Lay On, Mac Duff! Read online

  “Gives you a quick picture, doesn’t it?”

  “Why, it does,” said. “I never …”

  “Uh-huh. Now, what did you just remember that Peter Finn said in his evidence that you don’t want me to notice?”

  “What are you talking about?” I gasped.

  “Never mind. Lessee. Heard Winberry come in at 1:08, approx. Used key.” He paused a moment and then went on. “Called out. ‘Mr. Winberry, that there oil burner’s got to have its pump fixed.’ W. made a characteristic noise, ‘Kinda groaned like, the way he used to.’ At 1:15 approx. heard second person enter, used key. Um. Heard shot. Got upstairs two minutes later. Looked out street door. Saw tall man … um … hurrying toward Drive. Entered office. Door open. Winberry on floor. Shot in chest. Said, ‘I never saw him.’ Died. At 1:22, approx., admitted Hugh Miller, who rang bell. Um.” He paused again, and I opened my hand because the finger nails were going into my palm. “Miller called police,” he said, and shoved the notes into his pocket and sighed.

  “Do the police know—” I began.

  “Garnett’s on his way here now.”

  My heart jumped and pounded. “Who is he?”

  “He’s the police detective in charge.”

  “I won’t have to talk to him, will I?” I said in panic.

  “I hope not for your sake,” said the red-haired Mr. Jones. “You see, Bessie—Gibbon, Miss—your face is, well, beautiful and I like that transparent kind of skin and the kind of eyes you’ve got, but if there’s anything you’re planning to keep a secret, you better wear dark glasses and one of those influenza masks over your mouth, too. A more sensitive mouth I never ki—”

  “Why,” I gasped, “the idea!”

  “All right. I’ll tell you. You know something about a key.”

  “Oh!”

  “Right. And you also know something Peter Finn might have reported and didn’t.”

  “Oh!” I said and put my hands over my mouth.

  “Also,” he went on relentlessly, “you know a tall man who might have taken a cab from here to there, that night, and you’re afraid he did.”

  I put my arm over my eyes, and began to cry.

  “Don’t. Now, don’t,” he said. “Aw, please. Maybe this will help. That man in that cab had a crooked finger.”

  I dropped my arm and stared at him in terror.

  “So has he, eh? Then that’s bad.”

  “I wish you’d go away,” I cried, jumping up. “I’ve got to go out. I’ve got shopping to do right away.”

  “Garnett’s not as smart as I am. Better not run.”

  “But I must. If you can see … all that on my face …”

  “Hush now. Is it somebody you’re fond of?”

  “I don’t know. Please don’t ask me any more questions.”

  “Just the same, if you’d want to tell me what it’s all about,” he said and seemed shy, all of a sudden, “I can promise you to keep a secret until you give me leave to tell.” He went on more boldly. “I will not go away and leave you to be pounced on by Garnett while you’re upset. So you might as well give up that idea. Nor will I let you run out of here, all upset, unless I go, too.”

  “You haven’t anything to say about it. I don’t even know you.”

  “You will, though,” he said. “However, if you’ll promise me to go straight to your uncle with all this troub—Oh. So it is your uncle.”

  “Did you see that on my face, too?”

  “It was plain as the nose on it, plainer. For your nose, while cute, is not imposing, nor yet plain.”

  “Oh, never mind my nose!” I cried. “Oh, Mr. Jones, what shall I do?”

  Chapter Six

  So I told him everything. There just didn’t seem to be any point in trying to deceive him. Besides, I trusted him to help me. I don’t know why. He listened and followed, all about the red men, the telephone calls, the key, getting it all straight in his mind very quickly. Then he told me about this cab driver who had volunteered information. He claimed to have picked up a man at about (approx., Mr. Jones said) 12:45 A.M. on Fifth Avenue, near my uncle’s house, and taken him to the corner of 108th and Broadway, arriving there at approx. 1:05. The driver had noticed, when the man paid his fare, that the little finger on his right hand was stiff and crooked.

