House Of Storm (12 page)

Well, then, who had killed her?

A workman, cherishing some kind of grudge? What workman, out of probably hundreds who over the years of Hermione’s residence on Beadon Island could—and probably did—quarrel with her? That would be something for others, something for the police, the people who lived on the island, the people who had known and lived with Hermione all that time, to sort out, sift, finally identify.

Perhaps it was not a workman. Perhaps it was simply somebody else who hated Hermione. And who—like Dick, like Jim—might have struck in desperate deadly defense.

Somebody else. But there were not many people who knew her well enough to hate her. Murder implies a certain intimacy. Hatred implies a dreadful fellowship.

Time passed and the night grew darker and deeper and the tempo of the insect cacophony drowsier, but the events of the day—so many and so important and yet so swift—went in an unceasing whirl through Nonie’s mind. How could she have hoped to sleep! What were they doing at Middle Road?

She was still wide awake when at last a car came into the driveway. She heard the crunch of wheels, and saw the glancing rays of light from its headlamps flashing for an instant upon her balcony, outlining the French windows and the vine-hung balustrade for a second before the car passed on and came to a halt in the shell-paved oval.

She lay listening. She thought she heard voices. So Aurelia was still downstairs, still waiting for him. It was a long time, however, before she heard steps on the stairs. Roy, of course; his brisk, heavy steps were easily recognizable. And Aurelia, perhaps, and—she listened and thought, there’s someone else.

The police already? Seabury Jenkins? She sat up, the mosquito netting touching her face softly. There were voices now, half-whispered, half-murmured down the hall—and Roy’s heavy quick footsteps coming along it. He stopped outside her door and tapped lightly. “Nonie!”

“I’m awake.” She reached out, fumbling for the bed lamp.

“May I come in?”

“Yes, of course.” She found the light and snapped it on as Roy opened the door and came in.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

“Oh, yes, Roy. What has happened? What have they done?” Have they arrested Jim? Her thudding heart wanted to know.

Roy sighed and sat down wearily on the foot of the chaise longue near her. “Did you hear the car? I hoped it wouldn’t wake you.”

He looked tired; his face sagged with weariness; his dinner clothes, the white jacket and crimson cummerbund were strangely out of place just then; his coat was damp and wrinkled with a great streak of dirt across one sleeve.

“No, I was awake. I couldn’t sleep.”

“How could you!” He sighed again and took off his glasses and began to wipe them slowly with his handkerchief. “Well, there’s nothing more we can do now. It’s a bad business, no mistake.”

“Do they know who killed her?”

He shook his head. “We know no more than we did. We phoned Port Iles. Talked to the commissioner; he’ll be over in the morning himself, bringing the constabulary.” Roy gave another heavy sigh and replaced his glasses and smiled at her reassuringly. “Don’t worry about that, though. They’ll only ask you to tell what you saw, and it’s little enough. As a matter of fact, there’s a real storm working up. This rain tonight was only a little preliminary scuffle. The police commissioner is not likely to stay here at Beadon long. We’ve all got small boats hereabouts and nobody’s going to take chances with them. We know the islands and the sea too well for that.”

“What did the police commissioner say?”

“Well, he didn’t say anything much. He knew Hermy slightly, of course. He agreed that Jim and Seabury had had to move the body. He told us to get Doctor Riordan to look at it; he’s the medical examiner for the island—but you know that. I said we’d already got him, and then Riordan talked to him.”

“And it was murder?” She realized then that she’d been holding a small concealed hope that it would be, after all, suicide.

“Oh, yes. Couldn’t be anything else. Unfortunately. Riordan said she died instantly; that’s a blessing.”

“What else did they say?”

“Well, not very much. It was a bad connection—always is when it storms. Couldn’t hear very well. Mainly, they said to see the body—search the place—we’d already done that—for clues or for any sort of evidence. Dick talked too; and he’s in charge, of course. Dick’s all right; smart as anybody when he’s himself. They wanted to know if she’d been robbed. So far as we knew she hadn’t been. Wanted to know if anybody had threatened her.”

“Threatened! What did you say?”

“Dick was talking. He said ‘no.’ ”

There was a little silence. The soft night drone of the night outside the balcony seemed louder. There was a distant murmur of voices somewhere. Roy rubbed his forehead wearily and reached for a cigarette from the small crystal box on the bed table. “Do you mind?”

