Clues for Dr. Coffee, page 13
Dr. Coffee was dining on a sandwich in his laboratory when Max Ritter phoned. An emergency operation was in progress and the surgeon had asked for a biopsy. It was an hour before Dr. Coffee had made a frozen section of the tissue from the operating room, and given his microscopic diagnosis. Then he went to join Ritter at the Southside Apartment Hotel.
“The coroner just left, Doc,” Ritter said, as the tall, sandy-haired pathologist walked into Suite 232.
“Then you won’t need me after all,” Dr. Coffee said.
The detective blew an irreverent bubble of sound through his lips. “You know the coroner better than that, Doc,” he said. “In an election year, the coroner’s got no time for autopsies or inquests. So he says this is a case of accidental drowning. He thinks the bath was too hot or the gal got in too soon after eating. He says she fainted, got her face under water and drowned. Only there wasn’t any water in the tub when I found her.”
“Her hair’s wet,” the pathologist said. “She could have kicked the plug out after she was unconscious, by a reflex action in a completely automatic struggle to survive.”
“That’s what the coroner says.” The detective pursed his lips skeptically. “He also says that funny color in her face is a sign of drowning. Cyanosis, he says. I tell him I got it on good authority that cyanosis can also come from cyanide poisoning, and that cyanide smells like bitter almonds. Did you catch a whiff of that almond smell when you came in, Doc?”
Dr. Coffee nodded. The fragrant ghost of bitter almonds still haunted the room.
“But the coroner says the smell comes from the almond bath oil the dame’s been using,” the detective continued. “That’s the bottle on that glass shelf there. You can touch it, Doc. The boys dusted it and there’s no prints on it.”
Dr. Coffee picked up the bottle labeled: Kiss of Kandahar—Almond-scented Aromatic Bath Oil. There was a small amount of oily yellow liquid at the bottom of the bottle. Dr. Coffee withdrew the cork and raised it cautiously to his nostrils. The fragrance matched the scent of almonds which clung to the air. The pathologist again examined the dead woman’s face.
“I don’t think it was cyanide, Max,” he said. “The lividity of the face isn’t the right color. It’s not right for drowning, either. It’s brownish gray, rather than a purple shade. Of course I can’t be sure of anything without an autopsy. Is the coroner going to do a postmortem?”
“He is not,” Ritter said. “But he authorizes me to hire you to do one if I find suspicious circumstances. And that’s what I find, all right.”
“What are they, Max?”
“Well, this Belinda dame is divorced in Florida just a few weeks ago. I find the divorce papers in the other room. Her ex-husband is a guy named Warren Holliday from Boone Point—a jobber in spices and stuff he sells to the food canneries around here. Seems like Belinda had a date with him tonight, and he stood her up. Or he wants us to believe he stood her up. Just before the body was found, this telegram came for Belinda.”
Ritter produced a yellow telegraph blank from his pocket and read aloud: “‘Sorry can’t see you tonight but will try to make it tomorrow. Love. Warren.’ The wire was filed at Boone Point late this afternoon. I just had the local police chief on the phone, and he can’t locate Warren Holliday anywhere in Boone Point. So maybe Belinda’s ex did come to Northbank after all; maybe he sent this wire to build himself a little alibi in advance. Maybe—What’s up, Brody?”
The plain-clothes man in the doorway said, “There’s a bird outside, lieutenant, says he has a date with Mrs. Holliday. Want to see him?”
Ritter winked knowingly at Dr. Coffee and motioned with his head.
“Sure, Brody. Ill see him.” Ritter took Dr. Coffee’s arm and closed the bathroom door behind them.
Brody ushered in a slim, homespun young man who appeared to be still in his twenties, and wasn’t quite at home in the alert, executive manner he was wearing. He wore an obviously expensive suit, but wore it rather uneasily. Somehow his big muscular arms seemed to call for blue denims; and his hands should have held precision tools instead of the green wax-paper cornucopia of flowers they were carrying awkwardly.
“Are you Warren Holliday?” Ritter asked.
“No.” The young man smiled nervously. “My name is Roy Manson. Isn’t Mrs. Holliday here? I thought—”
“Sit down, Manson,” Ritter said. “You live in Northbank?”
