Mignon Eberhart - Wolf in Man’s Clothing

“Alexia said no,” said Craig after a pause.

“Oh,” said Peter.

“Do you want Alexia to marry you?” I asked directly, and Craig said after another pause, “No.”

“Good God,” said Peter. “What’s the idea?”

“I wanted to see if she would,” said Craig simply.

Which got me nowhere. I was staring at Craig in furious exasperation, and Peter was staring rather blankly at him, too, and Craig just sat there with his hand over his eyes when someone knocked and came in and it was Nugent.

“I got a report on the Frederic Miller checks,” he said abruptly. “Do you want to hear?”

Did we want to hear! Peter’s rather large ears stretched another fraction of an inch and Craig snapped, “Go on. What’d you find out?”

“Frederic Miller,” said Nugent, “was a member of the New Jersey Bund. He lived in Newark at least for a time. He appears to have lived in New York, too. Sometime during the fall of 1938 he disappeared. Probably got wind of the fact that the activities of the Bund members were being watched pretty closely by the F.B.I. At any rate he disappeared and covered his tracks pretty thoroughly. The checks however were credited to his account at the Newark bank-the bank whose stamp appears on the back of one of the checks. The account was closed before he left the country, which is what they believe he did. That’s as far as they could tell me at a moment’s notice. They will investigate further.”

Craig said quickly, “Were there any pictures of Miller?”

“I asked that, too,” said Nugent. “No. But they said they’d be able to find somebody who could identify him.”

“Then Mr. Brent was helping the Bund,” said Peter.

“Presumably. Unless Miller used the money himself. However, that end of it comes under the jurisdiction of the F.B.I. They’ll run the thing down if anybody can. As a matter of fact, this angle interests them in the whole case and I don’t mind telling you it’ll be a help. The trouble is it’ll take time.”

“But don’t they know anything else about Frederic Miller?” asked Craig.

“No,” said Nugent. “He was just one of the Bund; all of the ringleaders were kept under pretty close scrutiny. They knew of him mainly through the records. They didn’t know whether he was young or old; born in Germany or in America; anything in fact about him except what I’ve told you. The point is that it could have been an assumed name.”

“Frederic Miller,” said Craig thoughtfully. “The trouble is too that there’s nobody around here who could be Frederic Miller.”

“And if there were,” said Peter, “why should he murder Mr. Brent? And Dr. Chivery?”

“The checks bring him into it,” said Nugent. “If I knew how, the case might be ended here and now. And again,” he added, “it might not be. But if it was an assumed name it could be anyone. You, Brent. Or you, Huber. Or Nicky. Or even a woman.

“It’s not me,” said Craig, and Peter said, “Gosh,” in a heartfelt manner. And Nugent said, “It might even be you, Miss Keate.”

“Well, it isn’t,” I snapped. “You can check back over my whole history if you want to.”

“Thank you,” said Nugent coolly. “I have.”

“But it couldn’t be a woman,” cried Peter, looking a little stunned.

“Remember,” said Nugent, “there’s only the name and the checks to go on. Women have managed to assume a man’s name before now. As to that, it has often struck me that Mrs. Brent and her brother could easily exchange identities. Especially considering the way she wears her hair.”

There was another silence and then Peter said again in a rather stunned way, “Gosh,” and stared at Nugent as if he’d pulled a rattlesnake out of his hat. And Craig said wearily, “But what of Drue, Lieutenant? All the rest of this will take time. You may be on the right track and you may be on the wrong track. Certainly there’s nobody around here whose whole past isn’t known.”

“I’ve checked on everybody,” said Nugent. “Insofar as I could. But Frederic Miller could have had a quiet and infrequent existence in name only, so to speak, for some time. However, there’s another thing that has just come out; nothing to do with the checks. The gloves that were found, one beside Chivery and the other in Anna’s room, were sold to your father. He bought them at the little shop in the village the day of the attack upon you, Brent.”

“Oh,” said Craig. And looked at Nugent. And said suddenly, “I suppose you want me to tell you why he shot me.”

PETER WHIRLED AND CRIED, “ He shot you!”

I said, “You knew. All the time, you knew who it was.” And Nugent said quietly, “Yes. Why did he shoot you?” Craig took a long breath. “It’s not very pleasant, you know. But I know that he didn’t mean to do it. I saw his hand, you know, with the glove on it. I suppose he-he got the gloves so his fingerprints wouldn’t appear on the gun. But I don’t think he meant to kill me; in fact, I think he believed me to be somebody else.”

“Who?” said Nugent.

“I don’t know,” said Craig slowly. “I’ve thought and thought and I don’t know who. It was dusk, you see; my father’s eyesight was failing somewhat, although he’d never admit it. I was talking to Alexia, as I told you; then she went back up to the house and I walked up and down there for a little. And I saw the gloved hand showing behind the hedge, and I was pretty sure it was my father. There was something about him-you know how it is-a familiar line even when you can’t see a person’s face. And just then the shot came. Naturally-the next day-I wasn’t going to explain it; I had sense enough even under the drugs Claud gave me, to know that. There was no reason for my father to shoot me; I knew that. So I knew there must be a mistake somewhere. That day I was too fuzzy and drugged to think clearly. But I did think I would tell Claud enough to put him on guard; he was devoted to my father and if my father told anyone, he would have told Claud. I think he did tell him; and I think he told him why he shot at me; and I think that is why Claud managed to lose the bullet that he extracted. It may have been why Claud himself was killed; he knew too much; I’ve always thought that.”

“Why do you think your father shot you?” asked Nugent.

“I tell you, it was a mistake. He thought I was somebody else.”

“Who?” said Nugent again.

And Craig said again, “But I don’t know. I had on a lightish raincoat I had taken out of the hall closet. I think it belonged to my father; but anybody might have a light raincoat; there was nothing about that that would make my father think I was somebody else. And we’re all about the same height-I mean you, Peter, and Nicky, and even Claud Chivery. We were all about the same height and in the dusk my father might have easily mistaken one of us for the other.”

“But my God,” said Peter. “Why would he shoot me? I scarcely knew him.”

“Why would he shoot anybody?” said Nugent. “Unless it was a question of shooting or being shot.”

“Yes,” said Craig. “That’s what I thought later when it was my father who was killed.”

“You mean,” said Peter, “that whoever he thought he was shooting when he shot at you was actually after your father?”

“Yes. In other words, I think it was a question of self-protection on my father’s part. Somebody was after him and he knew it and he thought he’d get him first. And he got me and-and couldn’t tell anybody but Claud what had happened and why. And then the other person, whoever it was, saw that action had to be taken at once. I mean it was-well, it was the same thing: kill or be killed.”