The Tragedy of Z (11 page)

“What do you mean?” asked the warden with interest.

Father grinned. “He was layin' the trail, Warden. Preparin' an alibi. Hume, I bet you all the money you've got in your jeans that you find Fawcett drew fifty grand out of his bank. Nice and innocent, see? He was goin' to pay the blackmail, all right,—and zowie! somethin' happened.”

“I don't get you,” snapped the district attorney.

“Look here. Fawcett meant to kill Dow! And then he'd show by the warden's testimony and his withdrawal of the money, if it ever came out, that he was goin' to pay the dough, but Dow got tough and in a scrap got the worst of it. He was in a hot spot, Hume. He must have figured even a risky killing was better than havin' Dow floatin' around.”

“Possible,” muttered Hume thoughtfully. “Possible! But his plans went wrong, and he got it instead. Hmm.”

“I tell you,” cried Father Muir, “that Aaron Dow is innocent of the crime of shedding that man's blood! There is some monstrous hand behind all this, Mr. Hume. But God will not let an innocent creature suffer. That poor child of misfortune …”

Father said: “Hume told you a couple of minutes ago, Warden, that Dow's letter to Fawcett came from here with a little hunk of chest. Is one of the toys in your carpentry shop a little wooden chest with letters painted on the side in gilt?”

“I'll find out for you.” Magnus spoke to the prison-operator over the intra-prison telephone and waited while someone was roused from bed, I suppose. When he put down the receiver, he shook his head. “There's nothing like that made in the shop, Inspector. Our toy department, incidentally, is rather new. We found that Dow and two other inmates had the ability to carve, and practically created the toy department in the carpentry shop for their benefit.”

Father glanced quizzically at the district attorney, and Hume said quickly: “Yes, I quite agree that we've got to find out exactly what that piece of wood signifies.” But I could see that he really felt it to be unimportant, a detail connected with motive. He reached for the warden's telephone. “May I? … I think, Inspector, I'll see now if your hunch about the fifty thousand dollars asked for by Dow in his note isn't correct.”

The warden blinked. “It must be something serious Dow had on Fawcett. Fifty thousand dollars!”

“I've had a man checking up with Fawcett's bank in a hurry. Well, we'll see.” He gave a number to the prison operator. “Hello! Mulcahey? Hume. Find anything?” The corners of his mouth tightened. “Fine! Now work on that Fanny Kaiser angle; see if you can trace any financial tieup between her and the Senator.” He hung up, and said abruptly: “You were right, Inspector. Fawcett withdrew fifty thousand in negotiable bonds and small bills yesterday afternoon—the afternoon, note, of the night he was murdered.”

“At the same time,” retorted father with a scowl, “I don't like it. On second thought, isn't it just a little hammy that a blackmailer would grab his dough and then bump off the man who gave it to him?”

“Yes, yes,” said Father Muir eagerly. “A very significant point, Mr. Hume.”

The district attorney shrugged. “But if there was a fight? Remember that Fawcett's own letter-knife was used in the killing. That shows the murder wasn't premediated. A man deliberately setting out to kill would have provided himself with a weapon. Fawcett picked a quarrel with Dow after giving him the money, or attacked him; there was a fight, Dow got his hand on the letter-knife—and there you are.”

“It is also possible, Mr. Hume,” I suggested softly, “that the murderer did provide himself beforehand with a weapon, but chose to use the letter-knife instead when he found it so close at hand.”

John Hume looked distinctly annoyed. “A far-fetched hypothesis, Miss Thumm,” he said coldly; and the warden and Father Muir nodded with surprise, as if they wondered how a mere woman had come to think of such an intricate explanation.

And then one of the telephones on Warden Magnus's desk trilled, and he picked up the receiver. “For you, Hume. Somebody is excited.”

The district attorney leaped out of his chair and snatched the telephone.… When he put it down and turned to face us again, my heart jumped. I saw from the expression on his face that something cataclysmic had occurred. His eyes were gleaming with exultation.

“That was Chief Kenyon,” he said slowly. “Aaron Dow has just been captured, after a struggle, in the woods on the other side of Leeds!”

There was a small silence, punctuated only by the chaplain's soft groan.

