Brett Halliday - Dolls Are Deadly

Mabel continued in a kind of sad crooning, as if no one else had spoken. “I knew I’d never get the money to pay him off-from Percy-or anyone. So I knew I’d have to kill him. The dolls didn’t scare him off. He made me meet him. It was easy because he didn’t think a woman would do it…”

“I’ll have to take you to Police Headquarters,” Shayne said.

She seemed calmed by the sound of his voice. Her sobbing stopped. “I tried,” she said numbly. “I tried very hard with Jimsey, but I couldn’t love him. He was someone else’s child, not mine, and neither Jimsey nor Percy would ever let me forget it. He was Percy’s child, and Percy was mine, but Jimsey wasn’t mine and I wasn’t Jimsey’s. He took Percy away from me-”

“You fool!” Percy’s eyes were wild and tormented. “You never had me. I wanted a housekeeper. Only a housekeeper. And I married you to get one.”

“Percy thought Clarissa ran over Jimsey,” Mabel said, seeming not to have heard the shouted insults, seeming only tenuously related to anything that was happening now. “But Clarissa knew I did it, because we both knew where she hid the extra set of keys.”

“Shall we go now?” Shayne asked gently.

Mabel continued as though he hadn’t spoken: “Clarissa told the police she was here with me when it happened-to protect me, you know-but I had already told Percy she wasn’t, so that Percy would think she killed Jimsey.

“You see, it had to be either Clarissa or me, because we were the only ones who knew exactly when Jimsey would be coming home from school and which road he took. He always came a back way. Percy was at the office in the daytime and Dan was somewhere downtown and neither of them knew.”

She sighed. “The gangster doesn’t matter, but I’m sorry about Jimsey now.”

“Sorry!” Percy repeated dully.

“I’m glad I didn’t kill Clarissa, too,” Mabel said, still in the same monotone, “but I had to try because she knew and someday she might have told Percy and I wanted Percy to love me.”

“Love you! You fool!” Percy breathed.

Mabel seemed to hear nothing but her own voice. “I’d have missed Clarissa,” she crooned. “Pretty Clarissa. We live so close and we’re always together. But I had to try to kill her because I was afraid… and I wanted Percy to love me.”

“Get your coat now, Mabel,” Shayne said. “It’s getting chilly out. We’ll go downtown together and Clarissa will come to see you tomorrow.”

“When I was little,” she said, “I used to try to wear Clarissa’s things, because I thought they’d make me pretty, too.” She walked obediently to a closet and took out a long, black coat. “This used to be Clarissa’s, but it went out of style and she gave it to me.”

“How lucky you were,” Shayne said, “that you and Clarissa were the same type and you could wear her clothes.”

She seemed to hear him then, and for the first time since he had met her, she smiled.