Hasty Wedding (22 page)

“Don’t go.”

Jevan stopped and let Dorcas slide downward till she stood beside him.

“You——”

“I was downstairs. Somebody’s getting a doctor. Don’t go, Mrs Locke. Where’s the girl?”

Wait was not alone; two plain-clothes men and two policemen crowded into the kitchen and with them Sophie. Sophie, neat and trim in her black coat with the silver fox collar and small black hat and pearl earrings, but she was frightened and pale and put her arm around Dorcas.

“Good God, Dorcas, why did you come here? I saw you. I had to follow you. Wait was already here; I couldn’t warn you. He saw me on the street and made me tell him why I came. But he already knew you were here; a policeman followed you from the house. Oh, my dear, you shouldn’t have come. What’s happened? They said somebody was hurt. What——”

“In here, please,” said someone. They followed the policeman back into the white, mirrored living room. The men were crowding at the bedroom door. They were talking and phrases came to Dorcas’ and Sophie’s ears.

“She’s dead all right.”

“Maybe not. Let me hold a mirror to her lips.”

“That’s right. Take this——”

“Easy now.”

And Wait’s voice, clear: “Who is she?”

Jevan did not reply; there were other voices and then Wait’s again: “Get lights. They’re likely cut off. O’Brien. Phone down and tell the janitor to turn ’em on again. Hones, get out there at the door. Now then, Locke, who is this girl? Is she the one that came to the house and——”

“It’s Elise,” said Jevan.

“Elise. Elise who? Why did you shoot her?”

“I didn’t shoot her.”

The man O’Brien was shouting into the telephone and words from the bedroom were lost. Sophie and Dorcas, clutching each other’s hands, stood there listening. And O’Brien put down the telephone and began snapping lamps off and on as if doing so would hasten the electric current’s being turned on and the sputter of the matches the men were recklessly lighting died away and Wait came out of the bedroom carrying the solitary candle, and one of the policemen emerged in his wake with the flashlight.

The candle and the flashlight vied with each other, and the mirrors were crowded now with black silhouettes and Wait’s eyes shone and glistened above the candle’s flame.

“You’ll have to come clean, Locke,” he said. “I’ve got you.” His dark eyes swept around the room and singled out Dorcas for a second and he said to Jevan, “You can still keep your wife out of it. If you’ll confess——”

“No, no, Jevan,” cried Dorcas on a great surge of terror. “You mustn’t. You——”

“Hush, Dorcas,” said Jevan quietly. “I’ll tell the truth, Wait. That woman in there is the woman who came to the house. The woman we’ve been trying to find. You see, she was Drew’s wife. Elise——”

“Drew’s wife? He wasn’t married. We’d have found the record.”

“Oh yes,” said Jevan. “He was married. Nobody knew it; he was married in another county and the record is there; they kept it a secret, or rather he did, and they didn’t get along and separated but not legally. And Elise——” He stopped and said: “Do you think she’ll live?”

“I don’t know. The doctor will be here in a few minutes,” said Wait and Sophie stirred and said: “Can I do anything for her?”

“Thank you. There’s nothing we can do. We don’t dare move her until the doctor comes. The best thing for her is to wait.” Sophie sat down on the white divan beside Dorcas and Wait looked at Jevan. “Exactly what was Elise’s part in this? Did she know that Drew wanted to marry Mrs Locke?”

“I don’t know,” said Jevan. “I know only that Elise came to the house and that she was his wife. She must have known something or she couldn’t have come to see Mrs Locke. We—that is, naturally I assumed that she wanted something from my wife. And I naturally wanted to find her again—to discover what, if anything, she knew—mainly to keep her from coming again to my wife——”

“Blackmail?”

“Well, yes, I thought of it. I didn’t want my wife to be annoyed or worried by her. I didn’t really want my wife to know of the girl’s existence. And I thought—well, at first I thought either that Elise herself had killed Drew or that she had some evidence she was willing to sell. I wasn’t, of course, absolutely sure she was Drew’s wife but Bench’s description of the woman in the checked coat seemed to fit what I knew of her. And then after she’d gone—or we supposed she’d gone—I came upon a scarf. A green silk scarf; it was there at home—in the Whipple house, I mean, near the stairway. Looked as if she’d dropped it. To me, then, it was a tangible proof of the—well, the threat her visit contained. That, of course, was in the afternoon before Marcus was killed.”

“Yes.”

