Wives to Burn, page 15
Gabriel yawned. “O.K., then, Doc,” he said. “I guess I’ll go home and get some sleep.”
He got it, too—but not immediately. He first returned to Gwendolyn Small’s room at Seaside House and carefully picked up the playing cards that had been scattered on the floor. He counted them: fifty-two. They were all there. He looked through the deck for the two black bowers and studied them carefully, particularly the jack of clubs. He could find nothing unusual in either card. He held them up to the light at all angles, looking for finger-nail marks, rubbings, or other devices used by card sharpers. He looked in vain for traces of writing, front and back. Then he studied the faces again, looking for some clue in the design. Nothing—only the familiar faces. Either his brain was tired, or he had been wrong about Gwendolyn’s oracular declaration. He dropped the cards into his pocket and went to his own room.
He was surprised to find Fred Oaks and Virginia Hatton gone, but not greatly worried. Unless Fred was a sleep-walker, the barbiturate had merely worn off ahead of time, but he was in good hands, and Gabriel was confident he could find him again when he needed him. What he needed most, for the moment, was a little rest.
He was snoring loudly and unmusically almost before he had his clothes off.
Chapter Twenty
The Secret of Gwendolyn Small
After two hours and fifteen minutes of noisy, open-mouthed slumber, Bill Gabriel was awakened by what seemed to his sleepy mind to be a gentle seismic disturbance immediately underneath his perspiring bottom. He opened his eyes. Hot, steamy sunlight was pouring into the room, and a dusky face was peering through the mosquito netting. Suddenly conscious that the seismic disturbance was caused by the owner of the dusky face bouncing the mattress from below, Gabriel sat up. He blinked. Gradually his awakening mind added such details to the face as a long scar, a huge yellow-gray walrus mustache, a white turban, a bare brown torso, and a dirty white dhoti. The ensemble was familiar, but for several seconds Gabriel could not remember where he had seen it before.
“What the hell?” he demanded.
“Chota hazri, Sahib,” said the Hindu, raising the netting with one hand and placing a tray on the table beside the bed. On the tray was a cup of tea and two pale-yellow lady-finger bananas. At last Gabriel remembered that he had moved from the dak bungalow to Seaside House and that this Hindu, now engaged in the questionable East Indian practice of serving early tea, was a servant he had noticed during the past day or two.
The Hindu stole a glance about the room, then began to retreat.
“Hey, wait a minute,” called Gabriel, now fully awake. “How long have you been working in this place?”
“Kya manta, Sahib?” The Hindu paused. “Ghusl manta?”
“I said, ‘How long have you been working here?’ Did Miss Small hire you or did you come with the hotel, like the lizards in every bedroom?”
“Angrezi nai janta, Sahib. Main fakat Hindustani bol sakta hun.”
“All right, all right. Get the hell out of here then,” Gabriel ordered. He would get Hatton to act as interpreter and talk to the walrus later—unless the walrus was one of the servants already questioned by the District Officer.
The detective went into the bathroom and splashed tepid water over himself for a few moments. He tied a towel around his middle and wrote another letter to Inspector Dumbarton, bringing his report up to date. He had just finished drafting a cablegram to his home office in San Francisco and was contemplating the disagreeable necessity of getting dressed, when there was a knock on his door.
Alvin Brinker, manager of the Bank of Shakkarpur, stood outside. His sallow face, almost yellow against the starched whiteness of his fresh drill jacket, was lined and haggard. He carried a fat briefcase in one hand and a lighted cigar in the other.
“Morning, Gabriel. Not dressed yet, I see.”
“Sure, I’m dressed. I’ve just gone native, that’s all,” the detective said, tightening the towel around his ample waist. “What have you come to peddle at this hour of the morning—breakfast food?”
The banker essayed a smile, which was not much of a success. “I’ve come on a very serious matter,” he said. “I haven’t slept a wink all night, worrying about it. May I come in?”
“Sure, why not?” Gabriel said. He watched Brinker take off his toupee, noted that his bald spot was spangled with perspiration. The man was obviously nervous. As he sat down, he clasped his briefcase tightly with both hands. “What’ve you got in there?” Gabriel asked. “Your detailed confession—or another body?”