She shook her head and watched the small flame from his lighter touch his face to a ruddier color, reflect itself briefly in his glasses and his fine dark eyes. “Of course, the truth will come out. Her quarrel with Jim—everybody on the island probably knows that he left and why. And the fact that she came here and made a scene with Dick tonight.”

“She fired Dick.”

“Yes, but I don’t think she meant it. And in any case murdering her wouldn’t get Dick’s job back.”

“And in any case he has an alibi,” she said slowly. “He was here after she went home. He was with me in the car at the time when she must have been shot.”

He nodded almost absently. The mosquito netting between them was like a pale mist, like a veil. He said, “I’m sorry, too, that it happened just now, Nonie. So shortly before our wedding.”

But there is to be no wedding. Roy, Roy, I’m sorry. No marriage, no wedding … She didn’t say the words actually but they were there, on her tongue, ready. She thrust at the mosquito netting with fumbling hands. “Roy, I must tell you—I’ve got to tell you now …”

“Don’t push that netting loose, Nonie. You’ll be pestered all night with mosquitoes. That’s the curse of the tropics. Oh there you are, Jim.”

She looked up and Jim was standing in the doorway looking at her with his heart in his eyes.

A
URELIA STOOD BEHIND HIM.
Roy was rising. “I brought Jim back with me. He can’t stay at Middle Road—not as things are. Certainly not until the police get through with it. Dick has really no room for him in his shack. He didn’t want to come but I made him. Beadon Gates is the place for you, Jim, just now.”

Jim said nothing. Aurelia said nothing. Jim was tired, too—his hair disheveled, his face white.

Roy came to her and looked down, smiling. “Aurelia’s going to make us all go to bed. Good night, my dear. Happy dreams in spite of everything. None of this concerns you and me. Remember that and sleep.”

He leaned over and kissed her, lightly, through the netting. Jim, in the doorway, took a step forward but whatever he meant to say to Roy was forestalled by Roy himself, for he turned toward Jim and said: “Jim, I’m going to give you some advice. Don’t tell the police any more about your quarrel with Hermione than you have to. I mean—you told Seabury, and that’s all right because he and the police would be sure to learn about it in any case. And Dick already knew it. But threats …”

“I said I’d kill her if I stayed.”

“You didn’t mean it—but it’s the kind of thing the police will look for. Words that can be quoted to a jury. Only Nonie and I heard you. Neither of us will tell the police. But just don’t—” he went to Jim and put his hand on Jim’s shoulder—“just don’t tell it yourself!”

Aurelia said: “No more talking now. It’s very late. Come with me, Jim. I’ll show you your room.”

Jim shot a quick look at Nonie, which could say nothing. Roy said, “Aurelia’s right. Good night, Nonie.” He snapped out the table light and put his arm around Jim’s shoulders. Nonie could see them through the hazy netting, outlined against the light from the hall. Aurelia led the way, firmly, into the hall. Roy’s hand came out and closed the door.

Would Roy have welcomed Jim if he had known the truth?

She slept suddenly and deeply, with no dreams of a white house with two curving flights of steps leading to a lighted veranda—no dreams even of a motor boat cleaving through blue water and white spray.

Morning dawned very still, with a pearly, subtly threatening sky, the barometer falling, the police commissioner and two other men arriving by motor boat from Port Iles before dawn, and in time for early morning coffee, and the news of the murder already, by mysterious island grapevine, having traveled the length and the breadth of the island. One of the little colored maids woke Nonie.

It was still dark in the big room and the maid had turned on the light. She had in her hand a cup of the thick, hot and fragrant early coffee that was as much a part of the planter’s life, and routine as the early inspection of his crop, and her pretty face was alert and curious as a terrier’s. The cross suspended on a thin chain at her slim young neck swung as she lifted the mosquito netting. Her bright flounced calico skirt and white short-sleeved blouse rustled with excitement. She spoke, as did the other colored people on the island, a singularly pure English with broad
a
’s and clipped distinct consonants, learned and remembered from the first early planters out from England in the seventeen hundreds. She, like the others, could also fall into a jargon, an incomprehensible patois of their own, based remotely on the English tongue. She said now: “Good morning, Lady. Master said to wake you. The police are here.”

