Calamity Town (30 page)

The Wrights stood about the grave in a woebegone group, Lola and Pat pressing close to Hermione and their father. John F.'s sister Tabitha had been notified, but she had wired that she was ill and could not fly to the funeral from California, and the Lord in His wisdom taketh away, and perhaps it was all for the best may she rest in peace your loving sister Tabitha. John F. made a wad out of the wire and hurled it blindly; it landed in the early morning fire Ludie had lit against the chill in the big old house. So it was just the immediate family group, and Ellery Queen, and Judge Eli Martin and Clarice and Doc Willoughby and some others; and, of course, Dr Doolittle. When Jim was brought up, a mutter arose from the watchers; eyes became very sharp for this meeting; this was very nearly ‘the best part of it.' But nothing remarkable happened. Or perhaps it did. For Hermy's lips were seen to move, and Jim went over to her and kissed her. He paid no attention to anyone else; after that he just stood there at the grave, a thin figure of loneliness.

During the interment service a breeze ran through the leaves, like fingers; and indeed Dr Doolittle's voice took on a lilt and became quite musical. The evergreens and lilies bordering the grave stirred a little, too. Then, unbelievably, it was over, and they were shuffling down the walk, Hermy straining backward to catch a last glimpse of the casket which could no longer be seen, having been lowered into the earth. But the earth had not yet been rained upon it, for that would have been bestial; that could be done later, under no witnessing eyes but the eyes of the gravediggers, who were a peculiar race of people. So Hermy strained, and she thought how beautiful the evergreens and the lilies looked, and how passionately Nora had detested funerals.

The crowd at the gate parted silently. Then Jim did it.

One moment he was trudging along between the detectives, a dead man staring at the ground; the next he came alive. He tripped one of his guards. The man fell backward with a thud, his mouth an astonished O even as he fell. Jim struck the second guard on the jaw, so that the man fell on his brother officer and they threshed about, like wrestlers, trying to regain their feet. In those few seconds Jim was gone, running through the crowd like a bull, bowling people over, spinning people around, dodging and twisting…

Ellery shouted at him, but Jim ran on. The detectives were on their feet now, running too, revolvers out uselessly. To fire would mean hitting innocent people. They pushed through, cursing and ashamed.

And then Ellery saw that Jim's madness was not madness at all. For a quarter way down the hill, past all the parked cars, stood a single great car, its nose pointed away from the cemetery. No one was in it; but the motor had been kept running, Ellery knew, for Jim leaped in and the car shot forward at once. By the time the two detectives reached a clear space, and fired down the hill, the big limousine was a toy in the distance. It was careering crazily and going at a great speed. And after another few moments, the detectives reached their own car and took up the chase, one driving, the other still firing wildly. But Jim was well out of range by this time and everyone knew he had a splendid chance of escaping. The two cars disappeared.

For some moments there was no sound on the hillside but the sound of the wind in the trees. Then the crowd shouted, and swept over the Wrights and their friends, and automobiles began flying down the hill in merry clouds of dust, as if this were a paid entertainment and their drivers were determined not to miss the exciting climax.

Hermy lay on the living-room settee, and Pat and Lola were applying cold vinegar compresses to her head while John F. turned the pages of one of his stamp albums with great deliberation, as if it were one of the most important things in the world. He was in a corner by the window to catch the late afternoon light. Clarice Martin was holding Hermy's hand tightly in an ecstasy of remorse, crying over her defection during the trial and over Nora and over this last shocking blow. And Hermy—Hermy the Great!—was comforting her friend!

Lola slapped a new compress so hard on her mother's forehead that Hermy smiled at her reproachfully. Pat took it away from her angry sister and set it right.

At the fireplace Dr Willoughby and Mr Queen conversed in low tones. Then Judge Martin came in from outdoors. And with him was Carter Bradford.

Everything stopped, as if an enemy had walked into camp. But Carter ignored it. He was quite pale, but held himself erect; and he kept from looking at Pat, who had turned paler than he. Clarice Martin was frankly frightened. She glanced quickly at her husband, but Judge Eli shook his head and went over to the window to seat himself by John F. and watch the fluttering pages of the stamp album, so gay with color.

‘I don't want to intrude, Mrs Wright,' said Carter stiffishly ‘But I had to tell you how badly I feel about—all this.'

