Grab Bag Page 17

  She looked around the pleasant room at the unbroken row of ancestral portraits, safely retrieved one after the other from the hands of the predators. Then she raised her cup of cocoa to Lady Gwendolyn, smiling down again from her place of honour over the mantelpiece. “It seems appropriate to say, many happy returns. And may we all still be together to celebrate our Diamond Jubilee.”

  Father Knew Best

  MY ORIGINAL TITLE FOR this short-short was “A Lesson in Mycology.” Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine published it in May 1967 as “The Martinet.” Take your pick.

  “Come along, Evangeline. You waste altogether too much time on that foolishness. A walk will do you good. Bring the Mycologia.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Evangeline had been trained to obey. She laid down her brushes, fetched her gathering basket and the beautiful old manuscript book in which a long-dead ancestor had depicted the mushrooms of the British Isles. Each one was hand-drawn and coloured, with its name and pertinent facts lettered beneath in a minute and elegant hand. It was a work of art, a museum piece. To Mr. Chadwick-Byrne, it was something to identify mushrooms by.

  When she came back, she saw he had torn a strip off the drawing she’d been toiling over for the past two days, and rolled it into a spill to light his pipe. She knew better than to protest. Even though her watercolours were as expertly done as any in the Mycologia, a woman could never be a serious artist. Women existed only to be dutiful wives, or to keep house for their fathers if the wife had failed so far in her duty as to die before her time.

  There had been no question of Evangeline’s marrying. Suitors had not been lacking twenty years ago. She’d been a sweetly pretty girl and the Chadwick-Byrnes were known to have money. But Mrs. Chadwick-Byrne was already ailing then, and the young men were not encouraged.

  Now at sixty-eight, Mr. Chadwick-Byrne was a bluff, hearty man who showed every sign of living to ninety. He liked to be outdoors, hunting or taking nature walks of the sort that involved killing butterflies, taking birds’ nests, uprooting plants, and picking things he could take home and devour. He was particularly fond of mushrooming.

  Evangeline might have enjoyed these walks if she had been allowed to drift peacefully down the woodland paths, stopping where the fancy seized her to sketch or simply enjoy the loveliness of a flower, a bird, a pattern of branches against the sky without having to identify, uproot, or gather into her basket; but her father did not tolerate slacking. Naturally she was not allowed to use the field glasses except as an infrequent and grudging favour, or to do the serious work of identifying specimens. Her job was to carry the basket, the reference books, the cyanide jars, and to hover close behind her father’s elbow, ready to hand them over as required.

  Mushrooms were scarce that day. Mr. Chadwick-Byrne was annoyed. He did not exactly say the shortage was Evangeline’s fault, but he snapped at her for dawdling even more frequently than usual. She was quite exhausted and immensely relieved when they finally came upon a clump of bright orange fungi.

  “Ah, chanterelles,” exclaimed the leader of the expedition.

  “Do you really think so, Father?” Evangeline ventured. “I should have said—”

  “When I want your opinion, I shall ask for it. Give me the Mycologia.”

  He flipped through the loose pages, regardless of their fragility. “Ah, there you are. Cantharellus cibarius. Beautiful specimens, perfect in every detail. Really, Evangeline, I had hoped, after all my patient efforts, to have taught you the rudiments of mycology. Here, see for yourself.”

  He thrust the Mycologia at her and knelt to gather his find into the basket. Cowed, she admitted the mushrooms matched the illustration and must therefore be chanterelles, one of the great delicacies among the edible mushrooms. Considering the smallness of the patch, however, it was doubtful whether anybody but her father would get to enjoy them.

  After the chanterelles, they found scarcely anything except a few puffballs which had burst and were therefore inedible, and one deadly white Amanita phalliodes around which Evangeline made a wide, shuddering circle. Nevertheless, Mr. Chadwick-Byrne returned to the house in fine fettle.

  “Well, don’t stand there gibbering, Evangeline. Give the chanterelles to Mrs. Felt. We’ll have them for lunch, with an omelette.”

