The chuckling fingers (24 page)

The words had slowed, apparently for thought. He stood for at least three minutes looking down at the bed in silence before he dropped the mattress, shrugging.

“I confess I don’t see the answer. I’m afraid, my sweet child, that your dear cousin Jacqueline is going to spend a great deal of time in prison, pondering over her life. Although I quite definitely guess that Jacqueline is not guilty.”

Something—I’d begun turning the knob, but my hand halted as he started toward me. This was bigger than personal fear.

“You said that as if you knew “

He came on, spreading his palms in an unctuous wide gesture, palms down. “Know? Guess is better. Guessing doesn’t seem so difficult—to an intelligent person. Very certain guessing.”

The door was forgotten. So, almost, was the ability to speak. He just waited, watching me, amused, as a cat might watch an anticipation-petrified mouse.

“Then why don’t you do something about it?” To my own surprise, my words when they did come were cool. This was a game he played.

The hands spread again, palm uppermost this time. “No proof.”

“Then how can you know?”

“Psychology—the motive reasoned out—or shall we say intuition?”

“The motive—what is it?”

“My dear girl.” It was deliberately provoking. “You just don’t think. Haven’t you realized, for instance, what a beautiful and wealthy widow Jacqueline would make—for a third husband?”

Hitting at Jean again.

I said harshly, “If that was the plan Jacqueline wouldn’t be pointed out as the murderer. People in jails and asylums don’t marry.”

He shrugged. “Well—if you don’t like that idea, I have others.”

“If you do know you should be forced to tell.”

The smile became more definite, “But that doesn’t suit my purposes—no, really not.”

Exasperation stung like a thousand bees. Before I could stop myself I’d said, “I can imagine one circumstance in which you’d know the murderer and it wouldn’t suit your purpose to tell.”

I was turning the knob again, but he made no threatening move; instead he chuckled cheerfully.

“You repeat yourself, my dear. You suggested a moment ago that you suspected me. I shall be able to take care of that. Have you forgotten my alibi for the night Fred was shot?”

He moved closer, and I quickly opened the door. Downstairs someone was calling my name. Jean.

“Ann! Where are you?”

“Here. Upstairs. With Phillips Heaton.”

“With — What ‘re you up to?” He got upstairs four at a time; his face when it appeared curiously foreshortened, as if it were being squeezed in a vise. The eyes were two slits and the mouth another.

In the door of the bedroom Phillips was making a casual explanation. “We were looking into that little incidental matter of the burning bed. We got, I regret to say, nowhere. At least, I got nowhere.”

“Not that easy,” I said, and I felt vindictive. Alone I’d been afraid of him, but not now.

I said to Jean, “Phillips just told me he knows the murderer.”

“He what?” Jean swung to face Phillips, incredulous.

“Oh yes, the little lady is quite right.” To him, too, Phillips put on the manner of deliberate, mocking provocation.

“Then
who
, for?” Jean was moving forward, crouched, as if he might spring upon the man in the door.

Phillips raised a restraining hand. “Sh-sh-sh! No bad language. What I said to Ann was that I guessed. I have no proof —no more than you do. Without proof where would my guess get you?”

“It’s darn well going to get us somewhere. If we know whom to suspect we can look for proof in the right places.” Jean continued his advance, but he straightened. “See here, Phillips, this business is no joke. It’s the job of every one of us to do what he can.”

“I have done. I alone, I might point out.” He was fencing, a light foil in a supple fist, against Jean, who wielded verbal brickbats.

“You’re going to tell, or—”

To the implied threat Phillips just stood silent, his eyebrows rising, the smile remaining on his mouth. In frustrated anger Jean reached for him, shaking him; Phillips’ cheeks got pinker, and his eyes snapped, but he let himself be shaken, limp, while the choleric blood thickened in Jean’s face.

“You’re not getting anywhere,” I said. I could see that obstinacy only increased on the fat pink mouth. “There’s a better way—Aakonen.”

“Of course.” Jean’s hands dropped on the instant. He stood back, breathing heavily, glaring at the man he’d dropped. “Don’t think you’re getting away with anything.”

Phillips, settling his tie, smoothing his hair, chuckled, looking slyly up from the corners of his eyes. “Come to think of it, a chat with Aakonen would suit me fine—tonight. You tell him I’m waiting for him. I’ll be—yes, I’ll wait for him by the fire downstairs.”

