Death and Letters Page 6

  Gamadge asked: “Where would you hide a letter?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Would it be a bad idea to hide it in another old letter?”

  “Mr. Gamadge, what is that thing, and what are you talking about?”

  “As a document man I should describe this thing as high explosive; as your private investigator, I should say it represents the motive we’ve been looking for.”

  She was astounded: “Motive for murder?”

  “This envelope is evidence; if it had fingerprints on it, it constituted proof for your husband—proof of something he thought of as a crime.” Gamadge looked at her and smiled. “He protected the prints with cellophane; but the cellophane is lost, and where is his proof now?”

  “I shouldn’t think there’d be much left of it,” she answered in bewilderment.

  “No, but it probably has your prints on it, and mine, and excellent ones of Junior’s pads. I’ll work on it tomorrow, anyway, and I’ll take your prints before I do.”

  “But what is it evidence of?”

  Gamadge was still too much fascinated by the blue envelope to answer her. He said: “You took it away with you in the crossword book, and after you were gone the murderer had a thorough search for it. There was a good chance that it had been thrown away. You knew nothing of it—your husband had promised not to tell anybody, to leave confession to the transgressor. When you came back and never spoke of it, the murderer was quite sure it had gone for good. Your life wasn’t in danger, Mrs. Coldfield, after you came back from Dalgren’s; it isn’t now.”

  “Mr. Gamadge, won’t you tell me what it’s all about?”

  “I’ll do better than tell you; I’ll show you in print.”

  He got up, went across the room to a shelf piled with magazines, and brought back a thick, buff-colored periodical, with a serious and responsible look about it. He sat down again and showed it to her. “You know this?”

  “The University Quarterly? Oh yes, Ames takes it.”

  “Did your husband read it?”

  “We both did.”

  “You know of course that it comes out, stubbornly attached as it is to its own ways, in February, May, August and November; my copy reaches me a few days before the first of the month. I dare say that you wouldn’t have had a chance to look at the February number?”

  “No, I haven’t seen it.”

  “But your husband saw it. He died on the night of January the thirtieth—a Sunday. He may have seen this current copy of the Quarterly that very day. If he did, he came across this—the first article in the book, by Ranley, a top-flight critic. It’s under their usual heading for the leading piece: LIFE AND LETTERS.”

  Frowning, she took the magazine from him. She read:

  THE GARTHWAIN DISCOVERY

  and looked up at Gamadge. “Does it mean Garthwain the poet?”

  “That’s who it means,” said Gamadge. “The last of the great Victorians, and if he wasn’t a Tennyson or a Browning or a Matthew Arnold he was certainly a runner-up, wasn’t he? Morally he had them beat. Longer beard, too.”

  “Matthew Arnold didn’t—”

  “Only the whiskers. Don’t think I don’t love those three; more than I love Garthwain. It was a little late in the day for him to be so all-fired romantic.”

  “I used to be fond of Garthwain.” She read on:

  Garthwain’s newly discovered Letters to an Unknown must rank as one of the great literary amazements of all time. They are not only fine examples of the poet’s prose style, but they provide a mystery which…

  Mrs. Coldfield laid the book down on the arm of her chair, gazed blankly at Gamadge, and said: “Mr. Gamadge, you can’t mean that Mark Garthwain’s Letters to an Unknown were written to Grandmother Coldfield?”

  “I must beg you,” said Gamadge earnestly, “to lower your voice a little. You and I are two of a very small number of persons now living who know the fact.”

  “Fact? How can you—”

  “There’s a facsimile of the great man’s handwriting later on; take a look at it, and then at this envelope. His home was in Shale, Somerset. There’s a description of the paper the letters were written on—that shape and size, and that peculiar shade of blue. There are eleven letters, no envelopes, and some of them are dated 1875. I’m used to handwriting—I only needed a look.”

  Mrs. Coldfield compared the facsimile and the writing on the envelope. “Good Heavens,” she said faintly, “they are the same.”

  “Distinctive fist, isn’t it?”

