Dead as a Dinosaur (6 page)

“He was putting these damn things in himself,” Anstey said. “Wearing his ‘funny-looking' glasses.
He
was the crackpot all along. What do you know?”

Bill Weigand didn't, except what was obvious. Nobody was trying to drive Dr. Orpheus Preson insane. Nobody needed to. Dr. Preson had made it on his own.

“The labels were off the bones,” Anstey said. “Where'd that get him?”

Bill didn't know. He said he didn't know.

“And the stuff in the milk?”

Again, there was no ready answer. But the actions of the insane need no reason, are susceptible to no answer. Presumably, Preson had planned to drink the milk himself, himself succumb to the barbiturate, presumably be discovered in drugged sleep, and thus add new, and more dramatic, lines to the picture he was himself painting of a man persecuted.

“A crackpot,” Anstey said. “God, what a crackpot. He ought to be locked up.”

“Perhaps,” Bill said. “I suppose he might get dangerous, although so far he seems merely to be giving himself a headache.”

“His sister,” Anstey pointed out.

Hadn't been seriously harmed, or put in much danger, Bill pointed out. However—He shrugged. It wasn't his problem. It was Anstey's problem, and the problem of the precinct and, more than of either, of Preson's relatives. Bill Weigand drove home, leaving Anstey with his share of the problem.

Bill told his wife, who had greenish eyes, and moved almost as lithely as a cat, and was named Dorian, about the odd case of Dr. Orpheus Preson, mammalogist and crackpot, over a cocktail.

But he did not need to tell her all of it. She had lunched with Pamela North, and had heard a good deal already, although, of course, nothing of the sleeping sister or the animated midgets. Dorian was able to tell Bill that Dr. Preson was finishing, or ought to be finishing, the second volume of his book about ancient animals; to tell him that Jerry North was apparently counting on it.

“Of course,” Dorian said, “Ezra Pound got a poetry prize even though they did have to lock him up. So I suppose Dr. Preson could still write about mammals?”

But she did not sound convinced, and Bill was not. Pound was, after all, a poet to begin with, Bill pointed out. Dr. Preson wrote in prose.

“I think,” Dorian said, “you'd better tell Jerry what's happened, don't you?”

Bill Weigand agreed, and reached for the telephone. The result of that was cocktails in the Algonquin lounge and dinner afterward, Norths and Weigands again together.

4

W
EDNESDAY
, 5:15
P
.
M
.
TO
11:20
P
.
M
.

Detective Vern Anstey, having flicked a hand at the departing acting captain of Homicide West, found a telephone and reported to the precinct. He was told he had better get on with it, and took a subway downtown again. He went to the apartment hotel in West Twenty-second Street and discovered that his luck had run out. Dr. Preson was not there. Anstey nevertheless went to the mammalogist's apartment, looked around it—noticing that the bones still were disordered—and found a typewriter under a black, oilcloth cover. Detective Anstey used the typewriter, copying on it Dr. Preson's application for the service of five midgets. He didn't suppose—

He examined the results. It was a matter for experts, but after scrutiny, Anstey found that he did suppose Preson had procured a want-ad blank, taken it home, typed his advertisement on it and then carried it back to Times Square. This involved procedure made no more sense than any of the rest of it. Anstey consoled himself with the thought that since Preson was a crackpot sense was not to be expected. He took his copy and its original to the station house, for passage on to experts, and was advised that, since he seemed to be doing fine, he might as well keep at it. He telephoned his wife and broke the news. She expressed wonderment that she had ever consented to marry a policeman and was told, with affection, that she had not been married for her judgment. Since he was in the privacy of a telephone booth, Vern Anstey mentioned one or two of the reasons she had been married, and was told to go on being a policeman. He went on.

