Tenth Commandment (35 page)

'An educated nose,' he repeated proudly. 'First, I smell.

Sometimes that tells me all I have to know.'

Suddenly he grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me close. I thought he meant to kiss me. But he merely sniffed at my mouth and cheeks.

'You don't smoke,' he said. 'Right?'

'Right,' I said, pulling back from his grasp.

'And this morning, for breakfast, you had coffee and a pastry. Something with fruit in it. Figs maybe.'

'Prune Danish,' I said.

'You see!' he said. 'An educated nose. My father had the best nose in the business. He could tell you when you had changed your socks. Sit down.'

Waldo Bommer shuffled through a drawer in a battered oak file.

'Stacy, Stone, Stonehouse,' he intoned. 'Here it is.

Professor Yale Stonehouse. Two chemical analyses of unknown liquids. 14 December of last year.'

'May I take a look?' I asked.

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'Why not?'

I scanned the two carbon-copy reports. There were a lot of chemical terms; one of them included arsenic trioxide.

'Could you tell me what these liquids were, please?'

He snatched the papers from my hands and scanned them. 'Simple. This one, plain cocoa. This one was brandy.'

'The brandy has the arsenic trioxide in it?'

'Yes.'

'Didn't you think that unusual?'

He shrugged.

'Mister, I just do the analysis. What's in it is none of my business. A week ago a woman brought in a tube of toothpaste loaded with strychnine.'

'Toothpaste?' I cried. 'How did they get it in?'

Again he shrugged. 'Who knows? A hypo through the opening maybe. I couldn't care less. I just do the analysis.'

'Could I get copies of these reports, Mr Bommer? For the government. The tax thing . . . '

He thought a moment.

'I don't see why not,' he said finally. 'You say this Professor Stonehouse is dead?'

'Yes, sir. Deceased early this year.'

'Then he can't sue me for giving out copies of his property.'

Ten minutes later I was bouncing down the splintering stairs with photocopies in my briefcase. I had offered to pay for the copies, and Bommer had taken me up on it. I inhaled several deep breaths of fresh air, then went flying up Eleventh Avenue. There is no feeling on earth to match a hunch proved correct. I decided to press my luck. I stopped at the first unvandalized phone booth I came to.

'Yah?' Olga Eklund answered.

'Olga, this is Joshua Bigg.'

'Yah?'

'Is Miss Glynis in?'

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'No. She's at her clinic.'

That was what I hoped to hear.

'But Mrs Stonehouse is at home?'

'Yah.'

'Well, maybe I'll drop by for a few moments. She's recovered from her, uh, indisposition?'

'Yah.'

'Able to receive visitors?'

'Yah.'

'I'll come right over. You might mention to her that I'll be stopping by for a minute or two.'

I waited for her 'Yah,' but there was no answer; she had hung up. Shortly afterwards Olga in the flesh was taking my coat in the Stonehouse hallway.

'I'm sorry Miss Glynis isn't at home,' I said to Olga.

'You think I might be able to call her at the clinic?'

'Oh yah,' she said. 'It's the Children's Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic. It's downtown, on the East Side.'

'Thank you,' I said gratefully. 'I'll call her there.'

Ula Stonehouse was half-reclining on the crushed
velvet

couch. She was beaming, holding a hand out to me. As usual, there was a wineglass and a bottle of sherry on the glass-topped table.

'How nice!' she warbled. 'I was hoping for company and here you are!'

'Here I am, indeed, ma'am,' I said, taking her limp hand. 'I was sorry to hear you have been indisposed, but you look marvellously well now.'

'Oh, I feel so good,' she said, patting the couch next to her. I sat down obediently. 'My signs changed and now I feel like a new woman.'

'I'm delighted to hear it.'

I watched her reach forward to fill her glass with a tremulous hand. She straightened back slowly, took a sip, looking at me over the rim with those milk-glass eyes flickering. The mop of blonde curls seemed frizzier than 292

ever. She touched the tip of her nose as one might gently explore a bruise.

'Would you care for anything, Mr Bigger?' she asked.

'A drink? Coffee? Whatever?'

'Bigg, ma'am,' I said. 'Joshua Bigg. No, thank you.

Nothing for me. Just a few minutes of your time if you're not busy.'

'All the time in the world,' she said, laughing gaily.

