
A cornered rat will fight. Bain’s eyes began to show as yellow as his teeth. “If you’re fixin’ to pin somethin’ on me, why’d you come here askin’ for Elmer?”
“Because Elmer is nowhere to be found and it’s quite possible, you know, that he disappeared in order to avoid being questioned. Even if you two are really on the outs and not just doing an act for the neighbors’ benefit, he may not care for the idea of testifying against his own father in a murder case. I must say Elmer struck me as a decent sort of chap, all things considered.”
“The hell he is,” snorted Bain. After that he didn’t say any more for quite a while. Rhys waited like a cat at a mousehole. At last the rat went away and the mouse came out. “You claim I killed the woman to get hold o’ the patent, right?”
“I offered a hypothesis built on the evidence.”
“Then you can take your goddamn hypothesis an’ stuff it, Mountie. Your argument ain’t worth the powder to blow it to hell, ’cause neither is that patent!”
Bain thought he was hurling a bombshell, but it proved to be a dud. Rhys merely nodded.
“I know. I’ve been in touch with the patent office. The rights expired some years ago, and it was a silly idea in the first place. Miss Emery showed it to me. I can think of only one really good use you could have put that patent to. It made a fine red herring.”
“Huh?”
“Oh yes, Mr. Bain. You hung onto those papers because you’re a very far-seeing man. When Elmer caught you in the Mansion, you weren’t looking for the patent. You were putting it where it could be found, weren’t you?
Precious Bane
must have tickled your sense of humor, eh? You were a bit too clever there. Nobody spotted it for almost an hour.”
Bain couldn’t keep his lips from twitching in a sneer of contempt that was as good as a confession. Sure of his man now, Rhys went on.
“All those threats and outcries about your rights served their purpose. You managed to convince Marion Emery and Elizabeth Druffitt that the patent must be of great value. Your plan was to work yourself neatly into a corner and let them force you to buy them out. After loud cries and protestations, you would part with a considerable sum of money. Miss Emery would sign over her rights in the patent to you, and Mrs. Druffitt would force her daughter to do likewise, which I daresay Gilly would be glad enough to do anyway, eh? They wouldn’t know it till you served them with a court order to hand over the deeds, but they’d also be signing away their interests in Mrs. Treadway’s estate.”
“That’s hogwash!”
“No, it’s not, Mr. Bain. You knew that to them, as to everybody else but yourself, Treadway Enterprises Ltd was a joke that had gone stale long ago. In fact, it’s still very much a going concern, according to provincial records. My information is that you and Charles Treadway formed a partnership. You put up five hundred dollars, which I’m sure you’ve managed to get back somehow, and Treadway, being long on enthusiasm but by then short of ready cash, pledged the deeds to his house and land as capital. That is correct, eh?”
Bain couldn’t very well say it wasn’t, so he said nothing.
“Your partner meant to redeem the deeds, no doubt, as soon as his dreams of affluence came true, but he died in what we must now assume for want of proof was a freak accident. Does it mean anything to you that his wife died in essentially the same way?”
“Not a damn thing!” spat Bain.
“You never did explain to her about the partnership, did you? At Treadway’s death, his interest in the company reverted to his wife, but she seems not to have understood what that implied. I’m told she once negotiated with a builder to sell off part of the land. She couldn’t legally have sold anything without your being an equal party to the deal, and I’m sure you were looking forward to telling her so when you got the chance. However, that deal fell through, so you had to cook up another one. How much have you paid for the patent?”
“Nothin’.”
“I see. You’d hooked your fish and you thought you could take your time about pulling them in. Too bad. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather arrest for swindling. What were your plans for the property, Mr. Bain? You know it’s no good for farming or building.”
Bain wasn’t saying.
“No matter,” said Rhys, “I can guess. You’ve no doubt been thinking of the tourists. With this new road and the fad for campgrounds, it might work, at that, except that you’d have to trek your campers across Bert Wadman’s property to get them to your pond and he’d never allow that.”
Bain’s penchant for legal quibbles got the better of his caution. “He couldn’t stop me! There’s a right o’ way.”
“Is there, now?” Rhys nodded, perfectly satisfied with the result of his expedition. “Thank you, Mr. Bain. And if you get any more bright ideas, such as leaving town without my permission, I suggest you keep them to yourself.”
R
HYS REALIZED HE’D BEEN
a bit free in his remarks to Bain. The damnable thing was, the man, repulsive snake-in-the-grass though he might be, hadn’t actually done anything illegal except a spot of trespass, which he could always wiggle out of on the pretense that he’d come to see his son.
Even if Bain had managed to swindle Marion and Gilly out of their inheritance he’d have been acting within the framework of the law because he’d maneuvered Marion and her cousin into initiating the deal. One couldn’t very well arrest him on a charge of attempted larceny of Janet Wadman’s pet snapping turtles. One couldn’t even give him a richly deserved poke in the mouth without violating the code of the Force. As Rhys drove back over the all-but-impassable road he felt there were times when a policeman’s lot was not, in sooth, a happy one.
