Malone said: "But -"
"I know," the red-haired man said. "I know. It"s just off the boat. Even so, I"m afraid -"
"I"m a lawyer," Malone said, feeling desperate. "I"m here about the death of James Dohr."
"Well," the red-haired man said, "of course if you - What?"
"James Dohr," Malone said.
There was a little silence. At last the red-haired man said: "Of course." His voice had become sober and, Malone thought, about eight years older. He now seemed to be forty-five or so. "Sorry for my little by-play. Can"t resist having fun; that"s my trouble. You said you were a lawyer?"
"That"s right," Malone said. "John J. Malone." He began to fish for a card.
"Never mind all that," the red-haired man said. "Just formality - come in, instead. I"ll introduce you around and you can take care of your business. Anything we can do, of course. James worked here over forty years, though of course you know that -"
"Yes," Malone said. He stepped inside and the great door swung shut behind him. The red-haired man made a motion, and Malone followed him through the entrance arch at the left into a large, well-lit room. There were three people in the room.
One of them was a maid, Malone saw, in full regalia. The other two were an old, old woman in a straight-backed armchair, and a younger edition. Mrs. Deane, Malone thought, and Mrs. Deane. The red-haired man, by elimination, was Ronald. Fun-loving Ronald, he corrected himself bitterly.
Ronald said: "Mother - Wendy - this is Mr. Malone. He"s come here to ask us some questions about the death of James Dohr."
The younger Mrs. Deane blinked and said: "Ask us some questions? What do we know about it, Ronald?"
Ronald shrugged. His mother stirred slightly, leaned forward and pinned Malone with a look. "Young man," she said, in a voice that sounded even older than she looked, "do you wish to question me?"
There was nothing, Malone thought, that he would rather avoid doing. But he nodded very slowly. "That"s right," he said.
"Very well," the old, old woman said. She looked around at the others. "Leave us," she said simply.
The room emptied itself. The old, old woman patted a chair next to the one she sat in. "Come over here, young man," she said. "Talk to me."
Feeling just a little like Snow White, Malone went over to the chair and sat down. There was a second of silence. Malone wiped a tiny bead of sweat off his forehead.
"Well?" the ancient voice said.
Malone tried to think of a logical first question. "How well did you know James Dohr?" he said at last.
The old woman chuckled. "Well?" she said. "Very well indeed. He worked here for a long time, and I don"t doubt he knew a lot about us, too. Whoever shot him probably did this family a service."
"A what?" Malone said, feeling shocked.
The woman smiled gently. "I"m old enough," she said, "to be realistic about things like this. And I tell you that James had secrets locked away in that brain of his - secrets that will never be told now."
Malone drew a deep breath. "He was trying to blackmail you?" he said.
Laughter. "Blackmail?" the old woman said at last. "Young man, you have been reading too many thrillers. I only say that he had the secrets - as anyone who worked here for so long would have them - and now the secrets have been buried with him, and better so. Why, Gerald"s hush-money was barely necessary, after all."
Malone blinked. "Hush-money?" he said.
"That"s what the will called it," the old woman said. "You have heard about the bequest which Gerald left to him? The five thousand dollars?"
"That was hush-money?" Malone said.
"Of course," the old woman said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "And now that his wife has -"
"She didn"t do it," Malone said instantly.
"Ah?" the old woman said. "Indeed. Then you suspect one of us."
The old woman lifted a hand. "Please," she said. "There is no need to apologize. If his wife did not kill James Dohr, then perhaps one of us did. I understand that James had few friends."
"That"s right." Malone said weakly.
"Well, then," the old woman said in a triumphant tone, "certainly you don"t mean to suggest that James was murdered by an utter stranger?"
Malone took a deep breath. "Funnier things," he offered at last, "have happened."
"Indeed they have," she said. "But since you suspect one of us, you must have questions to ask, Mr. Malone. Ask them."
Malone tried to think of a question. But there was, after all, only one. "Did you kill him?" he said.
"Why, no," the old woman said pleasantly. "As a matter of fact, I didn"t. I was fond of James. He had secrets, you see."
Malone tried to tell himself that everything was perfectly normal. "You liked him because he had secrets?" he said after a second.
"That"s right," the old woman said. "Perhaps I"d better explain."
"It might," Malone said cautiously, "be a good idea."
"Gerald hated the idea of those secrets," the old woman said. "Gerald was disturbed whenever he thought of them; and yet there was nothing he could do except put that hush-money clause into his will. As long as James Dohr was in this house, Gerald was unhappy. And that pleased me."
Malone opened his mouth, shut it again, and finally said: "Oh."
"So you see," the old woman said, "that I had some motive, perhaps, for harming Gerald - a motive which I cheerfully admit, since I did not kill him. But I had no such motive for doing away with James Dohr."
"Well," Malone said, and wondered what other words could possibly follow that. At last he said: "I suppose I ought to talk to your son next."
"You ought to talk to everyone," the old woman said. "You must gather all the facts, Mr. Malone, and satisfy your mind." She clapped her hands together sharply, and the maid appeared suddenly in the doorway. "Please send Ronald to us," the old woman said.
A few minutes later Ronald came in. His mother smiled at him. "Mr. Malone wants to ask you some questions," she said casually. "I shall remain while he does so." Malone opened his mouth to object, thought better of it and kept quiet. "It should be very interesting," the old woman said.
"Fascinating," Ronald said, "I don"t doubt. Am I supposed to have knifed James, in some back-alley brawl?"
