Calamity Town

Hangover

The hill was still celebrating when Chief Dakin hopped out of his rattletrap to run up the wet flags of the Haight walk under the stars of 1941. Emmeline DuPre’s house was dark, and old Amos Bluefield’s¯the Bluefield house bore the marks of mourning in the black smudges of its window shades. But all the others¯the Livingstons’, the F. Henry Minikins’, the Dr. Emil Poffenbergers’, the Granjons’, and the rest¯were alive with lights and the faint cries of merriment.

Chief Dakin nodded: it was just as well. Nobody would notice that anything was wrong.

Dakin was a thin, flapping countryman with light dead eyes bisected by a Yankee nose. He looked like an old terrapin until you saw that his mouth was the mouth of a poet. Nobody ever noticed that in Wrightsville except Patricia Wright and, possibly, Mrs. Dakin, to whom the Chief combined the best features of Abraham Lincoln and God.

Dakin’s passionate baritone led Mr. Bishop’s choir at the First Congregational Church on West Livesey Street in High Village each Sunday. Being a temperance man, and having his woman, the Chief would chuckle, what was there left in life but song? And, in fact, Dakin was interrupted by Prosecutor Bradford’s telephone call in the midst of an “at-home” New Year’s Eve carol fest.

“Poison,” said Dakin soberly to Carter Bradford over the body of Rosemary Haight. ”Now I wonder if folks don’t overdo this New Year celebrating. What kind of poison. Doc?”

Dr. Willoughby said: “Arsenic. Some compound. I can’t tell you which.”

“Rat-killer, hey?” Then the Chief said slowly: “I figure this kind of puts our Prosecutor in a spot, hey, Cart?”

“Awkward as hell! These people are my friends.” Bradford was shaking. ”Dakin, take charge, for God’s sake.”

“Sure, Cart,” said Chief Dakin, blinking his light eyes at Frank Lloyd. ”Hi, Mr. Lloyd.”

“Hi yourself,” said Lloyd. ”Now can I go peddle my papers?”

“Frank, I told you¯” began Carter peevishly.

“If you’ll be so kind as not to,” said Dakin to the newspaper publisher with an apologetic smile. ”Thank you. Now, how come this sister of Jim Haight’s swallowed rat-killer?”

Carter Bradford and Dr. Willoughby told him.

Mr. Queen, seated in his corner like a spectator at a play, watched and listened and pondered how much like a certain New York policeman Chief Dakin of Wrightsville seemed. That ingrown air of authority . . .

Dakin listened to the agitated voices of his townsfellows respectfully; only his light eyes moved¯they moved over Mr. ”Smith’s” person three times, and Mr. ”Smith” sat very still. And noted that, after the first quick glance on entering the room, Chief Dakin quite ignored Haight, who was a lump on a chair.

“I see,” said Dakin, nodding. ”Yes, sir,” said Dakin. ”Hmm,” and he shambled off with his loose gait to the kitchen.

“I can’t believe it,” groaned Jim Haight suddenly. ”It’s an accident. How do I know how the stuff got into it? Maybe some kid. A window. A joke. Why, this is murder.”

No one answered him.

Jim cracked his knuckles and stared owlishly at the filled-out newspapers on the sofa.

Red-faced Patrolman Brady came in from outdoors, a little out of breath and trying not to look embarrassed.

“Got the call,” he said to no one in particular. ”Gosh.” He tugged at his uniform and trod softly into the kitchen after his Chief.

When the two officers reappeared, Brady was armed with numerous bottles, glasses, and odds and ends from the kitchen “bar.” He disappeared; after a few moments he came back, empty-armed.

In silence Dakin indicated the various empty and half-empty cocktail glasses in the living room.

Brady gathered them one by one, using his patrolman’s cap as a container, picking them up in his scarlet fingers delicately, at the rim, and storing them in the hat as if they had been fresh-laid pigeon eggs.

The Chief nodded and Brady tiptoed out.

