“What’s the matter?” Hester said. “Are you about to sneeze?”
“Hold a finger under your nose,” Flo said. “That works wonders.”
“It’s much better just to go on and sneeze,” Lester said. “Holding back sneezes leads to all sorts of emotional disturbances.”
“I am not about to sneeze,” said Bones, taking out a handerchief, nevertheless, and wiping his nose with it. “I am just trying to think of a way to put a semblance of order into this interview. This is impossible. It’s absolutely impossible. Mrs. Jarbelo, do you want to come downtown with me?”
“Certainly not. Why should I want to go downtown with you?”
“Then I must insist that you answer my questions personally, without assistance from your son and daughter.”
“Do you hear that, children? If you don’t keep quiet, Lieutenant Bones will take me downtown.”
“Oh, all right,” Lester said. “I certainly don’t want to intrude.”
“Neither do I,” Hester said, “but I’m going to look it up about taking Mother downtown. I don’t believe he can do it without a warrant or something like that.”
“Now,” said Bones. “Now, then, Mrs. Jarbelo. I’m going to ask you a few simple questions, and I expect categorical answers. Do you understand?”
“No,” said. Flo. “What does categorical mean? Hester, do you know what categorical means?”
“I’m not allowed to speak,” Hester said.
“Direct and truthful answers is what it means,” said Bones, “and I’d advise you to give them to me.”
“There’s no problem to that,” Flo said, “if you would only say what you mean once in a while.”
“To begin, then. Do you drive a car, Mrs. Jarbelo?”
“No, I don’t. Isn’t it absurd? I tried, but I kept running into things.”
“Then I’ll assume that you went to Brewster’s, if you went at all, in a taxi. I put that out as a fair warning. Taxis have drivers, you know. Drivers can be found and questioned. You are a striking woman, if I may say so, Mrs. Jarbelo. Chances are you would be remembered.”
“I’m not allowed to speak, either,” Lester said, “but if I were, I would volunteer the information that I took Mother in my MG.”
“What?” said Bones. “What’s that?”
“What he means,” said Hester, “is that he would have taken her if she had gone, but she didn’t go. Lester, I’m not sure it wouldn’t be better if you went off somewhere and did something.”
“Let him stay,” said Bones. “He may be helpful. Mrs. Jarbelo, I warn you again. If you were in Brewster’s apartment yesterday evening, we’ll find out about it. Even if no one saw you, there will be fingerprints.”
This gave Flo quite a turn, for it was the truth that she had not given a single thought to fingerprints before. She had not touched anything in the apartment, except old Brewster with her toe, but she had touched the door knob and the light switch going in and out. That was all right, though, come to think of it, for being a proper lady properly dressed, she had been wearing gloves. It was a great relief to remember the gloves.
“There may be fingerprints,” she said, “but they won’t be mine.”
“Let us hope not. Mrs. Jarbelo, let us hope.”
With this ominous remark, expressing just the right degree of skepticism, Bones rose with the apparent intention of taking himself off.
“Are you going so soon?” said Flo.
“Yes. There is, however, a definite possibility of my coming back.”
“I thought you might have a cup of coffee with us. I was just making some when you came. Lester, darling, see if the coffee is ready.”
“No, thank you,” said Bones, edging toward the door. “I have work to do.”
“Yes, Mother,” Hester said. “You mustn’t keep Lieutenant Bones from his work. He has to go investigate things.”
“Speaking of investigations,” said Lester, “do you happen to know that King Louie Oliver operates several gambling houses?”
“No,” said Bones, who did.
“That’s odd. There’s no great secret about it.”
“Gambling is not in my division.”
“Oh. That’s too bad. I thought it might be to my advantage if I could get King Louie arrested.”
Bones, who had kept on edging toward the door, turned and departed hurriedly without ceremony. Flo had risen to see him out and close the door after him, but now, seeing him go, she sat down again.
“Well,” she said, “that went very well in spite of Lester. In my opinion, Lieutenant Bones is quite charming, for a policeman. Imagine him saying that I’m a striking woman who would probably be remembered. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
18
Hester sat cross-legged on the floor in an attitude of intent thinking. On the floor in front of her, the object of her observation, was a box of Mother Murphy’s Quick-Cooking Oats. It was, to be precise, the same box that she had dosed with cyanide peanuts and had later hooked from Crump’s kitchen. There appeared to be nothing sufficiently unusual about the box to justify Hester’s dedicated attention, and anyone, after examining it, would have sworn that it was perfectly normal. Anyone, that is, who was unaware of its contents. To Hester, however, there was one glaring discrepancy, in the light of what had happened, that refuted her earlier conclusions and opened up some speculations that were interesting to say the least. It was this discrepancy that engaged her attention and incited her mind. In brief, as she had observed when she first laid hands on it in the commission of a petty felony, the box had not been opened.
The direct and immediate inference from this was clear. Mrs. Crump, struck down in an instant over a teacup, may have been the victim of a defective liver, as Quinn had suspected, but she had not died of cyanide in her oatmeal. Uncle Homer and Hester had simply been misled by the coincidence of her eating an oatmeal cooky at the time, which was a natural mistake, and one that almost anyone would have made in the same circumstances. It was quite a relief to be exonerated of any guilt in the matter, even though Mrs. Crump’s death had actually been considered no more than an accident at worst. The police, Hester supposed, could be unreasonable about such things whether they were intended or not.
But why had the box not been opened? Surely oatmeal, if bought at all, was bought to use, and Mrs. Crump had surely bought it. Moreover, she had bought it for a specific and urgent purpose; namely, as an essential ingredient in Senorita Fogarty’s diet of oatmeal and sex. Even allowing that Senorita had made a sudden and remarkable recovery, it seemed reasonable to assume that Mrs. Crump would have put her on the diet anyhow, at least for the duration of Mother Murphy’s Oats, to help prevent a recurrence of Senorita’s malady if for nothing else. As anyone knew, it was an established fact that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In addition, at least a moiety of the diet must have been followed as prescribed, for Crump, on the afternoon of the same day that Mrs. Crump bought the oatmeal, had bought the stud. Would oats have been abandoned and sex retained? Well, maybe. Sex, of course, was a bit more than a curative for what ailed you. It was also the technique of procreation, with the result, in Senorita’s case, of beginning an interminable series of litters that would indefinitely prolong the exclusion of the family from the fruits of Grandfather’s will.
And what, by the way, had become of the stud? Lester had seen him in a cage when he was carried home from the kennel by Crump, but no one, to Hester’s knowledge, had seen him since. Junior swore that he had never laid eyes on him during all his afternoons of espionage, but this in itself was far from conclusive testimony, for Junior had clearly spent most of the time napping. What was more significant was the fact that she, Hester, had never seen him in the little park with Crump in the mornings. It did seem, when you stopped to consider it, that Crump would have given the stud a turn once in a while, or would even have let him join Senorita as a special treat. Decorum was well enough in its place, but it was hardly sensible to impose it too rigorously upon Chihuahuas. Anyhow, Crump’s moral disintegration after the abrupt departure of Mrs. Crump did nothing to support the theory that he wished to avoid a public display of passion. Hester was prepared to testify that public opinion meant little to Crump these days.