McNally's Gamble (24 page)

Father had been listening to our conversation with increasing interest and now he spoke up: “Why don’t you give Edythe a call right now, mother.”

(My septuagenarian father frequently addresses his sexagenarian spouse as “mother” and she never objects. But when she addresses him as “father” he bridles. Go figure it.)

Anyway, mother made the call immediately, using the phone on her sitting room desk. Father and I, finishing our drinks, could not hear her part of the conversation. But after she hung up she came back to us looking perplexed.

“Isn’t that odd?” she asked no one in particular.

“What’s odd?” the lord of the manor demanded impatiently.

“Well, Edythe said Fred Clemens, her financial adviser, is looking for a new appraiser to value the Fabergé egg. The original expert he had hired was Sydney Smythe, the antique dealer on Worth Avenue who was killed in his shop a few days ago.”

Father and I stared at each other.

D
INNER WAS A SOCKDOLAGER
(baked scallops with tangerine fritters) but I could hardly wait to get upstairs. I wanted to make certain my memory was still chugging along on all two cylinders.

It was. Within moments I found the journal entry I had recalled: a precis of my first conversation with Sydney Smythe. I had asked him to value the imaginary Fabergé egg I had conjured up and he declined. He stated he was not an expert but could recommend an experienced appraiser if I so desired. And this was the man reportedly employed by Fred Clemens to put a price tag on Mrs. Westmore’s investment!

Of course it was possible Smythe, desperate for money, had conned Clemens into thinking he was dealing with the world’s foremost maven on bejeweled eggs. I didn’t believe that for a minute. I reckoned Clemens, Katz & Co. had sought and found the perfect man to provide legitimacy for their scam: a fogyish antique dealer, well known to locals, who was so hungry for a buck he was willing to cooperate in what he must have recognized was an arrant swindle.

I tried to put myself in Mr. Smythe’s place and could understand why he was easily corrupted. Up to the time of his death he had committed no crime nor had he been asked to. He had not seen the Fabergé egg in question; he could hardly appraise it. Perhaps he had good reason to know or suspect the egg simply did not exist. If that was true then all he was doing was lending his name for a fee vital to his survival.

But if Smythe’s role in the con game was so minor, why was he killed? Because he had a change of heart and threatened to report a crime-in-progress to the police? I didn’t think so. I still believed the reasons for his murder I had given to Sgt. Al Rogoff were sound and convincing. But I had an unshakable suspicion there was an additional motive for Smythe’s slaying. What it might be was a puzzle frustrating enough to drive a man to drink. And so it did.

I had only one brandy, I swear, but it helped me sleep after I gave up trying to guess the whys and wherefores of an old man’s quietus. I resolutely turned my thoughts to a fond remembrance of Rita Hayworth in
Gilda,
singing “Put the Blame on Mame.” Ahh!

I awoke Saturday to a socked-in world. Radio forecasters had predicted the weekend would be miserable—and so it was. There was no rain but the air seemed supersaturated; a clammy fog hung low and I hoped Santa Claus had a workable windshield wiper on his sleigh.

Usually I like to adopt the role of a Palm Beach drone on weekends. I might play a little golf or tennis, go out to Wellington to watch polo, visit the Pelican Club to toss darts, perhaps join a poker session with like-minded parasites. In other words, for two days we try to make ourselves useless.

The doomy weather made outdoor games a chore rather than a joy, and I found myself in such a restive mood I decided I might as well do some work. I doubted if Clemens and Katz were lazing about. They were probably busy concocting new cons and if I expected to thwart their plans I had to be just as active and wilier.

I dug from my wallet the newspaper clipping recounting the murder of Sydney Smythe, took note of the name and address of the motel where he had resided, and started out. I wore a nylon golf jacket and a yellow oilskin cap—not exactly swank attire but it kept me reasonably dry.

It took me almost an hour to locate Smythe’s motel. It was way to hell and gone, west of the Turnpike and right in the middle of nowhere. I figured there was no way a motel could exist in that wilderness unless it was a hot-pillow joint, although it was difficult to believe any amorous couple would journey so far to slake their passion.

