Isn’t it possible that the nose was make-up? Years and years ago I saw a movie called The Sign of the Cross , with Charles Laughton as a wonderfully dissolute Nero, and he had a beautiful Roman nose that couldn’t have been natural.”
“Face putty,” Piper told her wisely. “Actors sometimes use it, though it won’t stand too close inspection. But remember, Marika let the guy into the house and into her apartment because she knew him. If he’d been wearing the wrong phiz when she opened the door—”
It was a point well taken, she could hardly deny that. There would hardly have been time for the murderer to do a reverse-action make-up job at the head of the stairs before he knocked at Marika’s door. But still there seemed something a little too too about the nose. Of course, there were people with beaks that seemed an exaggeration—the late J. P. Morgan was one.
The Inspector drained his coffee cup and said he had to run along. “Are you on your way back up to Marika’s apartment?” Miss Withers asked eagerly.
He nodded. “Got a box of her personal papers and stuff out in the car that I want to take back. Nothing in them that seemed much help, though. Except a lot of receipts for postal money orders—seems she’s been sending dough to some guy out in Phoenix, Arizona, name of Cawthorne.”
Miss Withers’ eyes narrowed. “Does it look like blackmail? I thought from what you said about mediums that they preyed on others instead of being preyed upon.”
“Don’t be always jumping to conclusions,” Piper said wearily. “Maybe she was only making payments on a dude ranch so she could retire someday. We’ve asked the Phoenix police to investigate, of course. As for the rest of her correspondence, it was mostly from clients who wanted their fortunes told or their horoscopes read by mail.”
“Horoscopes too? Heavens, that woman seems to have rung all the changes. By any chance did she tell the auguries by studying chicken entrails?”
“Maybe. But she couldn’t have been much good at it, because she certainly didn’t have any warning of her own fate. All of which proves that any message she got from the spooks about Andy Rowan’s innocence was worth less than a Confederate dollar.”
“Oscar, perhaps you don’t know that Confederate paper money is now a collector’s item?”
“All right, all right !” Piper paused in the doorway, a truculent gleam in his eye. “And I don’t mind telling you that while I’m up there in the dead woman’s apartment I’m going to check very carefully through those victrola records again. Maybe there was a dance tune tucked in among the hymns, and you missed it. We’re all only human, you know.”
“Speak for yourself,” snapped Hildegarde Withers. “For your information I still have 20/20 vision, and can tell a hawk from a handsaw, or sacred from profane music. I can also remember enough of my own salad days to realize that when a man and woman dance together, especially alone in an apartment, they have certain romantic interests. The man who came to Marika’s apartment and bashed out her brains was nobody she cared a tinker’s damn about. I call your attention to the curious incident of the lipstick in the night time.”
“But Marika wasn’t wearing any lipstick!”
“That was the curious incident. Curious, I mean, if she was in a flirtatious mood. You may know a lot about crime, Oscar, but you don’t know women.”
“I am learning,” he said. “The hard way.” And he took himself off.
Miss Hildegarde Withers wasted no time in following his example, except that she headed in an entirely different direction. The time had come, she thought, to have a long heart-to-heart talk with Iris Dunn, who might just possibly have something up her sleeve besides a well-rounded arm.
At least Natalie thought so. And Natalie Rowan wasn’t entirely the garrulous fool she sometimes sounded.
The schoolteacher finally arrived at a vast building taking
“Face putty,” Piper told her wisely. “Actors sometimes use it, though it won’t stand too close inspection. But remember, Marika let the guy into the house and into her apartment because she knew him. If he’d been wearing the wrong phiz when she opened the door—”
It was a point well taken, she could hardly deny that. There would hardly have been time for the murderer to do a reverse-action make-up job at the head of the stairs before he knocked at Marika’s door. But still there seemed something a little too too about the nose. Of course, there were people with beaks that seemed an exaggeration—the late J. P. Morgan was one.
The Inspector drained his coffee cup and said he had to run along. “Are you on your way back up to Marika’s apartment?” Miss Withers asked eagerly.
He nodded. “Got a box of her personal papers and stuff out in the car that I want to take back. Nothing in them that seemed much help, though. Except a lot of receipts for postal money orders—seems she’s been sending dough to some guy out in Phoenix, Arizona, name of Cawthorne.”
Miss Withers’ eyes narrowed. “Does it look like blackmail? I thought from what you said about mediums that they preyed on others instead of being preyed upon.”
“Don’t be always jumping to conclusions,” Piper said wearily. “Maybe she was only making payments on a dude ranch so she could retire someday. We’ve asked the Phoenix police to investigate, of course. As for the rest of her correspondence, it was mostly from clients who wanted their fortunes told or their horoscopes read by mail.”
“Horoscopes too? Heavens, that woman seems to have rung all the changes. By any chance did she tell the auguries by studying chicken entrails?”
“Maybe. But she couldn’t have been much good at it, because she certainly didn’t have any warning of her own fate. All of which proves that any message she got from the spooks about Andy Rowan’s innocence was worth less than a Confederate dollar.”
“Oscar, perhaps you don’t know that Confederate paper money is now a collector’s item?”
“All right, all right !” Piper paused in the doorway, a truculent gleam in his eye. “And I don’t mind telling you that while I’m up there in the dead woman’s apartment I’m going to check very carefully through those victrola records again. Maybe there was a dance tune tucked in among the hymns, and you missed it. We’re all only human, you know.”
“Speak for yourself,” snapped Hildegarde Withers. “For your information I still have 20/20 vision, and can tell a hawk from a handsaw, or sacred from profane music. I can also remember enough of my own salad days to realize that when a man and woman dance together, especially alone in an apartment, they have certain romantic interests. The man who came to Marika’s apartment and bashed out her brains was nobody she cared a tinker’s damn about. I call your attention to the curious incident of the lipstick in the night time.”
“But Marika wasn’t wearing any lipstick!”
“That was the curious incident. Curious, I mean, if she was in a flirtatious mood. You may know a lot about crime, Oscar, but you don’t know women.”
“I am learning,” he said. “The hard way.” And he took himself off.
Miss Hildegarde Withers wasted no time in following his example, except that she headed in an entirely different direction. The time had come, she thought, to have a long heart-to-heart talk with Iris Dunn, who might just possibly have something up her sleeve besides a well-rounded arm.
At least Natalie thought so. And Natalie Rowan wasn’t entirely the garrulous fool she sometimes sounded.
The schoolteacher finally arrived at a vast building taking
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