I Married A Dead Man (29 page)

               
"That's about all there was to it. Not a very new story, it's happened over and over. But naturally, I wasn't likely to forget this Georgesson in a hurry. Well, when I learned he was down here in Caulfield a few weeks ago, showing his face around, I didn't know if it was a coincidence or not, but I wasn't taking any chances. I got in touch with a detective agency in New York and had them send Carter down here, just to try to find out what he was up to.

               
"And there you have it. Now does that answer your question? Is that satisfactory?"

               
They didn't say it was, she noticed. She waited, but she didn't hear them say it was.

               
"He didn't approach you or your family in any way? He didn't molest you?"

               
"He didn't come near us."

               
(Which was technically correct, she agreed wryly; she'd had to go to him each time.)

               
"You would have heard about it before now, if he had," he assured them. "I wouldn't have waited for you to look me up, I would have looked you up."

               
With catastrophic casualness a non-sequitur followed. She suddenly heard one of them ask him, "Do you want to bring along a hat, Mr. Hazzard?"

               
"It's right outside in the hall," he answered drily. "I'll pick it up as we go by."

               
They were coming out of the room. With an infantile whimper, that was almost like that of a little girl running away from goblins in the dark, she turned and fled up the stairs again, back to her room.

               
"No--! No--! No--!" she kept moaning with feverish reiteration.

               
They were arresting him, they were accusing him, they were taking him with them.

47

               
Distracted, she flung herself down on the bench before her dressing-table. Her head rolled soddenly about on her shoulders, as though she were drunk. Her hair was displaced, burying one eye.

               
"No--! No--!" she kept insisting. "They can't-- It isn't fair--"

               
They wouldn't let him go-- They'd never let him go again-- He wouldn't come back-- He'd never come back to her--

               
"Oh, for the love of God, help me! I can't take any more of this!"

               
And then, as in the fairy tales, as in the story-books of old, where everything always comes out all right, where good is good and bad is bad, and the magic spell is always broken just in time for the happy ending, there it was--right under her eyes--

               
Lying there, waiting. Only asking to be picked up. A white oblong, a sealed envelope. A letter from the dead.

               
A voice trapped in it seemed to whisper through the seams to her, faint, far away: "When you're in the most need, and I'm not here, open this. When your need is the greatest, and you're all alone. Goodbye, my daughter; my daughter, goodbye . . ."

               
"I, Grace Parmentier Hazzard, wife of Donald Sedgwick Hazzard, being on my death-bed, and in the presence of my attorney and lifelong counsellor Tyrus Winthrop, who will duly notarize my signature to this and bear witness to it if called upon to do so by the legally constituted authorities, hereby make the following statement, of my own free will and volition, and declare it to be the truth:

               
"That at approximately 10.30 P.M. on the evening of 24th September, being alone in the house with just my devoted friend and housekeeper, Josephine Walker, and my grandchild, I received a long-distance telephone-call from Hastings, in the neighboring State. That the caller was a certain Harry Carter, known to me as a private investigator and employed by my family and myself as such. That he informed me that just a few moments earlier my beloved daughter-in-law, Patrice, the widow of my late son, Hugh, had been driven against her will to Hastings by a man using the name of Stephen Georgesson, and had there been compelled to enter into a marriage-ceremony with him under duress. And that at that time, while he spoke to me, they were on their way back here, to this city, together.

               
"Upon receipt of this information, and having obtained from this Mr. Carter the address of the aforementioned Stephen Georgesson, I dressed myself, called Josephine Walker to me, and told her I was going out, and would be away for only a short time. She tried to dissuade me, and to prevail upon me to reveal my purpose and where I was going, but I would not I instructed her to wait for me close beside the front door, in order to admit me at once upon my return, and under no circumstances, then or at any later time, to reveal to anyone that I had left the house at that time or under those circumstances. I caused her to take an oath upon the Bible, and knowing the nature of her religious beliefs and early upbringing knew she would not break it afterward no matter what befell.

               
"I removed and carried with me a gun which habitually was kept in a desk in the library of my home, having first inserted into it the cartridges. In order to lessen recognition as much as possible, I put on the heavy veil of mourning which I had worn at the time of the death of my elder son.

               
"I walked a short distance from my own door, entirely alone and unaccompanied, and at the first opportunity engaged a public taxicab. In it I went to the quarters of Stephen Georgesson, to seek him out. I found he had not yet returned when I first arrived, and I therefore waited, sitting in the taxi a short distance from his door, until I saw him return and enter. As soon as he had, I immediately entered in turn, right after him, and was admitted by him. I raised my veil in order to let him see my face, and I could see that he guessed who I was, although he'd never seen me before.

