Murder & the Married Virgin (13 page)

Shayne asked abruptly, “Did you know Katrin had been married before?”

The lieutenant was too stricken to look startled. He said, “She hadn’t been—of course.”

“She had a wedding ring,” Shayne told him curtly. “It fitted her finger and it had been worn quite a lot.”

Drinkley shuddered violently. “I don’t believe it. Not Katrin. She was pure—and innocent.”

Lana made a loud disparaging noise with pursed lips.

Shayne got up. He said dispassionately, “You’ve been a damned fool, Drinkley. You shouldn’t have come to me with half-truths. Katrin Moe was murdered. I don’t think you did it because I don’t see how you could have—yet. But if I can pin it on you I’m going to.”

He went out the front door and down to his car, drove directly to the Lomax mansion.

GOING PAST THE CURVE in the driveway leading to the front of the house Shayne drove on toward the double garage and parked on the solid concrete foundation in front of one of the closed garage doors.

Perfect quiet pervaded the Lomax house and grounds. He wondered, suddenly remembering the early hour of the morning which had started hours ago for him, whether the family would be up and around.

He sat for a long moment in thoughtful contemplation, then got out and walked to the rear basement door through which Eddie had taken him yesterday.

As he hesitated with his hand on the knob he heard the sound of pounding inside and went in and down the steps.

The basement was dark except for daylight coming through the windows of the workroom, and the other doors were closed. He sauntered toward the door which Eddie had pointed out as the furnace room. The pounding had stopped for the moment. He opened the door quietly, went in and closed it.

Stopping on the threshold, he looked around. A big squatty furnace occupied the center of the square room. It had just received a new suit of the asbestos insulating material Neal was working with the previous day. Behind it was a large boxlike structure of galvanized iron housing the electric fan and filters of the air-conditioning plant. A dozen or more big pipes rose like grotesque arms from the top of the furnace, twisting along the ceiling and disappearing upward to carry warm, washed air to each room. Some of these pipes wore the new insulating wrapping, while others were dingy and in their original uncovered state.

Neal Jordan was standing near the end of the room fitting a strip of insulation around one of the pipes over his head. He was stripped to the waist and his naked torso glistened with sweat in the warm room. Back and shoulder muscles writhed beneath the smooth skin as he stretched on tiptoe. He worked slowly and carefully, and was apparently absorbed in his work.

Shayne said, “Still dressing them up?” He walked toward Jordan.

Neal turned lithely on the balls of his feet, smiled recognition and said, “Just a minute until I get this wire fastened.”

He twisted a length of wire around the wrapping, pounded the twist flat with a hammer and turned to Shayne with a grimace. “I didn’t hire out to be a man-of-all-work, but it’s so hard to get anything done nowadays. I’m pinch-hitting,” he explained. “I hope you won’t report me to the union,” he added, smiling.

“I suppose you have a lot of time on your hands.” Shayne gave Neal a cigarette and lit one for himself at the same time, watching the chauffeur’s gaze flicker curiously over his face, but he didn’t mention the lump on Shayne’s head.

Shayne dragged smoke deep into his lungs and said, “I’ve thought of a couple of things. You’re the man to clear them up for me.”

Neal nodded, but said nothing.

“I’ve been wondering about the gas system in a house like this. I’m still thinking about Katrin Moe—trying to get away from the suicide theory. I’ve started wondering what happens if all the gas is turned off.”

The chauffeur listened attentively, shook his head and said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“Suppose her grate had been burning in the night,” Shayne explained, “after she dropped off to sleep. I know the damned thing couldn’t blow out accidentally, but if something happened to the gas supply—if it went off long enough for the grate to go out, and then came back on again.” He paused thoughtfully, then asked, “As the room gradually filled with gas, might a sleeping person not wake up—at all?”

Neal frowned and looked thoughtfully at the furnace and up at the pipes, saying slowly, “I see what you mean. It’s a good theory but I’m afraid it wouldn’t work. Not in this house at least. Here’s what I mean.” He led Shayne under a maze of overhead pipes to the two-inch gas main entering through the wall. He pointed to a gadget bolted between two joints.

“That’s a safety cut-off to take care of just such a case,” he explained. “It closes automatically if the supply fails and no gas will flow again until this seal has been broken and it’s been turned on by hand.” He touched the metallic seal on the cut-off.

