Death and Letters Page 5

  Mrs. Coldfield’s dark-blue eyes were fixed on his face; she nodded silently.

  “We begin with your tragedy—your husband’s death,” said Gamadge gently. “A double tragedy for you, Mrs. Coldfield. The loss, and the unanswerable question—why?”

  “He had no reason,” she said in a muffled voice. “His affairs were in perfect order, we were happy. He was well, except for those sinus attacks; the doctor had looked him over just a little while before. We were planning the trip to Europe. Some day we were going to have a place of our own. Do you think I didn’t know him? We’d been married twenty years.”

  “So you sank into a state of anxiety and depression,” said Gamadge. “You knew it couldn’t have been an accident.”

  “He never took more than one capsule at a time.” Tears were rolling down her face. She wiped them away, and Gamadge said: “Do forgive me. It’s part of the story.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  “Well, one night, worn out with all this, you went to bed early and had your supper brought up to you. You finished your soup. And the next thing you knew you were as sick as all hell, with people half killing you working over you.”

  “And then I was asleep again, and then I was in an ambulance.”

  “On the way to Doctor Dalgren’s rest cure. For a while you were too exhausted and dazed to know or care what had happened, but at last the doctor told you you’d had an overdose of amytal. You knew what he thought; but strangely enough—all things considered—you shook off your depression, cheered up a good deal, and became a model patient. You didn’t even bother to deny that you’d taken any amytal at all. Insist on your denial, I mean.

  “You went home with Dalgren’s blessing.”

  “I only meant to stay until I could pack up my clothes.”

  “But unfortunately for you, you didn’t pack them up and go before you made your almost fatal mistake. You ought to have gone first, Mrs. Coldfield.”

  “I know that now.” She turned her head slowly to meet his eyes.

  “By Heaven,” said Gamadge, “I wouldn’t have waited to pack!”

  “You believe my word—that I didn’t take amytal?”

  “Of course I believe you. And of course you had to warn them, but what possessed you, knowing what you did, to warn them on their own ground? Well, I can see it; you told someone whom you’d eliminated in your own mind. Very dangerous.”

  “I told Ames.”

  “Told him that since you hadn’t taken amytal, it must have been given to you—in the soup. That the pattern had been repeated; somebody had poisoned your husband—put the stuff in his lemonade that night. Was that what cheered you a little at Dalgren’s—the conviction that he hadn’t committed suicide? It would be comforting, even if it implied murder.”

  “I didn’t say murder, deliberate murder,” she said, her voice trembling. “I said somebody had gone mad.”

  “Or was mad. Did you suppose that that would be pleasanter for them—with the daughter of the family engaged to a Waterton?”

  “It was frightful, but I couldn’t go off without telling Ames. He’s very clever, and not at all sentimental; and he always seemed to like me, and he was very fond of Glen.”

  “None of that eliminates him, if he’s a homicidal maniac. Had you any reason for thinking it was homicidal mania, apart from a natural difficulty in thinking of any of these people as murderers?”

  “There wasn’t any motive. I’ve been over it and over it,” she said, looking away into the fire. “There simply wasn’t any motive. We all got on well enough, Glen was a favorite. And his money, what there is, goes to me; and mine goes to some old cousins in Canada. If they’d died, I was going to make another will.”

  “What about your share of the house?”

  “Glen sold out to the others years ago, reserving the right to come back and live there when we wanted to. But they could have sold at any time.”

  Gamadge sat back frowning. “The motive has discouraged me from the first. I couldn’t make out what they gained from getting rid of you. But to tell you the truth, Mrs. Coldfield, I never much like the theory of an explosion of mania which you seem to have adopted; not when there have been no warning signals in advance. There were none?”

  “Absolutely none at all, and there doesn’t seem to have been anything out of the way—even eccentricity—in either family; the Coldfields’ or Georgette’s. But one does hear—”

  “One hears of cooks poisoning whole families,” said Gamadge. “Your theory did give the Coldfields an out—the servants.”

