The Third Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK™: 25 Classic Mysteries

The Seven Year Hitch

Originally appeared in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, August 1966.

From the arched doorway of the fine old home, Mr. Peabody stared down the winding, tree-shaded drive.

“Mother!” he summoned his wife.

Mrs. Peabody came to the entry foyer behind him, breathless and slightly rumpled from house cleaning. “Yes, Mr. Peabody?”

“A car just turned in the driveway. Must be Teddy.”

“Gracious, he’s early!” Warmly plump, Mrs. Peabody shucked her apron and thrust it in the cloak closet.

As the sleek sports car with a lone occupant rolled to a stop, Mr. Peabody gallantly took his wife’s jolly fat arm and hurried with her down the broad steps of the veranda.

The two old people reached the car as the young man was getting out.

“Welcome home, Mr. Hockins,” Mr. Peabody said.

“We opened the house and cleaned it, as your letter instructed,” Mrs. Peabody added.

“Thank you,” Teddy said languidly. As he stood looking at the house, Mr. and Mrs. Peabody exchanged a covert glance.

Mr. Peabody cleared his throat. “Well, how does the place look after all these years?”

“As dreary as ever,” Teddy said.

“Do get his baggage, Mr. Peabody!”

“Yes, Mother. Where are your bags, Teddy?”

Still staring at the house, Teddy Hockins extended his hand and dropped the car keys into Mr. Peabody’s palm. Mr. Peabody hustled to the rear of the car, opened the deck, and began loading himself with Teddy’s suitcases.

The house was drawing Teddy magnetically. A trace of jerkiness in his motions, he started trancelike up the veranda steps.

Beside her husband, Mrs. Peabody whispered, “I don’t think he’s glad to be back.”

“Not a bit. The ghost of his mother and the memory of his terrible deed is still in that house. Seeing him, I’m more certain than ever. He never would have returned, if she hadn’t been declared legally dead and the estate gone into probate.”

“He’ll stay only as long as necessary, Mr. Peabody.”

Mr. Peabody nodded. “But it takes time to settle an estate. And there are other matters he must settle. Don’t forget — he’s lived like a prince these seven years, borrowing against his future inheritance. Before he is through here, we’ll have time to do what must be done.”

“We’ve a big job, Mr. Peabody. Until the day he died in office, Sheriff Tomerlin was sure Teddy had murdered the old lady. Yet he never found the first shred of evidence.”

“Teddy was cunning,” Mr. Peabody admitted. “He simply reported her disappearance, then waited, knowing the law would declare her legally dead after seven years. Now we’ll be close to him, have the opportunity to watch and observe. The devilish memories have had a long time to ferment in him. He’ll make a slip, Mother, that even he won’t notice. It’ll point us to the truth — if our wits are sharp enough.”

“Do be careful, Mr. Peabody.”

“Now you quit worrying. I’m not a mean, neurotic old lady with a vapid, neurotic offspring I’ve driven to momentary madness. No, sir-ree. In a showdown, I’d whip Teddy with my right wrist tied to my left anklebone.”

“I can’t help being a bit frightened, now that he’s actually here.”

“I know,” Mr. Peabody said gently. “But bear in mind, it’s a job only we can do. If we fail, Teddy goes scot free with four million dollars, blood money.”

Teddy Hockins dined by candlelight, his pallor almost lost in the large old dining room.

As she served him, Mrs. Peabody coaxed, “Another cocktail, Mr. Hockins?”

He looked at her morosely. “What are you trying to do, Mrs. Peabody?”

“I don’t believe I understand, sir.”

“You’ve been attempting to ply me with drink, Mrs. Peabody. Hoping to addle my wits, loosen my lips?”

“Really, sir—”

As she started to turn from the table, Hockins reached and caught her wrist.

“I know what you think,” Teddy said, his eyes gloomy and chill. “What you’ve all thought for seven years. You and your husband have remained in the cottage on the rear of the estate, living on my monthly checks. You were necessary, to protect the place from prowlers and thieves.”

She quaked. Was he saying she and Mr. Peabody were now no longer necessary?