The place itself had a sad, eroded look and I wondered if the mattresses were stuffed with corn-husks. There was only one car in the parking area: an ancient Chevy originally blue but now faded to a streaky purple by the Florida sun. I walked slowly around the one-story building looking for a sign of life and found it, sort of, on the west side where an old geezer in overalls sat in a caned rocking chair moving back and forth so energetically I expected him to be catapulted out at any moment. He watched me approach with no interest whatsoever.

When I was close enough to see the grayish stubble on his chin he demanded, “You married?”

I was startled by his query and imagined he was the owner, who thought I had arrived accompanied by a complaisant female and he wanted to verify my connubial status.

“No, sir,” I said. “I am not married. And I am alone.”

He was the owner all right but his question turned out to be of a rhetorical nature. He really didn’t care a fig about my conjugal state; he wanted to tell me about his.

“Well,
I’m
married,” he declared. “I’m an S.I.S. husband. You know what it is?”

“No, sir, I do not.” It was difficult to converse with him, he was rocking so rapidly.

“Suffer In Silence,” he said with a ghastly grin revealing several gaps in his dentition. “It’s the kind of husband I am. For more’n forty years. How would
you
like a wife who tries to take off her fingernail polish with your gin?”

“When did she do that?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “Five or ten years ago.”

I thought it a fascinating conversation but definitely unproductive. “I understand Sydney Smythe used to live here,” I said, trying to get back on track. “The antique dealer who was killed in Palm Beach.”

“Read about it in the paper, huh?” he said. “Yeah, he lived here. The cops was out for a couple of days but they stopped coming. Had some sightseers but none of them rented. I was hoping the TV would show up but they never came. I figured the publicity would help.”

“I understand you’re selling his belongings?”

“Yeah?” he said. “Where did you hear that?”

“I met Smythe’s cousin at church and she said she had taken a few personal effects but the rest of his possessions would be sold to pay his back rent.”

“Yeah, that’s right. As soon as I get to it I’m going to clean out his room and have a lawn sale.” I was tempted to say, “What lawn?” since the place was located in a desert, but instead I asked, “Do you mind if I take a look at his stuff. Maybe there’s something I can use.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “If you find anything you want I’ll give you a good price. Inside, down the hall, on your right, suite four.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I won’t be long.”

I opened a torn screen door, stepped inside, and became an instant candidate for CPR. It was hardly a warm day but the inside of the motel was so stifling it must have contained the stored-up heat of summer. I looked about and saw no indication of air conditioning. And the aroma was not something you’d care to spray behind your ears.

The late Sydney Smythe’s apartment was a dungeon. Terming such a cramped chamber a “suite” was akin to calling a drainage ditch the Grand Canyon. It was one small room with a kitchenette alcove and a tiny attached loo of cracked tiles. The whole conveyed such an impression of decay and despair I almost wept from the vision of the would-be dandy spending his final days in such a miasmic sty.

His pitiful belongings had obviously been pawed over, perhaps several times. There was a jumble of thready clothing, a few dented kitchen utensils, old letters and magazines, yellowed newspapers, a can of roach spray, and bits and pieces of things I simply could not identify. I saw only one book although I had hoped to find more.

I picked it gingerly from the pile of trash and examined it. It had been published in Nantes in 1826 and my French was sufficient to translate the title: “Illustrated History of the Pistol.” The leather binding was split and shredding away but as I slowly turned the brittle pages I saw many fine old engravings of antique handguns.

I was happy to emerge from the fetid atmosphere and take a deep breath of fog. The old man was still rocking steadily. I held up the tattered volume I had salvaged.

“This is the only thing I want,” I said.

He scarcely glanced at it. “Ten bucks,” he said. I took out my wallet and paid him without demur. He looked longer at the wallet than he had at my purchase.

“I was hoping he’d have more books,” I mentioned.

“Did have when he moved in,” the gaffer said. “Had a whole danged library. Filled his suite. But he must have sold most of them off. And his cousin took four of what was left.”

“Perhaps he gave some of his books to his friends,” I suggested, finally getting to the purpose of my visit.

“Didn’t have no friends.”

“No friends at all?” I said, trying to appear astonished.

“Nope. And no visitors.”

“I find it hard to believe.”

