Man Sinister

Hagan came back downstairs. I outlined my movements of yesterday afternoon and evening for him, except that I skipped the episode of the cottage. Even if I had mentioned it, I knew well enough that Harold would deny the whole thing. Unless McGinty or his body turned up I would be made out a ridiculous and fantastic liar, putting new questions in Hagan’s mind. He might even conclude that I’d been drunk enough to poison the man who had reared me.

I knew he was waiting for me to make just one slip. If there had been so much as a single bullet mark in the empty cottage I might have told him the whole story, at that. But now the only one, besides Harold and me, who had heard the shots was in the morgue.

When Hagan departed, with a caution to stay within reach, I went to look for Ellen. I found her in the kitchen. She was spreading a napkin over a plate of food she was placing in the warmer of the range. She threw a startled glance over her shoulder at me as I entered.

“I ain’t myself, Mr. Martin,” she said, with a tremor in her voice. “Not since the minute I found poor Mr. Cranford,”

“Now of course you’re worried about Wilfred.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You know where he is, don’t you?”

Her gaze came quickly to my face. Her lips pursed. She was a pretty little creature with her wide eyes dewy with tears. “How would I know?” she wailed.

“Just a guess.” I shrugged. “Wilfred scares easily. He wouldn’t want to hide where he was completely alone. He’d want help, the assurance of somebody he loved and could trust. I thought he might have got in touch with you.”

“Oh, no sir!”

“Who saw him last?”

“I guess I did, Mr. Martin.”

“When?”

“Last night. Young Mr. Cranford rushed in the house, then his father came in a few minutes later. Old Mr. Cranford began yelling for Wilfred to come up to his room. Wilfred went, and nobody saw him any more.”

“He’s hiding because he’s afraid, Ellen,” I told her. “Mr. Cranford must have died just before Wilfred went into his room or while he was there. Wilfred was afraid someone might think he had something to do with it and ran. But his running makes it all the worse. You see that, don’t you?”

She lowered her eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“If he gets in touch with you, you’ll let me know?”

She was silent.

I said, “I promise you that I’ll do everything I can for Wilfred.”

She nodded.

“Harold will help too. You know Harold would never let anything happen to Wilfred, feeling as he does about you.”

My stab found its mark. She was too simple to control her feelings, but not simple enough to miss the meaning of my statement. Her face went scarlet. She turned quickly and busied herself at the stove.

Harold, you stinking tramp.

Harold stayed in his room with Vera for the most part, leaving me to speak to sympathetic callers as news of Papa Joe’s death spread. I made the necessary arrangements for the time when the coroner should release Papa Joe’s body.

Lucy Quavely phoned me about eleven o’clock, a brittle quality in her voice.

“I have just suffered a frightful indignity,” she informed me.

“We all do, at times,” I murmured.

“You didn’t have to send that policeman to my hotel with his questions, Steve.”

“I didn’t.”

“You told him I was in the Cranford home last night.”

“I told him you talked to me a few minutes in the parlor. By the way, Lucy, how did you happen to locate me?”

“It took a week or two,” she said sharply, “tracing you from job to job. Your last employer in Charleston said you’d left for Asheville. I came up, since Mr. Cranford’s home seemed to be the logical place to start looking for you here.”

I drawled thoughtfully, “Did you ever consider that Papa Joe might be a powerful ally for you, Lucy — for a monetary consideration, of course?”

I expected a violent reaction. Instead, she said calmly, “Naturally I did. I knew his wife had insisted on adopting you, and that he considered you too unimportant even to be a necessary evil. I also knew that he was in constant financial difficulties. He was entirely too superior and insulting and short-tempered to be a business success.”

“So you made a deal with Papa Joe?”

“I did not! I thought him too unreliable.” She suddenly chuckled. “If I had made a deal with him Hagan would love that. It would just about fix things for you, Steve. Say you were determined to hang onto the Quavely money. Papa Joe was about to queer it. Such a grave obstacle had to be removed.”

“They call that perjury, Lucy.”

“Do you think the captain would believe you? Or believe me? I’m smart enough to make it good, Steve, to make it stick.” She laughed again. “So I don’t have to spend thirty thousand dollars on you at all, do I? You’ll be sensible and agree to Bryanne’s freedom now, I’m sure.”

She hung up. I stood with the dead phone in my hand. A ridge of sweat had formed across my forehead. Lucy had neatly turned my suspicions of her and Papa Joe into a trap. I told myself that she was bluffing. But my heart was beating hard, with fear — and hatred.