Die Like a Dog

14

The door leading into Anita Rogell’s upstairs sitting room was opened at Gentry’s knock by the maid who had let them in downstairs. She held the door slightly open and turned her head to murmur, “It is the police, Madame,” and then she opened it wider and stood aside for them to enter the room Lucy Hamilton had described to Shayne the preceding afternoon, and they walked into the same hothouse temperature Lucy had experienced.

Anita reclined on the chaise-longue across the room. She wore a violet, silken dressing gown that was belted tightly about her slender waist, and she looked fragile and frightened and grief-stricken as she dabbed at her long-lashed eyes with a lacy handkerchief and her unrouged lips quivered pathetically as she said, “Come in, gentlemen.”

Will Gentry crossed the room and looked down at her. He said, “I’m sorry it’s necessary to intrude at this time, Mrs. Rogell. I’m Chief Gentry of the Miami police, and I think you’ve met Mr. Shayne. He was in my office discussing the case with me this morning when the call came in about your brother, and I thought it well to bring him with me.” He made no mention of Timothy Rourke who moved unobtrusively to one side in the background and gingerly seated himself on the edge of a slipper chair.

She said, “Yes. I… met Mr. Shayne briefly last evening. I believe he entered my property illegally with the avowed purpose of digging up my little dog who died recently.”

Gentry didn’t pursue that subject. He sat down in a chair a little to Anita’s right, and Shayne seated himself on the other side of her. Gentry cleared his throat and his hand subconsciously strayed up to his inside coat pocket where he carried a supply of his stogies, and he half-drew one out before sighing and replacing it in his pocket. He put both beefy palms flatly on his knees and said:

“I’ll be as brief as I can, Mrs. Rogell. I want you to tell me exactly what happened last night after Mr. Shayne and the doctor went away.”

“Yes,” she said in a low voice, dropping her long lashes and twining her fingers together nervously in her lap. “I… suppose I must. I’ll try.”

She drew in a deep breath and held it for a long time, and the tip of her tongue crept out to moisten her lips. Then she lifted her lashes and gazed at him appealingly and said in a little girl voice, “It’s going to be most dreadfully difficult because I… you see… I realize that the foolish, impulsive thing I did was directly responsible for… for Marvin… for his…”

“Suicide,” supplied Gentry bluntly. “I realize how guilty you must feel under the circumstances. Just tell us in your own way exactly what happened.”

“Marvin was drinking,” she said unhappily. “Mr. Shayne knows. He saw him briefly. After he and Dr. Evans went out the front, I went into the downstairs study and remonstrated with Marvin… begged him to stop drinking and go to bed as soon as he finished that drink. He was in an ugly mood and said he’d do what he damn well pleased. I left him sitting there,” she explained with dignity, “and came up to prepare for bed myself. I had a hot bath, and then I began thinking about Charles and started worrying about him. He has a great pride in his physical prowess and is so loyal and devoted to all of us that I knew he was terribly distressed by his encounter with Mr. Shayne. I was afraid… well… that he might start brooding about it and try to retaliate somehow, and I knew Dr. Evans had ordered him to take a strong sedative and go to sleep.

“I didn’t realize, of course, that Mrs. Blair had much the same feeling and had already gone out with him and insisted that he take the pills and go right to bed, so I foolishly decided I would go out myself just to be sure he was all right. I slipped on a robe and went downstairs. There was still a light in the study, but I assumed Marvin was too stupid with drink to hear me going out.”

She paused to bite her underlip thoughtfully. “I realize that makes it sound as though I felt guilty about going out to see Charles. I didn’t… really. It was just that Marvin has a nasty mind, and once or twice before when he was drinking heavily he made some insinuating remarks about having a handsome and virile young chauffeur, and about… John being so much older than I. So I just wanted to avoid anything like that, and I went out the back way without knowing he heard me.”

She paused again to run the tip of her tongue over her lips. “I saw the light was on in Charles’ rooms over the garage, and I turned on the floodlight and went out. Charles came to the door in his pajamas and robe when I knocked, and he went back and got under the covers and I sat down for a minute after he told me he had already taken his pills and was waiting for them to take effect. He wanted to talk about Mr. Shayne and about how he’d been taken completely by surprise and hadn’t a chance to defend himself when he was assaulted, and I tried to make him see it had come out all right because his vigilance had protected poor Daffy’s grave. And that…” Her voice faltered. “… was all.

