my face with a gloved hand. Leaned in and whispered, “Then we’ll get rid of these people as soon as possible…we have things to do tonight….”
My friend Leonard Keeler was in the process of finally finding some use for the polygraph equipment he’d dragged here from Chicago.
Betty Roberts had asked to see the famous machine, and then boldly stated she could “beat it.” This led to much lighthearted discussion and, with a little prodding, Keeler dragged the apparatus out of his room (he’d been staying at Shangri La) and proceeded to play parlor games.
One by one the ladies present took Len’s test. He would have them pick a card from a deck of fifty-two, and hold it high for everyone in the room to see but himself. Then the subject would replace the card in the deck, and Len would attach the machine’s gizmos around their chests (a job I believe he relished), and on their upper arms and middle fingers.
“Now, I’ll begin asking you which card you picked,” he said, hovering over his precious needles and dials, “and when I guess correctly, tell me I’m wrong. That is-lie to me.”
He caught them all.
Len, looking professorial in his wire-frame glasses and off-the-rack brown suit from Marshall Field’s, was the life of the party.
De Marigny-who had removed his tie and stood looking very casual, a glass of barely touched champagne in one debonair hand, his other arm around Nancy’s waist-called out, “Professor! Let me try that infernal apparatus. You’ve been wanting to have at me, ever since you arrived in Nassau.”
“True enough,” Keeler said. He fanned out the deck. “Pick a card….”
“No children’s games, Professor. Hook me up, and ask me about the murder of Sir Harry Oakes.”
A moment of stunned silence was followed by encouragement from several of the guests. Then Higgs stepped forward and put his hand on his client’s arm and said, solemnly, “I advise against this, Fred. You have nothing to prove to anyone.”
Professor Keeler, looking sick suddenly, said, “I agree with Godfrey. These conditions are hardly suitable….”
“Suppose something went wrong,” said Nancy, who had turned ashen. “We’re all friends here, but if word got out that you’d failed such a test…”
De Marigny looked at her sharply; his expression was as close to a rebuke as I’d ever seen him give her. “I have nothing to fear. The jury found me innocent. I’m merely curious to see if this machine agrees.”
There was no stopping him. Soon he was strapped up-chest cable, blood-pressure cuff, finger cup-and Keeler was standing behind him, regulating the clunky box that was his mechanical baby. The only sound in the room, besides the voices of the professor and his subject, was the scratching of three needles crawling over the rolling graph paper. The guests gathered around, trying not to crowd, but hypnotized by the thin, wavy-lined pattern the needles made.
“Is your name Alfred de Marigny?”
“Yes.”
“Do you live in Nassau?”
“Yes.”
“When you took your guests home, after your dinner party on July seventh, did you come straight home yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Did you enter Westbourne?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Sir Harry Oakes?”
“No.”
“Were you in the room when someone else killed Sir Harry Oakes?”
“No.”
“Do you know who killed Sir Harry Oakes?”
“No.”
“Did you put your hand on the Chinese screen between the time of the murder and the discovery of the body?”
“No.”
Throughout, the needles recording Freddie’s blood pressure, respiration and pulse rate remained steady, never jumping.
When he finally looked up, Leonard Keeler was grinning like a kid. “What do you know-this is an innocent man.”
Unperturbed, Freddie, still hooked up to the machine, glanced back to say, “I’m not sure if that’s an accurate statement-you haven’t asked me about my
“He isn’t lying about
I’m afraid I wasn’t laughing or cheering, although I did smile. But I was preoccupied, thinking about what I thought I’d heard the foreman of that jury say, during the first outburst of celebratory whooping and hollering. I had told Higgs, before any of us took the launch to Shangri La, and he said he’d look into it.
Right now the barrister was at my side, champagne glass in hand, his boyish face broken by a half-smile. “I guess there’s no stopping that client of ours.”
“Actually,” I said, “my real client is Nancy Oakes de Marigny-but there’s no stopping her, either.”
Higgs chuckled. Then he turned somber. “I talked to Ernest just before we left. He’s checking into that matter.”
“I told you what I thought I heard.”
He shook his head dismissively. “It’s preposterous. The jury has no such authority.”
“It was just a recommendation, Higgs. Christ, I’m not even sure I heard him right.”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
“Mr. Heller!”
It was Nancy.
I went to her, smiled, raised my champagne glass to her; she smiled at me sweetly, with those lush red lips that any man would kill for, even if de Marigny hadn’t.
“You’re a fabulous private eye,” she said.
“That’s what my business card says.”
“Oh, you. Listen…I know this isn’t the appropriate time, but we simply have to talk.”
“Well…all right.”
I walked over to a corner where we found two comfortable if modern-looking chairs beneath a glowering Inca mask.
“I owe you some money,” she said.
“Never mind that right now.”
“You more than used up the retainer Daddy gave you.”
“Not by much. Mostly I have a few expenses, but hell-you put me up at Shangri La. How often does a hired hand get housing like this?”
She touched my arm; her large brown eyes were luminous. They reminded me of Marjorie’s. “This isn’t over.”
“It isn’t?”
“You know it isn’t. My father’s killer is still at large. Until whoever killed Daddy is brought to justice, there will still be people who think Freddie did it.”
I shrugged. “He’s innocent. The jury thinks so, even Len’s lie detector thinks so. And you and I
Her eyes were getting wet. “Yes. But that’s not enough. The murderer or murderers should be found. Don’t you think?”
“That’s how I generally prefer it, when I work a murder case.”
“And Mr. Heller-Nate-my mother is still convinced Fred is guilty.”
