The Case of the Smoking Chimney

Chapter 17

“Pelly” Baxter was properly touched by grief, as became an old friend of the family.

For the butler he had just the right greeting, a democratic, man-to-man touch which was called for in the leveling presence of grief.

“Good afternoon, Arthur. Terrible, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, Mr. Baxter.”

“I realize something of how you must feel, Arthur.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’ve been with him for several years?”

“Four, sir.”

“A very marvellous man, Arthur. We’re going to miss him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s been a terrible shock to Mrs. Pressman, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir, very much. She’s eaten hardly a thing.”

“Ask her if she’d like to see me for a few minutes, or whether she’d prefer to be left entirely alone. If the latter, Arthur, ask her if there’s anything I can do, anything at all.”

“Yes, sir. She’s upstairs. If you’ll wait in the library, sir, I’ll let her know you’re here.”

Pelly Baxter walked across the reception corridor and entered the spacious library.

The room was as filled with silence as a cemetery. The books on the shelves seemed as resentful of a living intruder as tombstones in the moonlight. The room was partially darkened by drawn curtains, heavy with the gloom of its silence.

Baxter walked over to where a shaft of sunlight filtered in through the half-closed drapes, looked out upon a well-kept lawn sprinkled here and there with shady trees and shrubbery. By an effort, he kept himself from walking the floor.

After several seconds’ silent contemplation, he turned back to the gloomy interior of the library, just as the butler, entering the room, said: “Mrs. Pressman will see you in her upstairs sitting-room... If you’ll step this way, please.”

The butler led the way up the stairs, down a corridor, and into a cosy, feminine sitting-room which was filled with the sunlight streaming through the French doors that opened on a little balcony. At the other end of the sitting-room, through an open door, Baxter glimpsed a bedroom.

Sophie Pressman was as alert as a football coach on the eve of a big game. Yet in the presence of the butler she seemed as strangely subdued as the huge library had been.

“Hello, Pelly,” she said without enthusiasm. “It was nice of you to come... There’s nothing anyone can say that helps, but knowing that people want to help makes all the difference in the world.”

She indicated a stack of telegrams on a table. “In times past I’ve had to send telegrams of condolence, and, groping for words in which to express something of what I felt, have realized how horribly futile words were. But now I realize that it isn’t what friends say that helps, but that they try to say it... Do sit down, Pelly. Let Arthur bring you a Scotch and soda.”

“No, thanks,” Pelly said. “I just dropped in to extend my condolences and see if there was anything on earth I could do — anything at all.”

“Nothing, thanks, Pelly. I knew I could count on you... That’s all, Arthur.”

The butler quietly closed the door.

For a moment there was silence in the room; then Pelly Baxter moved over closer to Sophie Pressman. “You’ve got it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“In a safe place?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t trust that butler too far.”

“I don’t.”

“How did you get it?”

She said, “I went up to Ralph’s office, told his secretary I was going to take the mail home with me so that Ralph could have it when he came in.”

“What did she say?”

“She was completely nonplussed, but there wasn’t very much she could do about it. She couldn’t stand up and say: ‘I don’t think your husband would like you to do that, Mrs. Pressman.’”

Pelly Baxter grinned. “Hardly.”

“She was reluctant enough about it,” Mrs. Pressman said, and then added, grimly: “It’s going to be a pleasure to fire that girl.”

“You think she knew what was in it, and—”

“Of course she knew what was in it,” Mrs. Pressman said. “She’d opened the letter. She hadn’t opened the envelope containing the pictures, thank God.”

“And, knowing that, she handed it to you?” Baxter asked incredulously.

“She did not. She handed me the rest of the mail. She had this carefully put away in a drawer in her desk. So I sent her out on an errand just as I was leaving the office, then doubled back, claimed I’d forgotten my gloves, and opened the drawer in her desk. It was in there.”

“She’d read the letter?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“That’s rather — dangerous.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t. But it would have been a lot more dangerous to have left that letter there in the office.”

“The detective agency will make a duplicate report?”

She smiled and said; “The detective agency is operated by a realist. If Ralph had lived, Ralph would have paid him. As the situation now stands, I pay him. I think you’ll find the detective agency will be very, very discreet.”

“And the secretary?”

She met his eyes squarely. “We’ll have to silence her.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Baxter avoided the insistence of her eyes by groping for a cigarette. “Want one, Sophie?”

“Yes.”

He handed her a cigarette, struck a match, and masked his eyes in a cloud of light blue smoke.

Sophie Pressman said: “I had no idea you were — well, that you’d go that far, Pelly.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Do I need to elaborate?”

Pelly Baxter smoked for several seconds in silence; then he said: “Let’s get this straight, Sophie.”

“I don’t think we need to. It’s a dangerous matter to discuss.”

