Murder on the Blackboard (22 page)

Miss Withers stopped short. “That’s true. I did think she had something to do with the case. And all the time she was getting married, secretly. Sergeant, that was a joke on me … a joke on me….” Her voice faded away.

Suddenly her eyes lighted up. “I’ve got it! Eureka, I’ve got it. I mean I have it! I’ve been blind as a bat! But now I’ve got it!”

The Inspector looked at her as if she had gone daft. Miss Withers was dancing a quiet little buck and wing all by herself.

“You’ve got what, Hildegarde? Ants? Or the shakes or something?”

She nodded, happily. “Ants do come into it. At least one does. Oh, it fits, it all fits! I not only know
who
now, I know
why
!”

She stopped short. “Proving it is a different matter, I’m afraid. The hunt has only just begun, but at least I’m not hunting blind any more. I know what I’m after, which is a help. All we need is a decoy….”

“A what?” The Sergeant was obviously skeptical and bewildered.

“We need a goat,” Miss Withers told him sharply. “When they hunt tigers in India, I’ve read that they first tie a goat to a tree. The goat blats and wails at night, and the tiger hears it, comes prowling around, and thinks he’s found some easy meat. But while he’s eating the meat, the man up in the tree shoots him dead. It’s very simple and easy.”

“Except for the goat,” the Inspector put in. “I suppose you’ve picked the Sergeant here for that part?”

“I have not.” The Sergeant looked considerably relieved. But Miss Withers continued.

“You, Oscar, are going to be the goat!”

“What’s that?” the Inspector very nearly put the hot end of his cigar in his mouth.

“You’ve been complaining that things were dull, and that you were left out of the picture, weren’t you? Well, I’m going to put you back into the picture.” Hildegarde Withers smiled on him, benignly.

“Me? But what can I do? With this damn bandage across my head, and the doctor saying that I’ve got to stay in bed two more weeks….”

“You can play goat in bed,” Miss Withers told him.

“I
FEEL COLD,” SAID
Janey Davis. “Bob, I don’t want to walk in the park, even if there is a moon. Can’t we just stay here in the apartment?”

Bob Stevenson laughed. “Of course, honey. I forgot that you’re a little hothouse flower, and this is November going on December.” He elbowed his way out of the tiny kitchenette, in which he had been helping Janey prepare a light supper for the two of them, and felt of the radiator.

“Cold as ice,” he announced. “Would it do any good to pound on it?”

Janey shook her head. “It’s not that kind of cold, Bob. I feel cold inside. And sort of frightened.”

He came quickly toward her, and held out his arms. She let him hold her for a moment, her face against his shoulder, and then pushed him away.

“Don’t mind me,” she said. “I know there’s nothing to be frightened of. I’m afraid I’m bad company tonight.” She went over to the empty fireplace.

He leaned back in his easy chair, facing her. “I know what’s the trouble, honey. It’s the idea of going back to the old routine tomorrow, back to Jefferson School … back where Anise was—”

“Don’t! Please don’t! I can’t stand it, Bob.” Her face was white and desperate. “Bob, let’s go away somewhere, now, tonight! Let’s go where nobody will ever mention Anise’s name again—where nobody will ever ask questions and wonder and pry! Can’t we, Bob?”

“There are some things you can’t run away from,” said Bob Stevenson. “I feel the same way, and I suppose the others do, too. Hold on a little longer, Janey, and we will go away—far away. Ships sail down past the Goddess of Liberty bound for Majorca and Bali and Timbuctoo….”

“Timbuctoo is in the desert,” Janey reminded him. But she was smiling.

He waved his arm. “How does Persia sound then, or Rangoon? They say the Irish lakes are the most beautiful lakes in the world … and Cambodia has temples that were just as they are today long before our ancestors came down out of the trees. One of these days, Janey—”

“Oh, Bob!” Then a practical note entered her voice. “I don’t know what we’d use for money, though. Unless I cashed that lottery ticket….”

“Well? I don’t think Anise would mind, Janey. She had no people, you know. Nobody that she’d want her money to go to more than you. And half of that ticket was yours….”

Janey sat on the arm of his chair. “Maybe I am being a little foolish about it, Bob. And I do want to get away from it all, so very badly….”

The telephone interrupted her.

