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CHAPTER TWO

In the lounge prior to dinner Dick Black found himself called upon to answer questions. He would not have minded so much had not the necessity of answering kept the brandy and soda he had prepared from reaching his lips.

Patricia was his cross-examiner, marching up and down as she interrogated him. She was dressed in a close-fitting gown of green, a color that matched her eyes. A certain lack of development about the shoulders still testified to her twenty years—but certainly nothing else was undeveloped. Her face was cast in a shrewd, coldly beautiful mold. The green eyes offset the straight nose and firm, full lips. The blonde hair swept back in shimmering waves from her high forehead gave her an odd, robot-like appearance. In fact, as Dick had often observed, if he ever needed anybody in his show to portray the spirit of the future he had only to ask Pat to hold a lamp over her head. But this was a piece of cynical humor that had so far found no inroads to Pat’s forthright soul.

“If you’d put that darned siphon down for a moment and start talking maybe we’d get somewhere!” she exclaimed irritably, flinging herself down at last on the divan. “Come on, give! What is she like? She’s an English headmistress—that’s all I hear. But to me that spells a woman with folded arms and pro bono publico stamped on her petticoats.”

Dick got his drink down at length. “She’s all right, Pat—take it from me. A bit hardboiled, maybe, but I can’t blame her if the girls she teaches have anything in common with you.... Try to imagine dad as a woman, then you have it.”

“Still smells bad to me.” Pat got up and moved to the siphon herself. “What is more I still think it is a piece of confounded nerve her coming here— She came to see Johnson: we know that. Why couldn’t she do it by proxy? Why travel three thousand miles just for that?”

“Search me. Maybe she wanted a holiday.”

“And took good care to foist herself on to us to get it! A perfectly blatant example of muscling in, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Dick sighed. “And if it comes to that what are you beefing about anyway? She isn’t going to upset your arrangements, is she?”

“She’d better not try!” Pat’s lips tightened for a moment as she considered her drink, then she turned as Janet came in.

It was not Janet’s fault that she entered like a mannequin at a dress salon. Years of concert platforms had instilled it into her—the measured tread and well-poised head. She had a regal calm, an intense and unshatterable assurance. Her dark coloring lent a touch of the Juno to her. Raven-headed, black-eyed, the taller of the two girls. When she spoke it was in a voice that was richly mellow.

“What’s the matter, Pat? Don’t you like the advent of Aunt Maria?”

“No, I do not!”

“All right, all right—don’t bite my head off! Suppose you wait and meet her before opening the sea-cocks? After all—”

Dick interrupted: “Take no notice of her, Jan. She’s nuts. Been that way for some time now, but I’m dashed if I can figure out why. Maybe the hot weather. It does bring out a rash.”

“Dick,” Janet said, turning to him, “what is she like?”

“Holy cats, do I have to start in all over again? What do you think I am—an information bureau? She is all—”

“Can it be that I am the cause of this little argument?”

Maria had come quietly into the room. Undoubtedly the girls of Roseway would not have recognized their empress this evening. The bun was still there unfortunately—but the rest of Maria, ex­quisitely gowned and matronly, was divorced completely from the somber college ruler.

Dick jumped to his feet immediately, caught Janet’s arm.

“This is Janet, Aunt. Remember her? She was five when—”

“When we last met,” Maria nodded, and stood gravely as the girl kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then she went on, “So this is the five-year-old who ate all my butter-creams when she came to England? Well! Amazing—! And now you are a public figure—a singer.... You make me feel quite old, my dear.”

Janet smiled. “I’m afraid the old man with the scythe has no sense of humor, aunt. One just grows up, and there it is. But look, you have never met Pat, in the flesh that is. Her photographs don’t do her justice, you know— Come on, Pat!” she insisted. “Don’t stand sulking over there.”

Patricia shrugged and came forward rather sullenly. She re­turned Maria’s calm, blue-eyed gaze with one of equal power, and infused into it a definite challenge. Finally she held out a milky hand indifferently.

Maria ignored it and said calmly, “You may kiss me, Patricia.”

Pat hesitated, lowered her hand, then administered a peck. She stood back as though uncertain, color mounting slowly in her smooth cheeks.

“Aunt, why do you stare at me like this?” she asked abruptly. “Am I so—extraordinary?”

“I was just thinking how very beautiful you are, child. The photographs I have seen of you in crude monochrome haven’t done you justice in the leapt. I am also thinking I can see a lot of your poor father in you.”

“Isn’t that a trifle pointless?”

“I don’t think so. It is not uncommon for a daughter to inherit some of her parents’ characteristics— Yes, yes, indeed,” Maria mused. “I see it in all three of you. Like a cross-section of your father with part of your mother. In you, Dick, I behold your father’s reckless ambition without its hard side. In you, Janet, I see the calm repose your father cultivated in his later years. I too have that characteristic— And in you, Patricia, I see something different. Even a part of me, as I might have been had I ever been as beautiful as you.”

Patricia’s long lashes masked her insolent green eyes for a moment.

“After all,” she said, “we didn’t expect to be psycho-analyzed, Aunt. All you are seeing are two sisters and one brother. So what?”

Dick glanced at her irritably. “What in heck are you trying to do, Pat? Start a war? Come down off your pedestal! Now that you have met Aunt you can see she isn’t what you said—about pro bono publico and—and things.”

Janet said: “I have a day or two free, Aunt, before I resume my work. Perhaps you’d like me to show you around? Plenty to see, you know.”

