Mum's the Word for Murder Page 5

  “Neither the car nor the man looked particularly prosperous last night,” Burke grunted.

  “No. I was coming to that. Seems to me there was something about a lawsuit a couple of years ago—the son trying to compel his father to provide for his wife and children.”

  Burke sat up a little straighter. “Children?”

  “There were two or three, I think. The story leaked out that they were absolutely destitute, but it was hushed up quickly. I don’t know what disposition was made of the case.”

  Burke got up. His coffee mug was only half emptied. He said, “Let’s see if Arthur Malvern is in the telephone book.”

  He wasn’t. Burke then said, “We’ll try the city directory,” and went striding out the front door. I didn’t have the heart to look back at two forlorn Scotties as I followed him.

  He stopped at a drugstore and went in to thumb through a city directory. The address was on South El Paso Street. That’s down near the river. Not a prepossessing locality. Burke drove there without saying anything. The address took us to a little adobe house in the rear of a dilapidated frame dwelling.

  Ragged Mexican youngsters came running to group around the car when Burke pulled up at the curb. There was a bare, dusty yard with cactus plants set out unsymmetrically. We followed a cinder driveway back to the adobe house in the rear. A little boy of about five and a girl of three were playing under a stunted tree near the door. They looked stunted too. The little boy had on shabby overalls and his body was thin. The little girl’s face was grimy and wizened. It gave me a shock to come here from the Malvern mansion. Burke went up to the door and knocked. The youngsters stopped playing and stared at us. A woman stood inside the door and asked in a tired voice, “What do you want?”

  Burke took off his hat. “Mrs. Malvern?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is your husband at home?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where he is or when he’ll return?”

  “No.” Then, grudgingly: “He’s out looking for work again.”

  “That’s what we wanted to see him about,” Burke said suavely. “May we come in?”

  “I suppose so. But I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  Burke pushed the screen door open and we went into the dim interior. They don’t waste much glass on windows for those adobe houses. The floor was dirt, hard-packed and swept clean—typical Mexican architecture. We followed the woman into a small room holding two broken-backed chairs and a sagging lounge. Burke’s head came within a foot of the unceilinged roof. A dank, musty odor came from the dirt floor and the adobe walls.

  Mrs. Malvern sat down on the lounge and stared at us with more than a trace of defiance in her black eyes. Her thin, white face was startling in contrast to her black eyes and hair. She wore a shapeless dress that hung straight down from her thin shoulders, and a pair of scuffed slippers on her stockingless feet. It didn’t take an obstetrician to discern that Mrs. Arthur Malvern was expecting a further increase in her family within a couple of months.

  She wasn’t old. Thirty-five or forty at most. Her eyes were old with defeat, and she looked anemic and underfed. One instinctively knew she had been beautiful ten or fifteen years ago. I tried not to stare at her as I let my thoughts drift back and piece together what must have happened since Arthur Malvern married her and his father kicked him out without a dime. Now the father was dead with a bullet through his head and they would have the money they should rightfully have had all this time. I was glad. And I hoped to God that Burke wouldn’t be able to pin it on them.

  He cleared his throat and said in a kindly voice, “I didn’t tell the whole truth when we came in. We’re from the police—and we want to talk to Arthur about his father’s death.”

  Something came into her eyes and went away. I don’t think she had been fooled. There was a cultured inflection in her tired voice: “But I’ve already told all I know.”

  I don’t know how Jerry Burke kept from showing his surprise. Perhaps he wasn’t surprised. But he asked, “To whom? And when?”

  “He was here less than an hour ago. He had a badge and he—hinted that they were looking for Arthur.”

  “Describe him to me.”

  She described Chief Jelcoe, even to his fluttering eyelids.

  Burke said soothingly, “I’m here to help you, Mrs. Malvern. I’m looking for the real murderer—not for someone to put on the spot. Now—where is your husband?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head despondently and I believed her. “He left home early this morning saying he had to see about his father’s funeral.”

