The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries
- Автор: Пауэлл Тэлмидж
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: Wildside Press LLC
- Жанр: Криминальные детективы
Электронная книга - «The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries». Краткое содержание книги:
Later, as the light of a cold moon streamed through the cottage windows, Mrs. Peabody slipped out of bed. She moved to the window and stood looking at the dark, distant hulk of the Hockins house.
Mr. Peabody got up and came to stand beside her. They were fat and thin images of silver in their long nightgowns.
“I couldn’t sleep either,” Mr. Peabody said.
“He suspects us, Mr. Peabody.”
“He suspects everyone. Encouraging, I’d say. Indicates a lingering doubt, a faintly remaining question in his mind as to whether the body might one day be found. And this means it isn’t perfect, means there’s still the chance of finding it.”
Mrs. Peabody stood with her face almost against the window pane. “But where? Years ago, Sheriff Tomerlin went over every inch of the estate. Not a blade of grass or a flower bed disturbed. No abandoned quarries or handy lakes in this area. No patches in the concrete floor of the basement to mark a grave. And our recent search of the house yielded nothing — no false walls in the closets or bones in old chests or trunks.”
“No key to the attic, either.”
“Don’t forget — Tomerlin was too thorough to pass up the attic seven years ago.”
“I know,” Mr. Peabody said doggedly, “but Teddy didn’t include an attic key when he sent us the keys from New York. I’ll grant you the attic was empty. Now — I’d like to look again.”
The lock on the attic door so fascinated Mr. Peabody that he failed to hear Teddy’s silent approach.
“Peabody!”
Mr. Peabody whirled. Hockins was a thin, gloomy form in the scant sunlight filtering into the narrow passageway.
“What are you doing, Peabody?”
“I thought you might want the attic cleaned, Mr. Hockins.”
“The attic is empty. It needs no cleaning.”
“Yes, sir.” Mr. Peabody started from the door.
Teddy blocked the way. “What did you think I have in there, Peabody?”
Mr. Peabody carefully wiped his lips with the back of his hand. If he doesn’t get out of my way, Mr. Peabody thought, I’ll break the young pup in two.
“Well, Peabody?”
“I considered the possibility,” Mr. Peabody said coolly, “that you might have put a certain object in the attic after the sheriff searched.”
“Really? You mean that an object was hidden in one place while the sheriff searched the attic, then slipped into the attic as the search progressed to other areas.”
“Could be. Will you open the attic?”
“Of course not.”
“The law might force you to.”
“Go ahead, Peabody. Make a fool of yourself. The attic remains locked. Why should I admit any glimmer of truth in your wild accusation?”
Teddy Hockins stepped aside. “You may go now, Peabody. And by the way — I have all the necessary papers ready. My lawyer can take care of the remainder of my chores here. I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I suggest you and your wife look for another position. I’ll take into account your age and obvious senility and be generous with you.”
Exasperation and frustration rose in Mr. Peabody, almost choking him. “So you’ve got away with it!”
“Peabody, really! I’d suggest you see a doctor. In view of your long term of service, I shall try-hard not to be offended by you. Instead, I’ll give you a few dollars to help you resettle. The cottage will be torn down. The house will be closed, never to be opened again as long as I live.”
Dismally, Mr. Peabody sat alone in the cottage. Mrs. Peabody came in. Her cheeks were pink and damp from her labors in the big house.
“Are you ill, Mr. Peabody?”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking. He’s leaving tomorrow. Pulling it off. Escaping for good.”
She came and stood beside his chair. “Mr. Peabody, could we have been wrong?”
“No,” he said. “I share the view that Sheriff Tomerlin held, rest him. An old lady simply doesn’t walk out of her house one dark night and disappear.”
“It’s happened, Mr. Peabody. It’s happened.”
“But not to an old witch like her. She wouldn’t turn her back on her house and money unless her mind cracked. And I don’t believe her mind slipped over the edge that evening, as Teddy cleverly insinuated. She was slightly balmy, all right, but not in that way.”
“She was fearful and it made her fearsome, Mr. Peabody.”
“You can say that again! Afraid Teddy’d look at a girl his own age, or get interested in a business that would take him away from here. She made him what he was, and is. And the final rebellion took place the night he killed her.
“Oh, I don’t say he meant to do it. I think they argued, like always, her alternately screaming and whining at him until he was half out of his mind. I think, as Tomerlin thought, that Teddy struck her — and when he saw that she was dead, he made her disappear.”
Mr. Peabody had spoken so rapidly he was out of breath. He inhaled deeply and added explosively, “We’ve got to get in the attic — and we have to do it right now!”
Mrs. Peabody wandered about the room, apparently aimlessly. Then she stopped and regarded him thoughtfully. “Mr. Peabody, you were a wonderful fox-hunter when you were young.”
Mr. Peabody raised his hands, let them fall to slap his thighs. “Honestly, Mother—”
“You used to say to me: ‘The fox is smart. He centers your attention in one direction so’s you won’t look in another.’ You also said that Teddy would give himself away when he came back. Maybe he has done that, Mr. Peabody.”
A momentary rigidity overcame Mr. Peabody. Then he jumped up and hugged his wife. “Mother, you are marvelous. The young fox — he centers our attention upward, when we should be looking down. The old lady’s body is surely in the basement!”
“Not under the concrete floor.”
“No good. Previously eliminated.”
“But the basement walls were always kept fresh and white, Mr. Peabody.”
“A fact that never meant anything before Teddy directed our attention to it,” Mr. Peabody said. “A new inner wall, parallel to an old wall, could be painted white and would be right in keeping with the rest of the basement. A wall to form a crypt — the old lady’s final resting place.”
Mrs. Peabody was breathless. “We do work well together, Mr. Peabody!”
“I’ll say. Now it’s simple arithmetic to measure the base of the house outside, the basement inside, and determine—”
“Oh, dear! Oh, my goodness—” Mrs. Peabody gasped.
“Something wrong?”
“Where did he get all those bricks, Mr. Peabody? It would take quite a few, you know.”
Mr. Peabody scratched his head. His brow knotted. He sat glumly. Then he sprang to his feet again. “There’s one way — and only one way — he could have made a grave with never a surface mark to show it. He carried the body the crime down to the basement, moved a few bricks, tunneled a short distance deep under the lawn, disposed of the evidence, replaced the bricks and painted over them. Given a whole night, even Teddy could have handled it.”
“How can we prove it, Mr. Peabody?”
“We must make Teddy tip his hand.”
Mr. Peabody was pecking with hammer and chisel on the basement wall when Teddy Hockins’ shadow fell across him. Mr. Peabody paused with the hammer half drawn back. He turned slowly.
“What are we doing this time, Peabody?” Teddy said tightly.
“Examining mortar, Mr. Hockins. This house is nearly a century old. I’m positive the original mortar will differ in color and texture from mortar used seven years ago. Finding strange mortar, I propose to remove a few bricks and see what lies beyond.”
Teddy Hockins slipped a small gun from his jacket pocket. His face was very white. “Too bad you came in here, Peabody. I can’t very well let you leave, can I?”