“For fingerprints,” said Chief Dakin to the fireplace. ”You never can tell. And a chemical analysis, too.”

“What!” exclaimed Mr. Queen involuntarily.

The Dakin glance x-rayed Mr. Queen’s person for the fourth time.

“How do, Mr. Smith,” said Chief Dakin, smiling. ”Seems like we’re forever meeting in jams. Well, twice, anyway.”

“I beg pardon?” said Mr. ”Smith,” looking blank.

“That day on Route 16,” sighed the Chief. ”I was driving with Cart here. The day Jim Haight was so liquored up?”

Jim rose; he sat down. Dakin did not look at him.

“You’re a writer, Mr. Smith, ain’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Heard tell all over town. You said ‘What!’ “

Ellery smiled. ”Sorry. Wrightsville¯fingerprints . . . It was stupid of me.”

“And chem lab work? Oh, sure,” said Dakin. ”This ain’t New York or Chicago, but the new County Courthouse building; she’s got what you might call unexpected corners.”

“I’m interested in unexpected corners, Chief.”

“Mighty proud to know a real live writer,” said Dakin. ”Course, we got Frank Lloyd here, but he’s more what you’d call a hick Horace Greeley.” Lloyd laughed and looked around, as if for a drink. Then he stopped laughing and scowled. ”Know anything about this, Mr. Smith?” asked Dakin, glancing at Lloyd’s great back.

“A woman named Rosemary Haight died here tonight.” Ellery shrugged. ”The only fact I can supply. Not much help, I’m afraid, considering that the body’s lying right here.”

“Poisoned, Doc Willoughby says,” said Dakin politely. ”That’s another fact.”

“Oh, yes,” said Ellery with humility.

And tried to become invisible as Dr. Willoughby sent him a thick-browed question. Watch yourself. Doc Willoughby is remembering that little bottle of ferric hydroxid you whipped out when Nora Haight required an antidote against arsenic poisoning and even minutes were precious . . . Will the good doctor tell the good policeman the strange fact that a stranger to the house and the people and the case carried so strange a preparation as ferric hydroxid about with him when, strangely, one woman died and another was made seriously ill by the poison for which it was the official antidote?

Dr. Willoughby turned away.

He suspects I know something involving the Wright family, thought Ellery. He’s an old friend. He brought the three Wright girls into the world . . . He’s uneasy. Shall I make him still uneasier by confiding that I purchased the drug because I promised Patty Wright her sister Nora wouldn’t die?

Mr. Queen sighed. It was getting complicated.

“The family,” said Chief Dakin. ”Where they at?”

“Upstairs,” said Bradford. ”Mrs. Wright insists that Nora¯Mrs. Haight¯be moved over to the Wright house.”

“This is no place for her, Dakin,” said Dr. Willoughby. ”Nora’s pretty sick. She’ll need plenty of care.”

“It’s all right with me,” said the Chief. ”If it’s all right with the Prosecutor.”

Bradford nodded hastily and bit his lip. ”Don’t you want to question them?”

“Well, now,” said the Chief slowly, “I can’t see the sense of making the Wrights feel worse ‘n they feel already. At least right now. So if you’ve got no objection, Cart, let’s call it a night.”

Carter said stiffly: “None at all.”

“Then we’ll have a get-together right here in this room in the mornin’,” said Dakin. ”You tell the Wrights, Cart. Sort of keep it unofficial.”

“Are you remaining here?”

“For a spell,” drawled Dakin. ”Got to call in somebody to haul this corpus out of here. Figure I’ll phone old man Duncan’s parlors.”

“No morgue?” asked Mr. Queen, despite himself.

The Dakin eyes made another inspection. ”Well, no, Mr. Smith . . . Okay for you, Mr. Lloyd. Go easy on these folks in your paper, hey? This’ll raise plenty of hallelujah as it is, I guess . . . No, sir, Mr. Smith. Got to use a reg’lar undertaking parlor. You see”¯and the Chief sighed¯”ain’t never had a homicide in Wrightsville before, and I been Chief here for pretty near twenty years. Doc, would you be so kind? Coroner Salemson’s up in Piny Woods on a New Year vacation.”