Brinker didn’t even try to smile this time. His tiny eyes stared at Gabriel insistently for a moment, before he said, “Then you have suspected me. I was sure of it.”
“I haven’t suspected you particularly,” the detective said. He picked up one of the miniature bananas from his chota hazri tray, began peeling it absent-mindedly. “What made you so sure I did?”
“Well, from the first, I’ve always fancied you as a rather astute person,” said Brinker. “I don’t see how you could do otherwise than suspect me, once you had all the facts. If you don’t—yet—it must be merely because you haven’t the facts.”
“What facts?” Gabriel bit off the end of the banana.
“Well, for example. Has your home office in San Francisco cabled you anything about me?”
“Not a word.”
“Well, they will,” Brinker declared. “That’s what I said to myself last evening, when I learned that you were in some way connected with this Lucy Steel, and that she was a former wife of young Fred Oaks. I said to myself, ‘Brinker, you’re in for it. They’re going to blame you for this.’ I should have spoken to you about it then and there, except that it was rather a nasty shock. But after this horrible thing happened to Miss Small last night, I knew I couldn’t hesitate any longer. I had to come and talk to you.”
“Why?” asked Gabriel casually. He tossed the banana skin in the general direction of the slop jar. It fell short, landed squarely in Alvin Brinker’s lap. The banker ignored it.
“Why?” echoed Brinker. “Don’t you know—? But of course you don’t, if your home office didn’t cable you. But haven’t you even tried to guess the name of the man for whom Gwendolyn Small gave up her career—the man who gave her Seaside House?”
“Adolf Hitler?” suggested Gabriel idly, starting on the second banana.
“George Francis Oaks!” Brinker announced. “The late George Francis Oaks.”
Gabriel dropped the banana. “Fred Oaks’s old man?” he asked.
Brinker nodded. “I was sworn to secrecy, of course, but it can’t matter now, since they are both dead.”
“I still can’t see how that makes you guilty,” Gabriel said.
“It doesn’t,” Brinker replied. “But it makes me a suspect, definitely. You see, the Bank of Shakkarpur handled the entire financial relationship between Gwendolyn Small and Mr. Oaks, Senior. The Bank of Shakkarpur, in fact, was owned by Mr. Oaks until he gave up his sugar interests here, about twenty years ago, and the bank was taken over by the Bank of India, Burma, and Malaysia. We still handle the trust fund, however.”
“I didn’t know there was a trust fund.”
“Oh, yes. When the hotel began to go down hill, Mr. Oaks created a trust of £40,000, the income of which was to support Gwendolyn Small. You were bound to find that out ultimately, of course. And since Lucy Steel came to India, you say, in some connection with the Oaks legacy, it would be only natural for you to assume that she had some knowledge of this trust fund.”
“I begin to get it,” Gabriel said. “I might suppose you killed Lucy because she came to accuse you of embezzling away the trust fund?”
“Exactly. And Miss Small for the same reason. It’s true, isn’t it, as the D.O. says, that you believe Miss Small was murdered?”
“Very much so.”
“There’s no possibility that it might have been suicide?”
“Not the slightest.”
“There it is, you see.” Brinker sighed. “A tragic coincidence that might have the most unfortunate effect upon me. So I thought it best to clear the matter up at once, without waiting for you to gather your clues. As you know, I’m leaving for Bombay within the fortnight, just as soon as my successor arrives, and I shouldn’t like to go away with this awful thing hanging over my head. Do you blame me?”
“No,” said Gabriel. “Not unless you did embezzle the trust fund. Did you, by the way?”
“Not a penny of it.” Brinker’s voice was resonant with sincerity. “That’s the whole point of my visit.” He began unfastening the straps of his briefcase.
“Here’s the whole story,” he went on, taking out bundles of papers. “Here’s every instrument executed in connection with the trust. Here’s a complete record of the account, with Gwendolyn Small’s signature on each receipt for each payment made to her on account of income. You’ll find it all accounted for—every last rupee, anna, and pice. I’ve even brought the securities themselves, the Consols and Government bonds that make up the portfolio of the fund. It’s a matter of simple arithmetic to compare the total with the figures on the books.”
