Good Year For Murder (14 page)

Addie frowned.

“October?” Tretheway recrossed his arms. “I think it would've been Navy Day. Or Chinese Independence Day. Or whatever. But not now. Not if the killer's still running free. With nothing to fear. He'll pick the obvious holiday.” Tretheway took several small puffs, then plucked the cigar from his mouth and pushed away from the counter. All the ashes fell from his shirt to the floor. “Hallowe'en,” he said with confidence.

“Oh, dear,” Addie said crossly. “I wish you wouldn't do that.”

She was upset only partly because of the ashes on her clean floor, but, like most of the citizens of Fort York, Addie wanted to believe that the murders were solved, over with, a thing of the past. If Morgan was guilty, she reasoned, she could sleep nights and enjoy holidays once again. Addie had pushed the thought of more violence into the dark corners of her mind; when Tretheway had prodded it out into the bright light of possibility, she was scared and resented it.

“I'm sorry, Addie,” Tretheway said. “But don't forget it's still guesswork. Just thinking out loud again.”

“I don't care,” Addie said. “It's still upsetting.”

“I know, Addie.” Jake reassured her. “Ninety-nine chances out of a hundred nothing'll happen.”

“I wish Alderman Morgan would say something,” Addie said.

“So do I,” Jake said.

“I've been thinking about that,” Tretheway said. “Maybe we could help matters along.”

“Oh,” Jake said. “Like what?”

“Remember what Doc Nooner said about another shock?”

“Ah, yes,” Jake said.

“Albert,” Addie said. “You're not going to do anything you shouldn't, are you?”

“Addie, don't be silly.” Tretheway came over and sat down beside Jake. “Between the two of us, do you think we could build a device with some sort of wrecking ball that swung back and forth? Like a pendulum. And it would advance slowly toward some object? Eventually smashing it?”

“I don't know,” Jake said. “I'd have to know a little more about it.”

“One thing,” Tretheway added. “It would have to be obvious that the object, whatever it may be, was going to be destroyed.”

“When do you need it?”

“Hallowe'en.”

Addie rose abruptly and pushed her way out through the swinging door of the kitchen. “Friday night,” she said. “ ‘Hollywood Hotel' is on.” She headed for the radio in the parlour. Addie loved Frank Parker.

The rest of the month passed just about the way Tretheway had said it would. From St. Francis of Assisi's Feast to Czech Independence Day, the city lived through all the obscure holidays Tretheway had researched, without a hint, an attempt, or deed of murder. Thus the case against Morgan Morgan was strengthened.

Of all the holidays, Thanksgiving was the only one celebrated to any extent in Fort York. It fell on the fourteenth. Schools and businesses were closed, most families enjoyed a turkey dinner, thanks were offered for bounty and prayers were said in churches and homes for the men and boys gone to war.

There was another traditional, back-to-back scheduling of football games, this time against the Montreal Allouettes. The Fort York Taggers lost on Saturday but scored eighteen unanswered points to redeem themselves on the Thanksgiving Monday. Jake
and Addie went to the game while Tretheway—holding the opinion that football was only slightly less sissy than baseball—decided to stay home and work on his device.

He and Jake had worked off and on, like two Bolshevik conspirators in a B-movie, almost every evening in October, building, tearing down, rebuilding, until, after many harsh oaths and bruised thumbs, a Rube Goldberg-type of structure stood in the dusty cellar. It was referred to by Tretheway and Jake as, simply, The Machine. In the fourth week of October, somewhere between Yorktown Day and the Feast of St. Crispin, Tretheway and Jake decided to run a test.

“Addie!” Tretheway shouted upstairs. “Come and look for a minute.”

Tretheway and Jake stared upwards at the cellar rafters and followed the sounds of Addie's footsteps to the top of the stairs. The cellar door opened.

“Albert,” Addie shouted sweetly in a voice she used when there were unexpected guests in the parlour, “we have visitors.”

“That's all right,” Tretheway shouted back. He stopped himself abruptly from saying more and moved quickly but quietly to the foot of the stairs. “Who?” he whispered.

Addie bent over and whispered back. “Bartholomew Gum and old Mr Ammerman.”

Tretheway resumed his normal voice. “Fine. Bring them down.” He returned to The Machine.

“Jake, let's try the milk this time. Probably be more spectacular.”