“I’ll do the autopsy,” said Dr. Willoughby shortly. He went out without saying good-night.

Mr. Queen rose.

Carter Bradford walked across the room, stopped, looked back.

Jim Haight was still sitting in the chair.

Bradford said in an angry voice: “What are you sitting here for, Haight?”

Jim looked up slowly. ”What?”

“You can’t sit here all night! Aren’t you even going up to your wife?”

“They won’t let me,” said Jim. He laughed and took out a handkerchief to wipe his eyes. ”They won’t let me.”

He leaped from the chair and dashed upstairs. They heard the slam of a door¯he had gone into his study.

“See you in the morning, gents,” said Chief Dakin, blinking at Ellery.

They left the Chief in the untidy living room, alone with Rosemary Haight’s body. Mr. Queen would like to have stayed, but there was something in Chief Dakin’s eyes that discouraged company.

* * *

Ellery did not see Patricia Wright until they all gathered in the same untidy room at ten o’clock on the morning of New Year’s Day . . . all except Nora, who was in her old bed in the other house, guarded by Ludie behind the closed vanes of the Venetian blinds. Dr. Willoughby had already seen her this morning, and he forbade her leaving the room or even setting foot out of bed.

“You’re a sick biddy, Nora,” he had said to her sternly. ”Ludie, remember.”

“She’ll have to fight me,” said old Ludie.

“But where’s Mother? Where’s Jim?” moaned Nora, tossing on the bed.

“We’ve got to . . . go out for a few minutes, Nora,” said Pat. ”Jim’s all right¯”

“Something’s happened to Jim, too!”

“Don’t be a worry wart,” said Pat crossly, fleeing.

Ellery waylaid her on Nora’s porch. ”Before we go in,” he said quickly, “I want to explain¯”

“I don’t blame you, Ellery.” Pat was almost as sick-looking as Nora. ”It might have been worse. It might have been . . . Nora. It almost was.” She shivered.

“I’m sorry about Rosemary,” said Ellery.

Pat looked at him blankly. Then she went inside.

Ellery lingered on the porch. It was a gray day, like Rosemary Haight’s face: a gray day and a cold day, a day for corpses . . . Someone was missing¯Frank Lloyd.

Emmy DuPre chittered by, stopped, studied Chief Dakin’s car at the curb, frowned . . . walked on slowly, craning at the two houses.

A car drove up. Frank Lloyd jumped out. Then Lola Wright. They ran up the walk together.

“Nora! Is she all right?” gasped Lola. Ellery nodded. Lola dashed inside.

“I picked Lola up,” said Lloyd. He was breathing heavily, too. ”She was walking up the Hill.”

“They’re waiting for you, Lloyd.”

“I thought,” said the publisher, “you might think it funny.” There was a damp copy of the Wrightsville Record in his overcoat pocket.

“I think nothing funny on mornings like this. Did Lola know?” They walked into the house.

“No. She was just taking a walk, she said. Nobody knows yet.”

“They will,” said Ellery dryly, “when your paper hits the streets.”

“You’re a damn snoop,” growled Lloyd, “but I like you. Take my advice and hop the first train out.”

“I like it here,” smiled Ellery. ”Why?”

“Because this is a dangerous town.”

“How so?”

“You’ll see when the news gets around. Everybody who was at the party last night will be smeared.”

“There’s always,” remarked Mr. Queen, “the cleansing property of a clear conscience.”

“That makes you apple pie.” Lloyd shook his heavy shoulders. ”I don’t figure you.”

“Why bother? For that matter, you’re not a simple sum in arithmetic yourself.”

“You’ll hear plenty about me.”

“I already have.”

“I don’t know,” said the newspaper publisher savagely, “why I stand here in the foyer gassing with a nitwit!” He shook the floor striding into the living room.

* * *

“The poison,” said Dr. Willoughby, “is arsenic trioxid, or arsenious oxid, as you prefer. ‘White’ arsenic.”