“Yeah, Grant’s Tomb,” Patricia agreed bitterly. “Or maybe that would be too thrilling. There’s Empire State, Battery Park—”

“Ah, so here we all are!” Alice Black came in with her usual Lancers movement, gowned in black as became her widowhood. It was a point that arrested Maria’s attention for a moment. Now she came to notice it only Patricia had disdained mourning by wearing bright emerald green.

“So sorry I have been rather long, Maria dear,” Alice went on, patting her hair. “I had one or two things to do and the time just rushed away. I think time goes terribly fast when you don’t watch it, don’t you? But—but look, you must meet Janet and—.”

“We’ve been through all that, mother,” Patricia butted in. “Right now our main concern—mine anyway—is dinner. When do we start? I’m hungry....” Then her lovely young face suddenly lighted as Walters appeared with his grave pronouncement.

“Dinner is served.”

Dick asked eagerly, “May I?”—and before Maria could even guess his intention he had drawn her arm through his own. With a grave smile he added, “I hope you don’t mind? Fact of the matter is I’ve long wanted to feel what it is like to meet a Headmistress on equal terms. I sort of get a kick out of taking one in to dinner.”

Maria’s eyes moved to Pat’s elegant form preceding them. “I’m glad you don’t think I’m an old dragon, Richard.”

“Pat getting in your hair? Don’t let her. She talks like a chump at times.... Look, after dinner maybe we can get down to cases a little. I still think dad was murdered, you know. You have met the family now, seen the boss of the domestics in the form of Walters; so what next do you want to do?”

“If possible I would like to see the room where your father died.”

“Okay. You shall!”

* * * *

During dinner Maria skillfully steered the conversation away from the commonplace of her profession to the subject closest her heart. Long the expert technician in rooting out details without giving offence she began to feel almost as though she were back at Roseway with a bunch of guilty pupils on the carpet.

“I suppose,” she said, during a lull in the conversation, “that it is not very easy for us to sit here in a family group and try to forget what is uppermost in all our minds? I know I cannot.”

“You mean—poor Ralph?” Alice sighed.

“Do we have to go through it all again?” Pat groaned. “How is one to ever forget the rotten business if it’s constantly raked up and paraded?”

Maria’s cold blue eyes wandered to her. There was a venom in this girl she could not quite understand. Nor did it seem to come by her too easily. She was too intelligent, too gifted by nature, to be a natural spitfire.

“I think,” Maria said, “that you have overlooked my absence, Patricia. I have come three thousand miles for first-hand details, not only to see attorney Johnson. I want to know just why your father did such a dreadful thing. What really did happen?”

“I’m afraid most of us got the news second-hand,” Janet said quietly. “I was not here on that evening. I was giving a singing recital at the theater and Dad had promised to listen in to my con­cert—as indeed he always did on the first and last days of my recitals. He said he could tell by doing this how my voice had improved, or deteriorated, in the interval....” She gave a little shrug. “When I got home around midnight the thing had happened. Mother gave me the full details.... It was a terrible, dreadful shock!”

Alice took the story up. “Walters was the first to discover things were wrong. Ralph used to ring for his wine in an evening, you see. Sometimes early, sometimes late. He used to lock his door when listening to Janet.... Well, he rang for his wine all right, but when Walters arrived the library door was still locked. Walters got alarmed at length, asked me what should be done. In the end we broke in by the French window....”

Alice paused, bit her lip at her recollections.

“There was Ralph in his armchair, a bullet wound in his temple. It was horrible! Horrible! The radio was going full blast too. I remember Walters switched it off, then he sent for the police. As you are aware, however, the final verdict was suicide. It could hardly have been anything else. It seemed queer he should ring for his wine and then shoot himself; that was why we had a police enquiry just—just in case somebody— But it was suicide. Ghastly, I know—but it had to be faced.”

Maria glanced at Patricia and then Dick.

“What of you two? Did you lend any sort of assistance?”

“I was out with my town show,” Dick shrugged. “I didn’t get home until long after Janet.”

“I was out too,” Patricia said, with a defiant little smile. “I spent the evening with friends....”

“So,” Maria murmured, “everybody was out except you, Alice, and the servants?”

She nodded, then looked rather surprised. “But does it make any point, Maria dear? Or are you— Good Lord, I do believe you are trying to read something else into the horrible business!”

“No.” Maria shook her dark head briefly. “No—not yet. But when we are finished I would like to see his library. I’m not a morbid woman but I am a stickler for details and I want to know exactly how and where he met his end.”

“Sounds like going over old ground to me,” Patricia sighed. “Anyway, you won’t need me, will you?”

“I would rather have liked all of you to co-operate,” Maria said. “I’ve still one or two things to get absolutely clear in my mind.”

“But why?” Genuine fury blazed in Patricia’s green eyes. “Just why do you have to come here and rake up this tragedy again? Why do we have to suffer it all over again just because you want a—a reconstruction? The police went over all the ground and the thing’s finished with. You know just as much as we do!”

“Just what’s the matter with you tonight, Pat?” Dick snapped. “What are you going off half-cocked about? After all, Aunt’s entitled to some explanations. As she says, she wasn’t here when the thing happened.”

Janet said: “I think you can rest assured we’re all willing to do what we can to give you a true picture, Aunt. Of course, I don’t much care myself to have old unhappy memories revived, but I also know what is common sense.... That’s for you, Pat,” she added dryly.