Shayne said, “That knocks the accidental theory to hell and gone.” His eyes followed the gas main along the wall. “I suppose there’s a main valve this side of the cut-off.”

“It’s right here.” Neal went before Shayne along the pipe to a point where one lead branched off to the furnace and the other went up through the ceiling, showed him a big brass valve in front of the tee connection.

Shayne studied it dubiously, rubbing his chin. “That cuts off everything,” he reasoned. “The furnace and all. I suppose a pilot light burns in the furnace all the time.”

Neal said it did, and added, “There are pilot lights in the kitchen range and the water heater, also. If this valve was ever shut they’d all go out and have to be relit as soon as the valve was opened again. That is, if you’re wondering whether this valve might have been closed some time during the night while Katrin’s grate was burning—and then turned on again—which would mean someone had murdered her,” he ended quietly.

Shayne’s eyes were bleak and a puzzled frown trenched his forehead. “I was thinking that,” he said. “I know it’s a simple matter to relight the pilot lights on a range or a hot water heater, but I don’t know anything about gas furnaces. Isn’t it more complicated to relight a furnace pilot light?”

“Not at all. It’s very simple, but dangerous if you don’t follow instructions.” Neal went around to the front of the furnace, leaned down and opened a narrow door and pointed to a flicker of light. “That’s the pilot light. The furnace is controlled by a thermostat upstairs that automatically kicks it on when the temperature drops below a certain setting. All you ever light by hand is the pilot light, and the only thing you have to be careful about is having the main valve shut off when you light it.”

Shayne said, “Show me,” in a preoccupied tone.

Neal showed him a large valve in the one-inch pipe leading into the furnace. “That’s the main valve. This small line down here feeds the pilot light and has its own valve. If I shut it the pilot goes out.” He demonstrated by closing the small valve. The flicker of light vanished.

“Now it’s all out,” Neal explained, “as it would be if that big main valve by the wall had been closed. To relight it you first shut off this large valve here.” He closed the one-inch line and reached down to pick up a length of flexible tube with a metal tip, connected to the small pilot feed-line with a valve of its own above the pilot shut-off.

“This is just a convenient torch for reaching inside and lighting the pilot,” Neal explained. “You could do the same thing with a stick or a twist of paper.” He turned gas into the flexible tube and struck a match to it. A flame flared and burned steadily. Thrusting the flame through the furnace door, he opened the pilot valve. The pilot light flared and he withdrew the tube and turned off its flow of gas. He then opened the main valve feeding gas to the furnace and turned to Shayne with a smile. “It isn’t nearly as complicated as most people think,” he said.

Shayne had watched every movement with tense concentration. He said slowly, “N-o-o. But I wonder how many people in this house know how to relight it if it ever goes out.

“Mr. Lomax does. And Eddie, I presume.” Neal shrugged his bare broad shoulders. “Women seldom bother to learn about gas furnaces unless they have to.”

“I suppose not,” said Shayne absently. “Thanks for the demonstration. It cleared up one or two things I’ve been wondering about.”

“Glad to be of any assistance I can,” Neal Jordan said, and went back to his work when Shayne went out.

At the front door Shayne rang and Rosie answered, widening her black eyes in recognition and shaking her head. “I don’t think Mr. Lomax—”

“How about the others?” Shayne interrupted.

“Mrs. Lomax is upstairs, and Miss Clarice and Mr. Eddie—”

“You needn’t bother to tell them I’m here.” Shayne pushed past the maid and went directly up the stairway. The door to the sitting-room was open and he walked into what appeared to be a family squabble.

Eddie was sprawled in a chair with his hands thrust deep in his pants pockets and a heavy scowl on his face. Mrs. Lomax sat erect in a straight chair across from him, and anger or weariness made her look older than she appeared when Shayne first saw her. Clarice was striding back and forth in front of the fireplace with her arms folded and her lips compressed.

It was she who first saw Shayne standing in the doorway. She stopped to glare at him and said angrily, “What are you snooping around here for?”

Mrs. Lomax and Eddie looked around with a start. Eddie’s scowl deepened and his mother’s thin features stiffened. She said, “Well, Mr. Shayne—do you make a practice of sneaking in like this?”

Shayne lounged forward, saying pleasantly, “I don’t like formalities,” but his eyes were coldly appraising as he glanced from one to another of the trio. “Did I interrupt an argument?”

