"This year 1 decided I'd go to Europe. Somewhat to my surpnse, Linda Mae made no attempt to accompany me, but she did insist that 1 stop at this inn and pay her compliments to Madame Charteux and her husband.

  "Looking back on it, I can see it all now. Aunt Linda obviously decided to use me as a cat's-paw Rene Charteux was her accomplice in the smuggling. It was only necessary for him to get possession of the car for a few hours to weld a secret receptacle on the under part of the car which would hold enough dope to make a small fortune when it was smuggled into the United States and sold at retail.

  "I presume that his wife had learned what he was doing and threatened to tell the police, which was the reason she suddenly succumbed to what apparently was a case of mushroom poisoning.

  "I admit that I was dumb. I just didn't put two and two together, even after Rob had told me about what he had found on the car. It wasn't until after Rob was arrested and charged with murder that I suddenly realised what must have happened. And then I was too foolish to go to the police. I thought I could handle it.

  "I tried to play it smart. I pretended that I was still completely unaware of all the sinister implications. I tried to treat Aunt Linda Mae just as though nothing had happened, and as though I knew nothing. But she's cunning as a serpent. She must have read my mind. I think she knew almost the exact instant when I began putting two and two together. She insisted we should have a cup of tea. I realised the tea was drugged within five minutes of the time I had drunk it. I tried to hold on to my consciousness long enough to get to the telephone, but my legs seemed to turn to water and my hands were like lead. 1 simply couldn't raise them. I collapsed in a heap on the floor and went to sleep.

  "When I woke up I was here. I don't know what Aunt Linda Mae intended to do with me finally. Perhaps she didn't know."

  Dr Dixon looked at Lieutenant Tyler.

  Lieutenant Tyler said, "Well, I guess everything's all right now. We're going to have to ask you to come to Headquarters and make a report and we'll want you to sign a statement."

  Linda said, "It's not so much what I actually know as what i suspect. For instance, that night when Merton Ostrander and I arrived at the house, Aunt Linda Mae told us she'd been in bed. Her hair was down and her face was devoid of make-up, and ... well, she fooled me. I really thought she had been in bed."

  Lieutenant Tyler frowned at Rob Trenton. "I still don't see how you got in on this."

  Rob said, "After I analysed Dr Dixon's testimony it was quite obvious that someone must have fired two bullets into Harvey Richmond's body with the gun that I had in my possession when I left the boat. Since those bullets were fired after the fire was started they must have been discharged after the gun had been locked in the desk. There was simply no other way out of it.

  "Then 1 began to do a lot of thinking. Some woman had to be mixed up with the gang. I had seen a woman at the time the fire started on the boat. I had heard of a woman aboard the boat prior to that time. There had been a woman who went with the man to dig up the buried dope. She had escaped and it must have been through her that the smugglers learned so promptly police had been waiting at the place where I had buried the smuggled shipment.

  "I then remembered I had been all keyed up with excitement when I had reached Linda Mae's house, yet she gave me a drink of hot milk and I almost immediately fell into a deep slumber and didn't wake up until late the next morning. There must have been a drug in that hot milk.

  "And Linda Mae had instructed Merton Ostrander to drive the car to a parking place at the Midget Market and leave it there with the keys in the ignition.

  "She could very easily have drugged both Linda and Merton Ostrander just as she did me with some dope in a glass of hot milk. It was her desk and doubtless she had a duplicate key. U would have been easy for her to have opened the desk, taken the gun, gone to the Midget Market, driven to meet with her accomplices - and thanks to my blabbing my story in such detail she knew everything that had happened.

  "When she had been aboard the boat earlier she had learned that Harvey Richmond had been slugged and carried aboard the boat. I certainly played right into her hands.

  "When the gangster went to dig up that dope, Linda Mae was smart enough to keep clear of the car just in case anything happened. She probably got to a telephone, contacted another of her accomplices who came with a car to pick her up, and because the State Police were looking for a woman hitch-hiker she was able to elude them and get back to the boat.

  "Having gone that far and knowing that Linda Carroll had disappeared - well, you can see the thing from my viewpoint."

  Lieutenant Tyler nodded, then turned to Linda Carroll and said, "1 want you to come to Headquarters and talk with Colonel Stepney. He'll be getting the whole thing lined up. As a matter of fact, your aunt is already in custody."

  "The deuce she is!" Rob Trenton blurted.

  Dr Dixon smiled at him. "Good Lord, young man," he said dryly, "1 hope you don't think that you're the only one who can put two and two together. The State Police started working on the right theory almost as soon as I had completed my report on the cause of death."

  Rob Trenton, somewhat crestfallen, said, "I ... I guess I made a mistake. 1 should have kept out of this."

  "Well," Lieutenant Tyler said, "we couldn't help but wonder just how much you were mixed up in this, and we wanted to give you a little rope to see whether you'd get all tangled up or not. As it is, you seem to have done a pretty good job."

  "What about Ostrander?" Rob Trenton asked.

  "I don't think we need to go into that at this time," Lieutenant Tyler said.

