Rex Stout (25 page)

Dol said without moving, “Look, Mr. Sherwood. One of three things about me. Either I’m engaged on the other side and not to be trusted, or I’m a feeble-minded female freak and just a nuisance, or I really do want this case solved and might possibly have another piece of luck like finding the gloves. Which do you think?”

Sherwood frowned at her. “Which do you?”

“I want the case solved. I have no other interest that might interfere with it. Once yesterday I thought I might have, but now I know I haven’t. I have … some ideas. They may be no good, but on the other hand they may, under certain circumstances, prevent a mistake.”

“What ideas? Do you think you know who killed Zimmerman?”

“No, not so I can say it. Not so it’s any good. I have to find out, for instance, why you sent for de Roode—oh, here he is. I’ll know now.”

Sherwood, still frowning at her, finally shrugged and turned to the newcomer, but before he got further than a survey of him there was another interruption—Belden arriving with the coffee. The butler filled steaming cups, passed a tray heaped with sandwiches, distributed plates and napkins, and bowed himself out as from a social table of bridge.

Sherwood said: “Well, de Roode, we’ve got you.”

The man stood with his head bent as though in weariness, but Dol could see the cord of muscle at the side of his neck and the gleam of his hostile and careful eyes as they focused on the attorney.

“I don’t know what you mean, you’ve got me. You sent for me.”

“And you know why. Don’t you?”

“No.”

“You don’t. Down at the barracks you said that you came to Birchhaven around ten o’clock to see Foltz, and you left a little after ten-thirty. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And when you didn’t find Foltz in his room you went to Zimmerman’s room?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do in there?”

“I asked Zimmerman if he knew where Mr. Martin was, and he said he didn’t. Then we talked a little, and I came out.”

“You must have talked quite a while, and you thinking Foltz was in jail and wanting to see him so badly. The trooper says you were upstairs between twenty and thirty minutes. What was Zimmerman doing when you left?”

“He was in bed.”

“What was he doing? What did he look like?”

“He wasn’t doing anything. He was sitting up in bed talking. But …”

“But what?”

“Nothing. I was only going to say, he got out of bed. Because when I left his room I stood in the hall a minute, deciding what to do, and I heard him locking the door on the inside.”

There were grunts from Brissenden and Cramer. Sherwood demanded, “You what?” He scowled. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do mean it.” De Roode remained imperturbable. “I heard him turning the key.”

Sherwood sighed. “In that case, it looks like the next thing is to arrest you for Zimmerman’s murder.”

De Roode’s chin went up. “He—” He stopped, his eyes boring into the attorney’s gaze. He said gruffly from his throat, “He hasn’t been murdered.”

“Yes, he has. He’s up there now the way you left him.”

“Not the way I left him. If I had left him murdered, he couldn’t have got up and locked the door after I was out of the room.”

“Certainly he couldn’t. And no one else could have got in afterwords to kill him. And the door was unlocked when Miss Bonner went to his room at two o’clock. So you didn’t hear him lock it. So you’re lying. Got that straight in your mind? You might as well come clean with it, de Roode. What did you do it for?”

The man made no reply. Dol could see the swelling of the cord of muscle on his neck, and the slow lift of his powerful shoulders as he took in air long and deep. It seemed minutes before the shoulders began to sink again. When they had reached bottom he said, not as a challenge nor yet as a surrender:

“If you think I murdered him, arrest me.”

“What did you do it for? Because he knew you had killed Storrs? Was that it?”

“Arrest me.”

“Why did you say you heard him lock the door?”

“Arrest me.”

Sherwood leaned back. Cramer muttered, “Uh-huh, you’ve gagged him. That’s the way it goes sometimes.” But to an explosive suggestion from Brissenden the inspector objected, “Not a chance. Look at his mouth, he’d wear out a squad.”

He did wear out Sherwood. He did no more talking. The attorney fired questions at him, tried to browbeat him, reasoned with him, but Cramer was right, de Roode had been gagged. He said “Arrest me,” or said nothing, not even bothering to shake his head. Finally the attorney told the trooper:

“Take him out and have one of the men keep him. De Roode, you’re being held as a material witness. Don’t let anybody talk to him. Send Chisholm in.”

Brissenden watched them go and then growled, “If you had let me keep Zimmerman he would be alive now and we would have got it out of him today. I say that Talbot ought to take that bird down to the barracks and work on him. I want it on record that I say that.”