  “He’s the only heir?”

  “Yes. So far as we know.” Her tightly clasped fingers were the only evidence of inward emotion.

  “Why,” Burke asked brutally, “did his father refuse to help Arthur? Did he know you were living like this?”

  “Of course he knew.” Her voice was sharp, verging on hysteria. “He was trying to force Arthur to leave me and the children. He’s—hated me ever since Arthur married me against his wishes.”

  “But surely,” Burke protested, “even Malvern wouldn’t carry a personal prejudice this far.”

  Her eyes flamed murkily. “You don’t know him! He was a devil! Oh, I’m glad he’s dead! Not only for the money to buy food for my children. Because he deserved to die. I’d be glad even if we didn’t get a penny of his filthy money.”

  “Where was your husband last night?” Burke asked.

  “He was home. Asleep in bed.” She stared at us with apathetic defiance.

  “Who notified you of the—of the father’s death?”

  “Mrs. Perkins. She telephoned a neighbor, who brought the message over.”

  “And awakened you?”

  “Yes.” Defiance gained ascendance over her apathy.

  “Why,” Burke asked softly, “did it take so long for Arthur to get out to the house?”

  She seemed to shrink a little from that question, but she straightened up and gave it to him without blinking: “Why should Arthur have hurried? At first he wasn’t even going at all, but I persuaded him he should. You can’t carry on a feud with a dead man.”

  “And he was here alone with you—all evening?”

  “Yes.”

  “There was no one else here to—substantiate the alibi?”

  “No one.” Bitterly. “We haven’t many friends here.”

  “Has your husband a rifle, Mrs. Malvern?”

  “Yes. The other detective took it. He tried to make a whole lot out of the fact that it had recently been cleaned and was stuck down behind the trunk. But Arthur went hunting rabbits last week, and we always keep it behind the trunk.”

  “Jelcoe,” Burke muttered to me, “seems to be very much on the job.” He got up and said, “Don’t worry about this. Better have Arthur drop in to see me as soon as he gets in. Jerry Burke is my name. At police headquarters.” He turned to the door leading to the hall. Our eyes had grown more accustomed to the dim light, and we could see our way out without groping.

  There were some framed photographs hanging in the hall. It had been too dark for us to notice them as we came in. Burke stopped in front of one and stared at it speculatively. I peered over his shoulder at the photograph and a little tingle ran down my spine. Then it ran back up again. It was a photograph of a mature couple dressed in the mode of thirty years ago.

  Burke stepped back from it and turned toward Mrs. Malvern, who had followed us out. “Your father and mother?” He spoke in a casual tone and nodded at the photograph.

  “My foster parents.”

  Burke nodded and said again, “Don’t you worry about this. I’m sure it’ll all come out all right.” We went out and blinked at the bright daylight that greeted us.

  The two children were still playing beneath the tree. They looked at us in wide-eyed wonderment. Burke stopped before them and jingled some silver in his pocket. “Do you live here?”

  The little boy nodded and the gir
l said quickly, “Yeth. That’s where we live.”

  Burke’s hand came out of his pocket and he dropped a silver dollar into the outstretched hand of each child. They stared from his face to the money in big-eyed disbelief, and ran into the house as we went down the drive to Burke’s car.

  The brown-skinned urchins drew away from the automobile as we got in and Burke drove away slowly. Unable to hold back any longer against the man’s inhuman calm, I broke out: “Do you think he did it? Arthur Malvern?”

  “Why—I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “He had motive enough,” I said hotly. “Imagine that old hypocritical devil allowing his own grandchildren to go without enough to eat while he makes speeches at civic banquets and struts to church.”

  “Stubbornness,” Burke said reflectively. “A matter of pride. After taking a position he refused to retract.”

  “Call it pride if you wish. I could think of a lot of other names. If the boy did do it, I hope he gets away with it.”

