Death Demands an Audience Read online

  Leaving the drugstore a few minutes later he walked up the street past the front door of the hotel and went into the tavern. Niles gave him plenty of time to order a beer and reach for the dice. Niles studied the posters in front of the movie house next door before he entered the tavern himself, hoping Beard would be on time for his relief.

  Nielson, the detective watching Judith Borrow, had passed an uneventful morning. The girl remained in her room until late, went out, bought a paper and returned to the hotel. As she passed through the lobby the clerk gave her a large brown paper parcel which evidently contained clothes, because when she came down to lunch at one o’clock she had discarded the rakish green toque and the military coat with the swinging skirts for a small brown hat, brown brogues and a brown raglan, with a tan wool sports dress underneath.

  Nielson watched her while she consumed burned chops and spinach in the little restaurant farther along the block while he sipped a cup of coffee. Later he followed her to the corner drugstore where she took a book from the lending library. After he saw her back to her room in the hotel he settled himself in a leather chair in the lobby where he could watch the stairs.

  Savage’s activities were not hard to keep track of although he covered more distance. He slept late, had breakfast, took a cab out to his shack, packed a suitcase and returned with it to the hotel where he went to his room on the same floor with, and a few doors from, Judith Borrow’s.

  Soderholm, Graham and Fishbaum, covering the Cambridges and Toby Newell, had a tougher time. No shelter for them. They had to remain in the open air. Nothing unusual developed. There was a conference at Gregory’s house after the arrival of the undertaker. Plans were evidently being made for Luke’s funeral the following day.

  Because of Luke’s position in the town and the number of people expected to present themselves to pay their respects the old man’s body was to be laid out, not in the colonial house on the hill, but in the big stucco undertaking home on the far side of town.

  Newell was at work in the factory and his own car was still out of commission. At half-past two Ellen Cambridge drove over for him and brought him back with her.

  The winter sun dropped lower in the west. Clouds obscured it. The thermometer was at last beginning to rise but the air was raw. The watching detectives continued at their posts, keeping a vigil on the nine people who had been dragged directly or indirectly into the coils of murder.

  Meanwhile, in the commissioner’s office on the second floor of the long gray building on Centre Street in New York City, Christopher McKee was explaining the situation as it stood to District Attorney John Francis Dwyer and to the commissioner himself. As he finished the Scotsman walked to one of the big windows looking out on Broome Street and said with restrained violence:

  “I feel that my written reports should have been sufficient or else we could have straightened anything out over the telephone. I oughtn’t to be here. I ought to be up there in Edgewood. Things are moving fast. The break may come at any moment. To tell you the truth, I’m afraid of it.”

  Dwyer glared at the lean, towering Scotsman with his tired eyes and strained mouth.

  “Reports. Reports,” Dwyer said argumentatively. “Reports are all very well. What we want is a little action. Franklin Borrow’s been dead for four days. And what have you got? Nothing.”

  The slight, thin, dark commissioner tapped a pencil on the big desk in front of him.

  “That isn’t quite so, Mr District Attorney. After all, McKee has brought us another murder.”

  Dwyer ignored Carey’s irony. He brushed aside Luke Cambridge’s death. “That’s got nothing to do with me.

  That’s not within my jurisdiction. I’m not worried about that.”

  McKee swung. “You’re not worried, Dwyer.” His voice was dry, flat. “But I am. I’m not worried about myself. I could have gotten out all right last night. But when I think of it ... There were other people in that flimsy country hotel up there in Edgewood and they stood a remarkably good chance of being burned to death in their beds. A person who would try a thing like that, with all the risks that were attached, won’t stop any place.”

  Dwyer said truculently, “Well, aren’t you having all those people watched?”

  “Watched! ” The Scotsman’s laugh was curt, scornful. “A man to each house and a couple of men at strategic points in that hotel. Why, we’d need an army shoulder to shoulder to do a really adequate job of keeping all those nine people under constant observation.”

  With an impatient glance at Dwyer the commissioner said, “That fragment of cotton waste in the upper hall, the unconsumed scrap of the wad that was used to start the fire with—did you succeed in doing anything with it, McKee?”

