Odor of Violets, Baynard Kendrick [best short novels .txt] 📗

shorts he stood at the foot of his wife’s bed and said finally: —

“I’m broke, Helena. Thad holds the purse strings, not me. He’s generous—but generous in his own way. Our honeymoon trip—”

“Cost a lot,” Helena supplied. “I know. And the things you’ve bought for me.” She held out one hand. A diamond and platinum wrist watch caught multicolored rays from the bed lamp. She put her white arm back under the covers. “How much did you spend for Christmas presents, Gil?”

“My dear!” His dark face became more pleasant with a smile of protest. “I’m not that broke. Why, my salary from International is—”

“Twelve thousand a year. That won’t buy three-thousand-dollar wrist watches for me.” Helena shielded her face from the glare of the lamp, and added, “Nor Christmas necklaces. It was sweet of you—but I canceled the order before we left New York today.”

Gil’s face darkened again. “Who told you about that necklace?” He slid into pajamas and tightened the sash about his waist. “That was to be a surprise.” He waited expectantly.

“It was an accident, Gil. The jeweler phoned the hotel about delayed delivery and I got the call. Look, darling,” she said almost entreatingly, “you’ve lost money in the market, I know. Where did you get the cash to buy such a necklace? It was going to cost you plenty.”

Gil switched off the lights and got into bed. “I borrowed it, Helena.”

“From whom?”

“My boss—if you must know.”

“Bunny Carter?”

“That’s right,” said Gil.

“When?”

“Last night in New York.”

Helena was quiet as the footsteps of the patrolling state policeman passed softly in the hall. After a time, she asked: —

“Where did you see Bunny?”

“At the banquet I went to—at the Biltmore.”

Helena raised herself on one elbow and relaxed again. “I must have misunderstood Norma. I thought she played bridge with Bunny and Bea last night until after two.”

“Bunny was in New York,” said Gil.

CHAPTER XVII

1

DUNCAN MACLAIN leaned back farther into the softness of an armchair, clasped the heavy silk folds of his dressing gown closer about him, and for a time gave himself up abstractedly to counting the footsteps of the trooper in the hall.

An air of somber expectancy had settled about The Crags, muting the life of the Tredwill home. The Captain felt himself caught in its toils, and the feeling was most unpleasant. It rasped on his super-keen senses, tearing at his nerves as some bad violinist might draw discords from strings with an over-resined bow.

Maclain’s very existence was composed of ordered patterns. Before he could move with assurance, articles of furniture must be mentally pictured, allocated to their proper places. The conduct of humans affected him in similar fashion. Men and women were governed by certain immutable laws and customs. It was Duncan Maclain’s habit to study those about him, and judge, as a trained psychologist might judge, what they would do under a given set of circumstances.

Bella’s murder had struck with terrific impact, shattering those immutable laws which served as guideposts. The murder formed part of a pattern; that, he knew. But the picture was broken—obscured by tiny lines, as broken glass becomes opaque. Somehow he must strip away the cloudy inessentials and make the picture clear.

The stripping process might prove dangerous. Broken glass held nothing but peril for a careless hand.

Bella’s murder was most annoying, and clever, too. Before it happened the picture had been clear. Bella fitted neatly into it, smiling cryptically out of its tragic frame.

Maclain had come to Hartford searching for someone nosy—discreetly nosy. Bella had filled the bill. Cleverness, even ruthless astuteness, was easily hidden under the role of an ignorant housemaid with a predilection for raiding the storeroom to loot it of sweets and jam.

The State Police were certain that no one had left The Crags after Norma Tredwill was attacked the night before. Again Bella fitted into the frame.

The odor of violets fitted, too.

Maclain restlessly left his chair, went to his Gladstone bag, and took out a box containing a jigsaw puzzle. It was easier to concentrate when his fingers had something to do. Seated at a writing table, he dumped the pieces of the puzzle out before him and began to sort them swiftly.

The puzzle was more than half together when he paused to touch the chime button on his Swiss repeater watch. The timepiece tinkled half-past two.

He placed the watch on the table before him, touched the desk lamp, and found it was on. Switching it off, he sat for a moment listening to Schnucke’s light breathing, then went to work again in the darkness. Piece by piece the puzzle grew, built by the uncanny prescience of fingers which could see.

The odor of violets was a means of identification—labeling its wearer as a spy. It identified documents, too—showed they had been traced, or earmarked them as originating from agents of the same unfriendly power.

“Those Braille instructions were deciphered before they were brought to me,” he said under his breath as he patted a fragment of the puzzle into position. “Probably by another blind man—a member of the ring. That checks all the way through—but I have no proof, and no one will believe what I say.”

He turned his thoughts to the missing girl. For several long minutes he sat holding another piece of the puzzle in his hand.

Why had Barbara Tredwill run away?

It violated the rules of normal conduct in the opinion of Duncan Maclain. Norma had thought somebody was in the other room of Gerente’s apartment. If that was true, the same person must have been there when Babs found Paul. The murderer? Perhaps, but there was no immediate means of proving it true.

The Captain laid the piece he was holding down on the table and stirred it about in small concentric circles.

Why hadn’t Babs raised an alarm?

Why hadn’t she phoned her father, or Stacy, or Norma, or anyone, before she ran away?

There were other questions—too many of them. The Captain relinquished the piece he was moving about and leaned back wearily.

If the