The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 23 Classic Mystery Stories

For Value Received

Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, August 1952.

“The oddest thing happened this morning,” Chalmers said. “I can’t make up my mind whether to take it to the police or forget about it. I’d really have nothing but suspicion to report in any event, and probably would only get a horse laugh for my pains.”

I was a little surprised at his obviously upset manner, for even under stress Lloyd Chalmers ordinarily exhibits the ponderous kind of aplomb you might expect of a man who has practiced criminal law for two decades.

“I did go so far as phoning a ballistics expert I know over at Columbia University, though,” Chalmers said. “He told me it would be quite possible to fire a rifle like an artillery piece with considerable accuracy up to a range of several miles, providing you used a fixed mount, were good at mathematics, and had an observer to adjust your fire.”

Rising to mix fresh drinks. I said, “If you’ll pardon the comment, you’re dithering. I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re talking about.”

“About the death of Thomas Mathewson III a few weeks back,” Chalmers said testily. “You must have seen it in the papers. He was struck by a spent rifle bullet while seated in a duck blind in the center of a small lake up in the Catskills. The coroner called it accidental death from a stray bullet fired by some unknown hunter, but it occurred to me that the lake would have made artillery observation easy. The blind was a sunken barrel camouflaged by weeds, you see, and was surrounded by water for a hundred yards in all directions. An observer could have adjusted fire by the splashes.”

Handing him a new drink. I reseated myself by the fire and leaned back in my chair.

“Thomas Mathewson III,” I repeated thoughtfully. “The multi-wived playboy who spent so much of his time in jams, wasn’t he? I vaguely recall reading something about his death. Was he a client of yours?”

“One of my better ones from the standpoint of fees,” Chalmers said glumly, “but absolutely the worst from the standpoint of my ulcers.”

“You think he may have been murdered?”

“See what you think after I tell you what came in the mail this morning.” He paused to eye his drink thoughtfully. “But it wouldn’t make sense to you without knowing the background. Let me organize my thoughts a moment and I’ll tell you the whole story...”

Thomas Mathewson III (Chalmers said) was the most horrible example I have ever encountered of what too much inherited money can do to an individual. It was not just that he lived a life of idleness and squandered too much, for compared to the average so-called playboy he was rather niggardly with his money... no, niggardly isn’t the right word either, for on occasion he made gestures which by popular standards could only be regarded as generous. But always with what to him was a logical motive. He possessed a sort of calculated shrewdness which, from his own perverted standpoint, got him what he considered value received.

His eight wives, for example, cost him in excess of a million before he was through with the last of them. A normal person might regard this as an expensive proposition, but Tom Mathewson considered it a good buy. At the time of the last settlement he told me quite candidly each of his wives had cost him about what he had estimated in advance of proposing marriage — the implication being, of course, that he had bought the women like so many cattle and was well satisfied with his bargains.

He firmly believed that money could buy anything, and insofar as he was concerned, apparently it could. It certainly managed to get him out of many a jam which would have landed a poorer man in jail.

But before you anticipate me by assuming I am working up to the old moral wheeze that gold is not all, that Tom Mathewson finally discovered money could not buy the one thing he wanted most, let me assure you I have no such intention. So far as I know, he went to his death never having failed to get exactly what he wanted, and at what he considered a fair price.

What I suspect upended his apple cart was another person adopting his same philosophy.

The circumstances leading up to the incident which upset me this morning go back to early 1945. We were still at war then, and the gasoline and tire shortages kept most people at home. But for Mathewson the war never existed. He somehow managed to escape the draft in spite of being only thirty-five, unmarried at the time, and in perfect physical condition. The dash compartment of his long-nosed convertible was always full of gasoline coupons which he obtained the Lord only knows where, and whenever he felt the urge to take a trip, he simply went.

This particular morning he had driven up from New York with the intention of spending the weekend at the hunting lodge he owned a few miles the other side of Catskill — the same place, incidentally, where he was killed last month. He had with him the blonde young lady who later became his seventh wife.

