The Tragedy of Z (6 page)

Kenyon made a loud derisive noise.

“Examined this for fingerprints?”

Hume nodded; he seemed troubled. “Fawcett's prints are there, but no one else's.”

“Found on the desk,” muttered father. “Was it on the desk when Carmichael left the house tonight?”

Hume raised his eyebrows. “As a matter of fact, I didn't think it of sufficient value to ask about. Let's get Carmichael in here and find out.”

He sent a man for the secretary, who appeared promptly with a courteous and questioning look on his bland face, and then riveted his eyes upon the litle wooden piece in father's hand.

“I see you've found it,” he murmured. “Interesting, eh?”

Hume stiffened. “You find it so? What do you know about it?”

“It's a curious little story, Mr. Hume. I didn't find the opportunity to tell you about it, or Mr. Kenyon …”

“Just a minute,” drawled father. “Was this dingus on the Senator's desk tonight when you left the room?”

Carmichael smiled his thin, even smile. “It was not.”

“Then we can say,” continued father, “that this thing meant enough either to Fawcett or to his murderer to make one or the other prop it up on the desk. Doesn't that strike you as damn' important, Hume?”

“Perhaps you're right. I hadn't looked at it in that light.”

“Of course we can't say, for instance, that the Senator didn't take it out when he was alone for a peep at it. In that case the murder probably had nothing to do with it. Although I've found from experience that when somebody who's been bumped off under circumstances like these—sending everyone away—
does
something, most times that something is related to his murder. Take your choice. I'd say this piece of junk needs looking into.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Carmichael mildly, “you'd better hear what I have to say, gentlemen, before coming to any conclusions. That section of wooden box has been in the Senator's desk for weeks. In this drawer.” He circled the desk and opened the top drawer. Its contents were in confusion. ‘Somebody's been at this!”

“What do you mean?” asked the district attorney quickly.

“Senator Fawcett was a fanatic on order. Loved everything neat. I happen to know that yesterday, for instance, this drawer was in perfect order. Now the papers are disarranged. He'd never have it that way, I'm positive. Somebody rummaged in this drawer, I tell you!”

Kenyon bawled at his men: “Any o' you lunks been at the desk?” There was a chorus of negatives. “Funny,” he muttered. “I told 'em myself to leave the desk alone till later. Who in hell——?”

“Keep your shirt on, Kenyon,” growled father. “We're making progress. Offhand, looks like the killer. Now, Carmichael, what the deuce is behind this tomfool contraption. What's it mean?”

“I wish I could tell you, Inspector,” replied the secretary rergetfully. Their eyes met without expression. “But it's as much a mystery to me as it is to you. Even the way it got here was mysterious. A few weeks ago—three weeks, I think—it came in a … No, perhaps I'd better start from the beginning.”

“Make it snappy.”

Carmichael sighed. “The Senator realized that he was in for a hard pre-election fight, Mr. Hume——”

“Oh, he did, did he?” said Hume with a grim nod. “And what has that to do with it?”

“Well, Senator Fawcett thought it might add to his popularity as a candidate if he posed—I use the word advisedly—as defender of the local poor. He conceived the idea of putting on a bazaar at which the products of prison labor—from Algonquin Prison, of course—would be sold for the unemployed of the county.”

“That was pretty well exploded by the
Leeds Examiner,”
interrupted Hume dryly. “Cut out the non-essentials. What's the box to do with the bazaar?”

“Well, the Senator secured the consent of the State Prison Board and Warden Magnus, and visited Algonquin on a tour of inspection,” continued Carmichael. “This was about a month ago. He arranged with the warden to have samples of prison manufactures sent to him, here, to be used for advance publicity.” Carmichael paused, and his eyes gleamed. “And in a carton of toys made by the prison carpentry shop was this little piece of chest!”

“So,” muttered father. “How do you know this, by the way?”

“I opened the cartons.”

“This thingamajig was just stuck in with the rest of the gewgaws?”

