Читать книгу Beware The Pale Horse: A Wade Paris Mystery - Ben Benson - Страница 5

THEY WENT UP THE BROAD PORTICO, PAST THE STATE trooper on guard there, and rang the bell. They stepped inside. The foyer was dim and cool. Near the door there was a large inlaid wood table with a silver card tray on it. The rug was deep, rich and Oriental. There were chairs with gilt legs and high backs, finished in tapestry. To their left was the wide staircase. The newel post was intricately carved mahogany, the balusters shiny with polish.

At the far end of the hall a door opened. A woman, middle-aged and thin, came down to meet them. She was wearing a gray starched uniform with white collar and cuffs. Her face was worn and tired, her eyes swollen red.

“Elizabeth,” Kay said to her, “you’ve been crying.”

“All these years with Mr. Charles,” the woman said. “I watched him grow up. That boy was more like a son to me.”

“We all watched him grow,” Gus Kay said. “That’s the sad part of it.” He put his hand up and pinched the skin between his eyes. “Well, this is Inspector Paris, Elizabeth. Inspector, Elizabeth Davis. She’s the housekeeper here. We’ve been friends twenty years or more.”

“This policeman is a young one, Gus,” Elizabeth Davis said to him. “They’re all so much younger these days.”

“The Inspector is young, but he’s good,” Kay said. “You’ll see.”

She looked at Paris. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to see my husband Henry too.”

“Yes,” Paris said. “It would save time.”

“I’ll fetch him,” she said. She left the foyer. Paris, moving near to the wall, touched a large black-onyx pedestal with a carved ivory figure on it.

“Antique,” Kay said to him. “You’ll see a lot of them around here.”

“I’d like to look at the library first,” Paris said.

“It’s down this way,” Kay said.

Paris followed him down a carpeted hallway. There was a massive, burled-walnut door. Kay stopped, opened it gingerly.

The library was big. There was a large walnut flat-topped desk, and a high-backed leather chair behind it. Along one side was a large fireplace with a woven-mesh fire screen. Above the black marble mantel there was an oil painting in a gilt frame, the picture of a man with a calm, serene face and a white Vandyke beard.

Along the back of the room there were two large windows and a glass door, affording a view of the ocean. Paris moved across the room and opened the door. He stepped out. There was a tiled terrace with a filigreed iron railing and it ran the length of the house. Paris went by the leather-and-chrome chaise longues and over to the edge of the railing. Looking down he saw the eroded bluff, the rocks piled beneath it. A pair of stone jetties extended out into the water. Between them was a small sandy beach, and on it, directly below the bluff, was a yellow-striped canvas cabana. To his left was the steel-and-concrete stairway that led down to the dock. Tied to the pier, and rising and falling with the ground swell, was a mahogany-trimmed runabout with a canvas-covered outboard.

Paris turned and went inside again. Chief Kay was standing in the middle of the library, his face set and thoughtful.

“What else leads onto the terrace?” Paris asked him.

“The living room and the dining room,” Kay said,

“What about the glass door? Was it locked when you got here?”

“No. It was wide-open. I remember that.”

“Is there a wall safe here?”

“Yes.”

“Anything missing?”

“No. I heard Mrs. Endicott tell Coyne that. It wasn’t tampered with.”

Paris went over to the desk. “Were any of these drawers open?”

“No. But that’s where Mr. Charles kept the Magnum revolver.”

Paris turned around. He walked ten feet across the floor and bent down to the broad, dark stains in the middle of the Oriental rug. “And this is where the bodies were? Ten feet from the desk?”

“Yes,” Kay said. He pointed. “Mr. Charles was laying here. Hallmark’s body was kind of twisted, and facing toward the opposite wall.”

“Face down?”

“Yes.”

“Where was his right hand?”

Kay took off his cap and rubbed the back of his head. “Under his coat.”

“Near his gun?”

“Yes. I guess he did make a try for it.”

“Coyne said Mr. Endicott’s wallet was on the floor. Where was that?”

“Right near the body.”

“The wallet was open,” Paris said. “There was over five hundred dollars in there and it wasn’t touched. Something else was taken.”

“That’s what I figured,” Kay said. “The slip of paper with the car registration on it.”

“Yes,” Paris said. He straightened up. He went over to the walnut door and tried the Yale-type lock. “And this door was locked?”

“No,” Kay said. “It was open when Coats and I got here. Henry Davis was standing in front of it.”