  “It must have been my uncle,” I said. “That proves it.”

  “Whoa, Bess,” said Mr. Jones. “Excuse me, that’s just an expression.”

  “Oh, don’t joke,” I said. “My Uncle Charles was there. He must have been.”

  “It begins to look like it,” he admitted, “but nothing proves it. No, honest. As far as I can see, there is no proof that he didn’t go to bed like a respectable citizen. Of course, a long string of little things begins to make it seem very very likely. You know the classic example. When the little boy comes out of the pantry with jam on his face and the jam’s gone out of the jar … Makes things seem clear. Especially if you know the little boy.” He paused and looked thoughtful.

  “It must have been …”

  “No, it mustn’t. That’s my point. For instance, the cab driver could have mistaken right hand for left. Or somebody else in the world could have a crooked finger. Or, suppose he went up there? Still, he needn’t have shot anybody. Don’t let your creative imagination get paralyzed—that’s what Mac Duff always says—just because you’re scared.”

  “Who’s Mac Duff?”

  “A friend of mine. Of course, in the jam case, you do know your boy.”

  “Do you … know my uncle?” I asked.

  “Well, I’ve heard. What do you think?”

  “That’s just the trouble. I don’t know him at all. I never saw him until last night. If I just knew he couldn’t … I mean the way I know people up home couldn’t …”

  “What does your uncle’s wife say about all this?”

  “I haven’t told her any of it. You see, I don’t know her, either. But I like her. She’s been lovely to me.”

  “She was Lina MacCredy, wasn’t she?”

  “Was she?”

  “Don’t you know anything about your own folks? Where have you been, Bessie … Gibbon, Miss?”

  “Why do you put Miss at the end, like a list in the paper?”

  “If I stopped at Bessie, would you throw me out?”

  “Not now,” I said.

  He filled his lungs with a deep breath. “Progress,” he said. And kept looking at me.

  “I came from Baker’s Bridge,” I told him. “My father was the Methodist minister.” And I told him all about that.

  “The story of your life,” he said when I had finished. “And you’re not engaged to anybody?”

  “No,” I said. “Now, you tell me.”

  “I’m not engaged to anybody, either.”

  “No, no. About my uncle.”

  “Oh. Frankly, he’s supposed to be a pretty tough customer in a business way.”

  “I don’t even know what his business is.”

  “He owns a bunch of theaters now. Used to promote various things. Usually, they made a lot of money and then suddenly folded up, and everybody went broke except your uncle. He was in some kind of deal with old man MacCredy. That’s how he got Lina.”

  “What!”

  “Well, it’s the story. MacCredy was in trouble, and Cathcart bought off his troubles and took the girl for collateral.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He bought her,” said Mr. Jones. “I’m telling it to you without any trimmings, but that’s what they say. MacCredy would have gone to jail. Instead, he’s in a home for the aged and Lina’s … here.”

  “Lina’s father is in a home! A poorhouse!”

  “He’s very comfortable,” said Mr. Jones, “and likes it better than jail. They say she’s young and pretty.”

  “She’s beautiful,” I said, “and sweet, too. I can’t believe that. I just can’t. Lina wouldn’t.…”

  “She couldn’t very well help it, I guess. I daresay MacC
redy could still go to jail. Your uncle’s not the man to give up an advantage. Anyhow, she married him to save her Pa, as in a mellerdrama. She’s just a bird in a gilded cage.” He looked around the room. “Some gilt,” he said, “some cage.”

  “What shall I do?” I said. “It must be getting late. That detective will be here. Shall I hide? Shall I tell him about the red man … about everything?”

  “Don’t tell him,” said Mr. Jones flatly. “I won’t let you.”

  “But if I can’t help it? If they guess?”

  “I don’t want to think of you living in this house, having told the police …”

  “I know,” I whispered. “I thought of that, too.”

  “I don’t like to think of you living here at all,” he said. “Will you marry me?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be silly! How could I …?”