“Yes.” Manson remained standing. “I’m general manager of the Bosworth Shoe Factory.”
Of course, Dr. Coffee thought. General manager. Country boy makes good on big job. The good old American phenomenon: the self-made man—the quick rise from the production line to the front office.
“Are you in love with Belinda Holliday?” Ritter asked bluntly.
“Oh, no.” Manson’s smile was patient. “Belinda and I are very old friends. We went to school together in Missouri as kids. But I’m engaged to marry Esther Bosworth.”
“The boss’s daughter?” Ritter asked.
“Esther owns the factory now. Mr. Bosworth died six months ago. Would you please tell me what’s happened to Belinda? I know something is wrong. I saw all those police cars downstairs, and—”
“She’s dead,” Ritter declared.
Manson sat down clumsily. He stared at Ritter with stunned eyes. “I was afraid of something like this,” he said numbly.
“The coroner says it was an accident,” Ritter said. “Tell me about your date with Belinda tonight.”
“I’d invited Belinda to have dinner with me and my fiancee tonight,” Manson said. “Esther has been visiting relatives in California, but I’d expected her back. Then she decided to stay on the Coast a few days longer; so this morning I called Belinda to tell her the dinner was postponed.
“Belinda sounded awfully blue on the phone. I’d noticed she’d been pretty dejected since she came back from the South, and it worried me. I’ve always been fond of Belinda. She’s been terribly nice to me. When I first came to Northbank, when I was just a kid factory hand, not even a foreman then—why, Belinda used to invite me over to Boone Point for Sunday dinner and things. She’d just been married to a man with quite a bit of money, but she didn’t try to snoot me. So when I saw how blue she was feeling, I thought I’d come over tonight, anyhow, to try to cheer her up.”
“What was she blue about?” Ritter asked.
“I can only guess.” Manson shook his head. “I think the man she was going to marry may have walked out on her after she got her divorce. But that’s only a guess.”
“What was the man’s name?”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. He was married, too, and was supposed to get a divorce himself. So maybe—”
“Okay, go on home,” Ritter said. “I’ll call you tomorrow if I want you.”
“I’d better be getting home myself, Max,” Dr. Coffee said, “before my wife locks me out. I’ll do the autopsy in the morning.”
Roy Manson started for the door, hesitated, came back and placed the bouquet of flowers on a table.
“I’d like to leave these,” he said.
It seemed to Dan Coffee that he had just fallen asleep when he was awakened by his wife pinching his shoulder.
“Dan, wake up. The doorbell’s been ringing for the past five minutes. There’s a woman at the door.”
Dan Coffee rolled out of bed and groped for his dressing gown. He stumbled sleepily down the stairs. He opened the door and his visitor stepped into the living room.
“I apologize for waking you in the middle of the night, Doctor,” she said hurriedly. “But it’s terribly important. It’s about Belinda Holliday.”
Dan Coffee blinked. The name did not register at first.
“Oh, yes,” he said, after the third blink. “That’s the woman at the Southside. Why do you come to me?”
Dr. Coffee was beginning to wake up. He looked curiously at his visitor. She was a dark, demure little woman, past the first bloom of youth but attractive in a virginal, wholesome way. At second glance he decided she would be attractive in many ways if she gave a little thought to the art of adornment. It was not the lack of make-up, for her skin had a healthy, golden tint. Her hairdo was wrong—much too prim to go with her flashing black eyes. Her eyes were alive, positive, passionate.
“I was listening to the midnight news on the radio,” the woman said. “I heard that Belinda had been found dead and that you were going to perform an autopsy. Was Belinda murdered, Doctor?”
“I can’t say at this point,” Dr. Coffee replied. “Are you related to Belinda Holliday?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Anne Devoto, Warren Holliday’s secretary. The radio said the police are looking for Mr. Holliday.”
“Yes. I understand he has disappeared.”
“He hasn’t disappeared. He—he’s outside in my car.”
So that’s it, Dr. Coffee thought. The secretary’s in love with her boss. She’s hiding him, because she’s afraid he killed Belinda.
“Did Mr. Holliday kill his ex-wife?” Dan Coffee asked.
