Die Like a Dog

15

Marvin Dale’s body had been taken away, and Detective Donovan had gone downstairs to join Petrie and the chauffeur in the study. They found the city detectives seated in chairs near the door, with Charles sullenly lounging in a deep chair at the other side of the room.

Gentry strode in flatfootedly and crossed to stop directly in front of the chauffeur. He deliberately extracted a black cigar from his inner pocket, bit off the end and spat it on the floor, struck a match and held it to the other end, inhaled deeply and thrust his blunt jaw out. His features and his voice were granite-hard as he said,

“Don’t get the idea I’m buying any of this, Morton. I’ve got a pretty good notion about the sort of games you’ve been playing with your employer’s child-bride behind his back, and I think it’s just too bad that her pants got so hot last night that she couldn’t let you go to bed alone.

“But your sex life is no concern of mine except as it has a bearing on murder.”

Charles said, “Marvin committed suicide, if that’s what you’re talking about.”

“Did he?”

The chauffeur shrugged stolidly. “I didn’t see him drink the poison, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s too bad somebody didn’t,” grated Gentry. “Because I’m telling you right now I don’t picture Marvin Dale as the sort of moral character who’d be so shocked to discover his sister’s infidelity that he’d sit down and swallow strychnine. Nor do I believe for one moment that he hasn’t known all along what you and Mrs. Rogell were up to.”

“Why tell all this to me?” flared Charles.

“Because I want you to know you’re still in trouble, and this investigation isn’t closed by a long shot. Don’t try to leave town.” The police chief turned on his heel and strode toward the door, jerking his head at Petrie and Donovan to follow him.

Shayne went out in the hall behind him with Rourke, and told the reporter, “Why don’t you ride back with Will, and write your story on Marvin? I’ll be along later.”

Rourke grinned amiably. “Going to stick around and chaperone the widow?”

“Something like that.” Shayne watched them go out the front door, and then went back to the kitchen where he found Mrs. Blair seated at the table drinking a cup of coffee.

She offered him one and he thanked her and told her he would drink it black, and sat down opposite her with a cigarette, and asked, “Did you see the suicide note Marvin left?”

She shook her head. “Nobody showed it to me.”

“Just how flagrant were Charles and Mrs. Rogell about their affair before her husband’s death? “

She compressed her lips firmly and met his gaze across the table. “It’s not for me to gossip about people in the house where I work.”

“You won’t be working here long,” Shayne said flatly. “You certainly know that John Rogell left you fifty thousand dollars in his will.”

“I know he told me he was going to.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” she returned with spirit. “He had plenty and we’ve been friends a long, long time.”

Shayne said, “Friends?”

“Maybe you don’t know that he and Miss Henrietta roomed at my boarding house in Central City, Colorado, when he was just a prospector.”

“I know all about that. And how he came back there after your husband died and brought you here to be his housekeeper… and installed you in the adjoining suite until he married Anita and you had to move up to the third floor. And now he’s left you a fortune. Were all of those just friendly gestures?”

She said without rancor, “You’ve been listening to Henrietta. She’s got a nasty mind and always has hated me since she went to law against John and I got on the witness stand and told the plain truth about how generous he was to her.”

“Are you denying that you and Mr. Rogell were more than just friends?”

“I shan’t waste my breath denying it,” she said with simple dignity. “I don’t think you’ve any right to sit in my kitchen and say such things with the funeral not more than an hour away.”

Shayne said, “Wouldn’t you want to see his murderer caught… if he was murdered as Henrietta thinks?”

“If he was murdered,” she said with emphasis. “But I never have believed that one minute. Who’d have a reason?”

“Suppose he had become suspicious of Anita and Charles?”

“I swear he never was. He thought the sun rose and set in that girl. And I must say she made him a real good wife.”

“Do you know that Marvin is supposed to have taken poison because he surprised her out in Charles’ bedroom last night?”

“I didn’t know that, but he was probably so larruping drunk he might’ve done anything.”

Shayne asked, “Do you think Marvin might have killed Rogell?”

“Why would he? He had it mighty soft here.”

“But Rogell didn’t like the way he sponged off Anita. With him out of the way, he’d have it a lot softer.”

“Then why would he go and kill himself a couple days later?”

“That,” said Shayne morosely, “is one of several questions that bothers me. I wish you’d remember back to the night Rogell died. I understand you were in the kitchen until about eleven o’clock, and went up to bed after heating his milk and putting it in the thermos jug.”

“Like I did every night in the world. Before he got married I used to measure out his medicine in the cup myself, and when she came she did it.”

