Wolfe sighed. “But the fact would remain that Mr. Dill opened the valve of his own volition, intending to exterminate eight people, including you. No jury would find against me even for damage to your self-esteem.”
“To hell with my self-esteem,” Cramer growled. “Why don’t you send a bill to the State of New York for the execution of a murderer f.o.b. your potting room? That’s the only thing you’ve left out. Why don’t you?”
Wolfe chuckled. “I wonder if I could collect. It’s worth trying. I may tell you privately, Mr. Cramer, that there were several reasons why it would have been unfortunate for Mr. Dill to be brought to trial. One, it might have been difficult to convict him. Only a fairly good case. Two, the part played by Mr. Hewitt’s cane would have been made public, and I had undertaken to prevent that. Three, Archie would have been embarrassed. He pulled the trigger and killed the man. Four, Miss Lasher would have committed suicide, or tried to. She’s not very bright, but she’s stubborn as the devil. She had decided that if she admitted having seen anything from her hiding-place in the corridor, she would have to testify to it publicly, her relations with Mr. Gould would have been exposed, and her family would have been dishonored.”
“They would have been exposed anyway.”
“Certainly, once you got hold of her. When Archie brought her to the potting room, with you there, she was a goner. That was the beauty of it. Mr. Dill knew she was bound to crack, and that coupled with the threat of being confronted with the garage man was what cracked him. It was a delicate situation. Among many others was the danger that during my recital Miss Lasher might blurt out that it was Dill, not Hewitt, who had placed the cane there by the door, and that would have spoiled everything.”
“Wasn’t it Hewitt’s cane?”
“Yes. A fact, as I have told you, not for publication.”
“Where did Dill get it?”
“I don’t know. Hewitt had mislaid it, and no doubt Dill spied it and decided to make use of it. By the way, another item not for publication is Miss Lasher’s statement. Don’t forget you promised that. I owe it to her. If she hadn’t included that garage job-card when she packed Mr. Gould’s belongings in her suitcase I wouldn’t have got anywhere.”
“And another thing,” I put in. “A public airing of the little difficulty Miss Tracy’s father got into wouldn’t get you an increase in salary.”
“Nothing in God’s world would get me an increase in salary,” Cramer declared feelingly. “And Miss Tracy’s father—” He waved it away.
Wolfe’s eyes came to me. “I thought you were no longer affianced to her.”
“I’m not. But I’m sentimental about my memories. My lord, but she’ll get sick of Fred. Peonies! Incidentally, while you’re sweeping up, what was Annie’s big secret?”
“Not so big.” Wolfe glanced up at the clock, saw that it would be nearly an hour till dinner, and grimaced. “Miss Tracy admitted the soundness of my surmises this morning. Mr. Gould was as devious as he was ruthless. He told her that unless she married him he would force Mr. Dill to have her father arrested, and assured her that he had it in his power to do that. He also spoke of large sums of money. So naturally, when he was murdered Miss Tracy suspected that Mr. Dill was concerned in it, but she refused to disclose her suspicions for obvious reasons — the fear of consequences to her father.”
Wolfe put his fingertips together again. “It is surprising that Mr. Gould lived as long as he did, in view of his character. He bragged to Miss Lasher that he was going to marry another girl. That was silly and sadistic. He let Miss Tracy know that he had a hold on Mr. Dill. That was rashly indiscreet. He even infected the Rucker and Dill exhibit with Kurume yellows, doubtless to dramatize the pressure he was exerting on Dill for his big haul — at least I presume he did. That was foolish and flamboyant. Of course Dill was equally foolish when he tried to engage me to investigate the Kurume yellows in his exhibit. He must have been unbalanced by the approaching murder he had arranged for, since bravado was not in his normal character. I suppose he had a hazy idea that hiring me to investigate in advance would help to divert suspicion from him. He really wasn’t cut out for a murderer. His nerves weren’t up to it.”
“Yours are.” Cramer stood up. “I’ve got to run. One thing I don’t get, Dill’s going clear to Pennsylvania to bribe a guy to poison some bushes. I know you spoke about extremes in horticultural jealousy, but have they all got it? Did Dill have it too?”
Wolfe shook his head. “I was then speaking of Mr. Hewitt. What Mr. Dill had was a desire to protect his investment and income. The prospect of those rhodaleas appearing on the market endangered the biggest department of his business.” He suddenly sat up and spoke in a new tone. “But speaking of horticultural jealousy — I had a client, you know. I collected a fee in advance. I’d like to show it to you. Archie, will you bring them down, please?”
I was tired after all the hubbub and the strain of watching Wolfe through another of his little experiments, but he had said please, so I went up to the plant rooms and got them, all three of them, and brought them down and put them side by side on Wolfe’s desk. He stood up and bent over them, beaming.
“They’re absolutely unique,” he said as if he was in church. “Matchless! Incomparable!”
“They’re pretty,” Cramer said politely, turning to go. “Kind of drab, though. Not much color. I like geraniums better.”
Tomboy
by Wenzell Brown
Wenzell Brown is best known for his many novels about the young men in our cities who, from the time they are children, know only hate — a blind hate — for the authority which sees them as the raw material for tomorrow’s crime statistics. SM readers know him for sensitive stories such as WITNESS TO MURDER (SMM, July 1958). And stories such as this...
Maw claims as how a woman ain’t never truly happy till she’s had a tragic love affair. Mebbe she’s right. Leastwise that’s the way it seems with Frankie Wilcox.
Course her name ain’t really Frankie, it’s Francine. But she wouldn’t put up with nothin’ that fancy. I’ve known her ever since she I was a little tad, knee-high to a grasshopper. She and her twin brother, Johnny, got into more scrapes than a barrel of monkeys. Then there was Osmund Bilbo who was a year older and always taggin’ along and fussin’ over ’em. Trouble was, more like than not he’d land up neck-deep in their monkeyshines.
Seein’ as how I been sheriff around these parts for the last thirty years, folks was always complainin’ to me about Frankie and Johnny and Oz, claimin’ that they was the meanest little devils as ever hit Cripple’s Bend. But mostly when they calmed down, they’d have to admit there warn’t nothin’ really wicked about the trio. They was just high spirited and full o’ the old nick. Like the time when they snuck up in back o’ the Widder Hawkins when she was singin’ a solo at the Strawberry Festival, and dumped a pair o’ field mice at her feet. The Widder turned in the performance of her life. She hit high C and held it for full five minutes, jumpin’ around all the time and hikin’ up her skirts clean to the hips. Will Mooney, who always had a yen for her, got so interested watchin’, he fell head-first off’n a stool, cuttin’ his forehead so that Doc Crosby had to take ten stitches to sew him back together again.
All summer long, Frankie wouldn’t wear nothin’ but jeans, sneakers and a boy’s shirt. Her hair was cut short and the color o’ corn husks and she had so many freckles there warn’t hardly no room for the skin to grow in between. She was slim and straight as a boy and she loved baseball and runnin’ loose in the woods. She and Johnny was always playin’ hookie to go fishin’ and inveiglin’ Oz to go with ’em. But I’ll say this for Frankie, she took her paddlin’s along with the boys and never let out a whoop or a holler about it neither.