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

servant: “Did they make you comfortable last night, Cappo?”

“Yessah, Captain.” Cappo’s big hands moved with extraordinary delicacy as he arranged the breakfast tray. “I slept over the garage. This breakfast ain’t exactly like Sarah would fix it, Captain.”

Maclain laughed as he sat down and located the dishes on the tray. “There are other cooks besides that wife of yours, Cappo.”

“Yessah,” Cappo agreed doubtfully, “but seems like Sarah knows exactly what to do. That’s hot cereal in the bowl, Captain, cream in the silver pitcher, and milk in the china one. You say the word and I’ll open the eggs for you.”

The Captain ate silently while Cappo laid out a suit, drew water in the tub, and found clean underwear.

“Where’s Dreist?” Maclain asked when breakfast was nearly finished.

“He’s chained up in my room, Captain.”

“I want you to stay close by him,” said Maclain. “I don’t want anyone to get near him—nor anyone to see him if you can help it. What’s the number of the house telephone in your room?”

“Number nine, Captain.”

“If I give four short rings I want you and Dreist,” Maclain said impressively. “Understand?”

“Yessah.” Cappo spoke from the bathroom. “How’ll I know where you’re ringing from?”

“There are twelve phones in the house,” Maclain told him after a little consideration. “I want you to locate each one and its number. I’ve done so already. I’ll give four short rings—and follow with the number of the phone I’m ringing from. For eleven, I’ll follow with two long rings—and for twelve, one long and then two more. Is that clear?”

“Yessah, Captain. If you gives four short and two short I come running with Dreist to phone number two.”

“Right.”

Cappo busied himself about the room for a moment, then he asked, “Are you going to need the car?”

“Badly, perhaps.” The Captain stirred the last of his coffee and drank it down. “But I’m not going to use it for that very reason. I want you to let it out around here that something’s wrong with the car. Ask about the nearest garage. If necessary, put some small thing out of adjustment—but keep yourself ready. You may have to drive to New York in a hurry.”

“I’ll be ready, Captain. You can trust me.”

“That fact, in the chaos of a schizophrenic civilization,” said Maclain, “is one of the very few things I know.”

“You sure know a lot of words, Captain.” Cappo’s massive head shook admiringly. “Yessah. You suttinly do.”

3

Duncan Maclain bathed and dressed hurriedly. When he was ready to leave the room, he sent Schnucke off to be fed and walked by Cappo. He didn’t need Schnucke’s help to find his way to that room on the upper floor.

In the top hall he paused outside of the door.

Sergeant King turned from his occupation of staring moodily out of the single window and said, “Come in.”

The Captain took three steps and stopped just across the threshold. He stood palms out, his little fingers lightly touching the seams of his trousers. The position threw his powerful shoulders slightly back, giving him a most military air.

“Tell me, Sergeant King, when you searched this room last night did you find any violet perfume?”

The Sergeant opened his mouth and closed it again. Seconds of silence ticked away, and with each one the Sergeant found it more difficult to reply. He was bogged down in the noisome muck of a crime too sanguinary to be real. It belonged in a hovel, somewhere in the backwoods or the slums, to be listed in the category of crimes of lust and passion. It was decidedly out of place in a wealthy producer’s home.

His watchful eyes trickled down over Maclain. Everything was out of place. The murdered girl was beautiful—yet through hours of intensive search the police had failed to locate a lover; failed to locate any motive, any family, anyone who knew anything about her. Now, added to his sack of assorted incongruities was a blind man—not an ordinary blind man, but one armed with highest authority from the Commissioner himself; blanket authority to pry, interfere, and ask questions—questions which the farthest reaching of the Sergeant’s quick mind could only type as irrelevant, questions about violet perfume.

King drew a deep breath and managed to keep it from ending in an audible sigh. “There’s a bottle of violet perfume on her bureau,” he said with a trace of compassion. “Why?”

“I thought it might be a clue.” Maclain shook his head. “I smelled it last night in the hall. If the girl used it herself it probably means nothing at all.”

“It probably doesn’t,” King agreed with a shade more cordiality. “You made a remark about this method of murder last night. I asked you up here to talk to you. The murderer picked about the bloodiest method I’ve ever heard of—so bloody that he stood behind a screen and swung the ax around one end. I thought you might tell me why.”

The Captain left his place just inside the door and took two steps toward the bureau at the left of the room. His fingers moved about the surface until he located the bottle of perfume. He sniffed it without removing the stopper, then put it down again. Slowly he swung about and with his left hand touched the fabric of the plain cloth three-panel screen beside the bed.

“Did you ever hear the story of the horseshoe nail that lost Napoleon the Battle of Waterloo?”

“Yes,” said Sergeant King.

“This reminds me of it, somewhat,” Maclain continued, as though the Sergeant had failed to answer. “The screen was here and the murderer saw it. The sight of it reminded the murderer that it might be used effectively as a shield against spattering blood. That pleasant thought reminded the murderer of the weapon in the armory hall. The weapon reminded the murderer of what happens to traitors in Germany today. Bella met her Waterloo.”

“You’re talking in riddles,” said Sergeant King.

“And you’re dealing in them, Sergeant,” replied Maclain. “You can investigate this murdered girl from now until Hitler goes