Heraclitus’ state of flux, Sands thought. Not a flowing river, but a merry-go-round, highly mechanized/ with the occasional brass ring for a free ride.
He bought a paper, and with it folded under his arm he walked to the parking lot to get his car.
While he was waiting for the attendant he opened the newspaper and read the want ads. Later he would read the whole thing, but the want ads were the most fascinating part to him. He could, offhand, tell anyone how much it cost to have facial hair permanently removed, how many cocker spaniels were lost and mechanics were needed, the telephone number of a practical nurse and what you did, supposing you owned a horse and the horse died.
Bird’s-eye view of a city.
The attendant returned. Folding the paper again, Sands tipped him and climbed into his car. He forgot about lunch and drove back to his office instead.
The first person he saw when he opened the door was Sergeant D’arcy.
“Good afternoon, sir,” D’arcy said.
When he talked, his prim little mouth moved as little as possible.
“Oh,” Sands said. “What do you want?”
“Well, sir, as a matter of fact I’m not happy in Inspector Bascombe’s department.”
“That’s too damn bad.”
D’arcy flushed. “Well, I mean it, really. Mr. Bascombe is a truly intelligent man, but he is uncouth. He doesn’t understand me. He keeps picking on me.”
“And?”
“I told the Commissioner that my qualifications, educational and otherwise, were of more specific use in your department.” The Commissioner was D’arcy’s uncle by marriage. “I told him I’d be much happier working with you because you don’t pick on me.”
“Then it’s about time I started,” Sands said.
D’arcy took it as a joke and began to giggle. When he giggled the air whistled through his adenoids and the general effect was so unlovely that Sands’ contempt turned momentarily into pity.
“Why you want to be a policeman, I don’t know,” he said.
“I feel that my qualifications, educational and... Stop quoting yourself. Why doesn’t uncle set you up in an interior-decorating business or something? You’d look all right lugging around bolts of velvet.”
“That’s the kind of remark that Mr. Bascombe makes,” D’arcy said stiffly. “My uncle wouldn’t like it if he heard you say that.”
“Your uncle isn’t going to hear,” Sands said pleasantly. “Because if I ever catch you sniveling and tale-telling while you’re in this office...”
“Then I’m really in?” D’arcy said. “This is very good of you, sir. I’m just terribly pleased.”
“Get to work,” Sands said, and went into his private office and slammed the door.
He picked up the inter-office phone and called Bascombe.
“Bascombe? D’arcy’s changing hands again.”
“What a shame,” Bascombe said with a spurt of laughter. “I’ll certainly miss him when I go to the can. Had your lunch?”
“No.”
“I’ll stand you to a blueplate special.”
“What’s behind this?”
“Nothing. I had a letter from Ellen yesterday.”
“Oh.”
“She’s still in Hull but she’s sick of the electrician, she wants to come home.”
“I see. Yeah. You buy me a lunch to pay for my advice which you won’t take?”
“What the hell, I don’t need advice,” Bascombe said. “I wired her the money to come home.”
“That’s swell,” Sands said. “That’s dandy. Pardon me if I’m not hungry.”
“She swears that this time she’s learned her lesson.”
“She’s working her way nicely through grade school. They say the work is tough, but no doubt she likes it.”
“What the hell, what else could I do, but send her the money? She’s my wife.”
“That’s a technicality,” Sands said and quietly put down the phone.
Things were normal again. D’arcy was back, Ellen was back. Ellen had caught the brass ring. Some day someone would put it through her nose, but in the meantime she was seeing the world and a hell of a lot of different kinds of bedroom wallpaper.
The phone rang. It was Bascombe, sounding more uncertain now.
“All right,” he said. “So what do you think I should do, smarty pants?”
“Lock the apartment and disappear. See a lawyer, make some arrangements to give her an allowance if your conscience bothers you. The essential fact is not that Ellen is a tramp, but that she wouldn’t be one if she gave a damn about you or ever had. It’s not a physical thing, she’s not insatiable. She’s just one of these low-grade morons who wants love as it is in the movies. Romance, soft lights and sweet music. All of the trimmings and none of the repercussions. Can be done, but not by Ellen. She’s not bright enough.”
There was a silence. Then Bascombe said, “The blueplate offer still holds.”
“All right. I’ll pick you up on my way down.”
During lunch they didn’t mention Ellen. They talked about the Morrow case. Bascombe’s department had had nothing to do with it since Lucille Morrow had been found. But he had a professional interest in the case, and he listened intently to the story of Cora Green’s death.
“Three of them,” he said when Sands had finished. “Damn odd.”
“Miss Green’s death was, of course, an accident. It wasn’t planned or even imagined by the person responsible for the other two. But the hellish part of it is, her death is serving a purpose. It’s driving Mrs. Morrow past the borderline of sanity. And that, I believe, is the ultimate motive — to get Mrs. Morrow. The driving power behind it is hate. Mrs. Morrow must be made to suffer, perhaps eventually she must be killed. But the present setup may stand. Someone is getting an exquisite pleasure in seeing Mrs. Morrow trying to cling to the wreck of her mind.”
“Jes — us,” Bascombe said. “Damn funny the mere sight of an amputated finger would send her crazy, though.”
“It didn’t. It wasn’t the finger itself, but her own state of mind at the time and the implications of the finger. A dead finger meant to her a dead woman — Mildred, the first wife; and a death warning to her, the second wife. Who can tell, if she doesn’t? Perhaps to her it was a sexual symbol, a token of her marriage.” He looked at Bascombe and added softly, “And perhaps it meant more, much more than that.
“Of course it’s a member of her family. No one else could hate her so thoroughly, or know enough of her weaknesses to attempt such a refined sport as driving her insane. Greeley did his share in helping. To a woman who has lived a cultured, quiet, comfortable life the mere contact with a man like Greeley must have been a shock. And the sending of the finger was a piece of mental sadism that I’ve rarely seen equaled.”
“Who in hell would even think of sending a finger? And where did it come from?”
“The Morrow family can offer no suggestions. They are united on one thing — that the police have no right to bother them, that they are having enough trouble as it is. I questioned them at their house. When I was leaving, Dr. Morrow took me aside and asked me everything about the finger. He looked frightened, as if he knew quite a lot that he wasn’t telling.”
“The Morrow women,” Bascombe said dryly, “have bad luck.”
“But the method is getting more genteel. From axes to suggestion. I’ve gone through all the police files and press clippings on Mildred Morrow. The first person to check in a wife-murder is, of course, the husband. Dr. Morrow not only had a complete alibi but the news of his wife’s death put him in a hospital with brain fever. There’s nothing phony there. The hospital records and charts stand, and the woman whose baby he was delivering at the time Mildred was killed is still living and remembers the night very well. All this, and the fact that he had no possible motive, puts Dr. Morrow in the clear.”