“All right—all right!” Pat subsided again and threw down her serviette impatiently. “But I still resent the insinuation that we’re all a bunch of criminals or something! Yes, that is what it amounts to!” she cried, glaring at the faces directed towards her. “Here are we, a perfectly respectable family with our private tragedy—then along comes Aunt Maria from England to question us all and rake up old dirt.... Good Heavens, Aunt, one would almost think dad was murdered!”

“What makes you think he wasn’t?” Dick asked quietly—then seeing Maria’s look of surprise he went on, “You might as well all know now as later on. I asked Aunt not to spring it on you—not to tell you that I sent for her as well as attorney Johnson. I told her that I did not like the circumstances of dad’s death. It looked like suicide: the police were satisfied it was suicide.... But I’m not!”

“Are you trying to suggest...?” Pat’s eyes went wide. “You mean to say somebody killed father?”

“Yes!”

In the long silence that followed Janet was the first to comment. Despite Dick’s announcement her voice was as composed as ever.

“Don’t you think you’re making rather a dangerous statement, Dick?”

“Why am I? We’re all innocent—we know that. It was an outside job, if anything. Mind you, it’s only a suspicion—but a suspicion I can’t get rid of just the same. As we all know, dad had lots of enemies. So I told Aunt Maria I suspected murder.”

“And what for?” Patricia snapped. “Aunt is a headmistress, not a detective.”

“She happens to be father’s sister and therefore entitled to our views.”

Alice Black made a rather bewildered movement. “Really, I’m quite confused! This is all so—so extraordinary! I never even thought of such a horrible possibility.... I begin to think you’ve been reading too many of those plays of yours, Dick.”

He shrugged, but his face was grim. The silence fell back and one looked at the other. Maria finished her meal with calm detach­ment, then as there was a general rising to feet Dick spoke again.

“Come along to the library, Aunt, and see things for yourself.”

Maria accompanied him through the lounge and across the hall. The two girls and Alice followed. Finally all of them had collected in the library in the somber twilight.

The place was well but plainly furnished. There was a massive writing desk, a heavy hide armchair drawn to face the old-style fireplace, a radiogram in the corner alcove near the window, a richly thick carpet, and hundreds of books lining the walls. The lighter furniture was in the ultra-modern steel tubing fashion.... Maria took in most of this at a glance then directed her attention back to the fireplace.

At either side of it, on the out-jutting wall produced by the chim­ney breast, fixed at right angles to the fireplace itself, were ancient crossed swords and pistols, shields, armory trifles, and other examples of antique art.

Patricia glanced round wearily.

“Well, Aunt, I guess there isn’t much in the place, is there?”

“It’s not the room, Patricia, it’s the memories,” Maria said quietly, gazing round her. “Yes, standing here I can almost feel Ralph’s presence. I can imagine how he must have loved this room.”

“I feel that too,” Alice said soberly. “I often come in here and sit—and sit. It refreshes me. I seem to feel again Ralph’s blustering assurances, his overwhelming strength of purpose, his ruthless ambition—for which he paid with his life! Well, Fate always has the sledgehammer....”

Patricia parted with something close to a sniff.

“Confoundedly depressing, I call it! I could never understand what dad wanted with a dump like this room. It’s—it’s medieval!”

Maria’s steady eyes fixed on her.

“Patricia, I have the oddest feeling about you. You seem to have no happy memories of your father. Why is that?”

“Would you have any happy memories of a parent who balked your dearest wish? I had no affection for father—none whatever. He insisted on treating me as an irresponsible crackpot, as a money-blown heiress with no sense of duty. I didn’t like it, and I’d be a hypocrite if I said I were sorry he died.”

“Pat!” Her mother was aghast.

“It’s true!” Pat insisted defiantly. “And you know it—all of you!” She stopped, gave a slow, bitter smile. “If you don’t mind this is too slow for me. Besides, I’m tired.... I think I’ll go up to my room.”

She went out and slammed the door. Maria looked at it thought­fully.

Janet broke in with an apology. “I don’t quite know what to say about Pat, Aunt. She’s been unaccountably nasty ever since dad died, as a matter of fact. Says she sleeps badly. Anyway, she’s always going off to bed early in the evening like this.”

“But the doctor can’t find anything wrong with her,” Dick grunted. “Maybe she’s temperamental—classy term for dyspeptic.”

“At least she is honest about herself,” Maria reflected. “I think we should count that in her favor.... But where were we?” she went on, brisking to action. “Oh, yes, I remember. Tell me, Alice, can you remember in what position Ralph was found?”

“Yes, yes, of course; I’ll show you.”

Alice Black moved to the leather armchair and slumped into it so that her head just angled over the top of the big square back. She lolled her head sideways and tapped her right temple significantly.

“The wound had slight powder marks about it,” Dick explained. “That indicated fire from pretty close range, of course. The re­volver was on the floor, about two inches from where mother’s left hand is dangling now. The only fingerprints on it were dad’s own. His own gun, of course, and a pretty hefty one—a thirty-eight auto­matic. He used to keep it in the desk drawer, mainly for his own protection. It’s in the drawer again right now if you’re interested. Fully licensed and all that, of course. One bullet had been fired from the gun, the one in his head....”

Janet said: “He had apparently been listening to the radio because Mother told me it was blaring away when Walters broke in here. I suppose dad had been listening to me singing.... I guess I’ll never know now what he thought of my voice on the last night of the tour.”

Maria went over to the radiogram and studied it. Presently she turned and asked a question.

“Then the shot was not heard?”

