Deadly Nightshade (19 page)

“Well, Mr. Gamadge,” replied Schenck, responding to the smile with a still fainter one, “you'd be surprised. I'll give you a few factors which you might take into consideration: First, Mr. Ormiston is in a terrific jam; I find that he owes money in New York, that he owes to every tradesman in Oakport, that he may lose his cottage at Harper's Rocks for back taxes, and that he's selling personal property. Second, we have only Mrs. Ormiston's word for it that he doesn't know about her taking out those policies. Third, that Sidney Ormiston is in immediate need of an expensive operation. And finally, that nobody up there at the Rocks saw Mrs. Ormiston at all from eleven A.M. on Tuesday until Breck came back with the news of Tommy Strangways' disappearance. As for killing three children, I understand the little Bartram girl died, you might say, accidentally, and that nobody knows whether the little Beasley girl wouldn't have got over it, if she'd been found.”

“Really, Mr. Schenck,” said Gamadge, sitting up and regarding the young man with admiration, “you don't seem to have been wasting your time! Mitchell, let's co-operate.”

Mitchell hesitated, and Mr. Schenck continued, blandly:

“And on Wednesday we got in touch with the company that insures Ormiston himself against fire. I've got a copy of their inventory in my pocket. He's been selling curios and stuff out of his studio.”

“Mr. Schenck, you're a walking wonder. How on earth did you think of all that?” asked Gamadge.

“Just routine investigation. He sold in June.”

“When old Mrs. Bartram died, and couldn't check up on what he got for some old pictures, say. This is interesting, Mr. Schenck; I won't deny it. Real interesting,” exclaimed Mitchell. “How in the world did you get the Solidarity to give you this information?”

“When it's a question of the
bona fides
of policyholders, the various companies are glad to—er—to—”

“Co-operate,” suggested Gamadge, gravely.

“That's the word I wanted.”

“Mitchell,
we
really must co-operate. We want to see that inventory.”

Mitchell said: “All right; don't advise your company to renew till I give you the word, or until you see something official in the papers. We don't know much—at least I don't,” he amended, casting an irritated glance at Gamadge, “but we know enough to say that in confidence.”

Mr. Schenck, looking gratified, drew a typewritten sheet of paper out of his wallet, and Gamadge got out of his chair to read it over Mitchell's shoulder:

“Antique Ghiordes rug; clair-de-lune vases; Japanese lacquer screen, eighteenth century; brocades, Venetian; Japanese prints,
curious
; jade cups. I wonder if he got anything like these prices? They're appraised pretty high, all these things.”

“We contacted the dealer that bought them, but he hasn't come across with the figures yet. Dealers don't always—”

“Co-operate. You're right, they don't. Here we are, Mitchell; ‘Six modern French paintings, Barbizon School, $350; Nymphs dancing, attributed to Coypel the elder, $650.' But not a sign of a Dutchman, master or pupil. He didn't sell it, or have it appraised, either. How long do you plan to stay on, Mr. Schenck?”

“I thought if I could get my information, I'd go back on the ten o'clock tomorrow night. Might as well stay through Sunday, anyhow.”

“Good. We'll entrain together. I hope you and Mitchell will have supper with me here this evening; it ought to be ready pretty soon, by the smell.”

Mr. Schenck, inhaling the heavenly odors wafted to them from the kitchen, said that he'd be delighted to stay, only he had to get back to the Pegram House right afterwards and write up his report, so it would catch the night mail.

“You sit and write it up in the lobby, there,” Mitchell adjured him. “Then you can keep an eye on a Miss Walworth, guest of the hotel. I have one man on the job, but she flits around so, she might get away from him. If you watched the front, till I got back myself—”

“I could put her car out of commission for you; just till tomorrow, you know,” suggested Mr. Schenck.

“You could, could you?” Mitchell went to the telephone, and called the Pegram House. “That you, Hoskins? I'm staying here at Burnsides for supper. If—what! Not showed up yet? Where in time is she?”

“Leave Hoskins to it,” said Gamadge. “His mistakes are worth other people's bull's-eyes.”