At least the snapping turtles were safe for the nonce, but what about the people? Was Gilly Bascom alive or dead? Perhaps he should be asking himself, was she a victim or was she the killer? Why couldn’t it have been she and not her son who threw that rock, and why couldn’t she have aimed to hit either the mother she couldn’t get on with or the coheiress she could do better without?
Why couldn’t Elmer have seen her do it and have had to be killed, too? She and Bobby between them might have been able to get his body into his car and take it away somewhere to hide. That was the trouble with murdering. No doubt there were lots of people who’d done one quiet little job—hidden Grandpa’s pills, perhaps, when Grandpa was having one of his spells—and got away with it and never felt the urge to try again. But all too often, one led to another.
By this time, Dot Fewter’s body should be down at Ben Potts’s place, and headquarters have sent someone out to have a look at it. Rhys wondered if Olson had thought to notify the mother before she got word of the tragedy via the grapevine. He should have done that himself.
One way or another, the news must have gotten around. As he neared the undertaking parlor, Rhys could see, buzzing around the door, a group of shocked villagers, unready to believe what they hadn’t yet seen. A pudgy man in a black suit who must be Potts was doing his futile best to keep order without antagonizing any of his future customers.
“Folks, you’ve got to be reasonable,” he was protesting as Rhys parked the car and walked over to the group. “Fred Olson gave me strict orders that nobody’s to be let in till official permission’s been given. I’m sorry, Mabel, but if I said yes to one, the rest would—yes, I know you were, but—”
Somehow or other, Rhys melted through the crowd and got to Potts’s side. The buzzing stopped even before he held up his hand for silence.
“Mr. Potts is acting in accordance with rules and regulations, ladies and gentlemen. The examination is only a formality, but it must be done. After that, Mr. Potts will have his own professional duties to perform. Once they are completed, no doubt the late Miss Fewter’s family will wish to receive your kind condolences in the usual manner. Will they not, Mr. Potts?”
Mr. Potts was of the opinion that they would. He estimated that he could complete his professional duties by late afternoon.
“Thank you, Mr. Potts,” said Rhys. “At that time, we shall hope also to have an official statement for you, since I expect Miss Fewter’s friends and relatives are deeply concerned as to how this dreadful thing could have happened. Until then, I’m afraid I shan’t be in a position to answer any questions. It will greatly assist our investigation if you’ll all go about your accustomed daily affairs until Mr. Potts has things in readiness for your reception. Thank you for your excellent cooperation.”
He gave them a deferential little bow, then got himself and Potts neatly inside before the people outside had time to make up their minds whether they cared to co-operate or not. A sodden bundle of old clothes got up and waddled toward them.
Mrs. Fewter’s voice was choked with sobs, but the words came out clear enough.
“Have you caught the murderin’ devil yet?”
“Not yet, Mrs. Fewter,” Rhys answered gently. “We shall, you know.”
“I know. The Mounties always get their man. But that won’t bring my Dottie back to me.”
Tears overflowed the puffs of fat around the woman’s eyes and splashed down her rusty black front. Although the morning was warm, she had an old winter coat huddled around her. Feeling chilled from the shock, no doubt. She ought to have something hot to drink. Unappetizing sight though she was, Rhys felt an aching pity for the bereft mother.
“Mrs. Fewter, do you have any thoughts at all about why anyone would want to kill your daughter?”
“No. Who’d want to do a thing like that? She never hurt a fly. It must o’ been one o’ them sex maniacs, is all I can think of. Was she—?”
“Oh no, please put your mind at rest on that score. Somebody appears to have hit her over the head with a rock and simply left her lying where she fell. It may have been an accident. In any event, I’m sure she never knew what struck her, if that’s any comfort to you.”
Mrs. Fewter sniffled into a tissue Ben Potts pressed into her hand. “It’s so awful,” she whispered. “I can’t think straight.”
“You and your daughter got along pretty well, did you?”
“Oh lordy, yes. Dottie was always good to me no matter what. I never raised but the two, and first my Joe gets killed on that darned old motorbike, and now this! It ain’t right. I don’t care what you say, it ain’t right.”
“Nobody said it was, Mrs. Fewter,” said Rhys. “Mr. Potts, I wonder if you might be able to find a cup of hot tea or coffee for this lady, eh? I think she could use it. Plenty of sugar, please.”
While Potts was off getting this excellent remedy for the shock Mrs. Fewter was undoubtedly suffering from, the doctor from headquarters arrived. His diagnosis was exactly what Rhys had expected. Dot had been instantly killed by a hard blow on the crown of the head. As the rock showed traces of blood and hair and fitted the wound, it could safely be called the murder weapon. There was no other physical injury. As for the question of molestation, the doctor could only say that the victim had been engaged shortly before her demise in an activity which, fortunately for Mrs. Fewter’s sensibilities, he described in words she would not be likely to understand.
“Yes, that is correct,” said Rhys. “It fits in with the testimony we have and cannot be considered an abnormal circumstance. And the time of death?”