Murders for Sale Read online

  “That was England, of course, not America,” Carey said quickly.

  Peter turned from Margie who was still grumbling about her wasted afternoon, and the fact that Catherine never had turned up at all.

  “You know, Carey,” he said, leaning across Fredericka, “Miss Wing is determined that South Sutton is the perfect place for a murder in the grand manner—”

  “On the grounds,” Carey said easily, “that the country is the place for crime. Of course, Miss Wing, you’ve sent your arrow to the heart. You were talking of Doyle just now. Remember this—”

  “Are they not fresh and beautiful?” I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.

  But Holmes shook his head gravely, “Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at the scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought that comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there… But look at these lovely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places and no one the wiser?”

  “Goodness, do you know Doyle by heart?” Fredericka asked.

  “No, but I wish I did. The Hound of the Baskervilles used to scare me silly when I was a kid. I read it over and over in a kind of orgy of pure horror and—well—I’ve loved Doyle ever since.”

  They all laughed and then Peter said: “Speaking of being scared to death at a tender age, I remember almost every word of a book written by Celia Thaxter which described the murder on the Isle of Shoals. A fisherman who had been considered a family friend for years rowed across the bay in the dead of winter, murdered two defenceless women with an axe in the middle of the night, chased another into the snow, and when captured at last, tried to put the blame for the murder onto two completely innocent men who were out fishing at the time, and were in fact the husband and the brother of one of the murdered women. It was a wild melodrama with a Gothic background and it gave me glorious nightmares.”

  “I confess to a weakness for crimes committed by professors and love university settings. Perhaps that’s why I’ve got my eye on South Sutton,” Fredericka put in.

  “Oh, you mean those stuffy Oxford dons who get all mixed up with keys and times,” Peter said.

  “Yes, those, and true cases like the Webster one, the classic example of murder in Harvard University.”

  “That’s a beauty,” Thane said enthusiastically. “Do you know it, Mohun? Dr. George Parkman murdered by Professor Webster who owed him money. No one dreamt of suspecting such an eminently respectable old guy but the janitor spied on him, and, oh boy, what did he see? The old professor dissecting the corpse and burning it in the college furnace!”

  “Yes, I agree, a beauty. And didn’t Oliver Wendell Holmes act as witness?”

  “That’s right. Good old New England, the perfect seat of perfect crimes,” Carey said, laughing.

  Margie, who had been listening with paralysed intentness, now said in a very loud voice: “All right then, why don’t you start searching for the body of Catherine Clay who disappeared after lunch, no one knows where, and hasn’t been seen since? Not that anyone would care if she had been done in,” she added bitterly, but in an undertone.

  “My dear Margie,” Peter turned to her, “has that woman ever come back from anywhere when she was expected to?”

  “No-o. All the same, if you’re wanting to have a murder mystery in South Sutton, it’s a good beginning.”

  “Wrong again,” Thane said. “Unless there’s some pressing reason we begin with the body, not with the search for it.”

  “Just like the police,” Margie roared. “Perhaps there wouldn’t be any dead bodies if you paid attention to signs and portents.”

  Thane, Fredericka, Peter and Connie all turned to look at the girl’s white face, now startlingly blotched with crimson. “Good God, she’s serious,” Thane said, jumping up. “Hey, kid, what are you driving at?” But before anyone could stop her, Margie had jumped to her feet and run off through the open door into the darkness of the summer night.

  “Let her go, Carey,” Peter said. “It’s just what her mother calls her ‘theatrics.’ Nothing she likes better than to get a good rise out of an unsuspecting audience. And she’s got a score to settle with Catherine so she’s wishing her dead.”

  After a moment the chief of police sat down and went back to his strawberry shortcake. “She’s mad, then,” he muttered a little shamefacedly. And then they talked of other things until the great moment when all the paper plates had been cleared away, a hymn sung, and a few words appropriate to the occasion said by the minister, whose name, Peter whispered to Fredericka, was the Reverend Archibald Williams. Then, at last, the long awaited raffle of the quilt.

  “Thirty-five,” the minister’s wife announced in a very loud voice, as she drew the slip from the hat.

  “Why—why—that’s one of mine,” Fredericka gasped, “and I—I asked for it because of my birthday. I mean—oh dear—what do I do now?”

  “Rise and claim your prize, my dear,” Peter said gravely.

  * * * *

  And that was how Fredericka happened to be carrying a beautiful patchwork quilt when she unlocked her door half an hour later, and how she happened to go into the kitchen before she went up to bed.

  When Peter said good night on the front porch, she asked him to come in, but he refused.

  “I’m sorry, Fredericka, but tonight I have a report to make out and will be working late in my office. You can see the beacon light from here no doubt.”

  Fredericka swallowed her disappointment and went into the house with her quilt, which she at once took upstairs and spread out on her bed for further inspection. Then she decided that it might look even better hung on a wall, but the only wall not covered with books was the one in the kitchen.

  She went to get the steps under the sink and, in the glare of light from the window, she looked out at the hammock. The steps were never used and the quilt lay forgotten for days in the kitchen rocking-chair.

  Someone was lying in the hammock, and lying very still.

