“Where did Medora keep objects of value?” Leonidas asked.
“In the Dalton National’s largest safety deposit box,” Dow said. “I used to beg to go to the vault with her, when I was a kid, so I could crawl in the vacant space when the box was taken out. She had a smaller box for the family jewels, and a still smaller one for petty cash. She was a pushover for petty cash on hand.”
“You mean,” Leonidas said, “that she—er—hoarded dimes? Or possibly nickels?”
“Just bills,” Dow said. “I don’t think anything ever gave her any greater pleasure than Roosevelt’s bank holiday. She’d always said that her petty cash would be needed some day, and a time would come, and it did. She financed half Dalton for a few days.”
“Did she ever keep valuables in her house?” Leonidas said. “Up here, on the hill?”
Dow looked at him wonderingly.
“You do ask,” he said, “the oddest things, Bill! I don’t know whether she did or not. There was a little safe in the library. One of those iron boxes with a wreath of roses painted on the door. Cuff could probably open it with a thumbtack, or his thumbnail. It said ‘Chauncey Winthrop Dow\ on it. By the way, Leslie, my name is Chauncey Winthrop Dow. You’ll have to be told, sooner or later.”
“Good,” Leslie said. “That settles it. I never could look with any degree of seriousness on a man named Chauncey. It reminds me of a buttered ear of corn. There! That whole business is now settled.”
“Who,” Leonidas said quickly before Dow could answer, “who was Medora’s heir, ultimately?”
Dow shrugged.
“For all I know, she endowed a home for trained mice, or old circus horses. She may have left everything to Elsa. Or she may have— Bill, suppose she left it to Swiss Chard! I never thought of that!”
“D’you think that’s at all likely?” Leonidas asked. “Medora liked her,” Dow said, “or she’d have fired her. And Chard must have liked Medora, or she’d have left, years ago. In our last interview, Aunt Medora touched at length on the topic of ungrateful relatives, and how none of hers would ever touch a penny of her money— Bill, that must be the answer. Medora made a will in favor of Chard. She must have! She— Are you all set, Cassie?”
“Yes,” Cassie bustled back into the kitchen. “Anderson brought the car himself, because he wanted to ask me about a gargle for Lucille— Bill, aren’t you ready? What have you been doing? And where are your overshoes? You must put your overshoes on!”
“George didn’t,” Leslie said.
“Come, come!” Cassie clucked her tongue. “Really, dear, we’ve had enough of that sort of thing, don’t you think? Halfway up Arthur and now George didn’t —George didn’t what?”
“George didn’t put his overshoes on,” Leslie said. “Chard’s brother George. He didn’t put his overshoes on.”
“Why, dear?”
“I don’t know,” Leslie said. “But that’s what she told me. Brother George, she said very distinctly, did not put on his overshoes. That’s one of the tidbits about brother George that she told me before I turned the subject into other channels. She seemed pretty upset about George not wearing his galoshes. She told me at least twice.”
“I always say,” Cassie remarked, “you can’t tell a thing about mousy women. Why, I never knew she had a brother George! And what a quaint thing to tell you about him, too! Bill, isn’t it strange that Swiss Chard should pause and discuss her brother’s overshoes with what amounted to a perfect stranger? I should have thought she’d have been too terrified.”
“That’s the way I feel,” Dow said. “Like that plane. Bill said she went for Leslie in a plane, and had another waiting to bring Leslie back to Dalton, but the snowstorm interfered. Now I can’t see Chard getting into a plane at the point of a gun. Not even if Aunt Medora stood behind the gun. I can’t swallow that picture of Chard whisking around in planes. Of course, I suppose there’s a certain efficiency about Chard—”
“She was marvelous with accounts,” Cassie said. “Medora always said that. And ordering.”
“Oh, she probably could pinch a melon with the best,” Dow said. “But I still can’t see what goaded her into whisking around so, and biffing people left and right. I’ll grant her strength of character, but I think something must have been goading her, don’t you, Bill?”
Leonidas nodded. He had come to that decision some hours before.
“Where is my luggage, Cassie?” he asked.
“At my house—oh, I completely forgot,” Cassie said. “Dow and that limousine chauffeur dumped it at my house this morning. Are your overshoes in it somewhere? They are? Well, you’ll have to take Dow’s. Get them for him, Dow, while I fetch your heavy coat from the cedar closet— Isn’t that cedar closet wonderful?”
“What cedar closet?”
“Bill, you didn’t see that marvelous .cedar closet? You didn’t? I’ll bet you haven’t seen the preserve closet, either. Or the laundry chute. Or the incinerator—”
“Sometimes,” Leonidas said, “I think I never shall. Cassie, you get my heavy coat. Dow, you find overshoes. Leslie, will you go out and inform Cuff that I intend to wring his neck if he does not stop blowing the horn of that car? It sounds like feeding time at the zoo. Hurry, please, all of you!”
There was something in the tone of his voice which silenced even Cassie.
While they dashed around, Leonidas strolled into the hallway and consulted the telephone directory.
“Cuff,” Leslie reported, “says he just wanted you should get a wiggle on, because there ain’t no telling how long it’ll take to find Pig Eyes. Look, d’you really think that Chard is the person who killed Medora? Somehow, in spite of everything, I can’t seem to convince myself. And d’you think she was trying to explain something to me about her brother?
