are on.” He hesitated. “Or did you mean the bell board in the kitchen? It’s nice. The bells jingle and a little flag comes up to show which one it is. Mrs. Sophie had a bell and Mr. Erich and-”
“No, I meant the doorbells,” Sigrid said, interrupting his enthusiastic description of how Victorian employers had once summoned their servants to particular rooms of the house.
“The doorbells ring in the office and they buzz in my room,” said Pascal Grant. “A big buzz means it’s the upstairs door and a sort of littler one means it’s the spiderweb door.”
“And did you hear either buzzer last night?”
Pascal shook his head.
“You’re sure of that?”
He nodded solemnly.
The two youths described how they had returned to the Breul House from an early showing of
“So you were in your bedroom listening to jazz tapes,” Sigrid said, “and you heard someone outside. What time was this?”
Pascal’s smooth brow furrowed in concentration. “Around ten-fifteen, I think. Maybe ten-thirty.”
“Yet you didn’t go out to investigate?”
“I thought it was Dr. Shambley,” Pascal said slowly.
“Did Dr. Shambley often come down to the basement that late?”
“He was everywhere.”
“Did you like Dr. Shambley?”
“No,” said the golden-haired janitor before his lawyer could stop him.
“My client’s personal feelings toward the deceased had nothing to do with his death,” said Harvey Pruitt.
“Then you won’t mind if he tells us why he disliked Dr. Shambley?” Sigrid asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that at this time,” Mr. Pruitt said austerely.
“Very well. What about others at the house, Mr. Grant? Who else didn’t like Dr. Shambley?”
“Mrs. Beardsley didn’t like him.”
“Why not?”
Mr. Pruitt started to object, then sat back.
“I don’t know,” said Grant. “She said he got her place or something.”
Sigrid looked at the lawyer, but Pruitt shook his head. “This is sheer hearsay, you realize?”
“Of course.”
She turned to Rick Evans. “You said you had an impression that someone else was there in the passageway when you came out of the bedroom. Who did you think it was?”
Rick shook his head. “I didn’t think. I just heard-like footsteps or something. And then I felt a draft from the open door and heard it close.”
“Did you go down and look through the door window?” asked Lowry.
“I didn’t see anyone,” Evans said.
They asked Pascal Grant to explain once more why there was blood on his softball bat if he hadn’t hit Shambley with it.
“I didn’t!” Pascal said.
“He’s telling the pure truth,” said Rick in his soft Southern voice. “I was the one carrying that bat. The whole time. I didn’t want to touch Dr. Shambley at first. I thought he was dead. He
The weakest part of their story was the reason they gave for moving the body and not calling the police. No matter how many times the police detectives returned to that point, the story remained that they were afraid to have Shambley’s body found so close to Pascal Grant’s door. Period.
While Jim Lowry and Elaine Albee pressed the two youths for stronger reasons, Sigrid leaned back in her chair trying to decide whether or not to charge one or the other or both with the murder. They’d had a weapon, an opportunity, and probably a motive if that lawyer’s reluctance to let Grant discuss his distaste for Shambley meant anything.
On the other hand, Grant said he hadn’t heard a doorbell, yet that Beardsley woman claimed she’d seen Thorvaldsen there at midnight.
And what was Rick Evans holding back? That he and Grant were sleeping together. Was that all?
She was almost grateful when a uniformed officer opened the door, peered in, and signaled that she had an important phone call.
“Sorry to interrupt, Lieutenant,” he said when she came out into the hall and closed the door to the interrogation room, “but Dr. Cohen said you’d probably want to know right away.”
The assistant medical examiner was as laid-back over the telephone as in person. “You know that softball bat you people just sent over? Forget it. Too big. You’re looking for a rod, not a club.”
“A rod?” Sigrid was surprised. “With a wound that messy?”
“I told you there was something odd about that head.”
Cohen reminded her. “He had a big skull, but it was paper thin. Want the Latin for it?”
“Put it in your report,” she said. “What do you mean by a rod? Like a curtain rod?”
“One of those solid brass ones, maybe. Or a broom handle.”
“What about that mop handle?”
“Not thin enough. We’re talking something no thicker than my thumb. A cane, maybe, or a poker or the handle of an umbrella even. Anyhow, as thin as his skull was, it wouldn’t have taken much force whatever they used.”
Back in the interrogation room, Sigrid told the two lawyers that as soon as a statement could be typed up and signed, their clients would be free to leave.
Rick Evans gave an involuntary sigh of relief and smiled at Pascal Grant. His smile faded though when she added, “Of course, there will probably be further questions in the next few days, so we expect you not to leave town.”
“I won’t,” Pascal Grant said earnestly.
“No easy solutions,” Sigrid told Elaine Albee and Jim Lowry when Grant and Evans had signed their statements and departed. The younger officers were disappointed to learn that the blow which killed Shambley could have been delivered by either a man or a woman, or possibly even a determined child.
“Did any of those people last night carry a walking stick?” asked Albee.
“Not that I noticed,” said Sigrid. “The wife of one of the trustees, Mrs. Reinicke, walked with a slight limp, but I didn’t see her with a cane.” She described the animosity she’d witnessed between Shambley and Reinicke, then checked the time. “I’ll take Thorvaldsen and Lady Francesca Leeds; you two can split the trustees-the Reinickes, the David Hymans and Mr. and Mrs. Herzog.”
Sigrid’s voice was cool and her face perfectly serious as she told Lowry, “Mrs. Herzog was a Babcock, you know.”
“Huh?” said Lowry.
Later, he and Albee stood on a chilly IRT platform, surrounded by Christmas shoppers with brightly wrapped packages, and debated whether or not the lieutenant’s last remark was meant to be humorous.
As the Lexington Avenue train squealed to a stop, they decided it probably wasn’t.
In a cab headed uptown, Hester Kohn and Caryn DiFranco discussed the pros and cons of contact lenses while Rick Evans sat sandwiched between them on the rear seat with his feet drawn up on the transmission hump.
The furry hood of Ms. DiFranco’s parka brushed Rick’s nose as the lawyer leaned over for a closer look at the lenses in Hester Kohn’s eyes.
“I just can’t wear mine,” she sighed. “I looked absolutely gorgeous in them, but I can’t see a damn thing. Besides, I’ve decided glasses are who I am. People expect me to look like this.
The round gold frames of her granny glasses had slipped down on her little button nose and she pushed them
