Clues for Dr. Coffee, page 7
Sandra’s past was symbolized by the photographs and framed playbills which lined the walls of her staircase, showing a young and beautiful opera singer in the roles of Violetta Valery in La Traviata, Tosca in. La Tosca, and Cho-Cho-San in Madame Butterfly, and testifying to her performance in the 1920’s at the San Carlo Opera of Naples, the Teatro Costanzi of Rome, the Municipal Opera of Nice, and the Opéra-Comique of Paris. Also obviously part of her past were the diamond earrings, currently the worry of Duncan Floyd. The two huge, flawless, pear-shaped stones, which she wore pendent from daringly fragile platinum chains, appeared publicly just five times yearly: for the opening concert of the Northbank Symphony, for the annual two-night stand of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and for Sandra’s two receptions which curiously enough were attended not only by the best people of Northbank, but by prominent musical figures from Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and even New York.
Whether or not Sandra’s past was also symbolized by Josephine Farriston had long been a matter for conjecture in Northbank. According to Sandra, Josephine was the child of a dead brother—a protégée whom she was grooming for the opera stage. Josephine was away at some conservatory most of the year, but she would be back for the reception. She always was—usually to sing, if there was someone important to listen.
Although all this personal history was an integral part of Northbank gossip, none of it was pertinent to Max Ritter’s current mission. Or so Ritter thought as he parked his car in the driveway at the side of the house, walked to the front, and twisted the old-fashioned bellpull.
The bell was not answered immediately. Deep inside the house Ritter thought he heard angry voices raised in altercation. He could not distinguish words, but he was sure one voice was female and on the verge of tears. The other was a rumbling baritone.
Again Ritter rang. The voices stopped suddenly. After a brief silence Sandra opened the door. She was a stately, well-groomed woman clinging stubbornly to the hopeful side of fifty. Her young, unwrinkled face belied her white hair, and she was without the girth and bulges which divas in retirement so often wear like decorations for distinguished service..
When Ritter started explaining why he thought he should attend her reception, Sandra cut him short with, ‘I am sorry, but I cannot insult my guests by having policemen present. Anyone invited to my house is presumed honest. I do not need you.”
“Maybe I’d better come, anyhow,” the detective said.
“You are not welcome and you will not be admitted.”
“Hold on, madam. You’re going to wear those diamond earrings and the insurance people—”
“You will not be admitted,” Sandra repeated, “without a search warrant. And I understand we Americans are still protected by constitutional safeguards, so that no court will issue a seach warrant without evidence of a crime having been committed. There has been no crime committed. Good day.” And she closed the door.
Ritter grinned. He was one of those rare policemen who believe that law enforcement includes the provisions of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Sandra was right about the lack of grounds for a search warrant, he mused as he walked around the side of the house. He stopped grinning when he saw the girl sitting in his car.
The girl was young, in her early twenties at most. She had the bloom of springtime in her cheeks, the love of life in her blue eyes, and a narrow blue ribbon around her blonde hair, Directoire fashion.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Josephine Farriston. You’re from the police, aren’t you?”
“Am I?” Ritter countered. “Maybe that N.P.D. on my car door stands for ‘No Passengers Desired.’ I’d sure like to sit here and admire the fit of your pretty blue sweater, but I got work to do. Step down, sister.”
“I’ve got to talk to you,” Josephine said. “Did Sandra call you to keep Biff from coming to the party tonight?”
Ritter was suddenly interested. “Who’s Biff?” he asked.
“Biff Walters.” The simple declaration left Ritter looking blank. The girl’s eyebrows lifted incredulously. She said: “Don’t you know Biff Walters and his Catalina Catamounts? I guess you re, not hep. He played six months at the Blue Heaven Roof in New York. That’s where I met him. When he finishes his twenty weeks at the Standing Room in Chicago, he’s going to Hollywood to make a picture.”
“Sandra doesn’t like Biff?” Ritter said.
“And how! And vice versa.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m in love with him.”
“And vice versa?”
“Very much vice versa. Biff wants to marry me. Sandra wants me to be an opera singer. Q.E.D.”
