The Richard Deming Mystery Megapack Page 14

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’d guess about twelve-thirty.”

  Ambrose came back carrying two bottles. He handed one to Dobbs, poured drinks for me and himself from the other. Dobbs poured his tumbler nearly full. We all drank, Dobbs, as usual, pouring it all down in one gulp. He looked surprised.

  “Was that Scotch?” he asked in a squeaky voice.

  He picked up his private bottle and looked at the label. His eyes wouldn’t focus on it, so I went over and looked at it.

  “Scotch,” I verified.

  Dobbs gave a relieved nod and poured himself another glassful. I went back to the sofa, sat down and looked at Ambrose. He was looking at Dobbs.

  Ambrose raised his glass and said, “Cheers.”

  Dobbs drained his glass and looked surprised again. “Odd,” he said, staring at the glass.

  Ambrose got up, wrapped his toga about him and went over to pour the man a third drink. Dobbs merely continued to stare down at it thoughtfully.

  We sat there in silence for about ten minutes. Ambrose and I finished our drinks and Ambrose poured two more. Dobbs hadn’t sampled his third one.

  “Cheers,” Ambrose said, raising his glass.

  Dobbs raised his very slowly. It took him a couple of minutes to let it trickle down his throat, but he managed to put it all away. His arm came down with equal slowness, resting the glass on the arm of his chair.

  Ambrose asked, “How long does that dryer take?”

  Our host didn’t answer. I said, “Forty-five minutes.”

  “Then our clothes should be done,” Ambrose said.

  The dryer had stopped. Our clothes were bone dry, but our suits were wrinkled and the shoes were stiff.

  When we had dressed, Ambrose carefully refolded the shrouds and replaced them in the cupboard. We picked our pocket items from the embalming table and stowed them away.

  “What about him?” I asked, jerking my thumb toward the den.

  “He should be done, too.”

  A trifle unsteadily he walked into the den. I trailed along. Dobbs sat in his chair with a fixed smile on his face. Ambrose went over and shook him. There was no response.

  Ambrose tried to lift the glass from his hand, but couldn’t. He tried to pry the man’s fingers loose, but they were gripping the glass too tightly.

  “What’s the matter with him?” I asked.

  “He drank about a fifth of embalming fluid.”

  I gave the man in the chair a startled look. “You mean he’s finally dead?”

  “Cold as a carp. We’d better get him out of here.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Ambrose thought this over, weaving slightly. Presently he said, “I think we’d better collect on this tonight and then blow town, instead of waiting until tomorrow night. And what better proof of accomplishment can we show than this corpse?”

  It was my turn to think matters over. Somehow his suggestion didn’t strike me as very wise. If we left Dobbs where he was, it seemed to me the cops would assume he got too stoned to know the difference between Scotch and embalming fluid, which was more or less what had actually happened. Driving around with a corpse in the car seemed asking for trouble, but as Ambrose had pointed out, what better proof could there be than the corpse?

  Ambrose said, “Take that glass out of his hand.”

  I tried, but I couldn’t bend his fingers.

  “The hell with it,” Ambrose said. “Just carry him out to the car.”

  He was stiff as a frozen steak. When I heaved him into my arms, he remained in his seated position, his right arm thrust out in front of him and the glass still clutched in his hand.

  Ambrose picked up the Scotch bottle we had partly emptied, plus the one containing the embalming fluid. He switched off the den light and carried the two bottles into the embalming room.

  He set down the Scotch bottle and dumped the embalming fluid in the other one down the sink. I stood with the rigid body of Dobbs in my arms as he rinsed out the bottle and dropped it into a waste can. Then he picked up the Scotch bottle and preceded me into the casket room, switching off the embalming room light as he went through the door.

  At the top of the stairs he flicked the light switch to turn off the light in the casket room. When I had carried Dobbs into the foyer, he closed the door behind me. The foyer light had been on when we entered, so we left it that way. Ambrose set the spring lock on the side door before pulling it closed behind us.