“As you know, I phoned Willy and we met and talked and then came back to the house. And when we got there the police were there and Marcus’ body had been found. So then I thought that Elise must have done it.”

“Why?”

“Because she’d been there and nobody saw her leave. Because conceivably Marcus could have known that she murdered Drew——”

“Murdered Drew! Do you know that she——”

“No, no. I don’t know that she murdered Drew. But I thought so then. Jealousy, a quarrel—oh, there were a hundred motives she could have had for killing him. Thus if Marcus knew of it or even if she thought he knew it, she would have had a motive for killing Marcus.”

“And why didn’t you tell me of Elise and Drew’s marriage?”

Jevan hesitated. Inside the bedroom a policeman murmured something to another policeman of which the word “minutes” alone was distinguishable.

“Because,” said Jevan. “I wanted to find Elise myself and question her.”

“That won’t do, Locke. The truth is that you did not want me to know of her existence until you had what you considered proof of her guilt. And the reason you didn’t want me to know of her was because you realized that she provided the strongest possible motive for your wife to have murdered Drew. The other woman, the wife with prior claim, the wife whose existence and claims Drew had kept a secret until he had sufficiently entangled your wife——”

“My wife was not ‘entangled.’ And my wife knew nothing of this girl, Elise.”

“But you did. And you met her here tonight. Why? Because she was to provide an out for you. Because you intended to arrange what would appear to be a suicide—a suicide that would also look like a confession. Perhaps you even intended to write a little suicide note, confessing to the murders and signed Elise. Did you?”

“No! That’s not true!” began Jevan furiously and checked himself and said more quietly: “I planned nothing of the kind. I didn’t shoot her. I have no revolver, I——”

“You could have disposed of it.”

“There’s no revolver in the apartment, Mr Wait,” said the policeman he had called O’Brien.

“I didn’t expect there would be. When the men come from headquarters have two of them make a complete search.”

“Yes sir.”

“How long, Locke, have you known of Elise and how did you know? You say that you had never seen her before.”

“That’s true. Someone told me of her. I’ve known it for—some time.”

“If you knew Drew was already married why didn’t you tell your wife—before she was your wife, that is?”

“I didn’t—want to.”

“You’d have preferred seeing her illegally married to him?”

“She didn’t marry him.”

“She might have done so. Why didn’t you tell her?”

“Reasons,” said Jevan crisply. “Perhaps I wanted her consent to our marriage on—on another basis.”

Wait shook his head impatiently. And someone at the door said quickly: “Here’s the doctor.”

Lights flashed suddenly on as the doctor arrived. Their brightness was bewildering, as if the room and all it held were plunged suddenly into a different dimension.

Dorcas blinked and took a long breath; she was sitting on the white divan beside Sophie. She caught a distant reflection of herself in a mirror opposite. A girl with an utterly stiff, blank white face and Dorcas’ hat.

The doctor, a big man, glanced curiously at the two women on the divan and tramped, heavily into the bedroom. Wait followed him. Jevan, looking very pale and tense, came to Dorcas.

“We’ll get a good lawyer,” he said and Sophie put her black-gloved hand over Dorcas’ hand.

“Exactly what
did
happen?” she asked Jevan, whispering. “Why did you and Dorcas come here?”

He could not tell her. A stretcher was being maneuvered through the bedroom door. Jevan stood in front of Dorcas so she could see only his broad, tweed-colored shoulders.

“But she’s alive,” he told her as the dismal little procession vanished. “She’s alive and has a chance.”

“A small chance,” said Wait at his side again. “So small—why did you shoot her, Locke? There’s no one else who could have done it unless it was your wife. You were both here. Which one of you shot her?”

“She didn’t shoot Elise,” said Jevan. “And I didn’t.”

Wait looked at him quietly for a moment. Then he went to the table, pulled up a small white chair and sat down. The mirrors set in dull blue walls reflected his face and the back of his glossy head a hundred times so there were a hundred Waits in the room. Wait said: “I’m arresting you now, Locke, and charging you with the murder of Drew and of Pett and with the attempted murder of that girl. Your wife told us the whole story of the night Drew was killed. She—had to do it,” said Wait with a gleam of humanity. “There was an instrument of persuasion that came to my hand and I was obliged to use it. I mean,” he explained, “a note which, coupled with some other evidence, led me to believe that Pett and Drew were partners in a scheme by which Drew was to marry Mrs Locke.” Dorcas listened while he explained carefully, fully, with irresistible truth.