“Not quite, Inspector. It was wrapped in a filthy piece of paper addressed in pencil to the Senator, and there was a note inside the package in an envelope, also addressed to the Senator.”

“Note!” shrieked Hume. “Why, man, that's of tremendous importance! Why didn't you tell us all this before? Where is this note? Did you read it? What did it say?”

Carmichael looked sad. “I'm sorry, Mr. Hume, but since the box and letter were addressed to Senator Fawcett, I couldn't … You see, when I found them, I turned them over to the Senator, who was at the desk examining the things as I opened the cartons. I didn't know what was in the package at all until he opened it after I turned it over to him. All I caught was a glimpse of the address. The Senator turned deathly pale when he caught sight of the box and opened the envelope with shaking fingers. I'll swear to that. And at the same time he told me to get out—he'd open the other cartons himself.”

“Too bad, too bad,” snapped Hume. “So you've no idea where the letter is, or if Fawcett destroyed it, eh?”

“After I had transshipped the toys and the other cartons to the bazaar headquarters in town, I noticed that the piece of chest wasn't in the toy carton. And then one day, about a week or so later, I happened to see it in that top drawer of the desk. As for the letter, I never saw it again.”

Hume said: “Wait a minute, Carmichael,” and whispered something to Kenyon, who looked bored and growled an order to three policemen. One of them immediately went to the desk, squatted on his hams, and began to rifle the drawers. The other two went out.

Father studied the tip of his cigar with a thoughtful squint. “Say, Carmichael, who delivered that carton of toys? Did I hear you say anything about that?”

“Did I? Prison trusties, you know, from each department. Naturally, I don't know the men.”

“Tell me this. Was the toy carton sealed when this trusty delivered it to you?”

Carmichael stared. “Oh, I see. You think the messenger might have opened the carton and slipped the package in on his way to the house? I don't think so, Inspector. The seal was perfect, and I'm sure if there'd been signs of tampering I'd have detected them.”

“Ha,” said father, smacking his lips. “Swell. That would tighten 'er up, Hume. The prison, by God. I thought you said that little jigger wasn't important!”

“I was wrong,” confessed Hume; there was boyish excitement in his dark eyes. “And you, Miss Thumm—do you think it's important, too?”

There was a smiling condescension in his tone that made me boil. Patronizing me again! I thrust my chin forward and said, with venom: “My dear Mr. Hume, surely it doesn't make any difference what
I
think?”

“Oh, come now. I didn't mean to offend you. What
do
you really think about this business of the wooden chest?”

“I think,” I snapped, “that you're all abysmally blind!”

4. THE FIFTH LETTER

During the first dog days in New York after my return from abroad I had spent considerable time catching up with American culture. Consequently I read many magazines of the popular variety and found especially interesting those samples of American enterprise and development which stared at me from the pages of the advertising sections. By their ads shall ye know them! One formula fascinated me. It was exemplified by those advertisements which ran:
They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano,
and
They Smiled When I Called Over the French Waiter
—chapters in the lives of aspiring aesthetes who amazed their friends by suddenly exhibiting a talent, fluency, or
Kultur
which no one had even suspected in their proletarian past.

I envied these hypothetical
nouveaux dilettantes
now. For John Hume chuckled, the insufferable Kenyon bellowed, the rank and file snickered, and even Jeremy Clay smiled at my pronouncement.… In a word, they laughed when I called them blind.

Unfortunately, I was not at the moment in a position to demonstrate the precise extent of their blindness or the amazing depths of their stupidity; and so I grimaced with as much frigid assurance as I could gather, and promised myself with bitter conviction the future pleasure of seeing their jaws drop in astonishment. Looking back upon the incident, it was supremely childish and funny. I had often felt that way as a little girl when my chaperon refused to grant a perverse whim—and there were many!—and on such occasions would conjure up the most horrible punishments for the poor old creature. But at this moment I was in pitiful earnest, and I turned back to the desk with their chuckles ringing in my ears and sick rage at the pit of my stomach.