They were sitting in a rough circle, like unbelievers at a seance. Chief Dakin stood at the fireplace, tapping his false teeth with a rolled paper.

“Go ahead, Doc,” said Dakin. ”What else did you find? That part’s right. We checked in our own lab during the night.”

“It’s used in medicine mostly as an alterative or tonic,” said the doctor tonelessly. ”We never prescribe a bigger therapeutic dose than a tenth of a grain. There’s no way of telling from the dregs of the cocktail, of course¯at least with accuracy¯but judging from the speed with which the poison acted, I’d estimate there were three or four grains in that glass.”

“Prescribe any of that stuff recently for . . . anyone you know, Doc?” muttered Carter Bradford.

“No.”

“We’ve established a bit more,” said Chief Dakin soberly, looking around. ”Most probably it was plain ordinary rat poison. And moreover, no trace of the poison was found anywheres except in that one cocktail which Mrs. Haight and her sister-in-law drank¯not in the mixing glass, nor the rye whisky, nor the vermouth, nor the bottle of cherries, nor any of the other glassware.”

Mr. Queen surrendered. ”Whose fingerprints did you find on the poisoned-cocktail glass, Chief Dakin?”

“Mrs. Haight’s. Rosemary Haight’s. Jim Haight’s. No others.”

Ellery could see them translate silently. Nora’s . . . Rosemary’s . . . Jim’s . . . no others. His own thoughts were admiring. Chief Dakin had not remained idle after they left him last night. He had taken the fingerprints of the corpse. He had found some object unmistakably Nora Haight’s, probably in her bedroom, and had taken her fingerprints. Jim Haight had been in the house all night, but Ellery was willing to make a large bet that Jim had not been disturbed, either. There were plenty of his things in the house, too . . . Very pretty. Very considerate. It disturbed Mr. Queen powerfully¯the prettiness and considerateness of Chief Dakin’s methods.

He glanced over at Pat. She was watching Dakin as if the Chief had hypnotized her.

“And what did your autopsy show, Doc?” asked Dakin deferentially.

“Miss Haight died of arsenic trioxid poisoning.”

“Yes, sir. Now let’s get this organized,” said Dakin. ”If you folks don’t mind?”

“Go ahead, Dakin,” said John F. impatiently.

“Yes, Mr. Wright. So we know the two ladies were poisoned by that one cocktail. Now, who mixed it?”

No one said anything.

“Well, I already know. It was you, Mr. Haight. You mixed that cocktail.”

Jim Haight had not shaved. There were muddy ruts under his eyes.

“Did I?” There was a frog in his throat; he cleared it several times. ”If you say so¯I mixed so many¯”

“And who came in from the kitchen and handed out the tray of drinks?” asked Chief Dakin. ”Including the one that was poisoned? You did, Mr. Haight. Am I wrong? Because that’s my information,” he said apologetically.

“If you’re trying to insinuate¯” began Hermione in an imperious voice.

“All right, Mrs. Wright,” said the Cheif. ”Now maybe I’m wrong. But you mixed that cocktail, Mr. Haight; you handed it out, so it looks like you’re the only one could have dosed it up good with rat-killer. But it only looks that way. Were you the only one? Did you leave those cocktails you were making even for a few seconds any time up to the time you brought the tray into this room last night?”

“Look,” said Jim. ”Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe the things that happened last night knocked my brains for a loop. What is this? Am I suspected of having tried to poison my wife?”

As if this had been a fresh wind in a stale room, the air became breathable again. John F.’s hand dropped from his eyes, Hermy’s color came back, and even Pat looked at Jim.

“This is nonsense, Chief Dakin!” said Hermy coldly.

“Did you, Mr. Haight?” asked Dakin.

“Of course I brought that tray in here!” Jim got up and began to walk up and down before the Chief, like an orator. ”I’d just mixed the Manhattans¯that last batch¯and was going to put the maraschino cherries in, but then I had to leave the pantry for a few minutes. That’s it!”