Shayne looked around the surgically clean, white kitchen speculatively. “Think back to that night,” he urged her. “Let’s theorize that someone did add something to his drink that caused his death. Who could have done it… had the physical opportunity?”

“I had the best chance.”

Shayne said, “I know. Who else?”

“Well, Charles was in here while I was washing out the thermos with hot water and heating the milk to go in it. I remember because I had to stop him from drinking the last glass of milk there was left in the refrigerator. I remember because it was just a lucky chance I caught him in time. I would have sworn there was another bottle left after dinner, but there wasn’t. And I scolded Charles for not checking careful before he poured his glass out because he knew Mr. Rogell always had to have a cup at night. Everybody in the house knew they mustn’t ever drink the last cup until I’d fixed his thermos.”

“Then he actually had it poured out before you noticed?”

“Yes, he did. He had a plate of cookies here on the table and I was washing out the thermos at the sink.”

“Then if he knew it was the last glass, he could have put something in it and then stalled around before drinking it so you’d notice and take it away from him?”

“He could have done that,” she agreed doubtfully. “But I didn’t notice him stalling any. He was about to take a sip when I saw it was the last in the bottle and snatched it out of his hand.”

“So that gives us Charles,” Shayne said with satisfaction. “After you left the filled thermos on the dining table, what then?”

“I went upstairs. I think Anita and her brother were in the study. Henrietta came out of her door and met me in the hall and reminded me I was going to lend her a book I had from the library. She went up with me to the third floor and sat and visited in my room until we heard Mrs. Rogell screaming that John was taken sick. We both ran down together and Marvin and Mr. Peabody came up from downstairs.”

“Did Henrietta leave your room at all during that hour?”

“No. We just sat and talked.”

“And the thermos jug was downstairs all the time. You wouldn’t have heard anybody going up or down the stairs during that time?”

“I didn’t, and I don’t think I could’ve.”

“While you were in your room with Henrietta, was your door open or closed?”

She considered this thoughtfully, compressing her lips and blinking her eyelids. “The door was shut. I’m sure it was. I can see Henrietta coming in behind me and closing it.”

“So you were really shut off from the second floor and the other people in the house.”

“That’s right.” She regarded him steadily across the kitchen table.

“This medicine of Mr. Rogell’s that has been mentioned so often. Tincture of digitalis. Did he always take exactly the same amount?”

“Twelve drops out of a medicine dropper,” she replied promptly. “For two or three years now.”

“And everyone in the house knew about it? Where it was kept in the bathroom?”

“In the medicine cabinet there. It surely wasn’t any secret.”

“And was it common knowledge that an overdose would be dangerous?”

“It certainly was.”

“Do you know exactly what effect a large overdose might have had?”

Mrs. Blair hesitated a long moment before replying, giving the impression that she was trying hard and honestly to give a correct reply.

“I think I remember… I’m pretty sure I do now… that when Dr. Evans took over the case he gave us a lecture about it. About how careful we must be in measuring it out. That even a double dose might bring on a heart attack that would take him off.” An acid note crept into her voice as she added, “That’s when his wife said she’d see to it that he got his medicine every night… intimating that I wasn’t to be trusted any more to measure it careful enough.”

“Then all of you knew that an overdose might cause him to die… exactly as he did die,” pressed Shayne.

“Are you saying that’s what did happen, Mr. Shayne?” There was outraged horror in the housekeeper’s voice.

“I’m not saying anything. I’m pointing out that if someone in the house did want Rogell to die… and hoped it would appear a natural death… that the means was ready to his hand.”

“Did somebody put extra digitalis in his milk that night?”

Shayne shrugged. “If they did, Dr. Evans can’t be blamed for believing it was a natural death. And I understand the widow has refused to allow an autopsy which might have proved different.”

“I see what you’re driving at.” Mrs. Blair’s voice was grim. “And I stood up for her when she said she couldn’t stand having John’s body cut up like a dog or a rat in a laboratory. I felt just the same way. But now I wonder.”

Shayne said, “All we can do at this point is to wonder, Mrs. Blair. Let’s jump, now, to the evening when Daffy died.”

“What about it?” She settled herself heavily in an attitude that indicated she was prepared to defend herself against accusations.

Shayne said, “Harold Peabody was here for dinner.”

She nodded. “First time since Mr. Rogell died.”

“Who planned the dinner menu that night?”

“I did,” she told him defiantly. “Mrs. Rogell didn’t bother very often with things like that.”

“Then it was wholly your own idea to have a separate dish of creamed chicken for Henrietta?”

