Эллери Куин - Blow Hot, Blow Cold

One look at that seamed and lobster-colored face and Masters knew that the phone call had involved something not merely significant but catastrophic. The chief was plainly in a panic. It was a crying shame, Masters thought, that the local miscreants did not declare a moratorium on crime and leave the old man in peace until the morticians could decently get their hands on him.

“What is it,” said Lieutenant Masters, “a murder?”

The old man’s brow, which was as cracked as the sunbaked bed of a long-dry arroyo, suddenly became as blank as the top of his head.

“How did you know?” he exclaimed.

“I’m psychic,” Masters sighed. “Who is it?”

The chief swabbed his face with an old-fashioned blue bandanna. “A woman named Connor, Mrs. Lila Connor. Lives out in Shady Acres. Her husband is Larry Connor, the accountant. He’s missing and it looks like he killed her.” For a moment the old man looked almost happy. “Seems pretty open and shut, Gus. Just a matter of getting a few details and making the arrest.”

“After we find Connor, you mean.”

“Naturally. They’re pretty prominent among the younger married set, Gus, so it’ll probably be played for all it’s worth in the newspaper.”

“Well, this town doesn’t often get a murder to play with. You want me to look into it?”

“It’s the kind of thing you handle like a master, Gus. Anyway, it’s open and shut.”

“Thanks,” Masters said dryly.

“You’ll need to talk to the neighbors out there, but go easy on them. We don’t want any complaints. The guy who called in was Dr. Jack Richmond — you know, John R. Richmond? Citizens like that can give us a hard time if we get them sore.”

“I never get anyone sore, Chief, you know that. Lovable Gus, that’s me.”

“All right, all right, you better get on out there. I’ll get hold of the coroner. Here’s the address.”

Masters took it and left. He was only slightly bitter; his laughter, churning his insides, was only moderately derisive. He drove over to Shady Acres in less than ten minutes, and in less than five thereafter he had found the house. Oddly, there was no sign of anyone.

He went around to the back, beginning to hear voices.

There were six people gathered on a flagstone terrace. They immediately stopped talking and studied the final steps of his approach with critical intentness. Masters was sure they were noting his resemblance to the late W. C. Fields and giving him demerits as a police officer accordingly. This did not disturb him. He had learned from experience that it gave him an advantage.

“I’m Masters,” he said. “Lieutenant of police. Who’s Dr. Richmond?”

“Here,” Jack said.

“I understand you reported a murder.”

“That’s right. Mrs. Connor has been stabbed to death. She’s upstairs in the bedroom. I mean her body is.”

“Did you discover the body?”

“Yes.”

“I was with him,” Nancy said. “I’m Nancy Howell.”

“So was I,” David said. “I’m David Howell.”

“Why?” Masters demanded.

“Because Jack didn’t want to go,” Nancy said. “As a matter of fact, neither did my husband. It was only when I threatened to go alone that they agreed to go with me.”

“That’s not what I mean, Mrs. Howell. Why did anybody go? Is it the usual thing around here to walk into other people’s houses and look into their bedrooms?” The old technique, thought Masters; get ’em sore and they open up.

But beyond a few flushed faces, he evoked no reaction. They were apparently still too shocked by the murder. “Lila and Larry had a fight last night at the party,” the pretty little thing named Nancy Howell said, “and then Larry left home afterward, and all morning and afternoon today Lila didn’t show up, so naturally I was worried.”

“So you came over here and barged into Mrs. Connor’s bedroom.”

“Not at all. It was nothing so simple. First I came over with a pitcher of gin-and-tonic, but I only stepped inside the back door, and the air-conditioner was off. I couldn’t see any reason why it should be, and I began to wonder. That’s when I decided to go down to Larry’s office to see if he was there, but I couldn’t get any answer.”

“What made you think he might be at his office on a Sunday morning?”

“Because he’d said he was going there. Last night, I mean, when I saw him leaving in his car. He sometimes slept in his office when he and Lila had a quarrel.”

“I see,” Masters said.

He didn’t, not clearly; but he had at least an unorganized impression of what had taken place, which he would try to organize after examining the body and the bedroom. In good time he would return to these neighbors gathered on the Connor terrace, the most promising of whom seemed to be the pretty scatterbrained young woman with the runaway tongue.

“Suppose you show me the body, Doctor,” he said, turning to Jack Richmond.

“I’ll go along if you want me to,” Nancy said.

“I won’t,” David said, “unless you insist.”

“One person is enough,” Masters said. “Doctor?”

At the door to the murder room Jack Richmond stepped aside. Masters took three steps into the room and stopped. On the floor lay the woman, and sticking out of her left breast was the handle of the weapon that had killed her. She must have been a stunner, Masters thought.

“Has anything been touched in here, Doctor?”

“No. Nancy fainted when she saw the body, and David had to carry her back down to the terrace. I went immediately to the phone in the downstairs hall and called the police.”

“You did just right.”

Masters knelt beside the body and tested the flesh with his fingertips. The weapon, he noted, was not a knife but a metal letter-opener. The woman had obviously been dead for a long time. He almost asked the doctor for his opinion, but caution stopped him. Better to wait for the coroner’s physician’s report. Masters got to his feet and wiped his fingers on his handkerchief. He made a brief tour of the room.

“It’s funny,” he said.

“That depends on your sense of humor,” Jack Richmond said from the doorway.

“Queer, I mean.”

“What is?”

“This room. It’s so neat. If she and her husband had a fight that ended in a killing, you’d think there’d be signs of a struggle.”

“Not necessarily, Lieutenant. Larry was a strange sort in some respects. I rather imagine, when he was finally driven to it, that he went about it quietly. He probably just got the letter-opener and used it before Lila realized what he was up to.”

“You seem awfully sure he’s guilty, Doctor.”

“It’s certainly indicated, isn’t it? He’s run away, and who else could have done it?”

Masters grunted. “What makes you think the weapon is a letter-opener?”

“Because, from the looks of the handle, that’s what it is.”

“That’s right, it is. You have good eyes, Doctor. I wonder why the air-conditioning was turned off. Any ideas about that?”

“Yes. By the time they got home last night the weather had turned much cooler. I imagine they meant to open some windows in their room here. Fresh air beats air-conditioning any time. My wife and I did the same thing.”

“But no windows are open.”

“They just didn’t get around to opening them. Probably started to fight right off.”

“That’s good thinking, Doctor. Well, there’s nothing more to be done here until the coroner and my fingerprint man get here. Let’s get back to the people on the terrace.”

Out in the hall Masters halted abruptly to stare at the wall beside the bedroom door, as if he had suddenly come upon a most astonishing thing.

“Is this the thermostat?”