The Plot (22 page)

(1) The story, he, Louis, had written in his own handwriting.

(2) The countersigned check she had presumably paid him for the story.

(3) The manuscript of the fake autobiography, the publisher's letters, the contract.

(4) Jamey's will, proving that Ethel had nothing to gain by Jamey's death until he, Louis, came along and made Jamey's death worth while for the both of them.

(5) Ethel would have confessed to the police—before Louis did—that without Louis here, the only possible motive she could have had for wanting Jamey dead was revenge for her husband. Louis could imagine what the Charleston police would make of a revenge motivated by a ten-year-old short story about two painters. (He blushed, thinking of it. He had a quick preview of himself trying to convince the police of the credibility of such a motive, of their amazed faces, of the glances they would exchange, of the immediate suggestion that they call in an alienist so that he, Louis, could plead insanity.) Louis said, “You're absolutely right, Mr. Klein. Jamey wasn't fantastic. Jamey didn't kill Ethel thoughtlessly; he had to kill her rather than bring her to court because airing this case in court would have aired my part in it. In other words, Jamey killed Ethel for me.

“If Jamey had simply gone to the police, I would have gone to jail with Ethel, because she would certainly have spilled my part in it.”

“Your part, Louis? What is your part?”

“Later, Alex. Please, darling. Jamey killed Ethel to save me. He certainly could have saved himself by easier means than killing her.”

“And you think Jamey saved your life so you can lose it, Daignot? Does it make sense that Jamey should go through all that horrible business so that the police can haul you off for her murder? If he saved your life so you could lose it, it would be a terrible anticlimax—Jamey was too good a plotter for that!”

“Louis, darling, Jamey wants you to use your eyes! He said so, Louis!”

“And hurry. If the proof is here, you better find it before the police arrive!” He thought, nodding, almost smiling, that, yes, this was like Jamey. Jamey would give the boy a shove, but if he couldn't carry on from there—That was Jamey!

Louis went to the table next to the chaise longue and picked up the book that lay on it.

“Better not touch anything, Daignot!”

Louis laughed. “You don't think the proof is going to be anything routine, like a fingerprint job, do you?”

“What are you looking for?”

“Evidence.” He laughed again. “Jamey's kind of evidence, admissible first in Jamey's mind and later in a court of law.”

Alex screamed. “It's too late! They're here! Louis!” But it was only Budder coming in.

Budder watched Louis, who had begun to move around the room, obviously searching. “Look under the mattress,” Budder suggested, but not too seriously. He had commenced to think he was along merely for the ride, but far as Budder could figure out, something always turned up—didn't turn up under the mattress, turn up somewhere else.

Louis, bending over the table next to the chaise longue, held up the book for the others to see. “Do you think Jamey would want me to put in that authorized biography that the last thing he read was a cookbook?
Recipes Gathered by Blanche S. Rhett. Edited by
——”

Manny said sadly, “Jamey wouldn't have minded. He always thought food so important.”

“He'd want me to include it in, you think? Well, I probably won't get a chance to do the biography, at that. Food was so important—‘the greatest meal I ever planned …' Wait a minute!” He went to the chest and took from the top drawer where Jamey had ordered him to place it, the ivory menu card. He read the menu.

Manny kept looking over his shoulder, nervously. “You better hurry, Daignot, I mean, after all—a menu!”

“Hold that, Alex.” Louis gave Alex the menu card and picked up the cookbook. He flapped open the leaves of the book until he found the index. “White fricassee, is that correct? Does that menu say white fricassee?”

“Yes, Louis. White fricassee, lemon sweet-potato pudding, okra. What are you looking for, Louis?”

He ran his finger down the index. “Page sixty-eight. ‘For a century, Charleston has had her own ways of preparing fricassee—chicken—five cups water——' What is mace, Alex?”

“An herb.”

“What does it taste like? No, that wouldn't be it, anyhow. It has to be at the end of the meal. What did they have for dessert that day, Alex?” He rubbed his hands down the side of his trousers because they were wet with sweat. “Dessert, quickly!”

“Ratafia cream, Louis.
R-a-t-a-f-i-a
. He had such a small handwriting.”

“A small man with big ideas, Alex. Ratafia cream, page two-twenty-nine. ‘Although the basis of this dessert——It is a very rich custard with the distinct flavor of bitter almond.'” Louis threw the book into the air, then became sober. “Forgive me, Jamey; I've been the world's biggest——”

Alex said, “I don't understand. I know about the flavor of bitter almonds; anyone knows that.”

Louis said, “Trite. As Jamey would say, trite.”

“But I don't understand.”

Budder said, “Me, neither. Louis boy, what you got to be so happy about?”

Louis turned to Budder. He said, “Go, scram, out.”

Budder listened to the voice and looked at Louis' face. Louis waited until the door closed behind Budder.

“Sit down, Alex,” he said. He was giving her an order now, and it was all right. “No, sit down there. If Jamey's ghost is listening in on this, he's happy, too; he's a happy little ghost now because this is what Jamey wanted.” Louis thought, Forgive me for doubting you. I believe, Lord, help Thou my disbelief. He said, “Go on, sit down, Mr. Klein; I want to talk. ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' ‘Don't look at me,' he said, ‘don't gaze at me, don't gaze at a painted, wizened, foppish old man, gaze on my works!' I should have. Listen: later I will go into why Ethel planned to kill Jamey and my part in it. Take it from me, Jamey killed her to save me. Now—ratafia cream, Alex!”

“Ra-ta-
fi
-a,” she said automatically, accenting the third syllable. Her eyes kept following Louis as he walked from one end of the big room to the other.

