Finally, consider the insurance policy. It had been arranged by my Uncle Ned, not as protection for my mother, but as a bribe to induce my father to participate in the conspiracy. No doubt Uncle Ned could have raised $50,000 if he had been forced to, but it was, after all, much less painful to have it paid by an insurance company. And no doubt my father, being what he was, was glad to leave with the money either in his pocket or soon to be delivered.
Shall I confess something? Once I had reassessed the circumstances and become convinced of the truth, I felt, far from shame or guilt, a kind of perverse pride. It was surely one of the most bizarre and daring conspiracies to commit fraud that had ever victimized an insurance company. Moreover, the fraud had been incidental. The primary purpose of the conspiracy had been to rid my mother of my father.
I did not know what happened to my father later, and I must say I had singularly little curiosity about it. Inasmuch as my mother had remarried two years after my father was last seen, I could assume that he had died, or had secured a quiet divorce in some remote place, or that my mother and Dr. Crandall, protected by father’s part in the conspiracy, had boldly committed bigamy. To me, it didn’t much matter. I loved my mother and respected my stepfather, and I was certainly not going to divulge anything to hurt them. Besides, you see, I had no tangible evidence. However much I knew, I could prove nothing.
And so I lived comfortably with my guilty knowledge until all the parties to the conspiracy were dead. Uncle Ned was the first to go, then my stepfather, and finally, my mother. Then, when all were beyond hurt or harm, my mental attitude changed. I was beset by a persistent and intolerable itch to know once and for all, and beyond any possible doubt, whether I was right or wrong. In brief, I simply had to know if my father had gone to heaven or to hell or to Chicago. Did his casket hold his bones or merely ballast?
I came back to find out. As I said in the beginning, I arranged to have the niche and the casket opened, and I employed competent workmen to do the job. I waited at the open door of the mausoleum, and remembered all these things, and smelled red clover in the sunlight following rain, and the work was eventually done.
The casket was laid out on the floor, and the lid was opened. The workmen, in deference to me, had gone outside.
I went over and kneeled beside the casket and looked in — and I wish I hadn’t. I would give anything now if only I hadn’t.
For, you see, my father’s bones were there, still wearing the blue suit that had, in the dry niche, survived the years that had made dust of his less durable flesh.
But that was not the horror.
The horror was peeping over the edge of his breast pocket, where he himself had put it so that it would be immediately available for use when he should awaken to a command that was never given.
Even before looking closer, I knew that it was a train ticket to Chicago.
Wait and See
Originally published in The Saint Mystery Magazine, December 1965.
The hotel was a tower of glass and white stone rising above the sand and tile sea. High in the tower in a room overlooking the beach, Kate Wilde faced her sister across a vast distance of ten feet and ten years, a virtual stranger trying with quiet desperation to find the magic word or gesture that would wipe out a decade of silence. But there was no word, no gesture, no magic at all. Kate, with her hard, embittered mind and strong body burned brown by the semi-tropical sun, could hardly recognize the frail and diminishing woman she faced.
In the long decade since they had parted, she had heard from Ruth only three times. A letter had come when Ruth’s husband had been killed in an accident. Another had followed long afterward when Ruth, motivated by some obscure yearning of blood for blood, had felt impelled to confess her own illness and encroaching death. Kate had been unmoved by the first letter, and hardly touched by the second.
Ruth’s death had not much mattered to her then, and it did not matter now. She hoped that it would impose, when it came, no claim that could not be readily adjusted and forgotten.
The third letter, which had arranged this reunion, had reached Kate only two weeks ago, forwarded from her former to her present address, which was a cheaper place in a meaner street. The years in Miami had not been easy, although there had been good intervals, but she had lived her own life and had no complaints about the kind of life it had been. Lifting her eyes, she stared out the shining glass seafront wall to where the white gulls soared between the Atlantic and the sun.
“Why have you never married?” Ruth said.
“Because I didn’t choose to,” Kate said. Then, aware of the harshness of her reply, she added, “I never seemed to meet the right man.”
“You were always difficult to please, Kate.”
“Was I? I don’t remember.”
“I suppose I was too, however. After Jim was killed, I never wanted to marry again.”
“You were lucky that it wasn’t necessary. He must have left you comfortably off.”
“A bit better than that, as a matter of fact. He left me more than a million dollars, and I’ve taken good care of it.”
“That much?” Kate’s eyes, following the gulls, were as blue and clear and hard as the sky beyond them. “I didn’t realize.”
“You should have come to me after Jim’s death, Kate. There was plenty for both of us. I would have been glad to share.”
“I don’t like Chicago. It gets too cold there. I’ll never go back.”
“Are you so determined? I was hoping you’d go home with me.”
“Home? This is home. I have no other.”
“Won’t you come, Kate? I’d be grateful if you would.”
“Why should I?”
“You’re my sister, and I’m dying.”
“So you said in your letter. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve grown used to the idea. It only matters, really, because of Little Jim. Whatever will become of him?”
“With a million dollars?” Kate’s voice assumed for a moment a faint note of derision. “I should imagine that he’ll manage somehow.”
“He’s only a little boy, Kate. Only nine years old. He’ll be no more than ten when I’m gone.”
“There must be someone to look after him. His father’s people or someone.”
“Only an aunt and uncle who are not greatly concerned. I want you to do it, Kate. You’re my only sister. I’d feel so much better if I knew it were going to be you.”
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Will you at least stay here in the hotel with us for a week?”
“Yes. I promised you that, and I’ll stay.”
“You’ll love Little Jim. I’m sure you will. You’ll change your mind before the week is gone.”
“You may hope so, if you wish. I doubt it.”
“I want Little Jim to go on living in our house in Chicago, of course. It’s our home, and he loves it there. It’s where he belongs. But you could bring him down here sometimes to visit. Wouldn’t that be enough to keep you happy?”
“Living on charity is unsatisfactory, however you look at it.”
“It wouldn’t be charity, Kate. Not really. Everything will be left to Little Jim when I die, but there’s a provision in my will for you.”
“Oh? What’s left after everything?”
“If Little Jim should die, it will all come to you.”