Crime is Murder (12 page)

Marta worked. From her listening post at the ruins, Lisa followed the progress day by day. She was working, too, in a way. There was that air about the study of something being done. The incubating stage, Johnny called it.

“What’s it going to be, the epic of ‘the house of death’? If so, even I’ll get enthused about this opus. I want to know how you explain away three dead bodies and nearly twenty years of mystery.”

Lisa looked up from the note pad she was working at.

“Say that again,” she ordered.

A puzzled Johnny tried to comply. “I said, I want to know how you explain away—”

“Just the last part,” Lisa murmured.

“—three dead bodies and nearly twenty years of mystery.”

“That’s very good. I can use that thought.”

And Johnny shook her head sadly. There were times when she suspected Carrie wasn’t the only queer one in the house.

Marta worked, Lisa worked, Joel and the Cushing Construction Company worked on the bleachers and stands on the athletic field. Commencement day came and passed, with Miss Oberon’s choral group acquitting itself nobly in spite of her tireless efforts to reduce everyone to a state of nervous exhaustion. Curran Dawes closed the door on his classroom and left all the textbooks behind him. The Cornish Memorial Award Committee met again.

“And so everybody lived happily ever after,” the professor said, that faint, enigmatic smile on his face.

He stood next to Lisa in the hall outside the board room. The meeting had gone smoothly under Tod’s masterful direction. Only a bit of grumbling from Stanley Watts at the cost of new bunting for the streets and podium at the field. If better care were taken of the old bunting it wouldn’t have to be renewed so often.

“But it rained last year,” Miss Oberon reminded timidly.

“And it will probably rain again this year. That’s why I objected to all that foolishness at the field!”

After that, nobody said anything to Stanley and soon it was all over, including the arrangements for meeting and housing Sir Anthony when he arrived.

“My wife insists that he stay with us,” Tod explained. “After all, we do have the room.”

And the finest, most modern house in town. Not a relic from the past like that hideous mansion on the bluff. Tod was smiling when he made the offer, smiling particularly in the direction of Nydia, but Lisa knew what the smile really meant. Humor the old girl. Let her preside in an honorary post at the festival, but, in heaven’s name, don’t let her bore Sir Anthony. Nydia accepted the situation with a vague nod and the fingers of her mended gloves tightened on the clasp of her handbag.

Then it was all over and everybody could go home. Nydia paused in passing.

“You’re looking well, Miss Bancroft.”

“I’m feeling well,” Lisa said. “And Marta?”

“Oh, busy on her concerto. Busy as a bee. I’m so grateful for all you’ve done.”

She smiled and moved on magnificently. It was then that Professor Dawes leaned close.

“And so everybody lived happily ever after,” he said.

“I like happy endings,” Lisa answered.

“So I’ve noticed. I’ve been catching up on your novels, Miss Bancroft. They have an irritating optimism glowing from every last page.”

“And why irritating?”

“Because I’m a realist.”

It was Lisa’s turn to wear the enigmatic smile.

“So am I,” she said. “That’s why I insist on happy endings.”

That made two puzzled people. Lisa was beginning to enjoy herself.

The station wagon waited at the curb. Johnny was struggling valiantly with the folds of an enveloping road map. She greeted Lisa with an air of both expectation and resignation.

“Well, I got it,” she said, “but it wasn’t easy. Everybody in Bellville either stays home or knows where they’re going. I tried every service station in town before I found a map.”

“Good,” Lisa said. “Now let’s see if we can find a place named Granite.”

“Granite?”

Then Johnny’s face brightened with remembrance. It was she who had given the name to Lisa after getting it from Carrie. Granite meant only one thing.

“But why the map?” she protested. “Why didn’t we just ask Carrie the route?”

And Lisa smiled her indulgence.

“Carrie talks,” she said.

