The Glass Slipper (17 page)

Rue thought of Brule’s words the next morning. When the police brought her the curious thing they had found.

But then she suddenly clung to Brule.

“I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m afraid of this house. I’m afraid of every — shadow and every sound. I’m afraid when the door opens; I think I’ll die during that split second when I see the door’s about to open and can’t see yet that it’s just a policeman. Or someone I know…”

Brule held her for a moment, her cheek pressing against his hard shoulder.

“Someone you know. That’s the hellish thing about it,” he said in a queer voice.

And then he spoke of the charts. “Rachel had Crystal’s charts,” he said coolly. “She told me so today. It was a silly thing, her taking them: not intentional on her part. She took some magazines from the room when she cleaned it after Crystal’s death and accidentally carried off the charts too. When she discovered them she just put them away somewhere in her room, intending, she said, to destroy them if no one asked for them. And she forgot them. Until police inquiry began; she didn’t know what to do then — she was afraid to destroy them and afraid not to. Afraid above all things to admit to the police that she knew anything. She finally came to me and told the truth; I gave her hell; she’d got that damnable green stain on her hands and was terrified. She cried and went to get the charts. Then I had to go to the hospital. Now the charts are gone from her room. Rue, I — didn’t tell the police I knew she had them; it would have made no difference, and I — I’ve got to be free for a few days.”

She felt herself stiffening a little in his arms. But she didn’t question. And didn’t say, I knew; but I didn’t tell them either.

He rose.

“Go to bed,” he said brusquely. “Tomorrow’s another day.”

And it was the next day that the police found the thing that destroyed Steven’s alibi.

Angel himself brought it to Rue.

She was up and dressed and had had breakfast, brought to her by Gross, who looked like an old man and spilled the coffee, if Rue had known it, for the first time in twenty-one years.

“Police are still in the house,” he mumbled, leaving. “Oh, madam — madam — to think of it ”

Angel came shortly afterward. They had found, hidden in the garden, a broken Victrola record, and he put together the pieces so Rue could see the red center with the title on it in gilt.

“Arabesque at Night,” played by the composer, Steven Hendrie.

Angel questioned her.

“The day Julie Garder died, according to your testimony, Hendrie was at his piano in his studio?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the name of the piece he was playing?”

“Yes —” Words died in her throat, and she pointed to the broken pieces.

“Are you sure he was playing the piano? Might it have been only his Victrola? Could you tell the difference at this distance?”

“I don’t know…”

“He could have been away from the room as long as five minutes; it’s a large record. And still you would have heard the sound of ‘Arab—’ whatever this piece is called. Isn’t that right?”

“Y-yes. Except —”

Except Steven wouldn’t have done it. Not Steven.

“These broken pieces were hidden purposely. And there would be only two purposes. One would be an effort to hide the fact that such a record existed. And there’s only one reason to wish to hide such a fact from the police.” He looked at her out of ice-blue eyes and said: “I may as well tell you the truth, Mrs Hatterick. If we hadn’t found this broken record you would have been arrested this morning.”

I
t left her feeling a little numb; it was something she had so long expected that when it came there was little sense of realization.

“What does Steven say?” she asked.

Angel answered directly and, Rue thought, honestly.

“He says the record’s been broken for some time. Says it was in the book of records and he’d forgotten it was broken. Then the question of his alibi came up, and he remembered the broken record and realized that we might find it and believe it had been intentionally broken; it would (instead of proving that, if you heard the piece being played, Hendrie himself was playing it) tend to cast doubt upon it. It would look too pat, in other words, as if he wanted such a proof. So he took it out in the garden and hid it. He confessed to that quite freely,” said Angel with a thoughtful look. “Sounded true. Yet — yet suppose the record wasn’t actually broken; suppose — look here, Mrs Hatterick, didn’t you say that he had been playing that particular piece for quite a long time that day?”

“I — don’t remember. I’ve been questioned so much about it. Perhaps I did say so. At any rate, as I remember it, he did play that particular piece quite a lot that day. But it’s nothing unusual. It’s one of his favorites.”

“I looked at his phonograph. It’s a radio attachment; and it’s got one of those automatic things on it, so it can play several records without anybody having to change or turn it on and off. Thus for at least twenty minutes or so there could be continued sound of music — piano records — and actually no one near the phonograph. There would have been plenty of time for him to leave the studio, see the girl Julie Garder, induce her to take a drink of something with the poison in it and return to the studio, and no one would be the wiser.”

“But Steven — why would he murder Julie?”

“He’s engaged to Miss Pelham,” said Angel obliquely. “There’s another thing, Mrs Hatterick. The bartender who claims that Julie Garder came into his place and had a drink —”

“Yes.”

“We’ve arrested him. He turned out to be a fellow that’s wanted for theft. It’s the reason why he tried to evade the whole thing: he didn’t want any attention from us at all. It was only a chance remark of his to the bus boy that led to our questioning him; he would never have come forward himself. The last thing he’s inclined to do is be of any help to us. So far he’s not managed to remember who came into the restaurant with the girl. But I think he will remember — soon. We have ways of sharpening memory,” said Angel simply.