“Right.” Jake placed an unopened quart bottle of milk at the business end of The Machine and clamped it in tightly.

This time, three sets of footsteps made their way to the cellar door. Addie led the way.

“Watch your heads, gentlemen.”

Bartholomew Gum and Harold Ammerman followed her downstairs. As ward four Aldermen, they were visiting Addie on official business. Addie sat on the neighbourhood Community Council. The three had been discussing the parade, individual and group prizes, refreshments and general logistics of the annual children's Hallowe'en party when Tretheway had interrupted them from the cellar. They all gathered around The Machine.

“Impressive.” Ammerman nodded wisely.

“What is it?” Gum looked at Ammerman. “Do you know what it is?”

“Impressive,” Ammerman repeated.

Tretheway turned to Jake. “Bottle secure?”

Jake nodded. Tretheway faced his puzzled audience.

“If you'll just bear with me for a little longer. I'd rather not explain anything right now. Just treat this as a spectacle. Act natural. Nothing here can hurt you.” This was directed at Addie. “This won't take long. Just watch. All right?”

The Aldermen nodded. Addie held her objections.

“Let ‘er go, Jake,” Tretheway said.

The experiment lasted ten minutes. Just before the climax, Gum involuntarily shouted a warning, Addie's hand shot to her mouth and Ammerman tried to say something. When the metal ball smashed into the bottle, it shattered glass dramatically and sent fountains of milk into the air much higher than Tretheway had anticipated. Addie screamed. Gum jumped backwards in time to avoid the spray. Ammerman didn't. Jake quickly turned The Machine off. Tretheway, smiling, steadied the spent ball with his bare hand.

“Thank you, gentlemen, Addie,” he said. “You've been more than patient. I think we can say the experiment was a success.”

“Very, very impressive,” Ammerman said.

“C'mon upstairs, Harold,” Addie said, glaring at Tretheway. “I'll get that milk off your lapels before it dries.”

“I still don't know what it is,” Gum said.

“I'd rather not say any more just now,” Tretheway said. “And I'd appreciate it if you kept this whole thing to yourselves. Just for a few days.”

Gum looked hurt.

“Nobody else knows about this,” Tretheway said.

“Nobody?” Gum brightened.

“Just me and Jake,” Tretheway said. “And Doc Nooner.”

“I guess there's no point in asking why the Doctor?” Tretheway didn't answer.

“You know best,” Gum said. He followed Addie and Ammerman up the stairs.

The next day, Tretheway was in Zulp's office. Backed by the professional opinion of Dr Nooner and the moral support of Jake, it took him the best part of the morning to swing Zulp over to
their way of thinking. Zulp still didn't agree with them, but the slim possibility that the proposed experiment might work, might even prove him right, was too tempting. And he could offer no alternative.

“If it doesn't work, nobody's the loser,” Tretheway said. Jake nodded behind him.

“True,” Zulp said.

“And if it does work,” Dr Nooner said, “it could prove you right.”

“True also.” Zulp rubbed one of his large ears. His brow creased. “Now let me get this straight. Proper planning. You want me to take Morgan out of jail. Take him to your house.” He indicated Tretheway. “Let him take part in an experiment. Nothing dangerous.” He looked at Dr Nooner. “And he might talk.”

Nooner nodded.

Zulp plucked a pencil from the souvenir hollow coconut head on his desk and doodled a spiral on his blotter. “What the hell.” He speared the pencil back into the coconut head. “Why not?” He looked at Tretheway. “When do you want him?”

“Tonight.”

“Very well.” Zulp sighed.

The afternoon was spent planning movements and security for that evening. Morgan had to be taken to The Machine because it had evolved into a device larger than Tretheway's cellar doors or windows and could not be easily moved. At one point, Zulp devised a plan that involved the RFY Light Infantry, but was talked out of it.

So, on the unusually cool, windy Friday evening of October 25, two beefy policemen escorted the hand-cuffed Alderman from the depressing Fort York Jail through the courtyard and into a waiting Black Maria. The driver locked the three men inside and climbed behind the wheel. He started the engine. As the rusting iron gates of the old prison squeaked open, two unmarked police cars took up their assigned positions—one ahead of the wagon, one behind—in a small procession. The uneventful three mile drive to the west end took about fifteen minutes.

