Wives to Burn, page 8
“Gabriel.”
The voice of Rhoda Curring called softly from the interior of the carriage. Gabriel approached cautiously.
“Yes, Mrs. Curring?”
“I—I saw you go into the railway station, Mr. Gabriel. I was wondering if you planned to leave Shakkarpur soon?”
“I was just sending a telegram,” said Gabriel. “There’s no more trains tonight, anyhow.”
“I thought there might be some special pilgrim trains.”
“Not that I know of. And I couldn’t take it if there was. The D.O. is holding me as a material witness. Released me on my own recognizance, but I’m on probation, sort of. Or maybe you haven’t heard about the mur—”
“Yes, I heard,” interrupted Rhoda quickly. “Frightful thing. Mr. Gabriel, is it true that you’re a—a criminologist?”
“Well, yes, sort of, I guess. I’m a detective.”
“I should like to engage you. Will you take a case for me?”
“Glad to, as soon as I clean up the case I came here on. I don’t usually work on two cases at one time.”
“This won’t take much of your time, I’m sure. But I need your help at once.”
“What about?”
Rhoda opened the door of the ghari. “Get in.”
“I’m walking,” said Gabriel. “I’m due at the D.O.’s bungalow right now.”
“Get in. I’ll drive you there. We can talk on the way.”
“I’d rather walk.” Gabriel closed the door of the ghari.
“I see.” Rhoda fumbled in the darkness, extended her hand through the window. “There’s your retainer. Come and see me when you’ve finished at Mr. Hatton’s.”
“It may be late. Your husband won’t like your receiving visitors at three in the morning.” He ignored the extended hand.
“My husband’s not there.”
“He was about two hours ago.”
“Yes, I know. But he’s gone away again. Please take this.”
When Gabriel remained motionless, Rhoda tossed something toward him that fell noiselessly in the soft dust at his feet.
“I shall be waiting for you,” she said. Then she rapped on the wooden panel of the ghari and called to the driver, “Sidhe age chale jao. Jaldi, syce.”
The carriage rattled off down the road.
Gabriel stooped to pick up a tightly-folded wad of paper. His fingers smoothed out the multiple creases of the big, unwieldy diplomas that the Government of India uses for bank notes of large denomination. There were five thousand-rupee notes!
The detective put the money into his pocket and whistled to himself as he pointed his steps toward the District Officer’s compound. He stopped whistling to cough when a cloud of dust swirled up from the wheels of a uniformed cyclist coming from the railway station.
Reginald Hatton was holding court on the veranda of his bungalow, flanked by Dr. Forsythe, Alvin Brinker of the Bank of Shakkarpur, and the native Subadar of police. When Gabriel came in, the District Officer barked at him with shrill, terrierlike impatience.
“We’ve been waiting for you, Gabriel. Where have you been?”
“I told you I had things to do. I had to move my stuff from the dak bungalow down to Seaside House.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t try to send a telegram?”
“I sent a wire, yes.”
“You thought you sent a telegram,” declared Hatton smugly. He got up, waved a salmon-colored telegraph form triumphantly under the detective’s nose. “By my order, it was not despatched. It was brought to me here.”
“What’s the big idea?”
“I might ask you the same question—in English. Why do you find it necessary to telegraph the C.I.D. in Delhi?”
“Inspector Dumbarton is an old friend of mine,” Gabriel explained. “I’ve been keeping him in touch with this case.”
“Weren’t you aware, Gabriel, that I represent full police authority in Shakkarpur?”
“Sure. You’d never let anybody forget that you practically represent God himself around here.”
“Then why did you find it necessary to try to go over my head in this matter?” Hatton tore Gabriel’s telegram into strips as he spoke. Gabriel watched him, and a slow smile spread across his plump face.
“I didn’t know you wanted to keep the death of Lucy Steel a secret,” Gabriel said. “I didn’t know you had any reason for holding out on Delhi.”
The detective’s stare bored deep into the eyes of the District Officer.
“This isn’t a question of ‘holding out on Delhi,’ ” said Hatton. “It’s a matter of procedure. My reports go through certain routine channels. They reach Delhi only through the Provincial Superintendent of Police. I’ll ask you not to interfere further.”
