Vandam cut her short with a snarl. “Shut up!” His eyes were glazed, abnormally bright as he turned on me, trying to pull himself erect. “These premises are private. You have no right here.”
But it was only surface courage, an attitude of desperation. Inside, he was demoralized. He knew the game was up.
“You didn’t coach her well enough,” I said. “Mrs. Larsen never told you about Grace and Charles, or why she had fought with her niece. She slipped on that one.”
The muscles in his angular face were out of control, warping his mouth.
“Mrs. Larsen died,” I said. “You thought she was alone in the world. She never told you about Grace. It must have been a shock when the letters started coming. Because the die had already been cast. She was dead and you thought you saw a chance to make some easy money. Instead of reporting it, you buried her quietly and secretly out in the garden somewhere. You accepted the checks and counterfeited her signature on the indorsements.” I showed him my teeth. “Or did greed make you impatient, doctor? Perhaps you couldn’t wait for her to die from old age. Maybe you accelerated the event. An autopsy will tell that part of the story when the police find her.”
Pallor diluted his complexion. Whatever control he had left was rapidly dissolving, disorganizing his thoughts. He sought desperately to salvage some remnants of his honor. “No, no,” he whispered hoarsely, “it — it wasn’t me. I didn’t kill her. She received a box of chocolates in the mail.” He swallowed painfully, like a man with the mumps. “Arsenic. I kept the wrapper.”
“Where did the candy come from?”
“San Diego.”
“I believe you,” I said. “You didn’t kill Mrs. Larsen. It was somebody else. But just the same you’re going to sit in that electric chair up in Sing Sing.”
He staggered back, cringing away from me. Beads of sweat condensed along his brow. His nostrils were pinched and gray.
“You killed somebody else,” I said. “Lester Britt. He was hired to find out why the old lady had failed to answer any letters. He investigated and fell onto your scheme and started to blackmail you. That was all right, until Grace Denney arrived in New York. Britt was panicked. He was a small timer who had an easy touch and he was afraid the girl would put an end to it. So he came to you, for a quick kill, trying to up the ante. You understood about blackmailers, doctor. You knew that sort of thing was endless. It got progressively worse. You were desperate. Britt had to be eliminated. So you went to his office and you did what had to be done. And you hired this old lady in case the girl asked someone else to investigate.”
His lips moved soundlessly. The truth was there in his distorted face for anyone to see. He backed away blindly through the door.
I didn’t bother to chase after him. What the hell for? If he wanted to commit suicide, let him. It would save the State a lot of trouble.
I looked at the old lady. “Get away from here,” I told her. “Get away from here as fast as you can.”
I took the same advice for myself.
I was halfway to the car when I heard the shot, a muffled report, absorbed in space.
Dr. Vandam had appealed his case to a higher authority.
Grace was waiting in the car, with the radio playing. Dinner music from some hotel, soft and muted. There were people who still led normal lives. I climbed in beside her and started the car. She twisted around to face me while I drove.
“What is it?” she asked. “You look strange. Did you see Aunt Paula.”
“No,” I said.
“But you spoke to Dr. Vandam.”
“Yes,” I said.
She clutched urgently at my sleeve. “What happened, Scott?”
I ignored the question and asked one of my own. “Do you ever go to San Diego, Grace?”
Her forehead was puckered. “Occasionally. I have friends there. Why?”
“How about Charles? Does he ever go there?”
“I imagine so. It isn’t too far from Hollywood.”
“I’d like to talk to him. Where do you think he’s staying?”
“At the Selwyn, probably, on East 48th Street. What is it, Scott? Please tell me.”
“Later,” I said. “I want to think for a moment.”
I drove back to Manhattan too fast and too recklessly. When we reached our destination, I parked in the only space available, beside a fire hydrant.
We entered the lobby and Grace got Denney’s room number from the desk clerk. An elevator took us up to the eighth floor. I stood to one side when she knocked.
His voice came through, sounding cautious. “Who is it?”
“It’s me, Charles, Grace. Please open the door.”
No key could have opened the door so quickly. A smile of welcome was forming on his face. It died when he saw me and he started to slam the door shut. I hit it with my shoulder, driving him backward into the room. He tried to stop me but couldn’t.
His mouth hardened. “Now look here, shyster—”
Even in the lexicon of a mule skinner there is no epithet more calculated to make my blood go to the boiling point.
“A bit of chocolates,” I said to him. “Sent from San Diego, California, to the Vandam Nursing Home. Just an innocent box of chocolates.”
The words hit him like a physical blow. I could read the look of doom in his suddenly transformed face.
For a moment he stood rigid, the muscles pulling his face out of shape, and then he spun away from me toward a kitchenette at the rear. He had the bread knife out before I could grab him. He brandished it aloft, like a hammer in his fist.
Grace’s hands flew to her mouth, plugging up the scream which was forcing itself out.
I backed slowly away, talking to him.
“A box of chocolates,” I said. “You sent them to Mrs. Larsen, spiked with arsenic.”
He didn’t speak. His eyes were live coals, searing with hate. He stood motionless, the long steel saw-toothed blade glittering under the light.
“California has a community property law,” I said. “Each spouse is entitled to half the property. You knew that Grace was planning to get a divorce, and you poisoned her aunt so she would inherit without delay. But Vandam crossed you up. He kept the death a secret.”
Charles Denney moved then. He sprang forward and the knife made a flashing arc that would have laid me open like a side of beef.
I threw myself sideways and felt a burning flame along my arm. I stumbled and fell and rolled over on my back. Denney was over me now, breathing hoarsely, nothing human in his eyes. He raised the blade for a final thrust. But he waited a second too long.
My feet caught him at the pit of the stomach, with all the leverage of the powerful muscles a man has in his thighs.
Denney went up in the air and flew backward, crashing against the wall. I scrambled to my feet and reached him in a single jump. His eyes were glazed and I picked one up from the basement and threw it at him with all the strength I had. I never threw anything harder.
It nailed him along the side of his jaw and he toppled over with a grunt and lay still.
I kicked the knife away. “It’s all over,” I told Grace. “Take it easy.”
But she had no intention of fainting. “Shall I call the police?”
“If you please.”
It took almost an hour to set them straight on the story. When they finally released us, I took Grace’s arm and led her out to the elevator.
“Have I earned a fee?”
“You certainly have,” she said emphatically.
“Okay. I’m taking you home to collect.”
I felt pretty good. I didn’t even get mad when I found a cop downstairs writing out a parking ticket for my Buick.
I merely asked him to hurry.
Somebody’s Going To Die
by Talmage Powell