The Case of the Weird Sisters (24 page)

The door next, she thought. It's going to happen. But the door wasn't next.

Instead, there was a stealthy scraping, a bump or two. Someone was moving something, just outside, in the haU. A metallic sound. Then a hollow thump, like a soft tap on a muffled drum. Was the metallic sound a key turning? Were they locked in? Alice's fingers twitched and grabbed. And Fred's responded.

Soft whisper of feet on the carpet outside. But going away! Gone!

Fred moved with infinite care. His breath was in her face, as he leaned around the headboard. "Gone," he whispered. The word was so slight a sound that it was like telepathy.

"Are . . . we ... locked . . . m?" She breathed the question back.

He didn't know. The darkness and the silence answered her question as if he had shrugged his shoulders and she had felt the air disturbed and read the meaning. -"Shall ... I... go .. . see?"

Her hand clutched at his, saying, don't go. "Wait." Lonesome, far away, for all it was her own breath, the word raised tiny echoes in the dust. His hand said he would stay.

They waited. Alice thought, were they going to set the house on fire? Or would it be coal gas again? Innes couldn't smell. Couldn't smell smoke? She wondered. Her own nose felt keen and sharp as if her breath drew in and examined every least odor and searched the very air for danger. She thought: But Mr. IXiff knows who it is. How does he know? How can he know? She, herself, couldn't separate them any more. The menace was 'they." AH three. Half-crazy, she thought, warped and out of the world and fuU of evil. Prowling the house, for all she knew. Gertrude walking in the dark. Maud's reckless grin. Isabel, nerve driven, creeping in the dark.

When at last they heard the footsteps coming, it was a rehef. But not for long.

Now, the door was next. It wasn't locked at aU. It was being gently opened. Fred, who could have seen the door, had there been Ught, could see nothing. It didn't even make a patch in the darkness. But a faint movement of air

came through. It was open, and there was somebody there.

Somebody whispered, "Imies?"

There is no voice in a whisper. All whispers are gray in the dark, like cats, thought Alice.

Fred was directing his own breathing, making it slow as if he slept. Alice tried not to breathe at all. She found it easy. There seemed to be no breathable air, anyhow. How could they watch the pillboxes in the dark? she thought in dismay.

The steps crossed toward the bed. Alice felt Fred's fingers loosen. He would be bracing himself. The difference between Fred, awake and strong, and the man this silent creature thought was there, asleep and weak with broken bones bound up and drugs in his brain—that was the difference that would save them. If she ... If she ..,

What?

Fred felt a hand groping over his covered body. It found his arm and m,oved gentiy down to his wrist Cold fingers pressed there. He couldn't control his heartbeats. But they were less fast than strong. He devoted himself to slow breathing. Maybe that would make the heart behave.

The fingers let him go. Air swirled in the wake of the figure as it moved away. Was this aU? Was this aU?

They heard a breath sharply drawn.

Then the silence exploded into a thousand pieces. She called out. Lifted up her voice and called into the dark and waiting house. Called, and shivers crawled on the skin at the alarm in it. The warning, the terror of the cry.

"Alice," she called. "Alice." And again . . . "Alice.'

Fred's fingernails dug into the flesh of Alice's hand, and the pain was good. She kept quiet

For the call was going down the silent hall, around the comer, like a hound hunting. It went down the hall to Alice's door.

"AHce."

Would Alice come? She, herself, stiff behind the bed, so close, seemed to lose her identity. Surely there was an Alice somewhere else to hear that calling. And to answer. It must be answered. It couldn't be denied.

"Alice." It grew a litde sharper, that desperate cry. "Alice."

180

n

They heard a door, the faint click of the knob turning, the rustle of its opening. Half-fainting, Alice seemed to see her own ghost. Someone was opening the door of the room where she ought to be. Someone was coming to answer. Alice was comiug. Alice. It must be Alice. But Alice was here. No, Alice was in the hall. One could hear her feet. Reluctant, those feet. Groping, naturally, in the thick darkness. Cautious feet. But coming, answering.

Alice would come, if one called her in the night like that. Of course she would.

The voice called no more. But the footsteps . . . Not Alice. Art Killeen. The world tumbled back to another balance as Alice wrenched herself around to a reasonable belief. He'd come, she told herself. He'd come, no matter what, for that name, that wailing Alice!