  “Are they—are they love letters?”

  “Mrs. Coldfield, they are compromising love letters. That’s what provides the amazement. The old boy was at least fifty in those days, and his romance was all supposed to be in his poetry, for it wasn’t in his life, so far as anybody knew. His marriage wasn’t much of a romance, to hear his friends on the subject.”

  “Was he married—at the time?”

  “Married and a monument. I won’t say an institution,” said Gamadge, “but certainly a monument.”

  Mrs. Coldfield leaned back in her chair. After a minute she sat forward again: “But couldn’t he have written Grandmother Coldfield just one letter—about something else? Perhaps she was a literary admirer.”

  “If so he didn’t keep her letter, which in that case was the only fan letter he never did keep. There were bales of them. And there’s not a trace of her in his life. You know how the things are addressed? To the Fairest. What was Grandmother Coldfield like, when she was in her prime?”

  “Perfectly beautiful,” admitted Mrs. Coldfield, “but a little strange. Her portrait is in the dining-room; Grandfather Coldfield had it done in London.”

  “Ah! They met in the artist’s studio. Perhaps at a garden party, though; Garthwain became quite a social character in his middle period. How old would she have been?”

  “About thirty, I should think. She was fearfully old when she died—in 1935. Practically bedridden. We hardly saw her. Glen said they were all terrified of her, but that she had the reputation of being charming when she was young.”

  “Didn’t wear well.” Gamadge lifted the envelope carefully, studied it, and smiled at her. “You know what I think. She got these communications over a short period of time—a few years; she hid them in letters which she had received in the past from Grandfather Coldfield—nobody was likely to look into those! Ames and your husband looked at them, though, after her death—and your husband, or perhaps both of them, noticed some blue enclosures. Your husband paid no attention to them—why should he?

  “But on the Sunday, the day he died—do you remember what he was doing that day, Mrs. Coldfield?”

  “It was rainy, and he was in pain most of the time. He just wandered around the house, or read, or rested. I was out in the afternoon.”

  “Let’s say he went up to the attic and tackled those old letters for want of something better to do. The blue enclosures were gone, all but one forgotten envelope. He’d read the article in the new Quarterly, he compared the handwriting, and he came to my conclusions. Did he have a fingerprinting outfit?”

  “Yes, he did once, something he’d amused himself with when he was a boy.”

  “He wasn’t amusing himself with it this time; somebody had cashed in on the Garthwain letters, and even if the envelopes had been withheld, it might only be a matter of time before they were cashed in on too. This Quarterly article is just a preview, you know, an introduction; the letters themselves are going to come out later, in a book; with a lot of commentary and so forth by George Files.”

  “Glendon got fingerprints on that envelope?” She sat staring at it.

  “That’s my idea; he’d only need powder and a good reading glass to satisfy himself—by comparison. Plenty of prints to be picked up around a house, you know, and plenty of them could be easily identified. When he had satisfied himself, he tackled the bandit—you said that would be his way of doing things.”

  “Yes.”
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br />   “Serious matter, you know; somebody got a pretty penny out of it, and it wasn’t the kind of thing the family would care for. So he showed his proof, and gave his ultimatum. But the guilty party didn’t have to confess after all.”

  “No.”

  “All Grandmother Coldfield’s fault, wasn’t it?” asked Gamadge, with a change of tone. “She must have had an extraordinary kind of humor, mustn’t she? And the sort of loving-kindness you meet in Restoration drama. Think of her laying this time-fuse to blow up her relatives-in-law with them. You know, I don’t believe she can have liked the Coldfields.”

  “She had very little in common with them, I should say. She came of an old gone-to-seed family, and the impression I got was that she married almost frankly for a living. That’s why the family didn’t entirely like her. But she could be very charming, and usually was while she was young. Glendon had something of her charm, I understand, but he lacked her business instincts.” She smiled. “Susan inherited her gracefulness.” She looked up. “It’s almost incredible—she must have known that her papers would be gone through after she died.”