  “I knew we shouldn’t talk about those awful crimes,” Fredericka said out loud to reassure herself. “But I’m just as crazy mad as that child, Margie. It’s no doubt Margie herself sleeping off her fit of adolescent exhibitionism, and giving me a good fright, to boot.”

  Her words, spoken to the empty room, sounded strange in the silence and their very primness reminded Fredericka that she was herself and not Harriet Vane. As she opened the back door and stepped out onto the porch, a cricket shrilled beside her and she stopped still in terror. Then, slowly, she walked around the path to the hammock.

  For a full moment she stared at the body of Catherine Clay. There was no mistake possible now. One hand dangled helplessly to the ground and the face staring up into the light from the kitchen window was distorted with pain or anger—but rigid and still.

  Fredericka put one hand to her mouth to stifle the scream that rose in her throat, and forced herself to put the other down to touch the awful face. Then she drew it away quickly and turned to run blindly, instinctively, in the direction of the campus and the beacon light that Peter had promised her would be there.

  Chapter 4

  Fredericka pounded on the thin door of the prefabricated hut. The sound echoed like hollow drum beats in the silent night.

  “Good God!” Peter said opening the door quickly. “No need to wake the dead. Who the devil is it?”

  “It’s me, Peter. Oh, Peter, Peter she is dead. Margie must be a witch.”

  “Fredericka, it’s you. What are you talking about?” Then, seeing her white face, he grasped her arm and found that she was trembling. “Here, come in and tel
l me what’s the matter. There can’t really be anything wrong, Fredericka. You’re having a nightmare because we talked too much nonsense.”

  “No. No. Peter, I can’t come in. You must come back with me. It’s—it’s Catherine Clay. She’s dead. There—at the bookshop. In my hammock, in my yard.” Fredericka forced herself to say the words slowly and distinctly and, at last, Peter realized their meaning.

  “All right, Fredericka, I believe you if I must, but first, before I make a move to come with you, I’m going to give you a bracer.”

  He led her into the office and opened a drawer of his desk to take out a small silver flask. Then, from a cupboard, he produced a tumbler and poured out a stiff drink. “Brandy. Do you good. Here, don’t drink it too fast.”

  Fredericka choked, looked up and tried to smile, then gulped the rest like an obedient child taking a dose of medicine.

  When the brandy had worked its magic and she felt suddenly better, she stared up at Peter whose face looked owl-like in the light from the green-shaded lamp on his desk. “Thanks,” she said, and then: “I’m all right now. Please come. I—I don’t like leaving her alone there.”

  “If she’s dead, my dear Fredericka, five minutes can’t make much difference,” he reminded her gently.

  “I know, but—”

  Afterwards both Peter and Fredericka were to wonder at her urgent desire to return at once to the bookshop. Even then some instinct must have warned her that death had not been natural. Yes, even then—

  “But what?” Peter asked sharply.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just feel we ought to be there.”

  “All right,” Peter agreed quietly. He took her arm to steady her as they hurried across the campus, over the road, and around the Hartwell house to the hammock.

  To Fredericka’s great relief the body of Catherine Clay lay exactly as she had last seen it. She stood back behind Peter so that she could not see the staring eyes.

  “I suppose she is dead,” Peter said. He took out a flashlight from his pocket and played it over the still form.

  Then he began to mutter to himself, “Yes, the eyes and,” he touched her body lightly, “rigor even. I wonder how long she’s lain here. Poor miserable creature.” He turned suddenly to Fredericka. “We mustn’t touch her. I’ll call Carey and we’ll have to let Mrs. Sutton know at once. Here, you come inside and get busy making us all some coffee.”

  They went into the house together and in silence. Peter went straight to the telephone in the office and Fredericka to the kitchen where she began to fill the percolator with the careful precision of a sleep walker.

  When the coffee had started to bubble and Peter had come back to the kitchen, they sat down stiffly and smoked in a silence which became so oppressive that Fredericka felt she must speak. In a strained voice, she said: “Could you, I mean, would you mind telling me a little more about her—”

  Peter turned to her quickly. “You mean Catherine—of course. I’ve just been thinking about her myself because in an odd way I’m not surprised at her death—I might as well think out loud.”

  “Please do.”

  “Well, it’s mostly gossip but probably fairly accurate. She was married quite young, stayed married two years, got comfortably divorced and then threw all her own and her acquired wealth into starting one of those marble-fronted beauty parlors, or whatever they are, on Park Avenue, and ran through it all in a very short time.” He paused and then went on slowly, “It has even been said that, as a last desperate resort, she began peddling dope to her customers and picked up the habit herself. This was a great financial help to the business for a short time but, in the end, a dead loss due to the unexpected intervention of the police. Now she’s looking—or was looking—for a rich man and a quiet life.”

  “That heavy dark man I saw with her at the inn last Sunday—is he—I mean was he, the one?”

  “James Brewster. Yes. He’s the family lawyer, works in Worcester but has an apartment here for his weekends. Rumour has it—or had it—that she wanted him for husband number two and that, though attracted by her snake-like charm, he was still able to resist. He’s supposed to be a great one with the ladies and he’s been a bachelor long enough to know how to resist. Also he has money and she had none, which aggravated the situation…”

  “Aren’t the Suttons rich, then?”

