I was still a bit shocked. “And so this is how you repay your benefactor? By murdering him?”
“I feel bad about that,” he admitted, but then shrugged. “After I shot Fergusson, I panicked, dropped the gun, and ran out through the french windows right into Mr. Rudolph Fergusson.”
I now looked at Rudolph Fergusson. He appeared to be in his late thirties and was quite lean and gangling.
He spoke up. “We broke up the bridge game earlier than usual. I was taking the shortcut across the terrace to the east wing where my rooms are when I heard the shot and Pomfret came scooting out of the study. He ran into me and began babbling something about having just shot my uncle. So we went back there and, sure enough, it seems that he had.”
I turned back to Pomfret. “Back-pedaling a bit, how did you, a recently released convict, expect to get away with stealing from your employer? You would certainly be the first person suspected of the theft, regardless of the attempt to make it seem as though it had been the work of a burglar.”
Pomfret disagreed. “Put yourself into my benefactor’s shoes. Here you have just gone through a lot of trouble to get an oldtimer like me released after half a century in prison. You have even given me a job and room and board. Could you possibly imagine that I would be so unbelievably ungrateful as to turn on you and steal your goods? Of course not. You would even feel guilty for thinking such a thing. So you would decide that it must certainly have been a burglar.” He smiled about the room. “Well, officers, I’m ready to go.”
I took Ralph aside. “Ralph, there is more here than meets the eye.”
He shrugged. “It looks pretty cut and dried to me.”
“Ralph, how many of our murder cases are cut and dried?”
“About ninety-five percent.”
“Ralph, statistics don’t tell the whole story. I’d like to talk to the other people involved.”
We took Rudolph Fergusson into one corner of the large room.
“Mr. Fergusson,” I said, “was your uncle a wealthy man?”
The question was, of course, superfluous. The main building and its wings must have contained some thirty rooms and they were set in the middle of at least five acres of landscaped grounds.
“Well, yes,” Rudolph said. “I believe that the last time the subject of money came up, he mentioned that he was worth somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen million.”
“And who are his heirs?”
“I’ve always been led to believe that my sister Henrietta and I would split ninety percent of his estate. Jason would get ten percent.”
“Jason?”
“Jason Quinlan. He’s my uncle’s lawyer and a personal friend of the family.”
“How old are you, Mr. Fergusson?”
“Thirty-nine.”
“How old was your uncle?”
“Fifty-six.”
“In good health?”
“Yes. Quite healthy.”
“Possibly he could have lived to be a hundred?”
“Possibly.”
“I suppose that you have money in your own right?”
“Not really. I am a third vice-president in one of my uncle’s firms and I live within my salary.”
I took Ralph aside again. “He was institutionalized.”
“Who? Fergusson?”
“No. I mean Pomfret. He spent fifty years in prison. Fifty years of his life were shaped behind walls. He was told when to get up, when to go to bed, what to wear, how to wear it, and when to wear it. He was told what to eat, where to eat it, and when to eat it.”
Ralph nodded. “It sounds familiar. Once you get a steady job, you know what time you have to get up, and what time you have to eat, and—”
“Ralph,” I said. “At first Pomfret undoubtedly spent many sleepless nights in prison desperately wishing that he could escape his confinement. But after twenty or thirty years I suspect the longing for the outside world became more a matter of form.”
“He didn’t really want to leave jail at all?”
“He thought he did, but when he was unexpectedly released he realized he was lost in the outside world. He had been in prison too long. He missed the security, the routine, the friends and camaraderie he had in prison.”
“Are you telling me that Pomfret killed Fergusson just because he wanted to be sent back? He wanted to be caught?”
“Well, perhaps the actual killing of Fergusson was an accident. The theft itself was meant to send him back. You will notice that Pomfret was not wearing gloves. Undoubtedly he intentionally left fingerprints all over the study. And since Fergusson would very likely call in the police — despite all that benefactor jazz — they would take fingerprints and make comparisons. And Pomfret would be sent back to prison where he really wants to be.”
“So why kill Fergusson?”
“As I said, that might have been an accident. Pomfret was surprised, pointed the weapon automatically, and it went off.”
“All right,” Ralph said. “It sounds fine to me. We’ll take Pomfret to headquarters and book him.”
I rubbed my jaw. “On the other hand, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask just a few more questions.”
We took Jason Quinlan into one of the anterooms.
Quinlan was in his middle forties, with a full dark mustache.
“You were Andrew Fergusson’s lawyer?” I asked.
He nodded. “And also his accountant, business adviser, longtime friend, and now executor.”
“I understand that Fergusson was a wealthy man. Worth something in the vicinity of fifteen million dollars.”
“Quite right.”
“And what would ten percent of fifteen million dollars be?” I asked cagily.
“One million five hundred thousand dollars.”
“And why is Fergusson leaving you that much money?”
“Because I was his lawyer, accountant, business adviser, longtime friend, and now executor.”
“What was the state of Andrew Fergusson’s health?”
“Excellent, I would say.”
“He could have lived to be a hundred?”
“If he really tried.”
“I suppose that you are, in your own right, comfortably well off?”
“Not at all. I’ve gone badly into debt and there are my losses at the track.” He brightened. “One and a half million dollars certainly will come in handy.”
“What do you know about Pomfret?”
“Well, I know that he was an ex-convict. He has been agreeable enough though, except for tonight’s episode.”
“Did he seem happy here? Contented? Cheerful?”
Quinlan pondered. “The last month or so he seemed a bit melancholy. Mentioned something about missing all the friends he had back in prison.”
I drew Ralph into a corner. “Suppose you wanted to kill somebody but you didn’t have enough nerve to do the deed yourself. What would you be most likely to do, outside of giving up the project entirely?”
“Hire someone else to kill him?”
“Exactly, Ralph.”
“Come now, Henry. Are you saying that Pomfret was hired by someone around here to kill Fergusson and maybe even take the rap for it?”
“Why not? Here we have one of the beneficiaries of Fergusson’s will who sees Pomfret’s melancholia and ferrets out the reason. Pomfret would really rather be back in prison, so this beneficiary says, ‘Pomfret, I know a way to get you back to prison and at the same time do me a tremendous favor.’ ”
“That’s far-fetched, Henry. Pomfret could get himself sent back to prison just by tossing a brick through a window.”
“There is the matter of prestige, Ralph.”
“Prestige?”
“Of course. Pomfret was sent to prison for murdering a policeman. You and I do not find anything admirable in killing a police officer, but our view is not shared by many convicts. I imagine that behind the walls, Pomfret had a certain social position not gained by seniority alone. No, he had to go back to prison as a murderer or suffer a considerable loss in stature. Tossing a brick through a window would not do. And, despite what I speculated earlier, a simple theft would not either. It had to be murder, Ralph. Murder.”