Baxter might not have heard her. He said speculatively: “You’re a very remarkable personality. There’s something about you which fascinates men. I’m just wondering if it isn’t perhaps because your intervals of fire are followed by such a completely cold detachment.”

“Are you trying to psychoanalyse me?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Myself.”

“I thought it would swing around to you,” she said, “but go ahead.”

“I would,” Pelly said, choosing his words carefully, “have done almost anything for you — but not that.”

“Not what?”

“Not... well, you know what happened to Ralph.”

She met his eyes steadily. “You don’t have to admit it to me if you don’t want to, Pelly, but let’s not try deceiving each other.”

Baxter said: “All right, let’s be frank. I didn’t know he’d had detectives working for him. I didn’t know anything about those pictures or about that report until you told me over the telephone. At that time I didn’t have any idea where Ralph could be located. So far as I was concerned, Petrie was simply a dot on the map... I never felt more helpless in my life, particularly so when I realized that you weren’t going to take it lying down, but intended to do something about it... However, you didn’t take me into your confidence.

“Then when I heard what had happened, I realized— Well, looking at it from your viewpoint, I consider it was self-defence. Your life, your happiness, your reputation, everything that meant anything to you was at stake. You—”

“Wait a minute, Pelly,” she interrupted, without raising her voice. “Are you trying to tell me that I did it?”

He said, choosing his words carefully: “I’m trying to tell you that I can appreciate what might have prompted you to take any action you did take, and it doesn’t lessen my feeling for you one bit.”

“Why do you do that, Pelly?”

“Do what?”

“Try to wriggle out from under and leave me holding the sack?”

His eyes shifted momentarily, then came back to hers. “Look here, Sophie, are you by any chance going to— Oh, I can’t say it. It sounds too terribly crude.”

“Go ahead and say it, Pelly.”

“Are you,” he blurted, “looking for a fall guy? Did you think that if anything went wrong, I’d — that my love for you — well, you know what I mean.”

She said: “Pelly, my dear, we’re both modern. I hope we’re both realists, despite the fact that we recognize the value of romance. I’m going to be perfectly frank with you. I know that you killed my husband. So far as I’m concerned, it’s not going to make any difference. Frankly, I think it was the only thing to do, but there’s no necessity for you to deceive me on that, and—”

“I tell you I didn’t,” Baxter blurted.

She smiled quiet refutation of his statement.

Baxter got to his feet. His voice was raised somewhat. “Personally,” he said, “I thought you were carrying things too far — altogether too damned far. There certainly were other ways of making a settlement, but—”

“Pelly,” she said with cold finality, “if you think something has gone wrong, and if you’re trying to push me out to the front as—”

“That’s just what I feel you’re trying to do to me.”

Her eyes were cold and hard. “That’s a side of you I hadn’t seen before, Pelly, my dear.”

He was past caring for external appearances now. “Try any of that stuff, my lady,” he said grimly, “and you’ll see a damn sight more of me that you haven’t seen. Don’t think I’m going to take any murder raps for you.”

They were standing now, facing each other, Pelly Baxter’s face angry and just a little frightened. Sophie Pressman was firm, cold, and very sure of herself.

“You know, Pelly,” Sophie said at length, “I could produce proof — if I had to.”

“Sophie, are you completely crazy?”

“I don’t think so, darling.”

“Well, you sound like it.”

She said: “You see, the police called last night to ask me a few questions.”

“Such as where you were at the time of the murder?”

“Don’t be silly, dear. Nothing like that. I’m a grief-stricken widow. They called to ask me if I could throw any light on what had happened, if there was any reason Ralph might have had for committing suicide.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them I knew of none, that his domestic life was happy, and his finances were very satisfactory.”

“What else?”

She said: “They showed me the gun and asked me if I could identify it, if I thought it was Ralph’s gun.”

“What did you tell them?”

“That I knew nothing whatever about his guns, that firearms always frightened me, and I had nothing whatever to do with them.”

“Well?”

“But,” she said, “I didn’t tell them that you were quite a collector of weapons and that this gun was yours.”

“Was mine, Sophie?”

“Yes, dear.”

“You’re crazy.”

“No,” she said. “It’s your gun, Pelly. A big gun with a very long barrel. I think they said it was either seven inches or seven and a half, I’ve forgotten which, and there was a little chip out of a corner near the end of the butt... You remember you were showing me your collection, and—”

“Good God!”

“Yes?” she asked quietly.

“Great heavens, I’d forgotten that,” Pelly said with an exclamation of dismay.

“Forgotten what, darling?”

“That Ralph borrowed that gun about a month ago. Remember when he went out on that deer-hunting trip? He said he wanted a revolver. I let him take that one, and he’s never returned it.”

“I wish you’d told me that in advance. Then I could have told the police that it was a gun my husband had taken with him on his camping trip. But you didn’t tell me... That’s what comes of not confiding in me.”

