The Innocent Flower Page 4

  “O.K., O.K.,” croaked Alfie.

  “When was the wine opened? Not Saturday?”

  “No,” Dinny answered, “because Mr. and Mrs. Miller came over Saturday night and they played bridge and had Tom Collinses. She didn’t need any excuse to drink a little.”

  “Then it wasn’t opened until …?”

  “This afternoon, I guess.”

  “What happened today?”

  “Well, Sunday morning, as usual. We had a late breakfast and read the papers. Mother worked in the garden, as usual. We didn’t have a real lunch, just a snack because breakfast was so late, and besides it was bacon and eggs. And then we were all off somewhere. I mean, I went to the beach again with Jean. And the boys went, too, didn’t you? And Mitch was over at a friend’s house. None of us kids were home but Taffy and Davey.”

  Davey was, by now, asleep again with ketchup on his chin.

  “Go on,” Duff said.

  “I got home about a quarter of five, because I had to get supper. Taffy had been taken sick. I don’t know just when. Sometime in the afternoon. Mother was upstairs with her. Poor kitten, she whoopsed all over the place. Brownie was sitting out on the terrace when I came through the back way, and she told me. She had the wine open because she was drinking some.”

  “At a quarter of five?”

  “Yes.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, I got dressed. You see, we walk down to the beach in our bathing suits from here. And hung out my suit and started to boil some eggs and fix a salad.”

  “You were in the kitchen?”

  “Yes, I was getting supper from about five until we sat down. But we didn’t sit down until six-thirty, I guess. The doctor came. The boys got home, and Mitch—”

  “Times, please.”

  “Well, let’s see. The doctor came about six to look at Taffy. The boys were home by five-thirty.”

  “I had to spray the roses,” Paul said. “Mom told me to.”

  “Paul helps a lot in the garden,” Dinny explained. “He mows the lawn.”

  “I got home around six,” said Mitch brightly. “I know because Sally’s mother sent me home.”

  “What,” asked Duff, “was Brownie doing all this time? Still sitting on the terrace, drinking wine?”

  “Oh, no. I heard her go upstairs pretty soon after the doctor came. I guess she wanted to see what he had to say about Taffy. She came down—oh, a little before six-thirty—and said Mother said we should go ahead with supper. And we all sat down—”

  “Except Paul,” Alfie reminded her.

  “That’ s right. Paul was still working in the rose garden.”

  “You have to use up all the spray,” Paul explained. “Once you get the sprayer full, you just keep going until it’s empty.”

  “You kept going until when?”

  “Until Alfie called me,” Paul said.“I’d just about finshed. I was going to clean the sprayer after supper. I opened it to let the pressure out.”

  “Had it begun to rain?” Duff looked politely skeptical about this whole yarn, and Paul responded.

  “Sure. It was raining a little.”

  “You continued to spray the roses in the rain?”

  “I told you, you’ve got to get that stuff all out of the sprayer. Besides, it was a contact spray.” Duff said nothing. “Look,” Paul said, “some kinds of bugs chew up the leaves. So you put a stomach poison like lead arsenate on the leaves, and they eat it and die. But some of them have beaks, like, and they suck. You have to get them by a contact poison. Hit them with it. Makes them suffocate. Well, naturally, if you’re trying to coat the leaves and it rains, the rain will wash it all off. But if you’re trying to kill a bug by hitting him with the stuff …”

  “He’s dead!” said Alfie. “Let it rain.”

  “Thank you,” said Duff. “I think I understand now.” He turned to Dinny. “You sat down at the table about six-thirty? All the rest of you?”

  “That’s right. I was up and down, though, bringing in stuff. We had deviled eggs and a green salad and cheese spread and jelly and peanut butter and toast and—”

  “Pickles,” said Mitch drowsily.

  “Yeah, and what? Fruit. That’s all.”

  “You mean we were going to have it,” Alfie said.

  “Brownie was eating with us. We heard the doctor come down and make a call on the phone.”

  “Time?”

  “I don’t know. Close to six-thirty.”

  “Brownie got up and went out into the hall?”

  “Yes, to talk to him.”

  “Were they in your view?”