He shrugged. “That’s what I told the cops. You can ask them.”

I thought there were three possible reasons for his reticence: he didn’t want to get involved; he had been paid to keep his mouth shut; he had been threatened with violence unless he kept silent. The second of these seemed to me the most likely.

“What you told the cops is one thing,” I said boldly. “The truth is another.”

I took two twenty-dollar bills from my wallet and dangled them before him. The rocking became more rapid; he couldn’t take his eyes from the fluttering bills.

“Now then,” I said, “did Sydney Smythe have any friends or visitors?”

“You trying to bribe me?” he demanded.

“Yes,” I said, “that’s what I’m trying to do.”

He ruminated a long moment. “It ain’t exactly a bribe,” he said at last. “It’s like I got a product to sell. Merchandise, you know. Only in this case it’s information. I’m the seller; you’re the buyer.”

“You’re quite right,” I assured him. “It’s capitalism. A free and open market. It makes sense to maximize your profit.”

Again he pondered while I waited patiently.

“Nope,” he muttered, “I ain’t talking.”

The devious McNally brain went into overdrive. “You don’t have to talk,” I told him. “I’ll describe Smythe’s visitors to you. If I’m right you just stop rocking and you get the forty. You don’t have to say a word.”

He looked at me. “Honest?”

“Honest.”

“Make it fifty,” he said hoarsely.

I added a sawbuck to the twenties.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s hear it.”

“Smythe was visited on more than one occasion by two men in a large maroon car. They went directly to Smythe’s apartment and stayed awhile. Probably less than an hour. The door was closed and you couldn’t hear what they were talking about, though you tried. Both visitors were tall. One man was dark, slender, and usually dressed in black and white. The other was heavier, fair-haired, and usually wore a vest with his suit. Had an expensive wristwatch. Both men looked prosperous.”

But before I finished speaking the oldster had stopped rocking. He was staring at me, his mouth half open. I handed over the fifty, gave him a nod, a smile, a farewell hand flap. Did I trust him to be truthful? I did. I had once been told never to trust a man you can’t bribe. The obverse is just as logically correct.

It was an amateurish investigative ploy, I admit, and hardly constituted proof. What I hadn’t mentioned to my informant was the possibility of his being subpoenaed to testify under oath in a court of law. And I didn’t think he’d find a rocking chair in the witness box. But I was satisfied I had established a firmer link between Smythe and the subjects of my inquiry. Not conclusive, of course, but strong enough to add credence to my theory of what had happened and was happening.

I used my cellular phone to call Sgt. Al Rogoff at headquarters. He wasn’t there and they wouldn’t tell me his whereabouts. I tried him at his home and caught him as he was going out to buy five pounds of sliced bologna.

“This will take just a minute, Al,” I told him. “I know how important the bologna is to you. But I’ve changed my mind about meeting Sydney Smythe’s English cousin. I really should express my condolences—don’t you agree?”

“It’s your call,” he said.

“Is she still in town?”

“Well, she is and she isn’t. She’s staying at the Dover in West Palm but she’s gone up to Disney World for the weekend. Said she wants to have her photo taken with Mickey Mouse.”

“Doesn’t sound like she’s prostrated with grief.”

“She’s coping. Stiff upper lip and all that.”

“Is she burying Smythe here?”

“Nope. Going to have him cremated and take the ashes back to England. There’s a village graveyard where most of the family’s dead are buried.”

“When is she returning from Orlando—did she say?”

“Thought she’d be back on Monday but wasn’t sure. We’re not rushing her. Smythe is in the refrigerator. He’ll keep.”

“I admire your delicacy of expression. If you get anything on Katz’s fingerprints give me a shout.”

“Sure. You got anything new for me?”

If I wanted to learn about the fingerprint trace I thought I better offer something in return.

“Yes, I have something,” I told Rogoff. “Clemens and Katz had several confabs with Smythe at his motel.”

Brief silence. Then: “Where the hell did you get that?”

“From the motel owner.”

“He told us Smythe had no visitors.”

“He was lying.”

“The cretin! I’ll have his gizzard!”

“Please, Al, don’t lean on him. Leave him to me. Okay?”