Odor of Violets Read online

Davis said: —

  “Yeah, it’s swell. Sometime we simply must have tea together—just Archer, and you and I. What the hell are you looking for?”

  “Sit down, Inspector,” Maclain urged. “You invariably get sarcastic when you’re on your feet too long. I’ve already found you something, haven’t I? What about that secret drawer?”

  “With nothing in it,” said Archer. “Yet how you found it still beats me.”

  “I found it, Sergeant, because unutilized space in the center of a desk is an inconsistency. Since I’m blind, I’ve had to train my other senses to be sensitive to inconsistencies. As a matter of fact, one brought me here tonight.”

  “That sounds just ducky, like everything you say, Captain—and it still leaves me up in a tree.”

  “Well, climb a few branches higher and keep your trap shut for a minute.”

  The Inspector left his place by the piano and settled himself on the divan. “Just what did bring you here tonight, Captain Maclain? You’re beginning to interest me.”

  “I’m very glad.” The Captain smiled. “That’s a difficult thing to do. Countless thousands of innocent people are being murdered in Europe every day, Davis. When—”

  “What’s that got to do with us?” the Inspector broke in.

  “Too much, unfortunately.” The Captain’s expressive voice was grim. “When murder becomes a commonplace—when the world begins to accept it with a shrug—then, God save us, the Homicide Squad needs help, Inspector, and I do too.”

  Dreist growled at the timbre of his master’s words. The Sergeant shifted his honest bulk in the chair. “How long had you known this fellow Gerente, Captain?”

  “I knew him only by hearsay, Sergeant. Paul Gerente was working for G-2.”

  “The Intelligence Department,” Davis muttered. “Hell’s broth, Maclain, what are we mixed up in now?”

  “Something so deep that I can’t even tell the whole of the truth to you. At ten-twenty tonight a man who was supposedly Paul Gerente delivered some Braille instructions to me in my office. He lengthened his stride as he crossed from the door to my desk—to make me think he was taller than he was.”

  “Then he’d heard of your methods before.”

  “Exactly, Inspector. He’d heard of my methods before. I had no reason then to believe that it wasn’t Gerente, taking some extra precautions—or devising a means of testing me. I know now—”

  “You’re damn right it wasn’t Gerente!” Archer exclaimed emphatically. “I know Gerente. I’ve seen him twenty times on the stage and I don’t forget faces. At ten-twenty—”

  “Quite,” said Maclain. “We come now to the inconsistencies which put you up an imaginative tree.” The Captain took a cigarette from his case, fitted it in a holder, and flashed his lighter. Guiding the flame adroitly to the tip by running his thumb along the cigarette, he inhaled deeply and put the lighter away.

  “According to Mr. Cameron,” he continued, “Paul Gerente was killed at seven forty-five. He and Cameron were good friends—so good that Gerente had given Cameron a key.”

  “We found it on him,” said Davis. “That’s true.”

  “Or partly true, Inspector. Anyhow, he had a key. To go on with the story—both Cameron and Gerente had been going with a girl—Hilda Lestrade. She came to call on Cameron; they had a few drinks in Cameron’s apartment and came upstairs. Here, they had some more. Gerente got a bit drunk and high words followed. Gerente came at Cameron with a poker. Cameron wrested it away and struck him down. He fell right where I’m standing now.”

  The Inspector’s heavy brows met in a frown. “What’s the matter with that?”

  “Inconsistencies, Davis. Incongruities. Impossibilities. It’s full of them, and I can’t even see. Where was Cameron standing when Gerente rushed him with the poker? If Gerente seized the poker from beside the fireplace, then Cameron must have been somewhere out in the room. Remember that, Inspector, when you question the girl.

  “Did Cameron push Gerente back in front of the fire before he struck him down? If he did, it was a neat quiet job—for the struggle hadn’t even rumpled Paul Gerente’s dressing gown. And another point—before Cameron committed this foul deed he must have turned his victim around. It won’t wash, Davis. Paul Gerente was struck down quietly from behind. Probably by someone who slipped out from the bedroom.”