“You mean the handyman? Elizabeth’s husband?”

“Yes.”

Paris looked at the top of the desk, at the gray smudges of fingerprint powder, the handset dial telephone. “No prints anywhere,” he said. “Everything was deliberately wiped clean. That would take time, at least a minute or two. The killer knew his way around. After all, there were people in this house.”

“Yes,” Kay said. “He wasn’t in no hurry.”

“All right,” Paris said. “Let’s go in and talk to the Davises.”

They were waiting for him when he came into the foyer, Mr. Davis, a head shorter than his wife, wearing an open-throated tan shirt, tan trousers and heavy army shoes. His face and hands were sunburnt and his thin gray hair was combed carefully across his head.

Paris acknowledged the introduction, shaking hands with Davis, feeling the strength of his grip. He said, “Now tell me what happened last night, Mr. Davis.”

Davis looked at his wife. His wife said, “Henry isn’t much for talking. It’s better I start it.”

“All right,” Paris said to her. “You tell it.”

“Mr. Charles sent us to bed early,” she said. “Eight-thirty, I think. Is that right, Henry?”

Mr. Davis bobbed his head.

“Eight-thirty,” Mrs. Davis said. “Mr. Charles said he was expecting visitors and he didn’t want anybody around.”

“Did he tell you who they were?”

“Yes. He said a state detective was coming. Also a young man with a statue.”

“You didn’t see any of them arrive?”

“Yes. About ten minutes to nine we heard a car turn into the driveway. I looked out the window of my room. It was an ordinary black sedan. A big husky man came out and went into the house.”

“That was Lieutenant Hallmark,” Paris said. “You didn’t see the young man come?”

“No, sir. I didn’t hear any more cars.”

“All right,” Paris said. “So you went to bed. Then what happened?”

“We didn’t go to bed,” Mrs. Davis said. “We were in our room. Then we heard some shots. Three of them.”

“What time was that?”

“Nine o’clock. I know because we have a chime clock on our mantel and it had just stopped sounding. We weren’t sure they were shots either. Sometimes when the boats go out from the basin, and they come by the Point, and they’re not warmed up properly, they backfire.”

“Why didn’t you think this was backfire?”

“Because the sound was kind of muffled. Like from the inside of the house. On the water they sound louder. That’s why I told Henry to go down and see.”

Paris turned to Mr. Davis. “What did you find?”

Davis, his hands tightly clenched, unclasped them. “The library door was locked, and there was a funny smell like gunpowder. I knocked on the door and I called out for Mr. Charles. But there was no answer. So I went upstairs and told Elizabeth.”

“Yes,” his wife said. “I told him to get the master key and I went back downstairs with him. He unlocked the door.”

“Yes, sir,” Davis said. “They were in there, dead. On the floor. They looked terrible, sir.”

“You didn’t touch anything?”

“No, sir,” Davis said. “We didn’t go into the room. Elizabeth told me to stand at the door and she went into the hallway to phone the Chief.”

“And you did that?” Paris asked her.

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I dialed the operator and told her to get Chief Kay. I said Mr. Charles and another man were dead.”

“You didn’t use the telephone in the library?”

“We didn’t go into the library. I wouldn’t have gone in there for all the money in the world.”

“What did you do after you made the phone call?”

“I ran to get Mrs. Endicott.”

“Where was she?”

“She was taking her evening walk. Just like clockwork she is. She leaves at eight-thirty, circles the grounds once, and comes back at nine-thirty.”

“Every night?”

“Yes, sir. Even if it rains. Mrs. Endicott is a great believer in walks.”

“And where did you find Mrs. Endicott?”

“Just outside the house, sir. She had heard the shots too. She was running toward me. I wouldn’t let her in the library. I took her upstairs to her room. And I stayed with her until nine-thirty, when Mr. Noble came.”

“According to Lieutenant Coyne’s report,” Paris said, “you saw a boat going by the bluff. You didn’t recognize who was in it?”

“No, sir. It was pitch-dark. I saw the boat. It had its outboard going full blast. It wasn’t Mr. Charles’s boat because that was at the dock. This boat was heading in toward the basin. I couldn’t see who was in it.”

“And where was Mr. Endicott’s fiancée this whole time?”

“Miss Wyman was out,” she said. “She had left at eight o’clock.”

“With whom?”

“Mr. Almieda. He’s the artist friend of Mr. Charles. He called for her.”

“Did Mr. Almieda come in a car?”