“I was upstairs in my room,” Alice responded, straightening up in the armchair. “I was there all evening as a matter of fact, reading. Now what was it about— Oh, but I don’t suppose it matters, does it? In any case I could not have heard the shot from my room. You know how big this house is. The only one who might have heard it is Walters—but he didn’t. So he said.”

“Hmm....” Maria began to prowl, regarded the French win­dow with its newly-fitted glass, then walked to the door of the room and studied the lock. It bore no signs of tampering. At length she stood erect again and fondled her watch-chain.

“The windows and doors were locked. Nobody was at home except you and the servants, Alice. And yet.... Tell me, Richard, what made you think it was murder?”

“I’ll show you. Look here!”

He crossed to the desk, unlocked one of the drawers and hauled a batch of papers to light. Quickly he sorted out about half a dozen and handed them over. Maria took them, sat down and read care­fully.

The first one was a highly complicated business letter referring to the negotiation of loans and private securities. The amounts involved rather startled Maria; then her face became grim as she read the companion letter to it. It was brief but threatening, de­manding the honoring of the debts immediately.

“I admit a certain suggestion of threats here, Richard,” she said at length. “But hardly enough grounds for murder.”

Dick pointed to the memorandum. “See that name? V. L. Onzi? That man is a financial expert—or at least that’s what he calls himself. Actually he’s a loan shark of the lower breed, and when he doesn’t get what he wants he resorts to strong-arm tactics.”

“But what on earth was your father doing mixed up with such a man?”

“He could hardly help it, Aunt,” Janet said. “You see, dad started out with canned broccoli, as you know. From that, the business flourished. All sorts of canned things were added. A flock of chain stores developed.... Well, with such numberless organizations up and down the country dad could not possibly give each one his individual attention. That was why some of his branch managers fell into the wrong hands—and one of them into the grip of Onzi in particular. I don’t know the exact circumstances, but it looks as though this manager needed a loan to carry over immediate liabilities. He got it. But Onzi, when the time came for payment, did not apply to the manager but to dad, the fountain-head.... Isn’t that what you mean, Dick?”

He nodded. “Right on the button, Jan. I believe that Onzi singled out dad as a possible victim to serve his own mysterious ends.... Oh, I know it sounds vague,” he admitted, seeing Maria’s unconvinced look, “but it can at least establish a motive for murder.... Besides, there may be others too! Look at the rest of these papers and you’ll find dad and his managers were mixed up with all kinds of unsavory folk. His vast business made that unavoidable. Briefly, these documents show that at least six or seven people had a good reason for wanting him out of the way. He was a pretty ruthless sort of man, as you may know. He allowed nothing and nobody to balk him. His death must have relieved quite a few people.”

Maria glanced through the documents, finally tossed them down.

“If all this is true why didn’t the police follow the obvious trail to a proper conclusion?”

“They said the idea was illogical,” Dick grunted. “They in­terpreted the documents as clear proof that dad was beset by numberless difficulties and chose suicide as the only way out. Besides, the locked room, the total absence of any clues to suggest murder, made suicide the only solution. Only dad’s fingerprints were on the gun. There were no signs of anybody having been near the house— But Aunt, I still think one of these many people mentioned here, and Onzi in particular, might have had a motive. Don’t ask me how it was done. I’m no detective.”

Maria got to her feet, stroked her chin slowly. “Frankly, Richard, I can’t help feeling you have based your conception of murder upon a very flimsy pretext. All these notes and letters are threatening; but one cannot base a murder motive on nebulous threats.”

“Why not?”

“I am assured of it from my private study of criminology.... Of course, there is a certain interest attaching to this Onzi person— Would it be possible to meet him?”

“Lord, no! At least not in safety.”

“I am not concerned for safety; only for facts. Where can I find him?”

Dick reflected. “Hanged if I know, really. The Onzi Financial Building is on Fifty-Sixth, but whether you’d find Onzi himself there or just an assistant I don’t know. So far as I remember dad was about the only person who ever saw Onzi personally—excepting for a few business big shots of course.”

“Is this Financial Trust illegal?”

“Not as you’d notice,” Dick answered dryly. “That’s where the trouble comes in. There are dubious quantities in every great city. How long they operate without making a slip-up depends on the cleverness of their legal advisers. So far Onzi has gotten away with it.”

“I see. Fifty-Sixth, you said? I shall probably visit the place before long.’’

“Which means you do believe Onzi may have had something to do with dad’s death?” Janet asked quickly.

“I did not say that, Janet. Accusation is a dangerous thing. One must first make contacts: that is the first law of investigation, I believe,” Maria added, looking round gravely.

Dick gathered up the documents silently and returned them to the desk. Janet glanced at her puzzled mother. Then Maria turned to them again.

“Who is in charge of Ralph’s business now, Alice?”

“Flock of directors,” Dick said. “But they’re all reputable. Dad was only the nominal head.”

“They would not, for instance, gain anything by your father’s death?”

“No; you can rule that out. On the contrary I think it’s put them in rather a spot. It means a whole mass of complication sorting things out. That will be done gradually in conjunction with attorney Johnson. You’ll be seeing him tomorrow anyway: perhaps he can tell you one or two things.”

Maria nodded, changed the subject by asking a question.

“Were you fond of your father, Richard?”

“Huh?” He looked surprised for a moment, then gave a shrug. “Why sure, I liked the old man. Can’t say I loved him, though. He was too much like a granite statue for that.”

