Murder a la Richelieu (American Queens of Crime Book 2) (29 page)

He and Officer Sweeney were watching Pinkney from the darkened Coffee Shop when I telephoned for the Morse code. Pinkney said he would send it up by Clarence, but he sent Clarence off on an errand down the street and prepared to take the code up to me himself. One glimpse of his face off guard was enough for Stephen. He beat it to the fire escape along with Sweeney, who thought he had lost his senses. But Stephen had not lost his senses. Even now I shudder at what would have happened if Stephen had failed to be outside my window when I opened my door to Pinkney Dodge.

“You cut his throat and left him to die on top of the elevator!” I cried, staring with horrified eyes at Pinkney. “But how did you get him out of the basement?”

Pinkney smiled faintly, a terrible smile. “It is possible to get at the roof of the elevator from the basement, you know. It is also possible to ride on top of it. I have seen the mechanics do it many times, but I never dreamed I’d dare till the police hemmed me in this afternoon.”

He looked at me, and I began to edge away from his dreadful stare, but he came on, his hand curling at his side. I could not draw a full breath for the pounding of my heart. Inch by inch he forced me backward. Still he came on. Then suddenly I could retreat no farther. My shoulders were against the window frame. I felt the cold air on my neck.

“You’re going out the window,” he said. “They’ll think you couldn’t live and face Kathleen Adair’s guilt. They’ve got to believe you committed suicide. I can’t afford another murder with Kathleen Adair framed to hang in my place.”

My knees buckled beneath me, and the knife drew blood as I collapsed on the window ledge.

It was then Stephen shouted. “Drop, Adelaide! For God’s sake, let go and drop! Sweeney will catch you!”

To this day I do not know if I obeyed him or if Pinkney Dodge pushed me through the window, but there can be no doubt about his own action. He had said he could not stand to be hanged. He had a horror of the black cap; and so while Sweeney and I sprawled upon our faces on the fourth-floor landing of the fire escape, Pinkney, with a shrill animal-like scream, plunged past us, his body writhing and twisting until it thudded horribly against the paved court far below.

I have never denied that I am a substantially built woman and I do not doubt that in my descent from the roof on that occasion I resembled a zeppelin in full flight. Nevertheless, I did not, as Ella Trotter insists, straddle Policeman Sweeney’s neck and ride him to the floor of the landing, nor did I, while scrambling to my feet, plant my stout military heel in his face and walk on it.

However, it is true that the next day Sweeney had a very black eye and a number of assorted aches and bruises which he called Charley Horses, but which Stephen Lansing with a grin suggested might more fittingly be described as Adelaide Mares, whatever he meant by that. It is also true that to this very moment Policeman Sweeney regards me with intense antipathy and never, if humanly possible, does he allow me to come within striking, much less biting, distance of his person.

I myself stayed in bed till noon the following day. My physician said there was nothing wrong with me except undue fatigue and too many acrobatics for a woman whose arteries have hardened a bit. Just the same, I should probably have defied him and got up, except that I still continued to occupy the centre of the stage in the Richelieu that morning. Practically everybody connected with the case called upon me to make sure that I had emerged unscathed from the fracas of the night before. After having looked upon myself for years as a thoroughly disagreeable and unpopular old woman, it was a pleasant shock to lie there and discover how many people seemed genuinely concerned about my welfare.

The inspector was my first visitor, looking as dapper as ever and extremely well pleased with himself – as he had every reason to be. Since Stephen was an undercover man, it was deemed essential by the powers that be to conceal from the general public his share in the solution of the crimes, so in the end Inspector Bunyan reaped all the glory in the Richelieu case.

“Though of course,” he conceded in a deprecating voice, “the entire credit belongs to Mr Lansing. As you know, I was convinced of the Adair girl’s guilt.”

“Some people are like that,” I remarked with a sniff.

The inspector preferred to ignore this interpolation.

“It is easy now to see why I went wrong so consistently,” he said. “From the beginning Pinkney Dodge was my chief source of information about the people in the house. Naturally, to clear himself he drew first one red herring and then another across my path.”