  Dr Dixon gave him a glance that was filled with significance, then looked towards Linda Carroll, turned his head slightly, to take in Rob Trenton, and said quietly, "if I may make a suggestion, Lieutenant, I think the people here are entitled to an explanation. 1 had already talked with Rob Trenton about the disposition of those capsules that had been found in the pocket of his bathrobe by the Customs officials."

  Lieutenant Tyler, somewhat in surprise, looked up at Dr Dixon.

  The pathologist caught and held the gaze of the police official.

  A faint smile twisted the corners of Lieutenant Tyler's mouth. He nodded acquiescence to Dr Dixon and said, "I stand corrected, Doctor," then turned to address himself to Rob Trenton, taking care that what he said was distinctly audible to Linda Carroll, but that his remarks were definitely not addressed to her.

  "Merton Ostrander," he said, "is apparently a none too scrupulous adventurer, an opportunist, and a drifter. He stayed at the inn with Rene Charteux. It is difficult to determine just how much he learned of Charteux's smuggling activities, but he did learn something. It seems, however, that Charteux definitely did not confide anything about the smuggling conspiracy relating to the Rapidex sedan. It would also seem that some of Rene Charteux's associates did approach Ostrander, and Ostrander decided he could do some smuggling by boring out the metal plugs in Swiss cowbells and inserting contraband.

  "And then for some reason Ostrander lost his nerve. He never did go through with it, and when he began to realise he was being investigated on shipboard, he was so afraid the holes he had drilled in the clappers of the cowbells would be discovered, that he dumped the whole shipment overboard. All except four bells which Miss Carroll asked for and received, bells which he

  could not very well refrain from giving her, and which because they were in her baggage passed unchecked through Customs."

  Rob Trenton thought that over. "And the capsules?" he asked.

  Dr Dixon smiled. "As 1 told you the capsules were taken by the Customs and given to Harvey Richmond. Then they seemed to disappear. No one knew what had happened to them. They weren't among his personal effects. Then we thought of the obvious, and I'm free to confess our faces were a little red."

  "What was the obvious?" Rob asked.

  "He'd sent them to a chemist to have them analysed. We found them in the chemist's laboratory. It might interest you to know their contents."

  "Bicarbonate of soda, pepsin and a little peppermint," Dr Dixon said dryly.

  Lieutenant Tyler turned to Linda Carroll. "I think we had better start, Miss Carroll You can ride in with us and

  Dr Dixon interrupted. "I hope you'll pardon me if I make another suggestion, Lieutenant. Rob Trenton has a car here. If its all the same with you, Miss Carroll might ride in with Trenton and they can go over the past events in the light of their present knowledge. I feel certain that if this is done each will help the other to recall some bit of evidence which may be significant."

  Lieutenant Tyler hesitated.

  "I'll take the responsibility," Dr Dixon added.

  The Lieutenant nodded. "All right, go ahead."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Rob Trenton, using his little flashlight, piloted Linda Carroll along the path at the edge of the pasture, down through the trees, towards the place where he had left his automobile.

  The night was calm and silent. There was no breath of wind, no faintest cloud. The stars blazed down with steady brilliance.

  Linda Carroll put her hand on Rob's arm. "Don't be in too big a rush, Rob," she said. "There's something so majestic about the night. Oh, Rob, I've always loved this place."

  "And that, I suppose," Rob said, "was why you wanted the four cowbells."

  "Of course. I came out here, put the bells on the cows, the first thing I did after getting unpacked. Listen!"

  Some night noise startled the sleeping cattle. A deep, musical cowbell broke the silence, followed almost immediately by the other bells. For a moment they sounded in rapid, mixed cadences as the animals ran from whatever it was that had alarmed them. Then, as they settled down once more, the bells came in a slow rhythm of musical harmony.

  "It's like Switzerland," she said softly. "Oh, Rob, how I wish we were back there, and that all this that has happened could just be a nightmare."

  "I wish so, too," Rob said. "But there's nothing we can do about it. I presume the. information about Merton Ostrander came as a terrific shock to you."

  "Oh, in a way," she said. "But in another way I had him sized up all the time."

  "You did!" Rob exclaimed in surprise. "I ... why, 1 thought you liked him."

  "1 do like him," she said, smiling, "but the reason 1 liked him was because he drew you out. He started you talking, Rob. 1 love to listen to you. Merton knew the country and the people and he was very observing, but ... well, you knew more of the underlying philosophy of people and of life. But if it hadn't been for Merton to sort of start you going, you'd have just sat there and soaked up the scenery."

  Rob Trenton thought that over. Then he took Linda's arm and piloted her to the automobile.

  "Dr Dixon," he said firmly, "wanted us to compare notes. I'm quite certain there's no great rush about our getting back and since you like it here, we may as well ... I'm quite certain Dr Dixon wants us to canvass the entire situation."

  "Yes," she said demurely. "He seemed most ... most ..."

  "Helpful," Rob said.

 

 

  Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Musical Cow

 

 

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