“A man of tremendous ambitions—dogged resolve,” Alice sighed. “Maybe he had changed a lot from the man you used to know, Maria.”

“Maybe, though I was always impressed by his desire to master every problem.... Richard, you told me you didn’t go into the business because you preferred the theatrical world. Was there ever a chance for you to go into the business?”

“Oh, yes, but— Well, I guess the idea of sitting in an oak chair and directing the destinies of chain stores didn’t appeal to me. I wanted the bright lights, same as Jan and Pat. We all burst into stage work—Jan as a singer and Pat as a solo dancer. Incidentally, Pat’s between engagements at the minute in case you’re wondering why she’s at home. Summing it up, Aunt, I don’t think dad quite approved of my revue work. He had the oddest notions on con­vention. Certainly he would never advance me a red cent to finance anything new. I had all my own spadework to do....” Just for a moment Dick’s face set in grim lines; then again he was smiling. “There it is, right off the record.”

“Could it be that your father’s odd notions on convention have anything to do with Pat’s complete disregard for his memory?”

“Pat,” Janet said calmly, “is a little fool. She wanted to marry a man who later turned out to be a thief, and because dad knew it was all wrong and forbade the marriage she never forgave him for it. That’s all that’s wrong with her.”

Maria mused over that. Then: “Tell me, Janet, what was to prevent your father visiting your first and last nights personally at the theater instead of listening in over the radio?”

“Work!” Janet grimaced. “He never went to a theater if he could help it. He would listen to my singing over the radio, and when it came to the turn of the other singers he would get along with his work until it came to my turn again. We sing in relays, you see. I am the soloist, with three songs at the commencement and usually three at the end. Father was the kind of man who just couldn’t sit patiently through anything which did not directly concern him. So he combined pleasure with business so to speak, and thereby never lost a moment.”

“How could you tell all this if he always locked himself in?”

“Oh, merely from the information he had given me at different times. He was a man of punctilious habits, and never varied from them. For instance, you notice that all the chairs in this room are of what one would call the uncomfortable type: he used them strictly for business. On the other hand, for pleasure, he had this huge armchair fixed just so—in fact immovably, for you can see the castors are in wooden blocks. His idea, I gathered, was so that the chair could directly face the radio. Anyway, I know this was the one chair he always used when listening to me. It comprised one of his main relaxations....”

“The chair, then, cannot be moved?” Maria questioned.

“It can—but it rarely was. I think the staff were afraid to move it without dad’s permission for fear of him flying into a rage. It’s easily the heaviest and biggest armchair I’ve ever seen—like a baby bed almost....”

“Hmmm...,” Maria said, and surveyed it—but not as closely as she intended doing later on.

“I suppose,” Janet went on reflectively, “that dad and I got along together perhaps better than either Pat or Dick. However, I always had the impression that he was not half so interested in me as a daughter as he was in my ability to sing. Singing to the public, from his point of view, represented power, money, fame—the things he loved so much. Maybe it is a silly impression I have got, but there it is.”

“In other words,” Maria summed up, “he was so busy a man that he had become estranged from his own children. Pat openly resented it: you, Richard, took it more or less as a matter of course but disliked it just the same. But in none of you was there any real love of child for parent.”

“It sounds awful,” Janet said, after a long pause, “but I’m afraid you’re right.”

“Does—does all this mean anything?” Alice put in vaguely. “Really, Maria dear, it seems there is an awful lot of talking going on which is leading nowhere. I think that thinking to no purpose is a dreadful waste of time, don’t you? Or—or haven’t I got the idea right?”

“After all, Alice, I did warn you that I like to know about every­body and everything,” Maria said. “Call me a busybody if you like.... But I’m satisfied now.”

“You mean you think dad was probably murdered?” Dick de­manded.

“I can perhaps tell you better when I have seen Mr. Johnson tomorrow. Then there is this Onzi person....”

“Well,” Janet said, smiling, “now the third degree is ended maybe we can go back to the lounge. This room is hardly the place for congenial conversation. And by the way, Dick, time’s getting on.”

“Eh?” He glanced sharply at his watch. “Holy cats, you’re right! I’m going to be late for my show. See you later, every­body.... Good hunting, Aunt!”

* * * *

It was eleven-thirty when Maria retired to her room—but she did not prepare for bed immediately. She sat thinking for a long time, brows down, fingering her watch-chain. She heard Alice and Janet, and afterwards the domestics, pass in procession along the corridor to their rooms. Since Patricia had not put in an appearance all evening it seemed that she had made good her threat to be rid of her tiredness by going to bed. This was a point that somehow intrigued Maria. Bringing out her black book she began to write—

“Why should a perfectly healthy girl like Patricia suffer from an extraordinary tiredness? Certainly not because of her work for I am assured she is at the moment between engagements. From a preliminary study of her I have the impression she is hiding something and resents my presence for fear I may find out what it is. Altogether, what I have seen—i.e., documents and so forth, leads me to believe the murder motive as rather unconvincing; unless this has been done deliberately to deflect suspicion from a real culprit.... Viewing the family objectively and not as relations, I note that each one, save perhaps Alice, admits having but little regard for Ralph. Another thing: all save Alice were absent from the house on the night. Was that done to provide an alibi? I have intimated that I do not believe Ralph was murdered, but privately I think he was—though exactly how will provide a neat problem. For instance, why was Dick so anxious to assert it was murder...? Tomorrow I meet Johnson, the family lawyer. I shall also hope to contact one V. L. Onzi, a shady financier, I understand.”

