Evidence of Things Seen (16 page)

“You actually
saw
—”

“I did. There were two dresses and two sunbonnets. Gilbert Craye's private life was spied upon last summer by Miss Radford, and she confided in Mrs. and Miss Jeans. They have been stirred by the conviction that Craye is carrying on a love affair with a beautiful, married, blonde refugee—whom I had the pleasure of seeing this morning.”

“But you said you thought he was in love with Fanny Hunter!”

“The Jeans ladies would inform you—at vast length and with few pauses for breath—that there is probably room for two love affairs in the life of such as Gilbert Craye; two or more, coincidental or successive. Mrs. and Miss Jeans do not like to think of the effect Craye's affair with a German refugee—if she is indeed a refugee—must have on China, Russia and England. They have gone so far as to appeal to the county authorities; Ledwell, I hope. I should like to see Mr. Ledwell consulted on such a delicate matter as that. We are not to spread the story though.”

“I shan't spread it!”

“You must be nice to your dressmaker and quilt maker; they have been useful. And you must invite Mrs. Groby to lunch.”

“Oh,” said Clara, faintly. “When?”

“Today, if we can catch her.”

They went back to North Avebury by the reservation road, passed the cottage, and drove on to the Radford farm. Mrs. Groby came out to speak to them, again in working trim, and looking even more exhausted and wild than she had looked the day before. She said she would love to have lunch at the cottage.

“I hope Groby can come too,” said Gamadge.

“He has an appointment in Stratfield, but he'll stop for me later. Wait a minute, he wants to speak to you. That dumb boy at the garage! Mr. Groby's all upset about what he said to you—it isn't so!”

Groby, who had been lurking in the hall, came out to elucidate. He seemed greatly embarrassed: “You sent me a message by that feller at my garage, Mr. Gamadge.”

“Oh—did I?”

“I want to say that I was joking when I said what I did about what happened Saturday night at the cottage. I never meant it.”

“Of course you didn't. I was annoyed at the moment, but I realized that you couldn't be expected to consider the feelings of total strangers. The Hunters might not have liked it, though.”

“I want to apologize.”

“Perfectly all right.”

“Look here, Mr. Gamadge; my wife says you think of buying the cottage.”

“When and if the mystery is cleared up, and if we can come to terms.”

Groby said: “No trouble there. And as for the mystery, I've got a theory about that.”

“Have you? That's good.”

“I say that Aunt Alvira was hurt in that accident a good deal worse than old Knapp thought she was. He didn't make any kind of an examination of her that evening; he's a has-been, anyway. I've heard of cases when a man's neck was broken and he walked around for a week. That's what happened to Alvira; her neck was broken and she didn't know it; then she twisted it or something, and bingo!”

Mrs. Groby put her hands over her ears. Gamadge said: “Very ingenious notion; but Miss Radford's cervical vertebrae were broken in such a manner that the spinal column was injured; causing death. Thanks for the suggestion, though.”

“I'm only trying to get that deed signed,” said Groby, with an effort at his native jocularity.

“The sooner the better. Will you drive along with us now, Mrs. Groby?”

“Just let me get straightened out.” She disappeared, and Groby, the picture of a hot, weary and dejected man, went down to the road and got into a new and glittering car. He drove glumly away.

Mrs. Groby soon reappeared, neat and even striking in her black dress and pumps and her fashionable little black hat and veil; she climbed into the Ford beside Clara, and made room for Gamadge. “I'm glad to be going somewheres,” she said. “I just hate that place.”

When they arrived at the cottage Gamadge shook up cocktails; Mrs. Groby seemed grateful for them.

“My, it's cute here,” she said, looking around the living room. “I've never been inside since it was fixed.”

“Those people in Hartford must be good,” said Clara.

“Aunt Alvira must have spent a lot of money on it.” Mrs. Groby had a second Martini, and went in to lunch with her color high. Afterwards she followed Clara around the house, full of admiration for it. She was impressed, but perhaps a trifle disappointed, by the disappearance of the death room; agreed that Gamadge's inspiration certainly made the house more salable, or at worst rentable, and approved the opening of the back door. “I don't know,” she said, “how you managed about garbage.”

