The Flying Red Horse Page 6

  “Of course. Why didn’t he?”

  “Maybe because, he, or Amanda, or both, didn’t want it known that she had been outside and had dropped the red horse. Sally was taking the dog out. They didn’t want Sally’s attention drawn to Iles’s reason for being on the terrace.”

  “But Pancho again attacked Iles in the hotel.”

  “That was entirely different. Iles was threatening us and Pancho knew we were frightened. So he attacked. That’s simply instinct. He’s our dog and he protected us. But I figure he smelled Juliana’s blood when he went outside the Dollahans’ with Sally. So he yanked the leash from her hand, dashed around the house, saw Iles behaving in what Pancho and even ourselves would think a peculiar way. He grabbed Iles’s leg and got kicked down the terrace steps. Too, too bad he can’t talk.”

  “You’re doing a pretty good job for him, Patrick. Look, if Sally Dollahan shot Rosemary Willoz, or rather shot Juliana thinking her Rosemary, Iles would cover up for her till doomsday.”

  “Right.”

  “I admire that, Pat.”

  “So do I. Only, it isn’t exactly right. Well, one thing we know for sure—since he afterwards went to the trouble to come to the hotel to collect it with a gun, Iles was definitely outside to get the red horse. The questions are, was Amanda on the terrace, and if so, why, and why didn’t she go after the red horse herself?”

  “That gun! It was Kim’s!”

  “Apparently. He had a gun with him in his topcoat pocket this evening. Remind me, by the way, to give Amanda the red horse. When the police showed up I dropped it in my pocket. Hate to be carrying such an expensive gadget.”

  We stopped at the red blinker near the waterfall, as Patrick insisted on calling the dam.

  “I feel sorry for Iles, Pat. That Amanda, with her ridiculous way of talking and her artificial manners.…”

  “It’s a free country, chum. If Amanda wants to polish herself, why not?”

  “You’re right. Oh, look across the creek. The Dollahan place looks like Christmas.”

  There were lights in all the windows and all over the grounds. Those on the terrace were reflected in the creek. Patrick slowed down.

  I said, “The reason I’m sorry for Iles, and for Sally, too, is that they are basically honest people. They’re no match for slick women like Amanda and Rosemary. And they’re fearless. They’ll do what they think right regardless, as long as personal loyalties are not involved. I said that Iles would stand by Sally till doomsday. Sally would do the same for Iles. Sally can shoot. If she mistook Juliana for Rosemary.…”

  “Why not Amanda?” Patrick asked. “Haven’t you noticed that Sally doesn’t like Amanda?”

  He turned off into the one-way street and pulled up short as a flashlight waved in front of us. A uniformed policeman stepped out, asked where we were going, and who we were. He waved us on. The curb was lined with cars, most of them police cars. There was an ambulance from the Parkland Hospital. A Nichols Brothers cab was moving away and Patrick eased into the space it left vacant. Standing on the main walk with Lieutenant Tisbury was Lucius Brady. His greeting for us was without words, but his manner said everything. He displayed his amazement, his horror, and his grief in the way his graceful body drooped and by the movement of his eloquent hands.

  Chapter 8

  “But Amanda’s dress was white?” I said, answering with a question Patrick’s remark of some minutes before. Maybe she had more than one dress, Patrick said, and then he murmured to shush and I noticed that, without showing the slightest interest, he was eaves-dropping on Lieutenant Tisbury, who was talking to Lucius Brady. Why had Brady taken Mrs. Willoz’s car? Because of the lateness of the hour, Brady said. Mrs. Willoz was to have picked it up, he said, tomorrow morning, or he would have fetched it back, either of which arrangement would be made on the telephone. It took a little time, naturally, to get a taxicab at this time of night. Mrs. Willoz and Mrs. Dollahan were old friends. They frequently very kindly accommodated Lucius Brady with an automobile for his use when he was in Dallas. In this, of course, Lieutenant Tisbury—as would anyone else in a country where the automobile is the principal means of transportation,—saw nothing strange.

  There were at that time no more questions, Tisbury said, and Brady thanked him and asked him if he might go along and offer his sympathy to Mrs. Dollahan and Miss Willoz. Permission granted, he went ahead, entering and walking through the brightly lighted hall in the direction of the living room.