“Yes. He has a little convertible.”

“And after Mr. Almieda left with Miss Wyman, the next car you heard was the black sedan of Lieutenant Hallmark. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“There were no other cars until Chief Kay arrived?”

“No, sir.”

“All right,” Paris said. “Thank you, Mrs. Davis. Would you know if Mrs. Endicott is available?”

“She’s in the living room with Mr. Hanft,” she said. “I’ll go and see, sir.”

She left. Mr. Davis shifted his feet, looked at them apologetically, and moved out toward the front entrance. Paris and Kay waited. A man opened a door and came into the foyer. He was a tall man. He had curly gray hair, a high forehead with a tan on it, an ascetic face. He was wearing a beige-colored tropical-worsted suit, a white shirt and a dark tie. His wing-toed cordovan shoes were highly polished.

“My name is George Hanft,” the man said, putting his hand out to Paris. “I’m the Endicott attorney. Mrs. Endicott will see you. She’s quite composed now, but there have been a lot of questions. I wouldn’t talk to her too much, Inspector.”

“I won’t,” Paris said. “I’ll be as brief as possible.”

Paris followed the attorney into the living room, with Chief Kay close behind. There was a huge Regency sideboard along one wall. Over it was a large oil painting of Sunset Point, the big white house, and a wind-whipped sea. The room was long and wide, the ceiling, beamed wood. There were round-seated needlework chairs, bigger chairs in rich tapestry. At the back of the room were large square windows. French doors led to the terrace.

A woman sat on a brocaded oval sofa. She had gray, shingled hair that was swept back on one side and secured with a jeweled clip. She was wearing a dark dress without ornamentation. Her face was long, thin and bloodless, and her mouth was small and tightly drawn.

Mr. Hanft said, “Martha, this is Detective-Inspector Paris. You know the Chief, of course.”

Mrs. Endicott nodded slightly. She motioned them to sit down. They remained standing. Kay scuffed his foot on the thick pile of the rug and twisted his cap in his hands. He said, “Mrs. Endicott, the whole town is awful sorry about what happened to Mr. Charles. Eddie Hansen wants to get up a committee to pay their respects.”

“Thank you, Gus,” Mrs. Endicott said evenly. “That’s very thoughtful. I’m grateful to all of you.” She looked up at Paris standing there. “So you’re the inspector. Why, you’re no older than Charles was. How old are you really?”

“Thirty-four, Mrs. Endicott.”

“A year younger than Charles,” she said. “But you carry yourself well. I like that in a man. I wish Charles had taken better care of his body. He had a tendency to thicken around the waist.”

Paris said, “I know you’ve been under a strain, Mrs. Endicott. So I’m not going to take up too much of your time. I thought possibly you could tell me a few things that would help us.”

She looked down at her hands. “I’ve answered a great many questions. Your commissioner was here. He’s a pompous old fool and nothing more than a political charlatan. With him was a very mediocre officer, a Lieutenant Coyne. I know now how big a price we pay for mediocrity. I’ve lost my son on account of it.”

“No, Mrs. Endicott,” Paris said. “Not because of that.”

“Naturally you wouldn’t say so. Policemen are notorious for defending their own, no matter how bad or incompetent. Now you’re going to ask questions. You’re going to start like they did. By asking me if my son had any enemies.”

“Yes,” Paris said.

“Charles had no enemies,” she said wearily. “I can’t ever conceive of Charles having enemies. He was a quiet, soft-spoken boy and he was engrossed in the museum. He’s the youngest trustee the museum ever had.”

“He left a considerable estate,” Paris said. “Who inherits it?”

“Now wait, Martha,” Hanft said quickly. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“Stop it, George,” Mrs. Endicott said. “Don’t be so damned eager to protect my interests. My son has been murdered and I want his killer brought to justice as swiftly as possible. Nothing is sacrosanct when it comes to that. Tell the boy.”

Hanft looked down at the rug for a moment. His eyes came up and scanned Paris. “When Mr. Charles, Senior, died, he left a large trust fund to Mrs. Endicott. The residue of the estate went to his son, Charles, Junior. Now that Mr. Charles was unmarried and without heirs the entire estate will revert to Mrs. Endicott.”

“In other words nobody benefits financially from his death,” Paris said.

“Hardly,” Hanft said. “Mrs. Endicott already has more than enough for the remainder of her life. There will be some large charitable bequests. But they’re secret, of course.”