He was about hall-drunk as usual, and he roared onto the Rip Van Winkle Bridge at a speed witnesses later estimated at eight-five miles an hour. Unfortunately, a six-year-old boy on a bicycle was crossing the bridge from the-other direction.

When I got down to Catskill in response to Tom’s urgent phone call from the jail, I found the local authorities determined to send him up for life, providing they could deter the townspeople from taking the law into their own hands.

The dead boy was from a farm just outside of Catskill and about five miles from Tom’s own place. And of all the children around the village of Catskill whom he could have picked to kill, he had the bad luck to run down the only son of the town’s outstanding hero. Staff Sergeant Jud Peters, the boy’s father, was a battalion communications sergeant with the field artillery supporting General Patton, and only the day before, Catskill had received news of his winning the Distinguished Service Cross.

It was undoubtedly the worst jam I ever had to get him out of. And the worst of it was, his money was a disadvantage in this case — at least, in the beginning. In the end, as usual, it was money that saved his hide.

His tremendous wealth was held against him by the natives, who were in no mood to tolerate special prerogatives for the rich. Had he been penniless, I doubt that public reaction would have been nearly so strong. But his reputation for profligate spending, combined with the suspicion that he was a draft dodger, set them after his blood.

His first thought was to start greasing palms, but fortunately he always waited for my advice before making any move at all when he was in a jam. Not that he always followed my advice; to some extent it depended on whether my arguments were based on moral or practical grounds. Frequently they were the former, for he was constantly ready to bribe anyone who could render him service, and professional ethics demanded I do everything possible to dissuade him from this amoral practice. If the best I could do was read him a moral lecture, he blithely went ahead with his corruption, though he always made a pretense of following my advice and did everything possible to conceal his bribe-giving from me. This, I am convinced, was solely to avoid hearing further moral lectures, and not because he cared a mil for my opinion of him.

But he had considerable respect for my practical judgment, and if I were able to advance any objection to bribery other than an ethical one, he usually complied without question.

I remember him as he looked that day: still firm-bodied in spite of his excessive drinking, for he had professional masseurs work him over daily; entirely at ease and his expression indicating his sole emotion was irritation that the dead child had interrupted his hunting trip.

The first thing he said to me was, “Think it would speed things up if I slipped the Chief a couple of thousand to spread in the proper places?”

Having already talked to the Catskill Chief of Police and noted his grim expression, I knew any mention of money would be the worst tactical error Tom could make.

I said bluntly, “If you offer anyone in this town so much as a dime, I suspect the Chief will order you hanged without trial.”

His shoulders moved in a graceful shrug. “Then I guess it’s your baby. Counselor, just get me out of this town fast.”

But for once there was no last way to get what he wanted. Nor was there any possibility either of hushing the matter up or avoiding trial. So I threw the local authorities off balance by attempting to do neither.

On a writ of habeas corpus I got Mathewson before a J.P. who set bond with the provision the defendant remain in the county. That got him out of jail, but he still couldn’t leave Catskill. Then I quietly pulled a few strings to get the case moved up on the Grand jury’s calendar, and as soon as he was properly indicted. I played my trump. I asked for change of venue on the grounds that public opinion prohibited a fair trial in the county where the offense took place, and since the plea was obviously truthful, I got the case transferred to a neutral county without difficulty.

Then I stalled for a year by getting a series of continuances, and when everyone but the people of Catskill had entirely forgotten the matter, finally let him come to trial. The charges were reckless driving, driving while intoxicated, and manslaughter.

Since it was Tom’s third arrest for drunken driving and the second person he had killed, naturally he was found guilty. Clarence Darrow could have hoped for no other verdict. But he was found guilty with a recommendation of leniency, which I consider a courtroom triumph. All he suffered was a $500 fine, a suspended sentence, and loss of his driver’s license for a year — a mild sentence when you consider his previous record.

