Lilian Jackson Braun - Cat 15 Who Went Into the Closet

"Clayton! I hardly recognized you.... No beard this year."

"I shaved it off. How're you feeling, Mr. Crocus?"

"Moderately well."

"What are you doing? Just sitting in the sun?"

"That's all."

"Grandma sent you this plant. It's a Christmas cactus."

"Very kind of her."

"Where'll I put it?"

"Next to the door. Tell her thank-you."

"Okay if I sit down?"

"Yes... yes... please!"

"Been doing any chess lately?"

"No one plays chess here."

"Not even your grandkids?"

"My grandchildren never visit me. Might as well not have any."

"I don't have a grandpa. Why don't we work out a deal?"

(Slight chuckle.) "What terms do you propose?"

"We could play chess by mail, and I could tell you about school. I just made Junior Band."

"What instrument?"

"Trumpet. Do you still play the violin?"

"Not recently."

"Why not?"

"No desire. I've had a very great loss."

"That's too bad. What happened?"

"Mrs. Gage... passed away."

"She was a nice lady. Was she sick long?"

"Sad to say, it was... suicide."

"I knew somebody that did that. Depression, they said. Was she depressed?"

"She had her troubles."

"What kind of troubles?"

"One shouldn't talk about... a friend's personal affairs."

"Our counselor at school says it's good to talk about it when you lose a friend."

"I have no one who's... interested."

"I'm interested, if you're going to be my grandpa."

"You're a kind young person."

"Do you know what kind of troubles she had?"

(Pause.) "Someone was... taking her money... wrongfully."

"Did she report it to the police?"

"It was not... She didn't feel... that she could do that."

"Why not?"

"It was... extortion."

"How do you mean?"

"She was being... blackmailed."

"That's bad! What was it about? Do you know?"

"A family secret."

"Somebody committed a crime?"

"I don't know."

"Did she say who was blackmailing her?"

"Someone up north. That's all she'd say."

"How long did it go on?"

"A few years."

"I'd go to the police, if it was me."

"I told her to tell Claude."

"Why him?"

"She was leaving her money to the park, and... she was afraid... there wouldn't be any left."

"Is he Betty's husband?"

"Something like that."

"What did he say?"

"He told her not to worry."

"That's not much help."

"He said he could put a stop to it."

"What did she think about that?"

"She worried about it. In a few days... she was gone."

"Did she leave a suicide note?"

"Not even for me. That grieved me."

"You must have liked her a lot."

"She was a lovely lady. She liked music and art and poetry."

"I like music."

"But what kind? You young people - "

"Would you like a game of chess after supper, Mr. Crocus?"

"I would look forward to that with pleasure."

"I have to go somewhere with my grandma now. I'll see you after supper."

The attorney said, "So we know - or think we know - what happened to Mrs. Gage's money."

"We know more than that," Qwilleran said. "We know that she gave birth to a natural daughter in 1928 while her husband was in prison. In those days, and in a community like Pickax, that was an intolerable disgrace for a woman with her pride and pretensions. It's my contention that she gave her daughter - with certain stipulations and considerations - to a Lockmaster farm family, who raised her as Lena Foote. In her teens Lena went to work in the Gage household and remained there for the rest of her life. I'm guessing that Euphonia continued to pay hush money to the foster parents. Lena lost contact with them, but they came to her funeral a few years ago. Shortly afterward, Lena's widower began spending large sums of money for which there was no visible source. I say he's your blackmailer. The foster parents, being very old, may have passed on their secret to him - a kind of legacy for his daughter."

Wilmot had been listening intently to Qwilleran's fabric of fact and conjecture. "How did you acquire your information?"

"It's remarkable how many secrets you uncover when you work for a newspaper. When Mrs. Gage moved to Florida, the man I suspect of being the blackmailer obtained her address from her grandson, saying he owed her money which he wished to repay. He continued to hound her, until she confided in Claude Sprott. A few days later, Gil Inchpot was murdered, and the state detectives have neither a motive nor a suspect."

Wilmot was swiveling in his chair, a rapt listener. "Sprott had a vested interest in Mrs. Gage's estate, of course."

"What was left of it," Qwilleran added. "His sticky fingers had already been in the pie, one way and another."

"If he arranged for Inchpot's murder, who could have pulled the trigger?"

zQwilleran was ready for the question. "When you and I talked about it at the wedding, Pender, I told you that Sprott and his companion were in Pickax, incognito, for the preview of 'The Big Burning.' Now it occurs to me that they had flown up here not only to appraise the rare chandeliers. That was the weekend Inchpot disappeared. They probably rented a car at the airport and knocked on the door of his farmhouse, saying they were out of gas - after which they dropped his body in the woods and left his truck at the airport."