“He should have killed her years ago,” said Anne Devoto with surprising fervor. “But he didn’t.”
“Then why doesn’t he go to the police?”
“It’s a strange story,” Miss Devoto replied. “He’s afraid nobody will believe it. We’ve read about you in the papers …”
There was a pause. They think I’m a pushover for a likely story, Dan Coffee mused. Well, maybe I am. Still…
“Bring Mr. Holliday in,” he said.
Warren Holliday was a shaggy, gray-haired man in his late forties. He had tired gray eyes and a hesitant smile. His walk was slow and lumbering, but his handclasp was firm. He sat down wearily at Dr. Coffee’s invitation.
“Did you see your ex-wife today?” the pathologist asked.
“No,” Holliday answered. “I had a tentative date with her, but something came up and I postponed it.”
“But you came to Northbank anyhow?”
Holliday’s lips moved silently for a few seconds before he said, “Yes. How did you know?”
“Pure conjecture,” Dr. Coffee said. “Why did you cancel your date?”
“Because of a business appointment. I’m a broker—deal in spices and seasonings. Late this afternoon I got a call from a spice importer from New Orleans who said he was in Northbank and wanted to see me. I had no idea how long my meeting would last, so I wired Belinda, calling off our date. Then I drove over from Boone Point to meet my New Orleans man in the lobby of the Northbank Hotel, as he had suggested. I waited for more than an horn, but he didn’t show up. I tried to call Miss Devoto in Boone Point, thinking perhaps he had changed his plans and tried to reach me, but I couldn’t make contact with my secretary. So I got back into my car and started home for Boone Point. Then I—I had an accident.”
“You see, Mr. Holliday suffers from periodic migraine headaches,” his secretary explained quickly. “Often his headaches are preceded by periods during which he loses track of time. That’s possible, isn’t it?”
Yes, it’s possible, Dr. Coffee thought. Migraine is sometimes preceded by a lapse of memory. But it was interesting that Holliday’s migraine should begin at about the same hour as his ex-wife’s death.
“What is the last thing you remember, Mr. Holliday?” . Dr. Coffee asked.
“Well, I remember vaguely running off the road, as it winds over the hill just this side of Boone Point. I remember trees—or a tree. Then I drew a blank.”
“Are your headaches hemicranial?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Migraine usually affects only one side of the head. Do you feel the pain behind one eye, or at the back of one side of your head, usually?”
“Behind the left eye, always.”
“Do you mind?” Dr. Coffee said.
He pressed his thumbs gently against Holliday’s eyeballs. His fingers explored the top and base of his skull. Holliday did not flinch. He’s lying, Dr. Coffee thought. If he had those prodromal signs when he said he did, he would be in excruciating pain now.
“Where did you find him, Miss Devoto?” Dr. Coffee asked.
“He wandered into my apartment,” Miss Devoto replied. “He was in a daze and shaking all over. I guess he walked from wherever he wrecked his car. I made him lie down and wrapped him in a blanket. I fixed him a hot drink and he slept for a little while. Then I heard the midnight news on the radio.”
“Why did you and your wife break up, Mr. Holliday?”
“It was inevitable. I’m more than twenty years older than Belinda. I knew when I married her, nearly five years ago, that sooner or later she would fall in love with someone her own age.”
“And she did?”
“Yes.”
“Belinda never really loved Mr. Holliday,” Anne Devoto said. Her eyes did not leave Warren Holliday’s face.
“Did Mrs. Holliday get a divorce to marry a man named Roy Manson?” Dr. Coffee asked.
“Oh, no.” Holliday smiled sadly. “Manson is an old friend of Belinda’s. I believe he’s engaged to marry someone else.”
Then who was the man Belinda was going to marry? Holliday didn’t know. Belinda had never told him, and he had never asked. She had told him she wanted her freedom and that was enough.
The purpose of his broken date with Belinda that evening? Holliday didn’t know, really.
“Nonsense!” Miss Devoto volunteered. “Mr. Holliday is much too gallant. He knows perfectly well what Belinda wanted. She’s been calling him up practically every day this past week. I think something went wrong with her romance and she hoped to get Mr. Holliday to take her back. She would have tricked him into it—if she’d lived.”
