Wolf in Man's Clothing (28 page)

“But in the interstice?” said Nugent.

“In the interstice,” said Craig, “he lined up with Germany again. It was mere theory on his part. Merely a hobby. He was very proud of family, you see. And, as I say, had made a kind of study of German history and legend. When Hitler began his rise to power, my father was very taken with the ideas of encouraging the youth movements, bringing back the old German ideas of family life, that kind of thing. It was purely theoretical on my father's part. He had no faint idea of the real brutality and ruthlessness which lay behind all their talk. He wouldn't believe it for a time, even when it was increasingly evident to everybody else in the world. He was like that, you know; once he took a stand he—well, he clung to it. Blindly.”

Nugent said nothing; I thought of my early impression of Conrad Brent and the obstinacy I had suspected resulted from an inner and ashamed weakness. Craig said, “He had changed. Believe me, Nugent. As soon as the war began he knew where his real sympathies lay. The other was merely a notion; nothing that really meant anything to him. He was patriotic and sincere. It was. only that it was hard for my father to retreat publicly from a stand he had taken.”

“Do you mean,” said Nugent, “that these checks were somehow connected with sabotage or anything of the kind?”

“Good God, no,” cried Craig. “He'd never have done that.”

“What then?”

“I tell you I don't know. But that night—the night he died—you remember the clipping.”

“The clipping that was in his desk and that Mrs. Brent went and got for him, during the bridge game? Certainly. It”—Nugent's eyes were bright, dark slits—“it was about, the arrest of some Bund members.”

“Right,” said Craig looking very tired. “Alexia might know where the clipping is now. What happened to it, I mean.”

“Your idea then, briefly, is that before the war began your father may have donated this money to some branch of the Bund, here in the United States.”

“I don't know,” said Craig. “But it would have been like him. He had money; he was curiously idealistic and curiously blind to reality until something happened to—well, give him a jolt. Make him see the truth. I don't know whether that actually happened or not. But I don't know of anybody by the name of Frederic Miller. I can't think of any reason for my father to give anybody such substantial sums of money. It seems to me that it must have been quite outside his business affairs.”

“You must have some definite reason for connecting the checks with the Bund.”

“No,” said Craig. “I don't have. I knew nothing of it. I can't remember hearing him talk of the Bund—in any special way, I mean. Everybody at some time or other has commented pretty strongly and adversely about it. It was only the existence of that clipping and the mystery of these checks that started me thinking and putting them together with my father's previous—and lately altogether changed—views. The dates on the checks, too, would have corresponded with the period during which my father was theoretically favorable to the announced German plan. That was the year before the war; he never believed there would be a war. He swallowed everything the Germans then claimed, false though their claims were. It was when war actually began that abruptly again he came out in his true colors. He was honestly patriotic; the sympathy he thought he had for Germany was a completely unreal and assumed sympathy. When it came to the pinch he realized it himself.”

“But you think that before the war he gave these checks to the Bund and that Frederic Miller was a Bund member.”

“I don't know,” said Craig. “I was only trying to think of some explanation for the checks. There may be a completely different explanation. I may be shooting very wide of the mark. But the clipping had some special interest for him. He wouldn't have kept it otherwise. And somebody said—I think Pete told me—that it was about the arrest of some Bund members.”

“That's all you know?” said Nugent.

“I don't know that,” said Craig. “It's only a guess.”

“It's one I can easily check up,” said Nugent. “I'll get on the telephone right away. And I'll send these checks in for investigation right away, too. And since it's fairly safe to assume that somebody in the household removed these checks from the desk, the next thing to do is to inquire about that. If you're right in your theory, Brent .

“It's not a theory exactly,” interposed Craig. “It's just the only thing I could think of to account for them.”

“So you said. If you are right, then someone in the household knew of it. And blackmail is the answer to that. Could your father have been blackmailed in that way?”

