The Transcendental Murder (17 page)

The D.A. made a heroic struggle to sound intelligent. “What happens to the patch? I mean when you fire it?”

“It flies out along with the ball. Here it is.” Lieutenant Morrissey showed them a blackened piece of thin leather, cut roughly round. “This is apparently one of a bunch of them that Ernest Goss had in the drawer along with the black powder. Incidentally, all of the balls that Philip Goss made up the night of the 18th of April are missing.”

“Humph,” said the D.A., leaning his heavy head on his hand.

“What about the other guns in the collection?” said Homer. “Could this ball have been fired from one of them?”

“We looked into that, and of course that's possible. One or two of them had a big enough bore. The pocket pistol did, and the duelling pistol. But they were all clean as a whistle inside, and not one of them had lost its flint. And then what would the fowling piece be missing for?”

“And don't forget,” said the D.A., making a supreme effort, “that the dying man said ‘musket.'” That clinched it, as far as he was concerned.

Lieutenant Morrissey was all finished, so he packed up his gun and left, opening the door wide for someone else to come in.

“Hello, there, Mr. Campbell,” said the D.A. “Come right in and make yourself at home. We're all ready for you. This is Lieutenant Morrissey's colleague from the Department of Public Safety, Mr. Robert Campbell. Anything he doesn't know about fingerprints you could write on your thumbnail. Ha ha, say, Mr. Campbell, how about that? Anything you don't know about fingerprints you could write on your thumbnail. Ha ha.” Say, that was pretty sharp. (The District Attorney felt himself waking up again.)

“All right, Mr. Campbell,” said Homer, “I know you haven't got any nice fat prints on a murder weapon, because we haven't got any murder weapon. Have you got anything else of interest? What about the other guns?”

“You mean in the collection? Well, they were all pretty well smudged from being handed around the night before. Except for a small one, like a pistol, with a flintlock. That one was nice and clean.”

“That would be the other duelling pistol,” said Homer. “We only passed one of them around.”

“I suppose so,” said Mr. Campbell. “I don't know one gun from another. One thing that most people don't realize is that you don't get good prints on a gun anyway. The rounded surfaces don't take a full print. But we got fragmentary prints on one gun or another from everybody who was there that night, including Staples. And we took prints off everything else we could think of, too, of course. The horse's gear didn't show anything. We took prints all around Charley's room, where Charley said he left his fancy-dress outfit after the parade. Turned up prints of Charley, his mother, his father, the maid, his brother Philip. Now, interestingly enough, there were no prints at all on the front of that dresser where the gun collection was kept nor on the front of the musket cupboard. They had been wiped clean, although the servant claims she hadn't done so in some time. (Say, do you think you can trust what that old woman says? She struck me as kind of …) Well, anyway, if someone had wiped them clean in order to erase his own fingerprints, he forgot something. There is a row of thumbprints as neat as you please up and down the
inside
of the musket cupboard door. You know how you hold onto a door that opens out to the left with your left hand while you're reaching in with your right? This door has a knob, but the door is hung in such a way that it swings around and bangs against the wall if you don't catch it, and when you catch it you leave a nice set of four fingerprints on the outside and a thumbprint on the inside.”

“So whose thumbprint have you got?”

Mr. Campbell consulted his notes. “Oh, everybody's, just about. Here's the list. Philip Goss, Charles Goss, Ernest Goss, Edith, Rowena and Elizabeth Goss, Thomas Hand, Mary Morgan, Teddy Staples, Howard Swan, and a few strangers.”

That was the end of Mr. Campbell's information. He sat down. The District Attorney stood up and attempted to gather his wits. He then proceeded to make a very creditable summation, greatly assisted by the notes placed in front of him in large print by Miss O'Toole.

“It is my opinion,” he said, “that the Commonwealth can make no arrest at this time. The case against Mr. Charles Goss is entirely too surrounded by doubt. Speaking personally let me say that I do not wish to add to my record in office a suit for false arrest. Let me point out that Charles Goss is not the only one who lacks a substantial alibi. Also there is the fact that the horseman was seen only from the rear. And it's difficult to see why Charley would commit a murder in such a highly public place dressed in an outfit uniquely associated with himself …” (The District Attorney stumbled over this phrase, and Miss O'Toole made a humble mental note, chastising herself for overreaching the District Attorney's vocabulary.) “May I suggest further investigation of that Teddy fellow, the nutty one that thinks he's Thoreau? He sounds like a good bet to me. And I assume that the search for the missing weapon will continue. And now, gentlemen,” said the District Attorney, looking at his watch, which had stopped two days ago, “you must excuse me. I'm expecting a call from—ah—His Excellency, the Governor.” With remarkable speed and efficiency the D.A. shooed everyone out of his office, while Miss O'Toole swiftly gathered up his disordered papers and took them out to her desk for her own superb recasting and thoroughgoing reorganization.

As the general exit began, the newsmen in the outer office came suddenly alive. The District Attorney showed his thin weary face only long enough to say, “No arrest at this time, fellas, that's all I can say now. Nope, no arrest. Excuse me, my phone is ringing. That must be my call from the Governor.” The D.A. shrank back into his office, slammed the door of his sanctuary and collapsed with a contented sigh on his sway-backed cot.

