Chiffon Scarf (29 page)

“Tell you—”

But he didn’t finish. He said, instead, smiling a little: “Shall we go?”

He helped her to her feet. The sun was still golden; the sky still blue. The great silver plane stretched its wings above them. Away off in the distance a blue mountain rim was like a wall. The plane shut off their view of the cottonwoods and, the house; Jim looked down at her and took her in his arms and kissed her—kissed her as if it were breath and life and existence—kissed her as if he never would stop.

But he did stop. He stopped and looked down at her without speaking and at last took her hand lightly and they went back to the ranch house.

It was that night that Eden had another long talk with Sloane. The intervening hours she was never able to remember with any degree of certainty. There were conferences, telephone calls, cars coming and going; the sheriff arrived, and an hour or so later departed, his automobile clattering swiftly away, waking echoes from the twilight-edged mountains.

She had told Sloane everything she knew; Dorothy, she thought, had talked to the detective again, too; she saw her emerge from Sloane’s study with her face as blank and white as a piece of marble. Averill waited, too, and questioned. She was still assured, still certain of herself. She asked Jim if he thought the Blaine Company would suffer from the publicity.

“After all,” she said, “Noel was a vice-president and owned stock.” She shook her head slowly. “I can’t understand it. He didn’t make much money, it’s true. Nothing compared to what he once had—what he was born with. But he made enough to support himself so long as he didn’t buy—well, yachts and polo ponies and—”

“But those were the things he had to have. Or at least as much as whatever price he could get for the engine would allow him. You know yourself, Averill, he was only a cipher. He did what he was told—that’s all. He—I think it goes deeper, perhaps, even than greed. When he was rich he was somebody—and he’d been rich all his life until he lost his money. He knew exactly how much—how little rather—we valued him. When Dorothy showed him the letter offering money for information, it must have been the opening wedge. It showed him a way to make money; he would prevent Pace’s buying it by disabling the engine himself, for the deal was to be closed that day; he had to work fast. And then he would sell the plans to the highest bidder. And if he remembered the number of the post-office box it would give him a line on a possible purchaser. Although,” said Jim soberly, “purchasers for that kind of thing are not hard to find these days.”

Averill looked at him speculatively.

“If we can hush the thing up,” she said, “the plant may not suffer from it. And I don’t see why we can’t. Jim, I want to explain something—”

“My dear, there’s nothing to explain,” said Jim cheerfully.

“Oh yes, there is, Jim darling.” Averill was never more demure, never so sweetly winning. “Surely you didn’t believe me this morning when I—we must have a long talk. We are free now, aren’t we, to go on to the plantation?”

“Yes,” said Jim, “we can go any time.”

But someone came in just then and asked for Jim and he went out.

There was a confused kind of meal served sometime during that interval by Chango. And at seven o’clock the little new moon came serenely above the mountains and by nine was bright and gentle, away up in the blue sky.

“What have they done with him, Jim?”

“Sheriff took him to the hospital. I—doubt if there’s much chance. It’s better that way, of course.”

After a long moment Eden said: “He was like a different man—there in the plane. He—perhaps we never really knew him.”

“He was not the kind of man one knows. We thought we knew him because there seemed so little to know. He’s easygoing, always agreeable, always pleasant. Never seemed burdened with brains or force of character.” Jim stopped and then said: “And he was always charming. He relied on that. With Dorothy—with Creda, when she met him that day and told him what she knew.”

“When she met him—”

“Wilson saw him leave, walking out toward the arroyo, and he saw Creda go in the same direction a little later. He told Noel, trusting him as he didn’t trust Sloane or me. It was Wilson you saw that night, Eden; and Noel saw him, too. Wilson didn’t see Noel, but Noel leaped to the conclusion that Wilson had seen him and, when they talked late that night, that Wilson’s aim was to make money from Noel. I don’t think Wilson saw Noel murder Creda; I don’t think he had any such plan in his mind. It’s a case of the wicked flee where no man pursueth. Noel was in a state to doubt everything and everyone.”

“How do you know Wilson told him anything?”

“Wilson told Strevsky that he’d seen Noel and Creda go for a walk that afternoon; they went separately but in the same direction and out of sight of the house. Strevsky, thickheaded and set on Pace as a suspect, never told anyone, didn’t consider it important. To him Noel was a boss and all right. Wilson told Strevsky, too, that he’d been strolling around near the cabin that night when Creda was murdered but he was afraid to tell Sloane for fear Sloane would suspect him. He asked Strevsky what to do; Strevsky said to keep mum about it. But Strevsky didn’t come out with any of this until we found Wilson’s diary. A little, flat book which Noel overlooked. Or rather didn’t take time to search out. God knows how he managed to get Wilson away from the house and murder him. He wouldn’t tell that.”

“You mean he has confessed?”

“I don’t know,” said Jim slowly. “He and Sloane and the sheriff were alone a long time. Whether or not he’s told the whole story, they’ve got a complete case. I do know though (Sloane told me) that Noel saw Wilson and thought Wilson knew. So he had to kill him. But he missed the little diary. Wilson had written a few lines along with dates with girls, and the amount of money he’d put in the savings bank and the fifty-five cents he’d lost in a crap game. He was nineteen. He said he’d been walking near the cabins; that he had seen you find Creda and didn’t tell Sloane for fear of getting into trouble. And that he thought he’d better ask somebody else’s advice. He said, ‘Mr. Carreaux is always kind.’ ”

Sloane came along the porch and said: “There you are. Everything all right, Miss Shore? I’m sorry you had such a scare. But it was nip and tuck really. You see Carreaux was riding in the rear of the rest of us—he gradually dropped back and returned. If he was seen any of the boys thought merely that he’d changed his mind and decided not to go with us. When we saw that, we came back.”