“I'm not sure. Yes, I think he could have been. If most men had made a mistake like that, they'd have no compunction about it later. I mean they would be ashamed of it, and probably wouldn't want it known. Still, they wouldn't permit themselves to be blackmailed on the strength of it; they'd prefer making a clean breast of it, and trying to make amends for their mistake. But not my father. He was very proud. Yes,” said Craig slowly, “I think he might have let himself be blackmailed. Up to a point, that is.”

“A point that stopped short of murder?” asked Nugent.

“Certainly,” said Craig. “But it was my father who was murdered. So that doesn't square with the blackmail theory. I mean, he was of no value to a blackmailer dead. That's the brutal truth of it.”

“M'm,” said Nugent aggravatingly. And just then in the corridor outside I heard heavy, quick footsteps and knew it was another report and, as always that dreadful day when someone came to speak to Nugent, my heart got up into my throat. Craig's did, too, I think, for his head jerked toward the door. But again it was only a trooper to say they were searching the north meadow and there was nothing to report except a rifle.

“Rifle?”

“Yes, sir.” It was an old rifle which had belonged to the handyman; he'd used it now and then for shooting squirrels or rats, but he hadn't used it for over a year, he'd told them, and he'd left it, he was sure, in the old loft over the garage. It had been found in some brush in the meadow, as if it had been tossed there. There were no shells in it; but they believed it had recently been fired.

Nugent gave brief orders about it (they were to go over it for fingerprints; he would talk to the handyman), then he looked at me. “Your hunter,” he said.

And then Nugent sent for Alexia and she, too, came as the others had done and sat there—composed and calm but with a face so pinched about the nostrils, so curiously hard about the mouth and eyes that she looked ill and not at all beautiful. And she said flatly (as flatly as Nicky had made his own denials about the vase) that she knew nothing of the checks. Said it straight out, promptly, and looked as if she were going to die then and there. Which struck me as singular; it was the first time I had seen Alexia look as if any of it really affected her.

Nugent persisted. “Did you ever see these checks before?”

“No.”

“Do you know what they were for?”

“No.”

“Fifteen thousand dollars is a substantial sum of money.”

“Yes. But I knew nothing of Conrad's affairs. Besides, as you see, these were written in 1938. Before my marriage.”

“Mrs. Brent, are you willing to swear that you did not take these checks from your husband's desk and put them in the cupboard of your room?”

“Certainly,” said Alexia quickly.

“When did you last open the cupboard?”

There was a short pause. Then Alexia, her eyes shadowed and secretive, said she didn't know. “Perhaps several days ago. I really can't remember. Except that if the checks had been there when I last looked, I would have seen them.”

“Do you know Frederic Miller?” asked Nugent pointblank.

“No,” said Alexia.

A
ND THEY COULD GET
nothing else out of her. Anybody in the house, she said, could have known of the little cupboard. She gave me a long, bright look when she was told that I had found the checks and there was something in her look that actually started a kind of chill up my back. Anybody could have put the checks there, just as anybody—again she looked at me fixedly and brightly—could have taken them. Conrad's desk was never locked. And when questioned about Conrad's former sympathy for the German cause she said that, of course, everyone knew where his sympathies had lain.

“Had he ever been interested in the various Bund organizations?” asked Nugent.

“I don't know.”

“Do you remember the clipping you said you took from his desk? At the time you said you saw the box of medicine.”

“Yes. Certainly.”

“Did you read it?”

“Yes. I read it aloud. He asked me to.”

“Can you remember what it was about?”

“I told you. It concerned the arrest of some members of the Bund.”

“Their names were given, I suppose.”

She hesitated but only briefly. “No, I believe not. I really don't remember. So much has happened since then. And it was not important.”

“What did you do with it?”

“With the clipping? Why, I—really I don't know. My husband asked me to read it and I did. I believe I gave it to him then. Or perhaps I put it on a table. We were having coffee in the library. I don't remember. Why are you asking me about it?”

“Who was in the room at the time?”

