“At least you’re feeling pain,” I said. “It’s better than being anaesthetized and not knowing where the knife is cutting you.”
“You conceive of yourself as a surgeon? Perhaps I should call you doctor.”
“I’m not the one holding a knife. I’m not the one, either, who took your silver icepick and stabbed Ralph Simpson with it.”
“I trust you’ve relinquished the idea that it was I.”
“You’re the most likely suspect. It’s time you got that through your head. You knew Simpson, it was your icepick, it was your old stamping ground where he was buried.”
“You don’t have to get rough,” she said in a rough voice. Her voice was as mutable as any I’d ever heard.
“This is a picnic compared with what you’re going to have for breakfast. I kept the police out of your hair tonight by suppressing your present name and whereabouts–”
“You did that for me?”
“You are my client, after all. I wanted to give you a chance to clear yourself. You haven’t used the chance.”
“I see.” A grim look settled like age on her mouth. “What was my motive for stabbing Ralph Simpson and burying him in the yard of our old house?”
“Self-protection of one kind or another. Most murderers think they’re protecting themselves against some kind of threat.”
“But why did I bury him in the yard of our house? That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“You could have arranged to meet him there, knowing the house was empty, and killed him on the spot.”
“That’s a pretty picture. Why would I rendezvous with a man like Ralph Simpson?”
“Because he knew something about you.”
“And what would that delightful something be?”
“It could have to do with the death of Dolly Stone Campion.”
“Are you accusing me of murdering her?”
“I’m asking you.”
“What was my motive?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Ask away. You’ll get no further answers from me.”
Her eyes were bright and hard, but the grinding interchange had hurt her will. Her mouth was tremulous.
“I think I will, Mrs. Blackwell. A queer thing occurred the night Dolly was murdered – queer when you look at it in relation to murder. When the strangler had done his strangling, he, or she, noticed that Dolly’s baby was in the room. Perhaps the child woke up crying. The average criminal would take to his heels when that happened. This one didn’t. He, or she, went to some trouble and ran considerable risk to put the child where he’d be found and looked after. He, or she, picked up the baby and carried him down the road to a neighbor’s house and left him in a car.”
“This is all new to me. I don’t even know where the murder took place.”
“Near Luna Bay in San Mateo County.”
“I’ve never even been there.”
I threw a question at her from left field: “The Travelers Motel in Saline City – have you been there?”
“Never.” Her eyes didn’t change.
“Getting back to the night of Dolly’s murder, a woman might think of the child’s safety at such a time. So might the child’s father. I’m reasonably sure it wasn’t Campion. Are you willing to discuss the possible identity of the child’s father?”
“I have nothing to contribute.”
“I have, Mrs. Blackwell. We have evidence suggesting that the strangler was wearing the Harris tweed topcoat I mentioned. Apparently one of the buttons was loose, about to fall off. The baby got hold of it when the murderer was carrying him down the road. The neighbor woman found the brown leather button in the baby’s fist.” I paused, and went on: “You see why the identification of that topcoat is crucial.”
“Where is the topcoat now?”
“The police have it, as I said. They’ll be showing it to you tomorrow. Are you certain you’ve never seen one like it? Are you certain that your husband didn’t buy a coat from Cruttworth’s in Toronto?”
Her eyes had changed now. They were large and unfocused, looking a long way past me. Under her smudged make-up the skin around her mouth had a bluish tinge, as if my hammering questions had literally bruised her. She got to her feet, swaying slightly, and ran out of the room on awkward high heels.
I followed her. The threat of violence, of homicide or suicide, had been gathering in the house for days. She flung herself along the hallway and through the master bedroom into a bathroom. I heard her being sick there in the dark.
A light was on in the great bedroom. I opened one of the wardrobe closets and found Mark Blackwell’s clothes. He had a couple of dozen suits, hanging in a row like thin and docile felons.
I turned back the right cuff of one of the jackets. Written in the lining in indelible ink was the same cleaner’s code that Leonard had found in the sleeve of the topcoat: BX1207.
27
THE MAID APPEARED in the doorway. She was back in uniform but still using her unzipped personality.
“Now what?”
“Mrs. Blackwell is ill. You’d better see to her.”
She crossed the bedroom to the dark bathroom, dragging her feet a little. I waited until I heard the two women’s voices. Then I made my way back through the house to the telephone I had used before. The Citrus Junction paper with the Simpson story on the front page lay untouched on Isobel Blackwell’s desk. If she had guilty knowledge of it, I thought wishfully, she would have hidden or destroyed the newspaper.
Arnie Walters answered his phone with a grudging “Hello.”
“This is Archer. Have you seen Blackwell?”
He ignored the question. “It’s about time you checked in, Lew. I heard you took Campion last night–”
“I want to know if you’ve seen Mark Blackwell, Harriet’s father.”
“No. Was I supposed to?”
“He set out early Thursday morning for Tahoe, at least that was his story. Check with the people there, will you, and call me back. I’m at Blackwell’s house in L. A. You know the number.”
“Is he on the missing list, too?”
“Voluntary missing, maybe.”
“Too bad you can’t keep track of your clients. Have they all flipped?”
“Everybody’s doing it. It’s the new freedom.”
“Stop trying to be funny. You wake me up in the middle of the night, and you don’t even tell me what Campion had to say.”
“He denies everything. I’m inclined to believe him.”
“He can’t deny the blood on the hat. It’s Harriet’s blood type, and she was last seen with him. He can’t deny the murder of his wife.”
“That was a bum beef, Arnie.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“A semi-fact, anyway. Campion’s no Eagle Scout, but it looks as though somebody made a patsy out of him.”
“Who?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Then what’s your theory about Harriet? She’s vanished without a trace.”
“She may have met with foul play after Campion left her. She was carrying money and driving a new car. We ought to bear down on finding that car. One place to look would be the airport parking lots at Reno and San Francisco.”
“You think she flew some place?”
“It’s a possibility. Look into it, will you, but call me back right away on Blackwell. I have to know if the Tahoe authorities have seen him.”
Isobel Blackwell spoke behind me as I hung up: “Do you doubt everything and everyone?”