Finally I stopped pacing and faced her. “Look,” I said. “I think I’ve figured out how to get rid of him, but before we even discuss that, we’ve got to plan a story to cover you. When your husband doesn’t show up Monday, you’re going to have to act as a normal wife would. First phone his bank to ask if they’ve heard from him. Then on Tuesday wire convention headquarters in New York. They’ll wire back that he never showed, of course. Soon as you get that wire, you’ll have to phone the police and put on a worried wife act. Think you can manage all that?”
She nodded indifferently.
“Then the hard part will start. First the police will discover he never caught that plane, so they’ll know he disappeared in St. Louis...”
“I thought of that two minutes after I killed him,” Helena interrupted. “He’ll be listed on the flight.”
I stared at her. “How?”
“It was only four when all this happened,” she said. “By four twenty I had Lawrence stripped, his clothes hidden in the garage and his body in the car trunk. Then I went back inside, told Alice I wouldn’t be home for dinner after I took Mr. Powers to the airport, and she could go home. I also told her I intended driving up to my sister’s in Columbia the next morning, so she could take the week off. I had her out of the house by four thirty.”
“How’d that get your husband listed on the plane flight he was supposed to take?” I asked.
“I haven’t finished. As soon as Alice left I phoned Harry Cushman. He took a taxi to the house, picked up Lawrence’s ticket and plane reservation and went straight to the airport. He flew to New York under Lawrence’s name and took another plane back under a different name as soon as he arrived. When the police start looking for Lawrence, they’ll start looking in New York.”
12
For a long time I looked at her in wonderment. Finally I asked, “How’d you ever talk Cushman into doing a silly thing like that?”
“Silly?”
“Naturally the police will question the airline personnel,” I said patiently. “The minute they get Cushman’s description from the stewardess, they’ll know somebody substituted on the flight for your husband.”
She shook her head. “In the first place, neither Lawrence nor Harry is known on the New York run. Lawrence often flies to Washington, but almost never to New York. I know he hasn’t made the trip in three years. And Harry never flies anywhere. In the second place, though Harry is ten years younger than Lawrence was and twenty pounds heavier, a rough description of either would fit the other. Both have light hair, neither is grey, both have lean builds and both wear small mustaches. In the third place the police won’t question the stewardess too closely. Just enough to satisfy themselves Lawrence was on the plane.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because they won’t suspect murder. The first thing the police do when a banker disappears is request an audit of bank funds.”
She was right again, I realized. The probability was the first premise the police would work on was that Lawrence Powers had disappeared voluntarily. And by the time a bank audit disclosed he hadn’t absconded with any funds, the trail would be too cold to pick up.
I said, “I still don’t understand how you talked Cushman into sticking his neck out.”
“He’s in love with me,” she said complacently.
I studied her broodingly, not satisfied with the answer. “Look, Helena, if I’m going to help cover up your murders, I want the whole story. Maybe Cushman’s in love with you, but he was in a blue funk over being accessory to mere manslaughter. I don’t think he’d stick his neck out for first degree homicide even for you.”
She shrugged. “Of course Harry doesn’t know Lawrence is dead.”
Again I studied her broodingly. Finally I asked in an exasperated tone^ “What in the devil story did you tell him?”
“You don’t have to shout,” she said. “I told him Lawrence had discovered the damage to the car and guessed what caused it. I said he had threatened to call the police, but I explained to him I’d already hired a private detective to try to arrange a quiet settlement of damages, and I talked him into holding off calling the police at least until he’d discussed it with you. I said Lawrence and I went to see you at your flat, and you and Lawrence had a fight. You knocked him out and tied him up. I told Harry this was the opportunity to accomplish everything we’d planned together. For me to obtain grounds for divorce against Lawrence and marry him.”
“How did that follow?” I asked, fascinated.
“I told Harry you had agreed to hold Lawrence captive until we could get the car fixed. Then, after it was back in the garage, you’d transport Lawrence to New York in a private plane owned by a friend of yours and turn him loose in the city unshaven and in dirty clothes. When Lawrence took his story to the police, they’d think he was crazy. The flight list would show he’d flown to New York as scheduled, and when he walked into a New York police station, he’d look like he’d been on a several-day drunk. When the police came to check my car, they’d find it undamaged. Then I’d announce my husband had been suffering delusions about me for some time, I thought he was insane, and I’d file for a divorce on the ground that he constantly made me suffer indignity.”
I was conscious that my mouth had drooped open as she was speaking. “And Cushman believed that fantastic yarn?” I asked in amazement.
“Why not? He knew I’ve wanted a divorce for some time and would jump at any grounds for one. It was the divorce idea that sold him. He wants me to marry him. I don’t think he’d have agreed to take Lawrence’s place on the plane if I hadn’t included that, because he was scared silly.” She added reflectively. “Then too, Harry isn’t very bright. He’s got so much money, he’s never had to do any thinking.”
He must not be bright, I thought. But it was just as well for our chances that he wasn’t. Having taken that plane to New York under Lawrence Powers’s name, he was an accessory to murder clear up to his neck, because he’d never be able to convince the police he didn’t know Powers was dead at the time. It occurred to me that pointing that fact out to him when we got back to St. Louis ought to silence any urge he might ever develop to tell his story.
Then it also occurred to me that Helena Powers had a remarkable talent for placing her aides in positions where they had to protect her in order to protect themselves. For she had me in the identical position she had Harry Cushman. We all three had to hang together, or hang separately.
Helena broke into my thoughts by inquiring, “How do you plan to get rid of Lawrence?”
Glancing at my watch, I saw it was seven P.M. “I don’t tonight. He’ll keep in his icebox another day. But we’ve got some scouting to do. Better put on a jacket, because it may be chilly along the lake.”
I drove the car on our scouting trip. Our tourist court was not far from Berwyn Summit, and I cut straight east to the University of Chicago. Then I turned south along Lake Michigan until we began to run into beach areas.
At eight-thirty Helena said, “Shouldn’t we be thinking about dinner soon?”
“No,” I said shortly. Ever since I’d lifted that burlap bag I hadn’t been able to think of anything but the iced corpse beneath it, and the thought didn’t induce much appetite.
I drove as slowly as the traffic would let me, checking signs on the left side of the road. Finally, about nine o’clock, I spotted one which looked promising. It was on a wooden arch over an unpaved road and read: “Crestwood Beach, Private Road.”