“He's filthy, drunk as a lord.” Hume's voice rose. “This is the end, of course. Well, Warden, many thanks. We'll probably need your testimony in court——”

“Hold on, Hume,” said father quietly. “Did Kenyon find the money on him?”

“Er—no. But that's nothing. He's probably buried it somewhere. The important thing is that we've got Fawcett's murderer!”

I rose, and pulled at my gloves. “And have you, Mr. Hume?”

He stared at me. “I'm afraid I don't quite see——”

“You never quite see, do you, Mr. Hume?”

“What the dev—what do you mean by that, Miss Thumm?”

I took out my lipstick. “Aaron Dow,” I said, pursing my lips, “did not kill Senator Fawcett; and what's more,” I said, pulling off one glove and looking at my lips in my mirror, “I can prove it‘”

7. THE NOOSE TIGHTENS

“Patty,” said father the next morning, “there's something rotten in this town.”

“Aha,” I murmured, “so you smell it, too?”

“I wish you wouldn't talk that way,” grumbled father. “It ain't ladylike. And why the devil won't you tell me—all right, you're sore at Hume—but me? How do you know Dow is innocent? How can you be so sure?”

I winced. I had been injudicious. Actually, I could not prove it. There was one point missing. With that point provided, I could open their eyes.… So I said: “I can't do it yet.”

“Hrrmph! The funny part of it is that that man never killed Fawcett, as far as I'm concerned, too.”

“Oh, you ugly darling!” I cried, kissing him. “I
know
he didn't. He's as innocent as a forty-year old virgin with smallpox. He
couldn't
have killed that blamed stuffed shirt they elected Senator.” I stared at Jeremy's broad back, which was just disappearing down the road; the poor thing was rejoining the proletariat this morning and would come home to dinner covered with honest but nonetheless dirty grime. “And why do
you
think so?”

“Hey, what is this?” growled father. “A lesson? And besides, you're too young a chicken to go around making wild statements like that. Prove it, hey? Listen, Patty, you better be careful. I wouldn't like 'em to think——”

“You're ashamed of me, aren't you?”

“Now, Pat, I didn't say that——”

“You think I'm mixing in, don't you? You think I ought to be wrapped in lamb's wool and tucked away on a shelf somewhere, don't you?”

“Aw——”

“You think you're back in the days of crinoline and nine petticoats, don't you? You think women oughtn't to vote, and smoke, and curse a damn, and have boy-friends, and raise hell, eh? And you still believe birth control is a device of the devil, don't you?”

“Patty,” said father, standing up with a scowl, “don't you talk that way to your father.” And he stamped into Elihu Clay's nice Colonial house. Ten minutes later he came out and held a match to another cigarette of mine, and apologized, and looked a trifle bewildered. Poor dear! He didn't understand women.

Then we went to town.

Jeremy's father and mine had agreed that morning—it was Saturday, the day after the murder and our weird session in Algonquin Prison—that we were to remain guests at the Clay house. Father had cautioned District Attorney Hume and the others before we parted the night before to say nothing of his official position or reputation; both he and Elihu Clay felt that father's investigation of Dr. Fawcett's capacity for magically snaring fat marble contracts was somehow an element in the murder of Senator Fawcett. It was father's plan to snoop about quietly and see what he could see, and for me this decision was of extreme importance, for I knew that unless Hume and the others suffered a divine revelation poor Aaron Dow was in the greatest bodily peril.

Both father and I were interested in two things primarily after the capture of the poor sodden creature the night before: to hear his own story, if he had one, and to meet and talk with the phantasmal Dr. Fawcett. Since the physician's whereabouts still remained a mystery on Saturday morning, we devoted our energies to accomplishing our first purpose.

We were admitted without delay to District Attorney Hume's private office in the big stone municipal building in Leeds. Hume was in high spirits this morning—busy, brisk, cordial, shining-eyed, and to me quite hatefully triumphant.

“Good morning, good morning!” he said, rasping his palms together. “And how are you this morning, Miss Thumm? Still think we're persecuting an innocent devil? Still think you can prove things?”

“More than ever, Mr. Hume, “I said, accepting a chair and a cigarette.

“Hmm. Well, I'll let you judge for yourself. Bill!” he shouted to someone in the outer office. “Call up the county jail and have Dow brought here again for questioning.”