Mitchell came back to the fire. “I don't know but what I'll take you up on that proposition, Schenck; if she ever does get back to the Pegram House, I mean to say. You wouldn't damage the car, I suppose?”

“No, just fix it so she couldn't very well light out again tonight. Who is she?” Schenck gazed at him alertly.

“Never you mind who she is. I want her anchored in the hotel till tomorrow. It's practically impossible to keep all these folks in line; I'd need a regiment. Mind telling me what Mrs. Ormiston said to you today?”

“Not at all. This morning I just made a date to see her this afternoon. She was nervous about her husband finding out about the insurance, so we arranged for her to meet me in the road, just beyond Harper's, and bring the boy. She told me the gypsies were to blame, and that everybody thought so. I gave her some talk about the company wanting information for their records; she took it as cool as you please. All she wanted, so she said, was to keep Ormiston out of it. Young Tommy looked to me like a pretty healthy specimen; but when I asked him who gave him the berries, he started to bawl.”

“Hostile witness,” said Gamadge. “They ruin a case.”

“Well, it's a queer sort of show, if you ask me.”

“We don't have to ask you,” Mitchell told him.

Mr. Schenck went upstairs for a wash before supper. Gamadge, eyeing Mitchell rather warily, went over to the desk and picked up the telephone. He called his own number in New York, and then extracted an object from his pocket which Mitchell recognized with a grin.

“Going to use the code,” he remarked, while Gamadge laid the little green book on the desk, and riffled its pages with his free hand.

“Yes. Our friend upstairs is deeply interested in our proceedings, as well he may be; and, as you said, Burnsides isn't built for privacy.” The call came through, and Gamadge opened the conversation.

“Harold?… I'm fine. Burnsides is a great place, wonderful food, centrally located between Ford's Center and Oakport… Yes, I've had quite a day, so far. All ready with the code?… Here goes, then. Simcox… Yes, I said Simcox… Of course it's here—right in the book.… No such word in the code? Nonsense… It doesn't mean anything? Neither do half the other words. I know you say they all mean something, but—What's that? I can't read my own writing? Certainly I can. If you can't, that's nothing to me. Here it is, S-I-MC-O-X… What?…
Smilax?
Oh. Wait a minute. Well, Smilax, then.”

He cast an injured glance at the grinning Mitchell, and went laboriously on:

“The next word is Toves, and the next, Pandion. I know what you've been reading; keep it up. Sad old poems are just what you need. Yes; Toves and Pandion. That'll do for the present. Sure you understand?… Good. Report to me here as early as you please, tomorrow morning; by telephone, naturally. Have you money to go on with? Good. Till tomorrow, then.”

He hung up. Mitchell said, climbing the stairs in his wake, “I bet you told him to get a picture expert, and go burgle Ormiston's studio.”

“Wish I'd thought of it.”

Mitchell made a quick toilet in Gamadge's private bathroom, while his host finished unpacking by dumping the contents of his bag on top of the Burnsides' fumed oak dresser. Afterwards, rocking gently, and with his own notebook on his knee, he made penciled scrawls which only he could read. Gamadge splashed water, and then rubbed his head and neck furiously with a Turkish towel.

“Worst muddle I ever saw,” said Mitchell. “Was that stuff about the life insurance some of the facts you were waiting for?”

“I won't know until tomorrow morning.”

“You're the most obstinate feller living. Let's see what we got today. Gypsies. Little boy could have brought that red bell down to Bartrams'; but they don't seem to have any more motive than they had before; less, because old Mrs. Bartram was a friend of theirs and gave Mrs. Stuart old clothes and knickknacks. Was that gold chain any good?”

“No,” replied Gamadge, from the bathroom door. “The gilt was wearing off it.”

“Bartrams, Mr. and Mrs. George. Motive, if any, the Bartram property. Opportunity, lots—if we admit Mrs. Bartram as an accomplice, which I don't.” Mitchell doggedly made a note. Gamadge said:

“For the second time, beware!”

“You beware of not taking character into consideration. Have I left anything out about the Bartrams?”

“Their return from Europe was unpremeditated and hurried.”

“But they had lots of time on that boat to think about the financial situation. Irma could have brought that red bell into the Bartram property.”