Paris, preoccupied, nodded. He walked over near the sideboard and stood under the oil painting. He examined the scrawled signature of Walter Almieda underneath.

“This Walter Almieda,” Paris said. “How friendly was your son with him, Mrs. Endicott?”

“They met in college. Walter came from a poor family, but he was very clever. He went to Harvard on scholarships. Are you a Harvard man, Inspector?”

“No, Mrs. Endicott. I went to State.”

“I see,” Mrs. Endicott said. “It really makes no difference. Charles went into the Navy during the war. He served as a flag officer in the Pacific. Walter Almieda stayed home, doing poster work for the Army. What did you do, Inspector? Did you stay home too?”

“No,” Paris said briefly. “I was a captain in the Infantry.”

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Endicott said. “I seem to have misjudged you. Perhaps you’re not like your colleagues after all. I know I must have sounded very bitter. You have my apologies, Inspector.”

“No,” Paris said. “I understand. But I would like to know more about your son and Walter Almieda.”

“Charles was a great deal like his father,” she said, “in his interest in art and research. My son became attached to Walter Almieda. He gave Walter money to further his career. He sent Walter to France. He had Walter’s paintings exhibited and bought many himself. He saw that his friends bought them. You see, Charles worshipped art. Too much. He had no time for anything else. His father loved art, but he loved life too. His father was different. There was romance in him.”

“How did Walter Almieda feel toward your son?”

“What reciprocation Walter showed, I don’t know. Personally, I think Walter is a hard, calculating young opportunist. And I think he would use Charles as much as he could. But I might be saying that with prejudice.”

“I take it you don’t like Mr. Almieda,” Paris said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Then there’s Miss Wyman,” Paris said. “She was engaged to your son.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Endicott said. “I never interfered with Charles’s personal affairs. My son couldn’t judge people. He had no knack at all for earthly things. But I didn’t interfere. He met Karen Wyman when she was secretary to Victor Konstanz, the art dealer. She made a show of being interested in art. And because of that Charles became interested in her. What Karen was really interested in, I have a good idea. But it wasn’t art. I can’t say I was fond of her, Inspector.”

“Where is she now?”

“She was at Almieda’s cottage last night,” Chief Kay said. “I don’t know if she’s come back.”

“She’s still at Walter Almieda’s,” Mrs. Endicott said. “There’s the answer to some of her interests, Inspector.”

“Thank you,” Paris said. He turned to Mr. Hanft. “Counsellor,” he said, “how well do you know the Lincolns?”

“Very well,” Hanft said. “We’ve been neighbors here at the beach for twelve years. I do corporation work for Fred Lincoln.”

“I notice from Lieutenant Coyne’s report that the Lincolns were at your house last night. Who else was there, Counsellor?”

“My wife and Lincoln’s son and daughter-in-law.”

“What time did they get there?”

“About eight-thirty. We sat down to play cards at nine.”

“It’s important I establish the exact time,” Paris said. “I’d like to pin it down if I can.”

“It was exactly nine when we started the card game. That can be verified. Because a minute before then I was talking on the telephone to John Noble. He spoke only briefly to me, but I was impatient and I kept looking at my watch.”

“What was the conversation about?”

“Nothing important. It was about the storage pieces. Noble is the curator of the Endicott Collection.”

“What storage pieces?”

“The Endicotts have a large collection,” Hanft said. “Most of it is on exhibit at the Eastern City Museum. Some of the pieces are on loan to other museums. But there are many objects that have been shown and withdrawn. They’re in storage at the museum. The Endicotts pay a personal property tax on them. As long as they’re not being shown, I suggested that we sell them, or donate them somewhere. I had talked to Mr. Noble about it and he had agreed with me.”

“What about Mr. Endicott? How did he feel about it?”

“He disagreed with us. He said they had belonged to his father and now they were part of the family estate. It was a matter of sentiment. He said he would continue to pay the tax.”

“So that closed the matter?”

“Yes, as far as I was concerned. It was my duty to inform him on tax problems. I informed him. He made the decision.”

“Then why did Mr. Noble call you?”

“He had a duplicate of the inventory. Mr. Noble is very exacting and fussy about his work. His whole life revolves around the museum. He wanted to know if the matter was closed so he could return the inventory list to his files. I said yes.”

“All right,” Paris said. “There’s one thing more. Mr. Endicott wasn’t here all day yesterday. Does anybody know where he went?”

