The last remark was expressed with a cynicism which drew understanding smiles from her two cousins. Whatever emotions Mrs. Agatha Chambers’ relatives were undergoing as a result of her death, grief obviously was not one of them.
“Let me get this straight now,” Home said. “Mrs. Chambers was the aunt of all of you, but you’re all of different parents?”
Gerald Rawlins nodded. “My mother was Aunt Aggie’s sister. Monica’s father was her brother. Irene is the daughter of her deceased husband’s brother.” He paused and added resentfully. “That makes Irene not even a blood relation of Aunt Aggie’s, but she gets the pot of gold.”
“On the other hand,” Irene put in sweetly, “Aunt Aggie’s money originally came from Uncle Andrew, and you’re no blood relation of his.”
The inspector broke up the side squabble by asking, “How come none of your parents were included in your aunt’s will?”
“Our parents are all dead,” Monica said. “I told you before we were the sole heirs.”
Inspector Home mused a moment. “Did I understand correctly Miss Chambers currently is legatee of the largest amount?”
“Yes,” Irene said promptly. “But if you think I whammed the old gal because she was getting ready to cut me off, forget it. Monica was the one she was mad at this time.”
Monica said indifferently, “I imagine I was due to take a cut from a hundred thousand down to one thousand, if you like that for a motive. The only trouble with it is I could have waited a few months until Aunt Agatha got mad at Irene for something, and probably been back on top of the heap again.”
Gerald Rawlins said nothing, apparently assuming the lack of motive he would have for killing his aunt just before she increased his legacy from one thousand to a hundred thousand was too obvious to require comment.
Inspector Home turned to Jerome Straight, the murdered woman’s attorney. “Take it you were here to draw up a new will after the old lady properly bawled everybody out?”
The old lawyer frowned at the inspector’s choice of words, but nodded his gaunt head. “I assume that was the reason I was asked to be present. Mrs. Chambers did not actually specify what she wanted when she phoned, but past experience led me to expect a change of will.”
“And you?” the inspector asked, looking at Assistant District Attorney Alvin Christopher. “How’d you happen to be here, Al?”
The young man shrugged. “I’m afraid I’m as much in the dark as you are, Steve. When Mrs. Chambers phoned me yesterday and asked me to drop over at seven-thirty tonight on an important legal matter,
I assumed she wanted me as a lawyer rather than as a member of the district attorney’s office. But now I’m not so sure.”
When the inspector merely looked blank, he explained, “I have a private practice in addition to my work for the D.A., you know. Naturally I thought she wanted me to do some legal work for her. But since discovering she already had a lawyer, I’ve been wondering if she suspected someone wanted to kill her, and asked me over in my official capacity.”
Home glanced at Jerome Straight and said slowly, “Maybe she intended to change lawyers.”
Jerome Straight scowled at him. In a stiff voice he said, “I have no reason to believe Mrs. Chambers was dissatisfied with the legal service given her by Strong, Wilson and Straight. We’ve been attorneys for Mr. Chambers — and for his widow — for over thirty years.”
“All of you?” the inspector asked curiously.
“Strong and Wilson are dead. I’ve been alone in the firm for twenty years.”
Chapter Two
The Long Knife
Further questioning by the inspector divulged Aunt Agatha had set the meeting by mail a week previously, this much notice being necessary in order to give her three relatives time to get there. Irene Chambers lived in Chicago, where she was a dress designer, and it required an all-day train ride for her to visit her aunt. Mrs. Monica Madigan lived in Kansas City, which also involved an all-day train ride, and Gerald Rawlins came from Dallas, Texas, a trip of thirty-four hours by train. The latter had flown, however, and made it in only five hours.
All three exhibited ticket stubs to substantiate their methods of transportation. Inspector Home thanked them and kept the stubs. In their stories of traveling as they said they had could be checked, all three had iron-clad alibis, for Irene’s train arrived at three pm, Monica’s at four-thirty, and Gerald’s plane did not get in till seven, just in time for him to rush over to his aunt’s without even stopping to register at a hotel.
Gerald pointed to a suitcase standing next to the wall near the door. It still had half of a bright red baggage stub tied to the handle. “Brought my luggage along from the airport. Had trouble finding a cab and almost missed the meeting. I didn’t get here till a quarter of eight.”
“Forty-five minutes?” the inspector asked with raised brows. “Not more than twenty from the airport here.”
“If you can find a cab,” Gerald agreed.
Unlike the three cousins, Jerome Straight proved to have no alibi whatever. He said he had not been feeling well, had not gone to the office that day, and since he lived alone in a bachelor apartment, could not prove what he had been doing at the time of the murder.
The inspector seemed about ready to wind things up for the night and tell the whole group to go home, when Gerald Rawlins revealed there was another person scheduled to have attended the meeting who had never showed up.
“Adrian Thorpe,” he said. “He’s president of the company I work for. The Fibrolux Plastic Corporation of Dallas. Aunt Aggie’s company, really, for she was majority stockholder. Ad was supposed to get in on the noon train, but I guess he must have missed connections somewhere.”
“Any idea why he was invited to the meeting?” Home asked.
Gerald shook his head. In a voice indicating no love was lost between him and Adrian, he said, “Ad is a protege of Aunt Aggie’s. She thought he was some kind of a business genius and always voted him in as president at the corporation’s annual meeting. She could just as easily have picked someone in the family, if she wanted.”
Since Gerald himself seemed to be the only one of the family actively connected with the business, by “someone”, he obviously meant himself.
The inspector said, “Since you and this Adrian Thorpe were both coming from Dallas for the same meeting, how come he traveled by train and you came by plane?”
“I couldn’t get away so soon. We were having the annual audit and I’m treasurer of the company. So Ad went ahead and I caught a plane at the last minute.”
Something in the young man’s tone did not seem to me to ring quite true as he made this last statement. I could not quite decide why, except his voice suddenly seemed to contain an element of reluctance. Sedalia apparently noticed it too, for all at once her voice boomed out.
“What’s the rest of it, young man?”
Gerald threw her a startled look.
“Out with it,” she pursued. “What was it that held you up?”
“You a mind reader?” he asked. Then he shrugged. “The whole thing will be in the news eventually, I suppose. Adrian had been dipping in the company till. I was held up because the audit showed a hundred-thousand dollar shortage.” He smiled rather bitterly. “So much for Aunt Aggie’s judgment in proteges.”