“I don't know where Jamey got the cyanide, but we can find that out later. He'll have left a trail, don't worry. He left a trail and he didn't leave me holding the bag—not if I used my eyes. ‘Don't gouge out your eyes, Oedipus.' What fun he must have had, what a lark!” Then he became calmer. “No. Excuse me again, Jamey, it wasn't funny. Oedipus always kills his father; it's in the cards. He saved this Oedipus from his inevitable guilt by killing himself; he outwitted my fate. He absolved me. I just got that part. Well, all right. We'll find out how he got the cyanide.”

Alex sat up quickly. “The insect thing!” she said. “Jamey said he wanted to study butterflies. It was an insect thing—you know, a jar, with cyanide at the bottom of it.”

Louis shook her arm. “That's it, Alex, that's it!”

Alex said, “I got it for him. I sent for it. He gave me the address, some kind of biological supply place in New York. The name—the name was——”

Louis said, “Never mind, darling. That's for later. We'll find the name.” They smiled at each other before Louis went on talking.

“Jamey planned that dessert because it had a strong taste of bitter almond. I'll bet Ethel must have eaten it before. She would know that it should taste like bitter almond.”

Alex said, “Maum Cloe is very good at ratafia cream. I still don't understand.”

“Ethel, the cat-eating-the-canary-girl, ate the ratafia cream.” He saw Ethel eating the dessert greedily, nodding at Jamey's nonsense, thinking that in ten minutes he would take his nap; he would take the four pills for which he was supposed to have a tolerance, but for which he had no tolerance. Louis could see Ethel so plainly, even to the tongue flicking out of the side of her mouth to gather in any drop of the dessert that might have leaked. “She was given the poison at the end of the meal. William Reas could clear the dishes and get out of the little house in less time than it would take poison to work on a full stomach. You'll see; the timetable will be O.K.”

Louis saw Jamey smoking his after-dinner cigarette, which Ethel would have fetched for him, lighted for him, extending the lighter patiently while he fussily arranged the cigarette in the holder, with Ethel thinking she would never again have to stand there patiently extending the lighter while Jamey kept her waiting; with Jamey knowing damn well she would never have to stand there again.

Then the poison would begin to work.

Then the poison would finish its work.

Manny Klein, shaking his head over Jamey, laid his hand tenderly on the soft feathery mink. “If you can prove motive, Daignot, perhaps the police will believe Jamey poisoned Ethel, but what did he do then? What are the mechanics? How did he dispose of the body?”

Alex gasped. “Louis—even if they did go to the police about you—Louis, you can see how frightened William Reas and Joseph Reas would be. Oh, Louis, you're not going to say that they helped Jamey get rid of the body? They found her—they didn't deliberately implicate you, I know they didn't, Louis. Didn't plan to, I mean, I know they didn't plan to!”

Manny kept stroking the mink robe. “He couldn't have moved that big hulk by himself, Alex.”

“I'm not going to implicate Joseph and William Reas, Alex, don't worry. He was a little man, yes, a weak man, yes. He certainly couldn't have dragged Ethel's body out of the house and down to the river, but——” His nod encouraged Alex to think.

She clapped her hands sharply together, looked abashed at the noise it made, then, smiling toward Jamey in the knowledge that he too would have applauded, clapped again. “His chair, Louis!”

“That's it, Alex, but we have to prove it. Do you remember how hard it rained day before yesterday?”

He led them out of the study and down the hallway to the door with the ramp and showed them Jamey's chair. He knelt down, not touching the chair, and pointed to the mud between the treads of the tires. “That's what you get when it rains. All he had to do, Alex, was put Ethel into the chair and start the motor.”

“Jamey never went out when it rained. He was like a cat, that way.”

“That's right, and also William Reas and Joseph Reas can tell the police that he hasn't used his chair since. I asked him to go down to the river that evening, but he wouldn't. He never intended to use that chair again.”

Alex said, “Don't.”

“Jamey didn't have to exert himself too much, but it did give him that anginal attack. He told me as much, he said something about perhaps it wasn't my leaving but the effort of getting rid of Ethel. What fun he had, making a fool of me!”

“Louis!”

He smiled at her. “I will not deify him, Alex. I'm sure, anyhow, that he would prefer to be remembered as he was.”

Alex could not stop crying, although she was quiet about it; the tears simply forced their way out of her lids and down her cheeks. Manny stood over Jamey's body, guarding it, stroking it. Louis opened the cookbook again, idly, because there was nothing else to do now but wait for the police and give them the story. He turned to page 229 and reread the recipe for ratafia cream, planning how best to explain the whole fantastic affair. When he turned the page, he saw the sentence that had been underlined, the word that had been crossed out and, in Jamey's unique handwriting, the word that had been substituted for it; then he began to laugh.

Louis knelt on the floor at Alex' feet and held the book open. “You can stop crying, Alex. Look.” But because of the tears, she could not read. Louis said, “Look, Alex, it says here:
Laurel leaves may be used in the place of the bitter almonds, if desired
. Look what Jamey's written—
wreaths
—laurel
wreaths!
He has substituted the word ‘wreaths' for ‘leaves.'”

Alex wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “Laurel wreaths may be used–”

“Laurel wreaths for a hero.”

About the Author

Merriam Modell, pen name Evelyn Piper, was born in Manhattan, New York, in 1908. She is known for writing mystery thrillers of intricate, suspenseful plotting that depict the domestic conflicts of American families. Her short stories have appeared in the
The New Yorker
and two of her novels,
Bunny Lake Is Missing
and
The Nanny
, were adapted into major Hollywood films.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1951 by Evelyn Piper

Cover design by Julianna Lee

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2874-5

This 2016 edition published by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

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