  I turned my head quickly, but too late. I knew he’d seen right through me, as usual. I knew he knew I liked him an awful lot, a quite exciting lot. I braced myself to hear him say something about that, but he didn’t. He was quiet for a little while.

  “Let’s figure out how we’re going to deal with Garnett,” he said quietly, “shall we?”

  “Yes,” I said, turning gratefully to him, “you help me.”

  He blinked rapidly once or twice. He said, “Gee!” Then he began to talk in a very businesslike way, only, somehow or other, he was holding one of my hands in his two, rubbing it and warming it between them, and I knew I did like him very much because his hands were warm and dry and strong and I felt more as if I had a mother and a father than I had felt for a long time.

  “See him and lie,” said he. “The way to lie is to tell the truth and nothing but the truth but not the whole truth. Now you forget that this Miller came up here and said things to you. Oh, he came, and you talked, but just about things in general. Forget you ever got out of your bed last night and listened at the door. And relax. Answer everything they ask you as close to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as you can. That’s the system used in the courts, and nothing is better devised to convey a false impression. Don’t worry about what you might say because I’ll be here and I’ll do all that worrying for you. If you start on a wrong tack I’ll stop you, and they’ll never know it. Leave all that to me. I’m an old friend of yours, by the way. I knew you in Baker’s Bridge. That’ll tie in with what the butler heard in the hall and will help explain my being here. Call me J.J. Everybody does.”

  “Well, I wondered!” I said.

  “You’re a little girl from the country. You got here last night. You saw Winberry, met him, know when he left, went to bed, woke up, heard he was dead. That’s all you know. You don’t know from nothing. Don’t ask any questions. You’re a little girl from the country, and you’re happy.”

  “Yes, I am,” I said.

  “What do you think you’ll do with yourself in the big city?” he went on easily in the same tones.

  “I don’t know yet. I might go to a school and learn to be something. I’d like to design, you know, prints for fabrics or wallpapers. Lina says—”

  The doorbell rang. I heard Effans coming.

  “Go on,” said J.J.

  “Lina says I can go to a school if I like, and I suppose there are schools to teach designing.”

  “The woods is full of them. How do you know you’d like it?”

  “Oh, I used to draw out all kinds of crazy designs. Mother was always having to throw out baskets full. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Maybe you’re a genius.”

  “I don’t really think so,” I said. “I just like to do it. It’s fun. I seem to have a chance to learn how to make a living and have fun at the same time, and—”

  “I beg your pardon,” Effans said, “Miss Elizabeth. There is a Mr. Garnett here who wishes to speak to you.”

  “To me?”

  “You’re wonderful,” J.J. said very softly.

  “Yes, Miss. He is from the police department. I believe it has to do with …” A swarthy, stout man stood in the doorway.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “This is Charles Cathcart’s niece?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Hello, Garnett,” J.J. said, “I was wondering what you were up to.”

  “And what are you up to, I wonder,” Garnett said. He had another man with him, a kind of echo, who stood and fastened his eyes on us as if he’d read how to do it in a correspondence course.

  “Bessie, this unprepossessing individual is deteckative Garnett, and that’s Hull, beyond, another deteckative. I knew Miss Gibbon when she was that high,” he told them. “I had, you see, an in.”

  “Yeah?” Garnet said. Then he spoke to me more formally. “I’d like to ask a few questions, Miss, since nobody else seems to be at home. I understand a man named Hudson Winberry was here last night?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Who else was here?”

  “Mr. Gaskell, Mr. Maxon, and my uncle, of course, and myself and, oh, yes, Mr. Miller.”

  “Your aunt?”

  “No.”

  “She was out?”

  “Yes.”

  “She came in later?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see. Social evening, was it?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Miss Gibbon only arrived in New York last night,” J.J. said. “She’s from upstate.”

  “That so?”

  “Town name of Baker’s Bridge,” J.J. said. “Nice place. Small, though.” He smiled at me and I smiled back.

  “You are Cathcart’s sister’s daughter?”

  “What? Oh, yes, my mother was … yes.”

