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Authors: Graham Landrum

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BOOK: The Rotary Club Murder Mystery
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Nevertheless, I had done all that I could do at that point. I had talked to Fred Middleton, who saw the body before the police did. I had talked to the maid who had cleaned up the room, I had actually been in the room, and I had talked with the young woman who had checked Hollonbrook into his room some six or so hours before his death. That was pretty much all that I could do in Borderville. And it had gotten me nowhere.
I drove Lona home and then went home myself.
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Henry Delaporte
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I
t was a Tuesday morning. I had been at the office about an hour when Cindi, who handles our calls, informed me that Mrs. L. Q. C. Lamar Bushrow wished to talk to me.
“At least,” she said, “that is what it sounded like.”
And to be sure, there is only one Harriet Bushrow. “Put her through, Cindi,” I said. “By all means, put her through.”
“Mrs. Bushrow!” I exclaimed as soon as the connection was made. “So pleasant to hear from you! How can I help you?” This is my normal invitation to a caller, since helping people with problems is the way I make my living.
“Oh, Mr. Delaporte,” she replied, “you are so kind to offer. As a matter of fact, I was trying to get your darling wife on the phone this morning; and when I couldn't get her, I called Lizzie Wheeler. Lizzie tells me that Helen didn't play for church yesterday. I hope there is nothing wrong.”
I explained that our daughter, who was married last year, had just presented us with our first grandchild and Helen was in Indiana for a week on the pretext that only she knew how to take care of a baby just home from the hospital.
“How lovely!” Harriet cooed. The old girls with finishingschool
educations know how to put just the right intonation on such expressions. And I admit that it sounded good to this first-time grandpa.
“Now, Mr. Delaporte,” Harriet went on, “I have something I was going to ask of Helen, but since you are in such a good mood about that grandchild—is it a boy?”
“Yes,” I said. “Weight: nine pounds.”
“Oh, good gracious! And named Henry, I hope.”
As a matter of fact, the tyke is Henry Delaporte Walters, though I pity the lad who has to confess such a name to his pals when he arrives at ten or twelve years.
“Oh, that's a lovely name. But I do want to ask you something.” She cleared her throat with a ladylike cough. “I think you and Helen pretty generally go to Wilboro Beach each summer.”
I pleaded guilty, and Harriet went on.
“Have you taken your vacation yet this year?”
I denied the accusation.
“But then, I suppose you will be going to Indiana to see that young man.”
I explained that I had already been to Indiana and had come back by air, leaving Helen there to start her grandmotherly career. Helen was coming home on Friday, which would make it possible for her to play her services at the Episcopal church on Sunday, a duty that punctuates our lives with iron regularity.
There was a pause before Harriet went on. I know now that she had her campaign thoroughly planned and knew exactly what to do. She began in a slightly tentative tone. “Mr. Delaporte,” she said, “I find conversations on the phone so impersonal and unsatisfactory, don't you?”
Now what is the answer to a question of that sort? I find no difficulty whatever in carrying on business by telephone. I mumbled something that sounded like “Well, now I don't know.”
“Oh, I'm sure you must find it as difficult as I do. We could come to such a wonderful agreement if I could just see you for
half a minute. Now I know you are just as busy as you can be, but do you think I could make an appointment with you at your office?”
And of course I could, and of course she came—that afternoon at 1:30.
Harriet is the widow of Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar Bushrow. The first four of those names belonged to a noted senator and U.S. Supreme Court justice from a distinguished Georgia family, and I understand that Mr. Bushrow was some sort of relative, which explains his long list of baptismal names. And the prominence of Justice Lamar explains why Harriet Bushrow insists upon using all the initials.
Harriet is close to ninety years old, though the average person would not suppose so from looking at her. Her energy is amazing, and she has the style that preempts the attention of all beholders.
I would guess that she is five feet seven, and she may weigh in at 175 or 170. But she is not dumpy. On the contrary, she holds her head high, and I imagine she was quite a beauty when she was young. As of now, she is handsome.
I don't know anything about fabrics, but when she came into my office she was garbed in some silky material—white with polka dots as big as quarters. She had on red shoes, carried a red pocketbook, and wore a large white straw hat with a circle of what appeared to be huge red poppies around the crown. I don't know much about styles; but since I have seen Harriet in the same outfit before, I know that the dress has seen several years of wear.
Still, with her favorite cut-crystal beads about her neck and her aristocratic features, she could have called herself a duchess and nobody would have dared deny it.
I bowed her into the client's chair.
“Now tell me what it is,” I said.
“It's about that Mr. Hollonbrook,” Harriet said.
“I see,” I replied somewhat noncommittally.
“Oh, he was murdered, Mr. Delaporte. It wasn't suicide at all.”
“The police think differently,” I observed, “but I have a feeling you will try to convince me to the contrary.” I had developed such admiration for this lady's powers of deduction during her investigation of the DAR Murder Mystery that I strongly suspected she was right. It was merely a matter of how she had reached her conclusion.
“Well,” she said as she opened her eyes quite wide, “it is perfectly obvious.” She pointed out that it was atypical of district governors to commit suicide. I had to admit that past events supported her theory.
Then she brought up the matter of the book
Break In
by Dick Francis. I have read the book, and I had to admit that I would never have committed suicide without having finished it—that is, assuming that I had gotten well into it.
“Now that ‘suicide' note,” she said, “there's nothing to that at all. People who commit suicide either leave no note or else they try to justify themselves or leave instructions. And that note did none of that. Besides, why would the man bring his memo pad to Borderville to write his farewell to the world?”