Janey Davis whirled around, her finger pointing at the innocent instrument. “There! That’s what I mean. We can’t get away, even in dreams. I feel like a hunted thing, day and night. The police, or the reporters, or Dr. Macfarland …”

“I imagine poor Mac feels a bit hunted himself these days,” Bob told her. “Hadn’t you better answer it? It’s probably the wrong number.”

Savagely, her lithe body moving like an angry panther’s, she crossed the room and raised the receiver.

“Yes?”

It was Georgie Swarthout’s voice at the other end of the line. “Is that you, Janey?”

“Yes, it’s me.” She pressed her hand over the mouthpiece, and looked helplessly at Stevenson. “That fresh detective again, Bob. He hounds me half to death, trying to make me go out with him. What will I do?”

“My advice would be to go,” Bob Stevenson told her. “You can’t afford to antagonize any fly cop, darling. He seems a harmless kid, and you could use a friend at court, as the saying goes.”

Janey shook her head, rebelliously. Swarthout’s voice was booming cheerfully in her ear. Suddenly she realized that he wasn’t trying to make a date this time.

“Will you say that again?” She listened now, with all her might and main.

“Sure I will. Get this, Beautiful. I just wanted to find out whether you were in or not. I’ve got to see you for a moment. On business, official business. Something has broken in the Halloran murder.”

“Where are you? … come right up,” Janey gasped.

“I’m on my way.” And the line went dead. Janey told the young instructor what had transpired.

“I’ll be running along, then,” suggested Stevenson.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Janey Davis. “I want your moral support. Georgie Swarthout has a hot brown eye, and there is no discouraging him. If this visit is official, there’s nothing he could have to say to me that you can’t hear. And if it isn’t, I think it’s just as well that you’re lurking in the background.”

“Okay,” agreed the young man. He put on his coat and straightened his tie. He was hardly back in the easy chair again when the downstairs bell broke into a clamor, and Georgie Swarthout raced up the stairs.

If he was disappointed to see Bob Stevenson sitting there, he concealed it like a true philosopher.

“Listen,” he said breathlessly. “I’ve only got a few minutes. Lucky for me I found you both here. Saves me a trip to the Village.”

“I don’t understand …” Janey faced him defiantly.

“You’re taking a trip to Bellevue, both of you,” Georgie explained.

“But why both of us?” Janey wanted to know.

“And why Bellevue? That’s a hospital, isn’t it?” Bob Stevenson was alert.

“Listen carefully,” said Swarthout. “We’ve got a big break in the Halloran case. It’s going to be washed up tonight. You’ll both be glad to know that. And here is how.”

Bob Stevenson stood up and crossed over to the fireplace, where Janey was. Georgie dropped into the easy chair, and fumbled for a cigarette.

“Are
we
in luck!” he exclaimed. “Piper is over there with a mending skull, you know. At Bellevue, I mean. It was a pretty close one for him, but he’s beginning to come out of it. Which is why both of you, and every other person implicated in this Halloran case, is going to gather at Bellevue tonight—as quick as you all can get there. Because”—Georgie lit his cigarette, carefully and thoroughly—“because it’s ten to one that the murderer of Anise Halloran is somewhere in that crowd. And Piper is going to identify the guilty party!”

Janey Davis was clinging to the mantel, her fingers white at the knuckles. For a moment she swayed, and then her body was tense again.

“Identify? What do you mean? How can the Inspector identify anybody?” Bob Stevenson was frankly puzzled.

“Well,” explained Georgie, “you heard that the Inspector walked into the cellar of Jefferson School while the murderer was still at work, didn’t you? And got hit over the head with a shovel for his pains?”

“Yes, I heard all that,” agreed Stevenson. “But he didn’t get a glimpse of whoever struck him!”

“So the papers said. And that’s what he thought when he first came to. A crack on the head like that affects the memory of events that happened shortly before, so the medics say. Anyway, it’s beginning to come back to him. He did get a glimpse of the face … and he remembers it! So all we have to do is to round up everybody and walk them through the hospital room. He’ll pick out the murderer, and the rest of you will go free of suspicion.”

“So we’re arrested, huh?”

Swarthout shook his head. “I’ve no authority to arrest you, and no warrant. You don’t have to come over to Bellevue. The only one in the whole party who has to come is Anderson the janitor, because he is already under arrest on suspicion of homicide. But of course, anybody who refused to come would be in a pretty tough spot. It would be sort of confessing that he or she was afraid to….”