  “No, it didn’t,” she said anxiously. “The cook—imagine that nice Louisa doing such a thing!—she wasn’t in the night Glen died, and the other maid, Agnes, wasn’t in the night I was poisoned, and the kitchen-maid saved me.”

  “That’s so.” Gamadge said after a moment: “Four capsules made a fatal dose. So far as you know there were six in those boxes; six in each.”

  “There were six in the one I had; I’m pretty sure Glen hadn’t had any out of his.”

  “So there may be another dose in somebody’s possession, fatal as death. You thought of that, perhaps?”

  “I told Ames I didn’t dare to stay a night. I actually thought he’d understand; even that he’d sympathize.”

  “My poor Mrs. Coldfield, you were an outlander suggesting madness or murder to a member of the clan.”

  “I thought he did understand; he showed sympathy. That’s the dreadful part of it. He said of course I must go if I felt as I did, and that he’d try to investigate—talk to Doctor Smyth. That was after lunch, in his little study. I went upstairs to finish my packing, and while I was at it the nurse walked in. I was never alone again afterwards, day or night. I couldn’t go to a telephone, or write a letter.”

  “You had dinner with these people?”

  “After they’d all talked to me, and were sure I wasn’t raving.”

  “Their attitude was that you’d had a serious relapse, and had delusions, and that Dalgren hadn’t understood the case?”

  “Yes, that’s what they said. At first they wanted me to retract—sign a statement that I had taken the amytal voluntarily. But after a day or so they never even pretended that I could go if I did that, the whole thing shifted—I was a danger to myself. Of course by that time I would have signed anything—I realized that they were going to have me committed somewhere. Georgette told me outright that it was too late, I wasn’t responsible for what I did or said. It was no use repeating that I’d only wanted to warn them, and that I’d never say a word to anyone.”

  “You think some of them may have been acting in good faith?”

  “I’m pretty sure some were. But one of them had tried to poison me, and might do it again, and the rest would certainly think then that it was suicide.”

  “You eliminated Ames Coldfield at first, or you wouldn’t have brought your story to him,” said Gamadge. “But you say you brought the story to him because he was intelligent and seemed fond of you and your husband.”

  She met his eyes. “Yes, I—”

  “I repeat those considerations wouldn’t eliminate him for a moment if your theory was homicidal mania.”

  “I only wanted to warn them and get away. Ames seemed—”

  “Mrs. Coldfield, you know there’s a better theory than that charitable one of yours. Can you really believe that a single Coldfield is a concealed maniac? Which of them would fill that bill?”

  “I only thought of Georgette at all because she’s nervous and high strung and takes violent prejudices, and because—I suppose because she never liked me very much. Susan—it’s impossible, she’s so happy. Ira hasn’t a nerve in his body. Ames is utterly satisfied with himself and life, and he’s amusing.”

  “In other words, all the Coldfields are sane.”

  “And I shouldn’t have called Georgette anything else, if I had any choice at all.”

  “We’ll cut out guess work,” said Gamadge, stubbing out his cigarette. “We�
�ll dig up a motive for murder somehow.”

  “There simply isn’t—”

  “You’ve only considered two motives—hate and gain. There are others. Let’s draw on my dark experience.”

  “Mr. Gamadge, was that why you arranged to go up there and talk to them tomorrow? Because you thought—”

  “I confess I wanted a look at them.”

  “But I told you—” she was distressed. “I only wanted to get away.”

  “You didn’t warn the family against anybody but a maniac—whom they all know doesn’t exist among them. You didn’t warn them that there’s a deliberate mass-murderer up there, and what’s more, a poisoner—the kind of murderer that goes on and on; repeats the pattern, all right! It’s too easy. How will you feel when it happens again?”

  “Nobody would dare—”

  “Wouldn’t they! I’ll tell you something for your comfort, though; just let one of those people get in a jam, or what they think of as a real jam, and they’ll trip themselves up. You won’t have to do it for them.”

  She smoothed the yellow fur of the cat sleeping on her knees. “Glen—one of them killed him. But they’re his own people, and you may think of me as a fool if you like, but I couldn’t hunt them down.”