“Okay.” Sherwood gulped his cup of coffee, now lukewarm. “I’m not trying to make a record, I’m trying to stop this damn massacre.” He poured hot coffee and sipped at that. “He can take him later if it looks that way. First let’s see what we’ve got. What we haven’t got is motive, and we can’t get a line on any. Why in the name of God would de Roode want to murder P. L. Storrs? Or Foltz? Or even Chisholm? We have a motive for Ranth, but where would Zimmerman fit into that? And if de Roode did hear Zimmerman lock the door, how did Ranth get in the room? If de Roode did it himself, why did he tell such a silly lie about hearing the door locked, and why did he kill Zimmerman, and why the devil did he kill Storrs? And if the two jobs were done by different people, who were they and why did they do it?” Sherwood glared at Dol. “What about it, Miss Bonner? How are the ideas coming? You wanted to know why I sent for de Roode. Because he heard Zimmerman lock his door. How do you like that?”

But Dol had no opportunity to tell how she liked it. Len Chisholm came in.

From the standpoint of elegance, he was a wreck. Dol, looking at him, thought, “They might at least have brushed some of the cigarette ashes off of him.” His tie was on one side, his shirt needed tucking in, and his face was either comic or heroic, as it might move you, with a desperate dignity.

He ignored the men and squinted at Dol. “Oh. So there
 … there you are. Investigating a murder?” It was obvious that he meant it for a friendly question.

Dol said nothing. He frowned at her, gave her up, and turned to the men. “My God. Are you fellows still here?” He pointed an accusing finger, not too steady, at Cramer, who was in the chair Maguire of Bridgeport had occupied twelve hours before. “You’ve been monkeying with your nose. It’s not the same nose at all. Do you know Cyrano de Bergerac? Let’s hear
you
say it, Cyrano de Bergerac.” He abruptly shifted to Sherwood. “Mind if I sit down?”

Cramer grunted in disgust. “You might as well ask questions of a weegie board. Is this the one your man found knocking on Zimmerman’s door?”

“Yeah. And the one who saw Storrs asleep on the bench Saturday afternoon.”

“Huh. He gets around.” Cramer chewed on his cigar, and watched Len’s elaborate performance of lowering himself into a chair. “If he’s putting on an act, he’s good. If you let him sleep it off he’ll claim he can’t remember anything. If you duck him he’ll have a fit.”

Sherwood stared at Len. “Look here, Chisholm. Do you know what your name is?”

“Certainly.” Len smiled at him indulgently. “Do you?”

“How drunk are you?”

“Well …” Len’s brow wrinkled. “I’ll tell you. I’m too drunk to drive a car. I’ve got too much sense. But I’m not too drunk to know where I am. I know exactly where I am.”

“That’s fine.” Sherwood sounded encouraging. “Then you probably know where you’ve been, too. For instance, when you went to Zimmerman’s room. What did you do in there?”

Len shook his head emphatically. “You must mean my room. You’re mixed up. You must mean what did I do in my room.”

“No. I mean Zimmerman’s room. The one around the corner from yours, in the other hall. More than two hours ago you went there in the dark and knocked on the door. Remember? And the trooper came up and spoke to you, and you told him you thought it was Miss Bonner’s room? And before the trooper came, you turned the knob of that door to open it? That’s why you ought to be able to
remember whether the door was locked. Just concentrate on that: was the door locked?”

Len looked cunning and superior. He waved a hand. “I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to get me to compromise Miss Bonner. It’s a fallacy. If Miss Bonner’s door was locked, how would Zimmerman get in?” He frowned. “That’s not what I mean. I mean how would I get in. And I didn’t get in. That’s why I say you must mean my room. I got into my room whenever I felt like it.”

“Sure you did. But that door you were knocking on—when you tried to open it was it locked?”

Len shook his head. “You don’t understand anything. There wouldn’t be any
use
trying to open a door if it was locked. It wouldn’t do you any
good
.”

“Okay.” Sherwood sighed. He leaned forward and demanded abruptly, “What did you have against Zimmerman? Why did you hate him?”

“Hate who?”

“Steve Zimmerman.”

“Oh. Him.” Len nodded. “That runt.”

“Why did you hate him?”

“I don’t know. I never stop to think why when I hate anybody. Hell, I don’t like you either.”