  I set Dobbs in the rear of the jalopy, where he sat erect, smiling frozenly and thrusting his glass out before him. I climbed in front and Ambrose backed out of the driveway.

  It was a long drive to the home of Everett and Cornelia Dobbs. When we passed the place where the car had crashed, someone had pulled the wheel and fender off onto the shoulder, but the road was still littered with glass.

  It must have been 2:00 a.m. when we finally arrived. A curving drive led past a swimming pool which had underwater lights. Since no one was in the pool, I assumed the lights were left on all night as a safety precaution so no one would fall into it in the dark.

  The house was a two-story brick. Ambrose parked right in front of the porch and we both went up to the door. Through a window we could see a night light on in the front room. Ambrose rang the bell.

  “Suppose she’s not alone?” I said.

  “She will be. She outlined her plans to me in detail. She was having some women in for bridge to establish her alibi. She estimated they would leave about midnight, and she was going to ask the woman who had driven the others here to call her when she got home so she’d know everybody got home safely. That would cover her until about twelve-thirty, then she planned to go to bed until the police awakened her to report the accident.”

  Several minutes passed and Ambrose had rung the bell again before it finally opened. A bleached blonde of about thirty-five in a housecoat peered out.

  “Ah, Mrs. Dobbs,” Ambrose said with a formal bow which nearly threw him off balance before he managed to right himself. “This is my partner, Sam Willard.”

  She barely glanced at me. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here?”

  “Reporting mission accomplished. We have the evidence in the car.”

  She came out on the porch and looked from me to Ambrose. “That’s impossible.”

  “Look in the back of our car,” Ambrose said, making a grand gesture in that direction.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked crossly. “Everett phoned me from the club. He loaned his car to Herman and stayed there all night.”

  She went down the steps and peered into the back seat. Her eyes grew saucer size.

  “Herman!” she said. “What’s the matter with him?” We had followed her down the steps.

  Ambrose said, “Herman?”

  She swung on him. “That’s Everett’s younger brother, you fool! The man I intend to marry. What have you done to him?”

  One thing about Ambrose: even snookered to the eyebrows he could always think on his feet. He said soothingly, “He’s merely drunk, madam. We’ll see that he gets home safely. Sorry we erred. He was getting into your husband’s car and he said his name was Dobbs, so naturally we assumed he was your husband.”

  “Why did you bring him here anyway?” she snapped.

  Ambrose was still thinking on his feet. He said, “We meant to undress him, put on his swim trunks and drown him in the pool.”

  “Shut up!” she hissed. “Herman doesn’t know anything about my plans! Or at least he didn’t.”

  “He can’t hear you,” Ambrose assured her. “He’s passed out.”

  He gave her another formal bow, rounded the car and slid under the wheel. I scrambled in next to him. Ambrose backed the car, turned and drove back down the driveway. Gazing back, I saw Cornelia Dobbs still glaring after us.

 
Ambrose pulled over to the curb as soon as we hit the street, cut the engine and lights.

  “What now, genius?” I asked.

  “We wait until her lights go out again.”

  All but the night light went out a few minutes later. “Okay,” Ambrose said. “Lift him out.”

  I got out, reached in back and lifted the stiff body into my arms. Ambrose led the way up the driveway and over to the swimming pool. There were a couple of canvas lawn chairs next to it. Ambrose had me set Herman Dobbs in one.

  He had brought along the Scotch bottle. He stood contemplating Herman Dobbs’ frozen smile for a moment, then poured the outstretched glass half-full.

  “Cheers,” he said gloomily. “Now let’s get the hell out of here, pack our stuff and head south.”

  HE’LL KILL YOU

  Originally published in Detective Tales, November 1950.

  I said, “I think I’d better report Ellen missing tomorrow. If we wait any longer, the police may think it strange.”