“Surely, Mrs. Peabody, in all that time you’ve had a chance to go over every inch of the estate. But you had no more luck than the sheriff had years ago, did you? You’ve found no sign of a grave.”

“You are mistaken, Mr. Hockins.”

“Oh, come now. When I sent the keys and asked you to open the house, you had a couple of days to poke in every nook and cranny.” A thin laugh came from him. “And yet — where are the bones, Mrs. Peabody?”

Later, as the light of a cold moon streamed through the cottage windows, Mrs. Peabody slipped out of bed. She moved to the window and stood looking at the dark, distant hulk of the Hockins house.

Mr. Peabody got up and came to stand beside her. They were fat and thin images of silver in their long nightgowns.

“I couldn’t sleep either,” Mr. Peabody said.

“He suspects us, Mr. Peabody.”

“He suspects everyone. Encouraging, I’d say. Indicates a lingering doubt, a faintly remaining question in his mind as to whether the body might one day be found. And this means it isn’t perfect, means there’s still the chance of finding it.”

Mrs. Peabody stood with her face almost against the window pane. “But where? Years ago, Sheriff Tomerlin went over every inch of the estate. Not a blade of grass or a flower bed disturbed. No abandoned quarries or handy lakes in this area. No patches in the concrete floor of the basement to mark a grave. And our recent search of the house yielded nothing — no false walls in the closets or bones in old chests or trunks.”

“No key to the attic, either.”

“Don’t forget — Tomerlin was too thorough to pass up the attic seven years ago.”

“I know,” Mr. Peabody said doggedly, “but Teddy didn’t include an attic key when he sent us the keys from New York. I’ll grant you the attic was empty. Now — I’d like to look again.”

The lock on the attic door so fascinated Mr. Peabody that he failed to hear Teddy’s silent approach.

“Peabody!”

Mr. Peabody whirled. Hockins was a thin, gloomy form in the scant sunlight filtering into the narrow passageway.

“What are you doing, Peabody?”

“I thought you might want the attic cleaned, Mr. Hockins.”

“The attic is empty. It needs no cleaning.”

“Yes, sir.” Mr. Peabody started from the door.

Teddy blocked the way. “What did you think I have in there, Peabody?”

Mr. Peabody carefully wiped his lips with the back of his hand. If he doesn’t get out of my way, Mr. Peabody thought, I’ll break the young pup in two.

“Well, Peabody?”

“I considered the possibility,” Mr. Peabody said coolly, “that you might have put a certain object in the attic after the sheriff searched.”

“Really? You mean that an object was hidden in one place while the sheriff searched the attic, then slipped into the attic as the search progressed to other areas.”

“Could be. Will you open the attic?”

“Of course not.”

“The law might force you to.”

“Go ahead, Peabody. Make a fool of yourself. The attic remains locked. Why should I admit any glimmer of truth in your wild accusation?”

Teddy Hockins stepped aside. “You may go now, Peabody. And by the way — I have all the necessary papers ready. My lawyer can take care of the remainder of my chores here. I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I suggest you and your wife look for another position. I’ll take into account your age and obvious senility and be generous with you.”

Exasperation and frustration rose in Mr. Peabody, almost choking him. “So you’ve got away with it!”

“Peabody, really! I’d suggest you see a doctor. In view of your long term of service, I shall try-hard not to be offended by you. Instead, I’ll give you a few dollars to help you resettle. The cottage will be torn down. The house will be closed, never to be opened again as long as I live.”

Dismally, Mr. Peabody sat alone in the cottage. Mrs. Peabody came in. Her cheeks were pink and damp from her labors in the big house.

“Are you ill, Mr. Peabody?”

“Yes, in a manner of speaking. He’s leaving tomorrow. Pulling it off. Escaping for good.”

She came and stood beside his chair. “Mr. Peabody, could we have been wrong?”

“No,” he said. “I share the view that Sheriff Tomerlin held, rest him. An old lady simply doesn’t walk out of her house one dark night and disappear.”

“It’s happened, Mr. Peabody. It’s happened.”

“But not to an old witch like her. She wouldn’t turn her back on her house and money unless her mind cracked. And I don’t believe her mind slipped over the edge that evening, as Teddy cleverly insinuated. She was slightly balmy, all right, but not in that way.”

