Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 62, No. 2, October 3, 1931
- Автор: Энгланд Джордж Аллан, Philips Judson P.
- Год: 1931
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 62, No. 2, October 3, 1931». Краткое содержание книги:
“He’s a moron, and a moron will do anything,” snapped Farrell. “You’ve done great work so far, Grant, and we have to admit you have. And you certainly won’t let us keep that family out of the tabloids. I’m going up to the Nicolay house now and question Ann. It’s time she talked.”
“Just a moment, I have something to tell you,” said Tom, and gave the two an account of his morning’s work. The superintendent forgot the heat and bent forward eagerly, and Farrell forgot that he didn’t like Tom and sat listening absorbed as young Grant’s level voice went on.
“You’re not thinking of leaving Darbyville, are you, Grant?” asked Merrill, when he finished. “Because I sure could use you here.”
“No,” replied Tom with a broad grin. “Thanks.”
“His daughter!” groaned Farrell. “Who would have thought of that?”
“I couldn’t see from the start why those two were such friends. I couldn’t get it. It didn’t seem like a love affair, and yet... well, it had me stopped.”
“I’m off to call on Ann,” said Farrell grimly, reaching for his straw. “Come in, Grant. I’ve got to find out why she hid that gun and I still protest that Malliett intended to kill those two. Since I know that Enid was Nicolay’s child I bet a dollar Malliett was onto the fact that he was going to change his will! Tying them to the mill wheel and beating heathen drums sounds like brother Edgar to me!”
“That act wasn’t idiotic,” said Tom as he followed Farrell from the office. “I think it was brilliant. And thereby hangs our case, if we ever solve it!”
Miss Ann Malliett received the two men in her own sitting room. Seated beside a couch upon which reclined Dorcas Nicolay, she glanced up at them with cold disapproval.
It was evident that her brother’s arrest had shaken the lady’s poise badly, but she still maintained her frigid air and her calm seemed undisturbed.
Dorcas, a petulant, dark-eyed young beauty, made no pretense at courtesy, but stared at the police with flashing, resentful eyes.
“You have been here once before this morning, Mr. Farrell,” said Miss Ann acidly, “interviewing Miss Lee.”
“Yes,” grinned Farrell. “And the reporters are anxious to see her, too. She did a very spectacular thing by getting our department to look for her while she hid in your attic.”
“She did a ridiculous, childish thing!” flared Miss Ann. “But what is wrong now? Does Edgar need me?”
“I think not,” replied Farrell dryly. “I came to ask you again about the gun which you once denied ever having seen before. That gun you hid in your own brook. Your brother Edgar bought that revolver in the Dixie Sporting Goods Store on State Street a month ago. The man who sold it to him has identified Mr. Malliett. Are you still going to deny that you ever saw it?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Aunt Ann, tell them!” pouted Dorcas angrily. “Nobody was shot. Nobody did anything with that gun.”
Miss Malliett laid down the knitting which she held in her jeweled fingers and let her cold eyes sweep over Farrell as though he must be looked at, though the sight was disagreeable.
“Very well,” she sighed. “The story is not as bad as the one you already have. Edgar could not be in a much worse position. I was afraid, and so was Paul, that he was up to something, and we really should have put him in charge of a specialist, in some sort of nursing home. However, to a family like ours that is a hard step to take. Paul never confided in me to any great extent. I did not know that he had applied to a private agency to send a spy into our home. I did, however, watch Edgar as much as I could, and I kept money away from him. He was not really vicious, not really bad. He—”
“He was a nut,” said Miss Dorcas flatly.
“And so you knew he had the gun,” prompted Farrell.
“Yes. I found it. But only yesterday. I watched my chance when he was out, and hid it in the brook. Such an idea as the nursemaid of my neighbor spying upon me never occurred to me!”
Miss Ann’s cheeks colored angrily.
“Miss Malliett, how long have you and your brother known that Enid Cleet was Paul Nicolay’s daughter?” asked Farrell in a pleasant, conversational tone.
All color drained from Miss Ann’s face and she sank back in her chair, looking suddenly haggard and spent.
Dorcas lifted herself on her pillows, a young flame of rage and fear.
“How the devil did you police get that?” she wanted to know furiously.
“How long have you known, Miss Malliett?” Farrell asked coolly.
“Since last week,” whispered Ann through stiff lips. “Edgar overheard Carson talking here in the study to Paul, and he ran to me with the news. He was shivering and in a dreadful state.”
“Why?”
“I think he loved Mrs. Cleet and he was shocked. He isn’t just... just what he should be, poor Edgar.”
“Loved nothing!” roared Farrell. “He was afraid that meant that he wouldn’t get any of Nicolay’s money! A daughter and one that Nicolay loved was a pretty serious obstacle.”
“How dare you!” cried Miss Ann, flushing furiously.
“Oh, let them rave!” said Dorcas with a yawn, as she subsided on her pillows. “They’ll either find the lover of Enid’s who did for Dad and Enid, or they’ll get tired badgering us after a while.”
“You think she had a lover?” asked Farrell.
“Sure she had. She was crazy about that jazz leader at the Walnut Club. And dear knows how many more. Enid was a siren.”
“Miss Malliett,” said Farrell, turning back to Ann, “after your brother heard of this relationship between Paul and Enid didn’t he plan to do something desperate to the woman? Wasn’t that why you hid the gun?”
“No, no!” cried Ann. “He bought the gun, you just said, a month ago. That was three weeks before we knew about Enid.”
“Did Paul know you knew about Enid?”
“Not that I ever heard of. Paul would have packed us all out most likely.”
“He was so fond of her?”
“He was wild about her,” sneered Dorcas. “He never cared a rap for me.”
“Yet you were prostrated when you heard of his murder,” said Farrell slyly.
For a moment Dorcas hesitated.
“Why wouldn’t I be? He was my father.”
“I don’t think you were prostrated,” said Farrell evenly. “I think you and your prince were two more folks who had no alibi and that you were just plain scared and stayed in your room, scared as badly as Louise Lee.”
“Well, what you think and what you prove are two different things, aren’t they?” asked Dorcas insolently.
“Not always,” said Farrell, not at all disturbed by her attitude. “Just what time did you get home this morning?”
“We came in at midnight.”
“I know, that’s what you say, but wasn’t it a good bit later than that?” asked the detective pleasantly.
“I expect that servant girl spy told you that!” flared Dorcas, sitting erect again. “Idiots in this house and detectives spying on them and us, and unrecognized daughters coming in for part of the inheritance! It is time Carl and I got out.”
“Just what time did you come in this morning?” persisted Farrell.
“Tell them, Dorcas; you’ve done no harm,” advised Miss Ann.
“It was after three,” said Dorcas defiantly. “I suppose Hallston or the detective or that nuisance Louise Lee told you. Some house this is to live in! Carl and I only drove out to the yacht club and back. It was so darn hot.”
As she spoke, Tom wondered if she and her precious prince had any guilty knowledge of the tragedies. Dorcas seemed frankly to hate Enid, her half-sister, and the prince sounded like a bounder. If Nicolay was about to alter his will in favor of the unacknowledged daughter on the eve of Dorcas’s brilliant wedding to Prince Carl, what then? Who were the two witnesses Nicolay had told Carson he would bring to the farm? But beating inexorably through the muddle in his mind came the drums. Those death drums! If he could account for them!