House Of Storm (8 page)

Poor Dick, she thought. The quarrel with Hermione would die down. It always did, according to island gossip. Yet it would lie there, smoldering, unforgotten, ready to flare up again.

How right Jim had been to leave!

Where was Jim by now? Jim who had said: “I’ll always love you.”

She pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. Roy would return. What would she say? How was she to say it?

The night was very black beyond the little wavering circle of lights. The stiff Spanish bayonets and bamboos and palms were clattering and clashing in the wind. Presently Jebe pattered out and removed the coffee tray. Sometime later a door banged and she knew that he was closing the French windows against the coming storm.

It was after that that Dick returned to the veranda. She looked up, startled, aware suddenly of his presence. He was looking down at her. “Nonie, I’m going home.”

“Oh, Dick, wait for Roy.”

“Going home now … Night, Nonie.” He smiled feebly and ambled across the veranda and turned toward the drive where his battered small car was waiting for him. At the steps he wavered, caught the railing, and sagged down like a sack of meal.

In the end, Nonie took him home.

There was nothing else to do. He would not wait for Roy’s return. He got himself up and into the car and actually started it. There was nothing to do but coax until he slid over on the seat and let her take the wheel. Once beyond the gates he sagged down, his head on his chest, his eyes closed.

She turned into the white, shell road and hoped he would not remember. And thought, wryly, that Hermione was right again.

The storm was not far off; the sound of the wheezing and skipping engine was almost lost in the clash of wind. It was a winding road and seemed a very long two miles. She thought she must have missed the Middle Road entrance when suddenly the white stone pillars that marked it glimmered faintly at the edge of the path of lights and she carefully turned in. The driveway was bordered on either side with pepper trees, solid clusters of blackness on the fringe of the little car’s lights; another turn and she should reach the square, lovely stone house, with its gracious proportions, its curving double flight of steps, its old, graceful grill work at the porches and windows. A window or two outlined itself and the veranda light was on so it made an area of brightness against the night. She guided the car up to the double flight of steps and stopped and turned off the engine. Dick did not move. She’d have to call Hermione, who would be pleased, vindicated, triumphant.

Down those steps only a few hours ago, Jim had come carrying bags and coat, escaping Hermione.

She got out of the car and started up the nearest flight of curving white steps. She went almost to the landing before she saw that something lay there, tossed in a heap, a green and white dress.

It was a kind of housecoat, long and silk and gayly printed. It was a woman. It was Hermione Shaw with her face turned to the lights and a black wet patch like paint all along where her face lay. It was Hermione and she was dead. Nobody could look like that and be alive.

Every smallest detail showed up with fantastic clarity; every fold of her dress, her outflung crumpled hand, the stark, uncanny way in which her green sandalled feet pointed at rigid, awkward angles. The blood had come from her breast, high up near her throat.

She’s had an accident, Nonie thought. She’s killed herself. No, no, she’s been killed!

But that is murder!

Out of nowhere, out of everywhere, there came a sudden, blinding wave of thankfulness.

Jim was gone. He had quarrelled with her, but he had gone. He was by now in New York. He was safe. No matter what happened, no matter what this thing of terror meant, Jim was safe. Nobody ever could say he had killed her.

Murder!

A wild gust of wind flung the banana trees and the palms whispering and chattering in the darkness beyond that too bright patch of light. Nothing moved there, yet the motion all around in the trees, in the shrubbery, in the violent agitated night, was so strong that Nonie caught at the railing as if she herself might be swept off into the swirling unseen turmoil.

It was exactly then that there was motion within the bright area of light. The door of the house, directly opposite the steps, flung itself open and Jim walked out.

He walked out and stopped, seeing her, and they stared at each other over the flung thing in the green and white silk dress which was no longer a woman, no longer anything.

The wind shook the night and sent shadows flying.

“JIM! JIM!” HER LIPS
moved and the wind caught up the whispered words and flung them off into the shadows.

Jim said something unintelligible and ran to her, across the wide, lighted veranda, past Hermione, down the steps. He put his arm around Nonie, holding her steady amid a swaying, crashing world. His white face bent close to her, his eyes black as the night. “Nonie, what are you doing here? They ought not to have let you come.”