“Not confiding in you!” he exclaimed. “You knew he had that gun! You knew it was mine. You followed him up to Petrie, killed him with it, and... and—”

“Don’t, darling,” she said. “It isn’t going to do you any good, trying to blame it on me. Because I won’t take it, you know, and that’s going to make things very, very difficult for you. Can they trace the gun to you — through the numbers I mean?”

He dropped into a chair, put his elbows on his knees, propped his chin in his hands, stared dejectedly at the floor, completely dismayed. “I don’t know,” he said, and then after a moment added: “Perhaps not. I picked that gun up at a dude ranch in Montana several years ago.”

“You’re doing that very nicely, Pelly. Have you rehearsed it?”

“Rehearsed what?”

“The act you’re putting on for the police. You don’t need to rehearse it any more. You’re perfect, darling, absolutely perfect. Don’t do it too much, or your performance might become too set.”

He said: “I might have known it would have come to something like this when I started playing around with you. You’re too damn cold-blooded... I suppose you wanted his insurance and couldn’t stand the notoriety incident to a divorce... No, the notoriety wouldn’t have bothered you so much. It’s the idea of being thrown out without any property. You broke up his home five years ago. You did it damned cleverly. You knew what you were after when you did it, and now I suppose—”

“Darling, don’t you want me to have Arthur bring you a Scotch and soda?”

He said: “Shut up. Keep that damned butler out of here. I think he’s a snoop who is suspicious already.”

There was another interval of silence. “Of course, darling,” Mrs. Pressman said, “I’m not going to tell the police that it’s your gun... Not unless you make me.”

He didn’t say anything to that.

Mrs. Pressman started opening telegrams with a paperknife. “People are so thoughtful, so considerate,” she said. “Some of them sent the nicest telegrams.”

After a while Pelly said: “It’s all so damned cold-blooded and useless, Sophie.”

“What is?”

“You framing it on me. If anything happened, you could beat the case hands down. Women as poised and as beautiful as you are can always get away with a little husband-shooting. He was having an affair with his secretary, and when you found it out he laughed at you, and asked you what you were going to do about it.”

She studied him thoughtfully. “Go on, Pelly.”

“That’s all there is to it. You had discovered him in his secret love-nest up near Petrie. You went there to ask him to please give this woman up and return home. He laughed at you. He had a suitcase lying open on a chair. This gun was in it. You wanted to frighten him, so you grabbed the gun. He jumped at you and started trying to wrest the gun away from you. Your finger was locked in the trigger guard. You screamed that he was hurting you and tried to jerk your hand away. Then you heard a terrific roar — and there he was, lying dead at your feet. You loved him, and you threw yourself on his body, crying to him to open his eyes, to speak to you... You realized he was dead. After what seemed hours to you, you closed his suitcase, took it with you, and went home.”

She considered that for some little time. “You have a good imagination, Pelly.”

“It’s the truth. They’d acquit you.”

“Don’t they sometimes send women to the women’s prison at Tehachapi — for life?”

“Not you. They’d acquit you and want to kiss you!”

“No, dear,” she said. “I don’t want any of it. I wouldn’t do that for you. I don’t love you enough. Your great anxiety to save your own precious skin has done something to me. If you really loved me, you’d swear you did it, to save me from being convicted. No, Pelly, dear, definitely not. I don’t want any of it.”

Pelly got to his feet again. “Let me think this over. Something’s got to be done.”

She looked up at him and smiled. “And don’t forget about that little minx, that agate-eyed little secretary of Ralph’s. Do you know, after hearing what you said about Ralph and her, I’m beginning to think that he might have been interested in her. I let her stay on just a little too long. Ralph was very impressionable, you know.”

“What time do the police think the murder was committed?” Baxter asked.

She smiled. “You phrased the question very adroitly. What time do the police think the murder was committed... Let me see... As I remember it, it was some time along in the evening. An oil lamp had been lit. The autopsy surgeon says it might have been any time after four o’clock in the afternoon and before eleven at night. He’s afraid to try fixing it any closer than that.”

Pelly started for the door. “I’ll see what I can think up,” he promised, without enthusiasm. “It’s a ticklish business. I’ll want you to back me up in any statements I make.”

“Oh, of course; but just be certain that I know what they are... And don’t leave without kissing me, darling. You know you’re all I have to turn to now. It will be a year before you can marry me without exciting comment, but I wouldn’t want to feel that your affection was getting cold. That would never do. Not if I’m willing to forgive you for — well, you know, what you did.”

For a long moment he stood facing her without moving. Then he walked toward her, put his arms around her, kissed her, and almost jerked away, as though there had been something repellent in the embrace.

She laughed, a cooing, throaty laugh. “Still play-acting with yourself, Pelly? Come, dear, kiss me with more fire, more passion! Kiss me tenderly. Let your lips cling to mine as though you hated to leave me... And you won’t ever leave me now, dear. You’ll be true to me as long as — as long as I want you.”