This time, the sheriff stepped outside past the opened hinge side of the door, gripped it by the crosspieces, drew the door into its frame from outside, rapped it lightly and repeatedly to drop the hinge-pins into place — and the, door was locked from inside, while he stood outside.
He came back in, smiling. “Now we know how, but not why. They were cousins, and Grove was backing him. Why would he kill Grove?”
Verner shook his head. “You know the people, and I don’t. But you say Grove had a flash temper, and could be a bitter enemy. I’d guess Grove was mad at him, or he expected Grove was soon going to be mad at him.”
The sheriff nodded.
“There was talk he’d been behind in his mortgage payments, but he straightened that out. If Grove lent him the money and he couldn’t pay it back—” The sheriff shook his head. “There was one man you never wanted to owe money to unless you paid it back on the dot.”
“He was Grove’s closest relative after Ellen Grove?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” said Verner, “at one blow, he could eliminate Grove; very possibly eliminate Ellen Grove as the person who would inherit Grove’s property — since she was likely to discover the body, and be the apparent murderess; clear up his own money troubles; and possibly, if the trial went badly, strengthen himself politically at your expense. But that’s only a guess.”
The sheriff opened the door and called to his deputies, who brought in the squat dejected figure, eyes downcast, shambling. The deputies, however, were alert and wary.
The sheriff nodded toward a chair. His voice was soft. “Let him sit there. As long as he doesn’t do anything, keep your hands off him.”
“Sheriff, I think we need handcuffs.”
“I don’t. Okay, Eb, what happened here?”
The dejected face looked up, eyes squeezed shut. Abruptly the eyes opened, and blazed.
“He called me ‘Corkscrew.’ He said I’d pay him the money, or he’d make me the joke of the county. ‘Corkscrew for Sheriff— Always in the liquor and as crooked as they come! Vote for Corkscrew!’ I don’t know what happened to me. I took a swipe at him and missed. He slipped, and hit his head on that rail at the foot of the bed there. He came up with that knife in his hand, and said, ‘So long, Corkscrew,’ and the next thing I remember, I’d finished him.
“I stood there looking down at him, and I started for the phone, and then it hit me nobody would believe my side of it. That’s when I saw those hinge-pins laying on the bed. I was in a daze. But I thought I saw how I could fix it so no one could get blamed, since no one could have gotten out.”
The sheriff said mildly, “How did the hinge-pins get there? You mean, Grove had put them there?”
“He threw them there. He’s complained that this door here gets rusted with the dampness over the winter, or the pins are too tight, or there’s something wrong, because at the start of the season, it squeaks, and he never gets around to oiling it. When I couldn’t raise the money to pay him, I tried to think of something to take the edge off his temper — you know how he was — so maybe he’d listen and give me a little more time.
“I thought, he’s always complaining about those squeaky hinges, maybe it will get him in a better mood if I fix them. Well, I came in and smiled, and I said, ‘I brought you something to fix those squeaky hinges,’ and he looked at the hinge-pins, and he looked at me, and he tossed the pins aside and said, ‘That will keep. Let’s have the money.’ Well... you know the rest.”
After the deputies and their prisoner had gone out, the sheriff glanced toward Verner.
“What do you think? According to that story, it’s self-defense.”
Verner shook his head. “I’d check to see if those oiled hinge-pins left any mark on the bedspread. What do you think?”
“There was a little oil on that bedspread. What I think is that we’ll have a hung jury between those that want to send him up for life, and those that want to give him a vote of thanks for doing what they felt like doing themselves. Well... Ellen’s out of it, and we’ve got the actual killer. You still say you aren’t a detective?”
Verner shook his head. “I’m not a detective.”
The sheriff smiled. “I don’t know anyone better qualified to be one. I give you an impossible triple-locked door. And you hand me back an open-and-shut case!”
Dear Mama
by Pauline C. Smith
She understood his loneliness, away from his mother, but she shouldn’t have interrupted his lunch hour walk.
DEAR MAMA:
You were right. I know that now. I know I should never have come here. Remember the day you said, “Don’t go, son, you will only regret it.” You were right, Mama. I do regret it.
I was deaf to your words because of the people at the office. They had never been friendly before. After all those years. They even clapped me on the back and called me “Vince” and told me I should go. They said it was the chance of a lifetime.
Mama, when Mr. Hammill first explained the need for a top accountant at the Home Office, and how he had recommended me, of course I was flattered, but I certainly didn’t think about it seriously. I just thanked him for his faith in me and went back to work. It was only when everybody crowded around, calling me “Vince,” which they had never done before, telling me how they would give their eyeteeth for a chance to transfer with a big raise. Telling me to go.
Mama, they made it seem so wonderful, so great. But it hasn’t been either. This is a strange and terrible city and everyone is cold, and distant at the office, not like the people in the office back home where they were friendly, at the last anyway, calling me “Vince” and telling me to go.
That apartment I lived in was awful, Mama. You know I am used to a great big house, with you always there... The apartment was one big room with a tiny kitchen and a small b.r. A couch folded out in the big room to make a bed. I have not had a decent night’s sleep since I have been in this city — all during those months in the apartment, and these weeks in Carol’s house. You would think, with my own room in. Carol’s house like I used to have at home, I could sleep, but I cannot.
It was the house, I think, Carol’s house, that made me do what Carol wanted me to do. I don’t think I would have otherwise, Mama, even if she was the only person at the office who was nice to me, and lonely too, as she told me so many times.
A lonely old maid, she called herself, and then she told me she was thirty-six, one year younger than I, but that was after she first called me “Vincent” instead of “Mr. Nugent,” so I know she read the personnel file on me or how would she know my name was Vincent and that I was thirty-seven? I am pretty sure she is forty-something, not that that makes any difference, but I just don’t like a liar.
I didn’t think of that then. I am thinking about it now.
Carol worked in the File Department and almost always, if I needed something from the files, she brought it to me in my own office. I have an office of my own, Mama, here in the Home Office, but that doesn’t help.
I didn’t even notice her for a long time. You know how I work, Mama, diligently and with concentration. When she brought me a file, she always said, “here you are, Mr. Nugent,” and I said, “thank you,” without looking at her and went back to my work.
She didn’t call me “Vincent,” until after we ate next to each other in the cafeteria. Mama, this Home Office is so big that there is even a cafeteria for the employees, which I did not frequent, preferring instead, to get out in the air and walk, eating my milk chocolate bar on the way, even though these city streets are hemmed in by tall buildings with the air filled with smog.