"I"m sure I don"t know," the old woman said smoothly. "Mr. Malone, you have some questions to ask?"
Malone wiped some more sweat from his forehead. "I suppose so," he said.
Ronald was, he discovered, the helpful type. He cheerfully admitted that he knew nothing, but that didn"t stop him from having all sorts of ideas, theories and suggestions. His mother watched the interview for a time with her bright, beady eyes, but she seemed to get bored after a while, and devoted herself to what was, Malone thought, a kind of half-sleep. She sat with her eyes closed, shifting position now and again, as far away from the interview as if she had been in Kamchatka.
"What about enemies?" Malone said at last, feeling a little desperate.
"Enemies?" Ronald said. "James didn"t have any enemies. Except us, of course."
"You?"
"Well - Gerald," Ronald said. "You know about that, don"t you?"
Malone nodded.
"And when I was little I used to tease James. You know how kids are. I really don"t think he ever entirely liked me."
"How about Gerald Deane?" Malone said.
"You mean how did James feel about Gerald?" Ronald said. "I really don"t know. He was always a good butler. There just didn"t seem to be much else to bother about."
"Well, then," Malone said. He was coming to the final question, and he dreaded it. But there was nothing else to do. "Did you kill James Dohr?" he said.
"Who?" Ronald said with a surprised look. "Me?"
Malone had the horrible feeling that he was forging ahead into a complete vacuum, but he tried to ignore it. It was obvious, he told himself sternly, that Mrs. Dohr was innocent. And, as far as he could see, that meant that one of the Deanes was the guilty one. One of them had killed James Dohr.
The only trouble was that he didn"t know which one, and he didn"t know how he was going to find out.
Well, he thought, there was still one more Deane to cross-examine.
He asked for her.
Wendy, Ronald"s wife, came into the room slowly, looking confused. Old Mrs. Deane was asleep in her chair; Ronald had left for another part of the house. Malone took a deep breath, but Wendy spoke before he had a chance.
"I don"t see why you have to ask us about this terrible thing," she told him at once. "Whoever killed James had nothing to do with us. How could he have?"
Malone sighed. "I just thought you might know something," he said slowly. "For instance, suppose James had some information about the family. That could be important. If he knew something n.o.body wanted to talk about -"
"Oh, that," Wendy said, in a discouraged tone. "My goodness, yes. Only it"s no good asking me what information he had. I wouldn"t know, and the will was drawn up long before I even met Ronald or anybody."
"Ah," Malone said intelligently. "But you do know about it?"
"Oh, naturally," Wendy said. "Ronald"s mother made sure everybody knew about it; she loved it, she loved to talk about it. It made old Mr. Deane so uncomfortable."
"I take it," Malone said, "that you didn"t like her talking about the hush-money all the time?"
Wendy shrugged. "It got boring," she said. "Especially when you didn"t know what the secrets could possibly be, or anything."
Boring, Malone told himself, was not the word. Confusing was more like it. He certainly had a lead - or, anyhow, he thought he had. Only it was a lead that didn"t lead to anything, if that made sense. It didn"t go anywhere.
Or did it?
Malone decided, with great suddenness, that it did.
He knew exactly who the murderer was.
And Wendy Deane had told him.
"But what I don"t see," Mrs. Dohr said, later that afternoon, "is how you managed to figure out what the secret was. I mean the secret Gerald was paying hush-money for."
"Simple," Malone said. "The secret had to involve Gerald, his wife or Ronald. It couldn"t have anything to do with Wendy; she wasn"t even around when the will was drawn up. She said so herself, and it"s easy enough to check."
"That still leaves three people," Mrs. Dohr objected.
"Not for long it doesn"t," Malone said. "If the secret was something to do with Gerald, then there was no reason for James to be killed. Gerald"s dead already."
"And that," Maggie said, "leaves old Mrs. Deane and Ronald. Why Ronald?"
"Because Mrs. Deane liked the secret, and liked the whole idea of James" having it. She said so - and so did Wendy. She wouldn"t have liked it so much if she"d been the object of that secret. Right?"
"I suppose so," Mrs. Dohr said.
"So it couldn"t have been Mrs. Deane," Malone said. "It had to be Ronald. Simple elimination."
Mrs. Dohr frowned slightly. "But, Malone," she said. "What was this secret? What did James know?"
Malone took out a fresh cigar and lit it with a casual air. "Frankly," he said, "I don"t have the faintest idea. Ronald knows, but he won"t tell. And James Dohr, of course, was a good butler. He kept his mouth shut."
"So we still don"t know why my husband was killed," Maggie said.
"That"s right," Malone said. "We don"t know why. But, somehow, it doesn"t seem to matter now. After all, the killer"s safely behind bars."
Mrs. Dohr looked worshipful. "Malone," she said, "you"re wonderful."
Malone took a slow, relaxed puff on his cigar. "That," he said with becoming shyness, "is a h.e.l.l of an understatement."
You might like this Christmas story very much. You might not like it at all. But of this I feel sure: you will remember it for many months to come.
CHRISTMAS GIFT.
BY ROBERT TURNER.
There was no snow and the temperature was a mild sixty-eight degrees and in some of the yards nearby the shrubbery was green, along with the palm trees, but still you knew it was Christmas Eve. Doors on the houses along the street held wreaths, some of them lighted. A lot of windows were lighted with red, green and blue lights. Through some of them you could see the lighted glitter of Christmas trees. Then, of course there was the music, which you could hear coming from some of the houses, the old familiar songs, White Christmas, Ave Maria, Silent Night.