  Mrs. Felt, who had cooked for them since Evangeline was a baby, peered doubtfully into the basket. “If you say so, sir.” She, too, knew better than to argue.

  Neither his daughter nor his cook was surprised when Mr. Chadwick-Byrne helped himself so lavishly to mushrooms at the table that none were left for them. Both were horrified a while later when he collapsed in agony on the drawing-room rug. He was retching so violently that he could not gasp out instructions to call the doctor, and neither of them dared take the initiative until it was too late.

  After it was all over, Mrs. Felt explained to the police that she hadn’t liked the look of those mushrooms.

  “But the master was such a positive man, sir. It was no use trying to tell him anything once he’d made up his mind.”

  The sergeant nodded. Mr. Chadwick-Byrne had been well-known in the village.

  “And what did you think, Miss Chadwick-Byrne? I understand you were with your father when he picked them.”

  “I … yes, I was. I did ask Father if he … I said I didn’t think … but he showed me the picture in Mycologia and said they were—”

  “What is this Mycologia? Could I see it, please?”

  “Yes, of course.” She fetched the precious portfolio and handed it over to him.

  “Lovely thing, this. Ought to be in a museum.” The sergeant reached to turn a leaf of the yellowed parchment, hesitated. “Would you mind showing me which picture he identified the mushrooms from?”

  She laid the book down on a small table and shuffled carefully through the drawings until she found the ones showing the trumpet-shaped cups of Cantharellus cibarius. “This is what Father said they were.”

  Her faint accent on the word said caught the sergeant’s ear. “But you didn’t agree?”

  She flushed. “Father was so much more knowledgeable than I, I couldn’t very well contradict him. But I did think they looked rather more like this picture here.” She found another plate.

  “Clitocybe illudens.” The sergeant made rather a hash of the Latin. “Jack o’ Lantern. Poisonous, Same colour, more or less the same shape, specially if they’d begun to go by, say. Tricky things, mushrooms. Well, it appears to me that you were right and your father wrong, Miss Chadwick-Byrne. You mustn’t take it too hard. Death by misadventure, I think we’re safe in saying.”

  Death by pigheadedness would have been more like it. The things had probably tasted foul, but the old bastard would have died rather than admit he’d made a mistake. As in fact he had. And good riddance, as far as the sergeant was concerned.

  After he had gone, Evangeline carried the Mycologia back up to her bedroom. From under her mattress she took the one page she’d slipped out of the portfolio before she carried it down. This was an exact replica of Clitocybe illudens, with each venomous gill and spore rendered in meticulous detail. Beneath it, in that same exquisite, spidery lettering to be found on all the other pages, ran the description: Cantharellus cibarius, Edible. She’d have to burn it, of course, but she hated to. It was far and away the best thing she’d ever done.

  Assignment: Marriage

  AN EXPLORATION OF CERTAIN problems encountered by combining marriage with a career, when the career happens to be marriage. Published in Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine, January 1967. Reprinted in Murder in Mind, the 1967 anthology of stories by members of Mystery Writers of America, published by E. P. Dutton.

  “That’s the man,” said the superintendent.

  “Man?” The inspector’s usually cool voice held a spark of anger. “Swine, don’t you mean?”

  “He’s a nasty one, all right. Four wives dead that we know about. Lord knows how many more we don’t. And we can’t lay a finger on him.�
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  “It’s abominable.”

  Detective Inspector Fanshawe’s slender white fingers clenched so tightly around the photograph of the handsome young man with the wavy black hair that she came near to cracking the emulsion. This was almost the only sign of emotion her superior officer had ever seen her display.

  “Men who prey on women,” she went on in her level, beautifully articulated voice, “deserve to be exterminated like rats.”

  “Privately and personally, I couldn’t agree with you more.” Superintendent Pearsall sighed. “Our job would be a lot easier if we could do just that. Unfortunately, we have to keep muddling along, hoping to get some sort of lead on him while he’s busy courting his next victim.”

