“One other thing: Call the company that installed the alarm system and tell them we want a technician to come here and check it at once.”
“It couldn’t be bypassed, could it?” said Hilary. “That’s what I want to find out. It’s an old system, installed years ago. I’ve been telling the Governor that he should demand a more modern one. This doesn’t have any of the latest gimmicks. For instance, it doesn’t have a back-up system working on long-term batteries to switch to automatically if the electricity goes off in a storm.”
“Anything else, sir?”
“Yes, I want you yourself to check the men on the gates. Ask each one for names and descriptions of everybody who came in or went out since—” He turned back to Hilary. “When did anyone last see the bird alive?”
“Before luncheon, I think. A little after one. Tash and I have been with each other ever since one.”
“And just when did you find the bird?”
“About ten minutes ago.”
Wilkes turned back to Pulaski.
“That narrows it a little. We must identify everyone who went in or out of this place between one and five this afternoon. I also want to know if there were any untoward incidents at the gates, like someone trying to get in or out without proper identification.”
The lieutenant was starting to salute when Wilkes’ voice arrested his motion.
“Pulaski.”
“Sir?”
Wilkes looked at his watch. “It’s nine o’clock. The Governor is already at that Nobel Prize dinner, making a speech to announce his candidacy. Tell the man on the switchboard here to call the University and ask for one of the Governor’s aides—preferably Mr. de Miranda. Try not to alarm him unnecessarily, but tell him that if it’s at all possible for him to get back here at once without inconveniencing the Governor, I’d appreciate it.”
“Yes, sir.” This time Pulaski finished his salute and pivoted on his heel.
“Mrs. Truance, do you think this can be kept out of the newspapers?” demanded Wilkes.
“If anybody can do it, Carlos de Miranda will.”
“He must do it. We’ll never find this hole in our security if we’ve got a gaggle of reporters on our heels.” It gave a Tash a funny feeling to realize that she was no longer an outsider, one of the gaggle of reporters. She was now an insider, hoping that those dreadful newspaper people would not get hold of this incident and blow it up out of all proportion to its significance.
At the same time, she couldn’t help wishing that she could talk over the whole thing with Bill Brewer. How interested he would be and how his comments would throw light into the dark corners!
“Could the bird have got out of the cage by itself?” Tash was thinking aloud now. “Or could someone have let it out and then become too frightened to report it when the bird got away? Don’t birds indoors dash themselves to death against windowpanes trying to get through the glass they can’t see?”
“You’re suggesting that the bird killed himself and then someone who found the body put it on your typewriter?”
Tash nodded.
“Miss Perkins, did you look closely at that bird?”
“No, I couldn’t bear to.”
“It didn’t die by beating its head against a window-pane. Its neck was twisted. It was strangled the way a farmer’s wife strangles a chicken—with hands. I doubt if we can get any fingerprints off the feathers, but we may get a trace of bodily secretion—sweat or saliva—or a pulled thread from a frayed cuff. Such things can be used for identification. That’s why I sent the bird to the lab with everything else.”
“But what could the motive be?” demanded Hilary. “Just to frighten Mrs. Playfair or Miss Perkins?”
Wilkes’ face stiffened like something that had been melted, now hardening as it chilled.
“You don’t need motives if drug addicts are involved. They tear down their own minds deliberately, psychoanalysis in reverse. Sometimes I almost wish we had a whipping post the way they used to over the Border in Delaware.”
“You can’t regard flogging as a civilized deterrent,” Hilary spoke with the detachment of an anthropologist inspecting a peculiar tribal custom.
“We could call it aversion therapy, if that would make it sound more civilized,” retorted Wilkes. “It’s only a bird this time, but next time it could just as easily be a child. An atrocity against an animal is just a warm-up for an atrocity against a human being. There’s a case in Hans Gross records of a man who couldn’t achieve pleasure unless he strangled a bird during coition. Of course the time came when he strangled the woman instead of the bird. It always does.”
“Then you think a pervert broke in and strangled the bird just for kicks without malice toward any of us?”
“Either that or strangling the bird was a perverted reaction to the tension of breaking in the way you or I would light a cigarette.”
“But it was so stupid!” cried Tash. “If he hadn’t strangled the bird we would never have known anyone had broken in.”
“Which is another reason for thinking the whole thing was psychopathic,” said Wilkes. “The only motive I can see for this is a psycho’s desire to shock or disgust somebody.”
“I can think of another motive,” said Hilary. “We’re on the eve of an election. There are all kinds of position papers and projected schedules about future policies lying around the office wing. They might be salable to newspapers or stock market speculators or even opposition candidates. In that case, the bird would be strangled just to make us think a psycho did it.”
“I am more interested in how he got in than why he got in,” said Wilkes. “Miss Perkins, was your burglar alarm on when you left your office to go to luncheon?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Was it still on when you came back to the office?”
“Yes.”
“Then I can’t understand how anyone got in and out of your office without the alarm going off. Did anyone else know the combination?”
“Only Mr. de Miranda who showed me how to set
