Hot and plentiful food appeared. I started forking up scrambled eggs almost before the server had set down the plate. With a full mouth I mumbled, “How did you get in?”
“I’ve got all the keys.” Triumphantly Marty held up a loaded key ring. “And I do mean all of them. They were Daddy’s keys.”
I swallowed. “And you remembered the wine cellar?”
“Eventually. We started with the third floor-damn, I was scared we’d find you where you found Alfred. And then we looked in the upstairs stacks, although there’s no place there to hide a human, dead or alive. We even looked in the dumbwaiter that runs between the floors. And when we didn’t find you up there, we started for the basement. Remind me to tell the board we really need to do something about the mess down there. And, yes, I knew about the wine cellar because Daddy used to talk fondly about the good old days, when the building was new. Not that he was old enough to remember, but his father must have told him. Then it took me a while to figure out which key opened it, but I did, and voila! There you were, thank goodness. Okay, your turn.”
The food on my plate had vanished, and I started in on the pastries in the center of the table, with another cup of coffee. “I had plenty of time to think yesterday, or last night, or whenever it was. I told you Doris called me at home and said that Charles had found something at the Society that I really needed to see. I thought he was going to try to make us believe that he’d located the missing items, or at least some of them, so I decided to go along with it. But something didn’t feel right-that’s why I called you, Marty. I figured somebody should know where I was going.”
“Thank goodness!” Marty actually looked humbled.
“So I let myself in and went upstairs. There was nobody around except Doris, who was waiting for me. She said Charles was downstairs, and she took me down to the basement.”
“And no Charles?” There was a hint of steel in James’s voice.
“No. Doris headed straight for the back room downstairs, where a light was on. She said Charles was waiting in there for me, but when I went to look, she gave me a shove and locked the door behind me.”
We all fell silent, contemplating the awful what-might-have-been. I didn’t stop eating, however. I had three meals to make up. When the last of the pastries had disappeared, I said, “Well, before I went to sleep”-or passed out, I thought-“the conclusion I came to was that I really don’t think Charles knew I was there. I think it was all Doris ’s idea. And I think she may have killed Alfred.”
James managed to look both bewildered and frustrated-no easy feat. Marty just looked mad. “ Doris, that spineless drip?” she said. “Why on earth do you believe that?”
“Think about it. She knew all about the wine cellar. In fact, I’m willing to bet there’s not much she doesn’t know about the Society-she’s a snoop. And I know she was the one who pushed me in there; there was no one else around, and nowhere to hide in that room. And as you’ve noticed, she has a nasty habit of listening in on conversations. Let’s say she happened to overhear Alfred and me talking about the missing items, and she decided to nip the problem in the bud. Alfred probably trusted her-he had no reason not to-so maybe she came to him during the gala and told him she needed his help in the stacks, whatever, it doesn’t matter why. So he followed her, and all she would’ve had to do was get behind him and hit him with something, or even just shove him so he hit his head on something, and that would be that. It wouldn’t take a lot of strength, would it, James?”
Now he looked grim. “No, not really, if you hit him in the right place. And left him there to bleed to death. Either the scalp wound or cranial bleeding would have done the job, and she knew nobody was going to come poking around the stacks that night. Did you see her at the party?”
I shook my head. “Not that I recall, but she’s kind of an unnoticeable person. She just fades into the woodwork, if you know what I mean. I don’t think anyone would have noticed whether or not she was there.”
“Say I buy that,” James said slowly. “Why would she kill Alfred, and try to kill you?”
“Because she’s in love with Charles, and she knows what he is up to.” That silenced both of them. I noted that neither one of them was arguing with me. “Marty, you’ve seen the way she looks at him. Is it so hard to imagine that she would kill in order to protect him? I don’t think she has much else in her life. Alfred was a threat to everything she cared about. And so was I, because Alfred confided in me, and then I wouldn’t let it go. Maybe she would have gone after you next.”
“Do you think Charles knows what Doris did?” James kept his voice level.
I answered slowly. “I don’t know. He may have guessed about how she felt about him, but he probably found that convenient. Do I think he asked her to do his dirty work for him, or that he knew or guessed what she was doing? I can’t say. But if he did figure it out, after the fact, no doubt he realized that to implicate her would only throw a spotlight on his own activities. Maybe he even worried that she’d give him up in order to save herself if it came down to it. Maybe he hoped the police would just chalk Alfred’s death up to an accident, which is exactly what they did.”
We all fell silent, working through the various ramifications of what I had said. Finally James broke the spell. “I think we need to have a conversation with Doris. And with Charles.”
I nodded. “I think you’re right. But do we bring the police in now?”
He regarded me levelly. “I think we’ll have to, but let’s talk to Doris first. I am obligated to point out that the only crime we have any evidence of at the moment is Doris ’s attempt to kill you, and even that isn’t clear-it would be her word against yours.”
We stared at each other for several beats. He was right: if I accused Doris, there was no way to be sure that a charge of attempted murder would stick, and there was still no guarantee that we could prove she was Alfred’s killer. And frankly I wasn’t sure that the Society could recover from the double whammy of a murder plus grand larceny splashed across the headlines. While my construction of the plot had seemed perfectly logical when I worked it out in the silent darkness of the wine cellar, I wasn’t sure if it would stand up under scrutiny. But there was one way to find out.
“Let’s go talk to Doris.”
CHAPTER 32
Back at the Society, Marty, James, and I hurried up to the third floor. I was not surprised to find that Doris was not at her desk; Charles wasn’t at his, either. I retrieved Doris ’s address; she lived within walking distance in nearby Society Hill. “What if she’s not home?”
“We’ll deal with that when we come to it.”
It took no more than fifteen minutes to walk the mile or so to Doris ’s address. I was torn between the need to find out if I was right about what had happened, and the reluctance to confront Doris. We walked up the two flights of the nineteenth-century brick row house, now apartments; Doris ’s apartment was on the top floor. James rapped authoritatively on the door as Marty and I hung back. Inside, there were footsteps; the peephole darkened briefly, and then multiple bolts were shot back. The door opened.
Doris was neatly dressed, every hair in place. She took a long time studying us: first me, then James, then a quick look at Marty. Then she stepped back. “Come in, please. Can I get you some coffee?”
I squashed an urge to giggle. Doris, my would-be murderer, was pretending this was a social occasion. But then, I wasn’t sure what the proper etiquette for an accusation of murder might be. I decided to let James handle this-he had a lot more experience than I did.
He stepped into the short hallway. “No, thank you, Ms. Manning. We need to talk with you. You weren’t at work today.”