Too Many Bodies

Chapter One

During my fifty-five years I have lived what the tabloids would describe as a checkered career. I have been, in chronological order, a high school teacher, an associate professor of English literature at a state university, a successful burglar, an unsuccessful burglar, a convict, a women’s club lecturer on the subject, Crime Does Not Pay, a memory-act vaudevillian and a newspaper music critic. But of all the methods by which I have managed to eke out a living, by far the most hazardous has been my ten years’ employment by Miss Sedalia Tweep.

The census bureau lists my work as “secretarial,” which is about as descriptive as listing the work of the President of the United States as “administrative.” About one-tenth of my job as personel flunky for the world’s most exasperating female concerns secretarial duties, and the other nine-tenths involves every hare-brained idea which conceivably could pop into the dynamic mind of a middle-aged virago which too much money and an overpowering curiosity about other people’s business.

That is, it concerns every possible duty but body guarding. In addition to my routine activities as chauffeur, butler, business manager, social secretary and errand boy, Sedalia Tweep might ask me to shadow a suspect, make an illegal entry, steal a swimming pool or perform any other implausible act which occurred to her on the spur of the moment. But I am safe from the doubtful honor of guarding her body for the same reason Joe Louis does not require a bodyguard. Sedalia has enemies, but a bodyguard would only get in the way of her long, looping right, or get tangled up in a judo hold as Sedalia pitched her attacker over a roof top.

My employer is not exactly a defenseless woman.

A duty not included in my agenda, but which I have set for myself, is keeping Sedalia Tweep as far as possible from Inspector Stephen Home. Not that I dislike the inspector personally. It is simply a matter of self-defense. The only three times in my life I have ever been hospitalized resulted indirectly from the inspector interesting Sedalia in murder cases.

Once, as a matter of poetic justice, the inspector ended up in the hospital bed next to mine, which should have taught him caution. But he has an asinine respect for what he terms “Miss Tweep’s cold, logical mind,” and I have never been able to convince him her success in unraveling mysteries is almost entirely due to the same unbelievable luck which made her a fortune on the stock market.

This particular Friday evening we were going to hear Rabenof, a matter which had required rather skillful manipulation on my part, for Sedalia’s culture was deplorably neglected in her youth and she would have preferred to attend the fights. I was having my after-dinner liqueur, and Sedalia her usual beer, when the phone rang.

I have come to be able to distinguish the difference in Inspector Stephen Home’s tone when he has a problem for Sedalia instead of merely a social invitation. He uses exactly the same words in either case, always saying, “Henry? Miss Tweep, please,” but he senses how I feel about him, and a note of belligerence creeps into the words when he plans to involve her in some unsavory matter.

Fortunately, our phone is located so that by keeping my voice low, Sedalia cannot hear me from the front room. Sedalia rents the entire top floor of the Sennett Hotel, which is not as extravagant as it sounds, since the Sennett is a small hotel. It gives her a private elevator which lets you out into a tiny lobby separate from the rest of the apartment, eight rooms and a long, narrow hall running from one side of the building to the other. The hall has the six rooms constituting Sedalia’s apartment on one side of it, my bedroom and the study wherein I perform my secretarial chores on its other side. The phone is in the hall a dozen feet from the door to Sedalia’s apartment, so that it is difficult for her to hear from her front room.

In a low voice I said, “Sorry, Inspector, but Miss Tweep is resting. Could I have her phone you?”

“Don’t talk so low, Hank!” Sedalia roared from the front room. “Speak up so I can hear you!”

“Wasn’t that Miss Tweep?” asked the inspector.

“Just the plumber come to fix a leak in the bathtub,” I said, still in a monotone. “I’ll tell Miss Tweep you phoned—”

From behind me Sedalia gently removed the phone from my ear. With her other hand she lifted me from the floor by the collar of my tuxedo jacket and set me to one side, a habit she knows infuriates me.

I said, “If we miss this concert, I resign!”

She frowned at me, then said into the telephone in a sweet bass, “Sedalia Tweep speaking.”

I strode to my room, put on my white scarf and a dark topcoat, gathered the concert tickets from my dresser and returned to the hall. Sedalia was just hanging up.

“That was Steve Home,” she explained unnecessarily.