  “I see. Now, can you tell me, Miss Gibbon, what time Winberry left here?”

  “About twelve-thirty,” I said promptly. I looked at J.J. with sudden anxiety.

  “It must have been,” he said comfortably, nodding at me, implying, I saw, that we had been discussing it and therefore it was on the tip of my tongue.

  “Was he all right when he left?”

  A look of surprise and curiosity crossed J.J.’s face, and I felt my expression change to match it. “Why, what do you mean?” I said.

  “Nothing happened out of the ordinary, eh?”

  “No.”

  “He left when the others did?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did the members of this household do then?”

  I said, “Why, we went to bed.”

  “When did you hear about his death?”

  “The maid told me.”

  “This morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “When do you expect your aunt and uncle?”

  “My aunt will be home for tea.”

  “O. K.,” he said, “and thanks.” They started to go. Garnett turned back and would have caught the relief on my face, but J.J. said:

  “Say …”

  And Garnett said, “Now, don’t bother me.” But J.J. went all the way to the door with them, asking questions, as if he didn’t want them to go. So, of course, they hurried.

  “You were swell,” he said, coming back when they had gone. “You can lie as good as anybody when you just put your mind to it.”

  “Did I really do all right?”

  “You did swell. I was proud of you. You got going too strong on the yes’s and no’s there once.”

  “I know. But you helped. You helped such a lot. I could never have done it alone.”

  “Don’t mention it. Any time …” And then we both began to laugh. And then both stopped laughing, suddenly, as if it were too good to be true, that we could both see the funny part of it at exactly the same moment.

  “Just the same,” he said seriously, “be careful.”

  “I know.”

  “Try to be the little country girl when your uncle’s around.”

  “Yes, I’ll try. I understand.”

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you. That’s why you don’t tell Garnett anything. But Garnett ought to find out, just th
e same, from other sources. Don’t you think so?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m going to get hold of Mac Duff and see what he says. If you’ll give me leave. Listen, honey, I’m scared to keep on advising you all by myself. Let me ask Mac Duff.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You’ll like Mac Duff. MacDougal Duff. Please.”

  “But I don’t know any MacDougal Duff. Who is he?”

  “He’s a wise man. You’ll see when you meet him. He used to be a professor, taught me American history. What a course! Boy! Then he got a fee of ten thousand dollars for solving the Kinzer case. And clearing Johnny Palmer. Johnny Palmer’s got more money than sense, but he had sense enough to take Duff up on his offer.”

  “What offer?”

  “Oh, Duff went to him and said he’d explain everything for that much dough. Duff wanted to retire. Got tired of having to pound dates and data into undergraduates.”

  “Oh. But how could he explain everything?”

  “Well, he’d read the newspapers, and he figured he knew. So he asked for enough dough to keep him for two years. Trouble is, he wanted to buy a house about six months later, so he solved the Bradbury case. Got fifteen thousand out of old man Bradbury for keeping Gladys out of jail.”

  “I’ve got fifty dollars,” I said, “but it doesn’t seem like enough.”

  “I’ve got $29.93 myself until Friday,” J.J. said, “but he likes to look through stone walls just for fun sometimes.”

  “Can he see through stone walls, really?”

  “Yes,” J.J. said, “figuratively speaking. Let me tell him about this, Bessie, please.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Good. But listen, don’t say anything to him out of Shakespeare.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “Mac’s likely to think poorly of people who say ‘Lay on, Mac Duff’ to him. He says an intelligent person thinks of it, and realizes it’s been said, and passes up the chance. But a dumbbell is so pleased with his own cleverness, he always says it.”

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  “I knew you wouldn’t. Honest, I did. It’s just that I want him to like you. My God, as if he won’t. I’ll shut my mouth, now that I’ve got both feet in, and go and get him. You’ll hear from me.” He jammed his hat on and wiggled his overcoat up around his neck. “You will, indeed. So long.” He looked at me, and I was sorry he was going. “So long, Window Face,” he said tenderly and pumped my hand, once, in a funny old-fashioned way, and went.