“She's too old to be allowed to witness such a scheme being carried out under her nose.”

“She might have been sound asleep in the car all the time.”

“Both times. Well…”

“I know there's plenty the matter with the idea. Ormistons, Mr. and Mrs. Motive, money.”

“Not quite seven hundred dollars.”

“They need it bad, and Ormiston has another motive—Carroll Bartram busted his nose.”

“And he is suffering from delayed shock,” murmured Gamadge, busy at his nails.

“If he cheated them out of old Mr. Bartram's four hundred thousand, that'll prove how far he'll go for money.”

“Where's the four hundred thousand, that he has to murder somebody, or try to, for seven hundred more?”

“He hasn't been able to market the picture, or pictures. Ormiston is a selfish, ruthless type, doesn't care for a thing but his painting and drawing. That was great, wasn't it, the way he drew that head of Martha in three or four strokes, without even thinking about it?”

“Great; that's the word for him, when he's at his best.”

“Mrs. Ormiston is the type that would see everybody else in the world blown to smithereens, if it would do her children any good.”

“I don't see people as types; never could.”

“You've got to cut a few corners, or you'd never get anywhere; not in a police investigation. Both Ormistons need money right now. I don't know how they'd get hold of the red bell, but perhaps they had Tommy with them on Tuesday, and he had it from Sarah Beasley.”

“Very ingenious.”

“Evelyn Walworth: and she's still my best bet. Two good motives, single or together—religious mania and revenge. Women like that, lonesome, unbalanced, they get to brooding. I can see her carrying that red bell around—just what she'd do. Probably had all the opportunity she needed. I wish she'd get back to the Pegram House; I don't like the idea of her driving around, thinking up crazy things to occupy her mind.”

“There was nothing very crazy about the way she tracked us down, Mitchell. She enjoyed my nice little book, too.”

“Miss Humphrey, the unknown quantity. She could be just about anybody, except a big man. She's a fake, because a real canvasser wouldn't go visiting summer cottages and family mansions; Miss Ridgeman saw through her right off. A real canvasser would stick to the natives. Well, I guess that's all. You wouldn't condescend to add anything, would you?”

“I would.” Gamadge finished brushing his hair, and put on his tie. “It seems very odd to me that Miss Humphrey should have used a complicated device like picture taking to learn the habits and customs of those families.”

“Well, I don't know.” Mitchell looked down at his notes. “You think I better put that in?”

“As you please.”

A gong sounded belowstairs, and Gamadge put on his coat and stood at the door. Mitchell, grumbling, preceded him down to the lobby, where Mr. Schenck awaited them, looking ravenous.

Action

M
R. ROBERT SCHENCK
had departed. He was full of tinker mackerel, succotash and creamed potatoes, and he had some of Mrs. Burnside's own special sunburn lotion on his peeling nose. He had given Mitchell a solemn promise to do nothing worse to Miss Walworth's car, if it ever did return to the Pegram House, than to flatten a tire.

“That'll hold her, until one of us can camp on her trail,” said Mitchell. “Gosh darn it, where is the woman?”

Mr. Schenck said she was probably at the movies, since there was a revival of “Snow White” at the Center. He drove off into a chill, clear evening, and Mitchell applied himself to the telephone. Gamadge sat before the fire, one leg over the arm of his chair, a glass of his own whisky on a table beside him, and the New York paper—whence all mention of the nightshade poisonings had vanished—on the floor where he had allowed it to fall.

“There's no such paper as
Health In The Home
, and no such contest,” Mitchell informed him. “The Stony Ridge House in Haverley says the George Bartrams got there about six on Monday evening, all tuckered out, and the little girl was asleep in the car. She never woke up when they carried her in. Bartram drove out again in about half an hour.”

“But did he get down to the short cut Tuesday, around eight?” murmured Gamadge, sleepily.

“I was wondering when you'd begin talking about the short cut.”

“No use talking about it until we have some data. I suppose you'll have to try and find out where all the rest of 'em were, about then on Tuesday.”

“Including Walworth?”

“Automobile tools are so heavy, some of them; and even state policemen are not on their guard when motorists ask them to look at a tire, say.”