“I think Maggie lowered it out of a kitchen window.”

“Crazy!”

The tour ended in Clara's bedroom, where Mrs. Groby sank down on the quilted counterpane with a sigh.

“It's cute, real cute; but I don't know how you can sleep with that waterfall going.”

“We like it.”

“And you don't mind lamps and candles and no electric icebox. Mis' Gamadge, you ought to have this cottage!”

“It almost seems so, doesn't it?”

“Mis' Gamadge—we got to sell it; we just got to.”

“Have you, Mrs. Groby?” Clara looked at the distressed face of her guest, feeling uncomfortable.

“I just have to tell you. Aunt Eva Hickson's money's gone.”

“Miss—Miss Radford's money?”

“The securities. They're not in the First National Bank in Stratfield, they're not anywhere. Don't tell.”

“Are you sure?”

“There isn't even any box any more; I mean, they tell me Aunt Alvira gave it up back last October.”

“She must have put the securities in some other bank.”

“We can't find where. All those low-interest government bonds, good as money!” Tears began to form on Mrs. Groby's eyelashes; she got out a handkerchief. “It's bound to come out, I suppose, but don't mention it yet.”

“Of course not. This is dreadful. You'll find them, Mrs. Groby, of course you will.”

“Where? The bank had the list, has it yet; and Mr. Toms said she came and took the securities away with her in her black traveling bag, and gave up the key. All we have is her cash balance, and that isn't much, because she spent thousands fixing up this cottage and the farm.”

“A hundred and six thousand dollars! It can't be gone!”

“It was only about seventy thousand after the taxes were all paid, but seventy thousand is a lot of money; and instead of seventy thousand all I have is this real estate and a few hundreds, and Mr. Groby went right out on Monday and paid cash for that new car; and of course he can't sell it back. We thought the seventy thousand was right in our pockets.”

“Mrs. Groby, I never heard anything so mean.” Clara felt like crying too. “Won't you let me tell my husband? He does have such good ideas about such things.”

“I want to tell him, because I want him to buy the cottage. I said that from the start,” said Mrs. Groby, tears rolling down her face, “that Mr. Gamadge was a perfect jelman. He acted like a jelman right along, even after Mr. Groby talked so silly to our garage boy.”

“Let's go down and tell him now.”

They found Gamadge taking his ease on the porch. When he had heard the news he did not look surprised; he merely said: “It's a dam' shame. Sit down and have a cigarette, Mrs. Groby. Have you been looking for the securities at the farm?”

“W
E BEEN TEARING
the place to pieces,” said Mrs. Groby, her black-bordered handkerchief to her eyes. “Yesterday and today; we only found out yesterday; Mr. Toms at the bank felt quite bad when we asked about the box; he said he naturally thought Aunt Alvira had told me where the bonds were.”

“Could she have been so foolish as to keep them in the house?”

“I wouldn't have said so, but I thought on account of the fence and the dogs she must have
some
money there.”

“Of course the people who are looking after your affairs will make inquiries?”

“They don't know where to look. She hasn't deposited coupons or anything, she hasn't been near the Stratfield bank since she took the securities away. She had a few hundreds there still, but she hasn't drawn on her cash balance since she paid the last big bill for repairs, back last fall.”

“And you've made a thorough search for cash at the farm?”

“Yes, but there isn't any locked-up place, or any place at all to keep valuables except a secret part of a closet, which I always knew about. You know those built-in cupboards, with doors above and doors below? There's one in Grandma Radford's bedroom, the one Aunt Alvira used after she moved back to the farm. Between the upper and bottom part there's a thick shelf, and it lifts up; there's a kind of a compartment under it, you'd never know. Grandma Radford kept her old jewelry and her silver spoons in it; she used to let me lift the lid up on rainy Sundays and look at the things. Of course I went right for that cupboard; all the old stuff is there, and some junk of Aunt Alvira's and Aunt Eva Hickson's; nothing else.”

“You say Miss Radford took the securities out of the bank last fall?”

“October.”

“That's quick work; it usually takes longer to settle an estate.”

