Mr. Smith sat down on the plush sofa and placed his gray derby carefully beside him. “The crime,” he said, “I take it, would have occurred last night. And you suspect Walter Perry, are holding him?”
The sheriff’s head tilted slightly to one side. “And from what,” he wanted to know, “do you take all that?”
“Obviously,” said Mr. Smith, “it had not occurred when I talked to Walter Perry late yesterday, or he would certainly have mentioned it. Then, if the crime had occurred today, I would expect more activity about, coroners, undertakers, deputies, photographers. The discovery must have occurred no later than early this morning for all that to be over with, and the… ah… remains taken away. I take it that they are, because of the wreath. That would indicate that a mortician has been here. Did you say we had the house to ourselves?
Wouldn’t an estate of this size require servants?”
“Yeah,” answered the sheriff. “There’s a gardener somewhere around and a groom who takes care of the horses— Carlos Perry’s hobby was raising and breeding horses. But they aren’t in the house — the gardener and the groom, I mean. There were two inside servants, a housekeeper and a cook. The housekeeper quit two days ago and they hadn’t hired a new one yet, and the cook— Say, who’s questioning who? How did you know we were holding Walter on suspicion?”
“A not illogical inference, Sheriff,” said Mr. Smith. “His absence, your manner, and your interest in what he wanted to see me about. How and when was Mr. Carlos Perry killed?”
“A little after two o’clock, or a little before, the coroner says. With a knife, while he was in bed asleep. And nobody in the house.”
“Except Mr. Walter Perry?”
The sheriff frowned. “Not even him, unless I can figure out how— Say, who’s questioning who, Mr. Smith? Just what was your business with Walter?”
“I sold him a policy — not a large one, it was for three thousand dollars — a few years ago while he was attending college in the city. Yesterday, I received a notice from the main office that his current premium had not been paid and that the grace period had expired. That would mean loss of the policy, except for a cash surrender value, very small, considering that the policy was less than three years old.
However, the policy can be reinstated within twenty-four hours after expiration of the grace period, if I can collect his premium and have him sign a statement that he is in good health and has had no serious illness since the policy date.
Also, I hoped to get him to increase the amount… ah —Sheriff, how can you possibly be certain that there was no one else in the house at the time Mr. Perry was killed?”
“Because,” said the big man, “there were two men on the house.”
“On the house? You mean, on the roof?”
The sheriff nodded glumly. “Yeah,” he answered. “Two private detectives from the city, and they not only alibi each other — they alibi everybody else, including Mr. Addison Simms of Seattle.” He grunted. “Well, I hoped your reason for seeing Walter would tie in somewhere, but I guess it doesn’t.
If anything comes up, I can reach you through your company, can’t I?”
“Of course,” said Mr. Smith. He made no move to go.
The sheriff had turned around to the keyboard of the Steinway grand. With a morose finger, he picked out the notes of “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.”
Mr. Smith waited patiently until the concert was finished.
Then he asked, “Why were two detectives on the roof, Sheriff? Had there been a warning message or a threat of some sort?”
Sheriff Osburne turned around on the piano bench and regarded the little insurance agent glumly.
Mr. Smith smiled deprecatingly. He said, “I hope you don’t think I’m interfering, but can’t you see that it’s part of my job, part of my duty to my company, to solve this crime, if I can?”
“Huh? You didn’t have insurance on the old guy, did you?”
“No, just on young Walter. But the question arises — is Walter Perry guilty of murder? If he is, I would be doing my employer a disservice to go out of my way to renew his policy. If he is innocent, and I do not remind him that his policy is about to lapse, I am doing a disservice to a client. So I hope you see that my curiosity is not merely… ah… curiosity.”
The sheriff grunted.
“There was a threat, a warning?” Mr. Smith asked.
The sheriff sighed deeply. “Yeah,” he said. “Came in the mail three days ago. Letter saying he’d be murdered unless he made restitution to all the people he’d gypped out of money on songs he’d stolen — pirated, I think they call it in that game— from them. He was a song publisher, you know.”
“I recall his nephew having mentioned it. Whistler and Company, isn’t it? Who is Mr. Whistler?”
“There ain’t any,” replied the sheriff. “It’s a long— All right, I might as well tell you. Carlos Perry used to be in vaudeville, a solo act, whistling. Way back when, when there was vaudeville. When he took on a girl assistant, he billed himself as Whistler and Company, instead of using his name.
See?”
“And then he got into song publishing, and used the same name for a company name. I see. And did he really cheat his clients?”
The sheriff said, “I guess he did, all right. He wrote a couple songs himself that went fairly well, and used the money he got from ‘em to set himself up in publishing. And I guess his methods were crooked, all right. He was sued about a dozen times, but usually came out on top and kept right on making hay. He had plenty. I wouldn’t say he was a millionaire, but he must have been half of one, anyway.
“So three days ago, this threatening letter comes in the mail, and he showed it to us and wanted protection. Well, I told him we’d work on finding out who sent the letter, but that the county couldn’t afford to assign anybody to permanent protection duty at his place and if he wanted that, he’d have to hire it done. So he went to the city and hired two men from an agency.”
“A reputable one?”
“Yeah, the International. They sent Krauss and Roberts, two of their best men.”
The sheriff’s hand, resting on the keyboard, struck what he probably intended as a chord. It wasn’t. Mr. Smith winced slightly.
“Last night,” the sheriff went on, “as it happened, nobody was in or around the place here except the boss — I mean, Carlos Perry — and the two International ops. Walter was staying overnight in the city, went to see a show and stayed at a hotel, he says. We’ve checked. He went to the hotel all right, but we can’t prove he stayed in his room, or that he didn’t. Checked in about midnight, and left a call for eight. He could’ve made it here and back, easy.
“And the servants — well, I’d told you the housekeeper had quit and not been replaced yet. Just coincidence the other three all happened to be away. The cook’s mother’s critically sick; she’s still away. It was the gardener’s night off; he spent it with his sister and her husband in Dartown, like he always does. The other guy, the horse trainer or groom or whatever the devil you’d call him, went to town to see a doctor about an infected foot he’d got from stepping on a nail. Drove in in Perry’s truck and the truck broke down. He phoned and Perry told him to have it fixed at an all-night garage, sleep in town, and bring it back in the morning. So, outside of horses and a couple cats, the only people around last night were Perry and the two private ops.”
Mr. Smith nodded gravely. “And the coroner says the murder happened around two o’clock?”
“He says that’s fairly close, and he’s got something to go by, too. Perry turned in about midnight, and just before he went to his room, he ate a snack out of the refrigerator. One of the ops, Roberts, was in the kitchen with him and can verify what he ate and when. So — you know how a coroner can figure time of death, I guess — how far digestion has proceeded. And—”