  “You,” Burke said reprovingly, as he turned a corner and headed back toward the city, “would make a very poor detective, Asa. We solve the case. It isn’t our province to try it. That’s what judges and juries are for.”

  “Do you mean to say you weren’t moved by the abject poverty you saw back there? Those undernourished kids? And that poor mother approaching another confinement without enough food in the house?”

  Jerry Burke’s lips came together in a grim line. “Poverty doesn’t excuse murder.”

  “All right,” I growled, “but I know you’re hoping just as much as I that Jelcoe won’t make out a case against him.”

  Burke hunched his shoulders impatiently. “It’s not Jelcoe I’m worried about,” he rumbled. Then added in a different tone, “What did you make of the picture?”

  He didn’t have to say which picture. I hadn’t been thinking of much else since I saw it. I argued, “People change a lot in thirty years.”

  He nodded. “That’s the reason Mr. and Mrs. Perkins don’t resemble that photograph more closely than they do.”

  It was out. In my heart I knew there wasn’t any mistaking the truth. The photograph of Mrs. Arthur Malvern’s foster parents was a likeness of Mr. and Mrs. Perkins thirty years before.

  Burke went on with a frown. “You said you thought his wife had been a servant at the house or something. This is evidently the something.”

  He drew up in front of police headquarters and we went in. He stopped in the outer office and curtly ordered a detective to get him the complete file of the newspapers relating to young Malvern’s marriage fifteen years ago.

  We went into his private office and waited. I sat around with a sinking feeling, thinking how much simpler it would be if this were a story I was writing and of all the happy endings I could devise for that defeated mother in the adobe house and the two kids who had never known anything but misery and filth.

  A detective came in with a great pile of newspapers. I looked out the window while Burke pawed through them. He grunted with a sound halfway between triumph and pity, and pushed a paper across to me. The same photograph we had seen on the adobe wall stared up at me. The story was underneath. I skimmed through it hastily.

  There was no mistaking that Burke had struck a hot scent. Arthur Malvern’s wife was the foster daughter of his father’s housekeeper and yardman. The newspaper gave an embellished account of the father and son imbroglio over the marriage. Before I finished reading, I heard Burke ordering Mrs. Perkins brought from her cell to his office.

  Chapter Seven

  WHILE WE WAITED FOR MRS. PERKINS he ordered two detectives to go out to the vicinity of young Malvern’s house and question all the neighbors regarding the movements of both Arthur Malvern and his wife the preceding night. The inquest was scheduled for four o’clock, so he told them they might as well bring Mrs. Malvern back with them in time to testify, because he felt sure they were going to want her.

  Amanda Perkins was somewhat subdued when she was brought in. She looked as though she might have been doing some heavy thinking during the few hours she had been in jail. Burke asked her to sit down in front of his desk, and waited until the officer who brought her had gone out before he said, “I want the full truth from you, Mrs. Perkins. I’ve learned some things since this morning that convince me you are holding a great deal back. First: Mrs. Arthur Malvern is your foster daughter?”

  Mrs. Perkins wriggled uneasily and dropped her eyes. Her affirmation was almost inaudible.

  “She was living with you and Mr. Perkins when Arthur met and married her?”

  A nod this time.

  “You had adopted her as a baby and reared her through girlhood. Naturally, both you and Mr. Perkins were very fond of her.”

  “Just as if she were our own daughter.” Mrs. Perkins lifted her head. “We hadn’t any of our own.”

  “Naturally, you felt very badly about it when the elder Mr. Malvern opposed Arthur’s marriage so bitterly and cut him off on account of it?”

  “There wasn’t any reason!” she cried fiercely. “Martha was a good, sweet girl. Plenty good enough for a Malvern. He hadn’t no call to make such a fuss!”

  “And Mr. Malvern didn’t blame you or Harvey for what happened?”

  “No, sir.” The woman was twisting her hands together nervously. “He was fair enough that way.”

