The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK® Page 20

  I had actually welcomed the congenial Tom Wright’s gradually increasing presence in our home and his agreeability to substituting for me as an escort for Nora to social events I wanted to get out of. It had been I who had thrown them together so much, and looking at the matter calmly, I could hardly blame them for falling in love.

  I could even understand why they had attempted murder instead of asking me to divorce Nora. I don’t mean I could forgive it. I simply mean I could understand the reason. As a member of the country club board of directors, I happened to know Tom Wright’s salary was only forty-five hundred a year, which was hardly enough to clothe Nora, let alone support both of them. And Nora was not the sort of woman to sacrifice comfort for love. Naturally she would want both.

  Thinking back, it was hard for me to understand why I had not even suspected the growth of Nora’s and Tom’s love before tonight. In the past year Tom Wright had gone nearly everywhere with us. His presence as a family friend was so commonly accepted, we frequently received invitations which automatically included him. And while he was often attentive to other women at parties and dances, he never escorted any woman but Nora anywhere, nor showed even passing romantic interest in any other woman.

  How often, I wondered, had I stood at the country club bar with some of the men my own age indulgently watching Tom and Nora glide across the dance floor? Ruefully I recalled that my sole emotion on those occasions was relief that I didn’t have to exert so much energy myself.

  Tom interrupted my thoughts by remarking, “Crisp tonight. Be nice if we had a blanket of snow Saturday to start off the deer season.”

  Nora glanced sidewise at him. “I don’t think I follow that.”

  “Makes tracking easier,” Tom explained. “George, want to go out to Werle’s Woods Saturday?”

  I thought about being alone in the woods with a man who had tried to kill me, and the prospect didn’t much appeal to me.

  Noncommittally I said, “Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

  Then we were at the Nelsons, they were coming down the front steps to the car, and during the drive to the country club Velma Nelson kept up such an incessant chatter, I had no chance to return to my inner thoughts.

  I didn’t have much opportunity for inward contemplation after we arrived at the club either. People were already sitting down to dinner when we arrived, and in the bustle of locating places I found myself trapped next to Velma Nelson. I have learned not to listen when Velma talks, but it’s difficult to think very constructively with a monologue going on in your ear.

  After dinner, and before the music started, we as usual had an exhibition of local talent. There were the inevitable renditions by the barbershop quartet, in which Tom Wright sang baritone, and the equally inevitable piano solo by Velma Nelson. Then club president Chet Wayne called on me for my imitation act, and when the crowd set up an insistent clapping, I allowed myself to be drafted.

  Mimicry is my sole party talent, and in all modesty I’m good at it. In Chet Wayne’s ponderous voice I introduced Velma Nelson, using all the superlatives our country club president is so fond of, then switched to Velma’s shrill soprano and announced I couldn’t possibly play tonight because of a cold in my little finger.

  Immediately switching to the deep bass of Velma’s husband Harry, I said, “Good. Then sit down and shut up.”

  The act got its usual heavy applause, particularly from Velma, who considers it a compliment to be teased.

  After that we moved to the ballroom and I spent the rest of the evening standing at the bar with a group of men while Tom and Nora danced. I wasn’t able to get back to my problem again until past midnight, after I had kissed Nora goodnight and had retired to my own room.

  Lying awake in the dark with my hands behind my head, I mentally reviewed the alternate actions I could take. First, I could confront Nora and Tom with their act and demand a divorce without alimony. Second. I could report the murder attempt to the police and have both arrested. Third, I could ignore the entire problem and get myself murdered when they made their next attempt.

  Fourth, I could work out some plan to break up the affair between Tom Wright and Nora and force her to return to me.

  After thorough soul-searching, I decided that even though she had tried to kill me, I wanted Nora to remain my wife provided I could set the terms and devise absolutely certain safeguards against her ever attempting to kill me again.

  Which meant the fourth alternate action.

  Chapter 3

  The next day, Thursday, was our maid’s day off, and Nora invariably lunched downtown on that day. I figured she would have left the house by eleven, and I left my office at the same time. To be on the safe side I stopped at a drugstore two blocks from my house and phoned to make sure she had actually left. When there was no answer, I went home.

  The best place for the microphone, I decided, was behind the sofa in the front room, as that was the logical place for a couple in love to sit if they had anything confidential to say to each other. And the best place for the tape recorder was where it already was: in my basement hobby room immediately beneath the front room.

  In recent years I hadn’t spent much time in my hobby room, but it was adequately equipped with every tool I needed. In less than a half hour I had a high-fidelity mike fixed to the back of the sofa just below the top, and a long extension cord leading from it through a hole drilled in the floor.

  Setting the recording machine on my work bench, I switched it on, went upstairs again and counted aloud from various points of the front room. When I went back down to the basement to play back the tape, I found that my normal speaking voice had recorded clearly from every test point.

  Clearing the tape, I left the house again, had a solitary lunch and spent the rest of the day at my office.

  Normally I arrived home between five-thirty and six. The maid being off on Thursday, Nora prepared dinner herself, and if for some reason I was going to be late, I always gave her plenty of notice. But tonight I deliberately waited until five-thirty before phoning that I had an unexpected dinner invitation from a client and wouldn’t be home at all.

