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

into a synagogue to pray. You’ll unearth nothing but a carefully prepared labyrinth of blind alleys. Two nations stand in your way.”

“Two nations?”

“She was working for both of them and both paid her, but she loved only one. You’ll get no help from either this country or the country that killed her—Nazi Germany. She died on active service, and no human will ever prove that she was a counterespionage agent working for G-2. My problem is who killed her, not why. Yet you have to know the why to find the who.” The Captain turned his back on the Sergeant and felt his way to the end of the bureau, where he found a chair. He sat down, crossed his legs, and seemed to be looking at his toes.

“This is a private home,” said Sergeant King. “Do you expect the State Police to swallow a story that a maid was murdered in a private home by a spy?”

“No,” said Duncan Maclain, “and neither does the spy. That’s what makes it difficult, Sergeant, both for me and for you.”

He raised his head with a sudden gesture which brought his chin out firm and strong. “The New York Homicide Squad is faced with the same problem, Sergeant King. Night before last, a man named Paul Gerente was murdered in a Twelfth Street apartment in New York. That was spy murder number one. Last night this girl was killed here—spy murder number two. If Barbara Tredwill fails to get back home alive, you can put her murder in the same class, as number three.”

“And what am I supposed to do—arrest the whole Tredwill family because they were in New York and here too?” King’s emotion was evident in the tightness of his fingers about the holstered gun at his hip, but his voice was ominously calm.

“It might prove efficacious in bringing matters to a head, but I’d hardly recommend it,” said Maclain. “You’d be faced with the necessity of breaking several airtight alibis which keep this family in the clear in Gerente’s murder. Gilbert Tredwill attended a banquet. His wife and his father had dinner together and went to a show. Stacy attended a picture with another boy.”

“And what about Barbara?” the Sergeant snapped out. “She was in New York, too.”

“So was Mrs. Tredwill.” Maclain uncrossed his legs and placed his hands on his knees. “Would you be inclined to arrest either of them as a spy?”

The Sergeant turned to look at the bed where Bella had been murdered and suddenly said, “Hell, no!”

“Well,” Maclain went on, “that brings us back to scratch.”

He stood up. “I suppose you’ve searched this entire house for bloodstained clothes?”

“And found none,” said King abruptly.

“It’s a feature of these two murders that you find nothing.” The Captain closed thumb and forefinger about the lower part of his jaw. “If you were going to hack someone up, Sergeant King, and didn’t want to get bloodstains on your clothes, would you prefer to stand behind the inadequate protection of a screen or to remove your clothes entirely?”

“I’d remove them entirely.”

“Check!” said Duncan Maclain. “So would I.”

“So you’ve narrowed it down to someone in The Crags?” said Sergeant King.

The Captain stood up. “When I narrow things down that far, Sergeant, I make arrests. The fact that a murderer wishes to avoid bloodstained clothing is hardly adequate proof that that murderer is living in the Tredwill home.”

4

Norma Tredwill was opening her morning mail when Pierce announced Duncan Maclain. Overwrought from an almost sleepless night, Norma pulled herself up into a straighter position on the chaise longue as the Captain came in.

His appearance was heartening. The terror of murder striking at The Crags the night before seemed to have passed him by. Impeccable in a salt-and-pepper suit of heavy weave, he greeted her with a smile which helped her put aside a burning desire to cry.

“Mr. Carter is calling for me at ten,” Maclain told her. “He’s driving me over to East Hartford. I don’t want you to worry about anything you’ve told me. I can clear everything up with Mr. Carter. I really dropped in to see how you were feeling today.”

“My arm’s better, thank you. But, Captain, that poor girl—”

“Please!” Maclain raised a hand. “I’m going to ask you to try and forget that anything happened here last night, Mrs. Tredwill. You can help yourself and Barbara most by keeping your mind as far from worry as possible.”

“Barbara?” asked Norma in a tight small voice. “You’ve heard something?”

“No,” said Maclain. “Actually I hoped that you might have—in the morning mail. The officer on duty downstairs said that a letter addressed to you was scented slightly with perfume.”

“It’s an ad,” Norma informed him with marked disappointment. “There was nothing but that and Christmas cards. I’ve already thrown it away.”

She had a fleeting impression that Maclain had stiffened as she spoke, that under his urbanity her casual words had revealed for an instant hidden flecks of diamond-cutting steel. When he said, “That’s too bad,” she felt she must have been mistaken.

“Don’t hesitate to call on me, Mrs. Tredwill, if there’s anything you feel I can do.” The Captain started toward the door. Halfway there he turned. “I wonder if you’d gratify a whim—let me smell that circular you received. Due to my blindness I’m extremely interested in various types of perfume.”

“Certainly.” Norma found it difficult to keep wonderment out of her tone. Pushing aside several Christmas-card envelopes in the wastebasket beside her, she located the letter and envelope. “I’ve had a couple of these before.”

Maclain came closer and took the letter from her hand. For an instant he held it close to his nose. “It’s very delicate,” he said. “Were the letters always the same?”

“Really,” said Norma, “I don’t believe I read them. I throw most advertisements away. This is a recent pest—called the House of Bonnée.”

“Some day, if I live,” said Maclain, slipping the letter into his pocket, “I may buy some of their violet perfume.”

CHAPTER XVIII

1

THERE