True Friends by Patrick O’Keeffe

In this particular instance, one might possibly say, with reason, that one good friend deserves another.

* * *

One circumstance of my first meeting with Brentford could be viewed as foreshadowing the future: he was reading a mystery novel, the book jacket of which illustrated a voluptuous redhead sitting cross-legged in a witness chair facing a jury. Brentford had booked for London in the old Ambassadress, a medium-size combination passenger and cargo liner then in postwar service between New York and the United Kingdom. After watching the pilot climb down into his launch off Ambrose Lightship, I strolled into the smoking room. Brentford was sitting alone at one of the tables, his long legs stretched out beside it, his free hand curled around a tall glass of black stout. He looked up from the novel as I entered, and his attractive, broad face lighted up with a friendly smile.

“Rather quiet in here,” he remarked, with a glance around the empty tables.

“Things will liven up once the rest of the passengers have finished unpacking and get all straightened away,” I said.

Brentford invited me to have a drink, but I declined, saying I didn’t feel like one just then. However, I pulled out a chair and engaged him in conversation. Nodding at the caduceus under the three gold rings on my sleeve, he remarked that I must be the ship’s doctor. I replied that I was, and I’d probably have said little beyond that, but Brentford had such a pleasing way of listening to you, as if your affairs were of extraordinary interest to him, that I went on to tell him that because of a heart condition I’d abandoned all thoughts of private practice and taken up the less exacting life of a physician afloat.

Brentford told me he was making a hurried business trip to England representing the New York firm of Art Metal Crafts. During the war, he had been attached to a British Government purchasing commission in Washington, and had returned after the war to take a position with Art Metal Crafts. He had also married and settled down.

“Speaking of art metal,” I said, “my daughter and her husband recently bought a home in suburban Connecticut. I visited them recently, and my daughter spoke of coming to New York soon to pick up some decorative metal furnishings for the lawn and the patio.”

“Before I leave the ship,” said Brentford, “I’ll give you a note to Avelardi. He’s in charge of our showrooms. He’ll be happy to take her around and advise her, and extend the courtesies of the firm.”

I thanked him, and he said, “Doctor Jenks, I find it most delightful to talk to you. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to sit at your table, if I may be so bold as to ask for that privilege.”

I returned his compliment by saying that it would be equally pleasurable to me to have him for a table companion provided, of course, that the seats hadn’t already been assigned. The chief steward told me they had, but he transferred a man who was indifferent about seating, and gave his place to Brentford.

The others at my table were a ship’s chief engineer, a law clerk on a visit to maternal relatives in Cardiff, and a vice-president of an oil company, due in London for a conference with officials of a British subsidiary.

The four of them formed a congenial group — a fivesome, in fact, when I was free to join them — with Brentford the breezy center of cohesion.

Although Brentford spent most of his time with his table group, he held honorary membership in all the other groups and cliques into which even a passenger list as small as the Ambassadress’ seventy or so will inevitably divide. I’d sometimes come upon him chatting merrily with elderly couples, twitting a knot of middle-aged matrons, as often as not teasing younger ones. He could slip into any gathering as smoothly as the chaplain. Even the most standoffish couldn’t have passed his tall, lanky figure without returning his cheerful smile and exchanging pleasantries, and he was a familiar guest at the captain’s private cocktail parties.

It was during the third evening out that he first spoke to me about his wife, though with no hint of his unhappiness. We were sitting alone in the smoking room, the other three being at the horse races in the lounge. He was telling me about the secluded cottage he’d rented upstate as a kind of weekend retreat from the noise and clamor of the city, and he took out his wallet to show me a snapshot of it.

The snapshot showed a shingled house with a run-down appearance and in need of paint, and an open garage attached. “It isn’t much to look at,” said Brentford, “but it’s awfully cozy. It’s a little haven of quiet just off a country road. Margot and I use it to get away from the city during weekends, especially in the hot summers. The old farmer who owns it wants me to buy it. Perhaps I will, but I wanted to try it first. I’d renovate it throughout, pave the garage and put doors on it. That’s Margot.”

Margot was the good-looking but unsmiling woman standing outside the garage. She appeared to be several years younger than Brentford, whom I judged to be about forty, with a small but attractive figure and what he said was reddish hair.