“But then Marvin came staggering and storming in and made the most awful scene.” She bowed her head and covered her face with her hands for a moment, and Shayne thought wryly to himself that it was one of the most superb bits of acting he had ever witnessed on or off the stage. He glanced aside slyly at Gentry to see how he was reacting and wasn’t surprised to see a look of fatherly compassion on the chief’s heavy features. Because Gentry hadn’t (he reminded himself) been present the past evening when she had stood against him and whispered, “I want you, Michael Shayne.”

She took her hands away from her face and her eyes were wide and dewy and innocent. “He made the most awful and obscene accusations, and I had to get between him and the bed to prevent Charles from leaping up and tearing him limb from limb there and then.”

She began sobbing quietly and covered her face again. “My own brother! I was so ashamed. And then suddenly I was furious.” She lifted her head and her eyes sparkled and her chin was arrogant. “He had no right to even think such things. And I told him so. I threatened to scratch his eyes out if he didn’t go at once, and he did go, but without apologizing or admitting he was wrong.”

She drew a deep breath. “Well, I didn’t know what to say except remind Charles that Marvin was drunk and wasn’t responsible. And then I left in a few minutes and came back in to bed and I didn’t see Marvin again until… until this morning when I… when I went to his room…” She bowed her head and sobbed again.

Very gravely and sympathetically, Will Gentry said, “I know it’s difficult, Mrs. Rogell, but I want you to tell me exactly how it happened and what you found.”

“Yes… well… I awoke about nine o’clock and all I could think about was what had happened last night. After Marvin sobered up I was sure he would realize what an awful thing he had done, and I went to his room determined that he should apologize to me and to Charles. I knocked on his door and opened it when he didn’t reply… thinking he was still sleeping it off. And the light was on and… there he lay. On the floor. And there was the bottle of strychnine on the table. I knew he was dead. I knew it even before I forced myself to kneel down and touch his cold flesh. And then I looked around wildly and saw… the note he had written and left lying on the table beside his glass.

“I read it half a dozen times, I guess, trying to understand it… to understand why he had taken his own life. Then I realized how it sounded… how it would look to some outsider like… well, like you. The police. So I snatched it up and ran back to my room.”

She shuddered at the recollection. “I know I shouldn’t have touched it. Charles said I should have left it lying right where it was. But I was hysterical and I didn’t think. I didn’t think anything except trying to keep anyone from knowing why my brother had taken his own life. Because he was ashamed of his sister. Because he thought I was a loose and wanton female… being intimate with another man before my husband was even in his grave.

“So I called Charles on his extension and told him. And he ran into the house and told Mrs. Blair and they went to Marvin’s room, and then Charles came in, terribly worried because Marvin hadn’t left any suicide note. He said the police were always suspicious if they didn’t find a note… and that with Henrietta’s crazy accusations against me they would probably suspect I had put the strychnine in Marvin’s drink too.

“I wasn’t even going to show him the note until he made me understand how really serious it might be. Then I read it to him and told him I’d rather tear it up and be suspected than have it all come out in the papers that my brother had killed himself because he was ashamed of me. And I did start to tear it up in front of Charles, but he snatched at it and tore the top part off, and then he pried my hand open and got the bottom part and said we had to give the two parts to the police.

“And he said you always kept the contents of suicide notes a secret and wouldn’t give the text out to any papers if they had something in them that embarrassed living people, and I finally agreed. And you won’t, will you?” she ended pleadingly. “Let it be printed in the papers, I mean. Even though Marvin was mistaken and I can prove there’s nothing like that between Charles and me, you know how they’d crucify me. And everyone who read it in the papers would believe the worst. People always do.”

“Why, no Ma’am,” Gentry assured her in a kindly voice. “In cases like this we don’t give out such information to reporters.”

From his side pocket he withdrew Marvin’s note which had been carefully put together with scotch tape so that the ragged edges of the two portions fitted against each other exactly.

