Another Woman's House (21 page)

“Yes.”

“Get out. I want to dress.” But he stopped and looked at her and said, in the stunned and exploring way that Aunt Cornelia had spoken, “Mildred!”

Willie yawned and stretched and yawned. Tim said as she left, “We'd better phone to Webb, too.”

Webb, however, was not at home. Sam had already tried twice to reach him when Myra, dressed now in the gray country suit and sweater she had taken off so long—
so long
ago, she thought incredulously—came downstairs again.

But the police had already arrived. The village police, a sprinkling of state police, and eventually some men in plain clothes.

It seemed a long time that they were in and out of the house, in and out of the ivory-and-gold room, mysteriously busy, talking in elliptical undertones to each other—and less elliptically, very definitely and specifically, questioning Alice, questioning Myra, questioning Richard. They wanted to question Webb, too. They wanted to ask him if he had known of his brother's “friendship,” said one of the men in plain clothes, clearing his throat, with Mildred Wilkinson. Again Sam telephoned Webb's cottage, and again there was no answer.

Willie, by that time too widely and vociferously awake, had been shut in the kitchen, where Barton and his wife, Francine, and the other servants apparently gathered. Even the gardener, in his cottage away back of the garage, had been aroused by the cars and the commotion and had come to the main house to inquire. Myra, looking into the hall, saw him standing, pale-faced and goggle-eyed, beside Barton in the door of the dining room.

The village police, of course, knew Richard and Alice. They knew Mildred and the gloomy old Wilkinson house; they knew all the circumstances. They were respectful and they showed their sympathy for Alice and Richard. The others were more businesslike but obviously felt that a great wrong had been righted and their job was to tie up the ends of it quickly and with as little further grief and publicity to the Thorne family as was humanly possible. At the same time, in view of rigid instruction from the district attorney who, himself, by telephone, took a hand in the case, it was also their obvious job to leave no loose ends dangling. It was the district attorney, too, who undertook to keep reporters out of the case. “Until morning,” he said. “I'll be there before they get there.”

Sam gave the police the letter which was itself all the evidence that was needed. Alice told them the story of Mildred's suicide.

She had combed her golden hair smoothly away from her white forehead and coiled it again in a shining bun at the base of her neck. She had put on a pale-blue dress, simple as a schoolgirl's, with a short pleated skirt and a round white collar and cuffs. Even when Alice was never again to return to Thorne House, all her clothes had been kept, as if ready for her wear, in the great dress closets off her room. Except for her pallor, the blue stains of fatigue below her eyes, and the sad droop of her mouth, she looked like a child in the demure blue dress.

The police questioned her and Myra only once and seemed satisfied. One of them, a tall boy who stood as if he'd had military training and probably was barely out of the army, made rapid notes on a shorthand tablet.

And there was not much, really, for either Myra or Alice to tell. “She called me,” said Alice. “She was on the terrace and she threw some pebbles up against my window.”

“She knew your window?” said one of the plainclothesmen.

“Oh, of course,” said Alice. “She was my oldest friend. This house was like her own home.”

“Go on, please, Mrs. Thorne.”

Alice, in the ruby-red chair, took a long breath. All of them listened. The library was for a moment like a courtroom, like a stage. Aunt Cornelia in her wheel chair, Tim standing beside her, his hand on the chair, Sam roving the room as if unable to stand still, smoking constantly, Richard standing again by the mantel, leaning his elbow upon it, the groups of uniformed police, the dark figures of the plainclothesmen with their noncommittal faces and alert and watchful eyes—all of them were suddenly transformed to an audience, watching Alice, listening. Alice braced her hands upon the arms of the chair. “She asked me to come down. I couldn't hear exactly what she said, except I knew it was Mildred and that she wanted to talk to me. So I came down. Here, to this room. She was here.”

The boy with the shorthand tablet scribbled quickly. The plainclothesman standing near Alice said encouragingly, “What did she say then?”

