Little Less Than Kind Read online

  CHAPTER SIX

  Very early Sunday morning, David woke to catch Abby slipping quietly back into their room. “He’s asleep,” she said. “He’s home.”

  They were having a late breakfast on the terrace, surrounded by the Sunday papers, when Ladd came out of the house in trunks, carrying a towel. His mien was bland, his eyes innocent.

  “I’m sorry about last night, Mother. I hope it didn’t spoil the party.” When they did not answer, he continued, “I don’t know why, but that Dr. Silver irritates me. I couldn’t stand him. I know I should have kept still. I’m sorry.”

  Now, into his blandness, there crept a slightly sullen note as if to say, You had better appreciate my handsome apology or you will be at fault, you know.

  “Dear, I’m glad,” said Abby, “that you realize how much you embarrassed me. I knew that you would.” She was eager to forgive. She praised.

  Ladd said to David, all meek and mild, “I guess I owe you an apology, sir. I know you invited him here.”

  David simply nodded, for under the humble pose now crept the antagonism.

  Abby said, “Well, we’ll say no more about it, shall we? The next time Dr. Silver comes you’ll be able to make your apologies to him, dear, and I’m sure he will accept them kindly. Swim before breakfast?” Thus Abby announced that all was now as well as could be.

  Ladd struck at his bare leg with the towel. “Cleona said she’d bring me a tray. Okay?” He seemed to be thinking over what had just been said.

  David cleared his throat. “Aaron Silver’s family is flying home this evening. I shouldn’t think we’ll ever have them all to dinner.”

  “You’ve never met his wife?” asked Abby, brightly.

  “No, and the children are very young, I believe he said.”

  He was dragging this in awkwardly, but David was sending a message. An explanation? Perhaps even an admission? Certainly a promise.

  And the boy was reading all of it. His eyes turned uneasily. He seemed dismayed. “You going to be around?” he said, rather awkwardly. “Or is somebody coming over?”

  “Not that I know,” his mother answered. “We’ll just be lazy.”

  “Quiet Sunday at home,” said David.

  The boy looked across the garden and his mouth threatened to smile. “Well, here goes,” he said suddenly. And suddenly, he went.

  David sipped cold coffee. The roses were beginning their fall bloom; the quiet Sunday air was sweetly fragrant. Peace lay on the pleasant garden scene. The clank and rattle of the board, the explosion of water as the boy dived, broke the silence pleasantly. David pondered; what was it that, for a moment, had dismayed him? It couldn’t have been the message. (Aaron Silver. Out. Out.) Then what? To have been able to read my message? Did that give him a turn? What if he wants me to remain the enemy? But what if I broke through, just now, if only in the smallest way? It must be harder to keep a man an enemy if you can communicate with him.

  He felt happier. He had forgotten Aaron’s enigmatic warning. He smiled at Abby. She looked happier, too.

  Nobody came to swim. Not even Gary. There was no sign of either of the Lorimers. It was not the custom of the house to serve a large Sunday dinner in the middle of the day. Cleona went off duty. Abby would herself prepare them a hearty, but informal meal a suppertime. So it was a quiet Sunday at home.

  Until three o’clock in the afternoon. David was in the room at the front of the house that Hob had called the “den” but Abby called the “library.” It was a bookish and leathery place that Hob had modeled after some masculine dream or other. In fact, it was Abby who used the room the most. But David had fled the light. He’d had enough sunshine. He was peacefully reading when he heard voices. Then Abby came in, leading a stranger, after whom followed Ladd and Gary Fenwick.

  “David, this is Mr. Douglas.”

  “Mr. Douglas?”

  “Gary’s uncle.”

  “Very pleased to meet Gary’s uncle. How are you, Gary?”

  “Fine,” said Gary mechanically.

  There was something in the air.

  “Will you sit down, Mr. Douglas? Or shall we all go into the other room?”

  “Mr. Crown,” said Gary’s uncle. He was a stocky man of middle age, obviously muscular. He was almost totally bald. The pink of his scalp was like a cap above the brown and weathered face. “I’m in the Police Department. Detective Bureau.” His eyes were a pale, shiny, almost icy gray. He had a deep voice and it was, David realized, apologetic and conciliatory. “I wonder if Mrs. Crown could let me speak to you privately for a minute.”

