Tenth Commandment (21 page)

The story he told was not an original, but no less affecting for t h a t . . .

He had never been able to satisfy his father. Never. All he remembered of his boyhood was mean and sour criti-173

cism. His mother and sister tried to act as buffers, but he took most of his father's spleen. His school marks were unacceptable; he was not active enough in sports; his table manners were slovenly.

'Even the way I stood!' Powell Stonehouse shouted at me. 'He didn't even like the way I walked!'

It never diminished, this constant litany of complaint, in fact, as Powell grew older, it increased. His father simply hated him. There was no other explanation for his spite; his father hated him and wished him gone. He was convinced of that.

At this point in his recital, I feared he might be close to tears, and I was relieved to see Wanda Chard reach out to imprison one of those wildly fluttering hands and grasp it tightly.

His sister, Glynis, had always been his father's favourite, Powell continued. He understood that in most normal families the father dotes on the daughter, the mother on the son. But the Stonehouses were no normal family. The father's ill-temper drove friends from their house, made a half-mad alcoholic of his wife, forced his daughter to a solitary life away from home.

'I would have gone nuts,' Powell Stonehouse said furiously. 'I was going nuts. Until I found Wanda.'

'And Zen,' she murmured.

'Yes,' he said, 'and Zen. Now, slowly through instinct and meditation, I am becoming one. Mr Bigg, I must speak the truth: what I feel. I don't care if you never find my father. I think I'm better off without him. And my sister is, too. And my mother. And the world. You must see, you must understand, that I have this enormous hate. I'm trying to rid myself of it.'

'Hate is a poison,' Wanda Chard said.

'Yes,' he said, nodding violently, 'hate is a poison and I'm trying very hard to flush it from my mind and from my soul. But all those years, those cold, brutal scenes, those 174

screaming arguments... it's going to take time. I know that: it's going to take a long, long time. But I'm better now. Better than I was.'

'Oh, forgive him,' Wanda Chard said softly.

'No, no, no,' he said, still fuming. 'Never. I can never forgive him for what he did to me. But maybe, someday, with luck, I can forget him. That's all I want.'

I was silent, giving his venom a chance to cool. And also giving me a chance to ponder what I had just heard. He had made no effort to conceal his hostility towards his father. Was that an honest expression of the way he felt — or was it calculated? That is, did he think to throw me off by indignation openly displayed?

'Doubt everyone,' Roscoe Dollworth had said. 'Suspect everyone.'

He had also told me something else. He said the only thing harder than getting the truth was asking the right questions. 'No one's going to volunteer nothing! '

Dollworth said that sometimes the investigator had to flounder all over the place, striking out in all directions, asking all kinds of extraneous questions in hopes that one of them might uncover an angle never before considered.

'Catching flies,' he called it.

I felt it was time to 'catch flies.'

'Your sister was your father's favourite?' I asked.

He nodded.

'How did he feel towards your mother?'

'Tolerated her.'

'How often did you dine at your father's home? I mean after you moved out?'

'Twice a week maybe, on an average.'

'Do you know what your father's illness was? Last year when he was sick?'

'The flu, Mother said. Or a virus.'

'Do you know any of your sister's friends?'

'Not really. Not recently. She goes her own way.'

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'But she goes out a lot?'

'Yes. Frequently.'

'Where?'

'To the theatre, I guess. Movies. Ballet. Ask her.'

'She's a beautiful woman. Why hasn't she married?'

'No one was ever good enough for Father.'

'She's of age. She can do as she likes.'

'Yes,' Wanda Chard said, 'I've wondered about that.'

'She wouldn't leave my mother,' Powell said. 'She's devoted to my mother.'

'But not to your father?'

He shrugged.

'Anything you can tell me about the servants?'

'What about them?'

'You trust them?'

'Of course.'

'What did you and your father quarrel about? The final quarrel?'

'He caught me smoking a joint. We both said things we shouldn't have. So I moved out.'

'You have an independent income?'

'Enough,' Wanda Chard said quickly.

'Your sister doesn't have one particular friend? A man, I mean. Someone she sees a lot of?'

'I don't know. Ask her.'

'Was your father on a special diet?'

'What?'