  The Scotsman shrugged. “Of course we’re checking, but it might take two months to find anything there. And what I want to impress on you, Commissioner, is the necessity of haste.”

  The commissioner nodded. “You can’t narrow your firebug down at all?”

  “I cannot,” McKee answered. “When I went to their doors in the hotel Judith Borrow, Jones and Savage all appeared to be sleeping. No telling whether they were or not. Detectives watching the other houses saw no one leave Gregory Cambridge’s or Leslie’s or the factory, which means Newell. But that doesn’t prove that one of them couldn’t have slipped out and slipped back without being seen. They’re all familiar with that territory and it was a pretty dark night.”

  “How do you figure it yourself, Inspector?” the commissioner asked.

  McKee said, “It could have been done in two ways. It could have been done by Judith Borrow or by Savage or by Jones. They had rooms on that floor. We found no proof that they did do it. If it was done from the outside it could have been directed at any one of the three of them or at me.”

  “But there were detectives on guard in that hotel,” Dwyer objected.

  “Yes,” McKee agreed, “but I couldn’t very well plant them outside each one of those doors. Too close a plant defeats its own objective. The men were in the lobby. However, there was another way of reaching the second floor. A narrow staircase leads from the taxi office to a little bedroom above, where the taximan on night duty sleeps between calls. It wouldn’t ordinarily have needed any guard because the taxi driver almost never goes out after midnight. But last night he had several late calls and it’s possible that an entrance could have been effected in that way. I don’t know.”

  The Scotsman took a restless turn up and down the paneled office. He said, “What I do know is that the person who threw that lighted cotton waste under the curtain on the second floor of that hotel where people were sleeping in the early hours of the morning was desperate.”

  His uneasiness began to communicate itself to the two other men. Dwyer said, “Well, get down to it, Inspector. Get down to it. You must have something on somebody McKee’s twisted smile was a grimace without mirth.

  “I’ve got more than that. I’ve got something on every one of those nine people under observation. Look.” He ticked them off on his fingers.

  “Gregory Cambridge admits he was in the neighborhood of Garth and Campbell’s when Borrow was killed. He lied about the time he left his office that afternoon. He lied again about where he was between seven and eight o’clock on the night when his brother was killed and—if no will is found— he stands to gain by his brother’s death.

  “So much for Gregory. Now, Irene Cambridge. She lied by implication about not being in Garth and Campbell’s shortly before Borrow died. She was there. She bought a pair of gloves. She searched Luke’s desk while his dead body was still in the room and while I was busy elsewhere and she helped cover her husband in his second lie.”

  “What about this fellow Newell?” Dwyer wanted to know.

  McKee said, “Newell’s alibi for the time covering Borrow’s death is by no means watertight. Borrow’s death is connected with Luke Cambridge’s, and Newell was at Luke’s house on Saturday and so had an opportunity to put the hydrocyanic
into that stout, just as all the others had.

  “About the same thing goes for Ellen Cambridge, except that she actually was in Garth and Campbell’s during the necessary period. And what’s more, that curious little incident of her abruptly terminating her blouse purchase requires an explanation.

  “Leslie and Muriel Cambridge were also in Garth and Campbell’s on that afternoon. In addition, Leslie had been getting money from his uncle. The supply suddenly stopped. Luke put his foot down. There’s no doubt that Luke was a menace to his nephew. He openly threatened Leslie with something or other in Captain Pierson’s hearing.”

  The Scotsman paused.

  “Don’t leave out Judith Borrow,” Dwyer said. “She’s a damn good-looking gal but I don’t know that I’d trust her.”

  “I’m coming to Judith Borrow.” The Scotsman laid one forefinger over another. “Like Gregory Cambridge and his wife, Judith Borrow also lied as to her whereabouts prior to her father’s murder. Then there’s that sudden journey to the house in Fieldston that night. As far as Luke Cambridge is concerned, she says he was dead when she entered his study on Saturday night in response to that mysterious telephone call from him. The taxi driver says he was alive. You can take your choice.”

