Richard Deming: Tweak the Devil’s Nose

“About Willard’s wife bawling him out?” I nodded.

Isobel looked puzzled. “She just bawled him out, that’s all.”

“For borrowing money to speculate?”

“Well, for getting caught at it. Personally I think she wouldn’t even have objected if Willard had made a killing. She was just mad over the jam he was in, not about the moral issue.”

“I see,” I said. “And when did this bawling out take place?”

“The evening he was at my house. That is, just before he got to my house. Willard told me he made a clean breast of everything when he got home from work, and she raised so much Cain, he told her he had a board meeting and walked out without even eating dinner.”

“He told her everything?” I asked carefully. “About borrowing seventy thousand dollars to buy Ilco Utilities, about Lancaster threatening to knock the props from under Ilco with his public announcement, and about his argument with Lancaster?”

“Well,” she hedged, “he told her all about the jam he was in. He didn’t tell me the details. I learned them since from Harlan and you. Willard just told me he was in a stock-market jam, had told his wife the whole story, and instead of trying to be helpful, she jumped all over him. You can see from that what kind of woman she is. Had she been a halfway adequate wife, she would never have driven her husband to seek sympathy and understanding from another woman.”

Had Isobel’s revelation not opened an entirely new avenue of exploration, I might have been amused by the self-righteous manner in which she criticized another woman’s marital sufficiency. But my mind was too busy to linger over pot-and-kettle philosophy.

I said, “Pardon me,” rose and went into Willard Knight’s office.

I found the Inspector and Jones craning over a typed sheet lying on the desk between them. The inspector was listening without much interest as Jones explained each item listed on the sheet. I gathered it was a complete list of Willard Knight’s borrowings, with dates of both the borrowings and returns, and amounts involved.

I interrupted to say, “Let that ride awhile, Inspector. I just uncovered something more urgent.”

Day looked up at me with a scowl.

Conscious of the thin partition, which would allow Mrs. Knight in the other office to hear every word I said in a normal tone, I moved close to the inspector and dropped my voice to a near whisper. “Remember what a point Mrs. Knight made of not knowing what her husband saw in the paper? I just learned she knew all about Knight’s jam, including his argument with Lancaster.”

The inspector’s scowl faded to a blank look. “How’d you find that out?”

I opened my mouth to explain, then suddenly realized I could not in front of Jones without disclosing that while he was in Kansas City, Isobel and Knight had spent the evening together.

“Something Fausta happened to say,” I improvised. “I’ll explain it later. Since Mrs. Knight is right next door, suppose we ask her a few questions.”

Jones said, “You mean interrupt our conference?” and when the inspector merely gave him an irritated look, hastily added, “Not that I mind for myself. But my lawyer is a busy man and—”

“So am I,” Day said bluntly. “Moon, bring that woman in here.”

“Sure, Inspector.” I started for the door, stopped again and asked Jones, “Whose idea was this conference between you and Mrs. Knight?”

Jones looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

I said, “A little while ago I stepped in here to borrow a chair. Your walls aren’t very thick and I couldn’t help overhearing the discussion next door. It struck me the division of the business was being somewhat rushed inasmuch as your partner hasn’t even been buried yet. I just wondered who was doing the rushing.”

“I see,” Jones said slowly. “It is a trifle untimely, isn’t it? But Mrs. Knight insisted. I certainly am in no hurry. As a matter of fact I would prefer some delay, as I am going to have to borrow a good portion of what it will take to buy her out. I understand she is in a hurry because she plans to leave town immediately after the funeral. She mentioned something about living with a sister in California.”

I think Harlan Jones’s lawyer intended to wax a little pompous about his time being valuable when we intruded on his conference, but one snarl from Warren Day decided him not even to open his mouth. With a definite lead to follow, the inspector became overbearingly dictatorial. He not only cowed the lawyer into submission, he highhandedly ordered Harlan Jones to stay out of his own office while Mrs. Knight was being questioned, apparently to forestall possible eavesdropping through the thin partition.

Denied access to his work sanctum, Harlan decided to leave the office temporarily with his wife and his lawyer. From the ruffled appearances of the two men, I suspect they headed for the nearest bar.

Leaving Fausta in the company of Matilda Graves, we ushered Mrs. Knight into her deceased husband’s office and closed the door. The inspector ensconced himself behind the dead man’s desk, summarily waved the widow into the lone remaining guest chair, and left me standing.

After getting the woman in the proper mood for a confidential chat by glaring at her silently and ferociously for nearly a minute, Day suddenly said in a silky voice, “Understand you’re planning to leave town, Mrs. Knight.”

Had he possessed a sleek black mustache to twirl, hissed his words and called her “my proud beauty” instead of “Mrs. Knight,” he could have given no more perfect a portrayal of a villain about to foreclose the mortgage. The woman stared at him in bewilderment.

“Why, yes, after the funeral,” she said finally. “I plan to live with a sister in California. With Willard gone, there is nothing to hold me here.”

The inspector nodded with sinister satisfaction. In the same cat-and-mouse tone, he said, “As I recall your statement, you had no idea at the time why your husband disappeared after the Lancaster murder.”

She looked even more bewildered. “That’s right, Inspector. Of course now I realize it was because he knew he would be suspected of the murder. But I’m sure Willard was innocent.”

“So am I,” Day said agreeably. Abruptly he shot at me, “Moon, tell Mrs. Knight what you just learned.”

“Sure, Inspector. Mrs. Knight, when I first talked to you, and later when you gave a formal statement to the police, you made a great point of your ignorance of your husband’s affairs. As I recall, prior to my visit you had no idea what it was he saw in the newspaper that upset him so much.”

Her husky voice seemed to me to grow an edge of caution. “I thought it probably was something on the market page.”

“It never even occurred to you it might have been the Lancaster killing?”

After a nearly imperceptible pause, she said, “Of course not.”

“That’s odd,” I remarked. “You must have forgotten that only the evening before your husband told you all about his predicament, including his argument with Walter Lancaster.”

Her face continued to look only puzzled, but I was watching her hands, and they suddenly clenched together so tightly, the knuckles turned white. “He didn’t mention Mr. Lancaster. He only—” Abruptly she stopped, then proceeded in a more even tone, “I don’t know why you men think you have to trap me into something or other with trick questions. You couldn’t possibly know what my husband said to me in private.”

“Your husband repeated it, Mrs. Knight. He told the whole story of your domestic squabble to a drinking companion while he was supposed to be at his ‘board meeting.’ We have the evidence of the drinking companion.”