“I imagine so. Hurry back.” She blew me a kiss.
I purposely left the door to the room ajar behind me. Then, out in the hall, I crouched down on my hands and knees and peered through the crack. Gina was strolling idly about the room, giving Françoise’s body a wide berth. I waited patiently. I was depending on her having that innate morbid curiosity we all have. My waiting paid off. Finally, as if drawn against her will, Gina slowly walked directly over to where the corpse lay and looked at it.
“Look out!” My muscles had been tensed and I sprang as I screamed. My shoulder caught Gina at the hip and sent her sprawling across the room. Immediately, I was on my feet, grabbing for the hand wielding the dagger with both of my own hands. Then I had the arm of death, and I sank my teeth into the wrist until the knife dropped to the floor. I yanked hard, and the result was that about 150 pounds of small, slightly chubby Italian descended on me and bore me to the floor.
My knee shot up as we fell and caught him in the groin. As he rolled over in agony, I finished the job with a short left to his belly and a shattering right to his jaw. He collapsed, unconscious.
I was just picking myself up as Tarleton returned with two uniformed cops and a man who couldn’t have been anything but a plainclothesman. “I thought you said you didn’t call the police, Victor,” he was saying as he entered. “But they say you did and here they are.” His jaw dropped open at the sight of the man on the floor. “What’s all this about?”
“It’s about two murders,” I told him. “I figured out how he did it, and I managed to trap him into attempting a third. Look!” I led Tarleton over to the wall above where Françoise’s body lay. “Smell,” I told him.
He sniffed. “Garlic.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Right. Our unconscious friend over there reeks of it. That’s what tipped me off. Now look at this."
“A hole in the wall! Where did that come from? It wasn’t here before.”
“Yes, it was,” I corrected him. “We just didn’t notice it. And for a very good reason.” I reached into the hole and withdrew a large metallic screen. “This was covering it,” I told him. “It’s an air-vent. And the tunnel behind it easily accommodates a small man. My guess is that these things run throughout the house. There’s a vent in every room, and the tunnel is what connects the ventilating system. And that’s how both Brigitte Kelly and Françoise Laval were murdered in locked rooms. It was the smell of garlic that drew my attention to it in the first place.” I went on to explain how I had used Gina as bait and trapped the murderer.
Tarleton didn't say much when I had finished. I think he was trying to absorb all that had happened and to sort it out in his mind as it pertained to Dombey of Dover. It wasn’t until the next morning, when he called me at my hotel, that his natural caution gave way to outright admiration for how well my theory had checked out. “Our garlic-smelling friend really ran off at the mouth once he realized the police had him cold,” he told me. “He implicated a lot of other people, too, and told the police where to round them up.”
“Luigi Tortorizzi among them, I hope.”
“Yes. Tortorizzi’s in London, and he’s already been picked up. Arrangements are being made to ship him back to Switzerland for the two murders he committed there. That is, if Portugal doesn’t get him first. According to the one we nabbed last night, it was Tortorizzi who killed Barbara Thomas, too.”
“That figures." I remembered the red hair twisted around the neck. “It looked like the kind of macabre murder technique he’d enjoy.”
“Best of all,” Tarleton continued, “he’s implicated Brigitte Kelly’s uncle, the Mafia man who’s out to claim her fortune, in Brigitte's murder. According to him, the uncle killed Brigitte himself. That should take care of any claim he has to the inheritance! You see, he found out she was the heiress to the uranium mine long before she was traced to London and Dombey of Dover got into the picture.”
“Then it sounds like it’s all clear for Gina Moretti to claim the estate. Case closed, and when do I get my percentage?” I asked.
There was a long silence. “Umm, Steve old fellow, I’m afraid I have some rather distressing news for you as well." His voice had never sounded chummier.
“What?”
“Gina won’t be getting the money. And Dombey of Dover won’t be getting its percentage, which means that you won’t be getting your share.”
“Come again on the Boston Cream Pie.”
“What? What did you say old chap?”
“Skip it. Just a joke between us boys. What do you mean Gina won’t get the money?"
“She signed that waiver, remember.”
“Sure. But with Françoise dead and the uncle taken care of, who is there to contest her claim?”
“The alternate heir that Brigitte Kelly named in her will. What’s more, with Gina’s disclaimer on file, they’ve got an airtight case.”
“I thought the alternate heir was the uncle.”
“No. His was a family claim. As the closest living relative, he was trying to break the will. With the primary heirs out of the way, he might have succeeded. But now, charged with Brigitte’s murder, he doesn’t have a chance. The will will stand and the alternate assignees will receive the estate.”
“Who are they, these alternate heirs?”
“Not they, it. It’s an institution dedicated to helping unwed mothers. I’m sorry, Steve.”
“Me too, Tarleton." I said good-bye and hung up then. I thought about what he’d told me then. A home for unwed mothers! Hell, somehow I didn’t begrudge them the money. It was a worthy cause. Perhaps if an institution like that had taken an interest in me, I wouldn’t have ended up in that Swiss abortion mill. That was really where it all started.
Yes, a home for unwed mothers. I reminded myself that I must get the name and address from Tarleton. What with the risks I take as the man from O.R.G.Y., I could never tell when I might have need of such a place!
Notes
[←1 ]
Indication of a cesarean abortion, performed beyond the time-limit for a suction abortion.
[←2 ]
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician, businessman, and author who was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States in 1964. Despite his loss of the 1964 presidential election in a landslide, Goldwater is the politician most often credited with sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s. (Wikipedia 2018)
[←3 ]
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the French Resistance against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to reestablish democracy in France. In 1958, he came out of retirement when appointed Prime Minister of France by President René Coty. He was asked to rewrite the Constitution of France and founded the Fifth Republic after approval by referendum. He was elected President of France later that year, a position he was reelected to in 1965 and held until his resignation in 1969. He was the dominant figure of France during the Cold War era and his memory continues to influence French politics. (Wikipedia 2018)
[←4 ]
Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-sellers of all time. The book's premise to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do." (Wikipedia 2018)