Homer walked to his car with Mary Morgan. The Middlesex County Superior Court was surrounded by some of the scruffiest streets in Cambridge. On the clapboards of the dingy houses there were peeling election posters. It was too early in the year for the new ones to be in blossom, but before long the D.A. himself would be wooing the public once more—no easy task—his press was very bad. Homer looked back at the gold letters on the courthouse that said “District Attorney,” and commented aloud on the shrewdness of Miss O'Toole. “What a jewel. It's a shame she's such a dog.”

Mary made a face. “On behalf of all homely girls, I resent the word dog. It's not a nice word at all.”

Homer looked at her curiously, and Mary bit her lip and (oh, damn) blushed. “Come to think of it,” he said, “you sure do have an awful lot of mouth. It sort of goes on and on, like the big bad wolf's.”

Mary opened her mouth up wide and gave a contralto roar. Homer clung to a telephone pole to keep from falling in. “Why can't you be sweet and nice like other girls?”

“Because I'm natural-born nasty and mean, that's why.”

Chapter 31

	I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtledove, and am still on their trail … I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.
HENRY THOREAU

Then Teddy Staples disappeared. When the District Attorney was informed of this fact he thanked God that they had not been in a hurry to arrest Charley Goss. Teddy had last been seen by Tom Hand. It had been the last day of April, and raining. Tom was driving along Barrett's Mill Road in his pickup when he came upon Teddy at the foot of Annursnac Hill, leaning against the tattered bonnet of his old Chevrolet, coughing his heart out. “I stopped to see if he was all right,” Tom said to Homer Kelly. “He looked terrible. His face was grey, and he could hardly stop coughing long enough to talk. But he insisted he didn't need any help, and he turned right away from me, and started walking up the dirt road there toward the hill. His knees seemed weak, and he had trouble walking. I got out of my car and started after him. But then he flung around at me, and told me in no uncertain terms to leave him alone. So I did. I went on home. After a while I came back, oh say an hour later. My conscience was hurting me for having left him when he was so obviously sick. But his car was gone by that time.”

A couple of times during the day Tom had tried to call Teddy's house. No answer. When there was still no answer by eleven o'clock at night, Tom, a grim picture in his mind, drove across town and down the long dark lane to Teddy's house. It was pitch-dark, and groping his way up the path to the steps, he collided with Teddy's birdbath. Wincing, he shouted for Teddy, then felt his way up the steps, tried the door, went in and turned on the lights. Teddy wasn't there at all. His bed was rumpled, but Teddy wasn't in it. His trusty stapler lay on the chipped porcelain table in the grubby kitchen, his wooden flute beside it. When Tom poked around in the shed with his flashlight, he discovered only Teddy's canoe and his rowboat. His car was gone.

When Teddy still didn't answer the phone next day, Mary had called up Jimmy Flower and told him about it. Jimmy said, “Holy Horsecollar,” and got on to it right away. He tracked down Teddy's only known relative, a sister living in Braintree. She hadn't heard from Teddy since Christmas, nor did she seem to care to. No, she hadn't the slightest idea where the fool had gone.

“He always was a bit cracked,” she said.

Homer got out of his car with Mary and Jimmy Flower, and together they looked up at the bleak little house Teddy had called home. “Suppose,” said Mary, “that Teddy had something to hide, like the letters.” She stared at the birdbath. “Could he have stuck them in
that?
”

Jimmy and Homer looked at the birdbath. Then their two heads turned slowly as on a swivel and stared at the cyclopean breastworks Teddy had thrown up around his front porch. “Oh—my—God,” said Jimmy Flower.

So Jimmy had his work cut out for him. Not only did he have to set in motion a statewide and at last a nationwide search for a slightly potty birdwatcher and possible murderer named Theodore Staples, but he also had to hire a crew of jackliammer operators to demolish the fruits of all of Teddy's labors with mortar trowel and cobblestones. For a week Teddy's quiet glade was hideous with noise.

But nothing turned up. Jimmy Flower looked at the shambles and smote his brow. “What do you bet Teddy comes driving up tomorrow, innocent as a newborn babe? Who's going to put all them rocks back?”

“You are, dearie,” said Homer.

Chapter 32

	I cannot even whisper my thanks to those human friends I have … And why should I speak to my friends? for how rarely is it that I am I; and are they, then, they? We will meet, then, far away …
HENRY THOREAU

Homer Kelly sat in Jimmy's office in the police station on Walden Street, waiting for Mary. It was Saturday, her day. What was she late for? He twiddled his ballpoint pen, then started chewing the end of it. The phone rang.

“Homer?” said Mary. In the background he could hear the children of the Hand household and a great clatter of dishes. “Gwen had to take Grandmaw into town for some new glasses, so I'm going to stay here with the children. I'm sorry.”

“Oh, hell,” said Homer testily. Damn the girl. She seemed to be public property. Any old body could call on her for any old thing any old time.

“Was there anything special? Could I do anything for you here?”

“Well, I wanted to go over Teddy's journal with you. There are some things in it I thought you might understand that I don't.”

“Why don't you come by for lunch, and bring it with you?”

Be brusque. Step on the flowers. “Hmmm. Will all those kids be there?”