  Margot’s freckled face spread in the grin I had grown to love. She always laughed when I mentioned Ellen, and while I loved the sound of her deep, good-humored laughter, her jollity on this subject upset me. I suppose humor was the sanest attitude toward Ellen’s departure, and I for one certainly felt no regrets, but somehow Margot’s laughter indicated a lack of delicacy I would not have expected from her.

  It was the laughter and the wide, unaffected grin that first drew me to Margot. When we moved to Bradford, the faculty house assigned us was next door to hers, and my study window looked directly into the broad windows of Margot’s sun room, where she kept her phone. She was fond of phone gossip, and often I would see her there, her sun-freckled face animated with laughter, and one lean, strong hand making wide gestures as she talked. When she phoned Ellen I particularly enjoyed watching her, for in the hall I could hear Ellen’s part of the conversation, and from Ellen’s words and Margot’s gestures, sometimes piece together what Margot was saying.

  Almost from the first we were attracted to each other—as early as the faculty tea given in my honor as the new head of the English Department. Miss Rottell, the dean of women, introduced us, saying in her precise, inhibited drawl, “Professor Brandt, Miss Margot Spring. She’s Music,” and moving away to leave us together.

  I remember bowling formally and saying, “An appropriate name, my dear. You have the look about you of nature’s fairest season.”

  She laughed. “Why, Professor! I do believe you’re a romantic.”

  It started as simply as that, and grew as the months passed into a deep but quiet love. Oh, on the surface we were merely good-natured friends, for in a college town gossip can be fatal to careers, and Margot chose to accept my compliments as laugh-provoking jokes, even when no one was nearby to hear. I too was meticulously careful to arouse no comment. Not once did I even so much as kiss her on the cheek, restraining my physical love-making to an occasional accidental touch—my fingers brushing against her hair when I held her coat as she prepared to leave after a visit with Ellen, or lightly managing to touch her hand as I passed her a cup at a faculty tea.

  But the depth of understanding that springs from mature love made my innocent words and gestures as meaningful to Margot as though I held her in my arms, just as her apparently joking replies had a meaning for me that a less perceptive nature might have missed entirely. As a matter of fact, it was best that no one aside from me understood her subtlety, for she had a breathtaking flair for danger and seemed to love making me shudder at the risks she took. She had a trick of brazenly stating her true thoughts as though they were rather clumsy jokes, such as the time she lightly remarked to Ellen, when Ellen first began to plan her visit home, “You better hurry back again, or you may find I’ve stolen your romantic husband.” But Ellen only laughed, and I pretended Margot’s remark was a great joke.

  I waited until two days prior to Ellen’s scheduled departure before even mentioning what opportunities her absence would leave us, and even then I brought it up to Margot casually. But she surprised me with the blunt frankness of her reply.

  “It’s too bad Ellen means to stay only two weeks,” I remarked.

  “Ask her to stay a month,” Margot said. “I’m sure if you explained you wanted to elope with your next-door neighbor, Ellen would be glad to cooperate.”

  Margot’s habit of affixing a completely fantastic suggestion to a sensible statement was another twist her odd sense of humor sometimes took, and I knew of course she had no expectation of my explaining any such thing to Ellen.

  I asked, “Would you like it if she stayed away permanently?”

  “You mean bury her body in the cellar?” She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Is there enough insurance to finance our honeymoon?”

  I said patiently, “I meant ask her to get a divorce.”

  “And have a campus scandal?” Somehow she managed to grin and look horrified at the same time. “No, Theodore. The safest way is the cellar.” She closed one eye and made a cutting motion across her throat.

  I said, “I’ve never even killed a chicken.”

  “There’s nothing to it,” Margot said. “Read the papers. Husbands do it all the time. I’ll phone Ellen tonight and ask her to stand still.”

  “Now please don’t make clever comments to Ellen,” I told her. “I know Ellen misses the double meaning of your jokes, but it’s an unnecessary risk.”