“He — he said she was alone.”

“Would she have ordered a cocktail., poured it into a potted palm and ordered another, if she’d been alone? No, the way we figure is she went there with somebody who insisted on her having a drink. She said all right, just to be agreeable; you — and the nurses who knew her — insist she never drank. Well, then she watched her chance and poured the cocktail into the plant at her elbow. The second cocktail she drank; perhaps her companion actually went to the bar to get it and put poison in it on the way to the table. We’ve ascertained that there was no waiter at that hour; it’s a small place. So far the bartender has admitted nothing of the kind, but it sounds reasonable. Well, her companion could have been Steven Hendrie. That restaurant is exactly two minutes from here by taxi. You wouldn’t have noticed a lapse in the sound of the piano.”

That wasn’t all the detective had to say.

“Then there are the letters,” he went on. “Whoever wrote those letters knew something. You’ve been asked about those letters; we’ve made every possible inquiry. We may right now be on the right trail; Funk thinks he’s getting warm. But I — I want to impress upon you, Mrs Hatterick, the importance of those letters. If you are innocent…” He looked at her in silence for a moment. “If you are innocent I can’t put too strongly the importance that the discovery of the authorship of those letters might be to you. Do you understand?”

“But I don’t know who wrote them. I know nothing of them,” said Rue hopelessly.

He looked at her searchingly, then went to the door. “Tell Funk to come in here,” he said to someone outside.

And when the little Funk slipped — sideways, scared-looking, none too clean — into the room, Angel said: “Show her the chart.”

“Chart!” cried Rue. ‘

“It was in the maid’s room, crumpled up in the wastebasket as if she’d torn it off. God knows why. Perhaps she recognized its importance and tried, thus, to preserve it; perhaps she tossed it there merely because it was crumpled. We’ll never know.”

Funk said: “It’s all right to take it in your fingers, Mrs Hatterick. It’s already been gone over for fingerprints.”

She took the sheet of paper; it was the usual printed form with a few entries in Julie’s small, round handwriting. It was probably the last sheet on the pad. The date was November ninth, the exact date of Crystal’s death.

“You recognize it?” said Angel. Rue nodded.

“Read the entries.”

She was already reading; searching for the thing that chart must disclose.

Angel watched her, and Funk watched — retreated now after his moment of importance to a position slightly behind Angel from which he could peer at Rue.

But there was nothing of any significance at all on the chart. It was all regular, nothing unusual. Meals as usual, two visits from Andy duly noted, one at eleven in the morning and another about six in the evening, temperature slightly below normal, pulse perfectly normal, no special orders. Perhaps that was it.

“Find something, Mrs Hatterick?”

“N-no,” said Rue slowly, “unless it’s an omission. She, Mrs Hatterick, said that her medicine tasted different; as I remember it she said (I’ve told you) that Andy — Doctor Crittenden that is — had changed her medicine that day, although she may have said ‘he must have’ changed it. She may have been referring only to the taste. Without certain knowledge, I mean. She must have been, because if there’d been a change in the medicine Julie would have made a note of it. Julie was extremely conscientious. She wouldn’t have omitted to note a change in medicine or orders. And there is no change noted here.”

After a moment Angel said: “Is that all?”

She knew he was disappointed. As she was herself; the charts had loomed so large in the thing; unconsciously she had pinned hope to their discovery. And for that day — that tremendously important day — there was nothing.

“Where are the others?” she said.

Angel’s long face lengthened further.

“Whoever killed the girl, Rachel, undoubtedly has destroyed them by now,” he said. “Do you have any idea, Mrs Hatterick, why Rachel tore out that one sheet and threw it away?”

But Rue had none.

“She may not have known its importance,” she hazarded. “It may have been accidentally torn or crumpled.”

He looked dissatisfied. And began again: “Last night at the time she was murdered, you say you actually saw a light in the studio…”

It went on until noon.

But during the afternoon, without any explanation, the vigilance of the police appeared to be to some degree relaxed. Rue ventured out of her room, and no one stopped her. She met Madge in the hall. A pale, frightened Madge, with the sullenness gone from her small square face. She paused uncertainly.

“Rue…”

“Yes, Madge?”

“Rue…” She hesitated again, Rue had an instant’s impression of mute appeal for help. And then someone spoke in the library, and Alicia’s voice replied, and the fleeting impression was gone.

“Nothing,” said Madge and went on.

Rue took a quick step or two after her. “Madge,” she said. “Do you — is there something you want?”

The girl whirled around to face her; again Rue had that quick impression of an appeal; then Madge’s dark eyes became determined and hard again, and she said: “Nothing.” But added:

“Thank you, Rue.”

Puzzled, Rue watched her go toward the stairway. It was almost an overture for peace; yet the instant she’d spoken the child had frozen again. Or was it the sound of Alicia’s voice that had done it?

Alicia was in the library; Guy was there, too, and was just leaving, he told Rue. Guy was hurried, avoiding her eyes, jumbling instructions together. Clearly Guy felt that they were imposing upon his powers of legal defense.

“Rachel murdered,” he said complainingly. “Good God, what next! Well, I’ll run along now.”

