Five Fatal Words (18 page)

Donald Cornwall looked at his uncle with patent disgust. "Like a hospital, eh?"

His uncle, however, did not seem to resent the expression. "I have designed it on the lines of a hospital," he answered almost proudly. "Life is a great gift and since science has made it possible for us to extend it, we should make every use of the science available."

Lydia interrupted him. "I am very tired and, if you don't mind, I'd like to be shown to my room. I expect Ahdi Vado will arrive presently and when he does, have him sent to me. I'd like to have a treatment at once."

"Treatment?" Theodore repeated with interest.

"A treatment."

"Then you, too--"

Lydia shook her head with disdain. "Ahdi Vado is not a doctor. He is a great thinker. The treatments he gives me are psychic. It is the mind, the soul, the psyche, which you should have cared for during your life, not the body."

Theodore summoned his butler and Lydia was escorted from the room. He watched her go with faintly amused eyes. The scene had interested Melicent. Here, after forty years, was a result of Silas Cornwall's decision to bestow his millions upon the last child to be alive. Here sat Hannah with her locks, her keys, her system of changing bedrooms, her revolvers and her hand-picked, annually changed group of servants. That was her system for survival. Lydia's system was concentration and mental development, actuated by the diminutive, electrical Hindu. Theodore's was more obvious--sanitation, diet, medical care. They were all for the same purpose. Each one was morbidly interested in himself. Each one for almost four decades had fought a grotesque duel with chance and circumstance--a duel purely for survival.

When Lydia had gone, Hannah Cornwall wasted no time in changing the subject from family systems of longevity to the danger which hung over that family. She began on a commonplace.

"I'm sorry to descend on you like this, Theodore."

"I assure you--"

"Lydia and I practically forced ourselves upon you. You doubtless realize that we had a reason for it."

"I presumed that since three of the family have died in the past four months you thought we should be together for a while."

"It was more than that."

Theodore looked at his sister with gravity. "More?"

"Much more. Did you receive a letter from Donald about six weeks ago telling about his father's death?"

The old man turned his attention to his nephew. "I did. And I may say, Donald, that I was rather shocked by it. The idea that you should disinter your father for an autopsy--pained me. I was relieved by your words--that after your father had died, only traces of a poison common to the human system were found."

Donald was obviously disconcerted by this criticism. Whatever else of real sorrow he felt was concealed. "Do you remember the mention of a five-word message my father received shortly before his death?"

Theodore hunched his shoulders together in thought. Finally he said, "Vaguely. I remember some such thing vaguely."

Melicent looked at Donald. He was calm. Hannah, however, was plucking at the ruffles in her black dress. She spoke.

"The message was, 'Doubtless Even a Tulip Hopes.' "

"Silly business," Theodore said.

"The initials of those five words," his sister continued, "spell 'death.'"

"What!" Theodore's eyes moved from side to side. They could see him mentally quoting the message. "So it does. And he received that--that cryptogram before he died?"

"The day before," Donald replied.

"And on the afternoon Everitt was killed by the light circuit in my house, he received a telegram," Hannah added.

"What did the telegram say?" Theodore asked in a stony voice.

"It said, 'Don't Ever Alter These Horoscopes.' "

"'D,'' the old man muttered, "'E,' 'A,' 'T,' 'H.' Good Lord! Where did they come from?"

There was a short silence. Donald said, "We don't know."

Theodore rubbed his thin hands across his chin and cheeks. The hands were trembling.

His brows jerked together nervously. "And--and--Alice?" The question was almost whispered.

Melicent could feel his rising tension. He was being told for the first time of the grim horror which was even then on his heels. Hannah answered. "Alice's message was,

'Day's Ended, Arrested, Time Hesitates.'"

"Good God! Why wasn't I told?"

"We didn't dare write."

Theodore rose and paced back and forth on the bare floor of his living room. His eyes glittered. "You think, as Donald thought, that these apparent accidents--"

"Are murders." Hannah finished the word with clenched lips.

"Murders!"