Maria read the notes through, nodded to herself, then locked the book away again. Again she meditated, this time upon the library, recalling numerous little things it had been impossible to examine thoroughly in the twilight and with the eyes of the family upon her. Finally she came to a decision.

Quietly she left her room, walked silently down the heavily car­peted staircase and descended into the hall. All was quiet and abysmally dark, but she could determine her position from the friendly pedantic ticking of the massive clock outside the library door. She went across the hall, opened the library door and stole softly inside.

“Who’s that?”

The sharp voice rather startled Maria for a moment, then she recognized it as Alice’s even as the lights came up. Alice was standing beside the big armchair, dressed in a kimono-like gown and lace cap. A variety of expressions went over her features.

“Oh, it’s you, Maria. Whatever are you doing here? Dressed too!”

Maria came forward. “I can assure you, Alice, that I have a perfectly good reason for being here.... It simply occurred to me that I might be able to learn a little from a quiet look round.”

“Of course.... Yes, of course. I—” Alice stopped, seemed to be trying to get possession of herself. “You’re wondering what I’m doing here, I suppose?” she asked abruptly. “You must be! You’re wondering what on earth I could be doing in the dark.”

“You are at perfect liberty to do whatever you wish in your own home, Alice. Certainly I did think I heard you go up to your room....” Maria stopped, studying Alice’s attire. “But you must have done! I never heard you leave again.”

“No, these boudoir shoes don’t make a sound.... As a matter of fact I came down to sit and think. Remember how I told you I do that sometimes? Often, especially at night.... Associations seem to be so near at night. One can nearly feel the other world always so close to us. But you’re thinking I’m very foolish? Such a strong-minded woman as you can have no time for such silly in­dulgences, perhaps?”

“My dear Alice, you sound as though you owe me an explanation for every little foible. I think your sentiment is a very laudable one.... You were very fond of Ralph, weren’t you?”

Alice nodded absently. “Something went out of my life when he died. I have nothing but the memories.... But that means nothing to you, Maria, and I expect you want to be left alone so you can look around. Just do whatever you wish. The house is yours....” She turned to the door, glanced back. “I’ll say good night, then.”

“Good night, Alice.”

The door closed and Maria glanced about her, mystified. The explanation had sounded logical enough, but she had made up her mind to accept nothing as logical until she had proven it to the hilt. Not that she could prove anything at the moment, so instead she set about the task for which she had come and began to prowl. It was second nature to her. Her Headmistress’s eye did not miss a thing.

She made a meticulous study of the walls, examined the book­shelves, went again through the documents in the desk drawer, and looked once more at the No. .38 automatic. Nothing there to add to what she already knew.

She tried raising the armchair, but its weight defeated her. Then she studied the wooden blocks. Besides serving the purpose of preventing the castors cutting into the costly carpet they definitely made that chair a stationary piece of furniture for all practical pur­poses. From which Maria inferred that her brother could hardly have sat anywhere else had he wished to relax and enjoy the radio.

Then she glanced inside the radiogram and puzzled for a moment. The needle had stopped in the middle of a record. The record itself was some unpronounceable Italian aria sung by Janet herself.

Maria frowned. Needle in the middle of the record? The radiogram was obviously a self-player, one of those instruments that handle a dozen records at one operation. Maria turned from it at last, still puzzled, and directed her attention to the polished wood surrounding the edge of the carpet.

After a long search on hands and knees she came unexpectedly upon something. It had lodged in a crack between skirting board top and wall paneling. For a long time she fished carefully and finally pulled forth a short, powerful spring. It was about an eighth of an inch thick and two inches long. At each end a loop formed out of the spring itself, one loop larger than the other.

Maria stood up, turned her find over and over in her fingers, pulled it gently open and shut and noted that dust had gathered on its greasy coils. Obviously it had been there some little time. The more she looked at it the more she searched round in her mind for something to fit it—and finally accepted the suggestion that a type­writer was the most likely article. Springs are not common things in a house unless connected with some kind of machine—and the most likely machine in this case was certainly a typewriter.

It started her off on another search but she found no signs of a machine anywhere. Finally she sat down in the armchair and pon­dered the spring again. Perhaps it meant nothing: but equally it might mean something. So finally she put it away in her watch-chain locket; then she eased herself into the position in the armchair in which her brother had presumably met his death—according to Alice’s reenactment anyway.

Maria found herself looking at the radiogram in the corner alcove. That seemed natural enough. Then she altered her position a little and found she was gazing right into the barrel of one of the two crossed guns high up on the right-angled wall of the chimney breast. She frowned, a thought twisting quickly through her head.

She got to her feet, pulled up a small chair and stood on it. Even now she could not reach the crossed guns, but she stood surveying them from this closer viewpoint. They were very old and clumsy looking, but no doubt valuable as antiques. They graced the wall in an “X” fashion, with their barrels pointing downward at forty-five degrees. Their support seemed to be comprised of five nails, some­what rusted now with long standing. The nails supported the guns in five-spot dice fashion, the center nail passing through the trigger-guard on both guns, and the remaining four supporting barrels and butts respectively. Nothing peculiar about this, and probably it was pure coincidence that one of the guns pointed right at the arm­chair.

Maria smiled regretfully. “Keep a grip on yourself, Maria. Always remember Calvin Brown’s treatise on Gradual Conclusions.”