  “But they weren’t, after all—until that rainy Sunday, if I’m right. Still, she accepted the chance. I bet she was gloating. She didn’t know what spectacular results her little practical joke would have, but I wonder if she’d have cared. I’m not surprised that she turned out rather formidable in her old age.”

  “But I don’t understand how the letters could have been sold without giving anything away.”

  “Nothing’s given away in this article,” said Gamadge, “and I’m as curious about the circumstances of the sale as you are. More so, perhaps, since I know how those things are usually swung. It all happened in England; says here that they were offered to a well-known collector by an ‘accredited agent’—whatever that may mean. The collector couldn’t bear to suppress anything so valuable—or perhaps he couldn’t bear missing the spotlight—so he talked to Stanwood the publisher, and Stanwood took on the job of processing the Garthwain heirs. They’re only collaterals, it’s not even the same name, and it rather emerges that they need the money. They agreed to publication—sold the rights. Stanwood of course paid them. The implication is that Garthwain’s Unknown has impecunious heirs too, and that they sold out under conditions of absolute secrecy.”

  “I should think so! The Coldfields would die first. But one of them must have—how frightful.”

  “Suppose it wasn’t a born Coldfield, though?”

  “Even so, I simply can’t imagine…”

  “There was certainly an agent,” said Gamadge, “but how in that case was the deal swung? Well, I’ll make inquiries in the trade. Those people sometimes know or guess more than gets into print. And now would you like to assess the money value of this envelope of ours?”

  “If there were no envelopes, they must all have been very suspicious at first.”

  “It’s all here, in the Quarterly. They put fifty-seven varieties of experts on the job; you know there are lots of other holograph letters of Garthwain’s extant for comparison. He wrote thousands of letters: too many.” Gamadge studied the blue envelope and smiled. “I wish I knew how they ever managed that affair; it can’t have been too easy in those days.”

  “Well, Grandfather Coldfield did leave her in London sometimes when he had to go to France.”

  “One glorious summer, and then eleven letters to America. I suppose poor Garthwain thought she’d destroy his, and I bet the ones he destroyed weren’t nearly so romantic. What was Mrs. Deane Coldfield’s first name? Something fatal—Lorelei?”

  “Serene.”

  “What? No! Wonderful. Serene, fatal and terrible.”

  “It was an old family name, I believe. You really must see the portrait; the bonnet, the bustle and the parasol. And that smile.”

  “You must see Garthwain’s.”

  “Oh, I often have; Olympian.”

  “Have you ever seen his wife’s? She had a bonnet, and a bustle, and a parasol too. But—it doesn’t seem fair.”

  “I didn’t think I should ever be laughing at all this.”

  “Best thing in the world for you, but we must get back to the grimmer side of it again before we drop it for tonight. Who among the Coldfields needed a substantial sum of money about a year ago? The deal was swung in England last March.”

  “I don’t know. I do know that none of them went abroad.”

  “Remember that we’ve definitely decided on an agent. And what a trusted one! Who among the Coldfields may have needed money? You always look uncomfortable when you’re deceiving me,” said Gamadge. “I can find out by elimination. Ames? He’s living on an annuity and they don’t stretch. Not Ames, you think.”

  “Mr. Gamadge, how can I guess wildly?”

  “Easy. Let’s see—Ira isn’t making too much money, and he’s in a business where money is always welcome. Doesn’t fill the bill? Too much family piety?”

  “I can’t imagine Ira—”

  “Susan is marrying all kinds of money—”

  “And they give her everything.”

  “Your sister-in-law; not a Coldfield, and she leads her own life. Can she do that on her housekeeping allowance? Ah, she’s the one.”

  “It’s only that she’s always complaining about wanting more, but she wouldn’t know anything about those letters. She hasn’t the knowledge, or the interest—”

  “Never underrate the frivolous. They can do things that would amaze you. Well, I’m inclined to agree with you—that’s a dead end for the present. Now about the poisonings—and I may remark that it was splendid news for the poisoner, that you’d come home from Dalgren’s to accuse someone unspecified of homicidal mania. You didn’t know a thing. I bet the poisoner would have been glad to take your word and let you go, but couldn’t step out of line to say so. About the poisonings: I suppose you’ve been over that ground again and again.”