Bob Stevenson looked at Janey, whose wide eyes were filled with panic. “Steady, girl. There’s nothing for us to be afraid of.” He turned to Georgie. “I suppose there isn’t any chance that the Inspector, on account of the blow on the head and the resulting illness, would make a faulty identification?”

“I doubt it,” Georgie told him. “Piper has been identifying crooks and criminals and murderers for years. He’s got a photographic eye. Don’t worry, he won’t pick you by accident. Besides, he says that the face of the person who hit him was engraved in his memory as if burned in with acid. It’s been hazy until now, but he says it is clearing. The doctor doesn’t know when he may have a relapse, as his condition is still very serious, and that’s why the order has gone out for the party being tonight.”

“In that case, Janey and I will go with you,” Bob Stevenson accepted. “I suppose you have the police wagon downstairs?”

Georgie shook his head. “Nothing like that. I’m not even going to take you over there, because I’ve still got a few calls to make. This whole thing is very sub rosa, and Sergeant Taylor and I are working the round-up alone. Hop in a taxi, and get over to Bellevue before ten o’clock. And remember, this is just a little formality—except for one person!”

Janey opened the door for the departing detective. “I’ll be glad,” she said, her voice trembling, “I’ll be glad—glad—to get it all over with! I don’t much care how!”

“Will you ditch the boyfriend and have a bowl of chop-suey with me afterward?” Georgie whispered.

But she closed the door, gently and firmly. Georgie Swarthout hitched up his pants, and plunged down the stairs. He had work to do tonight.

Waldo Emerson Macfarland was next on his list. A taxi rolled him swiftly north along Amsterdam Avenue, cutting toward the park along 96th Street. The residence of the Principal of Jefferson School was certainly dark and seemingly deserted, but Georgie leaned on the bell with a hearty good will.

Just as he was about to give it up as a bad job, a light went on over his head, and he saw a face peering through the glass of the door. “Let me in,” Georgie shouted.

Then the face disappeared, and the light went out. Georgie leaned on the bell again. Finally he took the badge from his pocket, and with it rapped resoundingly upon the pane.

At last the door swung inward into darkness, and Georgie stepped gingerly through in response to a throaty “Come in.”

The door swung shut behind him. At that moment something hard was pressed against the small of his back.

“I have you covered,” came the Principal’s voice. “One false move and I’ll shoot.”

Georgie made no moves of any description. After a long interval, the pressure was momentarily removed from his back, and the lights in the foyer snapped on. Georgie looked over his shoulder and stared with disfavor into the pale eyes of Waldo Emerson Macfarland, watery and red without their accustomed glasses. The Principal was attired simply but modestly in a brown woolen bathrobe and narrow ladylike patent-leather slippers.

Macfarland returned his stare, also without enthusiasm or welcome. They stood thus for a few minutes, and then Georgie spoke.

“It won’t do, you know,” he observed.

“What won’t do?”

“Trying to palm off a pipe as a revolver. The mouthpiece doesn’t feel the same, even through an overcoat, as the muzzle of a gat. What is that, a Peterson’s? I thought so.”

Georgie moved away, and Macfarland stared blankly after him. “What’s the idea of treating the law this way?” Georgie flashed his badge.

“So? I have made a mistake, I am afraid. But the events of the past week have been very unsettling. I was of the opinion that perhaps someone might come seeking my own life. Besides, this evening I was locked in my study, engaged in writing one of my daily essays, this time upon the subject of Assassination….”

Swarthout explained why he had come. “I’ve still got one more call to make,” he told Macfarland. “So the less fireworks you pull the better I’ll like it. You understand, this is just a formality in your case. But you’re to show up over at Bellevue, on the third floor, just as quick as you can. Unless, of course, you want to stand on your constitutional rights. I won’t make you go—but of course we’ll draw our own conclusions of why you aren’t willing.”

Macfarland smiled. “But why should I refuse? No one could be more anxious to have this case cleared up than I am. Besides, I might very possibly secure material for the last few paragraphs of my essay on Assassination!”

Swarthout thought it was very likely. “Then I can count on your being there within the hour?”

“Absolutely! You couldn’t keep me away with a squad of strong-arm men,” promised Macfarland. “I’ll go and dress at once….”