She prepared to descend, then paused again as she looked at the nails supporting the butt and barrel of the gun pointing at the chair. It seemed as though— She got down hastily, added a cushion to the chair, and climbed again. Now she was quite close. What she saw might have meant anything, but to her inquisitive mind it was not at least a natural thing....

Briefly, the rust on the two end nails—but not on the center one through the trigger-guard—had been scored almost to brightness. The scoring took the form of a pin-thin scratch on the nail supporting the barrel; but on the nail supporting the butt it was wider—much wider.

Maria frowned, looked at the nails from all angles. They pro­jected perhaps two inches beyond the gun itself. And the ends were scored? For a long time she thought, then she fished out her spring again and fixed it on the nail that had the wider scoring. A vague surprise filled her on discovering her guess was correct. The scoring exactly matched in width the smaller loop of the spring.

She shook her head perplexedly and climbed down, returned the spring to the locket and fingered her watch-chain pensively.... Perhaps— She looked up sharply, her meditations interrupted by the faintest of sounds reaching her from somewhere in the hall. Instantly she moved to the switch and put out the lights. Opening the door cautiously she peered outside, just in time to see a dim figure with a tiny glow from a fountain-pen torch heading towards the front door. Every move was cautious; there was no necessity to draw back the bolts since they were left back in order that Dick could get into the house in the early hours.

From the slenderness of the figure in its light summer dustcoat Maria judged it must be Patricia. She continued watching intently until at last Patricia had the door open. She slipped phantom-like outside, closing the door with her latchkey to avoid the click of the lock— It was enough for Maria. It was long after midnight, and for a girl to be slipping out at such an hour was not entirely indicative of a commonplace motive. Besides, Maria had remembered that Pat spent a lot of time sleeping. Why not indeed if this was the sort of thing she was up to?

Maria made up her mind quickly as she crossed the dark hall. It was unlikely that Pat would use a car for fear of the noise of the engine. If she walked there might be the chance of keeping her in sight since the main street outside took a beeline for the town center. In that case— Maria hurried up to her room, bundled on hat and coat, grabbed her umbrella, then returned to the front door. She had to risk the click of the lock. As she descended the steps into the street she saw the white-coated figure of Patricia hurrying along under the street lamps perhaps five hundred yards ahead of her. There was not a great deal of traffic about at this hour; people on the pavement too were pretty sparse, so Maria found herself faced with but little difficulty in keeping track of the girl’s movements. Possibly she was not conscious of how conspicuous her light-colored coat made her. Maria marched on, umbrella firmly in hand, her pace strong and vigorous despite her tiring day. More than once had the denizens of Roseway had reason to remark their Headmistress’s iron endurance.

Pat’s walk took her in a straight line into the heart of the city where the people became more frequent and the sky-signs and late night dance halls blazed their invitations to the dark. It was into one of these latter, to Maria’s astonishment, that Pat finally vanished from view.

Maria crossed the street and stood surveying the garish façade of the establishment from the opposite side. It was clearly not high class, was sandwiched between two edifices that were probably offices by day. Bright neon lights proclaimed—

MAXIES’ DANCE HALL

Patricia—the lordly, wealthy Patricia Black—gone in here? And in the early hours of the morning? Maria was nonplussed for a moment; then she straightened her hat, took a firm hold on her umbrella, thanked God there was an ocean between herself and Roseway, and crossed the street again. Spurred on by memories of a myriad treatises on criminology, all of which seemed to add up to the fact that a good investigator never loses the quarry, she would allow herself no pause—not even when she got to the box office and spent a few moments reconciling English and American currency values. The maiden behind the cash grille watched her in lambent interest, chewing meanwhile.

Maria found the coin she wanted at last, took a ticket, then marched between the dried palms into the foyer. So far all was well: she would have to rely on her personality for the rest. For a moment she paused, aware of a blanketing heat and the distant cacophony of an indifferent orchestra. She caught a glimpse of a mob of half-dressed women and shiny-faced men drifting round the dance floor.... Looking round her she saw the stairs, went up them to a low-built balcony scattered with wicker tables with glass tops, hemmed in on one side by a badly discolored wall further mortified by patches of faded gilt. The whole place reeked of cheap­ness.

A waiter whose apron had once been white came towards her, stopped short as though mastering an emotion, then asked,

“Table, lady?”

“Naturally,” Maria replied coldly. “Preferably one overlooking the dance floor, yet not so that I am too much in view. Do I make myself clear?”

From the waiter’s leer she gathered she did. He waved to a glass-topped table half-shielded by another of the prevailing dried palms, then stood aside and studied the ceiling speculatively while Maria laid down her umbrella and settled herself.

The waiter became apparent again. “We’ve a special supper on tonight, lady—”

“I do not require supper, my man. I’ll take— Lemonade.”

“Lemonade!” The man swallowed something and half-opened his mouth; then he met Maria’s blue-eyed gaze halfway. “Lemonade it is,” he agreed, with a hasty nod, and went off with one mystified glance over his shoulder.

Maria sat back and stared unemotionally at the grinning girls and boys at the next-but-one table. The longer she stared, without a single tremor of her eyelids, the more uncomfortable the little party obviously became. At last they looked at each other, got up, and hurried off downstairs.

“Sir Charles Napier was right,” Maria murmured contentedly to herself; then shifting her position a little she gazed over the balcony. Below there swarmed a varicolored mass of men and women working themselves into a state of semi-hysterical riot. They were spinning in circles, wagging their fingers in the air, thumping the polished floor with their toes, all to the accompaniment of the whanging, crashing band.