“They seem to be all there,” Gabriel commented.
Alvin Brinker mopped his perspiring brow. “I got up out of bed at one-thirty this morning to go after these,” he said. “My wife thought I was mad, going to the bank in the middle of the night like that—but as I said, I couldn’t sleep. I even went over the entire record, looking for some inadvertent error that might have made me out a criminal. Thank heaven everything is in order. No doubt you’ll want to have an audit made by some qualified accountant, someone whose impartiality would satisfy you.”
“I’m satisfied with my own impartiality,” Gabriel said, studying the papers. “The whole thing looks on the up-and-up—unless these bonds are forgeries.”
“That’s why I’m suggesting you have an expert opinion.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “If the bonds were forged, you wouldn’t have brought them to me. And if these are just dummies, that you slipped into the portfolio to make up for ones you sold, why, the whole thing will come out when the estate is settled, so you’d be bound to get caught eventually.”
“Would you like to lay the evidence before the D.O.?”
“Not me. You can, if you want. I’ll just take one of these receipts—the last one Miss Small signed—to check on a little point that’s been bothering me. Otherwise I’m satisfied you’re in the clear, Brinker. Looks like you’ll be able to make that trip to Bombay with a song in your heart and all that sort of thing.”
“Thank heaven!” Brinker exclaimed, mopping his brow again.
“I guess you’ll be glad to get out of this dump, won’t you?”
“Rather,” Brinker admitted. “But Mrs. Brinker is the one who is really pleased. Can’t blame her, of course. Bombay is a lovely spot to live, with the big shops, and theaters, and clubs, and all. Then there’s the golf and tennis and bathing. Mrs. Brinker’s quite keen on sport, you know.”
“Is she?” Gabriel would never have guessed it. He couldn’t quite picture the 200-pound Mrs. Brinker in a swimming suit. He said, “I guess you’ve lived in Bombay before, the way you talk.”
“Rather,” Brinker smiled reminiscently. He had made a complete recovery from his nervousness. “Mrs. Brinker and I were married in Bombay, in fact. Her people have been civilians on the Bombay side for generations. I was just a chota sahib then—my first banking job in India.”
“Same bank?” Gabriel asked.
“Bank of India, Burma, and Malaysia, yes,” Brinker said. “They control the Bank of Shakkarpur, you know. It will be quite different, though, going back as a burrah sahib. I’ve been promoted to vice-president. I suppose you’ve heard.”
“Yes, I’ve heard,” said the detective. “I guess you’ve been with the bank a long time.”
“Since ’24. I was in Bombay from ’24 to ’29.”
“And in Shakkarpur ever since?”
“Well, no. We were a year in Calcutta and two years in London. By the way, Gabriel, do you suppose Gwendolyn Small knew of the death of Mr. Oaks, Senior, before she died?”
“I didn’t tell her,” Gabriel replied. “Did you?”
“No. I only heard of it yesterday myself. Air mail letter from his solicitors. I was wondering, nevertheless, on account of her making that will the other day. The D.O. told you, no doubt.”
“Yes, he told me.”
“That’s another thing I thought perhaps might be construed as circumstantial evidence in my disfavor. Why did she deposit the testament with the D.O. instead of with me? After all, I’ve been her adviser for years—the only one who knew her secret. Why did she suddenly lose confidence me?”
“Dr. Forsythe says she was a paranoiac.”
“I fancy that must be—a sudden attack—mania of persecution. And yet she didn’t withdraw her other tokens of confidence in me. This, for instance.”
Brinker drew a yellowed, mildewed envelope from his wallet.
“What’s that?” Gabriel demanded. He pulled over a chair and sat down close to the banker.
“It’s a key to some sort of chest,” Brinker explained, opening the envelope. “This hasn’t anything to do with the case, I fancy, but you may as well know about it, in the event that there is some clue or other in it. It’s just a pretty piece of sentiment, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Well?”