"That's not all. Did you ever notice, Theodore, that the names of five of us--Everitt, Alice, Hannah, Daniel and Theodore--when properly arranged--also spell 'death'?"

"Good Lord! I never did."

Hannah spoke the next sentences with a small, steely voice. "Neither did I until I began to wonder about the reason for anyone sending these messages and the conception behind them. Daniel has died. Everitt. Alice. In that order. 'D' is dead, in other words, and

'E' and 'A'--"

Suddenly Theodore whirled around. "And I'm 'T!' Is that what you are trying to tell me, Hannah?"

"That is why we came here."

For a moment fright held him rigid. Then a slow smile appeared on his face. It was not a happy smile, but it was one of inward comfort. "If there were murders and there is a murderer, I shall escape."

"We came to help you."

"It's not that." He glanced at them in turn. "It's something else. Something surer. Something higher."

"What do you mean?"

Theodore answered his sister. "It's very simple. My horoscope. My stars say that I shall die peacefully."

"What!"

The old man sat down in his chair again and sighed with relief. "For a moment I was frightened. Only for a moment."

"You don't mean to tell me, Theodore Cornwall, that you put any faith in--in horoscopes?"

"My dear sister, you don't know what you're talking about. I put absolute faith in them."

"Ridiculous!"

He drew into himself. "Very well. Call it ridiculous. I shan't attempt to show you the relation of the stars to the life of the individual. Not at all. But from my own knowledge of the stars and through the interpretation of persons gifted in reading them, I have found a perfect way of conducting my life. Consider the present moment. You come to me trembling with fear. You tell me an alarming story of death messages sent to my two brothers and my sister. But my answer is ready for you. You inform me that because my name begins with 'T' a murderer is already on my trail. I can afford to laugh. I know that the stars do not lie and I know the stars. I am not to be murdered. And that's all I have to say. I'm not afraid."

"You won't take any further steps to protect yourself?"

"I shall not."

Hannah stared at her brother with a strange, hard expression, as if she half doubted that he was in his right mind. At last she shrugged. "Very well. But if you won't be careful on your own account, possibly you will on mine. After you are killed, I am to be killed. And while you live, I am safe. For my sake--"

"My dear Hannah. I know my fate. I have read my stars. You can scarcely expect me to wear bullet-proof vests to satisfy the neurotic worries of an imaginative sister when I
know
I will never die of violence."

"Imaginative? Perhaps I am. But not superstitious."

"Are you inferring that I am superstitious?"

"I should think," his sister replied, "that with all your association with medicine and science you'd know enough not to pay any attention to astrology."

"The greatest science of them all," Theodore answered stiffly. "And now you must excuse me. My butler will show you your various rooms. He will take care of any needs you have. I usually take a nap at this time. I'll see you at the dinner table."

When he had left the room Miss Cornwall spoke to Melicent and Donald. "The old fool!" Then her dread mastered her vexation. "If he won't take care of himself, we must look out for him. We must. He's 'T.' Then I come."

"Yes, Auntie," Donald answered gently. "Don't worry.

I'll watch over him. But meanwhile--wouldn't you like me to take you to your room? You must be tired."

"I am tired."

When Donald returned he found Melicent standing at one of the front windows looking out over New York City. She turned to him quickly, and smiled a little. He was so competent, so calm and reassuring.

"Are you tired, too?" he asked.

"No."

"What?"

"I don't know."

"New York's your home, isn't it? I suppose it makes you feel badly to be here and a sort of prisoner. If you want, I'll see if my aunt won't let you have a little time off so that you could get around and see some of your friends."

For a moment Melicent's heart stopped. Why shouldn't she accept that offer? Not to see her friends but to go to the police with her strange story? Then she changed her mind.

"Thanks. I'll be all right."

He stood beside her and they looked out the window together. "I want to ask you something."

"Yes?" Melicent said.

"Personal."

"I won't promise to answer."

"Only if you want to. Do you miss Granger?"

"Miss him? Of course I do."

