Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene (16 page)

“There was? What?”

“Simply to disappear. As quietly and quickly as possible. And so we did. We simply dropped from sight, he and I together.”

“Changing your name, naturally, to suit your change of direction.”

“As you say. Naturally.”

“What name did you use in Illinois?”

“I’ll tell you, as I have told you the rest of the story, only because you would find out anyhow. The name was Donner. The captain took the name of Martin Donner.”

Captain Kelso wrote the name carefully in his limp-backed book. He underscored it three times with restrained fury. “Changing it later to Westering?”

“Yes.”

“And after quietly disappearing, as you put it, did you come directly here?”

“No. We wandered. The captain had to learn to know himself as he had become, you see. To find his new way. My sister lived here. She had prospered in a worldly way. She offered a haven, and we finally sought it. It was here that the captain received the message that he was to lead a pilgrimage to the land of war.”

“The captain seems to have received a lot of messages. Did the message inform him that peace negotiations were going to begin before he could get under way?”

“Peace negotiations? What are they? The killing goes on.”

“So it does. I can’t deny that.” Captain Kelso dry-scrubbed his scalp with knuckles. “It strikes me that there may have been some suspicious vigilantes when they woke up one morning around Cicero and found their leader had decamped. Some of them may even have been annoyed. Could that be another reason why the captain changed his name?”

Aletha Dwight-Donner-Westering, to name a few names, was again silent, staring again beyond her guests into whatever world opened at their backs. If she was listening for a message, she must have received it. She spoke with that impregnable serenity that was assuming in Miss Withers’ mind a quality of terrible madness. “It is strange,” she said, “that you should ask that. As if the words were put into your mouth. When the captain was leader of the Latter Day Vigilantes, he had a young lieutenant who had come to us from nowhere. He was a dedicated worker, and he became second in command. Three nights ago he showed up here.”

It was Captain Kelso’s turn to be silent. Apparently he had turned suddenly to stone. Even his bald dome had taken on a fossilized appearance. “That’s very interesting,” he said at last. “Why didn’t you tell me this last night?”

“Last night I wasn’t prepared.”

“What did this lieutenant call himself?”

“Wagner. Bruno Wagner.”

“Sounds about right for a Latter Day Nazi. Pardon me. Vigilante. How had he found out where you were?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“What did he want?”

“He was violent and abusive. He accused the captain of being a traitor and a thief. He demanded restitution, and threatened vengeance if he didn’t get it.”

“Restitution?”

“Yes. The Vigilantes had accumulated a considerable treasury. He had the absurd notion that the captain had stolen it.”

“I see. In other words, he wanted the captain to split the swag.”

“There was nothing to split. The captain explained that the treasury had been depleted by the purchase of arms and by other routine expenses of the organization.”

“Where were these arsenals hidden?”

“At various locations in the southern part of the state. In rural areas. I don’t know precisely. That was not my business.”

“Where is this Wagner now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you seen him since he showed up here?”

“No.”

“Do you think he murdered your husband?”

“It’s possible. If he did, he will pay for it.”

“You’d better believe it.”

“Vengeance will be had by a greater power than the San Francisco police, Captain.”

“Maybe so. But we’ll get first crack at him. The greater power, whatever it is, will have to take what’s left. What does this Wagner look like?”

“Medium height. Light hair. Rather ordinary, really. I seldom pay attention to physical appearances. My mind is absorbed by the spiritual.”

“Come off, Mrs. Westering. You can do better than that. If he’s your husband’s murderer, you must want him punished.”

“He will be punished.”

“Sure. I know. By a higher power.” Captain Kelso cracked his knuckles in a series of tiny explosions and stood up. “Was anyone here besides you and the captain when this Wagner came?”

“My sister Alura. If you need confirmation, she will supply it.”

“I’ll bet. Where is her restaurant located?”

“On Bridgeway. You can’t miss it. It’s called the Royal Edward.”

Miss Withers, following the captain’s cue, had risen also. Aletha Westering drifted up from her cushion like ascending smoke, effortlessly, again without the help of hands. She preceded them to the door and held it open.

“I guess I don’t have to tell you,” Captain Kelso said, “that you are to remain available until this investigation is closed.”

