Mystery

“Look, Tom, a lot of what happens on this island is wellnigh intolerable to me, but when Fulton Bishop’s goons kill the greatest detective in maybe a century five minutes before I have a meeting with him, I take it as a personal affront. You and I are going to sit here until you tell me everything you know. I don’t have Lamont von Heilitz to work with anymore, and you don’t either, but I think we can do each other a lot of good.”

He released Tom’s wrist. “Tell me about the letter you wrote.”

“I have to go back to the time when Wendell Hasek showed up drunk in front of our house carrying a bag of rocks,” Tom said, and Natchez propped his elbows on the table and hunched forward to rest his chin on his interlaced fingers.

Half an hour later, Tom said, “And on the floor of the bedroom where I found him I saw these little round stamped-out red stains from where my grandfather’s umbrella must have touched the blood. And I smelled his cigars. So I thought he must have stood there watching while they killed him and pushed him into the closet, and I sort of went crazy for a couple of minutes, thinking about how I got mad at him just because he’d shown me the truth. Anyhow, after Andres dragged me out and dressed me in clothes that weren’t all covered with his blood, all I could think to do was to call you.”

“So you really did it all,” Natchez said. “I’ll be damned.”

“No, I just stumbled along,” Tom said. “I never even wanted to admit that it must have been my grandfather who killed Jeanine Thielman and Anton Goetz.”

“But you knew it anyway. And you figured out who shot Marita Hasselgard. And it was your idea to send the notes that spooked Glen Upshaw—”

“Into killing my father.”

“Upshaw would have killed you too, if you had gone with von Heilitz. And anyhow, from the way you describe it, he had the same idea.”

But he would never have known about the notes if I hadn’t found them, Tom thought, and the names of all the people who would still be alive if he had gone to Dennis Handley’s apartment and looked at a typescript of The Spoils of Poynton marched through his mind: Foxhall Edwardes, Friedrich Hasselgard, Michael Mendenhall and Roman Klink, Barbara Deane, Lamont von Heilitz.

“The only mistake you made was to send your letter to the wrong cop,” Natchez said. “Let’s go out to the Founders Club and break some bad news to Glendenning Upshaw.” He stood up and put three dollars on the table.

Tom stood up and saw a worried-looking figure peering at them through the window.

“Your friend Andres?”

Tom said yes.

“Real watchdog, isn’t he?” Natchez went through the door of the café, and Andres glanced at Tom and backed away. “Hold on,” Natchez said, and Tom said, “Andres, it’s all right.”

Andres took another step backwards.

“This is the man Lamont was going to talk to. We’re going to go out and pick up my grandfather. Go home and I’ll call you when it’s over.”

The driver turned around and began moving to the corner, with many doubtful glances back.

Tom and Natchez went back through the narrow lanes to the rear of the row of Georgian buildings. The policeman told him to wait at the top end of Armory Place until he came around with a car, and trotted off toward the police parking garage. Tom walked around the side of the Printing Office and down the long plaza, feeling conspicuous in his father’s suit. Policemen in blue uniforms sunned themselves on the benches beneath the potted palms. He heard church bells ringing, and realized that it was Sunday.

“One thing I don’t understand,” Natchez said, braking in front of the guardhouse at the Founders Club. “How did your grandfather and Fulton Bishop get together? It turned out to be a partnership like Gilbert and Sullivan, but Glen Upshaw couldn’t have known that at the beginning. Fulton Bishop was just a young cop from the near west end of the island. I don’t think he ever showed any signs of exceptional promise, but someone was always watching out for him, getting him promoted, making sure he got taken off assignments he couldn’t handle.” A guard sauntered toward them, looking disdainfully at the dented black Studebaker Natchez had drawn from the motor pool. “Take that Blue Rose case. Bishop was in so far over his head he had to dog paddle, and instead of being sent off to a sleepy little precinct like Elm Grove, he’s promoted into an office at headquarters and Damrosch—”

The guard had circled all around the car, and came up to Natchez and leaned on the window. “Did you have some business here, sir?”

Natchez flipped open his shield case and shoved his badge to within an inch of the man’s nose. “Step away from the car, or I’ll run over your foot,” he said.

The guard snatched his hands off the window and moved back. “Yes, sir.”