Dr. Coffee lighted a cigarette. As he smoked in silence, he reflected on the fact that both Holliday and Manson had seemed to have dates with Belinda on the same night. True, Manson said he had phoned in the morning to cancel his. That would have given Belinda time to try to get Holliday to come over. After a moment, the pathologist said, “Mr. Holliday, I think you had better tell your story to the police.”
Miss Devoto’s black eyes narrowed and her back stiffened visibly. “Do you believe that Mr. Holliday had anything to do with his ex-wife’s death?”
“Why, no,” Dr. Coffee said. “But if your story is true, and if, as the coroner believes, Mrs. Holliday’s death was accidental, you will do well to get through the unpleasantness of a routine investigation as quickly as you can.”
“I believe the doctor is right, Anne,” Holliday said.
Dr. Coffee went to the telephone to call Max Ritter.
When he returned to his laboratory at Pasteur Hospital shortly before noon, Dr. Coffee was carrying three small flasks of brownish liquid and a Mason jarcontaining specimens of tissue in formalin. He gave the Mason jar to his technician with the remark: “The usual sections, Doris.”
He placed the three flasks on his desk, took off his hat and coat, and called, “Dr. Mookerji.”
Dr. Motilal Mookerji, Pasteur’s resident pathologist, materialized from somewhere behind the freezing microtome and set his course for Dr. Coffee’s desk. Navigation was no simple problem for Calcutta’s gift to Northbank. Not only was the little Hindu broad of beam, but his fore-and-aft dimensions precluded sideslipping through the narrow channels that separated the autoclave, centrifuge and other pieces of standing gear which cluttered the laboratory.
“Greetings, Doctor Sahib,” he said. “Five times greetings. You have no doubt concluded a pleasant autopsy?”
“Concluded?” echoed Dr. Coffee. “We’ve barely started. Have you ever run a Gettler test for drowning?”
The Hindu resident said, “Am familiar with hypothesis of Gettler test, although have never performed same on submerged cadavers. Are not samples of blood from right and left heart analyzed separately for chloride level?”
“Exactly,” said Dr. Coffee. “Normally the salt content of the blood is the same on both sides of the heart. However, if the person died of drowning, the lungs would take in water which would dilute the blood in the left heart. Therefore, if the salt content of the blood is higher in the right heart than the left, the person was drowned—in fresh water.”
“Am observing surplus blood sample,” Dr. Mookerji said. “Am also remarking that blood exhibits brownish, tint somewhat resembling hot chocolate. What is purpose of third sample, Doctor Sahib?”
“We’ll try to identify methemoglobin with the spectroscope,” Dan Coffee said. “The color is characteristic.”
“Quite,” the Hindu agreed. “Have observed similar color in native Bengal, in victims of blackwater fever.”
“We don’t have much blackwater fever in Northbank, but we do see an occasional case of potassium chlorate poisoning, which does the same thing to the blood. I’ve another rather delicate task for you, Doctor—a qualitative analysis from less than a thimbleful of liquid.” Dr. Coffee carefully unwrapped a bottle which he gingerly passed to his Hindu assistant.
“Ha! Kiss of Kandahar!” exclaimed Dr. Mookerji, reading the label. “Kandahar is quite famous place in India, although currently in Afghanistan. You are no doubt familiar with frolics of great Alexander among almond groves of Kandahar. Or perhaps verses by lady poetess Laurence Hope regarding almond blooms of—”
“Never mind the almond blooms,” Dan Coffee said. “Just handle that bottle carefully. It may be deadly. And start with the assumption that you’re looking for an aromatic benzene compound.”
When Lieutenant Max Ritter dropped in that afternoon, Dr. Coffee’s laboratory was redolent with reagents, standard solutions and general toxicological activity.
“Is it murder, Doc?” the detective asked, as he parked one thigh on the edge of the pathologist’s desk. “I can’t hold my material witnesses much longer. They all got shysters waving lawbooks at me, yelling, ‘Witness to what?’ Do I book ’em, Doc?”
“I can’t exclude drowning until tomorrow, Max,” Dr. Coffee said. “The blood has to stand with picric acid overnight. And our toxicology tests won’t be finished much before then.”