  The commissioner interrupted. He said, “Just a minute, McKee, there are several points I’d like to get cleared up before you proceed. First, who locked Todhunter in the cellar in that old house up there in Putnam County?”

  McKee said promptly, “Luke himself. I suspected it as soon as I saw the layout.”

  He explained the outside cellar doors and the draft the opening of them would create and said, “Luke’s fingerprints were on the door that had been lifted. He must have slipped off the porch for a few seconds when he was taking his evening walk on the veranda. It emphasizes the need for secrecy he must have felt for his contemplated interview with Judith Borrow. The fingerprints on the bottle of stout led precisely no place, as I expected. Todhunter’s were on it, and Luke’s. There were no others. Is there anything else, Commissioner?”

  Carey said, “Yes, Inspector, the hydrocyanic. Where did it come from? Who had the opportunity to obtain it?”

  McKee’s shrug held the weariness and the futility of his failure to isolate and resolve one of the most promising and also one of the most dangerous aspects in Luke Cambridge’s killing. He said:

  “Frankly, I don’t know where the hydrocyanic came from. We’re going all out on it. We’ve been working hard. But so far completely without result. As soon as I get even an inkling, the shadow of a lead ”

  The commissioner nodded. Dwyer said with an acerbity that was a litle subdued, “That fellow Savage—you haven’t touched on him, McKee?”

  The Scotsman prodded the carpet with the toe of a long^ narrow shoe. “I agree with you about Savage, Dwyer. He’s been playing a devious game. He took to his heels in a hurry at or about the time that Borrow died, and he was up there in Borrow’s house in Fieldston when the girl and then Todhunter were attacked. Besides, I’d very much like to know what he’s been doing hanging around those Cambridge houses and why he was poking into their various garages. But there’s someone else who interests me as much or more than Savage.”

  The two other officials stared at his dark face. “Yes?” Carey said.

  “Yes,” McKee answered. “The man is Jones, Franklin Borrow’s helper. Jones is extremely vague about what he did when he went back to the display department in Garth and Campbell’s for a parcel he had left behind on the afternoon Borrow was killed. Jones reached Edgewood before Luke Cambridge died. His continued presence there is, to say the least, an enigma.”

  He stopped talking abruptly. The long room was invaded by silence for a moment. Then the commissioner said, “Quite a nest. As far as evidence goes it is pretty tangled.”

  The Scotsman’s “yes” was emphatic. He said, “Every one of the people I’ve enumerated had the chance to kill Franklin Borrow. They all had a chance to know about the telephone call from Luke to Judith Borrow which, I’m convinced, was what led directly to his murder. They all had a chance to insert that hydrocyanic in the stout. There’s a great deal of covering up going on about the period just after Luke’s death. That crash of Newell’s car is another item, and as far as that attempt to create havoc in the hotel last night goes, as I’ve already pointed out, no elimination whatever is possible.”

  The district attorney was a little dazed by the onslaught of facts and figures. He stuck a cigar from the commissioner’s desk into his cherubic mouth. “That’s all very well, McKee,” he said, “but there are angles. What about that poison? Where did it come from?”

  “I told you. We’re trying to check on it. And we’re checking on the will too. Of course there’s always a chance that Luke might have destroyed both the will and its copy himself, prior to death. We haven’t told those people yet that there isn’t one. The lawyer’s been stalling. But they’ll have to know tomorrow after the funeral. If we can succeed in making a connection somewhere in the past between Borrow and Luke Cambridge we’ll be on the right road, the road to the solution of these two crimes. I’ve got a man in the West right now on that angle.” He accented the words with a look at Dwyer.

  The district attorney grunted. “When you come right down to it, McKee, after all this, what have you got?”

  The Scotsman put a balled right fist gently into the palm of a hand. “We’ve got a slip of paper with one hundred thousand dollars scribbled on it in Luke Cambridge’s handwriting. Just scribbled. We’ve got Franklin Borrow’s empty dispatch case, the case that was stolen from his house after he died.”