  “Not while I was in the dining room,” said Dinny. “My back was turned.”

  “Any of you?”

  “I could see them, kind of,” said Alfie.

  “Did you see the doctor drink out of her wine glass?”

  “No. Because I …”

  “Oh, I saw that,” Dinny said. “You see, I took Mother a tray, upstairs. I just waited for the toast. I went right by where they were … and he did take a sip. She said something like he looked as if he needed it, and he took a sip, just kidding, you know.”

  “It was not poisoned at that time,” Duff said. “How long did they talk?”

  Dinny said, “You’ll have to ask somebody else this part. I took Mother’s tray up and was just coming down again when she screamed. And the doctor told me to get Mitch and Davey upstairs as fast as I could, so that’s what I did.”

  “Wait,” Duff said. “What about the second bottle of wine?”

  “I don’t know,” said Dinny with a furrowed brow. “It was standing in the pantry when I got home from the beach. Both bottles were. Both had been opened, and both had some gone. Brownie had a glass out on the terrace. I don’t know why she’d have opened them both. Or where the second one came from, because only one was standing in the pantry the night before. Or this morning. I don’t understand about that second bottle.”

  “At supper, did you put a bottle in the dining room for her?”

  “No, I didn’t. She put it on herself, when she came down. She just took a bottle. Which one, I wouldn’t know. They were just alike, anyway.”

  “Then you didn’t touch it?”

  “No, but I touched the other bottle. The one left in the pantry. I poured a glass for Mother.”

  “Look here, my dear, did your mother drink it?”

  “Yes, she did,” said Dinny. “Anyhow, it’s gone from the tray. Why?’

  “We have Bottle A,” Duff said, “which Brownie herself took to the dining room and which stood on the table there. Bottle A was not poisoned at, say, six-thirty, because the doctor, who remains healthy, took a sip that had been poured from it. Now, according to you, Bottle B was not poisoned, either. Where is that tray now?”

  “They took it. They took everything with any food. But I noticed the wine was gone. She’d started to eat. The toast was b-bitten …”

  Duff smiled at her and broke the spiral of mounting tension. “We’ve got to get all these tiny details clear, you know. Now, let’s see. What time do you think you poured the wine from that bottle?”

  “Well, I don’t know. But it was only a few minutes after we sat down. I only waited to toast a piece of bread. Then I got up and took the tray. It was just about when Brownie went out in the hall. Alfie, don’t you remember?”

  “Yeah, but you were worrying about Paul, and I went out and yelled for him.”

  “Go slow,” said Duff. “This is getting complicated. Now, we have a bottle of wine on the table. Not poisonous yet. Dinny goes to the kitchen and then upstairs?” She nodded. “Alfie goes where?”

  “To the back porch.”

  “And Brownie goes out into the hall.” Duff contemplated this arrangement of people. “Now, when she came back— How much later?”

  “I was just getting back, too,” said Alfie. “Couple of minutes, that’s all.”

  “And she
refilled her glass?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She drank it?”

  “Yeah. It seemed to hurt her mouth and throat,” Alfie said. “And then she … you know.”

  “O.K.” Duff stopped him. “It would seem that in two or three minutes, there, the wine which had been harmless became fatal. Is this where we are getting? If, of course, it was the wine. Now, who remained in the dining room with Bottle A?”

  “Mitch and Davey,” Dinny said, sucking her breath in.

  Mitch twisted down under the covers. “I didn’t either!” she said indignantly. Her small face was nearly hidden.

  “You didn’t what? Come on, Mitch,” Alfie coaxed her, “you might as well say.”

  “I didn’t stay there. I went out in the kitchen.”

  “What for?” demanded Paul.

  “Never mind,” Mitch’s voice was smothered and she bounced a little.

  “Leaving Davey?” Duff said gently.

  They looked at the little sleeping boy. “Oh, my gosh,” said Dinny. “You’ll never get out of him what happened. He makes things up. He’s liable to tell you it was a lion or an elephant. Mother says he doesn’t know the difference yet between what he makes up and what really happens.”

  “Yeah, he’ll say anything,” confirmed Alfie.

  Mitch heaved.