Maria wrinkled her nose. “Jitterbugs, I presume,” she mused.

The smoky air wafting up to her was charged with a surfeit of odors that had an admixture of strong drink, cheap perfume, cosmetics, dead flowers, and perspiration. Her unaccustomed ear­drums were throbbing by now with the din of the orchestra; her eyes were somewhat dazzled by the naked glare of lights from shoddy electroliers. In the distance a sailor was dancing so earnestly he looked as though he were strangling his girl partner.

“Here y’are, lady....” The glass of lemonade descended from the heights. “A quarter,” the waiter added, seeing her questioning eye.

She handed it over and he took it solemnly; then as he turned to go she caught his arm.

“One moment, waiter—perhaps you can tell me something. Do you happen to know if a young lady named Patricia Black ever comes here?”

“I wouldn’t be known’, lady. I only work here. I don’t dance.” He reflected, eyes on the ceiling, lips tight. “What’s she like?”

“Slender. Twenty-two years of age. High forehead, golden hair.”

“Mmm, swell looker, eh? Nope, I ain’t seen her; and I don’t know her name neither. I’m rather struck on blondes, lady, and I know most of ’em, friendly like. I’ve not seen her, ’cos if I had I’d know of it, see?”

With that he nodded briefly and blundered off.

“Amazing!” Maria murmured, and leaving her lemonade un­touched for the moment she scanned the floor below once more, searching anxiously for that head of spun gold that was in itself an utter betrayal. But it was not apparent. There were honey-colored heads, plastered in ringlets; corn-colored ones with frizzing; peroxided ones mousy at the roots from this exalted angle— But a head of pure gold? Nowhere! Yet Patricia had come in here. Maria was convinced of it.

Puzzled, she turned to her drink, tasted it, then making a wry face she set it down again. Warm water with amber tinting was not much to her taste. But she tried again because she was genuinely thirsty, and as she sipped her gaze traveled across the floor to a distant alcove in a backwater of the sea of dancers. Within the alcove sat three scantily-dressed girls in backless gowns, rather like modern versions of the three little maids from the Mikado. They seemed to be boredly occupied in watching the swirling throngs.

Presently a man with extra large feet and very shiny hair approached them, said something and handed over a ticket. The girl at the left of the trio got up and started to dance gracefully in his arms. Maria lowered her glass slowly, her eyes wide, watching intently from the palm tree’s camouflage as the pair floated under the balcony.

That slender body, those green eyes gazing absently into space. Patricia, beyond doubt! But now long black hair reached in curls to the top of her creamy shoulders.

Maria compressed her lips, wondering why the idea of a wig had not occurred to her before. Never once in following the girl had she had the chance to see her hair, and now— Now she wondered at its purpose. Ceaselessly she watched as the pair circled the floor once or twice during the course of the pandemonium that passed for music; then as Pat retired to the alcove again to join her two companions and the dancers streamed off the floor for refreshment, Maria snapped her fingers sharply.

The waiter hurried forward. “Somethin’ more, lady?”

“Yes. Information I mean. Here!” Maria dived in her bag and handed over what she understood to be a ‘buck.’ “You can tell me something which perhaps you may know. Those three girls over there in the alcove: what are they doing? I saw one man hand across a ticket. Are they—ushers?”

“Ushers? What in heck do you think this place is—a church? They’re professionals.”

“Professional dancers?”

“Yeah. Their job is to partner guys who come in without a dame to hoof with.”

“Ah! And the girl at the left end with the black hair. Who is she? Know her name?”

“Sure—Maisie Gray. Been here around three weeks.”

“Hmm!” Maria said, and relaxed with a frown. The waiter narrowed his eyes, sucked his teeth, and waited.

“Who is the manager of this place?” Maria asked abruptly.

“Just who wants to know?” the waiter snapped. “Want to com­plain or somethin’?”

Maria flashed him an icy look. “Kindly be civil, my man! I asked you a perfectly straightforward question.”

“Well, it’s a question I ain’t goin’ to answer, so what are you goin’ to do about it? Anyway, the manager ain’t here.”

On that observation the waiter turned away impatiently and headed toward a new group of customers pouring up from the hall below. Maria sat on, eyes narrowed and lips tight—then she looked again at the alcove where Patricia sat with her two colleagues. A man had joined them now, a big fellow in evening dress with thick greasy hair and a pale, babyish-looking face. At length he sat down and threw an arm about Pat’s shoulders. Maria watched intently, not sure whether to be horrified or revolted at Pat’s obvious passiveness in his grip. Far from repelling his advances she actually caught at his free hand and squeezed it affectionately.

Maria pulled out her notebook, wrote down a brief description of the man, then put it away again. Grabbing her umbrella she got to her feet, flashed a look of withering scorn on the waiter as he hurried past with a tray full of colored water, then she descended the stairs and made her way outside again. She stood drinking in the cool night air, thankful for the relief from the fumes and clotted atmosphere in which she had been sitting.

“So Patricia welcomes the attentions of that—creature,” she reflected, her face screwed into thought as she marched steadily along the pavement. “She goes out at night to this appalling dive and uses her dancing ability to partner those—apes! And the name of the manager remains a mystery.... We shall see! According to Selby’s Unearthing the Culprit it is now necessary for me to have an assistant, preferably one versed in crime if possible.... Hmm—on the East Side perhaps. I understand that is a likely spot.”

She let herself into the Black residence quietly and went upstairs without a sound. She was rather surprised to discover when she came to relax that she was nearly too tired to undress.