“I became acquainted with her during the war. Her widowed mother was active in Bundles for Britain, and Margot used to help her. Margot still does a little charitable work of that sort.” Brentford shook his head amusedly. “She seems to think the war’s still on and there’s a desperate need of old clothing for bombed-out families. She filled a trunk for me to bring along. I told her it was ridiculous, that there’s absolutely no need for such now. She said I could turn the trunk over to some benevolent organization. I flatly refused to take it. Unknown to me, she had it delivered to the pier, and it was put into my stateroom just as we were about to sail. Heaven only knows what I’m going to do with it.

“I almost didn’t make the sailing myself,” Brentford went on. “It was only by the skin of my teeth I got my passport renewed in time. I reached the consulate almost at closing hour, and the clerk told me I’d have to come back next day. I told him I was booked to sail next day provided my passport was in order, and I wanted it renewed right then and there. I told him I was a friend of the consul-general, and, by George, I’d phone Sir Henry himself, if necessary, to get that renewal.” Brentford chuckled. “I don’t know Sir Henry from Sir Bumbleton, but that clerk really got busy.”

Next evening, Brentford invited me to his stateroom for a quiet nightcap together. I regarded it as a compliment that he should wish to share my company alone. When I looked in, around ten-thirty, he was waiting for me with Scotch and ice, soda and glasses. He seated me royally in the easy chair and then mixed a couple of highballs. Handing one to me, he lounged back on the settee, stretching out his long legs, and raised his glass.

“Cheerio and down the hatch, to make it appropriate to the milieu.” He took a long drink and then extended his glass in the direction of the sizable steamer trunk standing in one corner. “I’ve finally made up my mind what to do about that miserable encumbrance — overboard!”

“Overboard?” I repeated, not thinking him serious.

“The ideal solution. Margot neglected to send the keys, or if she did send them, they weren’t delivered to me. So I won’t be able to open it for customs inspection. I’d have to break the locks. I don’t intend to put on an exhibition like that on the pier, like some idiot tourist.”

“If you inquire around,” I suggested, “someone may come up with a key that’ll fit. Trunk keys are very much alike, I’ve found. Or the ship’s carpenter may be able to open it for you.”

“Doc, old chap, I heartily dislike foisting my troubles onto third parties.”

“It seems a pity to throw all that clothing overboard. Why not leave it behind? Tell the room steward what’s in the trunk and let him do whatever he likes with it.”

“And have him look daggers at me for the rest of the voyage, thinking that’s to be the handsome tip I promised him in return for handsome service?”

“How will you explain to your wife?”

“Quite simple: it got lost — not an unusual happening with luggage, I think you’ll agree. I needn’t add that it was lost overboard. So, if you’ll kindly lend me a hand—”

Brentford put down his glass and went to the trunk. I gave up trying to dissuade him; he had obviously made up his mind. Brentford hooked back the door and, each of us taking one of the thick leather handles on either end, we carried the trunk out into the passageway. It seemed somewhat heavy for clothing, and I remarked so to Brentford.

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind wagering that Margot thinks they’re still on war rations, too, and threw in some cans of corned beef hash.”

A young woman in evening dress was coming along the passageway. The sea was a little choppy, and we weren’t too steady on our legs. She pressed close to the wall to let us by, as if fearful for her gown. She eyed us curiously, as if astonished to see the ship’s doctor and Brentford doing porter’s work. She treated Brentford to a big smile, and offered no comment.

A few doors from Brentford’s stateroom was a short passage leading out to the lower deck. The deck was dimly lighted, and deserted except for a few passengers gathered along toward the forward end. We carried the trunk out to the rails, heaved it up to the topmost one, and then pushed it overboard. It struck the dark sea with a loud plop.

“Many thanks,” said Brentford. “That’s a load off my mind now, as well as off my hands. Now to celebrate a little with the nightcaps.”

At breakfast next morning, when I told about giving the trunk the deep six, Brentford came in for some banter as a wife deceiver, and we all laughed when Liebman, the law clerk, said, “Doc, you’re an accessory after the fact, aiding and abetting in disposing of the corpus delicti.

Brentford didn’t win the shuffleboard or any of the competitions, but there was little doubt who would be chosen to present the prizes before the passengers assembled in the main lounge for the occasion. Brentford delivered a witty speech suited to each award, and when the winner went up to receive it, I’m not sure the loud applause wasn’t as much for Brentford as for the prize winner.

Before disembarking in London, Brentford shook my hand warmly. “If you get up to the city while in port, you’ll find me in the bar of the Savoy any day around opening time.” He then handed me his business card. “For your daughter.”