“Did you kill Zimmerman? Did you strangle him with that cord?”

Len squinted at him. “You don’t mean Zimmerman. It wasn’t him that was strangled, it was Storrs.”

“I’m asking you, did you kill Zimmerman?”

“No.” Len looked disgusted. “Did you?”

Sherwood sighed. He turned: “Do you want to try this a while, Inspector?”

Cramer grunted. “I’d hate to offend him. I might try.” He came around and stood in front of Len’s chair.

He had about the same amount of success as the attorney. Whether Len’s elusiveness was the sharp cunning of a man defending himself against peril, or merely what it seemed to be, an excess of alcohol causing a cerebral traffic jam, the effect was the same. He slid down the question marks like an ant down a corkscrew. Cramer, after ten minutes of it, was ready to call it off when a trooper
entered with the information that the doctor was ready to report.

Sherwood nodded at Chisholm. “Take this man and put him in his room and keep him there, and see that there aren’t any bottles around. Don’t let him out until I ask for him. Maybe you’d better feed him, if he’ll eat. Tell Talbot to send another man down to the entrance, it’ll soon be daylight. As soon as I get through with Flanner I want to see Foltz.”

Len said, “There’s a butler in this house that tends to the bottles.” But he got up and went, without protest and without ceremony, more unsteadily than he had entered, not permitting the trooper’s hand on his arm.

“That’s the last you’ll get out of him,” Cramer declared. “When he comes to again he’ll be a blank.”

Sherwood said in a voice too weary to be savage, “I know I’d like to roll him on a barrel. Damn it, I’ve got to get some sleep. Only four hours last night, and now tonight—hello, Doc. What about it?”

Doctor Flanner’s report was brief. To all appearances, death by strangulation, with a remote chance of any different conclusion from the autopsy. All symptoms typical. Two areas of pressure, one where the cord was fastened by the knot and the other evidence by a mark below that, apparently caused by a previous pressure from the same or a similar cord. Both areas well beneath the hyoid bone. No contusions or other external evidence of violence except the strangulation. Been dead from three to five hours.

The attorney nodded. “Much obliged. I’ll phone you some time before noon, we may have to postpone the Storrs inquest.” The doctor gone, he turned to Dol Bonner. “I’d like to ask you something. After you took the trooper upstairs and showed him what you had found, in between that and the time we got here, which was about half an hour later, did you happen to see Chisholm and tell him what had happened? Was he in his room?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see him. I went to Miss Raffray’s room to wake her and tell her about it, and stayed there with her a while. I didn’t see Chisholm at all.”

“You didn’t.” Sherwood put up his brows at her. Then, at
an intrusion, he turned. It was Martin Foltz. The attorney put sharp eyes on him. “Sit down, please, Mr. Foltz.”

Martin was visibly agitated—chiefly, it appeared, with anger. His voice trembling, he burst out at Sherwood, “My man de Roode is out there and they won’t let me speak with him! They say by your orders! Outrageous insolence!”

“Calm down a little.” Sherwood patted the air. “Your man de Roode is under arrest.”

“Under arrest for what?”

“We call it, detained as a material witness. Sit down, Foltz. You ought to know better than to start shooting off about insolence. If you insist on it nobody can stop you, but it won’t get you anywhere. Sit down.”

Martin stood. His mouth twitched. Finally he said, “I have a right to talk to de Roode. I have a right to know what’s going on. Steve Zimmerman was my oldest friend. They wouldn’t let me in to see him.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

“Yes.” Martin’s mouth twitched again. He controlled it. “Miss Raffray told me. I … they wouldn’t let me in the room. I have a right to know …”

“Sure you have,” Sherwood agreed. “I know, you’ve had a shock. So have I. If you can pull yourself together enough to be seated in that chair … thanks. Probably you already know as much as we do, if Miss Raffray told you what Miss Bonner told her. Zimmerman was strangled with an electric light cord some time between ten and two o’clock. Murdered. Miss Raffray told you that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. So I’m trying to find out what different people were doing around here, and I’m not having much luck. Miss Bonner was lucid and succinct, but no one else. Mrs. Storrs is congenitally obscure. Your man de Roode is either a liar or a murderer or both. Chisholm is either drunk or foxy. I am hoping you’ll take after Miss Bonner. The man that was here tells me that you went upstairs with Miss Raffray around nine-thirty and didn’t come down again. Is that right?”