She was wearing a brightly printed shirtwaist dress with a wide, ribbon belt. The gown, the pumps, the makeup, the costume jewellery: all too young for her. And the flickering eyes, warbling voice, fluttery gestures gave a feverish impression: a woman under stress. I felt sure she was aware of what was going on.

'Mrs Stonehouse,' I said, 'I wish I had good news to report about your husband, but I'm afraid I do not.'

'Oh, let's not talk about that,' she said. 'What's done is done. Now tell me all about yourself.'

She looked at me brightly, eyes widened. If she wasn't going to talk about her vanished husband, I was stymied.

Still, for the moment, it seemed best to play along.

'What would you like to know about me, ma'am?'

'You're a Virgo, aren't you?'

'Pisces,' I told her.

'Of course,' she said, as if confirming her guess. 'Are you married?'

'No, Mrs Stonehouse, I am not.'

'Oh, you must be,' she said earnestly. 'You must listen to me. And you must because I have been so happy in my own marriage, you see. A family is a little world. I have my husband and my son and my daughter. We are a very close, loving family, as you know.'

I looked at her helplessly. She had deteriorated since I first met her; now she was almost totally out of it. I thought desperately how I might use her present mood to get what I wanted. 'I'm an orphan, Mrs Stonehouse,' I 293

said humbly. 'My parents were killed in an accident when I was an infant.'

Surprisingly, shockingly, tears welled up in those milky eyes. She stifled a sob, reached to grip my forearm. Her clutch was frantic.

'Poor tyke,' she groaned, then lunged for her glass of sherry.

'I was raised by relatives,' I went on. 'Good people, I wasn't mistreated. But still . . . So when you speak of a close, loving family, a little world — I know nothing of all that. The memories.'

'The memories,' she said, nodding like a broken doll.

'Oh yes, the m e m o r i e s . . . '

'Do you have a family album, Mrs Stonehouse?' I asked softly, and, to my surprise, she responded by producing the album with unexpected rapidity.

What followed was a truly awful hour. We pored over those old photographs one by one while Ula Stonehouse provided running commentary, rife with pointless anecdotes. I murmured constant appreciation and made frequent noises of wonder and enjoyment.

Wedding Pictures: the tail, gaunt groom towering over the frilly doll-bride. An old home in Boston. Glynis, just born, naked on a bearskin rug. Childhood snapshots.

Powell Stonehouse at ten, frowning seriously at the camera. Picnics. Outings. Friends. Then, gradually, the family groups, friends, picnics, outings — all disappearing.

Formal photographs. Single portraits, Yale, Ula, Glynis, Powell. Lifeless eyes. A family moving towards dissolution.

When Mrs Stonehouse leaned forward to refill her glass, I rapidly removed a recent snapshot of Glynis from the album and slipped it into my briefcase before she sat back again. 'Remarkable,' I said, as if I were riveted to the book. 'Really remarkable. Happy times.'

She looked at me, not seeing me.

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'Oh yes,' she said. 'Happy times. Such good babies.

Glynis never cried. Never. Powell did, but not Glynis. It's over.'

I didn't dare ask what she meant by that.

'Emanations,' she went on. 'And visits beyond. I know it's over.'

'Mrs Stonehouse,' I asked anxiously, 'are you feeling well?'

'What? she said. 'Well,' she said, passing a faltering hand across her brow, 'perhaps I should lie down for a few moments. So many memories.'

'Of course,' I said, rising. 'I'll call Olga.'

I found her seated at the long dining room table, leafing through Popular Mechanics.

'Olga,' I said, 'I think Mrs Stonehouse needs you. I think she'd like to rest for a while.'

'Yah?' she said. She rose, yawned, and stretched. 'I go.'

In the kitchen Effie was at the enormous stove, stirring something with a long wooden spoon. Her porky face creased into a grin.

'Mr Bigg!' she said. 'How nice!'

She put the spoon aside, clapped a lid on the pot, and wiped her hands on her apron. She gestured towards the white enamelled table and we both drew up chairs.

'Effie,' I said, 'how are you? It's good to see you again.'

That was true, and it was a comfort to be honest again.

She was such a jolly tub of a woman.

'Getting along,' she said. 'You look a little puffy around the gills. Not sick, are you?'

'No,' I said, 'I'm okay. But I've been talking to Mrs Stonehouse. I'm a little shook.'

'Yes,' she said, wagging her head dolefully. 'I know what you mean. Worse every day.'

'Why?' I asked. 'What's happening to her?'