There! Did the door click? This door?

A door opened. The feet. . . . Alice's feet? No, no, Killeen's ... the feet took a step in the dark.

It screamed. Alice's ghost, whatever it was. A strangling scream as if the throat closed with terror. Screamed, and the scream died away as if in the wind. Died away and was gone, and was out of the house. There was a terrible sound. Not very loud, but hideous, like the pulpy squash of a fly. Mingled with it, they thought they heard the little triumphant croak of evil victory.

Now the voice said, "Innes? Innes?" Urgendy, anxiously, aloud, with a nervous whine.

Out in the hall another voice said, "What's the matter? What's the matter?"

"Gertrude? Is that you, Gertrude?"

"Isabel?"

Calling to each other, the two sisters. Isabel in here, Gertrude out there. Which of them had made that litde horrible Well-remembered sound?

Alice's heart gave a great bound and returned to its work with a swift pounding. She felt her face get hot. Fred's fingers moved on her hand.

Oh, God, someone was coming in the window! The sash was thrown up, violently, not stealthily at all. They braced themselves again. But Duff's voice came through the dark with quiet authority.

"Stay exactly where you are, everybody."

Isabel said, rapidly, as if her jaw was oscillating out of her control. "Oh, Mr. Duff, is it you? Mr. Duff, what's happened? The lights. Innes. Something's wrong, I think. I think . . ."

"Be quiet," said Duff.

Footsteps in the haU again. But this was Gertrude. This was her firm tread, her unhesitating feet. From the top of the stairs, turning to the left, coming toward the door of Papa's room.

They stopped. It seemed very abrupt. It seemed like an exclamation of surprise.

"Isabel," Gertrude's voice was aggreived. "The chest of drawers has been moved. Isabel, Isabel . . ." They heard the woman's breath drawn. "The old porch door . . ."

"Miss Whidock," said Duff curtly, "come along to this room, please."

Gertrude's feet came on. She stopped accurately where the door was. They could tell by the heightened sound. She stepped in.

Duff nad moved near the bed, where Fred maintained his silence. "My flashlight has failed. I'm afraid Mr. Whidock, here, has fainted . . ."

Gertrude was quivering. Even in the dark silence, they could tell. "Where is Innes?" she said. Her voice went higher, like a frightened child's. "Where is he?"

It became immediately plain where Innes was. A door burst open down the hall. They could hear his sobbing, his hysteria.

Duff said, "Perhaps some sedative. If I could make this Ught. . ."

Gertrude went across the room. "On the mantel," she said. They couldn't see her but they could hear her fingers as they went along the wood. "Mr. Duff .. ." she said as if she held something out to him,

"Wait a minute. I think . . . yes . . ." His flashhght sprang on. The beam leaped to Gertrude, as she stood beside the mantel with a white pillbox in her hand.

Isabel was stock still, her Ups drawn back from her teeth in a kind of grisly surprise. She wheeled about, with her jerky manner. "Not those," she said. Her claw took the cover off the blue china box.

Duff took the box from Isabel.

Then Mr. Johnson was standing m the door. Duff sent the light glancing across the dark face. It was calm. "Innes wants you."

"Not now. Give him one or two of these, if you can." The light danced as Duff shook two pills out into his dirty hand.

Gertrude's tall body wavered as if she weren't quite steady on her feet. "I don't understand. Mr. Duff?" she said. Her voice began to trail as if she were losing at least a part of her consciousness. Her thumb moved on the pDlbox in her hand. "What pills are these? Mr. Duff, is she dead?"

"Oh, yes," he said.

Mr. Johnson spoke. "Broken neck," he said, neither question nor answer. He moved out of the hght, silently.

"My fault," said Isabel. Her face looked hollowed in the light coming from below. Her eyes seemed wild with sorrow. "My fault, because I called her. I called her name. The lights . . . Innes ... I thought something was wrong. Poor girl. Poor Alice."

Gertrude said, "Is there light? Mr. Duff, can you see?"

"I can see," he said.

"Then why don't you see . . ." Gertrude put out her hand gropingly, for the first time. "I am blind," she said weakly. "Who is in this room? Who is here?"

The Indian had gone to his master.

Duff said, "I am here, Miss Whitlock, and your sister Isabel, and . . ."

"And Fred," said Isabel rather tartly.

