“It’s time to begin,” the court stenographer advised Dr. Prescott. Prescott wore his official frown. “Hardly anyone is here. Where’s Dr. Prye? Where’s White? Where’s Jakes?”
The room began to buzz with conversation. The audience wanted the curtain to go up. But where were all the actors?
Prescott pounded his gavel and cleared his throat.
“We are here today to decide the manner in which the deceased met her death.”
A policeman approached and said in a whisper: “You’re wanted on the telephone in the office.”
Prescott, flustered and red-faced, left the court.
The buzzing increased as if a swarm of bees were coming closer and closer. At ten-thirty the room was in an uproar. Not only were the actors missing, the coroner was missing!
Behind her black handkerchief Susan’s lips moved: “I think we’d better leave, Father. Something has gone wrong.”
He took her arm and they walked out, Thucydides descending the mountain with a gold-star widow.
Some time later the jury, after a whispered colloquy with the court stenographer, filed out of the room. The more frivolous members of the audience broke into boos and demanded their rain checks, but they tired of this, and soon they, too, walked out.
“Well, I,” said the court stenographer, “shall be damned.”
At two o’clock Dr. Prescott tossed Miss Alfonse’s left lung into a pail, took off his gown, washed his hands, and went out to his front office. Prye and Inspector White were sitting waiting for him. Neither of them looked cheerful.
“There’s not much doubt,” Prescott said. “She was drowned. Both lungs were filled with water.”
“Could she have been drowned some other place, say in a bathtub, and then thrown into the lake?” Prye asked.
“If the bathtub was filled with lake water,” Prescott replied wearily. “The water in her lungs was lake water.”
Inspector White leaned forward and said: “Any bruises or broken bones?”
“None at all. But the cut in her left arm is fairly deep, and she probably lost a lot of blood. I can’t understand how the cut could have been made without a struggle, and there was no struggle.”
“Dope?” the inspector said.
“I was looking especially for traces of a narcotic. There were none. I can only suggest that the wound was self-inflicted and that she cut deeper than she realized. The loss of blood weakened her and she drowned. The bathing suit, the cut, the absence of bruises or narcotics, the lake water in her lungs, all point to accidental death. Or suicide.”
“How long has she been dead?” Inspector White asked.
“According to the stomach content, digestive processes were well-advanced. Say three hours after she ate.”
“She had dinner in her room at six-thirty,” Prye said. “That would make it about nine-thirty. And you’re sure that her death was an accident or a suicide?”
“Unless more evidence turns up, I’ll say it’s accidental death.”
The inspector and Prye went out and climbed into White’s car.
“The bank,” White said tersely.
The bank manager identified the waterlogged bills as the bills he had sent out to Miss Emily Bonner by special messenger on Monday morning. There was no doubt whatever. No one in Clayton had ever withdrawn so much money under such peculiar circumstances, and the manager had listed the numbers of the bills.
Inspector White was quiet on the way back to Prye’s cottage. He drove with his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him as if he were driving very carefully. But he did not swerve to avoid bumps, and soon Prye’s head began to sing like a coloratura soprano in the act of going mad.
“Are you astigmatic or thinking?” Prye asked dryly.
White’s eyes unfroze. “Sorry. I’m a little of both. I was wondering what to do about the Bonners. It’s fairly certain that one or the other of them, perhaps both, helped Alfonse arrange the murder setting, gave her five thousand dollars to keep her mouth shut, probably with a promise to pay more later, and let her escape. Alfonse could not leave by road, since both ends of the lane were under guard, so she tried to swim to the opposite shore. Probably there was a car waiting to pick her up at a certain point. If you have enough money cars can be hired with no questions asked. But in arranging her own murder Miss Alfonse was too conscientious. She cut too deep and so she drowned. A pretty piece of irony, isn’t it?”
“If one could depend on irony,” Prye said, “one could build a philosophy around it. But irony is not dependable. Which of them are you going to arrest?”
“Neither,” White said simply. “I’ll keep them under guard until I can collect more evidence.”
“Where are you going to collect this evidence?”
“The Chinaman.”
Prye smiled thinly. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not? I’ve dealt with close-mouthed men before and they’ve talked.”
“No doubt,” Prye said, still smiling. “But Wang is not close-mouthed, he’s open-mouthed.”
Wang did his utmost to justify his reputation. At the sight of the inspector and Prye he bent double and launched instantly into effusions.
“Many persons speak highly of the majesty of the law. But with my own eyes I see their words paling when I am confronted with—”
“Wang!” Prye said sharply.
“Your tone misgives me,” Wang said, grinning. “I fear I have inserted my foot into the lion’s mouth.”
Inspector White had been prepared to use his old strategy of smiling tact and friendliness, but Wang had used it first. When two Dale Carnegie converts meet, Prye thought, one of them has to give in.
It was the inspector who did. He glared. “I have some questions to ask you, Wang, and I want answers to all of them.”
“I trust my inadequate knowledge of the English language will not prevent my supplying the answers you desire.”
“I trust not,” White said grimly. “Did you see Miss Bonner come downstairs on Monday night?”
Wang was shocked. “Miss Bonner is unsound of limb and never comes downstairs.”
“She says she did.”
“One is forced to conclude that Miss Bonner is a victim of the inconsistency which characterizes her sex,” Wang said regretfully. “With some reluctance I concede that Miss Bonner has a tendency to stop short of or go beyond the truth.”
Prye groaned. “You don’t share the tendency, of course. If you do I’m going to tie a rock around your neck and give you to the carp.”
“Gladly I proffer my neck,” Wang said sadly. “Life is hollow without the good opinion of the inestimable doctor.”
Prye and the inspector exchanged glances. Then Prye took Wang by the shoulder and rocked him back and forth twice.
“How much do you get for being blind and deaf?”
Wang smiled gently. “The words are blown from my lips by the winds of wisdom.”
“You’re afraid to talk?”
“I fear only Mr. Einstein and his vast concept of the fourth dimension. And I fear chaos. I am a thinker. All thinkers fear chaos.”
“Oh my God,” Prye said.
Inspector White thought of his adrenals just in time and managed to say calmly:
“Why don’t you talk, Wang?”
Wang’s face was mildly reproachful. “My tongue hesitates to be a rudder for a ship of destiny that is not my own.”
“That’s enough!” the inspector cried, waving his hands. “Go away. I’ll put you in jail when I have the time.”