“Like my poor Kathleen,” I sighed.

The inspector nodded. “After I got her down to police headquarters last night she tried to explain about how she came to be in possession of the afghan which figured in Hilda Anthony’s murder. It appears the Adair woman filched it off you in the lobby, Miss Adams, right from under your eyes, so to speak.”

“Yes?” I murmured, my cheeks feeling very hot.

“The girl said she had started down the stairs to return it to you when she met Pinkney Dodge on the second floor and he offered to deliver it into your own hands. However, when I questioned him later, he flatly denied her story.”

“And you were fool enough to believe him,” I said dryly.

“Yes,” admitted the inspector with a rueful smile. “Just as I believed him when he said that Kathleen Adair lied about the bracelet.”

“Bracelet?”

“You know the heavy bracelet which she always wears? A gift from her father, so I understand.” I winced and nodded. “If you’ve noticed,” said Inspector Bunyan, “it has a large crescent-shaped ornament on top set with brilliants, an unwieldy thing.”

I nodded again.

“That,” explained the inspector, “is where Kathleen Adair acquired the ring of red dents on her arm. Pinkney Dodge passed her in the hall on her floor right after the excitement in the basement. He pretended to trip and seized her wrist. He must have pressed the stones into her arm with considerable violence, for they cut the skin.”

I shuddered, and the Inspector gave me an apologetic glance.

“Naturally, when I questioned Dodge, he denied the whole incident. Thank heaven, Stephen Lansing refused to accept the Adair girl’s statement as pure fabrication. Acting on the assumption she had told the solemn truth, he arrived at the inevitable conclusion that Pinkney Dodge was the criminal. I regret to state that I scoffed at the idea.”

“You would,” I remarked with acidity.

“However, I did agree to lend Mr Lansing a man to shadow Dodge. And so, fortunately, fortunately for you at least Sweeney was on the fire escape to break your fall.”

“This should be a lesson to you, Inspector,” I pointed out with some malice.

“Don’t think it hasn’t been,” he said earnestly. “Of course you know why Mr Lansing allowed you to play out that scene with Pinky at - ah - quite a risk to yourself.”

“No,” I said shortly. “I’ve wondered, seeing that I might very well have broken my neck.”

“Although convinced of Dodge’s guilt, Mr Lansing had no proof. None, that is, which I-er-which the police could accept. He counted on your wringing a confession from the murderer at the crucial moment.” He smiled faintly. “He says he staked everything on your well-known goading qualities.”

“Did he indeed?” I inquired in a nettled voice.

The inspector gave me a distinctly admiring glance. “You’re a remarkable woman, Miss Adams,” he said so cordially I blushed.

“Oh yes?” I asked, adopting Officer Sweeney’s favourite retort, though I was both pleased and touched.

“Thank God, your bite’s worse than your bark,” the inspector paraphrased and added grimly, “Did you know we found the prints of your teeth on Dodge’s forearm?”

I shook my head and I must have turned pretty white, for the inspector hastily apologized for tiring me and left. Almost at once Conrad Wilson and his Annie came in to see me. She looked pale and shaky from having been tied up hand and foot in that small stuffy attic for over thirty-six hours. Pinky had even gagged her.

But, praise to her resourcefulness, she had managed to telegraph an SOS with the heel of her shoe on the attic floor. And, thank God, I finally recognized its significance.

“We want to thank you for what you did for us,” they said with one voice.

“Didn’t do a thing,” I protested gruffly.

“Except nearly get yourself killed twice trying to rescue my Annie,” said the telegraph lineman, beaming at me.

I finally got rid of them by pressing a check upon them.

“But, Miss Adams,” stammered Annie, “we can’t take all this money from you!”

“Pay your house out,” I said, “so I won’t have to bother about the likes of you again.”

I am afraid they were not deceived when I tried to act as if their demonstration bored me. I was, in fact, crying a little to myself, because they had succeeded in getting so far under my crusty surface, when Mary Lawson came in, followed by Polly Lawson and Howard Warren. Their shining faces were proof enough that for them, at least, all was lovely in this muddled old world where we so often manage completely to miss our heart’s desires.