  “What is it?” cried Abby instantly. If this man’s purpose had been not to alarm her, he had accomplished the opposite.

  “I don’t think it’s a thing,” said Gary’s uncle. He understood, at once, that there was no putting Abby out. “I’ve had a kind of funny phone call, ma’am. I guess you folks better know about it. Especially since Gary, here, was going to come over and tell you anyway.”

  “Tell us what, please?” Abby had her hands clasped and held hard against her breast. David stood at her back, having been drawn there, irresistibly.

  “It’s nothing to upset you too much,” said Gary’s uncle. “Only some crackpot. This kind of thing happens. Whoever this nut is, he knew I was in the Department, you see?”

  David said to his wife, “Sit down, darling.” He put her gently into a leather chair. “Sit down, please,” he said to the others. “Now, let’s have it.”

  He himself perched on the arm of Abby’s chair. Something in the air. The two boys sat down, far to the left of David’s field of vision.

  “Well, it’s not too pleasant, you know,” said Douglas. He had seated himself, but only on the chair’s edge. He was supported on a firm tripod, his two feet and a minimum of his rump. “It has to do with the late Mr. Cunningham.”

  “With Hob?” Abby held her throat. David could feel the rhythm of her heartbeat. He slipped his arm down the chair back and rested his hand upon her far shoulder. “A phone call?” he prompted.

  “Well, you must know we do get this kind of thing. I am at my sister’s for dinner and somebody wants me on the telephone. Whoever it was knew where to find me, you see? Well, what he said to me, I think I’d better tell you, because you may be getting a similar call -yourselves, and it won’t be so bad if you have an idea what to expect. Somebody has got a bee in his bonnet about Mr. Cunningham’s death.”

  “Oh, what do you mean?” cried Abby. “My husband died of a long and terrible illness.”

  David pressed her shoulder. Distressed by her distress, he flicked a glance at the boy. Ladd showed no distress. He had that narrowed-in look upon his face. (David’s soul became prophetic.)

  “I don’t want to trouble you, Mrs. Crown,” the policeman was saying, “but, as I say, it may be better if you know. This nut’s idea is that somebody gave Mr. Cunningham … oh, probably sleeping pills or something of the sort … so that he died sooner than he should have.”

  Under David’s hand, Abby, although she did not seem to move, leaped, inside, as he could tell. And everything turned over for David. He felt stricken. What did Abby know? Had Hob … for God’s sake, Hob!… put himself out, too soon? And did Abby know it? Oh, no, not possible. Yet, did she have reason to fear it? David felt afraid.

  He said, stiff-lipped, “You are talking about suicide?”

  “Well, no,” said Douglas, “the idea this nut had, seems more like murder.”

  David could feel through his fingers and his arm the distress of the woman. He bent to her. “Abby, just don’t listen seriously. Just try to let it go over your head a minute.” He turned his head and said, “Now, will you explain what you mean by murder?”

  “What the voice on the telephone meant?” corrected Walter Douglas. ‘I’m not so sure.- Now, we have had instances of what you’d call a mercy killing and that is technically murder. Or, it’s been known for some person to supply the sick one with the means to do away with himself. But …”<
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  Abby said, “David?” He sat inside her fear, inside an aura. “You don’t believe that Hob took too many pills and died like that? Not Hob?” It must not be true. Abby would not have it so.

  “No, no,” said David sharply. “Don’t you believe it. This was some crackpot. Mr.… er … Douglas, is it?… he doesn’t believe it.”

  “What I was going to say,” said Douglas, “I guess you probably don’t realize, and this nut doesn’t realize either, that it’s pretty unlikely that a man can be poisoned or take poison in a hospital, or be murdered any other way, right under the doctors’ noses and the doctors not suspect a thing at the time. So you are right when you say that I don’t believe it. Of course …” He hesitated.

  “Go on,” said David.

  “Just the same, we are going to have to do a bit of checking. That’s the policy. I’ll talk to the doctors and all that. There was no autopsy?”

  “No,” said David.