She leaned against his shoulder, pushing her face into its warm and solid shelter.…

“Did Roy come with you?”

She shook her head. She felt him turn to look at the car. She would not move, she would hold her face in that shelter, against the waving, wild shadows and against the terror that walked among them.

“Is Roy in the car?”

“No—no …”

“Who’s there then?”

“Dick. Oh, Jim, is she dead?”

His arms tightened. “Come into the house.” He led her up the steps, holding her so she would not see Hermione. They went through the lighted doorway and into the wide hall. There were lights there, too. It smelled of potpourri and dust, and had an old red Turkish carpet that ran the length of it. Her hair had blown about her face; she pushed it back, staring at Jim, thinking again: he cannot be here!

He said: “Where is Roy? I phoned for him. Didn’t he come with you?”

“Dick. It’s Dick, in the car.”

“Dick! But then why doesn’t he come in …?”

“No, no. He’s—I brought him home.”

He understood at once. “Oh. Oh, I see. Then he’s no help.”

For a moment he stared at her in deep perplexity. His dark hair was tossed by the wind, his face stiff and white. Suddenly the fact of Hermione’s death seemed to clarify, to become something that wasn’t a nightmare. A woman, a flattened, lifeless thing, there in the night! “Jim, are you sure she’s dead?”

“Yes. There’s nothing you can do for her. I looked.…”

“Jim,” she caught at his shoulders with both hands. “You’ve got to tell me—was she murdered?”

He put his hands up, hard and firm over her own. “Yes, she was murdered. She was shot.”

She must not scream—like the night, like the wind, like the rattling, clashing palm trees. She knew that her voice was high and terrified. “Who killed her?”

Jim held her hands tighter. “Darling, listen. There’s nothing we can do now but wait. Believe me, it’s over. She couldn’t have suffered; she couldn’t have known …”

“Who did it?”

“I don’t know. He got away. He …”

“
Jim, they’ll all say you did it!
”

“Hush, Nonie. Nonie, darling, don’t …”

“Oh, Jim, why did you come back?”

“I had to. Listen, Nonie. I’m going to get Dick. Stay here.… I’ll leave the door open. You’ll be safe. The fellow got away. I heard him in the shrubbery; at least I think I heard him. He’s gone, though … I’ll get Dick.”

Her hands dropped away reluctantly and he ran out again across the veranda and down the steps. His black head gleamed in the light for an instant and disappeared. She could see Hermione’s hand flung out. The small white hand that had had in life so relentless a grip, and now had forever released that hold, lay slack and powerless.

She looked away quickly. She looked at the red Turkish rug, at the long wide hall, running the length of the house, the cane chairs with their faded cushions, the curling bamboo screen across the door of Hermione’s bedroom, there at the end of the hall. It was the first floor of the house but, like many tropical houses of the period, it was raised nine or ten feet from the ground to provide a storage space below it.

She remembered coming to dinner with Roy and Aurelia, sitting in that chair, the cane chair by the table, drinking, coffee, talking to Jim—pleasant, impersonal conversation about tennis—both of them realizing perhaps even then that there was a special kind of pleasantness about talking to each other. Hermione had sat at the table, the round table with the green silk flounce, with the coffee tray before her. And now Hermione was dead, merely a huddled, terrible figure in her silk dress. Hermione, who such a short time ago—such a very short time ago, Nonie thought suddenly, scarcely an hour ago, if that—had walked across the veranda at Beadon Gates so securely, so triumphantly. Hermione dead. Her smiling, dark-red lips forever silent; her white small hand forever without strength.

Murdered. Shot, Jim had said.
Who killed her?

Jim came back, his footsteps hard and swift across the veranda, his coat blowing, the screened door banging behind him. “I can’t make Dick understand. I left him there.” He pushed his hands over his hair and took a long breath and glanced around the room. “Well, we’ll have to wait. Roy ought to be here soon. And Seabury Jenkins. I phoned for him too. He’s the magistrate. He’ll know what to do.”

“Roy’s not at home. He’s at Lydia’s. He took her home after dinner.”

“Jebe answered the telephone. He didn’t know Roy had gone. He said he’d tell him.” He put his arm around her again. He lead her to a long wicker chair and made her sit there; he sat on the foot of it and reached for cigarettes on one of the tables.