Lady, instead of Miss, instead of Madam, again was a part of the island tongue, part of the Caribbean phraseology. No, Lady, yes, Lady, thank you, Lady. Nonie had grown accustomed to it as she had to the early hours at which the planter’s day began. At sunrise the working day was already begun; the early cool hours must of necessity be utilized before noon poured down its steaming blanket of heat and sun. Usually, however, she slept later. She had joined Roy a few times for coffee before he went on his early tour of the plantation but as a rule she did not, so she was not so well accustomed to the eeriness of very early morning—the lingering gray and black shadows of the night, the stillness and the silence, the swathed dark sea, the stirring light toward the east. She roused, feeling as if she had not been asleep at all, staring at the colored girl. And then suddenly coming to her senses at the word police. Hermione! Jim!

She took the extended cup. The doors upon the balcony were only faintly lighter than at night.

“It must be very early.”

“Yes, Lady.”

She swallowed hot steaming coffee.

“Police? From Port Iles, you mean?”

“Yes, Lady. The commissioner of police. Two other men.”

“Where are they now?”

“On the veranda.”

“Did Mr. Beadon tell you to call me to see them?”

“Yes, Lady. Quickly, if you please. They wish to leave before the storm.”

“Tell Mr. Beadon I’ll be down at once.”

“Yes, Lady.” The bright calico skirt whirled out of the room, the door closed gently under the slender small hand. Nonie gulped the coffee, grateful for it and for the moment of respite it gave her. She finished it quickly, slid out from the entangling folds of mosquito netting, ducked her face in cold water, got quickly into shirt and slacks and slung a red sweater around her shoulders. She stopped again for an instant at the mirror, and thought swiftly as she did so of the day before, when she had stopped like that on her way downstairs to meet Jim, and had seen in her face a difference, a change that she knew even then ought not to have been there.

She must talk to Roy. Her heart gave a sort of lurch; this was another day. Wednesday was twenty-four hours nearer.

The face that looked back at her was troubled and pale; there were small black shadows under her eyes. She brushed back her hair quickly and ran downstairs. The lights were on in the great lustered chandelier and on the veranda, looking eerie and cold against the deep shadows beyond. The sea was barely touched with light and seemed very far away, lost in those intermingled shadows. There was a wet, cool fragrance of rain and growing things and sea.

As she reached the veranda door she paused. Men were seated around a table with the remains of an early breakfast upon it. Roy was there and Jim, and three strangers. One, a slight, wiry man with reddish hair and a deep red sunburn, was wearing khaki shorts and shirt; the other two were in uniform. The man with the red hair and red sunburn was smoking and appeared to be talking. Roy was facing him, listening, and Jim, his black head and straight nose and chin clear against the gray-black shadows beyond the railing seemed to be listening too, making circles on the tablecloth with his fork. She opened the door and Roy heard her and rose. As he moved Jim turned quickly, sprang to his feet, and came toward her.

“Nonie,” said Roy, “I’m sorry to get you up so early, my dear.” Jim stopped and Roy took her hand and led her toward the table. She looked at Jim and he was looking at her but she could discover nothing in his look as to how the interview was going, what had been said, what view the commissioner took of the murder. It was only a brief glance, uncommunicative, unsatisfactory. Jim looked white and tired and there was an air of tension which her arrival did not break. Then Roy was introducing her to the men at the table who, too, had risen.

“… Major Wells, the police commissioner for our district. Sergeant Morris, Sergeant Donegan. This is my fiancée, Major Wells; our wedding is to be this week.”

Major Wells gave her a sharp, shrewd glance from small very bright hazel eyes, and bowed. “Very happy, indeed,” he said. “I congratulate you, Mr. Beadon: I had heard of your approaching marriage. I am sorry that this unfortunate and shocking thing happened just now.”

“Hermione was our neighbor for many years,” Roy said.

“I hope it will not change your plans for the wedding,” Major Wells said politely, his bright, shrewd eyes on Nonie.

Roy replied, “Oh, no. It will be very quiet.” He turned to Nonie. “My dear, these gentlemen wish to hear about your trip to Middle Road last night. They haven’t much time. According to the weather warning we are in for a real storm and they’ve got to get back to Port Iles before the sea gets too rough.”