“About your uncle and Mildred Brexton?"
“Mainly, yes. You see my hunch is that if they try to indiet Brexton he’ll drag Fletcher and Allie into the case . . . just to make trouble.”
It was uncanny. These were practically the same words 1 had overheard between Brexton and Claypoole the day of the murder. Uncle and nephew had evidently exchanged notes . . . or else there was a family secret they all shared in common which made them nervous about what Brexton might do and say in court.
“What did you intend to do?” I asked, curious about his own role.
He shrugged. “Whatever I can. I’ve been awfully close to Fletcher and Allie. I guess they’re more like parents to me than uncle and aunt. In fact when my father died, Fletcher became my legal guardian. So you see it’s to my interest to help them out, to testify in case there's . . . well, an accusation against them.”
“What sort of accusation? What is Brexton likely to pull?”
Randan chuckled. “That’d be telling. It’s not anything really ... at least as far as this business goes. Just family stuff.”
I had an idea what it was: the relationship between brother and sister might be misconstrued by a desperate man; yet what had that to do with the late Mildred Brexton? Randan was no help.
He shifted the subject to the day of the murder. He wanted to know how everybody behaved, and what I thought had actually happened in the water. He was keener than I’d suspected but it was soon apparent he didn’t know any more than the rest of us about Mildred’s strange death.
I offered him a cigarette. I took one myself. I lighted his. Then I dropped the matches. Swearing, I felt around for them in the sand at my feet.
I retrieved them at last. I lit my own cigarette. It was then that I noticed that my fingers were dark with some warn liquid.
“Jesus!” I dropped both matches and cigarette this time.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know . . . my fingers. It looks like blood. I must’ve cut myself.”
“I’ll say; you’re bleeding.” Randan offered me a handkerchief. “Take this. How’d you do it?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t feel a thing.” I wiped my fingers clean only to find that there was no cut. The blood was not mine.
We looked at each other. My flesh crawled. Then we got to our feet and pushed aside the metal swing.
At our feet was a man’s body, huddled in its own blood on the white sand. The head was turned away from us. The throat had been cut and the head was almost severed. I walked around to the other side and recognized the contorted features of Fletcher Claypoole in the bright moonlight.
CHAPTER FIVE
1
THERE was no sleep in that house until dawn.
Greaves arrived. We met by candlelight in the drawing room. It seemed that shortly after midnight the lights had gone out which explained why there’d been no light in the house when Randan and I arrived. One of the plain-clothes men had been testing the fuse box in the kitchen for over an hour, without success.
Everyone was on hand but Allie Claypoole who had caved in from hysteria. A nurse had been summoned and Allie was knocked out by a hypo ... a relief to the rest of us for her shrieks, when she head the news, jangled our already taut nerves.
No one had anything to say. No one spoke as we sat in the drawing room, waiting to be called to the alcove by detective Greaves. Randan and I were the only two dressed; the others were all in night clothes. Brexton sat in a faded dressing gown, one hand shielding his face from the rest of us. Mary Western Lung, looking truly frightened, sat huddled, pale and lumpy, in her pink, intricate robe. Mrs. Veering snuffled brandy with the grimness of someone intending to get drunk by the quickest route. Randan and I were the observers, both studying the others . . . and one another for I was curious to see how he would take the death of a favorite uncle and guardian: he was the coolest of the lot. After his first shock when I thought he was going to faint, he’d become suddenly businesslike: he was the one who had the presence of mind not to touch the body nor the long sharp knife which lay beside it, gleaming in the moon. He had called the police while I just dithered around for a few minutes, getting used to the idea of Fletcher Claypoole with his head half off.
The women were called first; then Randan; then me . . . Brexton was to be last, I saw. For the first time I began to think he might be the murderer.
It was dawn when I joined Greaves in the alcove. The others had gone to bed. Only Brexton was left in the drawing room. The lights were now on. Greaves looked as tired and gray as I felt.
I told him everything that had happened. How Randan and I had talked for almost twenty minutes before discovering the body beneath the swing.
“What time did you arrive at the house of . . .” he consulted his notes gloomily, “Evan Evans?”
“A few minutes before twelve.”
“There are witnesses to this of course.”
“Certainly.”
“What time did Mr. Randan arrive at this house?”
“About one fifteen, I’d say. I don’t know. It’s hard to keep track of time at a party. We left at one-thirty, though. I remember looking at my watch.” I was positive he was going to ask me why I looked at my watch but he didn’t showing that he realized such things can happen without significance.
“Then you dropped off Miss Bessemer and came straight here?”
“That’ right?”
“At what time did you find the body?”
“One forty-six. Both Randan and I checked on that.”
Greaves strangled a yawn. “Didn’t touch anything, either of you?”
“Nothing ... or maybe I did when I got blood on my fingers, before I knew what was under the swing.”
“What were you doing out there? Why did you happen to sit down on that swing?”
“Well, we’d just come home from the party and there weren’t any lights on in the house and Randan wanted to talk to me about the murder of Mrs. Brexton so we walked around the house and sat down here. I suppose if a light’d been on we’d have gone inside.” I didn’t want to confess I’d been scared to death of going into that house alone.
“Didn’t notice anything odd, did you? No footprints or anything?”
“Nothing. Why were the lights out?”
“We don’t know. Something wrong with the master fuse.
One of our men was fixing it while the other stood guard.” Greaves sounded defensive. I could see why.
“And the murder took place at twelve forty-five?”
“How do you know that?” He snapped the question at me, his sleep-heavy eyes opening suddenly wide.
“It fits. Murderer tampers with fuse box; then slips outside, kills Claypoole in the swing while the police and others are busy with the lights; then . .
“Then what?”
“Well, then I don’t know,” I ended lamely. “Do you?”
“That’s our business.”
“When did the murder take place?”
“None of your . . but for reasons best known to himself, Greaves paused and became reasonable: I was the press as well as a witness and suspect. “The coroner hasn’t made his final report. His guess, though, was that it happened shortly after the lights went out.”
“Where's the fuse box?”
“Just inside the kitchen door.”
“Was a policeman on guard there?”
“The whole house is patrolled. But that time there was no one in the kitchen.”
"And the door was locked?”
“The door was unlocked.”
“Isn't that odd? I thought all cooks were mortally afraid of prowlers.”
“The door was locked after the help finished washing up around eleven. We have no idea yet who unlocked it.”