Alice lifted her soft brown eyes. “I don't know. I think she said something about wanting to tell me something. Then she led me into the room across the hall. She turned on the light and closed the door. I thought that she closed the door because she didn't want anyone to hear. Then she went to the desk. She had a little evening bag with her. …”

One of the policemen nodded. Alice went on. “She took out the poison—it was a pill—and put it down on the table. Then she took out a paper. Her own paper and her pen and then she”—Alice bit her lip and said unevenly—“then she began to talk wildly. In a rush of words. I couldn't hear. …”

She stopped and put a small, lacy handkerchief to her lips. Sam said quickly, “Take it easy, Alice. You can tell them later if it is too much for you now.”

“No, no …” Alice steadied herself. “I'll go on. I couldn't hear everything she said. She was excited and almost incoherent. But then I began to understand that she was accusing herself of having killed Jack and of having sent me to prison. I didn't believe her. I tried to reason with her. I—but then she said she'd write it and she did. I still didn't think she had killed him. I thought she had brooded too much about it. I didn't know what to think, except I didn't believe her. And then …” again she looked up with troubled eyes. “It all happened so fast,” she said, catching her breath. “All at once she flung down the pen. She said she couldn't bear to write any more; that everybody would read it, it would be in the papers, everything. And then, before I could stop her, she snatched up the pill. She told me what it was. She said it was cyanide and it would take only a minute. I still thought that she was hysterical, laughing and crying at once, but then, just as she put the pill in her mouth, I was afraid she meant it. I screamed then, I think. I don't know what I did. But I ran to her, I struggled with her, she pushed me away. Then she fell and …” She was trembling, ashy white.

Sam said, “That's enough. Isn't it, Lieutenant? Mrs. Thorne has been through a terrible experience.”

“Yes, yes,” said one of the men in plain clothes. “Thank you. Now, then—Miss Lane?”

The spotlight shifted. The small intent audience swerved its attention to Myra. She was sitting on the sofa at the end of the room, below the fateful, narrow red curtains. She knew that Richard had glanced at her encouragingly. She knew that Tim was nervous by the way he didn't look at her. Alice sat very straight in the red chair, her beautiful face quiet, and again, Myra thought, meeting Alice's eyes, stony. But Alice, Myra realized with a kind of shock, was afraid of what she might say! Webb had once accused her falsely. Suppose now Myra accused her! Alice, herself, had suggested it. She had said. “You are stronger than I—both of you—you can throw that paper in the fire—you can say I killed her. …” Alice who had to learn to trust again!

Myra was aware suddenly of the waiting silence. She looked at the man Sam had called Lieutenant. “I came downstairs only a minute or two before it happened.”

“What exactly did you see, Miss Lane? Take your time. We only want to have a full report.”

“It's as Mrs. Thorne says. Mildred fell against the door and it opened and I saw it, just as she died.”

“Mr. Thorne said that you heard Miss Wilkinson on the terrace, too.”

“Yes. That is, I heard her whisper. I couldn't hear much of what she said. I waited awhile and then I came down.”

And stopped on her way and looked in the newel post for the gun!

She thought of it then, for the first time. And for the first time wondered what Mildred had done with the gun, and had to decide in a split second whether or not to tell them what she knew of the gun.

Richard's gun.

It seemed to her that already there was a faint premonitory stir and question in the air, as she hesitated. She went on swiftly. “Mildred and Mrs. Thorne were in the room across the hall. The door was closed and I could only hear their voices. Then the door swung open and … It's all just as Mrs. Thorne said. I ran to them. Mrs. Thorne was trying to stop her, but it was too late.”

“Was Miss Wilkinson unconscious then?”

“No, she put her hands up to her throat. And then she was dead.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No. There wasn't time.”

“Thank you, Miss Lane.” He turned to Richard. “As you told me, Miss Wilkinson knew that your wife was pardoned and that a new investigation was to be opened. I don't think there's any question of the motive. Probably all this time she'd been brooding over it, and her own conscience made her collapse. It's not unusual. You'd be surprised how often this kind of thing happens. Well,” he turned to one of the other men, “the doctor says definitely it was cyanide. We'll have to check the source of supply. I think that's all now.”

“You mean,” said Richard, “that it's all over. The inquiry and investigation?”

