“There’s no time to read letters now,” Lassiter said sharply.
“You’d better glance at it. It’s from her son, Charlie.”
“So?”
“You’ll probably have to phone him and break the news.”
“That will be pleasant. ‘Hello, Charlie, your old lady’s just been done in!’ “ He took the letter Quinn handed him and put it in his pocket. “O.K., let’s bring out the rest of the junk. I don’t want to be stuck in this joint all night.”
The hockey skates belonged to Brother Light of the Infinite, the abalone shell to Brother Behold the Vision, the lamp and coffee mug to Sister Contrition. It was Brother of the Steady Heart who had cranked the phonograph, Brother Tongue of Prophets who had glued together the outrigger, and Karma who had cherished the headless doll and the velvet pillow.
Underneath the pillow Quinn found several sheets of paper filled on both sides with single-spaced typing. It had obviously been done by someone just learning to type, on a machine whose ribbon was running out of ink. There were sentences, half-sentences, numbers, letters of the alphabet in order and in reverse order, lines of semicolons and punctuation marks, and, interspersed here and there, the name Karma.
Some of the sentences were factual, others adolescent fantasy:
My name is name is Karma; which I hate.
Because of my of my great beuaty beauty they are holding me prisoner in the tower in the forest. It is a sad fate for a princess.
Quin said ge he would bring me a magic presnt presant for my face but I don’t think ge he will.
Today I said hell hell hell 3 times out loud.
The princess made a brade of her long hair and strangled all her enemies and got loose and re turned to the kingdom.
“What’s that?” Lassiter said.
“Some of Karma’s doodling on the typewriter.”
“There’s no typewriter here.”
“Whoever it belonged to must have taken it along.”
It seemed a logical conclusion and the subject was dropped.
The carton labeled Brother Crown of Thorns contained no sentimental mementos of the past, only a few pieces of clothing: a tweed suit and a sweater, both riddled by moths; a broadcloth shirt, a pair of shoes, and some woolen socks so full of holes they were barely recognizable. All of the articles had been lying undisturbed in the carton for a long time.
Quinn said suddenly, “Wait a minute.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Hold one of those shirts up against your chest as if you were measuring it for size.”
Lassiter held the shirt up. “Pretty good fit.”
“What size do you take?”
“Sixteen and a half.”
“Try the suit coat on, will you?”
“Just what are you getting at, Quinn? I don’t like messing around other people’s clothes.” But he tried the coat on anyway. It was too tight around the shoulders and the sleeves were too long.
“Now the sweater, I suppose?”
“If you don’t mind.”
The sweater was a fairly good fit except that once again the sleeves were too long.
“All right, Quinn.” Lassiter tossed the sweater back into the carton. “What’s the pitch?”
“A real sinker,” Quinn said. “Those clothes don’t belong to Brother Crown. He’s a man of medium build, a little on the short side even.”
“Maybe he’s lost weight since he arrived here—”
“His legs and arms didn’t shrink.”
“—Or the carton was mislabeled. There could be a dozen explanations.”
“There could be, yes. But I want the right one.”
Quinn carried the sweater, the coat and one of the shirts over to the doorway and examined them in sunlight. Neither the sweater nor the coat bore a manufacturer’s label. Inside the collar of the shirt there was a label, Arrow, 16Vz, 100% pure cotton, Peabody & Peabody, and the barely distinguishable remains of a laundry mark.
“Have, you got a magnifying glass, sheriff?”
“No, but I have twenty-twenty vision.”
“Try it on this laundry mark.”
“Looks like an H to begin with,” Lassiter said, blinking. “HR. Or maybe HA. That’s it, HAI or HAT.”
“How about HA one?”
“You may be right. HA one. The next looks like a 3 or a 2. Then an 8.”
“HA 1389X,” Quinn said.
Lassiter sneezed, partly from annoyance, partly from the dust hanging in the air like fog. “If you knew it already, why did you ask me?”
“I wanted to be sure.”
“You think it’s important?”
“That’s George Haywood’s laundry mark.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Lassiter sneezed again. “Judging from the amount of moth damage and dust, I’d say these things had been in here for years. What’s it add up to?”
“When Brother Crown first came to the Tower he was apparently wearing George Haywood’s clothes.”
“Why? And how did he get hold of them?”
Quinn wasn’t quite ready to answer the question though he was pretty sure he knew the answer. Willie King had given it to him the previous night in the courtyard motel. Of George, coming out of the anesthetic, she had said. “He was a scream... He thought I was Alberta... and told me I was a silly old spinster who should know better... He was mad at her... because she’d given away some of his clothes to a transient who’d come to the house. He called her a gullible, soft-hearted fool... Alberta might be a fool but she’s neither gullible nor soft-hearted. If there really was a transient, and if she gave him some of George’s clothes, she must have had a reason besides simple generosity.”
Quinn felt a painful triumph rising inside him. The connection he’d been searching for, between Alberta Haywood and the murder of Patrick O’Gorman, was gradually becoming clear. The transient to whom she had given George’s clothes, the hitchhiker O’Gorman had picked up in his car, the writer of the confession letter to Martha O’Gorman, had all been the same man, Brother Crown of Thorns.
Questions still unanswered raced around in Quinn’s mind. Where was Brother Crown now? How had he managed to persuade the entire colony to disperse in order to save him from arrest? Was it George Haywood’s sudden appearance at the Tower that made Sister Blessing’s death necessary? And what reason besides simple generosity had prompted Alberta Haywood to hand over her brother’s clothes to a stranger? Suppose, though, that he was not a stranger, or didn’t remain one very long. Suppose Alberta, on opening the door to him, had sensed in him a desperation that matched her own and had offered him money to kill O’Gorman.
Quinn had been considering for some time the idea that O’Gorman had had a connection with, or at least knowledge of, Alberta’s embezzlements. It was impossible to believe O’Gorman had used his knowledge to blackmail her but he might have tried to talk to her, to reason with her: Now see here, Miss Haywood, you really shouldn’t be taking money from the bank, it’s not a nice thing to do. I think you ought to stop. You’re putting me in an awkward position. If I keep quiet about it, I’m condoning your crime—
Alberta was such a timid little creature it probably didn’t occur to O’Gorman that she might be capable of hiring a man to kill him.
Yes, it all fitted together, Quinn thought. Even now, back in her jail cell, Alberta was blaming O’Gorman for her plight. Her irrational claims that he was not dead might be caused by her inability to face her guilt, a refusal to admit that she had been responsible for his death. Then where did George fit into the picture? How long had he suspected his sister of planning O’Gorman’s murder? And were his regular visits to her intended to get at the truth or to conceal it?
“Give me a hand with these cartons,” Lassiter said. “We’d better take them along in case any of the Brothers gets the notion of coming back for them.”