It was beyond question a paltry note. If I ever commit suicide, I hope I shall be able to contrive a more impressive explanation. Mrs. B. had gained her point.
“And think,” she continued, “what inconvenience it would cause for him to commit suicide here in Borderville. He would have that long drive from home for nothing, and then the body would have to be taken back to North Carolina by the undertaker. And what about his car? Somebody would have to drive his car back down there. Then think of the inconvenience and embarrassment to the Borderville Rotary Club. Nobody with the responsibility of a district governor would put a club through that. There they would be with no speaker, and such a bust-up of everything!”
With this, too, I agreed.
“I believe Fred told me there was a silencer on the gun,” she said. “Well, that's a how-do-you-do! So polite about not disturbing the other guests at the motel when he was putting everybody else to so much trouble. If he wanted to be private about it, why didn't he go off into the woods to blow his brains out?”
It had never occurred to me to blow my brains out, but I could see much in what she said.
“And did you ever see the man?”
I admitted I had not, and Harriet went on. “Well, neither have I, but I saw that picture they ran in the
Banner-Democrat
. And I know that picture was taken fifteen or twenty years ago. But if he still had any of that wavy hair, he wouldn't commit suicide in a way that would be detrimental to his good looks.”
Harriet drew herself up as much as to say, Now you see which is the vain sex.
Then she pointed out that our district governor, before he retired for the night, had made preparations for the next day. “That,” she said, “proves that he did not come here to commit suicide.”
Again I granted her point.
After we had talked about it for some minutes, I said, “Yes, Mrs. Bushrow, all that you have gone over is true, and the whole thing is altogether unexplained. But even though we cannot reconcile the facts, there is still one element that can only be explained by the assumption that Charles Hollonbrook took his own life: The chain was on the door.”
Mrs. B. gave me what was obviously meant to be her best smile. “I knew you would say that,” she admitted. “And I don't know how to explain it. But he was killed in that room with the chain on the door, and so there must be some explanation.” The smile lingered, daring me to find fault with her reasoning.
My wife is a northern girl, educated at Vassar. She does not stoop to womanly wiles; and in a way I am glad that she does not, for I would be forever at a disadvantage if she did. Still, it
is a delight when the fair sex, even at advanced age, sees fit to use the full artillery.
Mrs. Bushrow did not wait for me to think up a rejoinder. Instead, she pressed her advantage: “We shall know how it was done when we know who did it. I am sure of that.”
I believe that was putting the process hind-end-to. Nevertheless, there was a kind of logic there, which was to be proved by later events.
“And you have some idea who did it?” I said.
“Oh, it was someone who had cause,” she replied. She seemed rather pleased with her answer, which, of course, was no more than a truism.
“Yes?” I said.
“Somebody wanted to kill him,” Mrs. Bushrow announced, as though I could never have thought of such a thing.
When I didn't say anything, she went on. “I note once in a while that somebody is killed by a poor, deranged person who didn't even know the victim. But I don't imagine that happens very often. No, it is going to be somebody that knew Mr. Hollonbrook well—someone very close to him. People murder someone because they can't go on living with that person so close to them, perhaps threatening them or their peace of mind every day in the same house or office—or perhaps interfering with something important to that person—maybe fooling around with his wife or something like that. And that means that the man that kills and the man that gets killed are close in some way and the killer has to murder to get out of whatever it is that is compelling him.”
“Then you are thinking of some one person specifically,” I said.
“Why, of course,” she said. “There is one person who is bound to inherit and would have access to the gun. I would hate to think that the poor man's wife did it. But then, that is the first thing that we must think. Mr. Delaporte, there are many reasons why a wife might wish to kill her husband. Perhaps he
is cruel to her; perhaps he runs with other women; perhaps she is silly enough to think she loves another man. Then there are all sorts of little frictions; and if a woman doesn't have enough to occupy her mind, she can magnify these little frets until she is practically beside herself. Not that any of that is likely to be the case with Mrs. Hollonbrook, but we have to consider those things.
“Of course she would know where her husband would be staying and all that. Oh, I think the man's wife would be the first person we could think of.
“And then she is the only suspect that we know about right off. She is the logical point at which to start. And we know where she says she was when her husband was killed.”
“And that was Wilboro Beach,” I said, and grinned.
“You guessed it.” Harriet returned my grin with a wink. “But we don't know that for a fact. The sheriff had such a hard time finding her. Now I just wish I knew exactly where she was staying in Wilboro Beach all that time.”
“Very well,” I said, “I can get the details from the sheriff's office and let you know. I'll be very glad to do it.”
That was the wrong thing to say, because she came back immediately with “And then when you are in Wilboro, you will just check up on the alibi, won't you?”
It was not a request; it was a command. She had been right: A telephone conversation would not have served her purpose.
So there I was with Mrs. Bushrow's commission to verify the whereabouts of Mrs. Charles Hollonbrook on the night of May 26/27.
In fact, Helen and I had not planned to go down to Wilboro at all soon, but Mrs. B. had excited and directed my curiosity into a certain channel. As soon as Helen came home, I cleared my schedule, which fortunately I was able to do, and we went off to Wilboro.
Arriving at the beach, we enjoyed a shore dinner and went to our room that first night, glad that we were too old to think
that we must dance or go to a movie or any of the other things that are obligatory for the young.
The next day bright and early, I looked at the address of Mrs. Hutton's Resort Accommodations, which had been given to me by the Ambrose County Sheriff's Office, and inquired at our motel how I might get there.
BOOK: The Rotary Club Murder Mystery
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