“I wish to make my position very clear,” Colonel Jimmy Mapes said at last. “If your client, young Tennant, wasn’t a well-known local eccentric I’d consider his action in bringing you to town to be extremely precarious to himself. There are courts for slander, you know, suh. As I was just telling my brother Cushman—”
“You just came from there?”
“Yes. We love each other dearly but we’ve never been, well, too close socially. But in times like this, the Mapes stick together. He seems to welcome an investigation, however I wanted to make my position clear to him and to offer any help that I might—”
“But he’s the one that has the money, isn’t he?”
“I consider that remark offensive, suh.” Colonel Jimmy’s face lit up to apoplectic red and his jowls shook with suppressed rage.
McGavock felt better. He changed the subject. “Your wife was telling me that after the two housekeepers, Miss Leggett and Mrs. Dalton, departed, Brother Cushman turned their personal effects, and small furniture, over to you and you peddled it. I want to know who owns that stuff now.”
Colonel Jimmy Mapes said: “I was only the agent. It was all perfectly regular. Cushman gave me the commission and I actuated it. He’d kept the stuff around until he was tired looking at it and then turned it over to me to dispose of. Cushman had taken out a very small insurance policy on the stuff, to protect it as time went by, and I considered the policy as title to the goods. It proved legally that he owned the stuff, you see. You can’t insure chattels or anything else if they don’t belong to you. Therefore an insurance policy is proof of ownership.”
McGavock laughed. “That’s what the courts call self service. Baloney. Ownership of a house, or car, is easier to establish, that I grant you, but a policy isn’t a deed — and you know it as well as I do.”
“It vindicates me,” Colonel Mapes said carefully, “in case there is trouble. I just thought I’d make the point.”
“And puts the blame on Brother Cushman, whom you love dearly. Well, who bought this stuff, and what was it?”
“Now let’s see.” Colonel Jimmy frowned and took down a ledger. “That was last May, just after Mrs. Kirkland came to work for Cushman. I took it out to a farm sale I was having on Purtle Pike, and pushed it with the farm goods.” He leafed through the pages. “Here we are. I made it up into three lots. A bedstead, a set of dining room chairs, a trunk and a sewing cabinet.”
“Do housekeepers hereabouts bring their own bedsteads? Who bought the trunk and sewing cabinet?”
“The bedstead, chairs, and sewing cabinet belonged, as I understand, to Mrs. Dalton. She’d shipped her furniture without saying anything about it. It came a day after she’d left. Cushman had no alternative but to take it in and keep it until called for. It was never called for, of course. Who bought the trunk and sewing cabinet? Here we are. A hillman out beyond Shellbark Chapel, on Powder Ridge. A man named Francy Scoggins.” He closed the book and made a little gesture to show that the interview was closed. “Glad to be of help, suh. I guess that fixes you up, eh?”
McGavock nodded and arose. As he picked up his hat, he asked intimately: “What’s your theory on this? You must have given it a good deal of thought yourself. I like to know just how you figure—?”
Colonel Jimmy Mapes looked completely frustrated. Honesty seemed to creep into his voice. He said: “You’re damned right I’ve given it a bit of thought. I’ve poked around a bit and asked a few questions, too. But I didn’t get far. There’s a long-haul Jackson bus that comes through here at three in the morning. Cushman says they left at night, so I figure they caught that bus. By the time I got interested the trail was too cold, five years for Miss Leggett and two for Mrs. Dalton.”
“Nothing at all, then?”
“Nothing at all. Except distress for Cushman. He’s my only brother and my wife and I feel sorry for him living alone, a bachelor, in that big old house. We’re glad now that Mrs. Kirkland has come. Things’ll be a little more cheerful around there now.”
McGavock nodded absently. He waved goodbye with a waggle of his hand and went out onto the street. He wanted to make a report to his client. And he wanted to ask his client a question.
Mr. Littleton Tennant, dressed singlet, dirty ducks, and tennis shoes was in the side yard of his little whitepainted brick cottage, setting mole traps. His long, patrician face was pale and scholarly in the fading light and McGavock noticed with interest that he seemed quite capable with his hands. His pensive eyes lit up genially at the sight of McGavock and he asked: “Any news?”
“Plenty,” McGavock said wryly, “Let’s go inside.”
Seated once more in the turbulent, book-filled study McGavock relaxed beneath the gooseneck lamp, in the easy chair.
After a moment he drew out from his pocket the balsawood gadget. “Take a look at this,” he said. “What do you make of it?”
Tennant took it from his fingers. “A balsa center, about the size and shape of an egg, a hickory spindle through it. It looks like a fisherman’s float.”
“It does, in a way,” McGavock said mildly. “But for those rawhide shoe laces tied to the spindle-ends. And why a tough hickory spindle, why not a light balsa spindle?”
Suddenly Tennant’s jaw dropped. “Now I recognize it, McGavock!”
He reached into a stack of books, brought out a big green volume. “Our Police Protectors,” he said. “Augustin Costello. Published by the author, New York, 1885. Here we are, page 422. Take a look at this.” The picture was titled A Burglar’s Outfit, and showed the various tools contained in an old-fashioned cracksman’s kit. Tennant’s finger pointed to an object exactly like that which lay on the table before him.
The object was Number One in the kit. It was marked Gag.
“A gag,” Tennant said. “An old-style gag. The history of gags is very interesting, by the way. Every housebreaker always carried a gag such as that. Charlie Peace, the English portico thief, always had one with him, for instance. In the eighteenth century, a hundred years before Peace, gags were this same shape, and generally made of ivory. Where did you get it?”
“Mrs. Kirkland found it in the woodshed.”
Tennant thought this over. “This complicates matters, doesn’t it? Pretty obviously someone was planning to break into Cushman Mapes’ home. You get the significance, don’t you?” He waited a moment. “No one but a stranger would dare to use a gag. If your next door neighbor robs you, and gags you, to keep you from yelling, then when the gag’s removed you promptly identify him to the police. Can you figure it out?”
McGavock turned his gaze from the ugly looking object before him. “No,” he said slowly. “But your reasoning’s wrong someplace. There’s no stranger involved in this.” After a moment, he told his client about the two housekeepers, and the furniture which had been sold.
Tennant pondered. “You’ve really been learning things, haven’t you!” McGavock could almost hear the wheels clicking in his head. “Well, bless my heart. Now we’re getting someplace. If this doesn’t prove my theory about Cushman, it certainly partially confirms the crime pattern. Landru stole furniture and clothes from his victims. And you know about Dumollard, don’t you?”
“I can’t say I do. But I’m always glad to learn.”
“Dumollard, like Landru and Cushman, murdered women for what money he could salvage, and for their personal effects. This is almost unbelievable but it’s the gospel truth: when he was arrested they found one thousand two hundred and fifty articles of feminine attire in his dwelling. No one knows how many he killed, they could only pin nine actual murders on him. Executed Lyons, January 20,1862.”