I said stiffly, “We’re due at the concert in thirty minutes.”

Her eyes regarded me with an amiable twinkle. She is a big woman, nearly six feet tall, with thick arms and legs and a huge, solid-looking bust. On her doctored bathroom scales, which are set to register twenty pounds less than the correct weight, she weighs one-hundred and eighty-one pounds. None of it is fat.

A news columnist once described Sedalia as “the nation’s ugliest rich woman.” This was not quite fair, for though she has startlingly heavy features, including the largest female nose I have ever seen and huge ears which form right angles with her head, she has two attributes of beauty. Her complexion is such a creamy white, her skin seems almost transparent, and her soft golden hair, which she wears in a mass of coiled braids, is the envy of every woman in town. Personally, I consider Sedalia a not-unhand-some woman in her own striking and peculiar way.

Sedalia said gently, “We’re not going to the concert, Hank.”

“I quit,” I said.

“Oh, stop your dramatics,” she said crossly. “I couldn’t drive you away from here with a machine gun. Now shut up and get my coat.”

I was still seething when I climbed behind the wheel of the Cadillac and Sedalia gave me an address on Taylor Heights Boulevard. Knowing it was useless, I made no further mention of the concert, but I am afraid I exhibited my state of mind by deliberately breaking the speed law. I drove the whole distance at thirty-five, and the limit, of course, is thirty. In my reckless mood I even half-hoped some police officer would give us a ticket.

Our destination turned out to be one of those futuresque one-story bungalows which the moderately rich build along Taylor Heights Boulevard. The district, though new, was growing fast. In spite of having been opened less than two years before, we saw not more than a half-dozen vacant lots in the five-block stretch it included. Two of these happened to be either side of the house which was our goal, and since the house was also set back from the street some thirty yards, this made it relatively isolated.

It was a low, flat-roofed building of brick with a white stone front. In architectural circles I believe they are called ranch-house style, though I cannot imagine a space-loving cowboy residing in such cramped quarters. My own leanings are toward high ceilings and wide verandas with a few tall pillars.

Through a huge picture window giving onto the front porch we could see a number of people seated in the front room. Among them, but standing, I spotted two blue uniforms and the round figure of Inspector Stephen Home. When I pressed the button on the door jamb, musical chimes sounded within the house, causing a general stir among the people gathered in the front room.

The Chief of the Homicide Division himself came to the door. His broad face lighted with pleasure when he saw Sedalia, then became merely polite when he looked at me.

“Come in, Sedalia. Delighted you could come.” He sounded as though he were welcoming her to a tea. “Ah there, Henry. Good to see you.”

I sniffed and followed Sedalia indoors.

Inspector Stephen Home is a round, placid-faced man of almost studied neatness except for one item. His clothes are always pressed, his shoes carefully shined, and he always looks as though he just left a barber shop, where he had a haircut, shave and manicure. But he has a ragged, sandy-colored mustache whose individual hairs have no sense of direction.

After helping us remove our wraps and secreting them in a closet near the entrance, the inspector delayed us in the hall instead of taking us into the room where the others were.

“Reason I called you,” he told Sedalia, “I’m a little over my head. People in there too social register for an old rubber-hose cop like me. Thought maybe you’d help me out, since you know how to talk their language.”

This, of course, was intended for my consumption and was the purest balderdash. I had seen Stephen Home at Sedalia’s parties too often, amiably conversing with internationally known artists and playwrights and statesmen, to believe for a minute he would be impressed by the social position of anyone he might encounter in a murder investigation. He simply knew Sedalia would rather attend a murder than a concert, and was repaying her hospitality in his own peculiar way.

“Where’s the body?” Sedalia asked.

He led us to a small combination study and sitting room at the rear of the house. Outside the door two young men with a wicker basket between them patiently waited to cart off the body. Inside the room, we found no one but the corpse and a medical examiner.

The corpse was that of a woman about seventy, thin and unyielding and grim-faced even in death. She was lying face up near a small fireplace, her expression one of sour triumph, as though her last thought had been vindictive.

Such an air of malevolence seemed to hover over her, that in spite of myself I could summon no spark of pity for the poor woman. My only emotion was one of instinctive dislike for the harridan she most certainly must have been before dying.