Gabriel shrugged and sat down. Hatton glared at him. Alvin Brinker cleared his throat and said, “You were going to speak to him about the disposition of the body, Reggie.”
“I was coming to that,” Hatton said. A chaprassi came in and handed him a telegram. He continued speaking as he opened it. “Dr. Forsythe will tell you that it is impossible to keep a corpse in this climate. For reasons of hygiene, some disposition must be made early tomorrow. There is a small European cemetery in the old cantonment. Or if this Miss Steel has any sentimental relatives who would care to receive her ashes, I can order a cremation.”
“I don’t know anything about Lucy’s relatives,” Gabriel said, “and since I’m ruled off the telegraph wires, I won’t have a Chinaman’s chance of finding out before tomorrow. But you better cremate anyhow.”
“Very well,” said the District Officer, unfolding the telegram and glancing at it. “I must warn you, however, that the cremation will be done in the Hindu manner at the burning ghats. If you have any objection—” He stopped, staring at the telegram with wide eyes. Slowly he raised his head until he confronted the detective with a searching, puzzled gaze. Two fingers of his left hand touched the ends of his reddish mustache in a bewildered gesture. “How do explain this, Gabriel?” he demanded, drawing his upper lip taut over his teeth, in an effort to be very much the personification of Empire.
“Explain what?” Gabriel held out his hand for the telegram, which Hatton promptly withdrew out of reach.
“This message is from the Provincial Superintendent of Police,” Hatton said. “Let me read it to you: ‘Please permit William S. Gabriel co-operate solution murder Lucy Steel. Delhi requests you give him every assistance.’ ”
Gabriel leaned back in his chair and smiled broadly. “That just goes to show that the Provincial Superintendent of Police has good judgment,” he said.
“How did the Superintendent of Police learn of the existence of Lucy Steel—to say nothing of her murder?”
“You said yourself that your routine channels take your reports first to the Superintendent of Police,” Gabriel suggested.
“But I haven’t sent my report as yet.”
“No? Why not?”
“That’s neither here nor there. How did you get your news past my orders to the telegraph office? Have you a private wireless set, by any chance?”
Gabriel smiled again. It was a plump cherubic smile that might have meant that he was just as astonished as the District Officer—or that he was mightily pleased with himself. He said, “That’s neither here nor there, either. You’ve practically got orders to hand me the assignment to crack the Lucy Steel case for you. What about it?”
The District Officer stopped fingering his mustache, sighed with resignation. “If I must, I must,” he said. “No doubt you know already who killed Miss Steel.”
“Do you?”
“I’m morally certain that it must have been this Fred Oaks person, but I’m quite at a loss for a motive,” said Hatton.
“I’ve found plenty of motive for Oaks,” Gabriel said, “but I’m just as certain morally, or immorally, that he didn’t kill her.”
“What’s the motive?” Hatton asked.
“There’s no use my telling you, since it’s only going to make you more convinced that the wrong man did the job.”
“I insist on knowing everything you’ve discovered,” Hatton declared. “After all, I’m—Hello, Virginia. What do you want?”
Virginia Hatton had come in silently, and was standing at her brother’s side. She was out of breath, and very pale. Her fingers gripped the edge of Hatton’s desk tightly, as though she were afraid that they might betray the agitation that she was fighting to keep out of her facial expression.
“I’d like to speak to you, Reginald,” she said.
“Later,” Hatton said impatiently. “I’m terribly busy at this moment.”
“This is important, Reg.” The girl’s lips were colorless.
“It can’t be any more important than what I’m doing. There’s been a murder committed, Virginia—”
“Yes, I know. That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.”
The District Officer showed sudden interest. “Do you by any chance know where this scoundrel Oaks is hiding?” he demanded.
“I said I’d like to speak to you—privately,” the girl insisted. “May I?”
“All right, in half a moment,” Hatton said. “Sit down. Now, Gabriel, what about this motive?”