He telephoned the apartment house in West Twenty-second Street and was told that Dr. Orpheus Preson still was out. He telephoned St. Vincent's Hospital, and was told that Miss Laura Preson had been released, as good as new except for a slight headache, half an hour earlier. Where she then had gone was her affair, or was so considered; the presumption was that she had gone home. Yes, her brother had been with her when she left the hospital. Anstey replaced the telephone receiver, thought briefly and shrugged his shoulders. He went to Seventh Avenue and took a subway north. He didn't much like what was coming up, but there were a good many things about being a cop he didn't greatly like. You often brought bad news, if you were a cop. Sometimes, of course, you were, yourself, the bad news, but that was different. Those to whom you were bad news had bad news coming. It was tougher to tell a mother her son was dead—or a family that they had better have a member of it checked by a psychiatrist, privately, unless they preferred the observation ward at Bellevue.

“Tell his sister, whoever's responsible, how it looks. Say we don't want to horn in—and haven't any grounds anyway—but that somebody ought to see to him. Make it tactful.”

Those, in effect, were Vern Anstey's instructions: Tell somebody to lock brother Orpheus up before he does something else, and we have to. To be administered with tact. Damn it all, Anstey thought, I sort of liked the old crackpot. Funny thing, I didn't think he
was
a crackpot. It showed, Anstey decided, how you could be fooled even when, as a cop, you had been around—been way around, and all around. After a bit, Anstey shrugged, picked up a discarded copy of the
Journal-American
and began to read. He struggled a short way into a Pegler column and struggled out again. He sought refuge among the sports pages, which were merely soporific, as befitted early December, when major sports hibernate. It was a long distance to Riverdale. Even from the end of the subway line, the distance was considerable; even from the nearest bus stop, it was still three blocks.

The house was large, on a lot too small for it. But the Hudson was visible below through leafless trees, and the wind, blowing now across the Hudson and from the west, was as fresh as it was cold. Probably, Anstey thought, it was all very well in summer; probably there was that to be said for it. The house was of clapboard; it was square and tall—an ungainly house, painted grayly. Anstey verified the house number, walked onto the porch and rang the doorbell. The door opened almost instantly. A slender, dark young woman stood in the doorway and seemed to vibrate. The young woman said, “Yes? What is it?” and spoke as if she had been running.

“Is Miss Preson—” Anstey began, and the young woman interrupted him.

“Yes,” she said. “I'm Miss Preson. Emily Preson. What is it?”

Again there was a kind of excited insistence in her speech; it was as if she were saying, “Hurry up, hurry up”; as if he were something heavy, unwieldy, which she must needs prod into motion, as if already it were too late for—For what? Anstey wondered.

“Miss Laura Preson,” Anstey said. “She had a—a little difficulty today. I'm from the police.”

She merely looked at him, now, but her eyes, her whole manner, said, “Hurry, hurry, do I have to drag it out of you?”

“My name's Anstey,” he said. “A detective. From downtown. We wanted to find out how your—how Miss Preson—”

“My aunt,” the young woman said, impatiently. “Laura Preson's my aunt. She's all right now.” She continued to speak very rapidly.

“Good,” Anstey said. “We wanted to make sure. We—”

“You want to see her, don't you?” Emily Preson said. She opened the door wider. “Come in,” she said. And then, before he could move, “Come
in
.”

Anstey went in. He found that, without intending to, he moved in rapidly.

“Sit down,” Emily Preson said. “Sit down. I'll get her.” She waved, urgent still, toward a door off the entrance hall. Anstey went into the room she indicated and sat down. He found he was sitting on the edge of a chair. He felt as if, at any moment, it might be necessary to jump. He looked around the room, and then looked around it again. It was filled with glass dogs, china dogs, of all sizes, all kinds. There was a glass-doored case of dogs; there were dogs on the mantelpiece and on the window ledges; there was an oblong table of glass dogs. The dogs were of various colors and sizes—there were bulldogs, and Dalmatians and dogs which must have come from China. There was, in glass, a dog of indeterminate breed giving suck to pups.

“My pets,” Miss Laura Preson said from the doorway. “What do you think of them, Mr. Anstey?”

There was no sensible answer to that. Anstey thought there were a lot of them. “They're fine,” Anstey said. “Very interesting.”

“You probably don't think so,” Miss Preson said. “Few people do. My niece said you wanted to see me? I have already told all there is to tell.” Anstey had stood up when she came in. “However,” Miss Preson said, “sit down, Mr. Anstey. There is something more?”