“Well, now,” said Dakin heartily, “now we’re getting places, Mr. Haight. Could someone have slipped in from the living room and poisoned one of them cocktails without you knowing or seeing? While you were gone, I mean?”

The fresh wind died, and they were in choking miasma once more. Could someone have slipped in from the living room¯

“I didn’t poison that cocktail,” said Jim, “so somebody must have slipped in.”

Dakin turned swiftly. ”Who left the living room while Mr. Haight was mixing that last mess of drinks in the kitchen? This is very important, please. Think hard on it!”

Ellery lit a cigarette. Someone must have noticed that he had been missing simultaneously with Jim. It was inevitable . . . But then they all began to chatter at once, and Ellery blew smoke in great clouds.

“We’ll never get anywheres this way,” said the Chief. ”So much drinking and dancing going on, and the room dark on account of only candles being lit . . . Not,” added Dakin suddenly, “that it makes much difference.”

“What do you mean?” asked Pat quickly.

“I mean that ain’t the important point, Miss Wright.” And this time Dakin’s voice was quite, quite chill. Its chill deepened the chill in the room. ”The important point is: Who had control of the distribution of the drinks? Answer me that! Because the one who handed that cocktail out¯that’s got to be the one who poisoned it!”

Bravo, bumpkin, thought Mr. Queen. You’re wasting your smartness on the desert air . . . You don’t know what I know, but you’ve hit the essential point just the same. You ought to capitalize your talents . . .

“You handed ‘em out, James Haight,” said Chief Dakin. ”No poison-er’d have dropped rat-killer in one of those drinks and left it to Almighty God to decide who’d pick up the poisoned one! No, sir. It don’t make sense. Your wife got that poisoned cocktail, and you was the one handed it to her. Wasn’t you?”

And now they were all breathing heavily like swimmers in a surf, and Jim’s eyes were red liquid holes.

“Yes, I did hand it to her!” he yelled. ”Does that satisfy your damn snooping disposition?”

“A-plenty,” said the Chief mildly. ”Only thing is, Mr. Haight, you didn’t know one thing. You went out of the living room to make more drinks, or fetch another bottle, or something. You didn’t know your sister, Rosemary, was going to yell for another drink, and you didn’t know that your wife, who you figured would drink the whole glassful, would just take a couple of sips and then your sister would pull the glass out of her hand and guzzle the rest down. So instead of killing your wife, you killed your sister!”

Jim said hoarsely: “Of course you can’t believe I planned or did anything like that, Dakin.”

Dakin shrugged. ”Mr. Haight, I only know what my good horse sense tells me. The facts say you, and only you, had the¯what do they call it?¯the opportunity. So maybe you won’t have what they call motive¯I dunno. Do you?”

It was a disarming question¯man to man. Mr. Queen was quite bathed in admiration. This was finesse exquisite.

Jim muttered: “You want to know why I should try to murder my wife four months after our marriage. Go to hell.”

“That’s no answer. Mr. Wright, can you help us out? Do you know of any reason?”

John F. gripped the arms of his chair, glancing at Hermy. But there was no help there, only horror.

“My daughter Nora,” mumbled John F., “inherited a hundred thousand dollars¯her grandfather’s legacy¯when she married Jim. If Nora died . . . Jim would get it.”

Jim sat down, slowly, looking around, around.

Chief Dakin beckoned to Prosecutor Bradford. They left the room.

Five minutes later they returned, Carter paler than pale, staring straight before him, avoiding their eyes.

“Mr. Haight,” said Chief Dakin gravely, “I’ll have to ask you not to try to leave Wrightsville.”

Bradford’s work, thought Ellery. But not from compassion. From duty. There was no legal case yet. Damning circumstances, yes; but no case.

There would be a case, though. Glancing over the whole lean, shambling countryman that was Chief of Police Dakin, Mr. Queen knew there would be a case and that, pending the proverbial miracle, James Haight was not long for the free streets of Wrightsville.