When they reached Tretheway's street, the two police cars parked, one at each end of the crescent as specified in the plan, while the Black Maria backed up the driveway to its pre-deter-mined spot. The driver unlocked the rear door. Tretheway appeared
on the verandah. He watched as Morgan and his escorts crossed the lawn and mounted the verandah stairs.

“Hello, Morgan.” Tretheway held the door open.

Morgan's reply was a simple smile.

Tretheway noticed the driver climbing back into the protected warmth of the Black Maria.

“Constable!” he shouted.

The policeman jumped from the running board and trotted toward Tretheway.

“That's your station, Constable.” Tretheway pointed to the square of sidewalk where the officer was standing.

“Yes, sir.”

“And keep your eyes open.”

They took Alderman Morgan immediately to the cellar, removed his handcuffs and seated him in front of The Machine. Morgan did what he was told willingly. When he wasn't actually smiling, he just looked pleasant, a little vacant perhaps, but with no antagonism or belligerence. He had been like this, Dr Nooner told them, since the Michaelmas Day murder. No real problem—he washed himself, dressed himself and went to the bathroom without help, but when anyone spoke to him, his glazed eyes seemed to focus on a point about four feet behind the speaker. And still, he hadn't spoken.

The cellar was crowded, but not as much as it could have been; Tretheway's experiment had purposely not been advertised. Morgan of course was there, front and centre. Chief Zulp, Sergeant Wan Ho and Dr Nooner sat together on one bench which Jake had jury-rigged earlier. Alderman Gertrude Valentini and Controller MacCulla had been invited as the official representatives of City Council. Morgan's two police escorts blended into the background. And Addie stood on the cellar steps to ensure that her order that boarders not intrude was obeyed, and also to check the number of heads against the number of sandwiches she had made that afternoon. She had divided her time between that and cleaning the cellar. On such short notice, she could do little more than straighten the pile of cardboard boxes stored there by the students, wash and rehang the curtain that decorously hid a toilet (a legacy of the former owner standing embarrassingly beside the furnace), open the windows wide and sweep the coal dust back into the bin. At least, she thought, the atmosphere was fresher.

Polite chit-chat tapered off into apprehensive silence. The cellar, higher than average, was lit by one fixed billiard-type light directly above The Machine. Its large green reflector threw the strong light harshly downwards to give the setting a theatrical look.

While Jake's thin, sensitive fingers poked and prodded where Tretheway's couldn't, in some last minute adjustments, the gathering contemplated The Machine with suspicion. They seemed intimidated by its strange, alien appearance. Gertrude Valentini thought that the upper part of it resembled a gallows, while Wan Ho thought it looked more like a miniature ancient siege tower. Wan Ho was closer to the truth.

The five-foot-high wheeled tower stood on a horizontal platform thirty-six inches from the cellar floor at the head of a runway. The runway itself, which sloped toward the audience, was ten feet in length and twelve inches wide. A metal right-angled rod, four inches long, stuck out from the top of the tower. It was connected to a small electric motor. A four-and-a-half-foot length of fine but strong wire was fastened securely through a hole in the vertical portion of the metal rod. Hanging at the end of the wire, now stretched taut, was the focal point of The Machine—a five-pound chromium-plated lead ball approximately one and a half inches in diameter. Where the runway ended, at floor level, was another horizontal platform. It supported a clamping device. This was the business end.

After a whispered confirmation from Jake that all was set to go, Tretheway went to the front of The Machine and made an unnecessary announcement to the audience.

“If you'll give me your full attention, please.”

He showed his profile to the group. “Jake, if you please.”

Jake lifted a shapeless object, hidden beforehand, from the inside of the dustless ash sifter. He handed it to Tretheway. Under the light it became a royal blue velvet bag tied at the top with a gold, tasseled cord.

“Thank you,” Tretheway said.

He slowly loosened the cord and carefully slid a bottle out of the bag. Jake took the bag away. Tretheway held the bottle at the very top and very bottom in his strong fingers. He moved it back and forth under the light to give the group, especially Morgan, a clear honest view in the same way a magician shows his
theatre audience an empty sleeve or top hat. Every time the crystal decanter passed under the brilliant 300-watt light bulb, it sparkled like diamonds against the rich, liquid amber of its contents. It was a bottle of Seagram's Crown Royal twelve-year-old whiskey.