  Tisbury was in fine fettle. His eyes danced like big black-widow spiders. His white teeth gleamed in his brown face.

  “Needn’t’ve dragged you folks back here, I reckon.”

  “You couldn’t’ve kept us away,” I said.

  Tisbury’s glance was genial, but firm. He could have kept us away, and we certainly knew it, his black eyes said. He was the law. Period. And he was feeling good, so he did not indulge in any verbal contradiction to my announcement.

  He thinks the case is sewed up, I thought. He thinks he knows who did the killing. It’s Kim! He’s going to arrest Kim Forsythe. Maybe he’s already arrested him. Poor Sally. My heart hurt for her. I had forgotten already that she had lied and had accused me of tricking Iles. I would have done the same, in her place.

  “We’ve picked up some very conclusive evidence,” Tisbury said. “And Miss Rosemary Willoz is making a statement.” Patrick looked inquiring and Tisbury said, “She’s made one already but this one is for the record.”

  I said, “Don’t believe everything you hear, Lieutenant.”

  Tisbury grinned exultantly.

  “Lady, you’re telling me?”

  Patrick asked for, and obtained, permission to listen to Rosemary’s statement, and, after announcing genially that we sure had a cute dog, Lieutenant Tisbury let us enter the brightly illuminated hall. We walked slowly and, like Brady, towards the door leading to the living room.

  Amanda’s house obviously absorbed its invaders. In the ice-green perfection of the living room, where the lamps kept the lighting in a subdued yet cool glow, even Lieutenant Tisbury behaved with a slightly refrigerated decorum. Sergeant Isaac Gomez, stenographer and recorder for the detective-lieutenant, had set up a card table and had arranged his notebook and pencils in apple-pie order for taking down evidence in shorthand. He was ready when we entered the room. We sat down near the hall door. Amanda Dollahan and Rosemary Willoz were sitting on one sofa. Lucius Brady sat opposite, smoking one of his Egyptian cigarettes. The condolences had apparently been concluded. Spiritually speaking, Brady already wore a black band on his beautifully tailored sleeve. Amanda looked harried. Rosemary, sobbing effectively, rested her face upon Amanda’s shoulder.

  Rosemary wore the black ensemble, which was a negligee of black lace over what could be a black sheer nightgown. From the way her breasts stood out, she had taken, I thought cattily, the precaution of wearing a good bra. On her feet were golden sandals. Amanda had changed to a ruby red robe of the hostess-gown sort.

  Pancho, after a couple of arrogant sniffs, curled up with his long head resting on his front paws. He closed his eyes but his ears remained at half-mast, lest he miss something.

  Lieutenant Tisbury got himself a straight and sturdy chair. He placed it near Sergeant Gomez, with its back towards the two sofas. He straddled it. He had left his brown hat in the hall. His black hair was brushed back smooth and shining above his wide brown forehead.

  “We’re ready, Miss Willoz.”

  A sigh escaped Rosemary. She did not answer. The contrast of her pale lovely hair against Amanda’s rich red crepe robe was dramatic, and Rosemary was certainly aware of it.

  Amanda looked hard, determined, and cool.

  “My sister has decided to say nothing, Lieutenant Tisbury.”

  Rosemary said, “I guess maybe I’d better not after all.”

  “But you’ve already said it,” Tisbury said. “All you need to do is repeat what you’ve already told us, Miss Willoz.”

  “But I’m
not really sure.”

  “You said that your sister Mrs. Willoz was mistaken in the darkness for you. That you had a date out there to meet John McKim Forsythe.”

  Amanda said, “My sister must not say any more, Lieutenant Tisbury. Not until she has counsel.”

  At the card table Sergeant Gomez was putting down each word. His round, dark Spanish-American face was expressionless as a copper coin.

  Tisbury said, “That’s her privilege, Mrs. Dollahan. But you seem to forget that she has already talked.”

  “You took her unawares. My husband says she must not talk any more until our lawyer is present.”

  “Sure enough?” Tisbury said. But he wasn’t stopped. “That’s her privilege, ma’am. But it would make things easier for us if she would just say over again what she has already said, for the benefit of the record. After all, we’ve got other very conclusive proof.”

