Talmage Powell
Every Possible Motive
Bigby Rassman had given the simple; intimate dinner in the smaller of the two dining rooms of his manorial home. It was a snug room, but it made no pretensions of humility. The walls were panelled in hand-rubbed Honduran mahogany; the carpeting came from Iran; the draperies were of pure silk.
The room effectively shut away the world beyond these walls.
As Gaspard cleared the china from the snowy linen, Bigby said, “We’ll have brandy in here, I think.”
Lean and faultlessly efficient, Gaspard in a matter of moments had crystal snifters before Bigby and the three dinner guests.
“That will be all, Gaspard.”
“Very good, Mr. Rassman.”
Gaspard carried his dark, well-cut personage out of the room. The heavy door closed. In the silence, the click of the lock tumbler was inordinately loud.
A heavy, powerful, balding man whose features looked as if they had been carved from solid bone, Rassman surveyed the two men and the young woman who shared his table.
They weren’t alarmed, not yet; merely puzzled by the locking of the door.
“Are we in for a game, Uncle Big?”
Elise, Rassman’s niece, was lovely tonight, a flawless, lacquered blonde with green eyes and a body for which bikinis had been designed. She was looking at her uncle with a certain insolence, a haughty and predatory image in a black dinner dress of expensive simplicity.
At the far end of the table, Evan Payne was still looking at the closed door. A porcine bulk with softening edges, Evan’s bulbous, sagging face looked damp, clammy. He felt Bigby’s gaze and managed a weak smile.
“Last time I was behind a locked dining room door was at a stag party,” said Payne.
“Maybe Bigby is afraid we won’t pay the check,” Roger Lawrence said. He sat across the table from Elise, at Rassman’s left. At thirty, Roger was handsome in a cold, cruel way. Looking at Bigby with hard, steady eyes, Roger lifted his brandy and sipped. He managed to make it a gesture of disdain.
“One of you will pick up the check before the evening is over,” Rassman said calmly.
“Whatever are you talking about, Uncle Big?”
“Murder, my dear niece.”
Roger Lawrence set his brandy glass down slowly. Elise’s chair tipped as she stood up.
“I’m really in no mood, Uncle Big, to—”
“Sit down, Elise.”
“I really don’t know what’s come over you,” she said. “From the moment Gaspard served the entree, there has been something strange about you. I must say that I haven’t enjoyed the dinner at all!”
“Sit down, Elise,” Rassman said. His tone was conversational. The glitter in his eyes seemed to give him power over her sleek muscles. She eased haltingly into her chair. “Bigby...”
“Yes, Evan?”
“I... do feel you owe us an explanation.”
“Of course, Evan. One of you has tried to murder me.”
Evan Payne stared witlessly. Roger Lawrence said, “Impossible!”
“Killing me might prove difficult,” Rassman said, “but not impossible.”
A measure of hauteur had returned to Elise. “You sound morbid, Uncle Big. What makes you think an attempt has been made on your life?”
“I don’t think it, Elise. I know it. And a clever attempt it was, too.”
Rassman clipped the end from a cigar and lighted it. “Yesterday, as I do frequently at this time of year, I decided to bag a few birds here on the estate. Fortunately, before taking the dogs to the fields, I checked the gun thoroughly. The barrel, I found, had been plugged with hardened clay.”
Rassman’s gaze drifted over the three faces before him. “A pull of the trigger and I should have caught the breech squarely in the face. Yes, there might have been a few questions. But who could actually prove I hadn’t accidentally plugged the barrel by resting or dropping the gun against the ground? I’d have been treated to an excellent funeral, I’m sure, and the crime would have been perfect enough.”
“Maybe you did plug the barrel at some time in the past,” Roger said. “After all, when you’re crawling those old fences, gullies and thickets it would be easy to bump the barrel of the gun in a spot of loam or soft, clay. Why do you think one of us did it?”
“The three of you know my shooting habits,” Rassman said.
“Not a convincing reason,” Roger said.
“There is more, much more. Since I last went shooting, only you three might have had access to the gun. The act in itself would have been simple, quick. A wad of clay carried into the house in purse or pocket. A few seconds to lift down the gun and plug the barrel.”
The clamminess on Evan Payne’s face was congealing into heavy drops of sweat. “Maybe an outsider slipped in, Bigby.”
“Come now, Evan. That’s too far-fetched. An intruder would have a tough time crossing the entire estate, entering the house and leaving again, all unnoticed. Neither would an outsider be sufficiently acquainted with my habits to know that a plugged gun barrel would have every chance of killing me — and only me, I might add, since I permit no one else to fire the gun. Also, we can’t suppose it was a guest. I’ve had no house guests since the gun was fired last, other than the three of you.”
Rassman stood up, crossed to the sideboard, and added an ounce of brandy to his snifter. “Having established that only you three had opportunity, we come now to the clincher. Motive. I am heartily disliked in many quarters. I don’t mind. As a matter of fact, it gives me a certain pleasure. The truly strong are never liked.”
Rassman strolled easily to the table, reseated himself. “Mere dislike is hardly enough to inspire murder. The reason must be much deeper, much more urgent. Only the three of you have such reasons.”
Evan Payne had half risen, his bulk quivering. “Bigby, you know I’d never—”
“Oh, sit down,” Rassman said crossly. “Who knows what the coward will do when his mental worms have gnawed deeply enough? And plugging a gun barrel was indeed a cowardly act.”
“But I’ve no reason,” Payne said. “Others, perhaps, but not I.”
“Your reasons are sufficient,” Rassman said.
A glint of enjoyment came to his eyes.
“Every murder in the history of mankind,” he said, “has been motivated by one of four motives or a combination of them.
“There is the murder resulting from insanity, including the momentary aberration as in a crime of passion.
“Since you are all reasonably sane, we’re concerned with the three broad categories of motives which have filled graveyards from time immemorial. Shall we start with you, Elise?”
She lighted a cigarette. “Why not? What is my category, Uncle?”
“Gain,” Rassman said. “The subdivisions are many. To gain time for an undertaking. To gain directly through a will, insurance, the death of a business partner, as an heir. To create the opportunity for gain. To remove an obstacle in the path of gain, as in the commission of an armed robbery and the appearance or resistance of another person. I could go on and on.
“You, Elise, are weary to death of the tight budget I keep you on, the sort of life I insist you lead. You see time slipping from you, your youth melting away while an enticing fortune remains out of reach. You are my only heir. You would gain both the fortune and the opportunity to use it, should I die. You must admit that you’ve wished fervently for my funeral.”
Rassman shifted his gaze to Roger Lawrence’s handsome face. “Category number two, Roger. Escape. Murder as an escape from the destructive results of a past action or fact. A witness must be silence by death. A marriage becomes a trap, and a spouse is killed. A man fleeing a crime must destroy his nemesis. A woman feels impelled to keep her secret life a continued secret.