  “They manage now. But the old man died somewhere around the time of the depression, leaving Mrs. Sutton with a life insurance policy that paid his debts and very little more. But Margaret Sutton had guts enough to turn to and develop this herb farm which is now famous all over the country. She sold herbs in little packets with recipe books and what-have-you. And then, after Philippine came, she branched out with this so-called laboratory.”

  “I see. Philippine seems to be her mainstay.”

  “She is. And old Mrs. Hartwell works for her as bookkeeper and Margie, as you no doubt know, is very energetic in the lab. While all this hard work went on, Catherine played about like a disappointed film star and her brother Roger hid his battle-scarred face from the light of day.”

  “It must have been grim.”

  “In a way, yes. People get used to things though. But—considering what has just happened—perhaps I’m wrong—perhaps they don’t.”

  He stopped speaking and stood up at the sound of a car in the road. Then he said quietly, “It’s helped to talk. Thanks.” A moment later Thane Carey’s quick steps could be heard on the walk, the screen door banged, and he was there, hovering over them as if in accusation.

  “What is it, Mohun?” he asked.

  “Margie’s prophesy come true. Catherine Clay dead, and in Fredericka’s hammock. Come with me. You stay here,” he added brusquely, turning to Fredericka. But his words were wasted. She had no desire to do anything else.

  The two men disappeared through the back door and Fredericka sat still on the kitchen stool listening to the very ordinary sound of the bubbling percolator. Before Peter and Thane returned another car roared up in the road outside and braked sharply. Fredericka tried to get up and go to the door but could not bring herself to move. Presently she could hear voices, and then Mrs. Sutton, Mrs. Hartwell and James Brewster walked in the front door without ceremony.

  The events of that evening were to remain in Fredericka’s memory all the rest of her life, but in odd patches as though a whole series of scenes had been lit with bright lightning flashes and then blotted out with the blackness of deep night.

  The two men came in from the garden, looking over-life-sized and awkward in the small house. Mrs. Sutton was helped to a chair in the living room. Fredericka gave them coffee. And through it all could be heard, like an orchestral accompaniment, the thundering imperative demands of James Brewster. He stood with his back to the empty grate holding his coffee cup. Fredericka noticed the heavy dark hairs that covered his large hand and crept like caterpillars down each separate finger. He was like a great disgruntled bear roaring at them all. What did he say? Always the same words, over and over. “We must keep it quiet until”—until when? “Family name must be protected.” In those moments Fredericka found herself hating this blustering animal man and wishing that something—anything—would silence him.

  And then at last something did silence him—the voice of authority. Thane Carey said quietly: “I have sent for Doctor Scott and, until he comes and has a look at—at her—we can’t have much of any idea of the cause of death. And while we are waiting, I’d like to ask a few routine questions. Do you feel up to this, Mrs. Sutton?”

  Margaret Sutton sat forward in the straight chair she had chosen. “It’s true then,” she said. “Oh, I’ve been so frightened of this—and then this afternoon when she didn’t come I was worried—and I asked James to search for her…”

  “Really, Carey, this all seems a little unnecessary. We hardly need these police strong-arm methods. My poor Margaret—”

  “I’m sorry, Brewster, but I must, as the man in authority, do what see
ms to me right. I’m afraid you will have to leave my job to me.”

  “I don’t see why you have any job, or indeed why you are here at all. I should think Mohun would have called Dr. Scott at once,” James said heavily.

  Thane Carey stared at Brewster until the older man turned away with a gesture of disgust.

  “You’re a lawyer,” Carey said at last. “Surely you know that one must take precautions in the case of death so sudden and unexpected as this.”

  “Precautions?” Brewster flung the word back at him.

  “Very well, if you force me to say it. You know as well as I do that there will be an inquest. The police must have the necessary facts.”

  “Oh dear!” Mrs. Sutton said quietly. It was hardly more than a sigh, but Carey turned to her at once: “I am sorry, terribly sorry about this and, as a matter of fact there’s no need for you to stay—I can come and see you tomorrow if necessary…”

  “Oh no. It’s quite all right, Thane. I want to be here with her. She was—she was so ill you see. No one, not even I, could help her.”

  Fredericka, watching Mrs. Sutton’s face anxiously, thought for a moment that the woman could not stand the strain. Then with a great effort her thin shoulders straightened, but when she turned to look up at Thane, Fredericka could see that her face was lined with age and ravaged with pain and shock.

  The chief of police became businesslike and his questions followed rapidly, one after the other, until they were broken off by the arrival of Doctor Scott.

  Fredericka told simply and quietly the exact story of her movements from the moment that she left the house at half past two with Peter until the finding of the body less than an hour ago.

  Thane seemed most interested in the fact that she had locked all the doors when she left. “Why?” he asked.

  “I don’t know exactly. I always do lock my door in New York and it’s habit I guess. Also—” She hesitated and then went on slowly. “Well, so many people seem to come and go here and I thought—well—the shop isn’t mine and it is my responsibility.”