  “But Cameron’s confessed, Maclain,” the Inspector reminded him stolidly.

  “That makes everything easy, doesn’t it? Will you hand me an ash tray, Sergeant? I don’t want to get these on the floor.” He flicked off his ashes, turned to the mantel, and set the ash tray down. “You can handle this any way you want, Inspector, but I’m going to tell you a little more.”

  “I can’t stop you. Shoot. Mentally I’m putting it all down.”

  “Is it consistent that after committing a murder the murderer should wash three highball glasses and put them away again? That’s number one. Number two is—somebody with wet feet stood for a long time outside of this apartment door in the hall, or left their rubbers there.”

  “Now, how—”

  “Dreist sniffed the floor, Inspector, while I was waiting outside the door before Cameron let me in. I felt the floor. I think a pair of rubbers had been there, for I doubt if anyone could have stood so close to the wall.”

  “They belonged to the girl,” said Archer with a sigh.

  “She came upstairs from Cameron’s apartment.” The Captain put more ashes in the tray. “Did she keep her wet rubbers on until she came up here, and then suddenly decide to remove them and leave them in the hall?”

  “There’s something you’re holding back, Captain.” The Inspector’s voice had an edge. “It isn’t like you to take an open-and-shut killing and twist it into a nasty snarl.”

  “It’s already a nasty snarl.” The Captain snuffed his cigarette in the tray. “There was something inconsistent about that set of Braille instructions, Inspector Davis. It brought me here tonight, because I’d hardly expect to find it in G-2. There’s something inconsistent here—in this room, and the bedroom; and traces of it in Paul Gerente’s secret drawer.”

  “If there’s anything in that drawer,” said Archer, “it certainly doesn’t meet the eye.”

  “Nor ever will, Sergeant,” said Duncan Maclain. “I’m talking about an odor of violets!”

  CHAPTER VII

  1

  THE THERMOMETER was dropping steadily throughout New England. A biting wind, rolling in from Maine, had sent the whole of Hartford to bed huddling under blankets, and turned the steep short hill up Asylum Street from the station into a dangerous incline of traffic-packed ice and snow.

  Norma felt cramped and miserable when she picked up the brown-paper parcel containing Babs’s galoshes and climbed stiffly down to the platform after three unhappy hours in the smoking car. The wind brought tears to her eyes. Getting what shelter she could from her furs, she lowered her head against the blast and fought her way downstairs. A porter, noting her clothes, started toward her, and seeing she had no baggage turned away disappointedly.

  She had hesitated as long as possible before leaving the train, and so far luck had been with her. Neither in Grand Central nor in the Hartford station had she encountered a single person she knew. When she stepped out onto Spruce Street in search of a taxi, it came as a shock to find herself staring straight at a neighbor, Bunny Carter, who was leaning from the back window of his chauffeur-driven Lincoln car.

  Bunny was president of the great International Aircraft works at East Hartford, where Gilbert Tredwill worked as a designing engineer. The sumptuous Carter home was built close to The Crags on an adjoining hill. Norma was extremely fond of both Bunny and his wife, Beatrice, but for the moment he was about the last person she wanted to see.

  “Norma, my dear!” Bunny’s jovial Billiken face twisted up into a welcome and he flung open the door. “Hop in! Hop in! I’m waiting for somebody else, who apparently hasn’t arrived, but I’d rather have you.”
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  Norma started to protest, and decided it would only make her late arrival in Hartford more conspicuous. She stepped into the car and sank back into the welcome seclusion of the corner, smiling a mechanical smile.

  Bunny picked up a communicator beside him and spoke to Al Rutgers, his combination pilot and chauffeur. “Might as well go home, Al. Cranford isn’t coming tonight. Stop at The Crags and drop Mrs. Tredwill.”

  The big Lincoln moved off with a swish of chains in slush, turned right up the Asylum hill, and started out Farmington Avenue for West Hartford.

  “Well,” said Bunny. “That’s that. What have you been up to on such a day?”

  “Shopping, of course.” Norma lighted a cigarette, surprised to find how easy it was to lay the foundation for a complicated tissue of lies.