On the back he had penciled a note to Mr. Avelardi, requesting that all courtesies be shown to the lady named therein. “An infinitesimal token of my deep appreciation for making my voyage most enjoyable,” said Brentford. “I suggest you take it to Avelardi during your next stay in New York. He’ll be leaving on his vacation soon.”

Next morning I had occasion to go up in the neighborhood of the Savoy toward noon, and I looked into the bar, anticipating a pleasant interlude with Brentford. There was no sign of him. I lingered until one o’clock and then left, disappointed.

On returning to New York, I telephoned my daughter from the ship that evening; being a widower, I lived aboard in the home port. My daughter hadn’t been down to New York yet to look at art-metal furnishings, and so I told her about Brentford and Avelardi. On sailing day, after doing a little shopping, I called at the Madison Avenue showrooms of Art Metal Crafts, and as I walked in among the vast display of ornamental tables and chairs, gates and arches, a salesman approached me.

“May I speak to Mr. Avelardi?” I asked.

He led me to a small office off one of the side rooms, where a man sat behind a desk on a wrought-iron chair with a filigree back. Avelardi was swarthy, with black, alert eyes under heavy brows. The afternoon was warm, and his black silk jacket was spread over the back of the chair. He rose to receive me.

I introduced myself and then said, “Mr. Brentford suggested I call on you.”

I handed him Brentford’s card, note side up. Avelardi read it and turned it over. He appeared sunk in thought for a moment or so, and then glanced up at me.

“Dr. Jenks,” he said, “I’ll be most pleased to attend to your daughter. I must tell you, though, that Mr. Brentford is no longer with us.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I hastened to say. “I hadn’t the slightest idea. If I’d known—”

“Not at all, Doctor. It will be a privilege to show your daughter around and advise her.” Avelardi spoke with an accent. He seemed to run his eyes over me and my packages in appraisal. I was in civilian clothes, of course, nothing indicating I was a ship’s officer. “May I ask if you’re an old friend of Brentford’s?”

“Not exactly an old one, But long enough to be a good one, I hope. He gave me that card a few weeks ago and suggested I take it to you next time I was in New York.”

Avelardi seemed to hesitate, and then asked me to sit down. He resumed his chair behind the desk. I put my packages to one side and sat in another metal chair facing him, my curiosity aroused.

“As you’re a good friend of Brentford’s,” began Avelardi gravely, “I feel I should perhaps let you know why he’s no longer with us, since you’re bound to hear of the reasons eventually. Brentford phoned me about four weeks ago to say he was ill and wouldn’t be able to come in for a few days — feverish, with high temperature. After two weeks went by and no sign or word of him, I phoned his apartment, but got no answer. The same result when I called next day. I could only conclude that he’d gone off with his wife somewhere, for rest or recuperation, perhaps, but I was puzzled that he hadn’t let me know. It wasn’t like Brentford. A couple of days ago I received a telephone call from his mother-in-law in California, inquiring for him. Yesterday, two police detectives came here to question me as to his whereabouts.”

Avelardi paused, as if to allow time for the import of his last remark to sink in. “The detectives told me that both he and his wife had disappeared. They had returned from one of their customary weekends at their country cottage. Next morning, Monday, Brentford got the superintendent to bring up his big trunk from the basement storeroom. Neither Brentford nor his wife has been seen since early that week. The superintendent told the detectives that, so far as he could remember, it was the first time Brentford had used that trunk since moving into the apartment. The detectives asked me if he’d ever used it on business trips. I told them he wouldn’t need to, since all he carried were portfolios and catalogs. They gave me the impression of having dark suspicions about what the trunk might contain.” Avelardi shook his head slowly in disbelief. “I know Brentford wasn’t happy with his wife, but I find it unthinkable he’d — he’d do away with her.”

I’d have been every bit as incredulous if I hadn’t known what happened to that trunk, and if I hadn’t been overwhelmed with sudden recollections that took on new meanings — Brentford saying he’d only just made the sailing, had managed to get his passport renewed in time by the skin of his teeth, would by George, phone Sir Henry himself if he had to; Liebman saying I was an accessory after the fact-true words said in a joke.

Something like shock must have shown in my face, for Avelardi hastened to say, “Of course, I may be seeing it all in the worst light, and Brentford and his wife will turn up safe and well.”

I could have told him that a body inside a trunk at the bottom of the Atlantic wasn’t likely to turn up safe and well anywhere — but I didn’t. An innate sense of loyalty to a friend, even a comparatively new one, froze my tongue. I wanted to be far from Avelardi’s office, to be alone and free to think.