  “Still,” mused Duff, “have we pinned this down to the crucial two or three minutes? We do not, in the first place, know that the poison was in the wine, although it seems, on the face of things, to have been there. However, neither do we know—or do we?—whether she poured herself that first glass out of Bottle A or Bottle B. Who saw her?”

  They looked blank.

  “Perhaps she poured a glass in the pantry and carried the bottle in as an afterthought. The other bottle.”

  “I get it,” said Paul. “All the nonpoisoned wine came out of Bottle B. And the poison was in Bottle A all the time.”

  “It must have been,” said Dinny with a little sigh.

  “No, it wasn’t either!” Mitch sat up and her curls wagged. “Because if it was, why isn’t Davey dead, then?”

  “Davey?”

  “I wasn’t going to tell on him. But he took some of that wine while Brownie and everybody was gone. Oh, Davey lo-oves wine. He did. He was bad. I know he isn’t supposed to. But he drank it. ’Course he spilled some. I took his glass away and went out in the kitchen and washed it. That’s what I went out there for. I scolded him, Dinny. But there wasn’t any sense,” said Mitch shrewdly, “in getting Brownie mad at him. So that’s why I did it.”

  “Ye Gods,” said Alfie.

  “Did you tell this to the detectives? The men who were here?”

  “They didn’t talk to me. They just talked to Dinny and Paul. But they took my fingerprints.”

  “Oh, gosh, Mitch, now everything’s mixed up again.”

  “Well, I can’t help it.” Mitch bounced.

  “If it was the wine,” Duff sighed. “I’m beginning to wonder. Now, let’s go over it again. A few minutes after six-thirty, Brownie went into the hall carrying with her a glass of wine. She offered some to the doctor. We know it was not poisoned. Bottle A stands on the table in the dining room. Bottle B stands in the pantry. Since Davey samples Bottle A, we know it is not yet poisoned. Since Dinny takes some from Bottle B to her mother upstairs, we know Bottle B is not yet poisoned.

  “Where were each of you? Tell me again.”

  “I went upstairs,” said Dinny, “with the tray. I didn’t get down again until just as she screamed.”

  “I was working outside,” said Paul. “Alfie yelled, and I put the sprayer down and loosened the top and came in to wash my hands. I was in the kitchen when she screamed.”

  Alfie said, “I went through the French doors, out on the back porch, and over to the corner and yelled. Paul yelled, ‘O.K.’ So I came in again. I got back to the table just when she did. Brownie, I mean. She was putting more wine in her glass.”

  Duff turned to Mitch, who had come out of the covers as a snail will come out of his shell when nobody’s looking. Mitch was small for her age, very tiny, and thin, too, compact with energy. Her eyes were brilliant and too pale a brown in her sunbrowned face, as if they caught the light. She tossed her curls. “I told you. Everybody went away, and Davey grabbed the wine. So I scolded him and took the glass out and washed it.”

  “Did you take the bottle, too?” Duff asked softly. “Did you happen to swap those bottles?”

  “Oh, Mitch …” said Dinny reproachfully.

  “I never did any sucha thing!” snapped Mitch and disappeared with a great heave of the blankets.

  Duff raised his eyebrows at the others.

  Paul shook his head, biting his lip, looking grave. His long nose seemed to lengthen with sober thought. Alfie shrugged and rolled his eyes. Dinny sighed.

  Duff said, “Well, let’s suppose Bottle B was poisoned. Bottle A was not. Suppose, while only Davey sat there, the bottles were changed by someone.”

  “But Mother …” Dinny cried.

  “I know,” Duff said. “Was it your idea to take her some wine?”

  “I thought she’d be tired.” Dinny looked for a moment like a plump puzzled angel, her white halo poised, head thrown back.

  “But if she didn’t really want it? Perhaps she only pretended to drink it, to please you. Perhaps she didn’t drink it, after all.”

  “We can ask her,” said Paul with dryness and precision, as one who reminds the rest of a world of fact.

  “But you’re saying”—Dinny’s hair seemed to rise, somehow, and stand on end—“you’re saying I nearly poisoned my mother!”