He ought to have been in New York by then.

“Jim, why did you come back? What happened? When did you find her?”

He gave her a cigarette, held a light for her, and answered her last question first. “I heard the shot. I was in Dick’s shack. I ran to the house. Came in the side door; the lights were here. I ran to the porch; that light was on, too. There was Hermione. I thought somebody was out there in the shrubbery. I shouted, of course. I—don’t know what I did, really. If it was anybody, he got away. I knew she was shot. I couldn’t see anybody or hear anybody. I’m not really sure anybody was there; maybe it was only the wind and the noise of the trees.”

“Then what …?”

“I knew it was murder. I’d heard the shot and she wouldn’t have killed herself. I looked for a gun; there wasn’t any. I ran in here and phoned Roy and Seabury. Then I heard your car. It all happened, Nonie, just before you came. She …”

He leaned over suddenly and put his face in his hands. “I thought I hated Hermione today. I thought I could have killed her. But I wouldn’t have wanted her to die like that!”

“
Jim, who killed her?
”

He shook his head without looking up. “I don’t know. Somebody must have called her, got her to the door, and just—just shot her. And ran.” He lifted his face: “Well, I’m going to look …”

She caught his arm as he rose. “You can’t find anybody. Not in the night like this. Not alone. There are a thousand places to hide—in the bush, in the palmettoes, in the swamp!”

He stood for a moment, thinking, with the wind surging and swirling around the house like a vast dark whirlpool. “No use calling the house boys,” he said at last. “One of them had some sort of accident this afternoon. He’s laid up; the other one is in their shack with him; I saw them on my way to Dick’s cottage. One of them, Johnny, the cook, would have come if he’d heard the shot. But he’d be scared; no good anyway.” He turned and stared out across the bright, white light of the veranda. “Whoever shot her had a chance to get away all right. I wish Roy would come. We’ll have to organize, I suppose. Search …” His mouth tightened. “It’ll be a man-hunt over the island.”

“Why did you come back? I thought you were gone. I saw her. I thought you were safe!”

He looked down at her directly. “I had to come back. I had to face Roy and tell him. I couldn’t leave you to do it. So I came back.”

A mountain of treacherous slides, of dangerous paths seemed to rise up ahead of them, threatening. “Suppose they never find whoever killed her? Suppose …”

“I know what you are trying to say, Nonie. I hated her. I felt like killing her. I said so. I left and then came back. But I didn’t kill her!”

“Jim, what will you do? What …?”

“I’ll just tell the truth. Nothing else to do.”

What of motives? What of a thing called circumstantial evidence? How had Hermione been killed?

“Oh, Jim, she was shot. And you had a gun!”

He shook his head, looking down at her, soberly. “Darling, I didn’t shoot her. I’ve still got my gun. It’s over there on the table.”

“Over there!” She jerked around to look. And on a table amid a litter of books, ash trays, vases, magazines, lay a gun. She started to her feet and Jim caught her hand.

“Where are you going?”

“That gun! You’ve got to get rid of it. Hurry, before they come.”

“Nonie, Nonie,” he cried and held her and smiled a little, shaking his head. “Darling, it wasn’t that gun that shot her. They’ll prove that. There’s a way of matching slugs, of identifying bullets. The bullet that killed her didn’t come from my gun. I’ll show them my gun; it’ll help clear me. If I need to be cleared.”

She stared up at him for a moment and then sank back again into the chair. “I’m so frightened. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He sat down again on the end of the chair, close to her, leaning forward to hold her hands and look into her eyes. “Listen, Nonie. I quarreled with her and I meant it—everything. Besides that, now that she’s dead I’ll be—not rich like you, but I’ll have a hell of a lot more money than I’ve ever had before. What’s more important, I’ll have Middle Road.”

“You wouldn’t have killed her for money! You didn’t kill her!”

“But I’ll have money and Middle Road. Nobody else would profit by her death. People have done murder for less than that. So you see I’ve got to clear myself.”

A car was coming rapidly along the drive, careening, hurtling, sliding to a stop outside the door, within the circle of light, at the bottom of those curving flights of steps. Jim sprang to his feet.