'Did he eat any special foods or drink anything no one else in the house ate or drank?'

'Not that I know of. Why?'

'In the last month or two before your father disappeared, did you notice any gradual change in his behaviour?'

He thought about that for a few seconds.

'Maybe he became more withdrawn.'

'Withdrawn?'

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'Surlier. Meaner. He talked even less than usual. He ate his dinner, then went into his study.'

'His will iS missing. Did you know that?'

'Glynis told me. I don't care. I don't want a cent from him. Not a cent! If he left me anything. I'd give it away.'

'Why did your mother stay with such a man as you describe?'

'What could she do? Where could she go? She has no family of her own. She couldn't function alone.'

'Your mother and sister could have left together. Just as you left.'

'Why should they? It's their home, too.'

'You never saw your father's will?'

'No.'

'Did you see the book he was working on? A history of the Prince Royal, a British battleship?'

'No, I never saw that. I never went into his study.'

'Did your father drink? I mean alcohol?'

'Maybe a highball before dinner. Some wine. A brandy before he went to bed. Nothing heavy.'

'Are you on any drugs now?'

'A joint now and then. That's all. No hard stuff.'

'Your mother or sister?'

'My mother's on sherry. You probably noticed.'

'Your sister?'

'Nothing as far as I know.'

'Your father?'

'You've got to be kidding.'

'Either of the servants?'

'Ridiculous.'

'Do you love your mother?'

'I have a very deep affection for her. And pity. He ruined her life.'

'Do you love your sister?'

'Very much. She's an angel.'

Wanda Chard made a sound.

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'Miss Chard,' I said, 'did you say something? I didn't catch it.'

'Nothing,' she said.

That's what I had — nothing. I continued 'catching flies.'

'Did your father ever come down here?' I asked. 'To this apartment?'

'Once,' he said. 'I wasn't here. But Wanda met him.'

'What did you think of him, Miss Chard?'

'So unhappy,' she murmured. 'So bitter. Eating himself up.'

'When did he come here? I mean, how long was it before he disappeared?'

They looked at each other.

'Perhaps two weeks,' she said. 'Maybe less.'

'He just showed up? Without calling first?'

'Yes.'

'Did he give any reason for his visit?'

'He said he wanted to talk to Powell. But Powell was in Brooklyn, studying with his master. So Professor Stonehouse left.'

'How long did he stay?'

'Not long. Ten minutes perhaps.'

'He didn't say what he wanted to talk to Powell about?'

'No.'

'And he never came back?'

'No,' Powell Stonehouse said, 'he never came back.'

'And when you saw him later, in his home, did he ever mention the visit or say what he wanted to talk to you about?'

'No, he never mentioned it. And I didn't either.'

I thought a moment.

'It couldn't have been a reconciliation, could it?'

I suggested. 'He came down here to ask your forgiveness?'

He stared at me. His face slowly congealed. The blow he had been expecting had landed.

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'I don't know.' he said in a low voice.

'Maybe,' Wanda Chard murmured.

3

Olga Eklund agreed to meet me in a health-food cafeteria on Irving Place. The salad, full of sprouted seeds, was really pretty good. I washed it down with some completely natural juice.

I listened to her lecture on health and diet as patiently as I could. When she paused I said, 'So when you told me Professor Stonehouse was being poisoned, you were referring to the daily food served in his house?'

'Yah. Bad foods. I tell them all the time. They don't listen. That Mrs Dark, the cook — everything with her is butter and cream. Too much oil. Too rich.'

'But everyone in the house eats the same thing?'

'Not me. I eat raw carrots, green salads with maybe a little lemon juice. Fresh fruit. I don't poison myself.'

'Olga,' I said, 'you serve the evening meal every night?'

'Except on my day off.'

'Can you recall Professor Stonehouse eating or drinking anything the others didn't eat or drink?'

She thought for a moment.

'No,' she said. Then: 'Except at night maybe. After I left.'

'Oh? What was that?'

'Every night he worked in his study. Late, he would have a cup of cocoa and a brandy before he went to bed.'

I was alive again.

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'Where did the cocoa come from?'

'Come from?' she asked, puzzled. 'From Holland.'