Poor father was mortified; he blushed to the tips of his cauliflower ears and threw me a furious look.

To conceal my confusion I began to study a corner of the desk where, neatly stacked, lay a number of sealed, unstamped, typewriter-addressed envelopes. It was some time before the fog of rage drifted from before my eyes; and when I had managed to focus them properly, John Hume—contrite, I suppose, for having embarrassed me—said to Carmichael: “Yes, those letters. Glad you called attention to them, Miss Thumm. Did you type them, old man?”

“Eh?” Carmichael started; he seemed locked in a mental fastness of his own. “Oh, the letters. Yes, I typed them. They'd been dictated to me by the Senator this evening after dinner, and I transposed the notes on my machine before leaving the house by the Senator's orders. My own office is in that cubbyhole off the study here, you know.”

“Anything of interest in the letters?”

“Nothing likely to help you find the Senator's murderer, I'm sure.” Carmichael smiled sadly. “As a matter of fact, it seems to me that nothing in any of them can possibly be related to the visitor he was expecting. I say this because of the way he acted when I'd finished typing and placed the letters before him. He read 'em very rapidly, signed them, folded them, inserted them into the envelopes, sealed the envelopes—all in the most absent sort of way, hurriedly. His fingers were shaking. I got the definite feeling that the only thing he was concerned with at the moment was getting rid of me.”

Hume nodded. “You made carbons, I suppose. We may as well be thorough, eh, Inspector? It's barely possible that something in these letters will turn up a clue.”

Carmichael went to the desk and took from the top of a wire file-basket at one side some pink, glossy sheets of thin paper. Hume read these carbon copies casually, shook his head, and handed them to father. We examined them together.

I was rather startled to find that the top sheet was a note addressed to Elihu Clay. Father looked at me, and I looked at him, and then we both bent over to read the message. It ran, after a formal address:

D
EAR
E
LI
:

A little friendly tip, which of course I rely upon you not to reveal either as to substance or source. It's just a little thing between us, as in the past.

In all probability the new budget for next year will include provision for the construction of a million-dollar state courthouse for Tilden County. The old one, as you know, is passé, falling to pieces; and some of us on the Budget Committee are forcing through an appropriation for a new one. The constituency of Joel Fawcett shall never say that he neglected the folks at home!

We all think it would be nice if no expense were spared in this construction. Only the best of marble, so to speak.

I thought this item might “interest” you. As ever,

J
OE
F
AWCETT

“A friendly tip, huh?” growled father. “Hot stuff, Hume. No wonder you birds were after his hide.” He lowered his voice, casting a cautious glance at Jeremy, who was still standing watch in the corner, studying the tip of his fifteenth cigarette. “Think this is on the level?”

Hume laughed grimly. “No, I don't. It's just one of those precious tricks the late Senator permitted himself to indulge in. Old Eli Clay is absolutely all right. Don't be fooled by this letter; Clay didn't know the esteemed Senator so familiarly as this Eli-Joe stuff would seem to indicate.”

“Getting the grab on the record, hey?”

“Yes. If anything should ever come up, this carbon would seem to show that Elihu Clay is an active accomplice in the securing of lucrative marble contracts for his own firm. His good ‘friend,' Senator Fawcett, brother of Clay's partner, is passing the word along, with the implication that plenty of words have been passed along similarly in the past. Clay would seem as culpable as the rest of them if this dirty business should be exposed.”

“Well, I'm glad for the kid's sake, anyway. So that's the kind of smelly spalpeen this gorilla was! … Let's see the second one, Patty. I'm learning something every minute.”

The next carbon was of a letter addressed to the managing editor of the
Leeds Examiner.

“That's the only newspaper in town,” explained the district attorney, “which has had the guts to balk the Fawcett crowd.

This strongly worded missive ran:

Your untenable and unwarranted editorial of today's date deliberately misinterprets certain facts in my political record.

I demand a retraction, and that you apprise the good people of Leeds and Tilden County at large that your dirty insinuations against my personal character are unfounded!