Clarice started to answer. Mrs. Lomax interrupted her: “I’m sure our private conversations are no affair of yours.”

Shayne said, “I’m not so sure of that.”

“Are you still dodging the police?” Eddie asked, leaving his mouth open and drawing his overhanging brows farther over his pale blue eyes. “The paper said you had a fight with Dan Trueman last night.”

Shayne ignored him. He asked Mrs. Lomax, “Did Katrin Moe have any telephone conversations the evening before she died?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. You might ask Mrs. Brown.”

“Or Clarice,” Eddie growled. “She dashes to the phone every time it rings.”

Shayne’s gaze went to Clarice. “Well?”

“I didn’t see or hear her at the phone,” Clarice said airily.

“Did you have any phone calls?” Shayne asked.

“No.” She added angrily, “If it’s any of your business.”

“I wondered,” said Shayne gravely, “whether Lieutenant Drinkley called you that evening.”

“Lieutenant Drinkley? Why should—” She stopped suddenly, her cheeks suddenly flaming.

“But he didn’t arrive in New Orleans until the next morning,” Mrs. Lomax said sharply.

Shayne disregarded her and advanced toward Clarice, his eyes boring into hers. “Your brother made some remarks about you and the lieutenant yesterday. Did he ever make love to you?”

Eddie snickered. “That’s what burned her up. He didn’t fall for her line.”

“He arrived on the morning train,” Mrs. Lomax stated flatly. “He telephoned directly from the station while the police were here.”

Shayne turned to her. “Did any of you have your gas burning during that night?”

“I’m sure we didn’t. I retired early.” Her tone was irascible.

“And Mr. Lomax?”

Her eyes were evasive. “He stayed up for a time after I retired. But the grate wasn’t lit in his room—nor in mine.”

“How about you two?” Shayne swung on Clarice and Eddie.

“No,” Eddie muttered.

Clarice’s brown eyes were speculative. “I didn’t either. Why does it matter? Is it a clue?”

“It might be. Do any of you happen to know if Katrin was in the habit of letting her grate burn all night?”

Silence greeted his question. Clarice and Eddie were looking at their mother.

Mrs. Lomax appeared to make up her mind and she told him decisively, “Katrin never used the grate in her room—I’m sure. She often found the house temperature too warm, and she disliked the odor of burning gas.”

“Wait a minute.” Shayne’s shaggy brows came down in a fierce frown. “Do you mean it was never lit?”

“I mean exactly that.” Mrs. Lomax’s tone was acid. “The girl often became faint when she stayed too long in a room where gas was burning.”

Shayne drew in a long breath. This knocked hell out of the elaborate murder theory he had sold Quinlan on. He shook his head doggedly. It couldn’t be true.

“There’s no need to lie about a thing like that,” he warned gruffly. “I’ll find out the truth.”

“You’re insulting,” Mrs. Lomax said, her eyes flashing. “I don’t know why it matters, but anyone who knew Katrin will tell you that.”

“We all know that’s the truth,” said Clarice, nodding her head, and Eddie put in a curt, “Sure.”

Shayne caught his left ear lobe and massaged it gently between thumb and forefinger. The family watched him interestedly and there was perfect quiet in the room.

Abruptly Shayne asked, “How old is Neal Jordan?”

His question lashed into the silence, and the silence continued. Again Clarice and Eddie looked at their mother. Mrs. Lomax only stared at Shayne, an angry gleam in her black eyes.

Clarice burst out, “You wouldn’t believe it, but he’s thirty-three.”

Mrs. Lomax said quietly, “Neal is almost thirty-four.”

Shayne turned toward the door. Halfway across the room he stopped, turned to Mrs. Lomax and asked casually, “What hotel do you prefer in Baton Rouge?”

“Why—” Anger at his audacity overcame her. She clamped her lips and refused to answer.

“The Victoria, Mother,” Clarice said. “I’ve heard you say it’s the only really decent hotel there.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Lomax said firmly. “Of course, Clarice. The Victoria.”

“Is that where you stayed Tuesday night?”

“You’re taking advantage of us in Mr. Lomax’s absence,” Mrs. Lomax said, outraged. She arose from her chair with stiff dignity and faced him with blazing eyes. “It isn’t any of your—”