  Duff said, gently, “We are doing a lot of wild speculating without any facts. Tomorrow, we’ll know better.”

  A telephone rang.

  Dinny said, “But Mother …”

  “I’ll go,” Duff said, “if you please.” So Alfie showed him the upstairs phone, in Mary’s room, across the hall.

  It rang again. Duff picked it up.

  “Yes?”

  “Professor Moriarity?”

  “WHAT!”

  “I beg your pardon. Is the doctor theah?” said the voice with definitely British inflections.

  “Do you mean Dr. Christenson?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “No, he is not here, but he may be back.” Duff had recovered himself and he purred. “Can I give him a message?”

  “Tell him that Oliver O’Leary would like to speak with him. Do you mind?”

  “Not atawl,” returned Duff in the same rat-a-tat.

  “Thank you. Sorry to trouble you.” Click.

  Duff put his long fingers through his hair.

  He looked around the pleasant, shabby room, saw Mary’s tumbled desk, her modest dressing table, her slippers on the floor. The room had a sweet smell. A woman’s room. Duff found himself staring at her slippers. They seemed to him to be very small and dainty.

  He realized with some surprise that he did not at all relish the idea of questioning the Moriarity kids about their father.

  CHAPTER 4

  Hey, the doorbell’s ringing.” Alfie’s head came around the door. “You want me to go? Is there anybody downstairs?”

  “Maybe it’s Constance Avery,” Dinny said. “She was supposed to come over.” Paul leaned on the doorjamb behind her, saying nothing.

  Duff looked at his watch. It was a few minutes after nine. “I’ll go down. After all,” he muttered, “I am the official discourager of bogey men around here.” They let him through the little crowd the three of them made at Mary’s door. As he started down the stairs Duff had a clear intuition that as soon as he had gone, they were going to say some things to each other that they didn’t want him to hear.

  So convinced was he that he paused on the landing, out of their sight, and deliberately listened.

  Mumble, mumble, hush. Then a fierce whisper. “But he’ll think Davey did it!” Ssh.… mumble … silence.


  The doorbell was playing “Shave and a haircut, bay rum.” Duff went on down.

  At the door there was a slim, sad fellow of indeterminate age whose brown eyes fixed themselves on Duff’s face with an appeal both desperate and comical. “MacDougal Duff?” His manner was almost a burlesque of delicate formality. The eyes rolled. “Name of Haggerty. Few moments of your valuable time? May I come in?”

  “What do you want?” Duff asked him pleasantly.

  “Mr. Duff,” Haggerty said in something like a confidential whisper, “you can do me a great favor. It so happens, unfortunately, I am out of a job.”

  “Indeed?” Duff drew back a little, amused. The man stepped in. He turned his toes out as he did so, making a leg, so that his movement was formal, like part of a bow, and yet there was a certain springiness and alacrity that was comical, too.

  “I won’t bore you with the details, Mr. Duff. But I was a news reporter. Last week they threw me out.”

  “Unjustly,” murmured Duff.

  Haggerty nibbled on his lip. His eyes were wells of sadness. “That may be,” he said. “What’s past is past. The future concerns me. Now, it is up to me to make good. I’ve got to redeem myself.” He threw out his hand, moving the arm from the elbow. “I’ve got to prove they were wrong. For instance”—the voice softened down—”here is a death, mysterious. Murder, because”—here the eyes flew open wide to punctuate—”the famous MacDougal Duff is quietly investigating.”

  Duff pursed his lips.

  “Wait.” Haggerty seemed to sense Duff’s impulse to throw him out, too. “If I can get the inside track here, if I can scoop the story, why then—then! I can make them eat their words.”

  The man was unbelievable. He spoke in a series of clichés. He could easily have been making fun. Yet the impression he gave was of total naïveté. The pan was dead, somehow. He let through no flavor of sarcasm.

  “I don’t quite understand why I should be expected to do you a favor,” Duff said, reasonably. He heard the kids on the stairs behind him. Some of them had come down into the hall.

  “You haven’t got anything against me, have you?” Haggerty said. “It may so happen, I can tell you some things you don’t—er—know.” He was arch and sly and dead serious all at once.

  “Can you?” said Duff indifferently.