Anything Goes

dismounted from the motorbike. “What’s happened?“ Jack asked.
    “We have a dead body in the kitchen. What are you doing here? How did you know anything happened?”
    Jack waved vaguely. “Cousin Ralph. Does this body have a name?“
    “Billy Smith,“ Robert said grimly. “If it weren’t for the prospect of spending the rest of my life at Sing Sing, I’d like to claim credit for bumping off the bastard myself.“
    “Who did kill him?”
    Robert shrugged. “No idea.“
    “Then it wasn’t Miss Brewster?”
    Robert reached forward and grabbed Jack by the front of his shirt, nearly lifting him off the ground. “You ask that again of anybody, and I’ll—”
    Robert looked at his hands as if they were someone else’s and let go. “Sorry, old boy. Lost my head there. No, Lily and I had been out for the evening and had an awful dinner. Lily was hungry and went downstairs to find some food and found a murdered man instead.“
    “How do you know he was murdered?”
    Robert rolled his eyes. “Go take a look and see what you think.”
    Jack entered the house. Ralph took over door duty, though he’d obviously have rather been part of the body-viewing party, and Robert followed Jack. There was the sound of Mimi crying in the library and Mrs. Prinney trying to comfort her. In the kitchen, the chief of police, a man of enormous proportions with a tiny bald head topping off his mass, was consulting with the town doctor, a plump little Dutchman with a square head and face, who lived just down the road a little way and had been summoned to pronounce death. The doctor was wearing a dress jacket over pajama tops and a fringe of matching fabric was ruffled around the ends of his trouser legs. The police chief had donned his uniform for the occasion, although it was dusty with neglect, too tight and was buttoned crookedly. Mr. Prinney, in nightwear with a flannel bathrobe over it, was standing quietly by the sink.
    The chief was asking, “How long you reckon he’s been dead?”
    Jack was staring with horror at Billy sprawled on the floor. The blade of a large butcher knife was embedded in Billy’s chest up to the hilt, probably literally pinning him to the floor, and his eyes, above a blood-soaked scarf around his neck, were still wide open and staring at the ceiling. On the floor around him was a pool of blood. Jack gagged.
    “A couple hours,“ Dr. Polhemus said. “The blood’s congealed pretty well. Impossible to tell an exact time. Don’t try to pin me down. Can’t do it. Why isn’t the town meat wagon here yet? We need to get this man out of here before he stinks up the whole place.”
    Robert and Jack left the room, neither wanting to see Billy being moved.
    They went to sit in the hallway. Mimi was still sobbing faintly from the library. “Where’s Miss Brewster?“ Jack asked.
    “Upstairs,“ Robert said. “I’ve got to check on her again in a minute. The doctor gave her something to make her sleep. She was really unraveled. She damned near stepped in the middle of him when she walked in the kitchen.“
    “What was Billy doing in the kitchen—besides being killed?”
    Robert shrugged. “Sneaking in to beat up on his wife again? Nobody knows. Mr. and Mrs. Prinney were out visiting friends, came home and went straight to their rooms upstairs. Mimi was asleep, too, when Lily started screaming. She said she’d been in her room all evening, doing a jigsaw puzzle. Lily had told her to lock up the house, but she said she couldn’t find a set of keys.“
    “Are you sure she was really in her room all eve- ning?”
    Robert drew himself up. “I’m not sure of a damned thing except that the bastard had the gall to come in our house and get himself killed.”
    They sat silently for a moment on the substantial chairs that flanked the small table in the front hall. Mr. Prinney passed through, going upstairs. He merely nodded to them grimly. A moment later, Mrs. Prinney came out of the library with Mimi, still crying, to lead her up the stairs. “I’ll check on Miss Brewster,“ she said to Robert over her shoulder. “Mimi, you must get a hold of yourself. He wasn’t worth making yourself sick with crying over.“
    “But he was my husband!“ Mimi wailed.
    “Not anymore, he’s not.“ Mrs. Prinney’s practical remark drifted down from the landing.
    A moment later, Mr. Prinney came back downstairs in his street clothes. Jack got up and offered the older man his chair, an offer which was