Росс Макдональд - The Zebra-Striped Hearse

She said in a small voice: “You’re really suspicious of me.”

“I have to be. You tried to keep me off Campion’s back. You promoted his marriage to Harriet.”

“Only because she had no one else. I was afraid of what would happen to her, to her emotions, if she went on being so bitterly lonely.”

“Perhaps you were playing God with her, the way you did with Dolly? Perhaps you met Campion through Dolly, and put him up to marrying Harriet?”

“I swear I never saw him before he came to this house last Saturday night. I admit I rather liked him. People make mistakes. I seem to have made a mistake about you as well.”

Her look was complexly female, asking me for renewed assurances of loyalty and fealty. Under the threat of the situation she was using all her brains now, and the full range of her temperament. I guessed that she was defending herself, or something just as dear to her as herself.

“Anyway,” she said, “what possible advantage could I derive from serving as a marriage broker to Mr. Damis-Campion?”

The question was rhetorical, but I had answers for it. “If your husband disinherited Harriet, or if she was killed, you could inherit everything he has. If Harriet and your husband were killed, in that order, you could inherit everything they both have.”

“My husband is very much alive.”

“At last report he is.”

“I love my husband. I won’t say I loved Harriet, but I cared for her.”

“You loved your first husband, too, and you survived him.”

Tears started in her eyes. She made an effort of will which contorted her face, and cut the tears off at the source. “You can’t believe these things about me. You’re just saying them.”

“I’m not saying them for fun. We’ve had two murders, or three, or four. Ralph Simpson and Dolly, Harriet, Ronald Jaimet. All of the victims were known to you; three were close.”

“But we don’t know that Harriet has been murdered. Ronald definitely was not. I told you the circumstances of Ronald’s death.”

“I heard what you told me.”

“My husband will confirm my account, in detail. Don’t you believe it?”

“At this point I’d be silly to commit myself.”

“What kind of a woman do you think I am?” Her eyes were intent on mine, with a kind of scornful ardor.

“I’m trying to develop an answer to that question.”

“I don’t admire your methods. They’re a combination of bullying and blackmail and insulting speculation. You’re trying to make me out a liar and a cheat, perhaps even a murderer. I’m none of those things.”

“I hope you’re not. The facts are what they are. I don’t know all of them yet. I don’t know you.”

“I thought you liked me, that we liked each other.”

“I do. But that’s my problem.”

“Yet you treat me without sympathy, without feeling.”

“It’s cleaner that way. I have a job to do.”

“But you’re supposed to be working for me.”

“True. I’ve been expecting you to fire me any minute.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It would free my hand. You can’t pull me off the case – I guess you know that. It’s my case and I’ll finish it on my own time if I have to.”

“You seem to be using a great deal of my time, too. And as for freeing your hand, I have the impression that your hand is already excessively free. I can feel the lacerations, Mr. Archer.”

Her voice was brittle, but she had recovered her style. That bothered me, too. Chloral hydrate or no, an innocent woman holding nothing back wouldn’t have sat still for some of the things I had said. She’d have slapped my face or screamed or burst into tears or fainted or left the room or ordered me out. I almost wished that one or several of these things had happened.

“At least you’re feeling pain,” I said. “It’s better than being anaesthetized and not knowing where the knife is cutting you.”

“You conceive of yourself as a surgeon? Perhaps I should call you doctor.”

“I’m not the one holding a knife. I’m not the one, either, who took your silver icepick and stabbed Ralph Simpson with it.”

“I trust you’ve relinquished the idea that it was I.”

“You’re the most likely suspect. It’s time you got that through your head. You knew Simpson, it was your icepick, it was your old stamping ground where he was buried.”

“You don’t have to get rough,” she said in a rough voice. Her voice was as mutable as any I’d ever heard.

“This is a picnic compared with what you’re going to have for breakfast. I kept the police out of your hair tonight by suppressing your present name and whereabouts–”

“You did that for me?”

“You are my client, after all. I wanted to give you a chance to clear yourself. You haven’t used the chance.”

“I see.” A grim look settled like age on her mouth. “What was my motive for stabbing Ralph Simpson and burying him in the yard of our old house?”

“Self-protection of one kind or another. Most murderers think they’re protecting themselves against some kind of threat.”

“But why did I bury him in the yard of our house? That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

“You could have arranged to meet him there, knowing the house was empty, and killed him on the spot.”

“That’s a pretty picture. Why would I rendezvous with a man like Ralph Simpson?”

“Because he knew something about you.”

“And what would that delightful something be?”

“It could have to do with the death of Dolly Stone Campion.”

“Are you accusing me of murdering her?”

“I’m asking you.”

“What was my motive?”

“I’m asking you.”

“Ask away. You’ll get no further answers from me.”

Her eyes were bright and hard, but the grinding interchange had hurt her will. Her mouth was tremulous.

“I think I will, Mrs. Blackwell. A queer thing occurred the night Dolly was murdered – queer when you look at it in relation to murder. When the strangler had done his strangling, he, or she, noticed that Dolly’s baby was in the room. Perhaps the child woke up crying. The average criminal would take to his heels when that happened. This one didn’t. He, or she, went to some trouble and ran considerable risk to put the child where he’d be found and looked after. He, or she, picked up the baby and carried him down the road to a neighbor’s house and left him in a car.”

“This is all new to me. I don’t even know where the murder took place.”

“Near Luna Bay in San Mateo County.”

“I’ve never even been there.”

I threw a question at her from left field: “The Travelers Motel in Saline City – have you been there?”

“Never.” Her eyes didn’t change.

“Getting back to the night of Dolly’s murder, a woman might think of the child’s safety at such a time. So might the child’s father. I’m reasonably sure it wasn’t Campion. Are you willing to discuss the possible identity of the child’s father?”

“I have nothing to contribute.”

“I have, Mrs. Blackwell. We have evidence suggesting that the strangler was wearing the Harris tweed topcoat I mentioned. Apparently one of the buttons was loose, about to fall off. The baby got hold of it when the murderer was carrying him down the road. The neighbor woman found the brown leather button in the baby’s fist.” I paused, and went on: “You see why the identification of that topcoat is crucial.”

“Where is the topcoat now?”

“The police have it, as I said. They’ll be showing it to you tomorrow. Are you certain you’ve never seen one like it? Are you certain that your husband didn’t buy a coat from Cruttworth’s in Toronto?”