The Golden Goose

10

Lieutenant Grundy waited in the late Slater O’Shea’s living room while Mrs. Dolan went upstairs to fetch Miss Lallie O’Shea. Glancing idly through the sliding glass doors to the terrace beyond, Grundy was momentarily electrified. Little Cousin Peet was lying naked out there on a pad. But then he saw that she was not naked, kept from being so by two strategic strips of cloth of the same fleshy shade as her succulent hide.

In a canvas chair nearby skulked Brady O’Shea. His dark face was sullen, the lower lip protruding murderously, the eyes going slowly over Peet’s body like a vacuum cleaner.

Grundy was actually conscious of a slight chill. Of the candidates wishful thinking proposed for the position of Slater’s murderer — Twig possibly excepted — Brady was Grundy’s favorite. There was a quality in that handsome, glowering face that suggested violence. Poisoning, however... Grundy shook his head. Every theory in this case carried with it its own built-in objection.

He was almost relieved when this nakedly expressive pair’s little big-handed aunt entered the room.

“I don’t like you, Lieutenant Grundy,” was Lallie O’Shea’s greeting. “Why do you keep coming around?”

“This time, Miss O’Shea, it’s to tell you that the autopsy on your brother has been completed.”

“And of course you found out that Slater died of natural causes, as I told you from the beginning.”

“You were mistaken, Miss O’Shea. Your brother died of an unnatural cause. He was poisoned.”

“Stuff,” said the dainty little lady; she leaned forward and peered at him with an I-smell-something-bad expression. “You’re just making that up to annoy me.”

“Miss O’Shea, I’m a policeman, not a Halloween joker. The county coroner’s physician reports that your brother died of poisoning.”

“Then he’s as incompetent as you are. Who on earth would want to poison Slater?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

Aunt Lallie sniffed. “And what was he poisoned with? Tell me that. Or can you?”

“It’s a drug recently developed as a substitute for insulin. Used in the treatment of diabetes.”

“Well, no one here is diabetic,” snapped Aunt Lallie, “and who but a diabetic would even think of using such a thing? The whole thing is absurd.”

“Maybe not, Miss O’Shea. This drug has a delayed action, which could have certain advantages for a poisoner. It can be swallowed, as it undoubtedly was, without suspicion. Also, the victim falls into a coma and dies, and the death could pass for a natural death. And finally, though it’s not common, it could be at least as readily available to a certain person as commoner drugs or poisons.”

Lallie O’Shea stood uncharacteristically looking at him as he spoke, and for some time afterward, her scoffing regality seeming shaken by her discovery that he was able to put several ideas together in logical sequence. All at once she stalked over to the terrace doors and opened one of them.

“Peet, you had better come inside at once. Brady, you, too. Where are Princess and Twig?”

Peet rolled over onto her back and raised her delectable little self on her elbows. The front view was so extraordinary that Grundy felt himself blush.

“Prin went for a walk behind the house,” Peet said. “I think Twig followed her. Did you see Twig follow Prin, Brady?”

“Yes,” Brady said, still looking at her.

“Call them,” Aunt Lallie commanded.

Peet scrambled to her feet and took a deep breath. The deep breath, as deep breaths do, caused her to become greater here and smaller there, and Grundy had a moment’s alarm regarding the pair of Peet-colored scraps, each endangered by opposite reactions. But his alarm was immediately swallowed up by sheer surprise. Peet’s speaking voice, which was small and sleepy and rather fuzzy, had done nothing whatever to prepare him for the clarion call that now issued from her. It was the sound of a French horn produced by a flute.

“Prin!” she called. “Prin and Twig! Come back at once, wherever you are!”

Grundy half expected to see Twig and Prin come flying into view, racing each other for home base. They did indeed come, but at a mere walk. Peet and Brady waited for them on the terrace, and the two pairs of cousins entered the living room together. Peet seated herself on the sofa Buddha-fashion; Brady drew up a chair opposite and continued his visual vacuum-cleaning; Prin perched on the arm of Brady’s chair; and Twig rode the piano bench as if it were an ass. Aunt Lallie remained standing.

As did Grundy. Surrounded by hostile O’Sheas, he had the oddest feeling of entrapment.

“Now, Lieutenant,” Aunt Lallie said, “please relate to my nieces and nephews what you have just related to me.”

The lieutenant repeated what he had told Aunt Lallie about the cause of Slater O’Shea’s death. “He was given a lethal dose of this drug,” he concluded. “We found it (A), in the bottle of bourbon, and (B), in Slater O’Shea.”