“You will find me here,” said Aletha Westering, “whenever you want me.”

Miss Withers passed out, the captain following. On the flagstone walk they paused, and Captain Kelso slapped his thigh violently with his battered hat. “Another one!” he said. “Another suspect! By God, is there no end to them?”

“If there really
is
another one,” said Miss Withers.

“I’ve got a feeling he’s real, all right. Our Aletha is a superlative liar, no question about that, but I think she was telling the truth about that nasty Nazi episode. After all, it can be easily checked. Can you figure that Westering? St. Paul’s Aunt Agnes!”

“All nonsense, of course. The captain was a charlatan. An incredible exhibitionist with absolutely no convictions who was capable of any pose so long as it made a good show. Right or left, it was all the same to him. Aletha was his perfect mate.”

“How so?”

“I told you last night. Because she’s capable of unlimited self-delusion. She
believes
her lies, and she believed her husband’s lies. Therefore, she tells truth and lies so sincerely that it’s almost impossible to sort them out. That business of being absorbed by the spiritual is not a pose, by the way. Depending, of course, on your definition of ‘spiritual.’ At any rate, there is very little of the physical about her.”

“That’s your opinion.”

“It is.”

“Then you don’t like her as a jealous wife who would be up to killing a philandering husband?”

“Not in a million years. Nor her husband’s supposed lover. If she put hemlock in that sherry, it was for some other motive.”

“So you say. We’ll see. On the other hand, poison doesn’t seem like a weapon this Bruno Wagner character would use. Not direct enough. Not violent enough. A gun or a knife or his bare hands would be more his dish, from the sound of him.”

“You can’t be sure. Poison can have the advantage of working while the murderer is elsewhere, reducing his chances of getting caught. And a poison that grows wild has the advantage of being untraceable. We’ve been over that. However, a total stranger to Lenore Gregory would have no way of knowing that the sherry was reserved for her. If she was the intended victim, as I have been convinced all along, that lets Bruno Wagner out.”

“Not for me,” Captain Kelso said.

But he said it to Miss Withers’ back, for the spinster had turned and started across the green grass of the lawn. He stood and watched her as she made a tour of the flower beds, pausing for a while beside each. Pretty soon, she returned.

“Any hemlock?” he said.

“No. I’m not surprised. Hemlock is not commonly used as a decorative plant, as certain other poisonous kinds are. But it is readily available, nevertheless, to a knowledgeable person. I assume, incidentally, that the autopsy has verified my contention that it was hemlock?”

“Right. Regarding the identity of the poison, you batted a thousand.”

“The odor of parsnips left little doubt.”

“Regarding the other issue, though, you struck out.”

“What other issue?”

“Remember the Scotch? I promised you a report.”

“It had hemlock in it?”

“Loaded. What does that do to your theory that Lenore Gregory was the intended victim? If you ask me, it knocks it into a cocked hat.”

“I wouldn’t go so far.”

“No? Why not?”

“The fact that the Scotch was poisoned does not negate the fact that the sherry was poisoned also. Remember, please, that Lenore’s restriction to sherry was no secret. What the report opens up, it seems to me, is the possibility that
both
Lenore and the captain were intended victims.”

“Still eliminating your little friend, of course, as a suspect.”

“Of course. Anyhow, the Scotch had not been removed from the locker, which indicates that it was poisoned before she arrived for her meeting with the captain.”

“So what? Why not by her?”

“She would hardly have poisoned both the Scotch and the sherry she would be drinking herself.”

“Let me remind you that she
didn’t
drink any. Poisoning the sherry could have been a clever trick to try to avoid suspicion.”

“Not so clever if you see it so quickly. Lenore is neither guilty nor stupid.”

“Nuts. You’re what we call a prejudiced witness, that’s all.”

“You’re very kind. I’m perfectly aware that you really mean I’m a bull-headed old maid.”

“You said that. Not me. Well, we’d better go. I’ve got to get a net out for this Wagner bird. First, however, we’ll take time, being handy, to drop in on sister Alura for a few minutes.”