In a tone somewhat like that of a tourist guide, Inspector Home said, “Her head’s bashed in. Can’t see it the way she’s lying. Name is Mrs. Agatha Chambers.” He paused to stare at the corpse placidly. “Widow, and lived here alone with a combination companion-maid. Maid’s been gone a week visiting relatives.” He pointed toward a small metal rack one side of the fireplace. “Weapon seemed to be some fire tongs in that. At least had blood on them. Gone now. Lab boys took them along to test for blood and fingerprints.” Then he looked at the medical examiner. “How you coming, Doc?”

The medical examiner rose and examined a thermometer. “All finished for now,” he said absently. “I’d guess six to ten hours ago. Tell you more accurately after an autopsy, if you tell me first when she last ate.” He paused. “If you want to believe her watch, she was killed seven and a half hours ago. At one p.m.”

Inspector Home raised one eyebrow, went over and lifted one of the woman’s wrists. “Hmm... Crystal broke. Watch stopped at one-oh-three. Could be, but could also mean the murderer deliberately set the hands. Nowadays they’ve all read mystery stories, and they try all the angles.”

He rose and brushed off his knees. The medical examiner closed his case, told the inspector he would send him a report in the morning and departed. As we followed him out of the room, the two young men entered with their basket.

“Haven’t really questioned anyone yet,” the inspector told Sedalia. “Except in a general way. Body was discovered by a whole bunch of people. Seems the old lady had scheduled a family meeting of some kind for seven-thirty, and all the relatives arrived more or less together. When nobody answered the bell, they figured something was wrong because there wasn’t a light in the place. Front door was on night lock, but somebody finally went around back, found the back door unlocked and let them all in. Sort of in a bunch they searched the house and found her. Just happened the assistant D.A. was with them, so we got the call quicker than we would have otherwise. It’s only about eight-thirty now.”

Sedalia looked interested. “The assistant D.A. was with them?”

“Yes. Not quite sure why. One of the things we’ll find out now.”

He opened the double glass doors into the front room and held them for Sedalia and me to enter.

Seven people were in the front room. Two were uniformed policemen who simply stood with their hands behind their backs waiting. Of the others two were women and three were men. All were in street clothes, and immediately I became conscious of my dinner jacket and Sedalia’s golden evening gown. We had dressed for the concert, of course, but it seemed rather incongruous costume for a murder investigation.

One of the men, a bouncing, dynamic young fellow with a cheerfully open face and ears nearly as large and perpendicular to his head as Sedalia’s, was standing in the center of the room asking questions when we entered. When the door opened he broke off, and Inspector Home introduced him as Alvin Christopher, the assistant district attorney. I noticed he and Sedalia examined each other’s ears with the interest of people who have something in common.

Both the women proved to be nieces of the dead woman. The youngest, a fresh-looking blonde girl with clear gray eyes and the trimly muscled figure of an enthusiastic sportswoman, was Miss Irene Chambers. I guessed her to be about twenty-five.

Mrs. Monica Madigan, whose stressing of her first name led me to believe she was a divorcee, was a dark-skinned, sleepy-eyed woman of thirty, slim but lushly developed. She barely glanced at Sedalia when she was introduced, but her slumberous eyes moved over my one-hundred and twenty pounds in an almost embarrassing examination. I felt myself flush, for I am not used to being examined by women in such a calculating manner.

The second man, a nephew of the dead woman, was named Gerald Rawlins. He was a blond, red-faced man of about twenty-eight with an athletic build, just beginning to go to fat, a round, not particularly intelligent face and a sulky cast to his mouth. He looked, I thought, like a spoiled brat.

The third man was named Jerome Straight, and turned out to be the attorney for the deceased Agatha Chambers. Perhaps sixty-five, he was a gaunt, humorless man with a gray face, sunken cheeks and wide brows jutting like a balcony over a thin sliver of a nose.

“Miss Tweep’s not here in any official capacity,” Inspector Home explained to the group. “Been of some service to the police in the past, as you may know if you read murder news, and just here as an observer.” He glanced at the young assistant district attorney. “Didn’t mean to interrupt you, Al.”

The young man waved it aside. “Just killing time till you got back. I’ll sit by and listen for awhile.”

Home nodded, ran his eyes over the two nieces and the nephew. “One of you tell me what this family meeting was all about, eh?”