  “I didn’t permit it,” said Abby. “I couldn’t have borne it.” Her voice was high.

  “Was one suggested, Mrs. Crown?”

  “Somebody said for the advancement of science. But I didn’t care about science. It could advance somewhere else. I cared about my husband.”

  David said, “Can we cut this short?” He was concerned for her. He knew she had had a bad shock. He wished, now that he had let her go out of the room, although she would have spent the time in lonely tension imagining horrors.

  The policeman was well aware of Abby’s temperament now. He said, “Yes, but there is one thing more. And I’m looking for a little help from you. Now, as I say, I don’t doubt that it is a crackpot. I don’t know who. Maybe you can give me some idea who, if I tell you the rest of it.”

  “Yes?” said David.

  “This fellow said that Mr. Cunningham was murdered by you, Mr. Crown.”

  “I see,” said David. Who saw. Clearly, now. He kept looking straight ahead at the policeman. On the left rim of his field of vision sat the boy, staring brilliantly.

  But Abby now sagged. “Well, then, of course it is just a crackpot,” she said with relief that was almost gay. “Isn’t that ridiculous?” She drew back from the gaiety. “But isn’t that terrible? Can’t that be stopped?” Her eyes pleaded.

  “If we can identify him, we can stop him,” the policeman said. He stood up, his pale eyes on David.

  David thought, The crackpot is sitting right over there, watching with great interest and considerable glee. But how can I say so? He rose. He did not look to his left. He said smoothly, “Thank you very much for letting us know about this, sir. At least, we’ll be prepared.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to think of some person,” said Douglas, “who has, say, a grudge against you, personally? And some kind of wild imagination?”

  Don’t describe him as plainly as that, thought David, or she will guess. He said, “No. But I hope the matter is going to be taken seriously. I hope that you will check and do so thoroughly.”

  “We expect to.” Something in the man’s manner asked questions.

  “Because if there is any more of this sort of thing,” said David, “I would like proof of some kind to be turned up that will settle the truth of the matter.”

  The policeman put his head to one side. “The trouble with these birds, Mr. Crown, you can’t reason with them,” he said warmingly. “It’s not proof they are after. Well, I’ll get along now. Maybe there won’t be any more of it.” He glanced to his right, toward the boys. But David did not let his gaze drift even one degree to his left.

  Ladd said, “Stick around, Gare.”

  Douglas said to Abby, “Goodbye, ma’am. I’m sorry if it upset you.”

  “It has,” said Abby forlornly. “But thank you … I guess. And good-bye.”

  David went out into the hall and along it to the terrace door with the policeman. Now that they were alone and apart, the policeman said in his deep voice, “The son, you think?”

  “I think so. I couldn’t prove it.”

  “Not so easy to prove. I don’t want to make a lot of trouble and misery for a lady like Mrs. Crown, any more than you do. But I’m going to tell you something. The Department doesn’t appreciate being used.”

  David said, “I know that.”

  “He’s young. But to lay false information is an offense.”

  “Yes, I know it is. Thank you.”

  “Better get him straightened around,” the man said with an icy flash.

  “I wish you’d tell me how to do it.”

  The policeman shook his head. “Well, sir, good luck is all I can say.”

  They shook hands.

  The two boys were at the library door. David turned to walk back toward them. He was angry. He walked fast. He never knew what he might, in that moment, have said or done, had the two of them not scampered up the stairs.

  “Okay, you saw it!” Ladd was triumphant.

  “Saw what?” Gary sank down upon Ladd’s couch. “Uncle Walt says it was a crackpot.” He glowered.

  “But didn’t you see dear David crack? He turned green! You must have seen it! The first time your uncle said what he said about ‘dying sooner.’ Right then! Old David, he knew what was up. And later on, when your uncle said ‘murder.’ Oh, wow! I’ll bet he peed in his pants. Didn’t you hear him try to put it off on suicide? Then when my mother asks, old David he says ‘No, no, no, not suicide.’ He was falling over his own feet. He didn’t know where to look. Then he tries to fake it out. ‘Proof’ he wants. Boy, that sounds great! Really great! You satisfied?”