  “Let them trip themselves up,” said Gamadge, smiling. “Just give them a chance. Now let’s see: the murderer certainly has a secret now; the motive was another secret. Who’d have one?”

  She looked uncomfortable.

  “Ames? No? Nothing serious, you think?”

  “How could I know? I shouldn’t say so. He talks about everything, even his silly past.”

  “Ira? An open book?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Susan? Wrapped up in her eligible and in her approaching marriage?”

  “They’re waiting until next Christmas. Jim Waterton is just starting in with his father’s firm. Mr. Waterton wanted him to wait until he was earning a proper salary.”

  “The old illusion; let the young man pretend he’s on his own feet?”

  “They’re very nice people; Jim is a charming young man. You must remember that Glendon and I were more or less outsiders—we were only there in the intervals. We used to take an apartment in New York for the Winter, but we were saving up for our own place, as I think I told you. This year we—”

  “I know. You have no thorough, inside knowledge of these people’s lives. How about your high-strung sister-in-law? Any secrets in her life, would you say?”

  “It would be ridiculous of me to call them secrets. She does go around more or less on her own. Ira’s too busy. She has her own friends.”

  “Enough said; let me do the rest of the sum in my evil mind. You see what I’m getting at, don’t you? If your husband chanced on a secret—a disgraceful secret, a dangerous secret—would he keep it to himself and let the consequences take care of themselves?”

  “If he said anything at all, it would be to the person. He often differed with Ira about things, but he didn’t gossip even to me. He had it out with Ira, and Ira would be the one who talked—to Ames or Georgette. That’s how I’d hear about it.”

  “What a liability a conscience can be. Let’s theorize: he chances on the murderer’s secret, and is killed. Then the murderer kills you, because you’re supposed to have been told about it by your husband…no; that won’t do.”

  “It won’t?” He had her interest, no doubt about that.

  “No, because you were allowed to live so long after his death. Wait a minute: we’ll say he had evidence, and the murderer knew he had it. Any chance of a thorough search, with you in a communicating room?”

  “No, none at all after his death. I was upstairs a great deal, and I never kept his door shut at night. Nobody came into his room at all, so far as I know. They’d only have a few minutes there if they did—we’re on the top floor, with nothing else up there but the servants’ rooms and an attic and store rooms.”

  “There you are, then. You had to be got out of the way.”

  She sat back, incredulous. “You mean somebody tried to kill me to get me out of the way?”

  “Don’t forget what I told you about poisoners—it’s all so easy, they just repeat the thing that worked so well the first time. There you were, depressed—to the point of suicide.”

  “But there was no such evidence, Mr. Gamadge; I went through all his things. I meant to go—I wouldn’t stay at The Maples without him. I was going south. I had to clear his things away.”

  “The thing wanted might have been a paper, a letter, something easily overlooked.”

  “I went carefully through his desk.”

  “And the pockets of his clothes?”

  “Of course—I was giving his things away.”

  Gamadge reflected. “You didn’t remove anything yourself?”

  “I was going to keep some things; I hadn’t removed them.”

  “A book?”

  “He hadn’t many in his room; I had most of ours in mine.”

  “Books would be the first thing the murderer would think of. And they wouldn’t take long.”

  She said: “I only took the crossword book.”

  “The crossword book; oh yes, it was his, wasn’t it?”

  “It was one of the reasons I knew he couldn’t have committed suicide. It was there on the table beside his bed, the morning I found him; with the pencil and a marker in it, and the puzzle half done. People don’t do crosswords just before they kill themselves.”

  “No, definitely not.”

  “I brought it away; it was the last thing he—”

  Gamadge suddenly put his hands on the arms of his chair and leaned forward as if he were going to rise. “Where is it?”

  “Here, of course. You saw it.” She lifted the silk bag from her arm and opened it. “Why?”