“What’s the matter with a little of each?” Ritter asked.
“Sandra says opera is a full-time job. And she’s afraid if I marry Biff I’ll turn out to be a blues singer with his band. Which I’d love, only Sandra has spent so much money trying to make me the greatest Mimi since Bori that I just can’t let her down.”
“Unless Biff can beat all those silly ideas out of Sandra’s head?”
“Biff will be at the party tonight, if that’s what you mean—unless you keep him out. Biff knows that Sandra has spent about all the money she has to get me started, and he’s afraid she’ll do something foolish to get more until I click. She’s very proud and stubborn. She’s—”
“That’s not what I mean. Biff is in the house right now, fighting with Sandra.”
“Now? Biff? Oh, no!” Josephine’s whole body registered surprise. Maybe she was telling the truth.
“Go in and see for yourself,” Ritter said, stepping on the starter. “I got work to do, sister.” He eased her gently from the car.
Ritter drove directly to the offices of the Northbank Tribune and asked the society editor to show him the guest list for Sandra’s reception. He was delighted to find the names of Dr. and Mrs. Daniel Webster Coffee among those invited. Dr. Coffee was pathologist at Northbank’s Pasteur Hospital and an old friend of Ritter’s. Since the Northbank Police Department clung to a policy of solving crimes with the nightstick rather than in the laboratory, Ritter sometimes took his bafflers to Dan Coffee for ex officio treatment by test tube and microscope.
“Hello, Max,” Dr. Coffee said when Ritter phoned. “Yes, Julia and I are invited, but Julia’s in bed with the sniffles and I’m certainly not going there alone.”
“You could take Doc Mookerji,” Ritter said.
“Nothing doing, Max. You know how I hate putting on a tux.”
“Doc, you gotta go. You gotta do some scientific observing for me, and I’d like that swami of yours to get a look at another swami who maybe ain’t only not kosher, but not even Hindu.”
“Sounds intriguing, Max. What—”
“Meet me at Raoul’s for a short beer after dinner, Doc, and I’ll brief you,” Ritter said.
When Dr. Coffee arrived at Sandra Farriston’s, stiffly uncomfortable in boiled shirt and dinner jacket, he was immediately struck by a feeling of further uneasiness which was psychic rather than physical. He tried unsuccessfully to analyze the sense of lurking evil which seemed to hang over the gathering like a flickering shadow. On the surface, the reception seemed no more sinister than a country fair or a church bazaar. There was nothing ominous about the string quartet that played softly on the stair landing, nothing portentous about the caterer’s flunkies who passed elaborate canapés and poured champagne from napkin-wrapped bottles. Even the corner of the room which draped oriental rugs had converted into a den of mystery for Zygon seemed quite prosaic. The Swami of Northbank himself, resplendent in white silk tunic and purple satin turban, was only a swaggering mountebank as he stabbed cards out of a tarot deck with a jeweled dagger to tell the fortunes of goggle-eyed matrons.
It was only when the majestic Sandra took Dr. Coffee in hand that he realized the hostess herself was the focus of the strange contagion. Sandra moved as if in a trance, her features expressionless, her body tense with some suppressed emotion. Dr. Coffee murmured apologies for Mrs. Coffee and introduced his spheroidal brown Hindu companion whose pink cotton turban looked miserable indeed in comparison with the magnificence of Zygon.
“Dr. Mookerji, my resident pathologist,” Dan Coffee said.
“Am exuberantly delighted and honored beyond limits of ignorant vocabulary,” the Hindu said, peering beyond his hostess for a gap in the field through which he might maneuver his global bulk in the direction of his supposed countryman.
Dan Coffee went through the ordeal of being presented to several dozen overdressed, overpolite, and overweening bores. Remembering his briefing by Max Ritter, he paid particular attention to Duncan Floyd, the bald-headed little insurance man; to Sewell, the white-haired concert manager from New York; and to a lanky, self-assured, broad-shouldered youth with a crew haircut to whom he was not introduced but whom he assumed to be Biff Walters, inasmuch as the youth devoted the entire evening to gazing earnestly into the blue eyes of Josephine Farriston. Although Josephine’s number-one task was obviously that of looking beautiful and charming, the job came so easily and naturally that she had ample time and energy to reciprocate Biffs ocular interest. Whenever he felt ready to go under from boredom or uneasiness, Dan Coffee looked at the couple and felt human again.