In the meantime I had managed an out-of-court settlement with the child’s parents — or rather with his mother, for Sergeant Jud Peters was still overseas. She was a pathetic little woman in her late twenties, so crushed by the loss of her son that she hardly knew what she was doing and automatically signed anything her Catskill lawyer told her to sign. The latter, not being the sharpest legal opponent I had ever encountered, would have settled the matter for as little as $10,000 but Mathewson arbitrarily set $50,000 as the amount which would salve his conscience, and insisted that I offer that amount. Naturally Mrs. Peters’ lawyer told her to sign.

The total cost to Mathewson was terrific, for in addition to substantial legal fees over a period of a year, I am almost certain it involved a large bribe, or possibly bribes. Whether he managed to buy one of the jury, or made a secret campaign contribution to the judge who later pronounced the lenient sentence, or both, I don’t know. I am only guessing, for I would have countenanced no such action on the part of my client had I been able to find concrete proof of it; but it is a partly substantiated guess. Not only was it entirely in keeping with Mathewson’s normal procedure, but since I handled all his financial matters, I was aware he had withdrawn a huge sum from his main bank account. And when he refused to explain the withdrawal, I simply added two and two.

A thinner-skinned person than Tom Mathewson would have disposed of the hunting lodge and never again gone near Catskill, for his squeezing out of the jam with a suspended sentence left him universally hated by the natives. But he seemed to feel that the financial cost to him had balanced his responsibility for the child’s death, and he resumed use of the lodge with an entirely clear conscience.

I believe he was a trifle uneasy for a few days when Staff Sergeant Jud Peters finally returned home, but his uneasiness stemmed solely from fear that the bereaved father might create an embarrassing public scene the first time they met, and not because he felt any further responsibility to the man. He was not without animal courage, however, and made no attempt to avoid contact with Jud Peters, a feat which would have been difficult anyway, since Peters’ farm was only five miles from Tom’s lodge. In that country five miles makes you neighbors.

I vaguely recall him mentioning the first time they finally met, a casual encounter in one of Catskill’s taverns. I remember there was a note of relief in Tom’s voice when he described the meeting, for apparently the young father harbored no active resentment. I gathered he had been cool to Tom, but not uncivil, and left Tom with the impression that his sole wish was to forget everything connected with his son’s death.

I myself had entirely forgotten the Peters affair, for in the six years since the accident Tom had been in many intervening scrapes requiring my attention. I was only reminded of it when I had to make an unexpected trip to Catskill.

It came about when Mathewson phoned me from the hunting lodge and asked me up for a weekend. I would not have gone had it been only a social invitation, for I must confess I detested the man even though he was one of my best clients. But he wanted to see me on a legal matter — not a jam this time, something concerning the transfer of certain securities he owned.

Catskill, as you may know, is not on the New York Central line — you have to change to a bus at Hudson. Since the trip by car from Mathewson’s lodge to Hudson takes only a quarter-hour more than a trip to Catskill, you would think my host would have met me at Hudson. But Thomas Mathewson III could never be described as a considerate host. He paid well for my services and felt he owed me nothing beyond that payment.

Consequently, my instructions were to meet him in the bar at a small hotel near the Catskill bus depot. And as was his habit in keeping appointments, he was about fifteen minutes late. I had a beer while I waited.

I was sipping my beer and recalling without pleasure the sole previous occasion I had visited Catskill when the bartender broke in on my thoughts.

“Ain’t you the lawyer who was down here from New York a few years back about the Peters boy?” he inquired.

Startled, I glanced up and admitted I was.

“Pretty slick way he got out of that,” the bartender commented. “Mathewson, I mean.”

“He didn’t exactly ‘get out of it,’ as you put it,” I said coldly. “He was convicted of manslaughter.”

“Yeah. On paper. Never served a day, did he? Not that I care, Mister. I was brand-new here when it happened and didn’t know any of the parties concerned. Still don’t, for that matter.”

Then occurred one of those odd coincidences which make life so unpredictable. The only other occupant of the bar at the moment, a man of about thirty-five clad in quarter-boots and a hunting jacket, turned an intelligent but moody face in our direction.

He said, “Just happens I’m Jud Peters, it that means anything to you.”