  “I don’t get it,” said Gary sullenly. “How could your dad get poisoned? Uncle Walt says they’d have found it out.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t poison. He thinks they’ll never find out. Maybe they won’t find out. But he’s not so safe as he thinks he is. I’m absolutely sure, now.”

  “You said you were sure before,” growled Gary. “I don’t see what’s so great about figuring your dad was murdered. Sure gave your mom a bad time. I guess she must have been pretty crazy about your dad.”

  “Until he was no good any more,” Ladd said with a bitter mouth. (He hadn’t meant to say that. It wasn’t smart to say that in front of Gary, who always looked dumb and chewed like a cow if anybody said anything like that.)

  “I think you should forget it,” said Gary bluntly.

  Ladd affected not to hear him.

  “Listen, buddy,” said Gary, “you might as well figure you’re not going to get away with murder.”

  “Because you’ll talk, eh?” said Ladd nastily.

  “Nope,” said Gary. “Because you’re not going to fool my Uncle Walt.”

  Ladd made a gesture of pure impatience.

  “Not much,” said Gary. Gary, the henchman, caught in a pair of opposing loyalties, chose one.

  Ladd lifted his long lashes and looked at his former friend, buddy, and henchman coolly. “Listen, what I mean … I told you. I want to get rid of him! I told you that. So I say I’ll kill him. You know what I mean.”

  “Get rid of him?”

  “That’s right. Get him out of my house,” said Ladd imperiously. “Is there some law that says I have to have a murderer in the house?”

  “Well, if that’s what you mean …”

  Ladd mused a while. “How can you miss the point, Gare? He killed my father.” He spoke with sweet reason.

  Gary moved his jaws. At last he said, “That’s what you keep on saying. Okay, if he did, they’re going to find out. Uncle Walt is going to check. If there’s evidence, he’ll find it. You don’t have to do anything.”

  “Umm.” Ladd lay down on the floor in his favorite position and turned his face away.

  “Listen,” said Gary, “why don’t you show Uncle Walt what your father wrote?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a message.”

  “Yeah, but what message?”

  “I can read it. I learned the alphabet long, long
ago. Your uncle and dear David understand each other.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Gary bristled.

  “Oh, I don’t know. You saw them shake hands.”

  “What if they shook hands?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  After a moment, Gary said, “Want to go to the show?”

  “No.”

  “Want me to go home, see what I can find out while Uncle Walt is still there?”

  “No,” said Ladd listlessly. In a moment, he said, “Never did stop to think, did you, that a killer is dangerous?”

  “Huh?”

  “What if he gets rid of me?”

  “Listen,” said Gary, “he’s not going to …!”

  “Well, if he does, you’ll tell your uncle, I guess.” Ladd stretched.

  Gary burst out, “Why don’t you take it a little bit easy.”

  “Easy enough,” said Ladd lazily. “No hurry, I guess.”

  “That’s right. Wait and see.”

  “Yes, do that,” Ladd murmured.

  “Hey, you know,” said Gary relaxing, “it might not be such a bad deal to go into the Police Department.”

  Ladd, face hidden, mumbled, “Dangerous. But who wants to live forever, eh?”

  “That’s right and besides, they get a pretty good pension,” Gary said, “if they stick it out.”

  Ladd closed his eyes.

  Nobody, nobody understood his position. He was alone. Wasn’t he?

  David was guilty. Guilt written on him. No doubt about it. But the trouble was that David Crown, heading up Cunningham Company, a prominent citizen, wasn’t so easy to bring down. Gary was pretty naive. As if there wouldn’t be a conspiracy among those who were prominent, who had prestige. The doctors, for instance. They would conspire. They’d cover up. They wouldn’t want a fuss raised. What, and undermine their lordly prestige? They were supposed to know what a man died of. They were never going to admit it if they didn’t know, or if they’d covered up, or if they’d been wrong. And the law? The police? Yeah, Uncle Walt, dear Uncle Walt, he knew very well who was prominent and who wasn’t and how the pattern musn’t be upset. He and David Crown understood each other, all right. Cover-cover-cover-cover. Hob Cunningham was dead and buried. What if he had died a little soon? He had been dying, hadn’t he? So that was okay with everyone. Except his son. Except his son.