  “Yes. Everything.”

  “So there’s no means of knowing who dispensed amytal the first time? Or the night of the attempt on you?”

  “No, none at all. I left Glen with his light on, in bed reading. The lemonade was in a glass on his bedside table, and anybody could have come in to say goodnight.”

  “And kindly put his capsule into the glass for him, and added the three others?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “How about that soup of yours?”

  “The kitchen-maid left the tray in the hall, and went back downstairs to get something she’d forgotten. She told me so. She isn’t very good at trays, she only obliges on Agnes’s day off.”

  “And that’s a dead end too.” He got up, locked the envelope in a file, and came back to hold out his hand. “Forget it till tomorrow.”

  She took his hand and let him help her to her feet. “Forget Mark Garthwain and Grandmother Coldfield?”

  “You have my permission to think of them,” said Gamadge, “and I shall probably meet them in my dreams. Aren’t you feeling as I am—a little weighed down by this top secret? I am, I can tell you. Four people know it; you and I and the murderer, and the agent. That agent. Well, we’ll leave him until tomorrow, but I wish I had information sufficient to allow me to get him out of bed.”

  “Wouldn’t he be in England?”

  “Oh no, he’s an intimate trusted friend. He’s here.”

  Junior, yawning and stretching, followed them out of the office. But he went into his act as soon as they reached the hall, and bounded in front of them up the stairs.

  “He doesn’t really like the elevator,” said Gamadge. “He all but catches himself in the door. We let him think it’s out of commission.”

  CHAPTER SEVENInside Stuff

  MISS MULLINS THE NURSERY governess had had too many employers—most of them fairly young people, of course—to be surprised when she found Mrs. Gamadge and guest in Miss Mullins’s chintz-hung room on Friday morning, letting down the hem of one of Mrs. Gamadge’s dresses. She wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Gama
dge casually told her that Mrs. Coldfield’s bags hadn’t come. When Mr. Gamadge came in and took Mrs. Coldfield’s fingerprints, and then wiped her fingers off with cleansing tissue and gasoline, Miss Mullins didn’t bat an eye.

  Employers were so completely outside Miss Mullins’s restricted scheme of life that she never even tried to make sense of them any more; it wasn’t funnier for Mrs. Coldfield to come to visit with nothing but a dinner dress, or for Mr. Gamadge to take her fingerprints, than for other employers to take ballet lessons (the husband, too) in their drawing-room, or keep a masseur to operate on them (the wife, too) in the small hours, or go to cold places for fun in winter, or give away their opera tickets and yet buy the tickets every year.

  The Gamadges were very nice, and it didn’t matter to Miss Mullins that they ate their meals wherever they happened to sit down, and had no dining-room, and treated their animals like people and treated people all alike. The little boy seemed normal.

  She assured Mrs. Coldfield that she had a very comfortable cot in the nursery, and she helped with the letdown hem; pressed it with her electric iron.

  “Those black suède pumps will do,” said Mrs. Gamadge, “and you could wear my little black hat.”

  After a while Mr. Gamadge came back. He said: “Just as I thought. Junior might as well have taken a polishing-mitt to it.”

  “Don’t put all the blame on him,” protested Mrs. Coldfield. “I did my share. But you didn’t—you never touched it except by the edges, even when it was on the floor.”

  “He’s conditioned,” said Mrs. Gamadge. “He can’t pick up a piece of paper normally any more. He can hardly deal a pack of cards.”

  Miss Mullins hardly bothered to listen.

  When she had gone out of the room, Clara said: “We’re going out now to try hotels.”

  “I’m on my way too. Back for lunch? I’ll need my client’s assistance this afternoon.”

  “Take the car,” said Clara. “We’ll do better on foot.”