Archer, Montague, and I went outside. The air on the sidewalk seemed clear and clean; I needed the rays of the dying, late afternoon sun to warm me.
Montague gave his hat-brim an extra tug. “Can I drop you someplace?”
“Thanks, no,” Archer said. “Jordan and I will have to tell the old bear that he needn’t worry about her any longer.”
As we turned away, Montague’s voice arrested us, “Archer!”
“Yeah?”
“While you were digging in her life, did you stumble across anything that might trip up whoever killed her?”
Archer didn’t reply.
Montague’s eyes shimmered faintly. “Okay, so anything you learned is not to be discussed in public. I was thinking...”
“Anything I learned, Montague, I have already told Brogardus — in private. Brogardus will handle Marilyn Foster’s killing in the proper, legal way.”
“Meaning if I found out who killed her I’d see he never lived to come to trial?”
“Meaning something like that — maybe,” Archer said. “Meaning I’ve never liked your strong-arm methods in the past to get what you want, Montague, and some of the people around you — they don’t inspire friendship in me, either.”
I watched Lon Montague’s jaw muscles ripple under his smooth-shaven flesh. “I’m glad to know how we stand. Only one thing more you might like to know — I think she really did love me, in her way, and I know I thought a hell of a lot of her!”
Montague turned on his heels and was gone. Archer and I got in my ramshackle sedan, and I threw the old car in gear. I was still remembering the way death had wiped the hardness from her eyes, and turned them to blue glass there in the morgue...
The VanDyke mansion was a huge pile of stone, steel, and wrought-iron over a hundred years old. You didn’t see it from the street, because it was surrounded by a high, ivy-covered, stone wall; you didn’t see it the first few moments you cruised in the driveway, because the gently-rolling grounds were grottoes of shrubs and majestic shade trees. Then you rounded a bend in the drive, and there the house was — a monstrous, solid thing of stone with tall glowering windows.
Leaving the sedan like an eyesore in the drive, Archer and I mounted the veranda steps. The chief rang the bell. I looked over the old spook-joint and thought of the housing shortage. Only old Ludwig and young Buddy survived, of all the VanDykes; they had a hell of a lot of house here to themselves. The left, or east, wing was completely closed off, hadn’t been used in years. The rest of the place had been more or less falling in ruins, until a year ago, the original VanDyke fortune having been practically exhausted. There were still signs here and there of reconstruction, done by Buddy’s first wife — a childhood sweetheart whose wealth still hadn’t been great enough to save her after an auto accident.
The tall oaken door creaked open. The servant standing there was named Josiah; he was very old, with skin like wrinkled, light-tan leather. Archer told him we wanted to see the elder Mr. VanDyke, and Josiah bade us enter. “Mr. Ludwig is in his study, sir.”
And quite a study it was. A big oval room, filled with massive furniture, French doors giving to the side lawn. Old Ludwig was standing beside his desk when Josiah announced us.
“Sit down, gentlemen, sit down,” he bellowed. He was a tall, spare figure with a mane of white hair and a narrow, hard, deeply lined face. He roared, “Confound it, Josiah, where is my medicine? What the devil’s the matter with you, man?”
“Yes, sir. Right away, Mr. Ludwig.”
Old Ludwig burped softly behind his hand, rounded the desk, seated himself. “This indigestion!” he shoved some of the medicine bottles aside on his desk, without knocking any on the floor. That’s a harder task than it sounds, because the whole top of the desk was littered with these bottles. Every time the chief and I saw him, the old man was suffering a new malady. Indigestion today; high blood pressure yesterday; a heart tremor tomorrow.
Buddy VanDyke had said privately, on one of our visits here, “Well, the strongest man must have his Achilles’ heel. With grandpa, it’s sheer hypochondria; he sterilizes his drinking glasses himself, and orders distilled water for his own drinking purposes. A fly or mosquito in his bedroom causes him to call out the exterminating company. The old boy is whit-leather tough, not a thing wrong with him — except in his mind. Time was when he could bring a board of directors to his way of thinking by sheer lung power — but mention a germ to him, and he quakes in his boots!”
“Gentlemen,” old Ludwig thundered, “I trust you have brought that little tart’s scalp to me today! Perhaps it would revive my feelings and—”
“Sorry,” Archer said, “but her scalp is in the morgue.”
“She is a no-good, shameless... What? Did you say morgue, sir?”
“I did. Marilyn Foster is dead — murdered.”
“Wh... wh... wh...” Old Ludwig stared at us a moment, gaping like a fish out of water. Then his jaw snapped closed, his eyes going calculating. “You didn’t, sir, by any chance take too literally my suggestion that you get Marilyn Foster out of my grandson’s life?”
Archer smiled bleakly. “If you’re suggesting we killed her, you’re way off base.”
“Yes, well, humph!” Ludwig fiddled with a bottle on his desk for a moment. “At least the affair is over; she’ll never be able to marry my grandson, rule him and his money utterly, now. Tell me, how and when did it happen?”
“Last night, apparently,” Archer said, “in her apartment. Person or persons unknown went there in the early hours of morning, about the time she got home from work. Person or persons evidently argued with her, picked up the poker from the fireplace set, and struck her in the left temple. Death was almost instantaneous; she was found this morning by the maid who came in to clean up.”
“And the police?”
“At the moment are questioning your grandson,” Archer said.
Old Ludwig reared up in his chair. “My grandson,” he roared. “The nerve of them! The absolute stupidity! Why, that young pup is afraid of his own shadow — much less having the nerve to kill anybody! The gall of them!” Old Ludwig sputtered to silence, grabbed for a bottle on his desk, and swallowed a pill.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Archer said placidly. “It’s just routine on the part of the police; they’ll probably get around to you and grill you about your grandson’s relations with Marilyn Foster.”
“Me, sir?” Ludwig’s voice rattled the window panes. “The unmitigated nerve of them coming here! That... that hussy has brought nothing but trouble to this family. But I shall not hesitate to give the police my opinion of her — nor of their bungling ways!”
The old boy was working himself into quite a state when the chief and I left; I personally would have hated to be the cop who questioned him. He was tough, and hard, and could be cold as a fish’s belly when he wanted to. There was rumor that a grand jury had once looked into his business practices.
Archer and I drove back downtown. We bought a paper in the foyer of our building, glanced at it on the way up to the office. Marilyn Foster’s death had a minor spot on the front page. Reporters had mentioned the scion of a very old family being questioned by police. They’d also mentioned Archer and me. Well, it was publicity.
We walked down the corridor toward the office. I gave only an idle glance at the elderly woman hovering in the corridor. But as Archer rattled the key in the door, the old lady came prancing up to us. “Are you Mr. Archer?”
“No,” I said, “he’s Archer; I’m Luke Jordan, the lower name on the door.”
The simpering little woman looked at Mr. Archer and frowned. It was a usual reaction. Upon first meeting, most folks just can’t absorb the fact that this dumpy, roly-poly little guy with the baby-blue eyes and pink cheeks carries a reputation for pulling killers out of thin air.