There was silence for a moment as each of the three waited for one of the others to speak. Finally red-faced young Gerald Rawlins drawled, “It was just another of Aunt Aggie’s will-changing clambakes. She had ’em about twice a year.”

The inspector looked a polite inquiry, and the lush of Mrs. Monica Madigan elaborated. “Aunt Agatha had all the money in the family, you know. We three are her sole heirs, and she liked to punish us by alternately cutting us off. This time it was my turn. She was mad because I divorced my stinker of a no-good husband.”

“I see,” Inspector Home said. “She changed her will often?”

Blonde Irene Chambers laughed, a bitter mocking laugh. “You put it mildly, Inspector. She was as loopy as a roller coaster. Aunt Aggie had the bulk of her fortune divided into three amounts: a half million, a hundred thousand, and a mere one thousand. Sometimes I was scheduled to inherit the largest amount, sometimes Monica and sometimes Gerry, depending on which was the favorite at the moment. Or rather, depending on which was least out of favor. Aunt Aggie didn’t have any favorites outside of herself.”

The last remark was expressed with a cynicism which drew understanding smiles from her two cousins. Whatever emotions Mrs. Agatha Chambers’ relatives were undergoing as a result of her death, grief obviously was not one of them.

“Let me get this straight now,” Home said. “Mrs. Chambers was the aunt of all of you, but you’re all of different parents?”

Gerald Rawlins nodded. “My mother was Aunt Aggie’s sister. Monica’s father was her brother. Irene is the daughter of her deceased husband’s brother.” He paused and added resentfully. “That makes Irene not even a blood relation of Aunt Aggie’s, but she gets the pot of gold.”

“On the other hand,” Irene put in sweetly, “Aunt Aggie’s money originally came from Uncle Andrew, and you’re no blood relation of his.”

The inspector broke up the side squabble by asking, “How come none of your parents were included in your aunt’s will?”

“Our parents are all dead,” Monica said. “I told you before we were the sole heirs.”

Inspector Home mused a moment. “Did I understand correctly Miss Chambers currently is legatee of the largest amount?”

“Yes,” Irene said promptly. “But if you think I whammed the old gal because she was getting ready to cut me off, forget it. Monica was the one she was mad at this time.”

Monica said indifferently, “I imagine I was due to take a cut from a hundred thousand down to one thousand, if you like that for a motive. The only trouble with it is I could have waited a few months until Aunt Agatha got mad at Irene for something, and probably been back on top of the heap again.”

Gerald Rawlins said nothing, apparently assuming the lack of motive he would have for killing his aunt just before she increased his legacy from one thousand to a hundred thousand was too obvious to require comment.

Inspector Home turned to Jerome Straight, the murdered woman’s attorney. “Take it you were here to draw up a new will after the old lady properly bawled everybody out?”

The old lawyer frowned at the inspector’s choice of words, but nodded his gaunt head. “I assume that was the reason I was asked to be present. Mrs. Chambers did not actually specify what she wanted when she phoned, but past experience led me to expect a change of will.”

“And you?” the inspector asked, looking at Assistant District Attorney Alvin Christopher. “How’d you happen to be here, Al?”

The young man shrugged. “I’m afraid I’m as much in the dark as you are, Steve. When Mrs. Chambers phoned me yesterday and asked me to drop over at seven-thirty tonight on an important legal matter,

I assumed she wanted me as a lawyer rather than as a member of the district attorney’s office. But now I’m not so sure.”

When the inspector merely looked blank, he explained, “I have a private practice in addition to my work for the D.A., you know. Naturally I thought she wanted me to do some legal work for her. But since discovering she already had a lawyer, I’ve been wondering if she suspected someone wanted to kill her, and asked me over in my official capacity.”

Home glanced at Jerome Straight and said slowly, “Maybe she intended to change lawyers.”

Jerome Straight scowled at him. In a stiff voice he said, “I have no reason to believe Mrs. Chambers was dissatisfied with the legal service given her by Strong, Wilson and Straight. We’ve been attorneys for Mr. Chambers — and for his widow — for over thirty years.”

“All of you?” the inspector asked curiously.

“Strong and Wilson are dead. I’ve been alone in the firm for twenty years.”