T
HE ROYAL EDWARD LOOKED
back to the time of the royalty from whom it swiped its name, Victoria’s unregenerate son; to the bawdy, gaudy days when nabobs scattered gingerbread mansions along San Francisco’s steep streets, when Caruso sang at the Grand Opera House, when young Jack Barrymore patronized the Oyster Loaf, and when at last the city paid for its sins, on April 18, 1906, by shifting a few feet along the sides of its deep fault, and by burning thereafter for three days in a lurid nightmare. It was a place of beads and red plush and gilt. The dining room was deserted, it being too late for even late lunchers, but the ornate bar was in business, it never being too early for early drinkers.

Before going with Captain Kelso into the bar, Miss Withers paused to poke her nose over a red velvet rope that barred the way into the dining room. At one end, covering the entire width of the wall and all its height above gilded molding four feet from the floor, was a mural in bold colors depicting scenes from San Francisco’s raffish past. It was, Miss Withers thought, a striking piece of work. The technique was confident, the colors arresting, the concept sweeping. She studied it for a moment, then turned away to rejoin Captain Kelso, who had stopped to await her patiently a few paces ahead.

“I was curious to see the mural,” Miss Withers said.

“Mural?”

“Leslie Fitzgerald’s. You remember that she told us last night that she had done a couple for this restaurant.”

“Oh. I remember. I’m not much of an art fan myself. I used to like Maxfield Parrish when I was young.”

Miss Withers shuddered and bit her tongue. She went on beside Captain Kelso into the bar. More gilt. More red plush. More beads. Rococo up to here.

Sitting sidewise on a stool at the end of the bar, one elbow braced on polished mahogany, one knee crossed over the other to reveal a couple of feet of admirable nylon below the hem of a dark red sheath, was Alura O’Higgins, proprietress, royalty as regal as Edward himself. She saw Captain Kelso and Miss Withers approaching and inclined her dark head in the merest nod of recognition, gracious if not enthusiastic. The captain caught the nod and acknowledged it, but Miss Withers did not, having been distracted.

Her attention had been captured and held by a second mural above the back bar with its rows of colored bottles and shining glasses reflected in a long mirror. The mural was the length of the bar and quite narrow, fitting between the gilt frame of the mirror and the ceiling. No panorama of history here. Strategically placed and directed lights picked out the focal point of the work, the magnificent nude figure of a woman against a dark background in which indistinct figures seemed to have paused to ogle, enraptured, from the shadows. It achieved, somehow, an effect of suspension, as if in the next second everyone in the painting would begin to breathe and move. The focal figure, the magnificent nude figure, was lying face down on a rich red couch, her head raised and turned and her dark eyes looking over one shoulder and directly down, it seemed, into the eyes of Miss Withers. The latter felt a slight shock which caused a hitch in her breath and a thump in her pulse. No mistake about it. Not the slightest chance of inadvertent resemblance. The figure in the mural was Alura O’Higgins.

Miss Withers bumped against Captain Kelso’s solid bulk, which had braked to a stop. With an appearance of confusion, she straightened her hat and murmured an apology, to which no one paid attention.

“Good afternoon, Captain,” Alura said, nodding at the same time to the flustered spinster. “May I offer you something to drink? Or is it forbidden while you’re on duty?”

“It’s forbidden, which isn’t always a deterrent. Not this time, though, thanks. We’ve only stopped for a few minutes. As a matter of fact, we really came over to see your sister. We’ve just come from there.”

“I see. Perhaps we’d better move to a table where you can sit down.”

She slipped off the stool and led the way to a table in a corner, removed from patrons, and they sat down in shadows at three points of a circle. Miss Withers’ attention, irresistibly drawn, had returned to the mural. Oddly enough, although her position in the room was different, the dark eyes of the reclining figure still seemed to look directly into her own.

“I am admiring the mural,” she said.

Alura smiled, her dark eyes enigmatic, pools of shadow in shadows. “Does it shock you?”

“Not at all. It’s quite remarkable.”

“It is I, you know.”

“Yes. That’s unmistakable. I recognized you at once.”

“Did you? Many people don’t. Perhaps you think I’m an incurable egoist. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher. It’s my one indulgence in flagrant exhibitionism. Do you think it’s vulgar?”