Grundy was prepared for anything but nothing. There was no eruption at all. Everyone merely stared at him with distaste and disapproval, as if he had told a bawdy joke in church.

“That’s perfectly silly,” Peet said at last. “I don’t believe it.”

“I believe it,” Grundy said. “The county coroner believes it. The county attorney believes it. And in my opinion, when the time comes, a jury will believe it, too.”

“Where the devil would anyone get such a drug?” Brady said. “I’ve never even heard of it before.”

“It can be had on prescription from any pharmacy. Or it could have been acquired without prescription by someone with a supply of the drug available.”

“Prin’s the only one who works around a pharmacy,” Twig said, looking interested. “Could you possibly mean Prin?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t say it,” said Prin, “but you meant it.” She was looking a little cyanotic around the gills.

“Prin,” said Aunt Lallie severely. “Did you steal some of that whatsis and give it to your Uncle Slater in his bourbon?”

“I did not,” said Prin.

“That settles it, Lieutenant. If my niece Prin says she didn’t do it, she didn’t do it. Will that be all today?”

“It’s not that simple.” Damn! Grundy thought. Why did I ever become a cop?

“It’s plain stupidity,” Brady said. “We’ve told you over and over. None of us would have killed Uncle Slater, if only because of that will he told us about.”

“That’s right,” said Peet. “We’ve told you over and over. Can’t you understand English, Lieutenant?”

“Sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t,” Grundy said. “But I always understand what I’m plainly told, and I’ve been plainly told by an authority on the subject that no such will exists.”

He was not quite certain afterward whether he made the statement deliberately or had been stung into it against his better judgment. However, the die was cast; and he watched them closely.

“Doesn’t exist? The will doesn’t exist?” Aunt Lallie was opening and shutting her formidable hands as if to prepare them for Grundy’s throat. “Are you trying to — to provoke us, you policeman, you? Or what?”

The others all had their mouths open.

“I’m simply telling you what Slater O’Shea’s attorney just told me. Selwyn Fish states that no such will exists. Mr. O’Shea did have a mock will to that effect drawn up, but it’s only a scrap of paper; he never signed it and it has no legal validity. Fish says he did it for a joke. If you ask me, he wanted you all to believe that if you killed him you’d lose money by it.”

“Why, I can’t believe my ears,” exclaimed Aunt Lallie. “To be dealt such shabby treatment by one’s own brother. A cheap trick—”

“Maybe it’s even cheaper,” said Brady. “Maybe he left another will, a real one, that’s worse.”

“How could it possibly be worse?” said Peet pettishly.

“If he cut us all out altogether. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Is there another will?” Prin asked Grundy. “A real one?”

“And don’t bother with details,” said Twig. “Who gets what?”

“Testator’s sister, Lallie O’Shea,” said Grundy, “inherits everything.”

Watching Lallie O’Shea, the lieutenant had grudgingly to concede that she was either honestly flabbergasted or the world’s greatest unsung actress. She stood frozen in her tracks, mouth agape, but this was only for a moment. Then the virginal little lips came together, and over her dainty features came an expression of pure ecstasy, as if she had just been transported to a higher plane of spiritual existence by an overwhelming religious experience. This was quickly replaced by an earthier look, suggesting that she was not the least bit surprised, a sibling having certain natural rights not to be arrogated by mere nieces and nephews. The nieces and nephews, after exhibiting shock, incredulity, disgruntlement and anger in varying degrees of intensity and speed, turned a battery of stares at their Aunt Lallie in naked targetry — looking at her, speculating upon her character and potential, really for the first time in their lives.

“Do you suppose old Fish could be lying?” Brady wondered aloud.

“Why should he?” Twig said. “He will have to produce the will sooner or later.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Lallie, “and at the first opportunity I shall ask him why it hasn’t been sooner. There is simply no excuse for his having kept me in ignorance all this time.”

“Fish says,” said Grundy, “that he observes the custom of not reading the will until after the funeral.”

“Nonsense,” said Aunt Lallie imperiously. “He should have told me privately what I have a perfect right to know. You may be sure I shall speak to this Selwyn Fish about that.”

“Atta girl, Aunt Lallie,” said her nephew Twig tenderly. “Whatever you say.”

“Well,” said his sister Peet, “I don’t think it was fair of Uncle Slater to leave everything to Aunt Lallie. Though it’s better this way than sharing with seventeen other O’Sheas we hardly know. What I can’t understand,” Peet went on, wrinkling her pretty brows painfully, “is why Prin isn’t the one. We all know you were Uncle Slater’s favorite, Prin. I’d have thought he’d leave you something.”