‘Thank you, Carter,' said Hermy. ‘Lola, stop babying me! Carter, what about—' Hermy swallowed—'Jim?'

‘Jim got away, Mrs Wright.'

‘I'm
glad
,' cried Pat. ‘Oh, I'm so very glad!'

Carter glanced her way. ‘Don't say that, Patty. That sort of thing never winds up right. Nobody “gets away.” Jim would have been better…advised to have stuck it out.'

‘So that you could hound him to his death, I suppose! All over again!'

‘Pat.' John F. left his stamp album where it was. He put his thin hand on Carter's arm. ‘It was nice of you to come here today, Cart. I'm sorry if I was ever harsh with you. How does it look?'

‘Bad, Mr Wright.' Carter's lips tightened. ‘Naturally, the alarm is out. All highways are being watched. It's true he got away, but it's only a question of time before he's captured—'

‘Bradford,' inquired Mr Queen from the fireplace, ‘have you traced the getaway car?'

‘Yes.'

‘Looked like a put-up job to me,' muttered Dr Willoughby. ‘That car was in a mighty convenient place, and the motor was running!'

‘Whose car is it?' demanded Lola.

‘It was rented from Homer Findlay's garage in Low Village this morning.'

‘Rented!' exclaimed Clarice Martin. ‘By whom?'

‘Roberta Roberts.'

Ellery said: ‘Ah,' in a tone of dark satisfaction, and nodded as if that were all he had wanted to know. But the others were surprised.

Lola tossed her head. ‘Good for her!'

‘Carter let me talk to the woman myself just now,' said Judge Eli Martin wearily. ‘She's a smart female. Insists she hired the car just to drive to the cemetery this morning.'

‘And that she left the motor running by mistake,' added Carter Bradford dryly.

‘And was it a coincidence that she also turned the car about so that it pointed down the hill?' murmured Mr Queen.

‘That's what I asked her,' said Carter. ‘Oh, there's no question about her complicity, and Dakin's holding her. But that doesn't get Jim Haight back, nor does it give us a case against this Roberts woman. We'll probably have to let her go.' He said angrily: ‘I never did trust that woman!'

‘She visited Jim on Sunday,' remarked Ellery reflectively.

‘Also yesterday! I'm convinced she arranged the escape with Jim then.'

‘What difference does it make?' Hermy sighed. ‘Escape—no escape—Jim won't ever escape.' Then Hermy said a queer thing, considering how she had always claimed she felt about her son-in-law and his guilt. Hermy said: ‘Poor Jim,' and closed her eyes.

The news arrived at ten o'clock that same night. Carter Bradford came over again and this time he went directly to Pat Wright and took her hand. She was so astonished she forgot to snatch it away. Carter said gently: ‘It's up to you and Lola now, Pat.'

‘What…on earth are you talking about?' asked Pat in a shrill tight voice.

‘Dakin's men have found the car Jim escaped in.'

‘
Found it?
'

Ellery Queen rose from a dark corner and came over into the light. ‘If it's bad news, keep your voices down. Mrs Wright's just gone to bed, and John F. doesn't look as if he could take any more today. Where was the car found?'

‘At the bottom of a ravine off Route 478A, up in the hills. About fifty miles from here.'

‘Lord,' breathed Pat, staring.

‘It had crashed through the highway rail,' growled Carter, ‘just past a hairpin turn. The road is tricky up there. Dropped about two hundred feet—'

‘And Jim?' asked Ellery.

Pat sat down in the love seat by the fireplace, looking up at Cart as if he were a judge about to pronounce doom. ‘Found in the car.' Cart turned aside. ‘Dead.' He turned back and looked humbly at Pat. ‘So that's the end of the case. It's the end, Pat…'

‘Poor Jim,' whispered Pat.

‘I want to talk to you two,' said Mr Queen. It was very late. But there was no time. Time had been lost in the nightmare. Hermione had heard and Hermione had gone to pieces. Strange that the funeral of her daughter should have found her strong, and the news of her son-in-law's death weak. Perhaps it was the crushing tap after the heavy body blows. But Hermy collapsed, and Dr Willoughby spent hours with her trying to get her to sleep. John F. was in hardly better case: he had taken to trembling, and the doctor noticed it, and packed him off to bed in a guest room while Lola assisted with Hermy and Pat helped her father up the stairs…Now it was over, and they were both asleep, and Lola had locked herself in, and Dr Willoughby had gone home, sagging. ‘I want to talk to you two,' said Mr Queen.