Sophie listened, too, and cried: “Marcus! And we never dreamed—oh, Dorcas, it must be true. Marcus always rather favored Ronald, remember? It must be true. Did Jevan know? Is that why he——” She caught herself sharply with a frightened glance at Wait, who did not appear to have heard it, for he went on: “The night he was killed Drew made a last desperate effort to induce your wife to elope with him. He grew frantic as she resisted him and tried to force her to marry him by any means that occurred to him. He didn’t want her simply to elope with him, he wanted to marry her. Elise …” Wait paused for a second. “Elise presents a new angle. I think she must have known of his plans; perhaps he promised her money when he succeeded. In that case she might have had a fairly substantial nuisance value. Elise——” He frowned, shrugged a little and said: “I’m inclined to think, however, that Elise was only incidental, quite aside from the main issue. Perhaps she did come to your wife for money, perhaps not. If she lives we’ll know. Certainly there was a reason for silencing her; thus, certainly, she knows something. But as I see it, that is her only importance. And what she knows may be of no real importance to me. The guilty flee,” said Wait rather sententiously, “where a shadow pursues.” He paused a thoughtful moment which appeared to confirm his belief, for he went on: “At any rate you killed Drew. Your wife has told me everything——”

“Oh no, no,” cried Dorcas. “I didn’t tell——” And put both hands across her mouth. How could she let him know that they still had no proof of his presence? Jevan didn’t look at her. She started toward him and Sophie put her hand on her arm and stopped her and Jevan said steadily: “Very well then. If she’s told you everything you know that Drew was alive when she left his apartment.”

“When did you kill him?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Then your wife did and you are trying to protect her. Oh, Locke, don’t you see that it’s either you or your wife? Don’t you——”

“Don’t say anything, Jevan. Don’t——”

“Hush, Dorcas,” whispered Sophie. “Be still. Jevan will see a way.”

But Jevan didn’t. He put up his chin and looked squarely at the detective and said: “Yes, I see that. I knew it would come sometime. Well, it wasn’t my wife.”

“Is that a confession?”

“It’s nothing of the kind.” Jevan’s eyes flickered toward one of the plain-clothes men and for the first time Dorcas was aware that the plain-clothes man had a shorthand tablet in his hand and was writing. Every word of it, then, was going on that inexorable record. To be quoted later—at the trial. Her heart turned over inside her. She must stop Jevan. And she couldn’t, for he said: “Yes, I was here. After my wife had gone.”

“Was Drew alive?”

Jevan’s mouth was tight and white. He said: “I refuse to answer. I must have a lawyer.”

“You mean he was dead and your wife had shot him and you knew it?”

“No,” said Jevan. “My wife did not kill him.”

“Then you did. You killed him and then killed Pett because he knew, somehow, what you had done. And then you decoyed this girl here and shot her.”

“I didn’t shoot her.”

“Then it was your wife.”

“No.”

“Mrs Locke, why did you come here tonight? You were followed, you know, from your house and you went out of

your way to give the wrong address to the taxi driver who brought you here. My man followed you and let me know you were here and I guessed you had come to meet and warn your husband. But I didn’t guess you were—one of you or both of you—going to do murder.”

“Don’t say anything, Dorcas; you aren’t obliged to talk,” said Jevan swiftly but Dorcas cried: “No, no. Jevan was here, too, but it was the personal notice—Elise and Schumanze Court and——”

“What do you mean?”

“The notice in the personal column,” repeated Dorcas and told him.

“‘W,’” said Wait. “That means what?”

“Willy put it in,” said Jevan. “He was trying to help. He knows nothing about this except that I wanted to find Elise. So he thought he’d help and put that notice in the paper and told me of it after he had done so. So of course I came in the hope that it might, after all, bring Elise here. It’s nothing to Willy; he’s out of this entirely. I got here and came up to the apartment and it was unlocked. I came in the kitchen door and it was dark and—and no one seemed to be about. You don’t have to believe this, of course, but it’s true and I’m telling you exactly what happened.”

“Go on.”

“Well—then I came into this room. It was dark; the lights were cut off, as you know. I had tried them in the kitchen. It was perfectly still and I thought no one was here. Then all at once I heard a voice. I couldn’t tell what it was, for it was just a jumble of words, but it seemed to come from the bedroom and then all at once without any more warning than that there was a shot. Then I—I’m not sure what happened, for it was so dark, but I do know that there was the sound of somebody running and of a door banging——”