  “But I made pot roast!” Nora wailed. “It’s practically ready to serve.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “But this is one of my biggest accounts, and I can’t possibly get out of it. Why don’t you invite somebody over so you don’t have to eat alone?”

  “Who?” she demanded.

  “Maybe Tom’s free. He’d probably welcome the change from restaurant fare.”

  She was silent for a moment, then said in a mollified voice, “All right, dear. I’ll see if I can reach him. Will you be late?”

  “Don’t expect me before nine-thirty.”

  “All right, dear. Have a good time.” Her voice sounded remarkably cheerful for a woman whose husband had disappointed her for dinner.

  I had a leisurely dinner downtown, then drove back to my own neighborhood and cruised slowly past the house. It was not yet seven, but the November days were getting short enough for it to be dark already. Lights were on both in the front room and the dining room.

  Tom Wright’s car was parked in the driveway.

  Continuing on past the house, I rounded the corner and parked on the nearest side street. Quietly I made my way up the alley, through the back gate, and let myself in the basement door. Without turning on any lights I felt my way to the hobby room, switched on the recorder and turned the gain control on full.

  Then I retraced my way back to the car just as silently. There wasn’t any point in waiting in the basement, as the machine was loaded with a two-hour tape and required no supervision.

  Promptly at nine-thirty I turned into my drive. Tom Wright’s car was now gone, I noted.

  Nora greeted me pleasantly but without enthusiasm. Her inquiry as to what kind of time I had had
was more polite than interested, and when I asked in turn if she’d been able to get hold of Tom, she merely nodded noncommittally and said he’d left about a half hour before.

  With a little more animation she said, “Did you remember Tom’s birthday is Saturday?”

  I hadn’t, as it happened. Wright and I had fallen in the habit of giving each other minor gifts on our birthdays. Nothing elaborate; a box of cigars or a fifth of scotch.

  “I’ll get something tomorrow,” I said.

  Nora announced she was tired from the previous night’s country club party and was going to bed early. She gave me a tepid goodnight kiss and moved toward the stairs.

  “I’m going to read awhile,” I said. “I won’t wake you when I come up.”

  I did read for about thirty minutes, until I was reasonably sure Nora’s door was closed and she was in bed. Then I quietly descended to the basement.

  Chapter 4

  The first fifteen minutes of the tape playback was meaningless, consisting merely of scraps of conversation too far away to make out. Obviously Tom and Nora were still in the dining room.

  Then, clearly, Nora’s voice said, “Jane can clear the table in the morning. Let’s sit in here.”

  There was a long period of silence, then Nora’s voice again, close and breathless. “Please, honey! The front drapes are wide open!”

  “Close them,” Tom Wright’s voice said huskily.

  “And chance George coming home early and finding them closed? Stop it, Tom! We have to talk.”

  “About what?” Tom demanded. “The thing fizzled. Talk won’t change it.”

  “We’ll have to try again.”

  “So we’ll try again. When the chance comes. It’ll have to be a setup like last night, when we’re scheduled to go out together and George gets home late. The chance’ll come. What’s the point of talking about it?”

  I could visualize Nora shaking her head. “Not that way again, Tom. I couldn’t stand the suspense. We have to think of another plan.”

  “Why? The wire’s simple and safe. Nobody would suspect anything but an accident.”

  After a long silence Nora said reluctantly, “I’m not sure George didn’t loosen that wire.”

  “You nuts?” Tom asked. “It just came loose.”

  “How? You insist you fastened it firmly. You don’t know George. It would be just like him to disconnect one end and pretend he hadn’t noticed it so he could have time to figure out what action to take. He wouldn’t run out of a burning building until he’d stopped to analyze all possible exits and decided on the most logical one.”

  Incredulously Tom said, “You don’t actually mean you think he suspects we tried to kill him, and didn’t say a word about it?”

  “Not really,” Nora said impatiently. “It’s just… just that he’s such a cold fish, anything’s possible. I’m just unnerved, I guess. I don’t want to try the wire again.”

  “Well, what do you want to try?”

  “I don’t know. I want to think about it. I want to table the whole plan until we come up with a foolproof idea.”

  “I think the wire’s foolproof.”

  “It failed, didn’t it?” Nora snapped. “I want a plan that will work. And that’s going to take thought. Meantime I think it’d be a good idea if we stopped seeing each other except in George’s presence.”

  “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “Because he’s not an idiot. Did you see the measuring expression in his eyes when he came downstairs last night? I turned cold all over. I thought he was going to announce in that calm way of his that it was obvious we’re in love and ask our suggestions on what to do about it.”

  “You’re imagining things,” Tom scoffed. “George trusts me like a brother. Didn’t he even suggest you invite me for dinner tonight?”

  “Well, yes,” Nora admitted. “I guess I’m hypersensitive since the wire stunt failed. But I can’t help it. I’m scared. Let’s do things the way I suggest.”