“Yes,” Hanft said. “We all knew he went into Eastern City to try to look up the young man and find out something about him, Mr. Charles had the car registration on a slip of paper in his wallet. Nobody knows what information he did find.”

Paris turned to Mrs. Endicott. “Did he tell you anything, Mrs. Endicott?”

“No,” she said. “He came home about six in the evening and he looked disturbed. He told me he was calling in the State Police. He didn’t tell me more.”

“And you knew about this Chinese statue?” Paris asked her.

“Yes. We all knew. It was no secret. We had everybody in for cocktails Sunday afternoon and Charles told them all about it.”

“And everybody knew he had a gun in his desk drawer?”

Hanft adjusted his shirt collar. “We all knew about the gun,” he said. “That was no secret either. The Point is rather isolated. It was necessary to keep a firearm in the house.”

“But why did he call the State Police?” Paris asked. “Why didn’t he call on Chief Kay? He’s the local peace officer.”

“I can answer that,” Mrs. Endicott said. She looked over at the Chief and smiled wanly. “Gus isn’t a young man, and Charles was always very fond of him. If there was any possible danger he didn’t want Gus to get hurt.”

Kay scuffed the rug. “Now, Mrs. Endicott,” he said. “I sure would have wanted to be here. That was my job.”

“I know,” she said to him. “And that’s just the reason Charles didn’t want you here. He thought too much of you, Gus. He thought of asking young Coats first. But then he decided it would call for a more experienced man. So he called the State Police. They sent over Lieutenant Hallmark. Possibly that was wrong. Lieutenant Hallmark is dead, and I’m sending a check to his widow because I feel a personal responsibility. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the lieutenant was mediocre too. You see, he failed.”

“No,” Paris said. “Lieutenant Hallmark wasn’t mediocre. He was an honest, courageous and experienced policeman. I know because I worked with him many times.”

“You’re very loyal to his memory,” Mrs. Endicott said. “It’s an admirable trait. But you can see how ineffective he was. He wasn’t capable of coping with a young baby-faced hoodlum half his age.”

The room was silent. The air seemed heavy, depressed. “That’s what’s wrong,” Paris said. “Lieutenant Hallmark was shot in the back. That part means a lot to me, Mrs. Endicott. Hallmark would never turn his back on a stranger in a time like that. Nor would he have allowed the boy to get behind the desk. He had been a policeman seventeen years. He would have known better.”

“But he did do it,” she said.

“I don’t know,” Paris said. “We’re theorizing. Possibly the young man wasn’t there. Or if he was there, he wasn’t alone. There might have been somebody else with him. And that somebody else might have been a person your son knew and trusted. And because of that Lieutenant Hallmark was reassured. Then this person could have got behind the desk and Hallmark wouldn’t have thought anything of it.”

“In other words,” Hanft said, “you think it might be an inside job. You’re not saying that merely to protect Hallmark’s name?”

“No,” Paris said, “I’m not. I’m looking at it logically. So far all I have is a supposition and I may be entirely wrong. The important thing is the slip of paper with the car registration. You didn’t see it?”

“I saw the slip,” Hanft said. “Charles showed it. But he didn’t show the numbers.”

“All right,” Paris said. “Mr. Endicott could have gone into the Bureau of Motor Registration Monday and looked up this license number. He could have written down the owner’s name and address on the slip of paper. Last night somebody wanted that slip of paper so badly, he murdered two people because of it.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Hanft said.

“It does,” Paris said. “And then again it’s pure speculation. But this is no time to be looking for a scapegoat. Let’s bring in the murderer first, then look to see where the blame is.”

“And you’ll bring in this murderer?” Mrs. Endicott asked.

“I don’t know,” Paris said. “We’re going to try. I’m very sorry about your son’s death, Mrs. Endicott. I know being sorry doesn’t mean anything. But I am sorry.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Endicott said. “And I’m sorry if I cast any reflection on Lieutenant Hallmark. But there’s one thing more, Inspector. I don’t care to have a guard at my front door.”

“I’ll see he’s removed,” Paris said. “But I’d advise keeping a guard down the road at the entrance posts. Otherwise you’ll be bothered by curiosity seekers.”

Hanft nodded. “That would be wise, Martha. These things usually bring out the morbid.”

“Very well,” Mrs. Endicott said. “It makes little difference. I’m planning to close up and go back to the city.” She turned to the windows and looked out to the sea. Her voice was flat and toneless. “You see, I have nothing here now. Nothing at all.”