  “It’s absolutely certain he does kill them, I suppose?”

  “Four rich wives in five years and a handsome inheritance from each, not to mention the insurance settlements? Oh yes, I should say so. The problem is, how does he manage it?”

  “They all died in automobile accidents, you say.”

  “That’s right. And in not one of the crashes have we been able to turn up the slightest clue that the vehicle or the woman driving it had been tampered with in any way. In each case, the husband was away from home with an ironclad alibi for every minute of his time.”

  “Which in itself is suspicious.”

  “Exactly, but they’re all genuine. We haven’t been able to put so much as a dent in any one of them. There couldn’t have been any flummoxing of detour signs, or anything of that sort. On the books, Clayton Beardsley is innocent as a newborn babe. Possibly more so,” he added with a lugubrious attempt at humor, “if one subscribes to the doctrine of original sin.”

  “But that’s nonsense, of course,” said Inspector Fanshawe crisply. “Wasn’t there even some point of similarity in the four accidents?”

  “Well, it was a real smashup in every case. Bits and pieces of the car scattered everywhere. In one instance, another motorist was technically at fault. That was a rear-end collision at high speed. The Mrs. Beardsley of the moment was impaled on the steering wheel column. Very messy. Both people in the other car were killed, so it was impossible to be sure what really happened. One witness claimed she’d stopped short for some reason in the fast lane, and the other driver was coming too fast to swerve.”

  “Surely nobody would be idiot enough to stop suddenly in a situation like that. Was there no possible clue as to why she did it?”

  “None whatever. Most probably a sudden mechanical failure, though we couldn’t tell what it might have been. Or she may have been given a delayed-action drug, but there again nothing showed up in the autopsy.”

  Inspector Fanshawe frowned. “Provoking. What happened to the others?”

  “One simply went off the road at a bad curve and hit a tree. The other two both crashed over cliffs. The last wife had been drinking, as it appeared, but we couldn’t lay that on Beardsley. She’d had a history of alcoholism long before the marriage. Beautiful woman, though.”

  He handed Inspector Fanshawe another photograph. She studied it in silence, then laid it back on the desk.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, the oddest part of all. In each case, the car had been in the garage for checkup and repairs just before it was wrecked. Two of the smashes happened when the victim was actually on her way home after having picked up the machine from the mechanic.”

  “Dear me,” said Inspector Fanshawe. “That does pose an interesting problem.”

  “It does indeed. We questioned the mechanics, naturally, but it was the same story every time. Reputable people, known for sound work, had handled the car before and knew its quirks. Hadn’t taken it down bit by bit, of course, but had checked it thoroughly and couldn’t understand anything’s going so drastically wrong in so short a space of time. A different garage each time. There might have been negligence in one case, but surely not in four. One mechanic might have been bribed to lie, but hardly all of them. Anyway, a bribe would have meant Beardsley’s putting himself in another man’s power, which would have been stupid. Whatever he is, he can’t be that. No, he must have managed by himself. But—”

  “Quite,” said Inspector Fanshawe. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I have no idea,” said the superintendent. “I was hoping you might.”

  He had got into the habit of turning over the really impossible assignments to Inspector Fanshawe. Somehow, she always managed to pull them off. Not for the first time, he studied the slim, exquisite figure before him with bewilderment and a certain uneasiness. Fragile as she looked, she was as tough as any man on the force. She seemed to have no nerves and no feelings, only a cool intelligence and lightning reactions. She was invaluable and he wished to God she’d been transferred to another division. Frankly, she scared the hell out of him.

  As always, she zoomed straight to the point. “Beardsley’s between wives at the moment, right?”

  “Yes. His latest bereavement was three months ago. It’s about time for him to start looking for another victim.”

  “Then I assume what you really want is for me to make sure he finds her. Where would be the best place for me to get picked up?”

  That was in truth exactly what he wanted, but hearing it stated so calmly appalled him. “Inspector Fanshawe, do you honestly mean you’d be willing to marry a man simply to get him pinched?”