The village of Granite—or was it a town? Lisa was never quite sure about such classifications—was not much smaller than Bellville. Different, of course. The small dot they found on the road map took them on a journey about seventy miles inland. There was no lake breeze in Granite to cool the afternoon sun and no busy preparation for the one week’s transfusion into the anemic veins of commerce. There was the traditional circle of green called “the square,” the red stone Court House, and the civil war cannon and bronze image of a grim-faced Union soldier in full pack, bayonet fixed, marching due south. There was a National Trust and Savings Bank on one of the four intersections of the square, and, finally, a friendly faced police officer who pointed out the way to the sanitarium.

It was at the edge of town just beyond the civic limits. A long gravel drive led back from the highway for about a quarter of a mile, and then they were in the courtyard of a large, square, red brick building with a feeble attempt at colonnades at the entrance and a superintendent within who was cordial enough when Lisa told her story.

She introduced herself first of all. The receptionist, who called the superintendent, read novels. That was a help. Even more of a help was her latest fiction.

“I’ve been inquiring in Bellville after an old friend I knew many years ago. A gardener. I was shocked to learn that he’d been committed to this institution some fifteen years ago. I wonder if he’s still here.”

In this way Lisa introduced the subject of Claude Humphrey. She wasn’t questioned. Yes, Claude was an inmate. Harmless but now quite addled. He probably wouldn’t recognize a visitor—certainly not one from the forgotten past. But couldn’t she see him anyway? Couldn’t she reassure herself that he was the same man she remembered? A less persuasive visitor would have been turned aside, but it was only a matter of minutes until Lisa and Johnny were being escorted out to the garden. Once a gardener, always a gardener. Even the feeble-minded needed a place to put their hands.

“Confidentially,” Johnny whispered, as they followed the attendant along a gravel path, “these places give me the creeps. I’m always afraid they’ll shut the gates and lock me inside. It might be years before I could prove I didn’t belong.”

“If ever,” Lisa murmured.

“And what are we trying to prove, anyway?”

Lisa couldn’t answer. She knew only that to find the end of a story one should start at the beginning. Chronologically, the gossip about Marta Cornish began with Claude Humphrey. Item one, so to speak. A few yards farther, just beyond an open packing case in which two elderly men were enthusiastically cheering a ball game that wasn’t being played, the attendant came to a halt. They had reached a beautiful bed of rose bushes which were being painstakingly sprayed by an old man in coveralls whose face brightened like a candle at the sight of visitors.

“They’re doing fine this year, Claude,” the attendant said. “Even better than last year. I’ll bet you could win first prize at the state fair.”

The old man grinned vacantly. He didn’t speak. His eyes were all for the newcomers.

“These ladies have come to admire your roses, Claude. This one is an old friend of yours. She says you used to work in her garden.”

“In Bellville,” Lisa added. “Do you remember Bellville?”

The vacant grin remained unchanged.

“At least he seems happy,” Johnny murmured. “That’s more than can be said for most of the people on the outside.”

“Oh, Claude’s happy enough,” the attendant agreed. “He has his roses, as you can see, and his peonies and the zinnias, which are very fine this year. And in the winter he has the seed catalogues to study and plans to make for the coming spring. You don’t have to worry about Claude. He’s one of our most contented customers.”

“But he doesn’t remember anything about his past, anything that happened before he was sent here?”

“Not a thing. It was a long time ago.”

The man fished a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket as he talked. Then he found a folder of matches.

“This is a good place, Miss Bancroft,” he added. “I’ve worked in some places where I wouldn’t commit a mad dog—dirty, overcrowded, sickening! But this is a good place. We never have any trouble.”

The match in his hand splintered into flame. It was a little match and a little flame, but the effect was startling. Claude Humphrey’s grin vanished.

“No, no!” he cried. “No fire! No matches! Everything will burn! I told you, everything will burn!”

Claude was backing away, the spray gun held behind him now. In place of that grin was stark terror.

“Oh, damn!” the attendant exclaimed in a half-whisper. “I forgot, Claude. I’m sorry. Here, see, the fire is out. The match is dead. There, it’s all ground out with my heel. It’s all right, Claude. It’s all right!”

