Richard Deming: Tweak the Devil’s Nose

“I suppose so,” I said without much interest. The school of philosophy which holds our lives are conditioned largely by minor and random events has never appealed to me much.

Nevertheless Fausta’s remark started me thinking about the incident, and almost unobtrusively a thought floated into my mind which pointed a finger of suspicion in an entirely new direction. The more I thought about it, and the more I related it to previous minor details which had come up during the investigation, the surer I became that I finally knew the real killer.

Fausta asked, “What is the matter with you, Manny? All at once you look as if you are in a daze.”

“I want to make some phone calls from your office,” I said, rising abruptly. “Come along.”

My first call was to the airport, and my second to the office of the Jones and Knight Investment Company. Matilda Graves informed me Harlan Jones had never returned to the office after Day drove him from his room. He had called from home to tell her he was taking the day off, and I could probably reach him there.

My third call was to Warren Day at Headquarters. When he heard what I had to say, he didn’t even put up an argument.

“Meet you in front of the house in fifteen minutes,” he said, and hung up.

We timed it just right, swinging in behind the squad car just as it stopped at the curb. As the inspector stepped from the right-hand door, Hannegan got out from the driver’s side. Fausta and I trailed them up the walk to the front porch.

In deference to the heat both Isobel and her husband were attired in sport clothes and were enjoying the relative coolness of the front porch. Isobel, as usual, looked better for being largely exposed, but Harlan’s orange shorts and thin T-shirt only succeeded in making him incongruous. He had too little chest, too much stomach and too hairy legs for the combination.

Isobel merely smiled us a languid greeting, but Harlan fought his way out of his nearly horizontal deck chair and flusteredly began trying to figure out where on the porch to seat four more people. Aside from the deck chairs he and his wife were occupying, the porch contained only a swing and one canvas chair.

“Sit down and stop fluttering,” Isobel told him. “They’ll find places to sit.”

Seating herself in the porch swing, Fausta looked at the inspector and patted the place beside her. He favored her with a look of utter astonishment and firmly seated himself on the broad railing. I decided to keep Fausta company, and Hannegan silently lowered himself into the chair.

“Go mix some drinks, Harlan,” Isobel suggested.

The inspector shook his head. “I have to inform you this is an official visit.”

“More questions?” Isobel asked. “I thought after you arrested the widow, it was all over.”

“Something new has come up,” the inspector said heavily. He looked at Harlan Jones and bluntly asked, “Where were you the evening Walter Lancaster was killed?”

The little fat man stared at him blankly. “Why in Kansas City. I told you that.”

Day shook his head. “A little while ago Moon phoned the airport. There was no reservation in your name Monday night.”

Isobel said in a surprised tone, “You just now checked up? I thought the first thing the police did was check alibis.”

Day’s face grew a deep red, which made his nose stand out like a white beacon. When he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out but an unintelligible sputter.

I went to his rescue. “It was a silly oversight on my part as well as on the part of the police. But your husband wasn’t suspected of anything, and after both his secretary and his wife told us he had flown to Kansas City, it just never occurred to anyone to check up. Since we were satisfied Walter Lancaster’s sole connection with the Jones and Knight Company had been his dealings with Willard Knight, and your husband had neither any business nor social connections with the man, there wasn’t any reason to suspect him.”

Isobel turned to her husband. “Where were you, Harlan?” Then an expression of incredulity grew on her face. “Harlan! You couldn’t possibly have another woman!”

Harlan merely looked at her piteously and licked his lips.

“No, he hasn’t another woman,” I told her. “But he knew you had another man. He knew if he let it be known he was flying out of town, the minute his plane was supposed to leave, Willard Knight would be over here.”

Isobel said indignantly, “Manny Moon! You promised me—”

“I’m not telling anything he doesn’t know,” I assured her. “He’s known about you and Knight for at least two months. Mrs. Knight told him. That’s how he knew Knight would be here at the time Lancaster was killed, making Knight a perfect alibi, but one he couldn’t use.”

Isobel looked from me to her husband and back again. “I don’t understand. You can’t possibly mean Harlan is a murderer.”

Her puzzlement was natural, for I have never seen anyone who looked less like a killer than the crushed little man in his ridiculous orange shorts and T-shirt.

“I’m afraid he is,” I said gently. “He had exactly the same motive we attributed to Mrs. Knight. It was there for us all the time, but Harlan’s timorousness made us overlook him as a possibility. Maybe it was that timorousness which sent him over the line. Maybe he couldn’t stand the thought of facing ruin, which was what he visualized when he overheard your lover and Lancaster arguing the other side of that thin partition, and realized Knight’s financial loss would bankrupt the firm.

“He knew how his partner would react to Lancaster’s death, knew the moment he learned of it, he would unload the stock and return the money to the company account. He must have planned it all out while listening to Knight and Lancaster argue. In the middle of the argument he went next door, ostensibly to quiet Knight down, and surreptitiously opened the key of Knight’s call box. This allowed Matilda Graves to hear the tail end of the argument, thereby establishing a witness to Knight’s threat.

“Then he went home, established an alibi for himself by phoning back to the office and leaving word he was flying out of town, and at the same time put Knight in a position where he couldn’t explain where he was when Lancaster was shot.”

Isobel looked at her husband with disbelief. When he did nothing but continue to look back at her piteously, she turned her attention back to me.

“But — but,” she stuttered, “why would he then kill Willard? If he put up with Willard and me for two months without even opening his mouth, why suddenly kill him?”

The inspector recovered his voice. “Once you’ve killed, the second time is easy. The penalty for one murder is the same as the penalty for fifty.”

“Also,” I put in, “perhaps Harlan felt stealing his wife was one thing, but when Knight started stealing his money, he was going too far.”

Warren Day stared at the little man until Harlan seemed to shrink into himself. “Why don’t you tell us about it?” he said in a surprisingly gentle voice.

Harlan’s lips moved silently, finally got out, “You seem to know everything.”

“Why did you decide to kill Knight?”

His lips moved again for a moment without sound, then he managed to say in a dejected tone, “I followed Isobel to the Sheridan when she sneaked out to meet Willard, and through a window of the lounge I saw them together. When Willard suddenly entered the lobby, I went around to the hotel’s main entrance and saw him waiting for an elevator. I took the stairs to the second floor and caught the same elevator on the way up. Willard was surprised to see me, but he gave no sign he knew me because he was there under an assumed name, you see, and I suppose he was afraid I would address him by his right name. He made a motion for me to follow, and when we got off the elevator we went to his room together without exchanging a word. After he had closed the door, he demanded to know why I was following him.”