  She shrugged. “Women have married for sillier reasons. I shall need rather substantial expense money if I’m to be a good catch.”

  It was not at all difficult for a single, lovely, and evidently affluent woman to become acquainted with Clayton Beardsley. From there it was just a step to the registry office.

  The scoundrel had charm, there was no denying that fact. Had Inspector Fanshawe been the susceptible type, she could have been swept off her feet with no trouble whatsoever. But she wasn’t.

  Superintendent Pearsall thought her totally devoid of emotions. In fact she had two. One was an ice-cold devotion to her duty as she saw it. The other was a burning-hot ambition to be Chief Inspector Fanshawe. Pulling off the single-handed capture and conviction of a four-time murderer would be another step up toward her goal. She couldn’t understand why Pearsall had hemmed and hawed about letting her take on the assignment.

  At the end of a month, though, all she had accomplished was to learn what it felt like to be a rich man’s darling. Clayton Beardsley had done well out of his four previous wives and been lucky in Canadian oil. He had no pressing need for her hypothetical wealth and was being monotonously slow about making any move to get hold of it.

  Another woman—almost any other woman—would have reveled in the attention she got. Her husband obviously delighted in showing off his new wife. He took her everywhere. He lavished furs and jewels on her, urged her to patronize the most fashionable dressmakers and never even winced when the bills came in. One would have thought he was as genuinely in love with her as he claimed to be.

  Before taking up her perilous assignment, Inspector Fanshawe had done her homework. She’d pored over police reports of the four accidents, studied the gruesome photographs, learned all she could of Clayton Beardsley’s four previous ménages. Her quick mind had picked up a couple of points.

  Beardsley’s love nests had all been either on high hills with steep, winding roads or near the sort of highway where every motorist who gets on it is impelled to drive much faster than he ought. And in every one of the four alleged accidents, at least one wheel had come off the car. How had Pearsall missed that? The only question was, how had Beardsley pulled them off? She puzzled over the problem all through the honeymoon and the first six weeks in her palatial new home.

  Clayton, as she now found herself forced to call him, had always been far from the scene when the crashes occurred. The first time, he’d been driving a rented car, having left his own at the garage for his wife to pick up. After that, the Beardsleys had been two-car families. Sometimes it had been his wife’s car that got wrecke
d, sometimes his own. Invariably tires had recently been replaced or rotated, axles greased, brakes checked. Surely any tampering with the wheels would have been spotted by those skilled mechanics Beardsley always made a point of seeking out. Yet the wheels had come off.

  The simplest way to make it happen would have been to loosen the cotter pin that held the wheel to the axle so it would fall out at an opportune moment. But could one depend on it to let go at a spot where the driver was most likely to crash? What if it fell out prematurely and went rattling around in the hubcap? Anyway, wouldn’t at least one mechanic have noticed a loose pin?

  It was the candles on the dinner table that tipped the fifth Mrs. Beardsley off to the way her husband planned to kill her. Candles were built up by dipping wicks into layer upon layer of melted paraffin. What if a too-small cotter pin were dipped the same way? The wax would harden and keep the pin snugly in place. A little extra axle grease smeared around the hub would serve for camouflage. Even the sharpest-eyed mechanic would be unlikely to notice such an insignificant detail on a routine inspection.

  The pin would hold all right for a while, until the friction of high-speed driving or violent braking generated enough heat to melt the wax. Once it loosened, the working of the joint would quickly wear it through, especially if it had been flipped back and forth with pliers before the waxing, to weaken the metal even further.

  “Really,” said the newest Mrs. Beardsley to herself, “it’s brilliant.” She looked down the polished mahogany at her handsome husband with an admiration that, this once, was real.

  From that evening on, she included the pins in her thorough safety check every time she took the car out. She had her own, of course, a sleek yellow Alfa Romeo. She had grown to enjoy it along with the other luxuries she was constantly having showered upon her. But the life of elegant indolence was boring her to distraction. She did wish Clayton would get on with the murder so she could make her pinch and move on to a more exciting case.