The bartender was as startled as I was and immediately withdrew from the conversation to start polishing glasses. But after my first surprise, I examined the man with friendly curiosity. His tone had been neither bitter nor belligerent. On the contrary, it had seemed faintly apologetic, as though he disclosed his identity merely to prevent the bartender and myself from creating an embarrassing situation.

Moving along the bar toward him, I offered my hand and introduced myself.

“I needn’t tell you how much I sympathized with your loss at the time, and still do, Mr. Peters,” I said. “It was a terrible tragedy, and Mr. Mathewson did everything in his legal power to atone for it.”

“He did?” he asked in a mildly surprised tone. “Oh, you mean the money.”

“Naturally no amount of money could make up for the loss of your son,” I said. “But in fairness to my client you should know I advised him that a settlement of $10,000 would probably be accepted by your wife, and Mr. Mathewson insisted on offering $50,000.”

He looked at me curiously for a long time, then finally said in a puzzled voice. “I didn’t know that. He was exceedingly generous, wasn’t he?”

“Well, he recognized his responsibility. There was no question about the accident being his fault, and I suppose he realized the only way he could begin to make restitution was with money. Some hard things have been said about Mr. Mathewson, but he does have the virtue of being scrupulously fair in money matters.”

A voice behind me said, “Who’s been saying hard things about me, Counselor?” and I turned to find Tom had come in unnoticed by either of us.

While his tone was bantering, there was a barely concealed edge to it, and I could tell he was not happy to find me talking to Jud Peters about him.

Tom Mathewson had changed physically in the six years since the accident. He was now just past forty, and masseurs were no longer able to erase the effects of long dissipation. While still appearing in good physical shape, a weal of fat encased his middle, his jowls were beginning to sag, and a sun-lamp tan could not entirely hide the tiny criss-cross of veins gradually forming in his cheeks.

With the physical change he had undergone a psychological change too, becoming even more overbearing in manner and even more prone to treat those he engaged professionally like servants. He was examining me now with an expression which would have been appropriate had he discovered his valet stealing scotch from his cellar.

Since his expression irked me, I said, “Who hasn’t said hard things about you, Tom? But as a matter of fact we were saying nice things for a change. Until now, Mr. Peters here was unaware that the size of the settlement for his boy was your own idea, and otherwise might have been only a fraction of the actual amount.”

Tom’s eyebrows raised. “Fifty thousand, as I remember,” he said indifferently. “But I believe I once mentioned that Mr. Peters prefers to forget the whole matter. I see no reason to rehash it.”

“It came up kind of accidentally from a remark the bartender made,” Jud Peters said, and again his voice impressed me as being almost apologetic. “And the remark you overheard Mr. Chalmers make was prompted by my comment that you were very generous.”

“Thanks aren’t necessary,” Tom said shortly. “Come on, Counselor. I left my motor running.”

“Oh, I wasn’t thanking you,” Jud Peters said. “I imagine you could afford it.”

Tom had started for the door, but now he stopped and turned around slowly. “No one can really ‘afford’ that kind of accident, Mr. Peters. I’ve had that same remark addressed to me on a number of occasions, particularly by my ex-wives. And, as usual, the implication is that a man with money is fair game. For your information that $50,000 settlement was a small part of the total cost of that accident. When lawyer Chalmers here and a few others were through with me, I had spent exactly 5 percent of my total assets. That’s one-twentieth of an estate intended by my father to provide reasonable comfort for a lifetime. One-twentieth, Mr. Peters, for an incident which lasted approximately three seconds.” The man’s tone was so frosty that both Peters and I stared at him in amazement. Peters’ face perceptibly reddened and there was a moment of embarrassed silence.

Then Jud Peters asked in a soft voice. “You think one-twentieth of your fortune was a fair purchase price for my son, Mr. Mathewson?”

Tom blinked at him, opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally he said. “You’ve twisted my meaning, Peters. Let’s drop the subject.”