“Do you know, Gabriel, that she’s been writing to old man Oaks for all this time—a letter every mail day for thirty years—and yet never posted a single letter? She kept her word, which was not to try to communicate with her old lover, apparently, yet she couldn’t help writing him, pouring her heart out—and then putting the letters away under lock and key.”
“And that’s the key?”
“So she told me. ‘When I’m dead,’ she always told me, ‘you get them out. They’re all stamped, ready to post, so you may as well drop them in the nearest pillar box. It can’t harm him, can it, once Im dead, to let him know I always loved him?’ Of course there’s no point in posting them now, but if you think it would help your investigation, we could look for them.”
“Let’s,” said Gabriel. “Wait until I jump into a pair of pants. Where do you suppose these letters are?”
“Lord coly knows,” Brinker answered. “She never told me what the key was for. I fancy it won’t be difficult to find out.”
It wasn’t. In ten minutes they found that the key fitted a trunk in the attic of Seaside House.
Gabriel examined the trunk carefully on the outside, then lifted the lid. A strange blend of odors greeted his nostrils, the warm smell of musty dampness and the faint, expiring scent of lavender—the fragrance of memories, struggling to survive the rank, all-destroying suffocation of the tropics. The powdery dust of Shakkarpur had seeped into the locked trunk, and lay in gritty film upon the many bundles of letters.
Gabriel untied the first bundle to hand, ripped open an envelope, began reading at random. The light was bad. He tried to move the trunk.
“She’s heavy,” he said.
“Not surprising,” Brinker said. “Just multiply 52 to 30. Must be more than 1500 letters in there.”
“If you gave me a hand, we might move the trunk over by the window where the light’s better.”
“Gladly,” Brinker said. He lifted his end of the trunk easily. “You’re out of condition, Gabriel,” he laughed. “Been neglecting your golf?”
“Never could play the game,” Gabriel declared. “Never knew enough cuss words to last more than five or six holes.”
They put the trunk down. Gabriel dusted off a spot on the floor, sat down, and resumed reading. As he opened letter after letter, the amazing story of Gwendolyn Small’s mad and hopeless love unfolded—the story of a woman’s heart which had imposed its irrational rule upon a woman’s mind, the story of a mind which had hypnotized itself to obliterate the passage of time. Gwendolyn wrote to her departed lover as though he had just gone away on business, had been annoyingly detained, but would return shortly.
I hope you get back before the season starts, she wrote in one letter, because I shall be dreadfully busy rehearsing, I fear, and won’t be able to be with you as much as I want, darling. I have been reading plays, plays, plays—appallingly bad, most of them. There just aren’t any first-rate playwrights any more, I’m afraid. Perhaps I shall relent and let Sutro write a play for me after all. You won’t be jealous, will you, my love? You know I have never felt anything for him except a certain small respect for his very small talent…. And did you read what Archer wrote about me in the Times last week? The man calls himself a critic! I shall have to do another play, just to prove he is wrong….
Then for a dozen or more letters there would be no more mention of the theater. Her mind was back in Shakkarpur, filling pages with long, gossipy accounts of her daily routine at Seaside House; the price of milk was going to be increased two pice per seer; there was trouble with servants; one of the fishermen had been rude to a guest in bathing and had to be discharged; there was talk in the bazaar of a kala azar epidemic at Ranjibad. And through them all there was the continued closing of her mind to the immediate past, continued talk of a future that was thirty years dead. George would be back soon. George would always love her. She would always adore George.
Gabriel dug through the mass of letters, looking for those of recent months. They were all dated, so it was not difficult. He read the latest ones with great care.
“Looks like she didn’t know old man Oaks was dead,” the detective commented. “She was writing him right up to last week. Unless—why didn’t she write a letter this week, Brinker?”
“She would have written it today,” Brinker said. “This is mail day.”
“She was quite a gal,” said Gabriel, “crazy or not, she was quite a gal.” For a long time he stared into space. Then he asked suddenly, “Brinker, what about the servants in this hotel? Do you know them all?”
“There’s always been quite a turnover,” Brinker replied. “Miss Small wasn’t exactly easy to get along with. The Indians didn’t quite understand her, I’m afraid.”