Her slender black eyebrows drew together. “I'm not sure that I remember that, exactly, either. My husband and I, of course. It was immediately after dinner. Mrs. Chivery was there. I suppose my brother and Peter Huber were there, too.”

“Can't you remember definitely?”

She gave a little shrug. “That is as I remember it. I don't believe I'd be able to swear to any one of them except, of course, my husband. But I think the other three were in the room.”

“Mrs. Brent, try to remember this. Was it your impression that anyone in the room had a special interest in hearing the clipping read?”

I could read nothing in her beautiful, delicate face. She said very promptly, “No one but my husband. And I've no idea why he was interested,” and looked at Nugent with a touch of silken and adroit defiance.

It did not, naturally, satisfy Nugent. He waited a moment and then said directly, “What about your brother?”

“My brother?” asked Alexia.

“It's much better, Mrs. Brent, to answer me truthfully and as fully as you can. Much better for everybody, believe me.”

“But really …” Her voice was cool and polite; her eyebrows arched in delicate question. “But really, Lieutenant, my brother had nothing to do with the arrest of any members of any Bund. He has never had any sympathy for Germany. He is not interested in politics.”

“How old is your brother?”

Her voice was still cool, and polite. “My age, of course. Twenty-five.”

“He's registered for the draft?”

“Certainly. I've forgotten his class. He can tell you.”

“You and your brother lived abroad for some time, didn't you?”

“When we were children, yes. I don't understand your question, Lieutenant.”

I was under a slight and I trusted erroneous impression that the Lieutenant didn't know exactly what he was getting at either; he only kept digging in the hope of unearthing something. He said, “What of Peter Huber?”

Craig started to speak, but Alexia replied, “You know everything I know of him, Lieutenant. He's been here about a month. He's waiting for his call to the army.”

“Let me see. According to his story he went to school in Southern California.”

“I believe so,” said Alexia. “Didn't you check his statements? I understood that was part of your job.”

“You are quite right,” said Nugent, unruffled. “I'm afraid I've forgotten his home. I mean the name of the town. What was it, Brent?”

“Pete's home?” said Craig. “I don't know. I know where he went to school. I think he lived somewhere near Monterey. I'm not sure. Does it matter?”

“Do you remember his most recent address?” asked Nugent.

“Well, he had to come from somewhere,” said Craig. “I think he said Hollywood. He was trying to get a job in the movies. I do remember that. I suppose a Hollywood address is the logical surmise in that case. Besides that's where he knew Bill Sheridan.”

“Bill Sheridan!” said Nugent. “Who's he?”

“Fellow Pete knows. And I know. Went to school with Pete; that is, university. He—Bill, I mean—was in my class at prep school. Yes, I'm sure Pete came from Hollywood here.”

“Is that your impression, Mrs. Brent?”

“Really,” said Alexia. “If you've forgotten, I'd suggest your asking him. Peter is nothing to me, you know. I never saw him before Conrad met him at the inn, in the village, and brought him here.”

“That was about a month ago.”

“Yes,” said Alexia. “Lieutenant, why are you asking
me
about Peter? I was under an impression that you had not omitted him in your general inquiry.
I
can't confirm anything about him, if that is what you want.”

Nugent got out a little black notebook and turned a few pages. “Ah,” he said. “Yes, you were both right. It was a Hollywood address he gave us.” I was sure somehow, in spite of his quiet voice that he had remembered all along and thus had only been testing Craig and Alexia—but testing them for what (aside from their knowledge of Peter and of Nicky) I didn't know. He said, “Yes, of course, how could I have forgotten! And Nicky”—he turned another leaf. “Nicholas Senour, brother-in-law to deceased. M-m-m. Apartment on East Fifty-sixth street in New York. Lives mainly at Brent home. Traveled extensively in Europe as a child; last trip made in …” He squinted hard at the writing, although from where I stood it looked perfectly neat and legible and said, “Can't make this out. When was his last trip abroad, Mrs. Brent, and where did he go?”