After he’d gone Alicia went coolly to the library door, looked briefly into the hall and closed the door. She turned to Rue then, deliberately and purposefully.

“I’m glad you’ve come down,” she said, looking straight into Rue’s eyes with her own bright, jewellike gaze. “I want to talk to you. I think we’d better have a clear understanding. You and I.”

She gave Rue no chance to reply. She walked directly toward her, so close that the faint scent of gardenias drifted to Rue, and she could see the quick pulse beating in Alicia’s creamy, soft throat — only faintly lined. She said:

“There’s something you ought to know. However this thing turns out, Brule loves me and I love him, and it will take more than you to come between us. Do you understand that?”

Rue looked back at her, noting that strongly beating pulse with a kind of detached interest. How it betrayed Alicia’s real feelings when Alicia’s voice was quite cool and controlled!

“What about Steven?” said Rue with honest curiosity.

The jet-black line of Alicia’s beautiful eyelids flickered.

“Steven?” she said. “Steven isn’t important. He’s been only a pretext, a — blind, if you want to call it that. So Crystal wouldn’t guess the truth. It was easy for me to make him love me, and I did; I’m telling you so you can see how important Brule is to me. I wish I could make you see that I am equally important to Brule. But you’re in love with Brule; you are trying to deceive yourself; you don’t want to acknowledge the truth.” She paused, her eyes shining and secret with some deep preoccupation. In a moment she went on with an air of friendly frankness, only belied by that throbbing pulse in her throat.

“There’s no use in my trying to tell you that it is, really, a friendly impulse that led me to speak to you. You wouldn’t believe me.”

“No,” said Rue candidly.

“But nevertheless… Rue, can’t you see for yourself that Brule loves me? That he’ll never love you? That there’s no use in your trying to hold him because he married you as he did? He regretted it instantly. Ask him if you don’t believe me. Ask him to tell you the truth. And he — I can prove to you how much he loves me.”

“What do you want me to do?” said Rue, again with that strangely honest curiosity.

Alicia’s lovely hands made an impatient movement. She said:

“What do you think? I want to be sure that, when this is over, you’ll leave Brule. You’ll consent to a divorce — or ask for it, rather; it will make it easier and better all around if you’ll ask for a divorce.”

She’s getting close to the kernel of her motive, thought Rue. She said:

“Why are you saying all this to me now? When things are as they are here?”

Alicia hesitated. She turned suddenly and went to the door and listened and came back to Rue and told her, deliberately as if she’d planned it, yet with a queer kind of anxiety, too.

“Because there’s something I know that, if the police knew, would cause your arrest. But it’s something I can keep them from discovering.”

“What?”

“Will you —”

“Will I bargain with you? Promise to divorce Brule for your silence? How childish you are, Alicia!”

“Childish!” Alicia’s eyes widened like a cat’s.

“Alicia — tell me something else. Why did you think Crystal was murdered?”

She could hear Alicia’s quick breathing; she could see the heavy throb of that pulse along her white throat. Alicia whispered suddenly, a little breathlessly:

“Because Brule did it. For me. I’ve always been certain of it. Do you understand now?”

The scene all at once stopped being tawdry and theatrical. It took on in an instant the poignant terror of a nightmare. Rue forced herself to look away from Alicia’s small, beautiful face with its blazing eyes and lovely red mouth. She forced herself to shrug and walk across the room. This is not real, she told herself; it isn’t happening. Things like this — and remembered Rachel flung across the bench. Remembered the patch of red upon the sheet of manuscript. Things like that didn’t happen either — and yet had happened. She said in a tight, strained voice:

“You can’t expect me to believe that. Brule —”

“Who had a better chance?” said Alicia. “Who knew how so well as Brule? That’s the real reason we didn’t marry. He asked me to marry him after Crystal died. But I knew — If you want to know the truth, I was afraid. I was afraid the truth would come out sometime, and I — I would be caught in it too.”

Oddly enough Rue believed that much. If Alicia had known or suspected that Brule murdered Crystal, she would have been afraid. Not for Brule; not because of the act itself; but for her own lovely white neck. Alicia loved herself; and as such people do, lived in a world of Alicia, hedged, guarded, marked by Alicia so other people and other suffering and other tragedy did not impinge upon Alicia herself. But murder — once discovered — would impinge. Would thrust through her hard wrappings of selfishness.

“Well?” said Alicia impatiently, as always curiously myopic when it came to detecting the reactions of other people.

“What is it that you say you know that could possibly cause my arrest?”

“Evidence,” said Alicia. “Evidence they will have to accept as conclusive. And it isn’t a question of my telling them. It’s a question of” — her eyes flickered once — “of their finding it. I can prevent it. I will prevent it if — if you’ll promise — what I ask.”

How still it was in the library! With Crystal watching them and the mocking little smile on her painted lips. Rue took a long breath.

“I’ll promise you nothing,” she said. “You are — you are mad to suggest such a bargain, Alicia.”

But as Alicia accepted it instantly and turned and went out of the room, Rue wondered if she hadn’t been mad to refuse. She tried to shrug away the memory of the parting look in Alicia’s eyes and failed.