That’s where he was when we left him—sitting with an ostentatiously opened book on his lap, gazing at the fire, his face still occupied by that amused, well-satisfied smile.

* * *

We went to find Aakonen at once, driving to Grand Marais in Jean’s car. On the way I had to tell how little progress I’d made before Phillips interrupted me.

“I didn’t do much better.” Jean, too, tore his mind from our purpose to report on an earlier effort. “My chemist friend in Detroit couldn’t give me an answer offhand. The acid that ate up the handkerchief—that would be easy, he said—sulphuric would do it. The delayed-action one was harder. He said he’d have to experiment.”

“Did you tell him we need to know in a hurry? Did you tell him it might be something that would combine with gasoline or naphtha?”

A grunt from the dark face in darkness over the wheel. “Girl, I told him everything except my aunt Sarah’s maiden name. He wanted to know what Bill’s suit was made of, how it had been packed, had Bill noticed any unusual spots before the holes came, had he worn it in any unusual places, were the holes clean cut, or was the fabric just weakened, and so on and so on.”

“Wasn’t he encouraging? Didn’t he think some acid might work that slowly?”

“He was noncommittal. Said he’d call if he got anything.”

I bounced with exasperation on the seat. “Can’t anything be cleared up? I never saw anything like it! Wherever we turn only failure—blank walls!”

He grinned, but his face didn’t light up. “You’re telling me. And that reminds me—you didn’t see my wallet around anywhere today, did you?”

Something that could have no connection; I relaxed dully. “No.”

“Apparently I’ve lost it. I—”

I quickened a little. “Anything important in it? Any—?”

“Money. Ten or fifteen dollars. Insurance cards. The only thing that annoys me is—” He stopped, his square black brows drawing down. “If you don’t mind, after we’ve seen Aakonen I’d like to drive around to the office.”

“Was your office key in the wallet?”

“No, that’s here on my key ring.” He pointed toward the ignition. “I found my wallet gone when I went to put in that Detroit call. Had to borrow the money from Hanson. Lucky he knows me.”

“Quite well, I imagine.”

“Well, he’s never had to carry me home to bed.” That time when he grinned it wasn’t just his mouth.

* * *

For once we went to the hospital thinking of Bill second. Since Jacqueline was there, Aakonen was sure to be. Miss Fleet’s face splintered into a smile when we told her what we wanted.

“You’ve of course heard Mr Heaton is definitely stronger. Doctor Rush said the change became apparent this afternoon.”

Through the door she opened we had a glimpse of Bill, his face all in one piece again, the flesh adhering to his bones.

Aakonen came out, herding Jacqueline and Myra before him. Jacqueline, too, was changed; she couldn’t have had much sleep since I’d left her the night before but she looked rested and eased, strong in a way I’d never seen before.

“It’s just a matter of his getting well now,” she said.

The big head with the vein across the dome gave a perceptible nod. “Tonight you should get some rest, Mrs Heaton.”

“Not yet,” Jacqueline begged. “I don’t want to go yet.”

When we told Aakonen we wanted to talk to him he sent Miss Fleet back to her desk and Jacqueline and Myra to the cubbyhole. Only Jacqueline and Myra. Octavia must be sitting out in the car, as she’d said she would. I’d noticed the sedan outside but, typically, had seen no one in it. Of course Octavia might have slipped out for a walk.

“What is it?”

The big face seemed to wake as I told him of Phillips Heaton’s statements.

“You say he said in so many words he believed the murderer
not
to be Mrs Heaton?”

“That’s about it.”

“Hm. I will see Phillips at once.” He started purposefully toward the door but he halted himself.

“No, I must wait here until Mrs Heaton and Mrs Sallishaw leave. I can see Phillips Heaton any time tonight. Watching Mr Heaton while someone else is in the room is a duty I will not delegate to anyone.”

His face had fallen with weariness into folds like a Saint Bernard’s, but latent strength lay under the tiredness.

Jean made a quick inquiry. “Do you know yet if the bullet taken from Bill was shot from the same gun that killed Fred?”

I thought Aakonen wasn’t going to reply; he took minutes to consider before he did. Then slowly he nodded.