She frowned. 'I don't rightly know. Her husband disappearing, I guess. Powell moving out. And the way 295

Glynis has been acting. I suppose it's just too much for her.'

'How has Glynis been acting?'

'Strange,' Effie said. 'Snappish. Cold. Goes to her room and stays there. Never a smile.'

'Is this recent?' I asked.

'Oh yes. Just since your last visit.'

She looked at me shrewdly. I decided to plunge ahead. If she repeated what I was saying to Glynis, so much the better. So I told Effie what I knew about the arsenic. She listened closely, then nodded when I had finished.

'Are you a detective?' she asked.

'Sort of,' I said. 'Chief Investigator for the legal firm representing Professor Stonehouse.'

'You don't suspect me of poisoning him, do you?'

'Never,' I lied. 'Not for a minute.'

'Glynis?'

We stared at each other. I wondered if her silence was meant to imply consent, and decided to act as if it did.

'I must establish that Glynis had the means,' I said.

'You just can't go out and buy arsenic at Rexall's. And to do that, I need the name of the medical laboratory where she worked as a secretary.'

'I'd rather not,' she said quickly.

'I was going to ask Mrs Stonehouse, but she's in no condition to answer questions. Effie, I need the name.'

Once again we stared at each other.

'It's got to be done,' I said.

'Yes,' she agreed sadly.

After a while she got up and lumbered from the kitchen.

She came back in a few minutes with a slip of paper. I glanced at it briefly. Atlantic Medical Research, with the address and phone number.

'I had it in my book,' Effie explained, 'in case we had to reach her at work.'

'When did she stop working there?'

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She thought a moment.

'Maybe June or July of last year.'

About the time Professor Stonehouse became ill.

'Did she just quit or was she fired?'

'She quit, she told us. Said it was very boring work.'

'Effie, did you ever hear her mention a man named Godfrey Knurr? He's a minister.'

'Godfrey Knurr? No.'

'Is Glynis a religious woman?'

'Not particularly. They're Episcopalian. But I never thought she was especially religious. But she's deep.'

'Oh yes,' I agreed, 'she's deep all right. Before her father's disappearance, was she in a good mood?'

Mrs Dark pondered that.

'I'd say so,' she said finally. 'She started changing after the Professor disappeared and in the last week she's gotten much worse.'

'Me,' I said. 'I'm troubling her. I told her I knew her father had been poisoned.'

'You didn't!'

'I did. Of course I didn't tell her I thought she had done it.'

'What are you going to do now?'

'Dig deeper. Try to find out what happened to the Professor. Effie, what kind of a car do the Stonehouses own?'

'A Mercedes.'

'Do they keep it in a garage over on 66th Street and West End?'

'Why, yes. The garage people bring it over when we need it. How did you know?'

'I've been looking around.'

'You surely have,' she said. 'Have you found the will yet?'

'Not yet. But I think I know where it is.'

'I don't see why it's so important,' she said. 'If he's dead 297

and didn't leave a will, the money goes to his wife and children anyway, doesn't it?'

'Yes,' I said, 'but if he left a will, he might have disinherited one of them.'

'Could he do that?'

'Probably. With good cause. Like attempted murder.'

'Oh,' she said softly, 'I hadn't thought of that.'

'Effie, can I count on your discretion about all this?'

She put a fat forefinger alongside a fatter nose.

'Mum's the word,' she said.

I rose, then bent swiftly to kiss her apple cheek.

'Thank you,' I said. 'I know it's not pleasant. But we agreed, it's got to be done. One last question: will Miss Glynis be in tonight? Did she say?'

'She said she's going to the theatre. She asked for an early dinner.'

'Uh-huh. So she'll be leaving about when?'

'Seven-thirty,' Mrs Dark said. 'At the latest.'

'Thank you very much,' I said. 'You've been very kind.'

I had a Big Mac and a Coke before I returned to the office. Yetta Apatoff was on the phone when I entered the TORT building. She blew me a kiss. I'm afraid I responded with a feeble gesture. Her scarf had come awry and the diving neckline of the green sweater now revealed a succulent cleavage. I wondered nervously when Mr Teitelbaum or Mr Tabatchnick would instruct their respective secretaries to order Yetta to cover up.

Mrs Kletz had left a note on my desk; she was indeed out distributing the reward posters to the taxi garages and had left me a copy of the poster. It looked perfect.