“No fire. No matches,” Claude repeated. “I told you.”

“Sure you did, and you’re right. You go on with your spraying now. We won’t bother you any more. We’ll leave you alone now.”

Lisa wasn’t going to give the attendant an argument when he beckoned them to follow him back along the gravel path. One look at Claude’s wild face in a moment of panic had been enough to reassure her the causes for his commitment were genuine.

“It was my fault,” the attendant explained. “I should have remembered. Nearly every one of these inmates has some peculiarity. With Claude it’s fire. He goes berserk every time he sees a flame. It’s the insecticide, I guess. Some of that stuff’s highly inflammable. Claude’s afraid the whole place will go up in flames someday.”

“Has he said that?” Lisa asked.

“Sure. Just let him catch somebody burning leaves, for instance. He really gets wound up then. But he’s harmless. We have all kinds in a place like this. You just have to get used to them.”

“No thanks,” Johnny said. “I have enough trouble getting used to some of the varieties on the outside. If the tour is over, I’d like to go home.”

The tour was over. They went back to the station wagon and drove back through town, Johnny being quite vocal on her dislike of such unscheduled ventures, and Lisa being very thoughtful. As they approached the square she made a decision.

“It’s not yet three o’clock,” she said. “Park in front of the bank. I want to make another call.”

“The bank?”

For all her grumbling, Johnny was interested. She was just too wise to come right out and ask what was going on, knowing she wouldn’t get a direct answer. The reason for that was simple enough. Lisa didn’t know. She was gambling now, and a bank seemed a good place to get a stake.

The interior of the National Trust and Savings Bank of Granite differed little from the Merchant’s Bank of Bellville. It was no more active on a sultry afternoon, and no more difficult to gain the ear of an officer of some importance. Not another Stanley Watts, of course. There could be only one faceless Stanley. But someone with an eye to enlisting the patronage of a woman who sounded like an important depositor-to-be.

“Of course, I’m living in Bellville,” Lisa explained, “but I don’t like to keep all of my eggs in one basket, so to speak. Besides, I’ll be traveling about the countryside looking for locales. It will be convenient to have funds at various banks.”

The story seemed to be going well. She took it further.

“I inquired among my friends in Bellville for a reliable bank in this area. This one was recommended. I can’t remember at the moment just who it was—”

“Oh, we have many friends in Bellville,” the banker said.

“Unfortunately, I haven’t. I’ve been there only a little over a month. But I have met Nydia Cornish.”

“The widow of Martin Cornish,” the banker said. “Fine thing, the Cornish Festival. I always take the wife and children over. Don’t know much about music myself, but I’ve got a boy, only fourteen, who plays first cornet in the Granite High School band.”

Lisa had to help the banker glow over a young first cornettist before she could continue. She was still gambling and still drawing blanks.

“And, of course, I’ve met Tod Graham. In fact, he’s handling a property transaction for me.”

“First-rate man,” the banker said. “Wish we had leadership of his caliber here in Granite. He’s making a great thing of that music festival.”

“And Dr. Hazlitt,” Lisa added.

“Oh, of course. We’re old friends. Reid Hazlitt has had an account here for many years.”

Lisa sat still in a little well of silence.

“Comes over to the sanitarium, you know. He’s on the board of directors.”

“Of course,” Lisa murmured. “Well, I shan’t take any more of your time—”

“Oh, that’s all right, Miss Bancroft. It’s been a pleasure. And you be sure and ask for me when you decide.”

“I’ll do that. When I decide.”

Lisa went outside. Johnny was waiting in the car. She expected some kind of an explanation.

“Well?” she asked.

But what was there to tell? A few broken threads, a few nebulous ideas coming and then fading like indistinct faces in a fog. Lisa opened her handbag and took out the pad of paper over which she’d labored so much of late. She studied it thoughtfully.