               
"I asked him if it was true that he had just now forced my dead son's wife to enter a marriage-pact with him, as had been reported to me.

               
"He readily admitted it, naming the place and time.

               
"Those were the only words that passed between us. Nothing further was said. Nothing further needed to be.

               
"I immediately took out the gun, held it close toward him, and fired it at him as he stood there before me.

               
"I fired it only once. I would have fired it more than once, if necessary, in order to kill him; it was my full intention to kill him. But having waited to see if he would move again, and seeing that he did not, but lay as he had fallen, then and only then I refrained from firing it any more and left the place.

               
"I had myself returned to my own home in the same taxi that had brought me. Within a short time after, I became extremely ill from the excitement and strain I had undergone. And now, knowing that I am dying, and being in full possession of my faculties and with full realization of what I am doing, I wish to make this statement before I pass away and have it, in the case of wrongful accusation of others, should that occur, brought to the attention of those duly constituted to deal with the matter. But only in such case, not otherwise.

                                                               
(Signed) Grace Parmentier Hazzard.

                                                               
(Witnessed and attested)

                                                               
Tyrus Winthrop, Att'y at Law."

               
She reached the downstairs doorway with it too late. The doorway was empty by the time she swayed that far, and clung there, all dazed and disheveled. They'd gone, and he'd gone with them.

               
She just stood there in the doorway. Empty in an empty doorway.

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And then, there he was at last.

               
He was so very real, so photographically real down there, that paradoxically, she couldn't quite believe she was seeing him. The very herringbone weave of his coat stood out, as if a magnifying glass were being held to the pattern, for her special inspection. The haggardness of his face, the faint trace of shadow where he needed a shave, she could see everything about him so clearly, as if he were much nearer than he was. Fatigue, maybe, did that, by some reverse process of concentration. Or eyes dilated from long straining to see him, so that now they saw him with abnormal clarity.

               
Anyway, there he was.

               
He turned, and came in toward the house. And just before he took the final step that would have carried him too far in under her to be in sight any more, his eyes went up to the window and he saw her.

               
"Bill," she said silently through the glass, and her two hands flattened to the pane, as if framing the unheard word into a benediction.

               
"Patrice," he said silently, from down below; and though she didn't hear him, didn't even see his lips move, she knew that was what he said. Just her name. So little, so much.

               
Suddenly she'd fled from the room as madly as though she'd just been scalded. The upflung curtain settled down again to true, and the backflung door ricocheted back again toward closure, and she was already gone. The baby's wondering head turned after her far too slowly to catch her in her ifight

               
Then she stopped short again, below the turn of the stairs, and waited for him there, unable to move any further. Stood waiting for him to come to her.

               
He left his hat, just as though this were any other time he was returning home, and came on up to where she was standing. And somehow her head, as if it were tired of being all alone, went down upon his shoulder and stayed there against his own.

               
They didn't speak at first Just stood there pressed together, heads close. There was no message; there was only--being together.

               
"I'm back, Patrice," was all he said at last.

               
She shuddered a little and nestled closer. "Bill, now what will they--?"

               
"Nothing. It's over. It's already through. At least, as far as I'm concerned. That was just for purposes of identification. I had to go with them and look at him, that was all."

               
"Bill, I opened this. She says--"

               
She gave it to him. He read it

               
"Did you show it to anyone else?"

               
"No."

               
"Don't" He tore it once across, and stuffed the remnants into his pocket.

               
"But suppose--?"

               
"It's not needed. His gambler-friends are already down on the books for it, by this time. They told me they found evidence to indicate that a big card-game had taken place up there earlier that night."

               
"I didn't see any."

               
He gave her an eloquent look. "They did. By the time they got there."

               
She widened her eyes a little at him.

               
"They're willing to let it go at that So let us let it go at that too, Patrice." He sighed heavily. "I'm all-in. Feel like I've been on my feet for a week straight. I'd like to sleep forever."

               
"Not forever, Bill, not forever. Because I'll be waiting around, and that would be so long--"

               
His lips sought the side of her face, and he kissed her with a sort of blind stupefaction.

               
"Walk me up as far as the door of my room, Patrice. Like to take a look at the youngster, before I turn in."

               
His arm slipped wearily around her waist.

               
" Our youngster from now on," he added softly.

49

               
"Mr. William Hazzard was married yesterday to Mrs. Patrice Hazzard, widow of the late Hugh Hazzard, at a quiet ceremony at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, in this city, performed by the Reverend Francis Allgood. There were no attendants. Following their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Hazzard left immediately for a honeymoon trip through the Canadian Rockies."-- All Caulfield morning and evening newspapers .