  “My sister Rosemary never left the house,” Amanda said, quite as if the police detective had not spoken. “We do not want her to talk any more now, because we understand that any statement she makes can be used against her.”

  Lucius Brady said, “May I offer a suggestion, Lieutenant?” Tisbury nodded, though somewhat suspiciously, for, like myself, he obviously distrusted the city slicker. “May I say that if Miss Willoz can prove she was in the house at the time her sister was shot …”

  “Oh, of course I can,” Rosemary said, sitting up, and smiling that smile. “Of course. Sally knows I was in the house at that time. So does Amanda. And you, Jean … you saw me as you went downstairs after you had been with Sally.”

  That was a good while earlier, I thought.

  Tisbury said, “That can wait, Miss Willoz. Mrs. Dollahan, there is no need at all for your sister to talk any more until she is settled in her mind.” The sly fox, I thought. “Would you mind repeating your theory as to why Mrs. Willoz was coming back to this house, Mrs. Dollahan, ma’am?”

  “It was merely a theory. We do not know exactly why.”

  The detective let this pass.

  “She lived all alone, you said?”

  “She kept one maid. Her maid is a sister of our cook. We have a couple, as I explained, and the three of them went to Waco yesterday afternoon to some sort of family gathering. They will not return until tomorrow.”

  “Who knew this?”

  “Why, all the family, I presume. What difference does it make?”

  “It makes a lot, ma’am. If her maid had been in her house last night we might know why she came back here.” Nobody spoke, and Tisbury said, “She walked, we now know, because Mr. Brady had taken her car.”

  “She walked because she liked to walk,” Rosemary said.

  “She frequently walked here,” Amanda said. “The distance is hardly more than three blocks.”

  “But she wore very high heels?”

  “Juliana always wore high heels.”

  “On a rainy night? In the dark? And no sidewalks part of the way?” Amanda said, “Juliana had no fear. And it was not raining at the time she came back here, was it? I understand the rain came after the … the body was found?”

  “That’s right,” Tisbury said. His arms rested on the back of the chair. Their reticences bounced off him as if his shiny brown skin were granite. “Still, I would think a lady in her evening clothes would hesitate, ma’am, at that hour of the night, and with all the crime that goes on nowadays. She must have had a strong reason for walking back here alone in the dark.”

  “If you had known my sister Juliana you would know that she had a habit of doing things on the spur of the moment. She was impulsive. She evidently got a sudden notion that she wanted to see me. Us, I should say. It couldn’t wait, so over she came. She had no phone, you know. She bought that house not long ago, and so far has not been able to get a telephone.”

  “Sure enough?” Tisbury said. It was indifferent. Not being able to get a phone was an old postwar story. He spoke abruptly to Rosemary. “Miss Willoz, ma’am, we took the gun that killed your sister off of young Forsythe. We found the shell it kicked out, outside the house. Only one shot had been fired. The gun had been fired so recendy that it still gave off the smell of cordite. Anything you can tell us …”

  “She is not going to tell you anything,” Amanda said.

  “You make it hard, Mrs. Dollahan, ma’am,” Tisbury said reproachfully. “You run up big bills for the taxpayers.”

  “I’ll talk,” Rosemary said. She sat up straight and looked brave. She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “I was to meet Kim, by the creek. I was … to give him something.” She dabbed again at her tears. “We had been having an affair, you see, and I … I promised …”

  “Really, darling,” Amanda said. “It is not necessary to tell these men things like that.”

  “I’ll never have any peace till I do. My poor sister is dead because I was so foolish as to … to promise to meet Kim by the creek. I made a date. He was to wait in the street and I was to walk along the path by the creek and when we met I had promised to give him … something.” This time she was not interrupted, but she herself digressed. Amanda looked too annoyed to trust herself to speak. “I felt awfully unhappy. We had had a nice party. But I felt very depressed and as soon as we got home I went upstairs. I changed into these dark clothes and got ready to meet Kim where we had agreed. I waited till the time we were to meet, which was to be right after the last car left the place. The last to go was the Abbotts’. They left a little after one and then, just as I was about to start downstairs, the back stairs—I had opened my door, in fact—why, Sally Dollahan took the dog out. That little dog, there.”

