“Look, meantime I’ll give Sam a bell for you,” Kramer said, rather than offered. “This is my doing, so there’s no need for you to worry.”
And he left the room, with the colonel staring suspiciously after him, saying for the umpteenth time, “God in heaven.”
As first guesses go, it went. Shirley was not Mrs. Stevenson’s first name; hers was Trudy. Then Winifred Amelia.
“Fly me to Miami,” said Bix Johnson, mystifying Marais.
Who had asked him to show him where things were kept at the Wigwam.
“Then we’ll just have to go through the whole list of members,” Marais said, still showing imagination. “He’s the sort of bloke who uses first names in preference, am I right?”
“He does, he does.”
Marais was pleased with his clever use of the present tense; he needed the piano player’s spite kept alive for a while yet.
“And yet you are sure he didn’t have any women friends or acquaintances by that name?”
“You must be joking, Sarge. Only got Eve to sit with him because he was the boss.”
“ Ach, look-it’s only initials,” Marais complained, flipping over the pages of the membership roll.
“Upsy-a page back. There you are: Shirley.”
“And it’s Mr., so it must be a bloke.”
“Quick!” said the enigmatic Johnson.
Marais was as quick as he could be, and copied down two telephone numbers and a home address before checking in the other book kept near the entrance. Shirley had been in the club on Saturday night.
“Any good fascist reason why I shouldn’t stay on awhile and get through some blues, Sarge?”
“Not my piano,” said Marais, pleased at how his English had improved in such company to include repartee.
Big Ben Goldstein looked like Nero after the fire insurance paid out. His clothes were the most expensive, his manicure came at fifty cents a cuticle, and his expression was one of ill-concealed glee.
Which misled some people into thinking he was not totally honest-not only the dishonest themselves, but others with old-fashioned prejudices. Ben was so honest that sometimes it hurt, but it hardly hurt at all to tell Trudy Stevenson there was nothing he could do for her that would be of help.
“And so, my love, we leave it there-all right? Don’t worry, I’ll not send a bill. If it’d just been Monty, then you had grounds. But I can’t act now knowing what I do. You follow?”
“He’s dead, and he was the only other one who knew! What can they prove?”
“Me, I wouldn’t try them.”
“You tricked me!”
“Okay, okay, so I tricked you. Better I should trick you than it happens in front of a judge. If the police are willing to drop everything now, so be it. Come back in the morning if you still want to discuss details so soon, the winding-up, all that. But I myself would see a doctor, get some pills. Elspeth, my dear, will you show this lady out?”
Mrs. Stevenson jerked her elbow free.
“You bastard,” she hissed at Ben.
“Paternity suits I don’t contest, madam.”
“Wow!” said the delectable Elspeth, who had been left standing. “That was like a cork out of a bottle!”
The outer door slammed.
“No, that was Mrs. Rat out of a rat trap,” Ben said sadly, and then started to dial the CID number. He owed it to the hard-arsed bugger to thank him for the warning.
“Only if it’s pertinent to the matter in hand,” warned the colonel as Kramer came back into the office. “Then we’ll just have to start without Strydom.”
Kramer sat down and said flatly, “I was right. We didn’t crack Stevenson-the wife did.”
“Hey?” exclaimed Marais, in great surprise. “What the hell gave you that idea, sir?”
“Sergeant, if I blasted you in the bum with a twelve-bore, could you tell me which pellet hit first?”
Crushed, Marais put his head back in the morning paper.
“Maybe it’s time we all cooled down a bit,” the colonel suggested after a while. “We’ll give the DS two more minutes. Well, Tromp?”
“Sir?”
“Wouldn’t Sergeant Marais at least hear a bang first?”
“ Ach, I suppose it was the writing.”
“Ja?”
“The assumption was that the suicide note ended with the man’s initials, M.S. But the pencil line there was thin, so the pencil had to be sharp. So I read it again like it was what he first wrote-‘Why not ask Shirley…?’-and saw it was like a message he wanted passed on to me. ‘Too late’ could have been a reference to the time of night- you had used the word ‘late’ yourself, Colonel. He was in a hurry with an idea, but in writing it down this crystallized his position. Okay?”
“You’re saying the suicide was on the other side only?” the colonel asked.
“Uh-huh. Look how neat and determined it is-a man who has complete control of himself because at last he knows just what to do. Hell, you need that frame of mind to do what he did. With the socks.”
“But why no sign-off at the bottom?”
“No need. You expected me to take this personally, Colonel, and why? Because the tone is very personal, I agree. But did Marais or me give him orders to do anything? Christ, no. His appearance for remand was just a bloody fact -and Sam was supposed to get that through to him. And what do we, barbarians like us, care if he’s only sorry for Jeremy? By that reckoning, we couldn’t give a stuff. She didn’t require any signature. Simple.”
“And the pellets?” asked Marais, poised to begin a list.
“Oh, Jesus. Business so bad that ‘every penny counts’ and he pulls a stunt like this one, and yet his kid goes to riding lessons. The big come-down the wife made after she was sure she wasn’t involved in the inquiries. The way she tried to make sure she did all the talking while we were at the house. His fluster over the sweet machine because they hadn’t been able to prepare the idea quick enough in the bedroom when she was doing her so-called checking. She wasn’t expecting trouble-remember the crack about the Mormons? But she ad-libbed and it wasn’t bad. And him blushing and sweating and we thought he was trying to cover for himself! And then I rang the reporter on the Gazette and asked him to see when that gymkhana was held.”
“The one on their gate?” Marais asked.
“Uh-huh. That gymkhana was last Sunday. In other words, Ma Stevenson wasn’t going to let anything get between little Jeremy and his moment of glory.”
“But this is hypothesis, man,” the colonel objected. “Or are you sure? Is this from Sam or something?”
“What I got from Sam was just a confirmation. You know him, sir; you try to break his bloody ethics. First I did ring him and what I learned was that Stevenson was a henpecked runt and that she really ran everything from the home, using the phone and expecting him to report any problems. No ethics in that-common hearsay, so I find out. I warn him to go easy. He rings back, says I did him a favor, and then a real shyster comes through wanting to slap charges on me. Seems Ma Stevenson is in his place, shouting for justice. So I tell him, too, and he-”
“And that was the last phone call? But what exactly was his story?”
“As soon as Stevenson found the body, he naturally rang her. She said leave everything and come home because she has to think this one over carefully. And when you think about it, that was more a female’s reaction to a dead popsy with boobs like that. A bloke on his own would see Eve-”
“Ja, ja, as a terrible waste; I know. One thing more: do I take it these legal proceedings against us are now being reconsidered?”
Kramer nodded, and then the colonel announced they would wait until the quarter hour for Dr. Strydom to fight his way out of the jungle.
Constable Hein Wessels was so good at his job that if he’d tried free-lancing in another town he would have been arrested.
He stood on the corner of Monument and Claasens Streets, at the top end of Trekkersburg, looking like a waiting-room ashtray. And in unbelievable contrast, he pondered contentedly, to the trim figure, glowing with inner