“It’s not exactly conclusive,” Gabriel replied. “And, as I said, it’s more than likely misleading. But here it is for what it’s worth.” He produced the morocco leather letter-case he had found in Lucy Steel’s luggage. “As you may have guessed already,” he resumed, “I came to India with Lucy Steel. She retained me in San Francisco to locate Fred Oaks.”
“Why?” the District Officer interrupted.
“Believe it or not,” Gabriel said, “I’m not sure. I didn’t know when I left San Francisco, and on the way I was given to understand by Miss Steel that it was none of my business. I suspected in Calcutta that there was a legacy involved. Oaks was the black sheep and the sole heir of a very wealthy family. His father, a sugar millionaire, died the day before I was retained by Miss Steel. He publicly disinherited his son some years before his death. Whether he put Fred back on the gravy train before he died, I don’t know. But if he did, Lucy Steel knew about it. Lucy Steel was Fred Oaks’s wife.”
“Wife?” The question came from Virginia Hatton. It was a small, startled cry that might have escaped her involuntarily. She was sitting forward on the edge of her chair, staring at Gabriel incredulously.
“Sure, wife,” said Gabriel, “At least they were married once. I can’t say if the marriage was legal or not, or if they were divorced since.” He opened the morocco letter-case. “But here’ a marriage certificate showing that Fred Oaks and Lucy Steel were hitched in New Orleans in 1933.”
As he passed the certificate to the District Officer, Gabriel stole a glance at Virginia Hatton. The girl still sat on the edge of the chair, as motionless as a statue. In her rigid face only her eyes moved, following the paper in the detective’s hand.
“What makes you suggest that this marriage may not have been valid?” Hatton asked.
“There was a previous marriage.” Again Gabriel dug into the leather case. “In 1932 Oaks was married in Reno, Neveda, to a woman named Marjory Root. This is a photostatic copy of the records.”
“The man has wives to burn,” cackled Alvin Brinker.
“Whether the marriage to Marjory Root was ever terminated by divorce, annulment or the death of Miss Root, I don’t know,” Gabriel went on. “My guess is that it wasn’t. Lucy Steel was too much interested in bigamy laws in India, and was too disappointed when I told her a Mohammedan could have up to four wives without breaking any laws. Of course, Fred Oaks wasn’t a Mohammedan. Lucy Steel, I’m afraid, came here for the express purpose of putting the bee on Fred Oaks for a million dollars or so, even though I don’t know what she had on him except the old wedding yoke.”
“A common blackmailer!” said the District Officer.
“Not at all common, if you ask me,” Gabriel objected. “She had a way about her. She did things in the grand manner.”
“In any event, this Oaks person certainly had good reason to kill her—if what you say is true.”
“Sure, he had reason. That’s what I said before. But I don’t think he did it.”
“Come now, Gabriel.” The District Officer was unpleasantly patronizing. “It couldn’t have been anyone else. The woman hadn’t been in Shakkarpur two hours before she was murdered. She didn’t know anybody here except Oaks—or you. And you seem to have been given a character by Delhi. It must have been Oaks.”
“I still got a hunch he didn’t do it,” Gabriel insisted. “He’s too smart to be caught flatfooted with a corpse in his room. He’d have done it some other way—since there wasn’t any hurry, as far as I can see. He’d have shot her some place else, so he could get back and go through her luggage and destroy any evidence she might have against him—like these marriage certificates.”
Suddenly Virginia Hatton began to laugh—softly at first, then more loudly. Gabriel, watching her closely, saw no sign of mirth in her tense, pale face. She stopped on a shrill, slightly hysterical note, as suddenly as she had begun.
“I seem to give you a chuckle,” said Gabriel.
“It’s so silly!” Virginia declared. “You’re all being very silly.”
“No one has asked your opinion, Virginia!” said the District Officer coldly.
“What’s silly?” asked Gabriel.
“The idea that a man as completely without inhibitions as Fred Oaks should be intimidated, to the point of murder, by the mere threat of someone revealing that he has a wife or two too many.”
“Don’t you think Fred Oaks is capable of committing murder, Miss Hatton?” Gabriel pursued.