"Is there a chair?" said Gertrude piteously.

Fred let go of Alice's hand and sat up in bed as if he liad been released. "What happened?" he demanded.

Duffs voice was drearily cadenced. "I suppose she started down the hall in the dark. She came to the chest of drawers that always stood just before you reached this door. So she opened the door that was next to the chest of drawers and it led out to nowhere."

"Why wasn't it locked!"

"Because this is murder."

"That's impossible," said Gertrude. "I'm . . ."

"No, it isn't impossible. As a matter of fact, Miss Isabel arranged it"

Isabel had her lip caught m her teeth. Her queer eyes looked aslant.

"You killed her. Miss Isabel, just as much as if you'd shot her, you know. That's murder. The law will say so. Premeditated. DeUberate. Planned."

Isabel shook her head.

"You tried three times to kill your brother Imies. And failed. Then you tried to kill Alice Brennan."

She shook her head.

"After that," said Duff, ''you tried a fourth time to kill your brother Innes. But he's safe."

He took the aspirin bottie from his pocket and shook it, lightly. "The poisoned pill's in here," he said. He put the bottle down on the bedside table.

Gertrude said, with a ghostly indignation, forceless, perfunctory, "Mr. Duff, you realize you are speaking of my sister?"

"Yes," said Duff, "to your sister, who is a murderess. Miss Whitiock. Because you are blind and Maud could hear. Therefore, I know. Understand, Miss Isabel? I am sure. Your sister Maud could hear. She heard and she was curious, and so she died."

Isabel said, "Maud! MaudI"

"Alice," said Duff quietly.

Alice found her voice a little one, weak, in the back of her throat. "Pm here," she said, sounding meek and childish. "I'm still here."

Isabel's one hand clutched the footboard, and she leaned on that arm.

"It reaUy doesn't matter," Duffs voice went on, dreamy again. "No, it really doesn't matter that you got the wrong person. You killed her. You moved the chest and you put out the lights. Coming along the hall in the dark, one would grope for the door one knew came just beyond that chest. This door. But it wasn't this door. Oh yes, you are guilty.

"Why, Miss Isabel? Why did you do it? Because you couldn't let go? You thought you were going to get a quarter of a million, roughly. And you couldn't let it go. Not for enough to keep you in comfort for the rest of your life. Not for anything less. You never took your losses, did you? And your gains are no good, either. Because nothing is ever enough. There must be more and more, until you lose everything. Strange you couldn't see how inevitably you'd lose it all."

Isabel said!, "I never meant anything. I never meant anything at all. I. . . Somebody else must have moved the chest . . ."

"No," said Duff.

"But I . . ."

"You had the key to the old porch door. You had a thousand keys."

"But I . . ."

"You kept things," said Duff.

"I only called Alice because I. . ."

"No," said Duff.

"I was worried about Innes."

"To be sure, you had to know that he hadn't got the poisoned pill yet."

"She felt my pulse," said Fred.

"Yes," said Duff. "You see?"

"But I . . ."

Alice, on the edge of the bed with Fred's arm around her, saw the queer eyes lick out, this way and that, for an opening. Saw her find it.

Gertrude was as white as death in her chair, and her sightless eyes were closed. She moaned. The sound called Duff. The light went with him, brightening that comer and letting shadow fall on the rest.

Isabel picked up the aspirin bottle.

Fred jumped, but Alice's dead weight followed him and entangled him.

The ghastliest sight she ever saw, thought Alice, was Isabel, in the half-dark, shaking the aspirin bottle into her open mouth with her only hand.

Fred said, "Well, she got it. It was poison, ail right."

Duff looked down.

"What is justice?" he said, "I don't know, do you? Perhaps they'd call her mad."

"I guess this is justice," Fred said grimly, "or a facsimile of same."

Art Killeen came charging in. "Alice. Alice, I thought ... I thought. . ."

"Did you think it was me?" she said without much emotion. "How funny! I thought it was you." He looked at her and shook his head, puzzled, without comprehension. ''No percentage," said Alice.

"Look out," cried Fred. "Put her head down."

When Alice, lying on the bed, heard a woman scream, she felt scarcely able to take an interest. She turned her head, idly. Women were always screaming, and this was only Susan Innes, shocked, in the door.

"I saw the lights ... I had come . . . Oh, Mr. Duff, what happened?"