I stood up. “I’m most distressed about Mr. Brentford, and sincerely concerned for him. I’m sorry I must leave so abruptly, but I have another engagement. I dropped in to give you the card. I’ll call again next time I’m in town and hope you’ll have good news of Brentford.”

I hurried back to the ship, my engagement being to examine some new crew members to be signed on that afternoon. I was so agitated with thoughts of Brentford that more than one taxi or truck screeched to a halt, their drivers shouting obscenities at me for crossing against red Don’t Walk signs. By the time I went aboard, miraculously unscathed, I’d come to a decision on Brentford.

As a law-abiding citizen, I should go to the police, but that appeared to me more like betrayal than performing a duty. I shrank from it. A true friend doesn’t rush headlong to inform on another friend; he waits until he knows all the facts. Brentford didn’t seem like a cold-blooded wife murderer. He might have killed in sudden anger or provocation-justifiable homicide. I decided to let the law take its normal course. The police would inquire at shipping offices and learn that Brentford had booked for London in the Ambassadress; they’d learn that the trunk had been delivered to his stateroom; they’d eventually learn that it hadn’t been landed in England. They would then make inquiries aboard the Ambassadress. That would be the time for me to decide whether or not to speak up.

I was puzzled, though, as to why Brentford gave me his card and urged me to call on Avelardi without delay. Surely he must have foreseen I’d hear that his wife was missing and that the police were inquiring for him. Or had he overlooked it, in his eagerness to do me a favor? It occurred to me that he may have intended that I should reveal his whereabouts, even to telling that he could be found in the bar of the London Savoy around opening time any day, but it baffled me to see what he’d gain by it. I felt a little resentful at the notion he was actually using me as a kind of accessory after the fact, but decided not to pass judgment on him until I was sure.

On my next return to New York, I half expected that detectives would board the ship to inquire about Brentford, but it was a trial lawyer who came to my office. He told me he’d been retained to defend Brentford on a murder charge, and would like to talk to me about him.

“So he was brought back from England,” I said.

“Yes. The police learned through Scotland Yard that he was staying with a sister just outside London. He waived extradition proceedings and was brought back by air. He made a full and voluntary confession, but told me privately how he persuaded you to help him with the trunk.” The lawyer shook his head dubiously. He was young, and eager to enhance his reputation. “The best I can hope for is second-degree manslaughter.”

“Then it wasn’t premeditated murder,” I said, with a feeling of relief.

“Not according to his statements, and I’m inclined to believe him, having become impressed by his personality. In the course of his conversations with you, did he ever tell you his wife was an alcoholic?”

I shook my head. “No mention whatever.”

“He had no suspicion of it before he married her a year or so ago. Her mother concealed it from him, anxious to get her married off and herself to a retirement village in California. Brentford was furious when he found out. He tried his damnedest to straighten out his wife, to get her to take a cure, but she was stubborn. In a rage, he once told her mother he wished alcohol were like sleeping pills and an overdose would kill, and he said that went for the mother too. You can imagine the effect of that on the jury when the prosecution puts the mother on the witness stand.”

As the lawyer paused, a quirk of memory brought back to my mind the mystery novel with the voluptuous redhead sitting cross-legged in the witness chair.

“Brentford,” the lawyer resumed, “drove up to their cottage for that last weekend of theirs together. On the Saturday they drove over to the lake and got back late at night. Brentford happened to go into the kitchen as his wife was opening a bottle of whiskey she’d slipped into her weekend bag, intending to start on a binge. He went to take it from her. She tried to crown him with it, but caught him a glancing blow instead. The stinging pain made him lash out at her. She crashed backward over a metal chair and table and ended up on the floor. She didn’t get up. He didn’t know what had happened, but of one thing he was sure — she was dead and he’d killed her.”

“Most likely a broken neck or a cerebral hemorrhage,” I said, venturing a professional opinion.

“As Brentford put it,” the lawyer said, “he was caught with a fait accompli, so to speak. He had to get the body out of sight, and fast. He had, he told me, no intention of paying with life or freedom over a woman’s insatiable craving for alcohol. From crime novels, he’d gained a smattering of criminal law, and he knew that if he could keep the police from finding the corpus delicti, as he called it, guilt would have to be proved on circumstantial evidence alone, the body of the crime, the true corpus delicti. Moreover, he’s a British subject, and if the matter of extradition arose, a British judge might refuse it on the grounds that there was not sufficient evidence to justify a murder charge.”