  CHAPTER SIXPeculiar Shade of Blue

  GAMADGE SAID NOTHING, and Mrs. Coldfield took the tightly bound paper book out of her bag, turned it upside down, riffled the pages and shook it. She said: “Markers in it—an old envelope and a piece of cellophane. The cellophane’s gone.”

  A bluish, square envelope fell out of the book; Gamadge put out his hand for it, but the cat Junior was too quick for him. Being a cat, he loved paper and had been brought up on paper playthings. He sprang up, batted the envelope from Gamadge’s fingers, followed it to the floor and rolled on it.

  Gamadge bent and snatched it up. He said: “Keep your clumsy paws out of this, will you?” and flattened the square of lilac-blue. He turned it over, looked at the sprawling but impressive handwriting of the address, the postmark, the pale old red stamp with the classical-looking woman’s head, crowned. He was motionless so long that Mrs. Coldfield stopped playing with Junior to stare.

  Gamadge said almost in a whisper: “cellophane.”

  “What on earth, Mr. Gamadge…?”

  “You said there was a piece of cellophane.”

  “Yes, there was. What about the piece of cellophane?” She had begun to laugh, but stopped when she saw the absorbed look on his face.

  He turned, and she thought how green his eyes were; she hadn’t noticed before. “You never happened to look at this envelope, did you, Mrs. Coldfield?”

  “Glen had a lot of correspondents. No, I don’t think I—but I do remember that it was addressed to The Maples, and I’m almost sure it was addressed to him.”

  “It’s addressed to a Coldfield. A Mrs. Deane Coldfield.”

  “Why, that’s Grandmother Coldfield—Glen’s grandmother! She died years ago—before the war.”

  “It has an English postmark—Shale, Somerset. And this is a Victorian stamp.” Gamadge lifted the envelope to peer closer. “Postmark dated 1875.”

  “Oh yes, it must be one that Grandfather Coldfield wrote her on one of his trips. She usually went with him, but not always, and she religiously kept all his letters. There was a whole box of them up among her things in the attic.” She added: “What’s so interesting? Nothing about Grandfath
er Coldfield was interesting, I can assure you of that. His letters certainly can’t have been. He was a byword in the family for dullness.”

  Gamadge said in a flat voice: “It’s a nice paper—you never got it anywhere but in England. Thin but tough for foreign correspondence—what letter writers they all are! And that tint—I never saw it except on English paper: that pale blue with just a suspicion of lilac. Nothing feminine about it; it’s not mauve or lavender.”

  Mrs. Coldfield couldn’t help being amused. She leaned over to look. “I wonder why Glen was using it as a bookmark.”

  “Wasn’t using it as a bookmark,” said Gamadge dryly. “And he’d protected it with that piece of cellophane that got thrown away.”

  Somewhat startled at his words and tone, she did not reply.

  “Did your husband go through his grandmother’s letters?” asked Gamadge. “I mean recently?”

  “He and Ames looked them over after she died; they weren’t even locked up, just in one of those little rosewood writing desks, as they call them; but I never saw what use such a desk could be.”

  “You mightn’t find conveniences at the inn,” said Gamadge. “I dare say that desk was older than Mrs. Deane Coldfield.”

  “I know she lived to a great age. Glen and Ames looked at some of the correspondence, but it was just too dull, so they left it.”

  “Up in the attic?”

  “Yes,” she said, more and more surprised. “They shoved all her things up there—it wasn’t a good period, Grandmother Coldfield’s heyday, but Ira never wants anything thrown away; or even sold. There are some pretty ornaments; I think they could be used, at any rate I’d use them. But not at The Maples as it is now—” she laughed—“straight McKinley.”

  Gamadge was turning the envelope gently with the edges of his fingers. Puzzled, she went on: “I saw those letters of Grandfather Coldfield’s myself, once—we were poking around in the attic ages ago.” Suddenly she paused and frowned. “You know—come to think of it, they were white.”

  Gamadge raised his eyes.

  “White,” she repeated, looking surprised. “White and shiny and bigger than that a little. Funny. I suppose Grandmother Coldfield had other correspondents in England.”