“You've had him on the carpet already?” inquired father.

“I certainly have. But I want to satisfy you people.” He said this with the smug assurance of a man who feels God and the flag to be on his side. Despite his tolerance of our antagonistic attitude, it was evident that he considered Aaron Dow to be as guilty as Cain; and I knew, after one look at his honest, stubborn face, that he would be hard to convince. My theory was made out of the whole cloth of logic; and this man would never drape himself in anything but the armor of evidence.

Aaron Dow was brought in by two hulking detectives, a precaution that seemed pitifully unnecessary. For the ex-convict was a small, shrunken, feeble old man with narrow thin shoulders; either one of the guards could have broken his back with one hand. I had speculated freely about the appearance of this insignificant-looking creature, but not even Warden Magnus's description of him transmitted a clear picture of the wretch as he really was.

He had a tiny face shaped like a hatchet—sharp, wrinkled, ash-gray, and hopelessly unintelligent, sparkless—and it was screwed up with a horror and desperation that would have touched the heart of anyone except a Kenyon, with his brutal stupidity, and a Hume, with his exaggerated sense of duty. It was plain as a nun's face that this battered and terrified scrap of humanity was innocent of murder. His very innocence made him appear quilty, and these overbearing men were blind to this fundamental reaction of human nature. The murderer of Senator Joel Fawcett was a cool hand, and would probably be a good actor: these conclusions were inevitable from the facts of the crime. But this pathetic creature?

“Sit down, Dow,” said Hume is a not unkind tone; and the man obeyed stiffly, his one blue eye liquid with mingled hope and fear. Oddly enough, the fact that the skin of his right eyelid was permanently visible, and the fact that his right arm—a little shriveled, I noted—dangled uselessly, did not give him a sinister appearance. It rather enhanced his helplessness. The brand of prison walls was upon him, marked by the invisible hand of environment. The furtive, monkey-like jerks of his head; his oddly waxen complexion; his shuffling walk.…

He said, in a rusty squeak: “Yes, sir. Yes, Mr. Hume. Yes, sir,” quickly, with the lolling acquiescence of a faithful dog. And even his manner of speaking was that of the confirmed convict; through stiff lips out of the corner of his wry little mouth. I noticed with a catch of the breath that he suddenly turned his single eye upon me, as if I puzzled him, and he were weighing the possibilities of assistance inherent in my presence.

Father rose quietly, and that expressive eye swung upward with interest and begging hope.

“Dow,” said Hume, “this is a gentleman who wants to help you. He's come all the way from New York just to talk to you”—an expansion of the truth which I thought entirely unjustified.

Aaron Dow's talking eye suddenly gleamed with suspicion. “Yes, sir” he said, and shrank back in his chair. “But I ain't done nuthin'. I told ye, Mr. Hume, I didn't bump—him.”

Father signaled to the district attorney, and Hume nodded and sat down. I watched with interest. I had never seen father in action; his manner as a policeman had been merely a legend to me. I realized very soon that my father was a man of exceptional talent. In his approach to the problem of gaining Aaron Dow's confidence he revealed a new side to me. In his unpolished way he was a very shrewd psychologist.

“Look at me, Dow,” he said in an easy tone that had just the proper tinge of authority in it. The poor creature stiffened, and looked. They eyed each other in silence for some time. “Do you know who I am?”

Dow wet his lips. “N-no. No, sir.”

“I'm Inspector Thumm, of the New York police department.”

“Oh.” The ex-convict was very suspicious, alarmed; he kept jerking his small head with its scant gray hair from side to side, never meeting our eyes; wary, hopeful, as ready to bolt as to draw near.

“You've heard o' me, then?” went on father.

“Well …” Dow struggled between the instinct to keep silent and the desire to talk. “I met a guy in stir was doin' a rap for larc'ny. Said you—you kept him off the hot seat.”

“In Algonquin?”

“Yeah … Yes, sir.”

“That would be Sam Levy of the Houston Street gang,” said father with a reminiscent smile. “Good boy. Sammy, only he got mixed up with a bunch o' rodmen an' they did him dirt. Now, pin your ears back, Dow. Did Sam tell you anything about me?”