“Who?”
“No.” She smiled. “It couldn’t possibly help you any.”
“All right, I’ll take your word for it, for the present anyhow.” Baker returned the smile. “Now you know I’m investigating a murder. The last two questions are out of stock and you probably know what they are before I ask them. Where were you Tuesday evening between nine and ten o’clock?”
She made a face at him. “The answer’s out of stock too. I was at the scene of the crime.”
He opened his eyes at her. “You were at Jackson’s office Tuesday evening?”
“No, not at his office, but at that address. Under the same roof. I was at The Haven and I won a thousand dollars.”
“Anyone with you?”
“Several people. We went over from the Fowler around... oh, a little after nine, and it was close to midnight when we left. If you want, I’ll send you a list of the names.” She got up, and Phelan and the sheriff bumped into each other on their way to manipulate the wrap for her. “No, thanks. I... thank you so much. I’m sorry, Mr. Baker, but you kept me waiting half an hour, you know.” She fastened the wrap at her throat, in readiness for the chill evening outside. “You said two last questions. Is there another?”
“The other out of stock,” said Baker, standing. “Have you any idea whatever of who killed Jackson, or why?”
“And the other answer also out of stock.” She smiled at him. “Not the slightest, and if I did have I wouldn’t tell you. Good night.”
Tuttle, beaten to the wrap, had made a flanking movement to the door and now opened it. She passed through with a nod of thanks and he closed it. Then he returned to his chair and sat down, heaved a sigh, and told his companions in a tone of deep conviction:
“If that woman wanted to she would kill a man and eat the giblets for breakfast.”
Frank Phelan shook his head emphatically. “Surface tough,” he pronounced. “You just don’t understand the type, Bill. Look how she treats the boys out at Broken Circle. When Larry Rutherford broke his leg—”
“Shut up, please,” from Baker, stopped them. He was busy at the phone. In a moment the door opened, a man entered, and Baker said, “Send Miss Brand in.”
“She’s not here.”
“She hasn’t shown up?”
“No, sir. At ten o’clock I phoned to see if she had left, and her sister said she had been gone twenty minutes. Now it’s ten after, but she’s not here.”
Baker frowned. “Hell, it would take her only five minutes. Maybe she stopped on the way. Is Clint back yet? Send him in.”
The talk with Clint was brief. Amy Jackson had refused not only to give him the wallet, but even to show it to him. She seemed, he said, to be either peeved or scared, or maybe both. Baker sent for others from the anteroom, got reports, and gave orders. The microscope stated that the cartridges in the gun, including the one that had been fired, were of a different make from those Delia Brand had purchased at MacGregor’s. A man with a swollen jaw reported that an attempted finesse to get a sample fingerprint of Lem Sammis had ended disastrously. Luke arrived with the information that no one could tell whether the missing paper was in Jackson’s office or not, because Judge Hamilton refused to give a court order to open the safe and Judge Merriam could not be located; they had got a magnificent crop of fingerprints and would appreciate a suggestion what to do with them.
At a quarter to eleven Baker went to the anteroom and scowled around. “Miss Brand not here yet?”
“Not a hide or hair of her.”
“It’s been over an hour since she left home.” The county attorney heaved a weary sigh. “Phone the house again and let me talk to whoever’s there.”
Chapter 13
The Brand girls, their Uncle Quin, and Tyler Dillon ate ham and cheese sandwiches, raspberries and cookies, and coffee, at the breakfast nook in the Brand kitchen. The recital to Delia of the details of the discovery of the cartridges, by Clara and Ty, and of the saga of the stolen bag, by Pellett, was punctuated by frequent interruptions. Reporters were repulsed at the threshold by Ty Dillon. Friends and acquaintances calling with congratulations on their tongues and hungry curiosity in their eyes were told by one or the other of the men, also at the threshold, that Clara and Delia were exhausted and required seclusion and rest. Inquiries on the telephone got the same polite answer, except the call from the county attorney’s office requesting the presence of Pellett at eight o’clock and Clara at ten. There was some discussion as to whether Clara should decline the invitation, but she insisted that she would prefer to go and get it over with.
A little before eight Pellett departed. The trio had another round of coffee, and when the cups were empty Clara dragged herself up and began to collect the dishes.
Ty arose, took them from her, and declared, “You girls are both dead on your feet. Del, you go up and go to bed, and Clara, you go in front and lie down for an hour. I’ll clean this up and I’ll call you in time to go down to the courthouse if you’re still set on it.”
He got opposition from both of them. The upshot was that Clara capitulated and was sent off to the couch in the front room, and Delia and Ty together tackled the dishes. For some minutes the only sounds in the kitchen were the clatter of cups and saucers and plates in the sink, the faucet being turned on and off, the opening and closing of cupboard doors. Delia, her shoulders sagging almost as much as her uncle’s, washed the things mechanically, anything but con brio; Ty moved briskly about, bringing them, wiping them, putting them away. Suddenly he burst forth: “Wiper, a wiper, a dandy dish wiper, I’ll mowa da lawn and washa da diper!”
Delia glanced at him and made a feeble effort to produce a smile. He abandoned rhyme and offered further information in prose: “A lawn is clipped greensward surrounding a happy and prosperous home. Diper is a poetic term for diaper, the last word in chic for babies. Babies are what make a home happy and keep it from being prosperous. A home is the abode of a man and woman who are, let us hope, married to each other. What makes this testimony relevant, competent and material is the fact that you and I are going to marry each other.”
“My lord, Ty. Please don’t. Not now.”
He picked up a plate and started the towel around it. “I won’t, Del,” he assured her. “I mean I won’t press it to a conclusion now. As soon as we get the dishes done I’m going to leave you to the seclusion that I’ve told a hundred people is what you need. But there’s one statement that I’ve got to get off my chest before I leave.”
He put the plate away and got another. “You told Harvey Anson today that you wouldn’t have him for a lawyer because he had thought you shot Jackson, and not only that, he thought you shot him for intimate personal reasons. You should know, and you have a right to know, that you’re going to have for a husband a man who thought the same things — now wait a minute. I’m going on wiping dishes because I want to keep this casual and even flippant. I’m not going to submit a brief on it. I’ll only say that under the circumstances as given any man alive who wasn’t a brainless boob would have thought the same thing. You know the circumstances as well as I do. I thought you had shot Jackson, and since I couldn’t suppose you were flighty enough to kill a man because he had fired your sister from her job, and there was no other apparent motive, the rest was inevitable. What I thought has no importance or significance, not any more. What is important, to me anyhow, is how it made me feel.”
“Please, Ty. You don’t have to submit a brief. I suppose under the circumstances—”
“Excuse me. It’ll soon be over. The dishes, too. I was damn close to a maniac. I wanted to go and pull the jail down with my hands to get you out. I would have done anything, absolutely anything, to get you out. I was in a state that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Driving here yesterday morning, coming to see Clara, I asked myself why? In view of Jackson, you know? Chastity and purity? I only realized then what the situation was and must have been before, though I hadn’t known it. I had told you I loved you and wanted you to marry me, but that was milk and water stuff. To go on living meant to have you — hell, I don’t know how to say it, and anyway, I said I would stay casual. Only I’m yours. For keeps. Statement of relevant fact.” He picked up the last plate. “Of course that’s only the introduction, but I had to get it off my chest after what you said to Anson today. When the time comes I’ll go on from there. Shall I hang this towel back on the rack or what?”