  “Good Lord.” Bunny chuckled. “You must love your home to take a milk train.”

  “Oh, I took in a show,” said Norma, and regretted it instantly.

  “Pretty soft to have a husband who gets tickets for everything,” Bunny declared scornfully. “What did you see?”

  Norma watched the great Colonial bulk of the Aetna Life building slip by. Her mind was a blank. Trying her best, she could only think of the name of a single show.

  “Hellz-A-Poppin.”

  “I thought you and Thad saw that before.”

  “We did.” She opened the window a crack and dropped out her cigarette. Somehow she must end Bunny’s questions. Everything she said gave her more explaining to do. She plunged on recklessly: —

  “Thad wasn’t with me. I went with some people you don’t know. I could see it again, for that matter. It’s a swell show.”

  Bunny leaned back beside her. The car was silent while he busied himself with a cigar. He pulled out an electric lighter on a cord. Norma felt that his habitually humorous round face looked grave in the reddish glow as he puffed on his cigar. He restored the lighter carefully to its place, and said: —

  “Somebody told me Thad went to New York today.”

  “He did.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh hell, Bunny. Don’t you, of all people, get stuffed-shirty with me. Thad’s twenty-five years older than I am—but I knew that when I married him. Just because I slip into New York on the sly to buy a few Christmas surprises, and happen to go to a show, is no reason for Hartford to be clucking its tongue at me.”

  “Norma, my dear!” His voice was hurt. The fine cloth of his camel-hair coat reflected his strong pull on the cigar. “You’ve got me wrong, entirely. I’d as soon cast aspersions on Bea.”

  “Forget it, darling.” Norma felt she had blundered. She reached across and patted his hand. “I’m always too sensitive about Thad and me when I’m tired—”

  It was a temptation to go on; to share her secret with Bunny, who was clear-headed and competent. It would be heavenly to relieve the strain by talking things over with him and his wife. She could count on understanding from delicate, brilliant Bea. But that must wait. The first—and most essential—thing was to hear Babs’s story. Until Babs returned, and talked, there was nothing that Norma dared to do.

  They were passing through West Hartford center, deserted except for a few cars parked in front of the diner.

  “Coffee?” asked Bunny.

  Norma shook her head. “A steak wouldn’t get me out into that snow.”

  “You’re awfully quiet,” he said with pleading seriousness. “Honestly, Norma, I’ll feel terrible if you’re annoyed over anything I’ve said, and so will Bea. I was really only—”

  “I’ve told you, Bunny, it’s me.” Norma laughed, and hoped it didn’t sound forced. “I’ve bought a television set for Thad, which he’s been wanting for ages. All I ask is that if you and Bea come over to the house before Christmas, you won’t give my trip to New York away.”

  “I’ll do even better,” Bunny assured her. “If anything comes up you can tell them that you spent the afternoon and evening at our house. I’ll pass it on to Bea. Your nefarious schemes won’t be given away.”

  “Thanks,” said Norma. “You’re a grand conspirator. How is Bea?”

  “Not very well,” he told her gravely. “I think I’ll send her to Florida later on. The cold and the snow get her down. She’s been in bed for a couple of days.”

  “Give her my love. I’ll try to stop over tomorrow, or the following day.”

  “She’ll be glad to see you.”

  The lights of West Hartford dropped behind. The Lincoln turned left at the Farmington cutoff. A couple of lights marking The Crags showed like crushed blurred dandelions hung above the road in the storm. At the edge of Tredwill Village, Al Rutgers, at the wheel, turned left again. With whirring chains the big car managed to fight its way up the snow-choked roadway to the top of Tredwill hill.

  Norma gave Bunny and Al Rutgers a brief good-night and thanks, and stood in the doorway under the porte-cochere until the automobile drove away. The Crags seemed vast and vacant when she stepped inside. The servants occupied another wing, and Norma was grateful for the reassuring touch of Cheli’s manuscript on a chair before the fireplace. At least, she wasn’t facing the prospect of breakfasting alone.

  About to start upstairs, Norma stopped with her foot on the bottom step. Bringing with it a disturbing premonition, the telephone began to ring in a closet, which served as a booth adjoining the downstairs hall.