  “But you blamed him!”

  “Yes, sir. We did. And rightly. Arthur was never much shakes at making money, and he and Martha had hard sledding from the first. Doctor bills—their first little one died at birth—all manner of hard luck.” She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.

  “Did you or Harvey ever remonstrate with Mr. Malvern?”

  “We did. Once. And he flew into a mad fit of rage. Threatened to discharge us both if we ever mentioned Arthur or Martha to him again.”

  “And you didn’t?”

  “No, sir. Neither of us. Jobs were hard to get and he paid well.”

  “But you saw your daughter often? Helped them along, perhaps?”

  “We did what we could. ’Twasn’t much. Arthur seemed not to have any ambition. Moody-like, he was. Brooding over all his pa’s money and him not having his just share. Kept looking to the time when he’d—” She stopped abruptly and bit back her words.

  “When he’d inherit his father’s fortune,” Burke finished for her. He frowned and muttered. “It’s easy to get the picture. Let’s bring your story up to date, Mrs. Perkins. We’re finding out the truth anyway, and it will be much better if you conceal nothing. Whose idea was it for her to come to Mr. Malvern to plead with him last night?”

  I winced with Mrs. Perkins at the whiplash of Burke’s voice. He had a way of putting on the pressure in his questioning that got results. Amanda Perkins wilted down in her chair and gulped. “It was Martha’s idea. Arthur’s really. She asked me a week ago if I could fix it, and called up yesterday to ask if she could come last night. Said Arthur had an idea his father might come around if Martha went to him herself and gave him to see she was expecting—and without enough to feed the little tykes already here.”

  “And you told her you would arrange to have the front door left open? And you didn’t tell Harvey because you feared he might object?”

  Burke shot the questions at her like rifle shots.

  “I didn’t see where it could do no harm,” Mrs. Perkins faltered. Then she lifted her head defiantly. “And I know it didn’t. If you’re trying to make it look like Martha had a hand in shooting Mr. Malvern, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Why she—she wouldn’t harm a fly!”

  “Then why did you try to conceal the fact that she was there?”

  “I didn’t see any call to tell. The newspapers would be like to drag out all that old story. I’m glad I didn’t tell, and I wouldn’t never have told if you hadn’t caught me.” The old woman’s defiance made me feel good. I guess Burke was right when he said I wouldn’t make much of a detective. It made me sick to see the way t
hings were piling up. Burke went right on as though, damn it, he were enjoying it.

  “I’ll have to ask you to tell your story at the inquest, Mrs. Perkins. This is an important development and cannot be concealed. I’ll send you back with Mr. Perkins and you’ll both probably be freed after the inquest. The best thing for both of you is to tell the full truth.” He pressed a button on his desk and had Mrs. Perkins taken away.

  As soon as the door was closed, I burst out: “Damn it, Jerry! Can’t you solve a murder without putting an old lady like that through the mill?”

  He looked older than I had ever seen him before. “I was easy on her,” he protested mildly. “And this case is still a long way from a solution.”

  “Have you thought of Harvey?”

  Burke nodded. “He becomes a logical candidate. How does the whole thing look to you?”

  “I don’t care anything about knotting a noose around anyone’s neck,” I objected, “but I suppose one more theory won’t help nor hinder. What if Harvey had known about Martha’s visit and its purpose? He eavesdrops and hears Malvern repulse her again. His old blood runs hotter as he thinks back over the wrongs of fifteen years. He listens to Martha’s pleading and the old devil saying no. He can’t think of anything except that if Malvern were dead his daughter would have the money and position rightfully hers. He gets a gun and prowls around outside until she leaves. Then lets Malvern have it where it will do the most good.”

  “That theory will fit Arthur just as well or better than Harvey. Don’t forget the rifle Jelcoe found behind the trunk. He wouldn’t have taken it if it hadn’t been the right caliber.”