“What’s wrong in that? The others were having shrimp casserole and any kind of seafood made her deathly sick.”

“Nothing wrong with it in principle. I suppose everyone present knew of her allergy, and that there would be a special dish for her?”

“They did if they had ears to hear by. Always harping on it, she was.”

“And there were two separate chafing dishes on the sideboard from which you served dinner?”

“A chafing dish of creamed chicken, and the covered casserole on an electric warming plate.”

“Sitting there how long before dinner was served?”

“The chafing dish for maybe twenty minutes. I made the chicken in that, and gave it a stir now and then while I set up the table.”

“I understand that Mr. Rogell’s death was discussed before dinner.”

“There was hell to pay,” said Mrs. Blair succinctly. “Henrietta raving about how she knew John had been murdered and she was going to prove it if she had to go to the governor of the state of Florida to get an autopsy on John before he was cremated. And all the others trying to shush her, and her ranting louder than ever the more they shushed.”

“Suppose someone had decided to put strychnine in her chicken,” said Shayne quietly. “Who had the opportunity?”

“Any one of them. They were milling around in the dining room with drinks in their hands… all talking to Henrietta at once.”

“Including Charles?”

“Oh, no. He was here in the kitchen while that was going on.”

“Then we can eliminate Charles if something was put into her chicken?”

“Well, I… I don’t know as I’d say that. He’s always good about helping at the table beforehand. Like putting ice in the glasses and pouring water. He might have been in and out once or twice.”

“Did you see Henrietta give the dog a saucer of her chicken?”

“I certainly did not,” sniffed Mrs. Blair. “For my money, I don’t believe she ever did it. I think it was just something that came to her when the poor little thing got sick like she did. Accusing me of serving her with poisoned food!”

“Who suggested that you dispose of the remaining chicken and wash out the dishes before the detectives got here?”

“Nobody. I was that upset and mad when she started screaming her chicken was poisoned that I snatched up the plate and dish and carried them out and dumped them.” She glared at him angrily. “Make something out of that if you want to. Like those other detectives tried to. But suppose you’d been cooking for other folks for thirty years and suddenly got accused of putting poison in a dish. Wouldn’t you be mad and upset?”

“I probably would,” Shayne soothed her. “If someone around this house wanted strychnine, Mrs. Blair, where would he go for it?”

“The same place Marvin went last night, I guess. Right out in the garage where gardener kept it for moles.”

“And I suppose everyone here knew about that, too,” sighed Shayne.

“Except, maybe, Mr. Peabody. And I wouldn’t have been sure Marvin knew either because he was generally so soaked in alcohol he didn’t know much that was going on right around him.”

Mrs. Blair glanced up at the electric clock on the wall behind him and gasped, “Mercy me! I only got twenty minutes to get ready for the funeral.”

Shayne left the kitchen and was striding down the wide hallway toward the front door when he heard his name spoken faintly and hesitantly from behind him. He turned and saw Anita posed on the winding stairway, about half-way down. A black-gloved hand rested lightly on the railing, and she wore a simple black suit unrelieved by any ornaments or jewelry whatsoever. She had very little make-up on, and beneath a black, velvet beret her golden-silk hair was tucked in carefully, giving her a wanly appealing little-girl look.

Shayne stood in the hallway and watched her come down the rest of the stairs. She glided sedately from one step to the next, as befitted a grieving widow on the way to her husband’s funeral-and a woman whose brother had just committed suicide, Shayne reminded himself cynically, because he believed her to be unchaste.

Anita came close to him, her head tilted slightly, lips parted wistfully. “I wanted to see you again, Michael. I couldn’t let you go away thinking…” She paused and demurely lowered her lashes. A faint breath of her perfume came into his nostrils and her parted lips were no more than a foot from his.

“… the same awful things about me that Marvin thought,” she hurried on breathlessly. “You don’t, do you?”

He said, “Does it matter what I think, Anita? I assure you I wouldn’t go off and swallow strychnine if I did.”

A little stricken cry issued from her lips, and she swayed toward him, keeping her eyes closed.

“It does matter. Terribly. I couldn’t stand to think that after… after what happened between us last night I could have deliberately gone out to Charles and… and…”

Shayne laughed.

She jerked erect and her eyelids flew open and he saw naked hate in the depths of her glorious eyes.

“How can you stand there and sneer at me?”

Shayne said brutally, “It’s easy, Anita. Simplest thing in the world. All I have to do is think about how your husband died… and then a little dog… and Marvin.”

He turned on his heel and went to the front door without looking back.