“Wouldn’t his flight be a strong evidence of guilt?”

“He was prepared to say he’d deserted his wife, because of her alcoholism. Also that she was alive when he fled from the apartment. He’d made it appear she’d returned from the weekend in the country with him. Their apartment was on the ground floor. The elevator operator, who also doubled as doorman, was about to take the elevator up in response to a tenant’s signal when Brentford hurried into the building. He swept past the elevator operator with the two suitcases, saying that his wife was parking the car. He had a moment’s panic when his mother-in-law telephoned from California later in the evening to tell her daughter she was leaving in a day or two for a cruise to Hawaii and back, and would drop her a card or two. Brentford told her that his wife had come back from the cottage with a severe headache, taken a sedative, and gone to bed, but he’d tell her in the morning. Next morning—”

The lawyer stopped as a steward knocked and put his head around my door to tell me that the signing off was about to begin. As the door closed again, the lawyer continued. “Next morning, Brentford got the superintendent to bring up his trunk from the basement. He called out to his wife to bring him a dollar for the superintendent, and then, remarking that his wife must have gone into the bathroom, he got the dollar himself. He told the superintendent he was leaving on a business trip in a day or two, and his wife might go down to Atlantic City for a few days while he was gone. When the mother came back from her cruise and couldn’t get any answers to her phone calls to the apartment or the cottage, she called Art Metal Crafts. Then she called the New York Police Department. That’s where you were expected to come in.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“The police were told by the elevator operator that the Brentfords had returned around the usual time from their last weekend at the cottage, and by the superintendent about the trunk. None of the other tenants had seen Mrs. Brentford since her return, but then she usually kept to the apartment when on a binge. The police found nothing unusual about the apartment, and coat and dress hangers strewn about made it appear that she may have gone off to Atlantic City in a hurry. The car was still parked. It looked as if she had left by train or bus. The police were inclined to suspect she’d gone by trunk somewhere.

“One of the detectives went back to the apartment house, thinking that Mrs. Brentford may have walked out of it after all, and hoping to find or hear something to indicate that she had. Meanwhile, her mother had come east to take charge of the Brentfords’ affairs. She told the detective she didn’t believe her daughter had gone to Atlantic City. Those empty dress hangers were to fool the police. He’d poisoned her and stuffed her into the trunk. Why, that brute of a son-in-law had made her daughter park the car on that Sunday evening, tired though she was and with a splitting headache, instead of doing it himself as he nearly always did.

“That remark led the detective to question the elevator operator again. The man said he hadn’t actually seen Mrs. Brentford come into the building. He’d figured she’d come in while he was up at one of the other floors. Next day the two detectives went to the cottage, accompanied by state police officers. They found the body buried under the garage.”

I stared at the lawyer, dumbstruck for the moment. “Then what was in the trunk?”

He smiled. “Actually, clothing and some canned goods, with a few heavy catalogs for extra weight. That’s where the missing dresses went. The trunk was a red herring, to divert suspicion from the cottage by making it appear that she’d been killed in the apartment and her body smuggled away in the trunk. The scheme failed on a chance remark by the mother, but it could easily have failed in some other way. It was a long-shot gamble, but the best Brentford could conceive, given the circumstances. Still, there’s a bare chance it might have succeeded. Brentford firmly believes it would have, if you hadn’t failed him.”

I was bewildered. “In what way?”

“He had planned on getting the room steward to help him throw the trunk overboard, but after the voyage had begun, he saw that the ship would get back to New York around the time his mother-in-law returned from Hawaii and started inquiries about her daughter. So if someone showed up with word of what had happened to the trunk, the police would be convinced that his wife’s body was inside, or at least he hoped so. He chose you because you had a good reason for calling on Avelardi without delay. He can’t understand why you didn’t behave like the upright citizen he judged you to be.”

The irony of the answer to that moved me to a moment of grim humor: by choosing to act as a true friend, I’d unwittingly done him a disservice. Then I felt a little sad that he hadn’t rated me very high as a genuine friend.

“He asked me,” the lawyer added, “to offer you his sincere apologies for so shamefully misusing your friendship, but it was a matter of expediency, and he’s sure you’ll understand. He also asked me to tell you something which seemed to amuse him. He said, ‘Tell good old doc he makes a better doctor than an accessory after the fact.’ ”

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