“Not over such a trifling matter as blackmail; not over an unorthodox number of wives. I can’t imagine Fred going to the trouble of killing a woman merely to keep her from denouncing him as a bigamist.”
“There may be a million dollars involved,” Brinker volunteered. “That makes a difference.”
“Not to Fred, it wouldn’t. He’s not an acquisitive person. He doesn’t care any more about money, in the mass, than he does about such abstract concepts as honor, or—or love.”
“Why did he run away, if he’s such a misjudged lamb?” the District Officer demanded.
“Because there’s only one thing in the world that Fred Oaks does care about, and that’s his personal independence.”
Well spoken, Bill Gabriel thought. She knows the man’s a Grade A chiseler, but she likes him anyhow, and she’s going to see that the Devil gets his due. She’ll polish up the only white spot on a black character—like defense counsel telling the jury the man who burned down the orphan asylum is good to his mother. Nice performance.
“Nevertheless,” the District Officer was saying, “I’m arresting Oaks as soon as I lay hands on him, which should be very soon. The Subadar has a dozen men looking for him, and he can’t hide for long in a place like Shakkarpur. By the way, Virginia, you said you wanted to speak to me?”
The girl sat back in her chair. It was an uneasy movement.
“Yes,” she said.
“What’s it all about?”
“You’re busy, Reg. I’ll wait until you’ve done.”
“Is it about this Oaks?”
“I’d rather speak to you alone,” the girl insisted.
Of course it’s about Oaks Gabriel said to himself. She knows where he is and she can’t make up her mind whether to front for him or to tell her brother. Trouble is, her brother’s going to make up her mind for her. I wouldn’t give a wooden rupee for Oaks’s chances right now. The girl probably never told a firstclass lie in her life.
“Let’s not have any nonsense, Virginia,” Hatton said testily. “Do you know where Oaks is hiding?”
The girl hesitated. She leaned forward again.
“I’d sort of like to speak to Miss Hatton myself,” Gabriel interposed. “As long as I’m going to work on this case with you, Mr. Hatton.”
“I shouldn’t wonder she could be a great help to us,” Hatton said, getting up. He walked over to his sister, looked down at her with silent bluster in his glance. She met his accusing glare with proud, frank, unflinching eyes. Hatton continued, “She always was a queer duck, she and that twin brother of hers—scarcely like Hattons at all, Sir Godfrey always said. A Hatton wouldn’t be seen about with a man like Oaks—I say, Brinker, will you see who’s making all that row on the steps?”
An altercation was in progress at the veranda entrance. Through the screen door, the red turban of the Sikh doorman could be seen making vehement negative movements. His loud and contemptuous Hindustani all but drowned out the protestations of the man he was addressing.
The bank manager was back in an instant with an explanation.
“It’s your chokidar,” he said.
“Chokidar?” The echo came from Virginia. She arose abruptly.
“The watchman,” Brinker went on. “He said he started off for home, but in the excitement of getting an unexpected leave, he forgot his hookah. Since he couldn’t envisage a holiday without his favorite pipe, he came back for it, but he couldn’t get into his lodge. The door was locked and no one answered his knocking. He wants to know if you wouldn’t let him in to get his cocoanut shell pipe.”
“Strange,” said the District Officer. “I didn’t give the chokidar leave. I wonder—” He stopped suddenly, shot a quick glance at his sister. Virginia was still standing, staring at him, her lips pressed lightly together. Hatton nodded over his shoulder to his Subadar of Police. “Yusuf,” he ordered, “take ten armed men and surround the watchman’s lodge. If anyone tries to get out, shoot without warning. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Yes, Sahib.” The Subadar started for the door.
“And on your way out, Yusuf, send the watchman in to me.”
Chapter Eleven
A Sinister Visit
The veranda of the Curring bungalow was dark except for the glowing end of a cigarette in a far corner—a nervous spot of light that grew brighter and dimmer like the luminous pulsations of a firefly. For a long time there was no sound except the impersonal, restless murmur of the sea. Then there came the faint scrape of a shoe on the wooden steps. The figure of a man was silhouetted in the screen panel of the door.