After being social for half an hour, which was ten minutes beyond his normal limit, Dan Coffee was rescued by Dr. Mookerji. The Hindu drew him into false seclusion behind the grand piano and declared solemnly:
“Am convinced that so-called Zygon is fraudulent phony. When addressed with phrase inquiring as to point of origin; to wit, ‘Tum kahan se ate ho?’ he riposted in English that he was unfamiliar with Hindustani language. Upon shifting to Bengali, received similar response. Punjabi likewise. Alleged Zygon claims Dravidian origin, purporting to speak only South Indian dialect of Telugu, with which am not personally conversant. Am of opinion that pseudo-swami is too palefaced for southerner. Dravidians usually tend to blackish tints resembling knave of spades.”
“We’ll report that to Lieutenant Ritter,” Dr. Coffee said.
At this point Sandra Farriston mounted to the third step of the staircase and clapped her hands for attention. She moved her head slowly from side to side, so that her huge tear-drop earrings swung in short, dazzling arcs, scattering rainbow spray. Her manner was gracious from habit, but her voice was taut as she said:
“If you’ll all be quiet for a few moments, and crowd closer to this side of the room, Swami Zygon will give us an unusual demonstration of his occult powers.”
Feet shuffled and the guests surged forward restlessly. Dr. Coffee saw Floyd, the insurance man, edging through the crowd to get closer to Sandra and the earrings. He saw Biff Walters put down his champagne goblet, clench his fists and stare at Sandra with something like hate in his eyes. Then Sandra touched the light switch and the room was dark—except for a blue glow from Zygon’s crystal ball which shone directly upward to bathe his face with ghostly luminosity. His turbaned head seemed to be detached from his body, floating uncannily in the darkness. Zygon muttered a few cabalistic phrases.
Seated at the concert grand almost at Dan Coffee’s elbow, Josephine Farriston struck a few chords and began to sing Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Song of India.” She sang with a small, rather girlish soprano, the pathologist thought, but her voice had a pleasing intimate warmth.
Dr. Coffee was watching the spectral face of Zygon glowing at the other side of the room when the head suddenly disappeared. The light below the crystal ball had winked out.
Josephine sang the closing phrases of her song in complete darkness. The piano still hummed with the final chord when the voice of the unseen Zygon again began muttering some mumbo jumbo. The muttering grew louder and shriller—until it Was cut abruptly by a knife-sharp scream. The shriek rose to a crescendo of terror and died quickly in a strangled sob. Then silence.
Dr. Coffee shouldered his way through the darkness, brutally pushing aside the unseen guests who stood between him and the light switch. A confused murmur seemed to float on the black silence, like a froth of horror churned up by the scream. Dr. Coffee pushed and elbowed until his outstretched hand touched the wall, found the switch. Light flooded back into the room.
Zygon was still—or again—behind his crystal ball. He was standing. Twenty feet in front of him Sandra Farriston lay stretched on the rug, her eyes closed. As Dr. Coffee strode toward Sandra, Biff Walters bent over her to shake her shoulder.
“Come now, Sandra,” Walters said. “Enough theatrics. This isn’t the last act of Rigoletto.”
Walters placed his hands under Sandra’s shoulders, withdrew them immediately and stared at his crimson fingers.
Dr. Coffee was still stooped over Sandra when Duncan Floyd pushed through the awe-struck guests.
“Good lord!” Floyd exclaimed. “Her earrings are gone.”
“She’s dead,” Dr. Coffee announced.
There was a shocked silence. Behind the grand piano Josephine Farriston gasped, then sobbed.
Dr. Motilal Mookerji waddled to the front door, threw it open, and spoke to a glowing cigarette on the porch.
“Leftenant Ritter, please enter without preliminary legal writs and warrants. Felonious crime has now been perpetrated as previously suspected.”