“Now this first part,” he said slowly. “Your story and the one Charles told seems to explain that all right. But what did he mean by saying: ‘Death holds no fears for me any longer.’ And: ‘John and Henrietta were old and mean and deserved to die.’ Is that a confession that he killed your husband and tried to poison Henrietta?”

“I just don’t know what it means,” she confessed tearfully. “Charles and I went over and over it together, but it just sounds crazy to me. I can’t believe that’s what it means. I just can’t. Marvin couldn’t kill anybody. He just wasn’t like that. He was… well, he was weak and lazy, and he drank too much. And he knew John didn’t like him hanging around here and borrowing money from me, but Marvin would never have done anything like that. Besides, John died from a heart attack. I was there and saw it happen. And Dr. Evans said there wasn’t the slightest question about it. So I simply don’t know what Marvin meant when he wrote that line. He was drunk, of course, and terribly upset by what he believed about Charles and me.”

“I realize that,” Gentry soothed her. “Just while we’re on the subject, let’s go back to your husband’s death. I understand Mr. Peabody was upstairs with him going over some business affairs from about ten until midnight. Where were you and Marvin?”

“Downstairs in the study. I was reading a magazine and Marvin was drinking… as usual. I went up a few minutes before twelve to take John his hot milk and give him his medicine in it.”

“Digitalis, wasn’t it?” Gentry encouraged her.

“Tincture of digitalis. He’s been taking twelve drops in hot chocolate milk for years for his heart condition.”

“Tell me exactly what you did that night. Was there anything different from any other night?”

“N-o-o. That is, Mr. Peabody wasn’t always sitting with him, of course. I got the thermos from the dining table where Mrs. Blair always left it, and came up through this room and into the connecting bathroom where I picked up the medicine bottle. And I went in John’s room where he and Mr. Peabody had finished their business and were chatting, and set the cup and thermos beside John’s bed and measured out twelve drops in the cup.

“Then I told Mr. Peabody he’d have to go, and he told John goodnight and I filled the cup and John drank it.”

“Did you realize how important it was to measure the dose carefully?”

“Oh, yes. Exactly twelve drops and not a single one more. That’s why I insisted I should always do it myself, because Dr. Evans said even one or two extra drops might be bad for John, his heart being like it was.”

“All right. He drank the milk straight down?”

“Well, it was pretty hot, and I guess he took a sip or two until it got cool enough to drink it down in a couple of gulps.”

“So it was a few minutes after Peabody left that he actually drank it?”

“Not more than five minutes, I’m sure.”

“What did you do then?”

“Well, he settled back in bed and I stayed to… talk to him until he dropped off to sleep. He liked me to do that.”

“Did you… kiss him goodnight or anything like that?”

She lowered her eyelids a moment and clenched her hands tightly together in her lap, and then demanded angrily, “Why do you beat around the bush about it? I’m a grownup married woman. Those two detectives you sent out kept prying around the same way. You want to know whether we had sexual relations, don’t you? Because that old fool of Dr. Jenson had the nerve to warn him that he shouldn’t marry a younger woman for fear this heart might give out in the excitement of the sex act. Well, we didn’t that night,” she spat out. “In that way it was different from most nights. He did begin loving me up, if you must know, and I thought he wanted me to get in bed with him, but then suddenly he kind of stiffened and began breathing fast and I got frightened and… and that was it.”

“All right,” said Gentry stolidly. “Thank you for being frank with me.” He got to his feet. “Are you going ahead with your husband’s funeral as planned?”

“I think so. If you don’t object.”

“Why should I object?”

“Charles thought… well, he said that maybe after you read Marvin’s note you would think that was a reason for ordering an autopsy on John. But I told him you couldn’t do it if I didn’t give my consent, and I’d never in the world do that.”

“Why, no,” said Gentry. “Go right ahead with the funeral if you want. I have no objection whatsoever. But you understand that an autopsy on your brother will be mandatory. The law requires it in a case like his.”

She said listlessly, “I understand about that and I guess I can’t stop you. Although I do think it’s utterly barbarous and indecent.”

Gentry said, “I’m sorry,” and the three men left the room together.