“Well, yes. I think so,” said the lieutenant briskly. “There'll be an inquest, of course. We'll have to get some samples of her handwriting, but there's no doubt of that. You and Mrs. Thorne and Lady Carmichael have all assured me it is her handwriting and, besides, your wife saw her write it. It's only a question of dotting the i's—checking everything. We'll take a look through her house. She may have saved letters from Manders or some such thing. We'll talk to Webb Manders too, in case he knew anything of it. But all that is mere form. Yes,” he looked around the room and nodded cheerfully at Alice, “I think the case will be closed. No question of it, really. Now, then,” he glanced at the stenographer, “if you'll just read all the statements again. Begin with Mr. Thorne's. …”

Barton brought in coffee and sandwiches. The boy leafed through his fat, ringed notebook and read briskly and exactly all the statements it contained—Richard's, Sam's, Alice's, her own, the doctor's, who had said definitely that Mildred had taken cyanide. “This poison acts very quickly,” read the boy in his brisk and exact tones. “I don't know where she procured it, but I imagine she simply went to the village drugstore and bought it.”

Nobody mentioned the gun. Hadn't they found it then? What had Mildred done with it?

The boy finished, the lieutenant asked briefly if there was anything anybody wanted to change, or add.

There was another small, waiting silence. Suppose somebody spoke; suppose, thought Myra suddenly and queerly, somebody said, Yes. Yes, there was something to change, yes, there was something to add. Well, what then? Mildred was a suicide; Mildred shot Jack; Mildred confessed and died. What else was there to add?

Nobody spoke.

And all at once it was over, the police and the boy with the notebook and the plainclothesmen were all leaving.

Richard went with them to the door. Tim strayed after them like a restless, inquiring colt. Aunt Cornelia, wrapped in a long white wool negligee with cherry-colored ribbons, leaned back in her chair and sighed. And Alice, only then, seemed to lose hold of the composure and courage that had sustained her and put her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Now, now,” said Sam, “it's all over.” He went to her and stood looking down at her helplessly. “Don't go to pieces now, Alice. It's all over. As a matter of fact, it's a good thing it happened. Terrible and tragic and all that—but it's over.”

“I know,” said Alice, sobbing, “I know …” She lifted her face and wiped tears from her cheeks.

The heavy front door closed with a jar. “That,” said Sam, “is the last of them,” and went to open the French door and let the night breeze sweep through the library. “Some fresh air won't hurt us.”

It was not far from dawn, although still dark. Something in the air that swept into the library was an invisible harbinger of day. And the weather was changing. The breeze was damp and cold, with a hint of chill spring rain in it.

“Poor Mildred,” said Alice unsteadily.

Aunt Cornelia sighed again. “Poor Mildred,” she echoed. “But whatever guilt and terror she suffered it is over, as Sam says. I am sorry for her. Yet she brought a terrible thing upon you, Alice, and upon Richard. It would be foolish to deny Mildred's cowardice and—and wickedness,” said the old woman in a voice that suddenly trembled. “It would be equally foolish and hypocritical to deny our own relief now that she confessed. They might have arrested Richard. They might have done anything.”

“They would have arrested Dick,” said Sam. “No doubt about that.”

Aunt Cornelia looked at Sam. “Is the district attorney coming here?”

“He's on his way to the village. He said it might be a couple of hours before he could get to the police station. But I don't know whether or not he'll come here to the house. In any case he'll not want to question any of us. Alice won't have to go through that again!”

“But he is coming,” said Aunt Cornelia. “Why?”

“Only because of the wide publicity of this case. He said he wanted to be on the spot. I imagine the Governor asked him to come, so he'd be in a position to make a full statement to the press at the first possible moment. It's nothing to worry about.”

The chill breeze from the terrace sifted across the room. Alice shivered. “Shut the door, Sam, will you?” she said. “It's very cold.”

Sam's face softened as he looked at her. “Of course, Alice.” He closed the door and came back to pull up a big footstool beside her. He took her hand. “Do you realize that it's all over? The Governor said he had expected a break but not so soon. …”