  “All right,” Tom said resignedly. “I’ll stay away unless George himself invites me over. Suit you?”

  The tape went on for another full hour, but nothing more definite was resolved. All it boiled down to was that Nora and Wright would independently try to think up a feasible plan, and wouldn’t contact each other until one or the other came up with one. Meantime they would keep their relationship carefully circumspect.

  It was a mild relief to know I didn’t have to be on the lookout for booby traps for at least the immediate future.

  Returning upstairs, I disconnected the microphone, went back to the basement and pulled the cord through the hole in the floor. I closed the machine up and stored it back in its locker beneath my workbench.

  After I climbed in bed I lay awake for a long time attempting to work out a plan of my own. Tom Wright’s invitation to go deer hunting crept into my mind, and at the same time I suddenly remembered that Saturday was not only the opening of deer season; it was Tom’s birthday.

  The conjunction of the two dates gave me my plan.

  Chapter 5

  Friday evening when I came home from the office, I brought a sealed pasteboard suit box with me. Opening it in the front room as Nora watched, I took out a brand new jacket and a peaked woolen cap. The jacket was a brilliant red. The cap was made up of four wedge-shaped panels, like pieces of pie, the ones on each side the same color as the jacket and the front and rear ones bright green. The peak was divided down the center, red on one side and green on the other.

  Removing the sales tags, I slipped both on.

  “It’s certainly a gay outfit,” Nora said dubiously.

  “It’s supposed to be,” I told her. “Even with the woods full of amateurs, nobody ought to mistake me for a deer.”

  “Oh, you’re going deer hunting?” she asked.

  “If I can rake up a partner. Got time to make a phone call before dinner?”

  When Nora said I had, I dialed Harry Nelson’s number. Nora stood watching me speculatively.

  Apparently she recalled Tom Wright’s invitation to me to go hunting and assumed I was phoning him, because she looked surprised when I said, “Harry?”

  “Speaking,” Harry said.

  “George Wharton. Got your deer license yet?”

  When Harry said he had, I said, “How about taking a crack at Werle’s Woods in the morning?”

  “Sure,” he said. “What time?”

  I told him I’d pick him up at five a.m.

  When I hung up, Nora said, “You told Tom you’d let him know if you wanted to go hunting.”

  “I tried to reach him from the office,” I told her. “He wasn’t home.”

  Shrugging, Nora left for the kitchen to check up on the progress of dinner. The minute she was out of earshot, I picked up the phone again and dialed Tom Wright’s number. He answered at once.

  “About tomorrow,” I said. “Still want to try for a deer?”

  “Sure thing, George. When you didn’t call, I was planning to go out alone in the morning.”

  “Pick you up at five-thirty.” I told him.

  I slept with Nora that night. Deliberately, so that she’d have no chance to use her bedside phone to contact Wright.

  It wasn’t until after we were in bed that I remarked in a tone of afterthought, “I tried Tom’s place again while you were helping Jane get dinner, and finally got hold of him. He’s going along with Harry and me.”

  She didn’t make any comment.

  * * * *

  When the alarm buzzed at four-thirty, I let it buzz long enough to arouse Nora before shutting it off.

  She watched sleepily as I dressed in breeches and boots and pulled on the brilliant red jacket. When I put on the bright red and green cap, she made a face and
closed her eyes. She had drifted off to sleep again before I left the room.

  Downstairs I took off the new jacket and cap and neatly repacked them in the box they had come in. From the hall closet I got out my old black and white checkered hunting jacket and my solid red cap.

  There was no danger of Nora awakening and seeing from her window that I had changed clothes, for her window was on the opposite side of the house from the garage.

  Harry Nelson was waiting on his front porch when I got to his house. But Tom Wright wasn’t ready when we reached his small apartment, of course, because we arrived twenty minutes earlier than I had told him we would. He came to the door buttoning his flannel shirt.

  “I thought you said five-thirty,” he complained.

  “I did. We’re a little early. Happy birthday.”

  I handed him the suit box.

  “Oh, thanks.”

  Leading us into the front room, he laid the box on the sofa and opened it. His eyes widened in surprise as he drew out the jacket and cap.

  “Cripes, George,” he said. “You shouldn’t have spent this much.”

  “I got them for a special price and didn’t want to pass it up,” I said. “See if they fit. I figured you were almost exactly my size, so I used myself as a model.”

  Both the jacket and cap fitted perfectly.

  Grinning at himself in a mirror, Tom made almost the same remark I had made to Nora the evening before. “I guess nobody will mistake me for a deer in this outfit.”

  Chapter 6

  Werle’s Woods was only about eight miles from town. The area consisted of a strip about three miles wide by ten long, bordered by a nearly impassible dirt road on one side and a railroad track on the other. It was a rough section, pitted by ravines and with much underbrush, so that it had to be worked slowly, but it was full of deer, and occasionally some hunter even flushed a bear.

  At the south end of the woods was a ramshackle frame building containing a restaurant and bar where hunters invariably had coffee before starting out and a drink or two at the end of the hunt. It bore no sign to indicate its name, but was known to its patrons as “Joe’s Place.”