“We had put it in the safe not ten minutes before that,” Adele said. “We’d been to a party, Ralph and I, and we got home very late, and Daddy was still awake, reading, sitting in that chair you’re in this very minute. I asked him to open the safe, and he did, and he put the jewelry in and closed the safe and… and then they came and… and made their threats.”
“What time was this?”
“The usual time. The time they always come. Two forty-five in the morning.”
“And you say the jewelry was put into the safe at what time?”
“About two-thirty,” Gorman said.
“And when was the safe opened again?”
“Immediately after they left. They only stay a few moments. This time they told my father-in-law they were taking the necklace and the earrings with them. He rushed to the safe as soon as the lights came on again—”
“Do the lights always go off?”
“Always,” Adele said. “It’s always the same. The lights go off, and the room gets very cold, and we hear these strange voices arguing.” She paused. “And then Johann and Elisabeth come.”
“Except that this time they didn’t come,” Meyer said.
“And one other time,” Adele said quickly.
“They want us out of this house,” Van Houten said, “that’s all there is to it. Maybe we ought to leave. Before they take everything from us.”
“Everything? What do you mean?”
“The rest of my daughter’s jewelry. And some stock certificates. Everything that’s in the safe.”
“Where is the safe?” Meyer asked.
“Here. Behind this painting.” Van Houten walked to the wall opposite the fireplace. An oil painting of a pastoral landscape hung there in an ornate gilt frame. The frame was hinged to the wall. Van Houten swung the painting out as though opening a door, and revealed the small, round, black safe behind it. “Here.”
“How many people know the combination?” Meyer asked.
“Just me,” Van Houten said.
“Do you keep the number written down anywhere?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Hidden.”
“Where?”
“I hardly think that’s any of your business, Detective Meyer.”
“I’m only trying to find out whether some other person could have got hold of the combination somehow.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s possible,” Van Houten said. “But highly unlikely.”
“Well,” Meyer said, and shrugged. “I don’t really know what to say. I’d like to measure the room, if you don’t mind, get the dimensions, placement of doors and windows, things like that. For my report.” He shrugged again.
“It’s rather late, isn’t it?” Van Houten said.
“Well, I got here rather late,” Meyer said, and smiled.
“Come, Daddy, I’ll make us all some tea in the kitchen,” Adele said. “Will you be long, Detective Meyer?”
“It may take a while.”
“Shall I bring you some tea?”
“Thank you, that would be nice.”
She rose from the couch and then guided her husband’s hand to her arm. Walking slowly beside him, she led him past her father and out of the room. Van Houten looked at Meyer once again, nodded briefly, and followed them out. Meyer closed the door behind them and immediately walked to the standing floor lamp.
The woman was 60 years old, and she looked like anybody’s grandmother, except that she had just murdered her husband and three children. They had explained her rights to her, and she had told them she had nothing to hide and would answer any questions they asked her. She sat in a straight-backed squadroom chair, wearing a black cloth coat over blood-stained nightgown and robe, her handcuffed hands in her lap, her hands unmoving on her black leather pocketbook.
O’Brien and Kling looked at the police stenographer, who glanced up at the wall clock, noted the time of the interrogation’s start as 3:55 A.M., and then signaled that he was ready whenever they were.
“What is your name?” O’Brien asked.
“Isabel Martin.”
“How old are you, Mrs. Martin?”
“Sixty.”
“Where do you live?”
“On Ainsley Avenue.”
“Where on Ainsley?”
“Six hundred fifty-seven Ainsley.”
“With whom do you live there?”
“With my husband Roger, and my son Peter, and my daughters Anne and Abigail.”
“Would you like to tell us what happened tonight, Mrs. Martin?” Kling asked.
“I killed them all,” she said. She had white hair, a fine aquiline nose, brown eyes behind rimless spectacles. She stared straight ahead of her as she spoke, looking neither to her right nor to her left, seemingly alone with the memory of what she had done not a half hour before.
“Can you give us some of the details, Mrs. Martin?”
“I killed him first.”
“Who do you mean, Mrs. Martin?”
“My husband.”
“When was this?”
“When he came home.”
“What time was that, do you remember?”
“A little while ago.”
“It’s almost four o’clock now,” Kling said. “Would you say this was at, what, three thirty or thereabouts?”
“I didn’t look at the clock,” she said. “I heard his key in the door, and I went in the kitchen, and there he was.”
“Yes?”
“There’s a meat cleaver I keep on the sink. I hit him with it.”
“Why did you do that, Mrs. Martin?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“Were you arguing with him, is that it?”
“No. I just went over to the sink and picked up the cleaver, and then I hit him with it.”
“Where did you hit him, Mrs. Martin?”
“On his head and on his neck and I think on his shoulder.”
“You hit him three times with the cleaver?”
“I hit him a lot of times. I don’t know how many.”
“Were you aware that you were hitting him?”
“Yes, I was aware.”
“You knew you were striking him with a cleaver.”
“Yes, I knew.”
“Did you intend to kill him with the cleaver?”
“I intended to kill him with the cleaver.”
“And afterwards, did you know you had killed him?”
“I knew he was dead, yes.”
“What did you do then?”
“My oldest child came into the kitchen. Peter. My son. He yelled at me, he wanted to know what I’d done, he kept yelling at me and yelling at me. I hit him too — to get him to shut up. I hit him only once, across the throat.”
“Did you know what you were doing at the time?”
“I knew what I was doing. He was another one, that Peter.”
“What happened next, Mrs. Martin?”
“I went in the back, bedroom where the two girls sleep, and I hit Annie with the cleaver first, and then I hit Abigail.”
“Where did you hit them, Mrs. Martin?”
“On the face. Their faces.”
“How many times?”
“I think I hit Annie twice, and Abigail only once.”
“Why did you do that, Mrs. Martin?”
“Who would take care of them after I was gone?” Mrs. Martin asked of no one.
There was a long pause, then Kling asked, “Is there anything else you want to tell us?”
“There’s nothing more to tell. I done the right thing.”
The detectives walked away from the desk. They were both pale. “Man,” O’Brien whispered.
“Yeah,” Kling said. “We’d better call the night D.A. right away, get him to take a full confession from her.”
“Killed four of them without batting an eyelash,” O’Brien said, and shook his head, and went back to where the stenographer was typing up Mrs. Martin’s statement.