  2

  “Babs!”

  Young Stacy Tredwill stood just inside the door of the Ritters’ apartment and listened to the sound of his own voice echo back down the length of the corridor.

  A shaded table lamp was burning in the foyer. Farther along, to his left, more lights showed brightly from the living room. He put his hat on the table beside the lamp, slipped out of overcoat and muffler, and hung them up in the coat closet.

  In the living room he turned out some of the wall lights, softening the glare. Babs must have come in and gone out again—probably for cigarettes. She always forgot everything—lights included, and he hadn’t seen her mink coat in the coat closet. He shrugged his shoulders and walked to the window to stand for a while watching the automobiles speed along through the slush on Park Avenue ten stories below. It was fun to have the use of a six-room New York apartment while the owners were away. It gave one a feeling of importance. The Ritters were swell—realized that he and Babs were old enough to have a little sense. Not many people would have left permission for visitors to order what they wanted from the restaurant downstairs.

  Stacy left his place at the window and turned on the radio. A midnight program of dance music was on, playing a hit from a current picture. He sat down at the Mason and Hamlin grand and swung into the melody. He had seen the picture that evening with a friend. It pleased him to be able to remember every passage of the song; to select the key the orchestra was using.

  When the number was finished, he shut off the radio. Back at the piano, he played the piece over and over again, adding variations of his own, playing very softly. A clock chimed somewhere. He quit abruptly in the middle of a bar and walked out into the hall.

  Packages, gaudy in Christmas wrappings, were piled along one wall—tokens of several hours spent shopping with Babs during the day. Stacy passed them by and stopped before a bedroom door. He listened for a second or two before he knocked lightly and called his sister’s name. The hall light fell across an unrumpled bed when he opened the door.

  His slim shoulders were set and a line of determination strengthened his youthful chin when he returned to the living room. He had a code of his own governing the relationship between brother and sister. It was simply that they let each other alone.

  Babs knew what time he’d be back at the apartment from the picture show. She’d told him that she had a dinner date and would be home before eleven. It wasn’t his province to check up on her if she stayed out until two, but for her not to telephone was unfair.

  With a telephone directory spread out beside him on the piano bench, Stacy sat for
a long time staring down at Paul Gerente’s name. Babs had carefully avoided saying where she was going, but Stacy knew. He knew nearly everything that Babs thought, and did—except, possibly, why she persisted in treating him like a fool. He closed the book with a bang. Babs would never forgive him if he called Paul Gerente.

  “She wouldn’t be there, anyhow,” he assured himself half aloud. “They’ve probably gone dancing in the Rainbow Room.”

  He took a current mystery from the bookrack and went to his own room feeling that Babs’s unthinking lateness had brought a depressing end to a pleasant day. In bed, he read for more than an hour, lowering the book every time he heard the elevator stop at the tenth floor.

  It was difficult to concentrate on the story. Accidents kept filling his mind. Such things were always happening in New York—taxicabs crashing—pedestrians getting run over—people slipping in the ice and snow. Finally he turned out the reading lamp and fell into a restless doze to awake some time between three and four.

  His pajamas were damp with perspiration. He got up drowsily, realizing that he had neglected to open a window in the room. Barefooted, he crossed the hall and opened Babs’s door.

  The bed was still smooth and unrumpled. Stacy switched on the light and ran a hand nervously through his tousled blond hair. Babs was thoughtless in lots of things, but she had her own code, too. Nothing but tragedy, Stacy felt certain, would keep her out with a man until four.

  His drowsiness fled as he looked about the room. With the light on, he noticed something which had not been apparent before. The room was disconcertingly bare. The dressing table was cleared. Babs’s traveling bag was missing from the stand at the foot of the bed. Moved by a sense of panic, he ran across the floor and opened the closet. It was empty, and for dragging seconds he stood leaning weakly against the door.

  His first thought of sudden illness in the family he put quickly away. If his father, brother, or Norma had summoned Babs she would have left a note. Even if she had forgotten it in her haste, someone would have phoned him. They all knew where he was.