During the next three hours the late Sandra Farriston’s nostalgic mansion was the scene of a grim and determined invasion. The police job seemed simple enough. Sandra had been murdered. Sandra’s valuable earrings had been stolen. Nobody had left the house since the murder—Ritter himself would vouch for that. Therefore the discovery of the diamonds should indicate the murder. Unfortunately, the diamonds were not discovered.
A dozen detectives and policewomen had searched the sullen, frightened, or indignant guests. Another half-dozen detectives, aided by a worried, white-faced Duncan Floyd, hell-bent on preventing a loss for Great Lakes and Southern Underwriters, had gone through the house with rude and untidy thoroughness. By the time the team of photographers and fingerprint men had packed up and left at midnight, the following facts had been established:
Sandra Farriston had been Stabbed to death with the jeweled Afghan dagger which belonged to Zygon. Because of its gem-encrusted hilt, no latent fingerprints could be developed.
The earrings had been torn from Sandra’s ears, bruising the pierced lobes. There was slight bleeding, indicating that they had been snatched before Sandra was killed.
The fragile platinum chains from which the diamonds had hung were found under the piano with the twisted mountings—and without the stones.
Zygon had been searched to the most intimate recesses of his person and the diamonds were not found.
Nor were the diamonds found anywhere or on anyone.
Shortly after midnight, Max Ritter announced to Dr. Coffee: “I’m going to take Zygon downtown, Doc.”
“Max, do you think Zygon is fool enough to commit murder with a weapon so easily traceable to him?”
“Zygon’s no fool,” Ritter replied, “which is exactly why he might do the obvious, counting on a logical guy like you or me to figure that he wouldn’t do any such thing.’
“He is Machiavellian impostor,” Dr. Mookerji volunteered.
“I’d also like a little private jam session with the boogie-woogie boy,” Ritter said. “The air will do you good, Walters.”
“Biff doesn’t know anything,” Josephine said. “He was standing right beside me all the time I was singing. He kissed the back of my neck just before Sandra screamed.”
“He was standing over Sandra when the lights went on,” Ritter insisted. “Maybe I can sweat a few sour notes out of him.”
“Where Biff goes, I go,” Josephine said.
“That’s fine, sister. I’d like to listen to your voice some more, too. I picked up a few new tunes this afternoon I want to try on you. You can both ride with me. Brody, you and Jenkins take the swami.”
“Correction, please. Alleged swami,” said Dr. Mookerji.
The caravan formed at Sandra’s front door. As the pale, perspiring and protesting Zygon was loaded into one police car with two detectives, Duncan Floyd approached Ritter.
“Mind if I come along, lieutenant?” Lloyd asked. “You can understand my concern. I’ll follow in my own car.”
“Okay, follow. Doc, we seem to be a little crowded. Think that hot rod of yours is good for another two-three miles?”
“Dr. Mookerji and I will be hot on your tracks,” Dan Coffee said.
They were not very hot, because of the cold reluctance of Dr. Coffee’s obsolescent carburetor to awake to action. In fact, by the time the pathologist and his Hindu resident had caught up with the caravan in Harding Park, the shooting had already started.
Dr. Mookerji had just remarked: “Were you observing, Doctor Sahib, that so-called swami was exhibiting gastric symptoms? Personally noted livid and anxious face, plus clammy skin.”
“He probably ate too many of Sandra’s rubber hors d’oeuvres,” Dr. Coffee was saying, just as they came to the road block.
Three police cars were drawn up in echelon across the curving park road, with Duncan Floyd’s car parked a little to the rear. Spotlights from the police cars slashed the night with hard, hot blades, raking the lawns, whipping trees and bushes. Flashes of gunfire flickered in the shrubbery like fireflies.
When the first explosions beat upon the darkness, Dr. Mookerji seized Dan Coffee’s arm. “Am perceiving signs of armed conflict, Doctor Sahib,” the Hindu said. “Suggesting option for better part of valor.”
“Let’s park here outside the combat zone,” Dan Coffee said.
The nervous staccato of police guns subsided with a few desultory shots and the whine of a ricochet bullet. The ensuing silence was deafening.