“The bank knew all about Aunt Eva Hickson's securities, and all about her business, and they knew there wouldn't be many outstanding debts, and there weren't any legacies except Aunt Alvira's. The cash balance would have taken care of bills, anyway. Aunt Alvira got possession in October, and took the securities out a week later—October fifteenth. Mr. Toms said he could have dropped; of course he thought she'd leave them right there. He bought most of ‘em himself for Aunt Eva Hickson.”

“And by that time the fence was up and the dogs on the rampage?”

“Yes, they came as soon as she moved back to the farm; in early September.”

Gamadge pondered. “She didn't sink the seventy thousand in an annuity, I suppose?”

“We were afraid she had, but Mr. Toms said the income would be in checks, and where would she cash the checks? He's already called up the banks at Avebury and Stormer, and he's started on Hartford.”

“Do you mean that she seems actually to have been paying her way in cash?”

“Ever since she drew checks for Yost, in Hartford, and the Avebury builders, and the plumbers. We don't know who fixed up the farm inside,” said Mrs. Groby, looking curiously mystified, “but it must have cost money, more than was left in her balance. And we'll have to spend the rest of the balance,” she added, her voice trembling, “for the funeral!”

“Tough on you, Mrs. Groby, very tough. One of the toughest things I ever heard of. Let's hope that the people at Stratfield will get on the track of those bonds.”

“They're the kind that don't
leave
any track, Mr. Gamadge! They're just like money! But Mr. Toms is going to advertise—he has advertised; he started yesterday. Mr. Groby went over before lunch to inquire. We have to pay for that, too—the advertising, and the telephones, and everything. We
can't
hire a special man to do the tracing, because if we didn't get the bonds back, how could we pay him? You can imagine how I felt when you said you might buy the cottage.”

“I can imagine. Miss Radford wasn't the type to go into wild financial schemes, was she? She wouldn't pay attention to fly-by-night brokers who called her up?”

“I wouldn't think so.”

“Could she have made trips to Hartford or even to New York without its being known?”

“I should think Sam would know if she was ever away overnight. She could go to Hartford, I suppose; she used her car for long trips. She was just saving gas with that old rig she drove around in.”

“Well, I must say I sympathize with you, Mrs. Groby.”

“And on top of all that, they have the nerve to act as if I or Mr. Groby had killed Aunt Alvira for the seventy thousand!”

“Vexations of course; but when Miss Radford was killed you and Mr. Groby are supposed not to have known that the securities were missing. Or you might have known where Miss Radford had hidden them,” added Gamadge. Mrs. Groby burst into a wail. Clara looked distressed, and Gamadge hastened to continue: “But we must look on the bright side of things, and hope that the murderer will be found when the bonds are. Meanwhile you have the farm and the cottage, and Groby has his garage business.”

“But business is so awful now, and we couldn't even pay taxes on the real estate unless we got back our money.”

“I've had a little experience in finding things, and I've seen how the police go about it; I wonder if you'd care to have me look the farm over? I might by some fluke locate Miss Radford's current cash for you.”

“Oh, I wish you'd come right now!” Mrs. Groby started up, but Gamadge demurred:

“Let's wait and see what Groby thinks of it. He might object.”

When Mr. Groby arrived, and was told that the Gamadges had heard about the seventy thousand dollars, he received the information with apathy; he seemed too hot and discouraged to care. Gamadge insisted on mixing him a gin collins. He sipped it thankfully (in his shirt sleeves by Clara's permission and against his wife's protest) and fanned himself with a newspaper.

“They can't find a trace of the bonds,” he said. “I'm beginning to think old Alvira went crazy with so much money, and buried it. Some people have no confidence in banks, and now they're afraid of bombs, too. Gamadge, you can look for the stuff if you want to; very kind of you; but we didn't miss any tricks over there at the farm.”

“I don't expect to find your securities,” said Gamadge; “only what cash Miss Radford had in the house at the time she was killed. She must have been in the habit of keeping considerable amounts there, unless she was afraid of an attack by a personal enemy. There must have been some reason for that fence and those dogs.”