There was merely a desire on the part of the police to make sure that she was quite all right, Anstey told her. To be sure that there had been no ill effects from her experience.

“Nonsense,” Laura Preson said. “It's quite evident I'm all right. Has something else come up?”

“Well,” Anstey said. “Well—is your brother here, Miss Preson?”

“I have two brothers,” Miss Preson said. “Which one are you talking about? Orpheus? Or Homer?”

“Dr. Preson,” Anstey said. “The—er—” He realized he had almost said, “the crackpot.” The younger Miss Preson had, he discovered, left him jumpy. The present Miss Preson was not, herself, soothing.

“Gone back downtown,” Laura Preson said. “He brought me home, said, ‘Look at those damn dogs!' and went back downtown. To play with bones.”

“Umm,” Anstey said. “Miss Preson, has your brother told you about—about these advertisements?”

“Certainly,” Miss Preson said.

Anstey waited, but Miss Preson waited for him.

“What did you think of it?” he asked. “You and—your other brother? Your niece?”

“That it was very silly,” Miss Preson said. “What would anybody think?”

It was that, Anstey admitted. It was silly. Also, it was malicious. Didn't Miss Preson agree?

“I have no idea what's in this person's mind,” Laura Preson said. “Malice is in the mind, Mr. Anstey. This—whoever is doing these things to poor Orpheus may think merely that it is all very amusing. Funny. There are men like that, you know.” She considered. “A great many, probably,” she said. “Most men are quite—irresponsible.”

Clearly she meant “men” when she used the word, not merely “people.”

“Why are you so certain it is a man?” Anstey asked her. “Do you think you know who is doing it?”

“Certainly not,” she said. “No woman would be so silly. But you wouldn't know that, I suppose.”

“Being a man yourself,” her tone said.

Anstey said, “Umm.” Then he said, “Does your other brother live here, Miss Preson?”

“Since it is his house,” Miss Preson said. “He lives here. I live here. My niece lives here. What has that to do with it, Mr. Anstey?”

“I'd like—” Anstey began. But then the young woman who had greeted him at the door stepped into the room and looked at both of them. Her eyes, her whole attitude, seemed to demand something from them, to demand it instantly. But all she said was, “Father's here, Aunt Laura.” She managed, however, to make this statement an imperative. Apparently, Anstey thought, her father had been long away; had not been, at this moment, expected.

“I told him a detective was here,” Emily added, still on the same note of intensity.

“You're worse than usual, Emily,” her aunt said. “You make me nervous.”

But there was no sign that Emily really made Miss Laura Preson nervous. The girl herself flushed painfully, embarrassingly.

“So emphatic about so little,” Laura Preson added. “Is—?” But what she might have planned to add she did not add. A trim, slight man of, Anstey guessed, about forty-five—a man with glasses, smooth graying hair, smooth gray clothes—came to the door behind Emily Preson and, as she stepped aside, her face still flushed, moved beyond her.

“Good evening, Homer,” Laura Preson said. “This is a detective. I had a—an experience today. At Orpheus's.”

Homer looked at his sister through shining glasses.

“An experience?” he said. “You mean—something else has happened to Orpheus?” He did not wait for an answer, but turned to Anstey, who spoke his own name. Homer Preson repeated it; it was as if he put the name in a file and closed the file drawer with a snap. “What has happened to my brother now, Mr. Anstey?” he asked.

Anstey looked at Miss Preson. Miss Preson told her brother, succinctly, what had happened. He listened; he shook his head, his eyes on his sister.

“It's what we—” he said, when she had finished, and then apparently thought better of the sentence. “It's an almost unbelievable thing,” he said, and this time spoke to Anstey. “Series of things. You have no way of finding out who's responsible?”

“This sort of thing is very difficult,” Anstey said. “I told Dr. Preson that.”

“So he said,” Homer Preson said. “He was very excited. He's an excitable man. Brilliant, but excitable. It's all very unsettling.”

“There was another advertisement this morning,” Anstey told him. “In addition to the barbiturate in the milk, there was another advertisement. For midgets, this time. In view of Miss Preson's experience, we made a special effort.”