But Jud Peters was staring at Mathewson in an entirely new way, as though he had just at that moment begun to understand the man. And his expression told me he realized, as I suddenly realized also, that he had not twisted Mathewson’s meaning. A fair purchase price was exactly the way Tom Mathewson looked at it and he felt that he and Jud Peters were quits.

As though terminating an interview, Peters turned to the bartender and said quietly, “I’ll have another beer, please.”

The rest of that weekend was singularly uneventful. By late Saturday afternoon we had finished the legal matter which was the basis for my invitation and were free to enjoy what entertainments were available.

I never quite understood what fascination hunting held for Tom Mathewson, for he was not what you would call an “outdoor man.” I suspect there was a streak of sadism in him, and he took his pleasure more from killing than from enjoyment of the sport. But whatever the attraction, during duck season it was hard to get him out of the sunken-barrel duck blind in the center of his lake. He would have his combination caretaker-and-handyman row him out to the blind, leave him, and return to shore, where the handyman would conceal himself in the weeds with a retriever, within shouting distance of Tom.

There was not room in the blind tor two, even had I cared to shoot duck, and in his typically considerate manner Tom simply left me to shill for myself.

The young lady he was contemplating making his ninth wife was staying at the lodge, but while she was beautiful, I did not find her conversation stimulating. She spent most of her time in the cocktail lounge, playing innumerable records on the radio-phonograph and sipping drinks prepared by Tom’s valet, who donned a white coat and dubbed as bartender when required.

By Sunday afternoon I was so desperately bored that I decided to take a hike.

I did not realize the farmhouse where I stopped for a drink of water was the Peters place until I saw Jud Peters through a basement window. The lane approached the house from one side, and I was just stepping onto the gravel walk which led alongside the house when I glanced at an open basement window at the corner and received the shocking impression I was going to be shot by a rifle.

After my initial leap of panic I saw that the rifle was clamped in a workbench vise, and merely happened to be pointing upward directly at me. Jud Peters seemed to be doing something to the stock.

He looked up in time to see my startled expression, and grinned. “Afternoon. Mr. Chalmers. I’m not aiming this at you. You’re aiming yourself at it.”

And twisting the handle of the vise, he released the rifle and stood the weapon out of sight.

“Be right out,” he told me.

And that’s all there really is to the background. I got my drink of water, had a few minutes chat with Jud Peters, and went on my way. That evening I returned to New York, and two days later Tom Mathewson was struck by a spent bullet while seated in his duck blind. There seemed to be no question in the coroner’s mind about it being an accident, since from the angle of impact and the depth of penetration, it was possible to deduce that the bullet had come from a hunting rifle several miles away.

When Chalmers stopped, I said, “How do you make a murder out of all that?”

“I didn’t until this morning,” he said. “But now it occurs to me Jud Peters was not only an artilleryman, but a communications sergeant. About a hundred yards from Tom’s private lake is a densely-wooded knoll and on top of it I recall spotting a telephone pole. Now this is all assumption, you understand, but suppose that pole was the one that supported the telephone wires going to Jud Peters’ place, and suppose Jud cut in a phone to connect that knoll to his phone at home: Certainly if he had an old hand-set around, a communications sergeant could rig up a simple system like that. An observer — say, his wife — could stand on the knoll, completely hidden by foliage and report how many yards over, short, or to one side the splashes were each time Jud fired the rifle — the rifle I saw clamped in his vise and aimed in the direction of Mathewson’s lake.”

I could not help grinning. “No wonder you hesitated about going to the police. On that mass of assumptions, and entirely lacking evidence, you couldn’t even get them to listen to you. What put such a fantastic idea in your head?”

“This morning’s mail,” Chalmers said. “First, there was a letter from a Catskill accounting firm enclosing an audit of Jud Peters’ total resources. Including an estimated value on the farm, it came to exactly $63,000. In a separate envelope there was a check from Jud Peters for $3150 made out to the estate of Thomas Mathewson III.”

I looked blank. “For what?”

“It was marked. For value received. Take one-twentieth of $63,000 and see what you get.”