Prin shrugged.

“Shame on you, Peet,” said Twig severely. “You seem to forget we’re now dependent on Aunt Lallie for everything.”

“Yes, Peet,” said Aunt Lallie. “You would do well to consider carefully before you speak!”

“Well, I’ll be double-jiggered,” murmured Prin. “Uncle Slater’s will has hardly been mentioned, let alone probated, and already we’re on notice that we’d better live on tiptoe around here or we’ll be thrown out on our ears.” Although the way Prin pronounced the last two words, it might have been “our rears.”

“It may be,” Brady said darkly, “that she will be in no position to throw anybody out of any place.”

“What do you mean by that, Brady?” Aunt Lallie demanded. “Are you implying that I am somehow vulnerable?”

“I don’t mind saying that it’s something to think about,” Brady grinned. “After all, we mustn’t forget that Uncle Slater was murdered. It looked as if there was no reason for any of us to have done it — in fact, just the reverse. But now it appears that one of us did have a reason all along, and I won’t bother at this time to mention the name.”

“Brady O’Shea,” said Aunt Lallie, “you’re a degenerate, and I’ve always known it! You’ll be sorry for what you’ve just said.”

“Oh, but,” Twig said, “Uncle Slater’s real will wouldn’t have made any difference to Aunt Lallie if she didn’t know about it. And you didn’t, did you, Aunt Lallie?”

“No, indeed,” said Aunt Lallie, giving Twig a look of benign gratitude. It was evident that Twig was well on his way to becoming her court favorite.

“Of course not,” said Twig. “And besides, how would a lady like Aunt Lallie know anything about poisoning people? Or, even if she wanted to, know where to get some?”

“Well, Prin works in a drug store,” Peet said, in her uncompromisingly logical way. “Prin, did you steal some of Mr. Free’s whatever-it-is for Aunt Lallie to poison Uncle Slater with?”

Grundy, studying the procession of expressions shuttling over Prin’s face, was aware of a compulsion to go over to her and put an arm about her comfortingly. But it was a guilty compulsion. His sympathy was in conflict with his suspicions, which had already taken the shape of Peet’s question. So he simply sat there in uneasy surveillance.

Then Prin was standing straight as a drum majorette, and she spoke with outraged pride and throbbing scorn.

“I will tell you all something,” she said, “and I don’t care one little whoop-de-doop whether you believe me or not. I have not stolen any whatever-it-is, or any other drug or poison, at the instance of or at the instigation of or in the interests of Aunt Lallie, or anyone else, in order to poison Uncle Slater. I have been sitting here listening to you all, and it’s made me ill. Uncle Slater has been murdered, and you have been talking and talking about which one of us might have killed him, or helped kill him, and the significant thing is that each of you doesn’t doubt for one second that any of the rest of us is perfectly capable of it, the only question being who had something to gain and who didn’t. You are all even worse than I thought you were, which was bad enough to begin with. Maybe I’m not much better, when all is said and done, but at least I’m sorry Uncle Slater’s dead, and I truly hope whoever killed him is even sorrier in the end. You have talked and talked and talked, and not one of you is any good — any good whatever — and moreover you have made accusations in the hearing of Lieutenant Grundy, a policeman, which makes you fools, besides. Now I have said what I wanted to say, and I’m going out for some fresh air, unless I am under some kind of detention, because I don’t want to hear any of you or see any of you for the present, or ever again if I can help it.”

And when it became evident that detention was not in Lieutenant Grundy’s mind, Prin O’Shea walked out holding her little chin high. She had been gone for most of a minute before anyone recovered.

“Well,” gasped Aunt Lallie. “I have never in my born days witnessed such a disgusting display. I will say, however, that Prin was quite right in one respect, Lieutenant. It was unforgivably rude of you, not to say boorish, to take advantage by listening in on a family consultation. You should have had the good grace to leave the room. I believe I shall report you for not having done so.”

“I suggest the Chief of Police,” Grundy said wearily. “Now if you will excuse me? At the risk of offending again, I’ll be seeing you all soon, very soon.”

As he was about to climb into his car, Grundy caught sight of Prin O’Shea striding away in the direction of downtown. She gave the impression of purpose. He thought of offering her a lift to wherever she was going, but then he put Satan behind him. And so he passed her on the street, a slim swift-striding figure who did not even glance his way, and Lieutenant Grundy drove on with a distinct feeling of personal loss.