  But Margot disobeyed my request when she phoned Ellen that evening. From my study I could see Margot’s wide smile and loosely gesturing hand, and in the hall behind me I could hear Ellen’s restrained laughter.

  “It amazes me that you find Theodore so excruciating,” Ellen said. “I’ve never been able to detect the slightest sense of humor in him.”

  I knew then that Margot was brazenly describing our conversation to Ellen, and even though Ellen was obviously enjoying it as a joke, I was irritated at Margot for indulging her bizarre sense of humor against my specific request.

  It was a week after Ellen’s trip was supposed to have started that I suggested to Margot I inform the police I had not heard from her. We sat in my study sipping a Sunday afternoon cup of tea.

  “You’ve never shown me where you buried the body,” Margot said, grinning across her cup like a good-natured spaniel.

  I said, “I thought you’d rather not know. However, come along. I’ll show you.”

  I rose and led the way through the house with Margot chattering behind me. Getting my flashlight from the kitchen, I preceded her down the cellar steps.

  Holding my flash on the floor behind the furnace, I indicated the freshly laid cement. “There,” I said simply.

  She turned toward me, a peculiar expression beginning to form on her face, and all at once she was so desirable my restraint fell away and I took her in my arms. She stood stiff but unresisting when I kissed her, and her lips were cool.

  Immediately I realized it was a mistake to let down the barriers so soon, and the wisest course was to retain our surface amiability until the police lost interest in the case. I moved back a step, bowed and apologized.

  Margot’s stiffened face gradually drained to the color of paper. It was an interesting example of delayed psychological reaction. Obviously the sight of fresh cement for the first time fully impressed on her what we had done, and that it was not a matter for laughter.

  She climbed the stairs ahead of me slowly, swaying slightly from shock. When we reached the parlor, she turned to face me and her expression was a study in terror. Without a word, she took her coat and stumbled toward the door.

  * * * *

  From my study window I can see her talking on the phone now. But her boyish face is not laughing as usual and that eloquent hand is strangely still. Her expression is one of dull horror, and I am worried that she may transmit some of her feeling to whichever of her innumera
ble friends she is phoning. But she loves the phone, and perhaps a little womanly gossip will help cure the delayed shock reaction.

  I wish she would grin.

  A GIRL MUST BE PRACTICAL

  Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Nov. 1963.

  The phone call Lydia Hartman had been awaiting all day came just as she was leaving the office. She paused in the doorway and waited to see if it was for her.

  She heard her boss say, “Apex Insurance. Mr. Tremaine speaking.” Then he looked up and motioned toward her energetically.

  Crossing the room, she took the phone from Tremaine’s hand and said into it, “Mrs. Hartman speaking.”

  “This is Jules,” a deep masculine voice said in her ear. “I’m calling from Buffalo.”

  “Buffalo!” she said abruptly.

  “You told me to stick with him no matter where he went,” Jules Weygand said a trifle resentfully. “When he caught a bus to Buffalo, I drove my car up and was waiting at the depot here when he arrived.”

  Lydia glanced toward her boss, who had moved across the room and was lifting his hat from a clothes tree.

  “Does he know you followed him?” she asked in a low voice.

  “He hasn’t seen me. I feel like a private eye, tailing him around like this from one city to the next.”

  From the doorway Mr. Tremaine said, “Night, Lydia. Lock the door when you leave, will you?” Placing her hand over the mouth piece, Lydia said, “All right, Mr. Tremaine. Good-night.”

  Then, as the door closed behind her boss, she said into the phone, “Is he all right?”

  “Of course he’s all right,” Weygand said with a shade more resentment. “He’s registered at the Redmill Hotel, and since noon he’s had two pints of bourbon delivered.”

  “I might prevent him from doing something desperate, Jules.”

  “Like killing himself? Drunks don’t commit suicide.”

  “Jim’s hardly a drunk,” she said sharply. “You can’t blame him for going off the deep end after losing everything he had.”