Jim said: “P. H., will you tell Eden the whole thing? And me?”

The rancher looked out into the still night, with the serene new moon climbing the southern sky. After a moment he sighed.

“It’s about as we figured it out, Jim. We’ve got a partial, confession. We’ve pinned down facts that were surmise. He saw Creda in Averill’s cabin; when it’s lighted it’s clearly visible from this end of the porch and thus from the window where he sat. It’s also very near if you cross through the pines instead of going by the path. He saw the exchange of coats, so he knew Creda was wearing the yellow coat. He’d been watching his chance for she’d been fool enough to tell him she knew; she’d started to write her note in the cabin; he simply walked out the window; he must have come to the cabin window and told her to meet him outside and she did, leaving the note. The circumstances of the murder itself are as we guessed though I could get very little of it from him. He had his revolver; he had the knife; he appears to have been frightened, nervous; it was bound to be a blundering kind of thing, as it was. When he came into the cabin after she escaped him, his revolver in his hand, knowing he had to finish the blundering job he’d begun, she had fainted and he saw the chiffon scarf. That made the murder silent and quick. He forgot the revolver. It had fallen under the coat. He wasn’t particularly smart, although he had a certain amount of cunning. At any rate, he simply returned to the lounge the way he had gone; I was at the piano; the thing hadn’t taken long, ten minutes at the most; no one except Dorothy saw him. I had my back turned toward him; so had Jim and Averill. Pace was sitting in the other window embrasure and couldn’t have seen him. So Dorothy lied and gave him an alibi.”

There were the quick, light taps of heels across the porch. Averill came up beside them and put her white slender hand on Jim’s arm.

“Let’s walk, Jim darling,” she said. Her voice was soft and very sweet; she put her black smooth hair against Jim’s shoulder. He looked down at her and said: “All right—”

Eden, trying to listen to Sloane, watched them leave. Along the path, toward the shadow of the pines, Averill’s slender figure pressed close against Jim.

It was a long time before they returned. Sloane talked steadily. As if he were checking and arranging the whole story in his mind, finally, rather than informing her. She must have heard what he said for she did realize that surmises and conjectures appeared now as facts, proven, or about to be proven. But she didn’t really listen. And apparently he expected no comment.

“There will always remain,” he said, “a point or two that is obscure, that will always be explained by implication. Exactly how, for instance, he and Wilson managed to get away from the house the night of the murder without being seen; how he killed Wilson with Chango’s hatchet; how he returned alone, again without being seen. It was a very dark night. I suppose he simply carried the hatchet, hidden under his coat, and invited Wilson to walk with him.”

A slight commotion arose at the door; a car swept up to it, its lights glancing ahead. Major Pace and two bags appeared on the threshold. Pace came toward them; he had his gray overcoat over his arm, a cigar and a fedora in his hand. He spoke to Sloane, he spoke to Eden, he bowed and went away. Getting into the car, vanishing into the night. As mysteriously as he had come.

The lights of the car and the beat of its engine gradually diminished.

And Averill and Jim returned, walking slowly along the path. At the steps to the porch they separated. Averill went inside, the light shining for an instant on her smooth black head. Jim came toward them.

Sloane rose and said: “So that’s all, Miss Shore.”

Jim said: “Not quite all. Eden—”

Sloane had walked away; he stopped under the light to roll himself a cigarette with anxious, loving care and then he, too, disappeared.

And Jim directly, without preamble, took Eden tight in his arms.

“Will you marry me?” he said.

“Jim—”

“I didn’t mean what I said, about its being a mistake, Eden, you must have known that. I couldn’t help it; it was Averill; she said she would tell Sloane that you and she had quarreled—”

“She did tell him that.”

“She said she had evidence that would involve you; she—Eden, you’ve got to understand. Averill is an opportunist, and she had the stronger hand. I don’t think in her heart she ever believed you murdered Creda. But she resolved to turn the circumstances to suit her purpose.” His voice was a little rueful; she felt rather than saw through the dusk a little grin on his face. “I can’t flatter myself that it was my personal attraction; Averill has pride and ambition and she—she hated being a loser, especially to you, more than she loved me. Eden—” His voice became sober, “I want you to know this; I became engaged to Averill before I saw you. She never loved me but she was jealous of her possessions. I don’t know exactly how our engagement came to be, except her father wished it. At any rate, it’s all over now and in the past and, Eden—” His voice broke a little. He held her close in his arms and said unsteadily: “I love you so—”

The little new moon away above traveled serenely along its prescribed course; what is destined to be, is destined. Jim said presently, “Tomorrow we’ll fly back. Averill is going on by train. Dorothy is going with her. There’ll be just you and me and all the sky and stars around us.”

The night was cold and clear and the stars bright. The distant mountain rim looked silver.

“We’ll come back,” said Eden softly, her voice a bare whisper in the silent night.

“Together,” said Jim. “You haven’t answered me, Eden. Will you marry me?”

A pause.

“Yes, Jim,” very low.

Another pause. Then:

“Tomorrow, Eden? P. H. can fix the license. Will you—tomorrow?”

After a moment she turned in his arms and lifted her face.

He said a little huskily: “If that’s my answer—” And stopped.

It was as if the clear stars, the serene little moon in the dark blue sky, the distant silver rim of mountains, all the night and many nights belonged to them.

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copyright © 1939 by Mignon G. Eberhart

cover design by Heidi North

978-1-4532-5731-9

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