“The riflings show, beyond doubt, that the two bullets came from the same gun.
Not
Ed Corvo’s gun.”

“Still no sign of that gun—or the chalk or the cape?”

A headshake.

I asked, “What about Bill’s things in his apartment? And he might have safety-deposit boxes. Are you sure he has no enemies?”

“We know he has an enemy,” Aakonen said somberly. “What we do not know is who. His apartment, his office here, his safety-deposit boxes in Duluth—they’ve all been gone over. Fortunately his lawyer had power of attorney.”

“Those policies”—Jean snatched at that—“they still in Fred’s favor?”

A nod. “They revert to the estate if—”

I squirmed against that admission that Bill still might die. “Did his lawyer have no—?”

Aakonen spread his hands almost as Phillips had. “No threats, no lawsuits—”

“And Bill told that lawyer everything. He believed in hiring brains and using ‘em.” Jean left that with what looked like despair. “We aren’t falling behind—it just seems that way.”

* * *

Myra offered to wait with Jacqueline and take her home. I went with Jean when he left for his office. But we didn’t go directly to that office and what was to meet us there—or, rather, we did go directly but stopped on the way. At Hanson’s Jean swung the car to the curb.

“We stop here for station announcements. Apparently you forget about food, but I don’t.”

When we walked in Bradley was at the bar having a drink.

“Hello, you here in town too?” he asked. “You don’t happen to have seen Carol around, I suppose?” He set his emptied glass down.

I sent memory backward. “We saw her late this afternoon— she was at the resort with Mark.”

“She’s out on some sort of expedition. She was supposed to come home for dinner and didn’t. I called Mark, and he said she’d left the resort soon after six. When monkey business didn’t turn up by eight I got out on the highway and flagged a ride in. She must be around town somewhere.”

Anyone missing now brought the quick fear,
Is this another?
Yet Bradley seemed only perturbed.

I asked, “Did you call the Fingers?”

“No one there but Phillips—or so he said. He answered the phone.”

“She’s probably at some girlfriend’s.”

He frowned. “She has damn few around here. I’ve sent her to school in Duluth. What I guess is that she’s had a fight with Mark and then went off somewhere to get him good and worried. Well, guess I’ll look around town a little.” He turned to limp toward the door. “Good night.”

Jean stood watching him closely as he dropped the door behind him.

“Brad’s more worried than he’s letting on.”

I shivered. “I’d be if I were he… . But it’s still early in the evening, and she’s in a car—she must be all right.”

We ate quickly, under that reminder of the peril in which we all stood. Within twenty minutes we were out. We wanted to be back at the Fingers when Aakonen talked to Phillips. Jean’s car drove up the main street and then into a side street marked with an arrow, “Gunflint Trail.” Halfway up that block he stopped the car before what, like the hospital, appeared to be an ordinary white dwelling but which bore a sign above the porch. This sign said, “Heaton—Nobbelin.”

“Town was overbuilt during the lumber boom,” Jean told me. “Lots of offices in old houses.” He led the way up a walk toward the black-windowed building.

When he’d turned his key in the lock and pushed the door open an office smell came out—woody, varnishy, steely, inky— a smell so reminiscent of the insurance office where I worked that for a moment I was recalled to all my ordinary life; it seemed the past few days must be a nightmare; the quick fears that could rise like flame seemed incredible. Then as I stepped into the hall I was entirely back in the nightmare, fear leaping, muscles stiffening, my hands flying to grab Jean.

He was groping along the wall for a light switch.

“What the—?” Then the cords in his wrist, too, were drawing taut. Somewhere overhead there was a small scurry, as of a heavy mouse running, and then, clearly audible, a click.

After that complete silence.

“That’s Bill’s office up there!” It came in a swift whisper. He was half crouched in the dark, silently moving forward. “No!” he whispered at me fiercely. “You stay here! You can’t tell what’ll happen upstairs. Anyone could hear us coming in. They’ll be waiting.”

“We ought to get Aakonen.”

“And let whoever it is get away?”

“I’m coming along.”

For answer his elbow caught me in the stomach, knocking the breath out of me. In the dark I fell back, striking against something hard and wooden—a newel post. For a moment I clung to that post, gasping to get my breath; the second I had it I was following. But he was at the head of the stairs, while I was at the foot.