“You’ve been a real friend all during this nightmare, Adelaide,” said Mary, holding my hand tightly. “I don’t suppose you need to be told how I feel about it.”

Polly, however, could not let it go at that. “You’re an old peach, Miss Adelaide!” she exclaimed.

“Isn’t she!” cried Howard emphatically.

I smiled at them, rather mistily, I confess. “A girl who would deliberately wreck her reputation to save the man she loves is pretty much of a peach herself,” I said.

“She’s wonderful!” said Howard unsteadily and kissed Polly before us all until she was perfectly rosy and quite breathless.

Mary lingered after they took themselves off.

“I’m sorry, Adelaide,” she faltered, “about the use to which I put your rooms and the way it dragged you head-first into this dreadful and sordid affair.”

“Why didn’t you expose Pinkney Dodge when they arrested you, Mary?” I asked curiously.

She shivered. “They wrote me a note, one of those awful slimy things. It said if I gave anything away I’d never see Polly again.”

My hands tightened over hers. “Of course you know now, Mary that John was true to you, as true as you believed him to be.”

She nodded and went on painfully to explain, “When Stephen Lansing arranged for my release from jail this morning, he showed me James Reid’s notes and he had made it his personal business to go through Pinky’s hiding places in the attic and recover that horrible film. He let me burn it with my own hands, so it will not appear as evidence in the records of the case.”

“Dear Stephen,” I whispered.

“He’s splendid,” she cried tremulously. “They also found the rod in the attic, Adelaide. The one with which Pinky fished up the aluminium pitchers off the fire escape. It was made of several hinged pieces and could be made as long or as short as desired and taken completely apart when not in use.”

“And Pinkney seemed such a perfectly futile person,” I sighed.

“He was,” said Mary, “until a thoroughly bad woman got hold of him. There is no doubt she worked out the details of all their criminal activities.”

“And so sealed her own doom,” I muttered.

“Yes,” said Mary bitterly, “but for Hilda Anthony none of this would ever have happened.”

It was just noon when Stephen thrust his handsome head in at my door. “Want to see somebody very special?” he asked gaily and ushered in Kathleen.

I held out my arms and she came into them. Stephen turned away to the window, leaving us alone together, and for the first time since that faraway June night when I drove Kathleen’s father from me my heart ceased its bitter repining.

After a while Stephen came over and sat down on the edge of the bed beside us. “Feeling all right, Adelaide, light of my eyes?” he asked in a tone intended for raillery, though it was more affectionate than playful.

“Young man,” I snapped, trying to achieve my former severity but sounding, I fear, like the doting old fool which Ella Trotter calls me nowadays, “how do you suppose I feel after all I’ve been through?”

Stephen grinned. “Nonsense!” he exclaimed. “You know you’ve had the time of your life, you old Hessian, hanging out windows by your knees and leaping off the eaves into space like the circus lady on her flying trapeze!”

“I’m afraid you’re partly right,” I confessed sheepishly.

“Right!” cried Stephen Lansing, slipping one arm about Kathleen and the other about me. “Sure I’m right. Everything’s right. As-as right as rain after a drought!”

She was looking up into his eyes, and their faces were so radiant that I pranced with joy. That may sound like an impossibility lying flat in bed, but Ella Trotter has always said I am the only person she ever saw who could strut sitting down. And the fact remains that I had every cause to rejoice. After all, I had for years wanted not only a daughter like Kathleen but also a young scamp of a son to bully and tease and adore me exactly as Stephen does, bless his heart!

It was not, as my foster son Stephen Lansing likes to intimate, that I had developed a taste for wild adventure which drew me into that macabre and sinister tangle at Mount Lebeau. Nor is it true, as Ella Trotter insists, that I rushed in where even angels feared to tread because I could not bear for her to steal my thunder. As I pointed out, to no avail, when the body of the third disembowelled cat was discovered in my bed, had I foreseen the train of horrible events which settled over that isolated mountain inn like a miasma of death upon the afternoon of my arrival, I should have left Ella to lay her own ghosts.