“She was fearful and it made her fearsome, Mr. Peabody.”

“You can say that again! Afraid Teddy’d look at a girl his own age, or get interested in a business that would take him away from here. She made him what he was, and is. And the final rebellion took place the night he killed her.

“Oh, I don’t say he meant to do it. I think they argued, like always, her alternately screaming and whining at him until he was half out of his mind. I think, as Tomerlin thought, that Teddy struck her — and when he saw that she was dead, he made her disappear.”

Mr. Peabody had spoken so rapidly he was out of breath. He inhaled deeply and added explosively, “We’ve got to get in the attic — and we have to do it right now!”

Mrs. Peabody wandered about the room, apparently aimlessly. Then she stopped and regarded him thoughtfully. “Mr. Peabody, you were a wonderful fox-hunter when you were young.”

Mr. Peabody raised his hands, let them fall to slap his thighs. “Honestly, Mother—”

“You used to say to me: ‘The fox is smart. He centers your attention in one direction so’s you won’t look in another.’ You also said that Teddy would give himself away when he came back. Maybe he has done that, Mr. Peabody.”

A momentary rigidity overcame Mr. Peabody. Then he jumped up and hugged his wife. “Mother, you are marvelous. The young fox — he centers our attention upward, when we should be looking down. The old lady’s body is surely in the basement!”

“Not under the concrete floor.”

“No good. Previously eliminated.”

“But the basement walls were always kept fresh and white, Mr. Peabody.”

“A fact that never meant anything before Teddy directed our attention to it,” Mr. Peabody said. “A new inner wall, parallel to an old wall, could be painted white and would be right in keeping with the rest of the basement. A wall to form a crypt — the old lady’s final resting place.”

Mrs. Peabody was breathless. “We do work well together, Mr. Peabody!”

“I’ll say. Now it’s simple arithmetic to measure the base of the house outside, the basement inside, and determine—”

“Oh, dear! Oh, my goodness—” Mrs. Peabody gasped.

“Something wrong?”

“Where did he get all those bricks, Mr. Peabody? It would take quite a few, you know.”

Mr. Peabody scratched his head. His brow knotted. He sat glumly. Then he sprang to his feet again. “There’s one way — and only one way — he could have made a grave with never a surface mark to show it. He carried the body the crime down to the basement, moved a few bricks, tunneled a short distance deep under the lawn, disposed of the evidence, replaced the bricks and painted over them. Given a whole night, even Teddy could have handled it.”

“How can we prove it, Mr. Peabody?”

“We must make Teddy tip his hand.”

Mr. Peabody was pecking with hammer and chisel on the basement wall when Teddy Hockins’ shadow fell across him. Mr. Peabody paused with the hammer half drawn back. He turned slowly.

“What are we doing this time, Peabody?” Teddy said tightly.

“Examining mortar, Mr. Hockins. This house is nearly a century old. I’m positive the original mortar will differ in color and texture from mortar used seven years ago. Finding strange mortar, I propose to remove a few bricks and see what lies beyond.”

Teddy Hockins slipped a small gun from his jacket pocket. His face was very white. “Too bad you came in here, Peabody. I can’t very well let you leave, can I?”

“I’d better warn you — Mrs. Peabody knows what I’m about.”

“She won’t get off the estate either, Peabody. I’m afraid the two old faithful servants are going to have a terrible accident when their cottage burns.”

Mrs. Peabody stepped from behind a massive brick pillar and struck Hockins on the back of the head with a heavy piece of wood. Teddy lost sensation immediately and curled to the floor.

Mr. and Mrs. Peabody sprang to catch him. Between them, they carried him upstairs and stretched him on a sofa.

Teddy groaned. Mrs. Peabody sat down and pillowed his head in her lap.

“Well, Mother,” Mr. Peabody said, “we’ve waited a long time.”

“Yes, we have. And I’m sure Teddy will understand and accept the situation quickly and entirely.”

“We’ll give him the freedom of the world, Mother.”

“So long as he treats us likewise. Ah — won’t it be nice to have a son, in a manner of speaking, worth four million dollars!”