'I mean, who made the cocoa every night for Professor Stonehouse?'

'Oh. Mrs Dark made it before she went to bed and before I went home. Then, when the Professor wanted it late, Glynis would heat it up, skim it, and bring it to his study.'

'Every night?'

'I think so.'

'No one else in the house drank the cocoa?'

'I don't know.'

It was sounding better and better.

'Let me get this sequence right,' I said. 'Every night Mrs Dark made a pot of cocoa. This was before you went home and before she went to bed. Then, later, when the Professor wanted it, Glynis would heat it up and bring it to him in his study. Correct?'

'Yah,' she said placidly, not at all interested in why I was so concerned about the cocoa.

'Thank you, Olga,' I said. 'You've been very helpful.'

'Yah,' she said, surprised.

'Does Glynis go out very often? In the evening, I mean.'

'Oh, yah.'

'Does she have a boyfriend?'

She pondered that.

'I think so,' she said, nodding. 'Before, she was very sad, quiet. Now she smiles. Sometimes she laughs. She dresses different. Yah, I think she has a man who makes her happy.'

'How long has this been going on? I mean, when did she start to be happy?'

'Maybe a year ago. Maybe more. Also, one night she said she was going to the theatre. But I saw her that night in a restaurant on 21st Street. She did not see me and I said nothing to her.'

'Was she with anyone?'

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'No. But I thought she was waiting for someone.'

'What time of night was this?'

'Perhaps nine, nine-thirty. If she had gone to the theatre, as she said, she would not be in the restaurant at that time,'

'Did you ever mention that incident to her?'

'No,' she said, shrugging. 'Is no business of mine.'

'What do you think of Powell Stonehouse, Olga?'

'He poisons himself with marijuana cigarettes.' (She pronounced it 'mary-jew-anna.') 'Too bad. I feel sorry for him. His father was very mean to him.'

I drained the remainder of all that natural goodness in my glass and rose to my feet.

'Thank you again, Olga,' I said, 'for your time and trouble. The food here is delicious. You may have made a convert of me.'

What a liar I was getting to be.

When I got back to TORT I was confronted by Hamish Hooter, that tooth-sucking villain. 'See here,' Hooter said indignantly, glaring at me from sticky eyes, 'what's this about a secretary?'

'I need one,' I said. 'I spoke of it to Mr Tabatchnick.'

' I am the office manager,' he said hotly. 'Why didn't you speak to me? '

'Because you would have turned me down again,' I said in what I thought was a reasonable tone. 'All I want is a temporary assistant. Someone to help out with typing and filing until I complete a number of important and complex investigations.'

I had always thought the description 'He gnashed his teeth' was a literary exaggeration. But Hamish Hooter did gnash his teeth. It was a fascinating and awful thing to witness,

'We'll see about that,' he grated, and whirled away from me.

As soon as I reached my desk I phoned Yetta Apatoff 181

and made a lunch date for Friday, then got back to business.

Headquarters for Kipmar Textiles were located in a building on Seventh Avenue and 35th Street. When I phoned, a dulcet voice answered, 'Thank you for calling Kipmar Textiles,' and I wondered what the reaction would be if I screamed that I was suing Kipmar for six zillion dollars. After being shunted to two more extensions, I finally got through to a lady who stated she was Miss Gregg, secretary to Mr Herschel Kipper.

I forbore commenting on the aptness of her name and occupation, but merely identified myself and my employer and asked if it might be possible for me to see Mr Herschel Kipper and/or Mr Bernard Kipper at some hour that afternoon, at their convenience. She asked me the purpose of my request, and I replied that it concerned an inventory of their late father's estate that had to be made for tax purposes.

She put me on hold — for almost five minutes. But I was not bored; they had one of those attachments that switches a held caller to a local radio station, so I heard the tag end of the news, a weather report, and the beginning of a country singer's rendition of 'I Want to Destroy You, Baby,' before Miss Gregg came on the line again. She informed me that the Kipper brothers could see me 'for a very brief period' at 3.00 p.m. I was to come directly to the executive offices on the 34th floor and ask for her. I thanked her for her kindness. She thanked me, again, for calling Kipmar Textiles. It was a very civilized encounter.