Carr smiled. “I’m certainly glad you’re enjoying it. Now how about you, my dear? Have you given these gentlemen all the information they wanted?”
“I’ve given them all I had.”
“That’s fine!” Carr exclaimed. “Splendid. Excellent. It’s a pleasure to co-operate with you gentlemen, and naturally we’re very much concerned about what happened. Could you tell us something of the circumstances?”
“She was stabbed,” Brandon said curtly.
“Indeed. Death was instantaneous?”
“Apparently so.”
“In the park I believe you said, Sheriff?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose,” Carr said, casually, “that you learned of her identity from examining her purse. She probably was carrying the hotel key with her.”
Brandon looked at Selby.
Selby said, “As a matter of fact, we simply made a check at the hotel from a physical description.”
“I take it, then, the hotel key wasn’t in her purse?”
Selby smiled. “This certainly is an excellent hot buttered rum. Is the recipe secret?”
“I have no secrets from you tonight,” Carr said. “I’ll be glad to have my secretary make a copy of the recipe and send it to you, Counselor.”
“Thank you,” Selby said.
“We were talking about Miss Arcola’s death,” Carr went on.
“Oh, yes,” Selby said, stirring his drink vigorously to cool it off.
“The knife was left in the body?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“That makes it a little difficult,” Carr said. “And there was, I take it, no indication as to the identity of the murderer?”
“What leads you to make such a statement?” Selby asked.
“Well,” Carr said, affably, “after all, Counselor, it was more of a question than a statement, but it’s a natural assumption in view of the fact that you’re here. If you had a more live lead, you would be running it down, rather than sitting here sipping my humble hospitality.”
“How do you know this isn’t a live lead?” Brandon growled.
Carr threw back his head and laughed. “That retort was obvious, of course, my dear Sheriff, but nevertheless effective. I did somewhat leave myself open there, didn’t I? However, I’ll gladly answer your question. I know that this is not a live lead because I know that my wife could not possibly have been implicated in the murder.”
And Carr smiled affectionately across at her.
Something in his face caused Mrs. Carr to cease smiling. Selby, watching her, felt certain he saw a swift flicker of consternation cross her features.
Carr, obviously enjoying himself, said speculatively, “Now, the park — that’s hardly a place where a stranger would go merely for the purpose of taking a walk. It’s more a place for a rendezvous — although, of course, she could have been riding in a car and then been killed and thrown out.”
He stopped with his head cocked slightly to one side, his eyebrows raised quizzically.
After a moment’s silence, he asked, “No comment, gentlemen?”
“No comment,” Brandon said gruffly.
“She could hardly have been thrown out of an automobile,” Selby said, “not from the position of the body.”
“Ah, you interest me.”
“I thought I would.”
“Could you explain a little more in detail, Counselor?”
Brandon frowned at Selby, but Selby, apparently interested entirely in the hot buttered rum, said, “Evidently she’d been running or walking, and she was stabbed from behind. She’d pitched forward on her face. Of course, that’s merely a surmise. There was blood on the back of her dress, but as nearly as we could tell without moving the body, there was none on the front of the dress. Evidently the stab wound was in the back, deep enough to reach the heart, but not one which would go all the way through the body.”
“Naturally,” Carr said. “A person almost never encounters a stab wound which goes entirely through the body. That would indicate a sword as a weapon rather than a knife, and a sword is an awkward thing to carry, whereas a knife can be carried in a variety of places... Her purse was lying beside the body, or perhaps she had dropped it when she started to run?”
Selby said, “Now that, of course, is a matter of deduction, something I’m not prepared to comment on at the moment.”
He finished the last of his drink, glanced meaningly at Brandon, and said, “Rex, we really have to...”
Brandon immediately put down his cup. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but we do. We have another lead, and people are waiting for us.”
“Well, well,” A. B. Carr said, “that’s fast work. I hate to see you rush off, gentlemen, but — do come again sometime.”
“I probably will,” Brandon said.
Selby shook hands. “Thanks for a most delightful drink, and I hope we didn’t disturb you.”
“Oh, not at all.”
When they were back in the county car, Doug Selby threw back his head and laughed.
“Now what’s so funny?” Brandon asked. “I feel like growling.”
Selby said, “I was just appreciating his technique, Rex. You remember what his wife said. He seldom does anything without a carefully thought-out reason.”
“I don’t get you.”
“The hot buttered rum,” Selby said. “It was a delightful experience.”
“It was a good drink, I’ll say that. He knows how to...”
“No, no, not the drink,” Selby said, “the idea back of it. You perhaps noticed, Rex, that the drink was boiling hot. It had to be cooled off before...”
“I’ll say it did. I darned near burned the inside of my mouth out.”
“Exactly,” Selby said. “And you notice that Carr made no attempt to question us until after he had us sitting around with a drink that we couldn’t very well leave without being terribly impolite, and which we couldn’t drink without scalding our insides.
“Then, having us pinned to the board, so to speak, he proceeded to query us about the facts surrounding the death.”
“Darned if he didn’t,” Brandon admitted.
“And with particular reference to the purse,” Selby said.
“You’d almost think he knew something about that purse,” Brandon said thoughtfully.
“He’s interested in it all right,” Selby said. “And did you notice the look of swift consternation on the face of his wife when he made some comment to the effect that he could guarantee she hadn’t been mixed up in the murder?”
“Good Lord, you don’t think she was, do you?” Brandon asked.
“Certainly not. But for one moment we saw fear penetrate her mind. Carr may not be able to divorce her for three years, but if she were found guilty of murder and executed, Carr would be safely out of his marital predicament.”
“Good Lord!” Brandon exclaimed, momentarily taking his eyes from the road, “you don’t think Carr has anything like that in mind, do you, Doug?”
“I don’t,” Selby said, “but apparently the thought occurred to his wife as an interesting possibility. And by this time she quite probably knows him better than we do.”
6
The county car came to a stop in front of the big, old-fashioned house on Chestnut.
The place was ablaze with light now and as Selby and Brandon walked up the steps to the porch they were held in the illumination of a porch light so brilliant that great swarms of night-flying insects were circling around the shielded globe.
“They certainly believe in lots of light,” Brandon said, as he pressed the bell button.
Mrs. Lennox opened the door. “Well,” she said, “Sheriff Brandon,” and then added after a significant moment, “at last.”