Carter was still there. He had been a bed of rock for Hermy this night. She had actually clung to him while she wept, and Mr Queen thought this, too, was strange. And then he thought: No, this is the rock, the last rock, and Hermy clings. If she lets go, she drowns, they all drown. That is how she must feel. And he repeated: ‘I want to talk to you two.'

Pat was suspended between worlds. She had been sitting beside Ellery on the porch, waiting for Carter Bradford to go home. Limply and far away. And now Carter had come out of the house, fumbling with his disreputable hat and fishing for some graceful way to negotiate the few steps of the porch and reach the haven of night shadows beyond, on the lawn.

‘I don't think there's anything you can have to say that I'd want to hear,' said Carter huskily; but he made no further move to leave the porch.

‘Ellery—don't,' said Pat, taking his hand in the gloom.

Ellery squeezed the cold young flesh. ‘I've got to. This man thinks he's a martyr.
You
think you're being a heroine in some Byronic tragedy. You're both fools, and that's the truth.'

‘Good night!' said Carter Bradford.

‘Wait, Bradford. It's been a difficult time and an especially difficult day. And I shan't be in Wrightsville much longer.'

‘Ellery!' Pat wailed.

‘I've been here much too long already, Pat. Now there's nothing to keep me—nothing at all.'

‘Nothing…at all?'

‘Spare me your tender farewells,' snapped Cart. Then he laughed sheepishly and sat down on the step near them. ‘Don't pay any attention to me, Queen. I'm in a fog these days. Sometimes I think I must be pretty much of a drip.'

Pat gaped at him. ‘Cart—
you?
Being humble?'

‘I've grown up a bit these past few months,' mumbled Cart.

‘There's been a heap of growing up around here these past few months,' said Mr Queen mildly. ‘How about you two being sensible and proving it?'

Pat took her hand away. ‘Please, Ellery—'

‘I know I'm meddling, and the lot of the meddler is hard,' sighed Mr Queen. ‘But just the same, how about it?'

‘I thought you were in love with her,' said Cart gruffly.

‘I am.'

‘Ellery!' cried Pat. ‘You never
once
—'

‘I'll be in love with that funny face of yours as long as I live,' said Mr Queen wistfully. ‘It's a lovely funny face. But the trouble is, Pat, that you're not in love with
me
.' Pat stumbled over a word, then decided to say nothing. ‘You're in love with Cart.'

Pat sprang from the porch chair. ‘What if I was! Or am! People don't forget hurts and burns!'

‘Oh, but they do,' said Mr Queen. ‘People are more forgetful than you'd think. Also, they have better sense than we sometimes give them credit for. Emulate them.'

‘It's impossible,' said Pat tightly. ‘This is no time for silliness, anyway. You don't seem to realize what's happened to us in this town. We're pariahs. We've got a whole new battle on our hands to rehabilitate ourselves. And it's just Lola and me now to help Pop and Muth hold their heads up again. I'm not going to run out on them now, when they need me most.'

‘I'd help you, Pat,' said Cart inaudibly.

‘Thanks! We'll do it on our own. Is that all, Mr Queen?'

‘There's no hurry,' murmured Mr Queen.

Pat stood there for a moment, then she said goodnight in an angry voice and went into the house. The door huffed. Ellery and Carter sat in silence for some time.

‘Queen,' said Cart at last.

‘Yes, Bradford?'

‘This isn't over, is it?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘I have the most peculiar feeling you know something I don't.'

‘Oh,' said Mr Queen. Then he said: ‘Really?'

Carter slapped his hat against his thighs. ‘I won't deny I've been pigheaded. Jim's death has done something to me, though. I don't know why it should, because it hasn't changed the facts one iota. He's still the only one who could have poisoned Nora's cocktail, and he's still the only one who had any conceivable motive to want her to die. And yet…I'm not so sure any more.'

‘Since when?' asked Ellery in a peculiar tone.

‘Since the report came in that he was found dead.'