"How do you miss him?"

"How?" she repeated. 

"I mean, were you at all in love with him?"

The question shocked her almost to laughter. She hesitated in order that she might answer as gravely as he had asked. "Of course not!"

"That's a load off my mind. Really. But you do miss him; in what way?"

"Well," replied Melicent, considering. "We came on the job together; I liked him; he was always on the lookout for me, I felt."

"On the lookout?"

"To help me, if I needed it."

"Oh."

"And he was the only outsider on the inside, except myself."

"I see," said Donald. "And I don't mind your missing him that way. Obviously, he was in love with you; how could he help being? But as you're not in love with him, are you with me?"

She looked up at him, her dark eyes mocking his serious attentiveness. "Briefly, no."

"I was afraid you weren't. Could you be?"

"How am I to tell?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. But try. For instance, you might suggest just what one ought to do to attract your attention and your favor. Orchids every day? Candy? I'm handicapped in my suit by circumstance. But I'm very nice. Good disposition. High I.Q. Educated. Have a considerable fortune inherited from my father's share of the Cornwall annual interest on the estate. I won't try to hide the fact that I'm connected with one of the least sensible families on earth--I couldn't. But personally--I'm very nice."

She nodded. "I think you are."

"You do!"

"I do!"

He bent down and kissed her quickly on the top of the head.

She looked up at him; his entire face was radiant. He backed away, gazing at her, unable to keep his eyes from her; near the door, he waved at her and vanished from the room. It was several minutes before the naturalness and pleasantness of the interlude faded from Melicent's mind. The smile fled with the fading.

When Donald came in again, her mood had changed. He neither mentioned nor apologized for the kiss; they began to discuss together practical plans. If Theodore Cornwall actually did not mean to take precautions against murder, what would they do? Were they surely right that murder must have been done, even in the fog? The engrossing, elusive enigma of the Cornwall fates engaged them.

Finally, Melicent went to Miss Cornwall's room where she found the old lady seated on the floor beside the tin box which had been her chief care when Blackcroft burned and which had accompanied her everywhere since.

For the first time, Melicent saw it open. It was the size of a small trunk and was filled, Melicent judged, with letters tied in packets, with old photographs and small books that looked like diaries. Miss Cornwall had untied a couple of the packets of letters and evidently was searching for some particular one. She paid no attention to Melicent's presence after she saw who it was that entered. Soon she located her quarry; for she read and reread one page with considerable satisfaction, tied up the other letters, returned them to the box and locked it.

"Now," she announced, "I am ready for dinner."

She so plainly felt triumphant over the surprise she had prepared for someone at the table, that Melicent was distinctly disappointed when the meal began and progressed without incident.

They were four at the table, Hannah, Theodore, Donald and Melicent. Lydia was not present; for Ahdi Vado had arrived and, after her restorative treatment, she had remained in her rooms and he dined with her.

The four in the dining room had reached the dessert when Hannah brought up the subject of horoscope again.

"I'd like to have mine cast," she said.

Theodore nodded. "You should." He took a sip of the decaffined substitute for coffee which he habitually drank. "I have a fresh one made every year."

"Really? Does it come out?"

"Invariably. It's scientific."

Hannah nodded. "Based on what?"

His health systems and his astrology were the two subjects upon which Theodore could talk glibly. He launched into the latter. "Based on many things. The date and hour and place of your birth, particularly. I have in recent years consulted Priscilla Loring.

You've undoubtedly heard of her. She's an infallible astrologist. If you'd like to have your horoscope read, she can do it. You'd do as I did. Go to her. I tell her I was born on the eighteenth of February at four-fifteen A.M. in 1864--"

Melicent saw Hannah Cornwall's face stiffen momentarily and she interrupted her brother. "Is that what you told this Priscilla Loring and the others?"

He nodded. "That's my birthday and hour. You'd give your own, of course. As accurately as possible. The first promise of my stars has been that if I live carefully and quietly I shall die peacefully in the middle of my eighties. The second--"