  Everybody looked at Pancho, who lifted his head and looked back with great dignity.

  “So I did not leave the house. You see, after Sally went out there was a commotion of some kind, so I stayed in my room.”

  “You are sure that Miss Dollahan went out at that time?”

  “I guessed so. She had the dog, on a leash. Naturally, she did go out.

  “She doesn’t deny it, dear,” Amanda said. “Please, Lieutenant Tisbury, my sister is talking while under great emotional stress. What she is saying is not important, but it will be misinterpreted and reflect on her reputation, which is another reason why she must have a lawyer. What she called an affair is not an affair, in the usual sense, at all. The young man may be guilty of killing my sister. I do not know that, of course. But he is in my husband’s employ and we don’t want to injure him, either. Anything my sister says at this time confuses the issue. She is upset. It will do her harm and proves nothing. Besides, I have a confession to make. I have been holding back some evidence.”

  An expression of boredom, which had been fogging Tisbury’s black eyes, vanished.

  “I know why my sister came back.”

  “Sure enough?” Tisbury said, and this time it meant something.

  “She came back because we had quarreled.”

  Ah, now we were getting places. The quarrel, the tense voices, the disturbed Juliana, the cold and angry Amanda. You’re such a fool, Amanda had said. Oh, Sister, Juliana had cried. Please, I want you to approve, dear. Well, I don’t, and I never shall, Amanda had said. Juliana had said it made her so happy—happy, Amanda had said, and the word was cold and harsh. The quarrel had ended for me with Amanda’s forbidding Juliana to do something. What?

  Amanda said, “We have always made it our rule never to go to sleep without at least trying to patch up any hard words we may have had. Usually the quarrels are my fault. I am the oldest sister, and I have al-ways bossed the others, you might say. I am very dogmatic, but the girls never seemed to mind, and usually they have listened to me.” Rosemary pressed Amanda’s hand and gave her a loving glance. “Juliana had a very sweet nature. It was exceptional for her to stand up to me at all. Tonight, when she did do so, I’m afraid I wasn’t very pleasant. Indeed, I was so harsh that I gave myself a headache, and therefore I went up to bed before our special guests, Mr. and Mrs. Abbott, had
gone. Juliana went away while still angry and I’m certain that she came back simply to patch things up in our usual before-we-slept fashion.”

  “Why didn’t she phone?”

  “She has no telephone. I told you that.”

  Tisbury said, “You said you’d been withholding evidence, Mrs. Dollahan?”

  “I’m telling it to you now.”

  “But you told us all this before, ma’am. Or approximately the same thing.”

  “I didn’t tell you what we quarreled about, Lieutenant.”

  Tisbury nodded. “Well, what did you quarrel about, ma’am?”

  Amanda glanced at Brady and back again to Tisbury.

  “A string of black pearls.”

  “Black pearls?” The detective looked baffled. “Didn’t know there was such a thing as a black pearl.”

  “Well, there is, and a good matched string can be very expensive. I most certainly would have made no objection if my sister could have afforded the pearls. She asked my advice. She was going to buy them as an investment. I told her not to. They would cost her three hundred thousand dollars which is more than her entire capital. She said that she could sell them again and double her money in a few months, but I said it was too risky. She asked my advice. I gave it. And then she refused to take it.”

  “Why, ma’am?”

  “I don’t know. I simply cannot understand why she was so very stubborn, especially when her suggestion didn’t even make good sense.”

  Tisbury turned on Brady. His eyes gleamed.

  “You were going to sell the deceased those black pearls?”

  “My dear fellow! The matter had barely come up. She spoke about wanting to invest some money, and I mentioned the pearls.”

  “You told her the price?”

  “Only approximately. After all, you don’t buy and sell that sort of thing over the bargain counter. Mrs. Willoz wanted an investment, and I said the best thing we had at that moment was a string of perfect black pearls, and that I would write immediately and make certain of the exact sum they could be had for. The approximate price was three hundred thousand dollars. Which is what I mentioned to Mrs. Willoz. Tentatively. They were, you understand, part of an estate.”