  “What about Borrow’s missing keys?” Dwyer demanded. “And what about the gun with which he was shot? It seems to me ...”

  The discussion went on and on. Outside the tall windows Broome Street turned gray and then purple. The lights were switched on in the police academy. A stenographer came in with the mail. The commissioner signed a lot of letters.

  It was at five thirty-seven that the phone rang. The call was for McKee. He took it, listened and hung up. When he turned to the two men his face wore a peculiar expression. He said, speaking slowly and distinctly: “You were asking about those keys, Dwyer. That was Edgewood. Borrow’s missing keys have been found. They were found a short time ago in Toby Newell’s car.”

  CHAPTER 19

  UP IN EDGEWOOD it was 9:35 p.m. by the illuminated clock on the bank when Jones entered the stationery store and bought a ticket for the bus to Peekskill. The next one passing through the town was due to leave at ten twenty-seven.

  Returning to the hotel, Jones paid his bill and settled down in the lobby with a newspaper. He could see the bank clock from the chair in which he sat. From time to time he kept glancing at it over the top of his paper.

  Out on the pavement Todhunter joined Beard, who had replaced Niles as a tail on Jones. Todhunter looked through the window at the man who had been one of Franklin Borrow’s staff in Garth and Campbell’s. Beard said, “I think my guy is going to make a break. He’s all ready to leave town. What about those keys? That sounds good.”

  Todhunter said, “They’re Borrow’s all right. They were down behind the seat of Newell’s car, pretty far down. They might have fallen there or they might have been planted.”

  Beard whistled softly. “Newell’s the guy who’s engaged to Gregory Cambridge’s daughter, isn’t he? Makes it look kind of bad for him, doesn’t it?”

  Todhunter shrugged. “I don’t know. The car was all finished and the garageman was putting the seat back in place when he saw a wrench sticking out. He reached down and there were the keys. Borrow’s name was on the ring.”

  The doors of the movie theater up the street opened and people began to stream out onto the pavement. The first show was over. Judith Borrow detached herself from the crowd. She entered the hotel and crossed the lobby. Her back was to the watching detectives. They couldn’t see her face. But they could see Jones. Judith Borrow and Jones exchanged a
long look as the girl proceeded on her way to the stairs. She mounted them and disappeared from sight.

  Half a minute later Savage entered the hotel. He also had been at the movies. He also exchanged glances with the little man bulwarked behind his newspaper and in turn mounted the staircase to the second floor. Jones didn’t move.

  In the big stucco funeral home on the hill above the town Detective Lutz sat on a distant sofa and watched people, numbers of them, come and go. Luke Cambridge’s body lay in a handsome mahogany casket banked with flowers at the far end of the long spacious room with a stairway ascending on the left. There were candles at his head and feet. From some hidden recess organ music played hymns softly.

  The Cambridges were there, all of them, receiving friends and acquaintances, shaking hands, nodding acknowledgment of condolences and talking in low voices to intimates. Chairs in a wide fling rimmed the room on the far side. Rich carpets, palms, subdued lamps created an atmosphere that was at once opulent and assured and yet restrainedly mournful. It was a fitting place for grief, grief that had money behind it. No paupers need apply.

  A general movement toward departure began to take place. Henderson, the undertaker, a slight, long-nosed man with sandy hair, in a frock coat that was a little too big for him and black gloves that he kept buttoning and unbuttoning, consulted Irene and Gregory.

  Near by Toby Newell and Ellen sat together on a chesterfield. Newell was holding Ellen’s hand. Muriel Cambridge was buzzing animatedly to a small group of women, and Leslie stood alone in a corner, glooming slackly out a window. There was a disconsolate droop to his shoulders. Irene turned. She said to Ellen,

  “We’d better be going now, dear. What we all need is a good sleep. Mr Henderson has arranged everything for tomorrow.”

  The girl and Newell rose. Muriel and Leslie joined them and, with Irene and Gregory in the lead, they all moved toward the front door. Outside on the broad steps, as Irene and Ellen were getting into the car with Gregory, Ellen said, “Father, stop in the town lot, will you. I want to get some aspirin.”