The Glass Slipper (4 page)

His warm cheek was against her cold one. He said against her mouth, “I love you. Rue, Rue…” and kissed her.

Kissed her long and hard and drew away to look into her face through the dark and then kissed her again.

When Brule kissed her he did it swiftly, formally, when others were watching and he had to — a mere brush against her cheek.

Brule. She moved to escape Andy’s arms and he held her.

“Nothing matters now, Rue, but you. Don’t think of Brule. Think of yourself. I love you so, dear. You — you were married to Brule so suddenly, no one knew. I didn’t know anything of it until he told me — and then it was too late; it was the day before your marriage. What could I do?… You must have known I loved you, Rue.”

Unwillingly, irresistibly, she replied.

“No…”

“Back in the days when you were at the hospital — remember? I used to watch for you when I went along the halls and sat at the chart desk. Among all the white uniforms and white caps I always knew the little square set of your shoulders; the smooth knot of gold hair under your perky little cap. I used to make excuses to talk to you; I would complain a little of this or that — and hope the other nurses would leave so I could talk to you alone. I — I didn’t know for a long time that I was in love with you. Not till just before Crystal’s illness.”

“Crystal…” said Rue. Crystal, Crystal; Crystal’s car that he knew so well; the scent of roses that still clung to it; Crystal.

He relinquished her slowly. For a moment he said nothing; his profile was a clear silhouette against the area of light under a street lamp outside the window. They passed on into shadow, and he said: “Crystal. So that was it. How can I convince you? And there’s so little time. You must go with me, Rue. At once. There’s no other way.”

She felt all at once quite cool and collected; frightened, conscious of catastrophe, but conscious also of the need to gird herself to meet it. She said:

“That would be running away. Leaving Brule when he needs me.”

“Brule!” cried Andy. “Rue, you don’t understand —”

“We can’t leave, Andy. I understand that. It would be mad. It would be — would be like a confession of guilt.”

Afterwards she remembered those moments, though at the time they were disjointed, confused, full of incoherent, futile argument. They plunged through darkened streets, they glided along lighted theaters, they paused for traffic lights; she was clearly conscious of only one thing out of the turmoil, and that was the necessity to resist Andy, to go home, to wait for Brule. Brule was never at a loss for expedient; Brule always knew what to do. Brule had the sharpest, shrewdest worldly wisdom, and he had, too, a certain ruthlessness which would stand them all in hand now. Besides, Brule was her husband.

Andy was at last beaten down, sullen, silent. They reached the Hatterick house, and Brule’s coupé was not in front of the door.

“For the last time, Rue,” began Andy. “Believe me, I’m only thinking of you.”

“But it’s the wrong way, Andy. We’ve got to face the thing. If it’s true — if she was really murdered —”

The car had stopped, and Kendal opened the door. She said to him: “Will you take Doctor Crittenden to his apartment, Kendal, please.”

But Andy was already out of the car and putting up his hands to assist her. Through her gloves she was absurdly conscious of the warmth and strength of his hands and the way he held her own a second too long.

“Don’t bother, Kendal,” he said. “Thank you. I’ll walk.” He went up the steps with Rue and rang the bell.

She would not ask him to come in and to wait for Brule if he were not yet there. There was some obscure but important reason for not doing so.

Kendal, a stolid, silent figure, got into the car again, and it moved away. Andy said:

“Perhaps I was wrong, Rue; I suppose the thing to do is stay here and face it. Flight — does seem melodramatic. Crazy. But — but you don’t know —” He stopped short. “All right, Rue. I’ll go. But remember what I’ve said tonight. Remember I love you. And I’ll do anything in God’s world to help you. Will you remember that?”

His voice was serious, weighted with awareness of the horror that lay before her. She shivered a little, not from cold.

“Yes, Andy,” she said and the door opened.

Light from the hall streamed out. Gross, the dourly efficient German butler, dating from Crystal’s regime, stood in the doorway with an expression of painfully withheld but painfully curious disapproval. He did not wait for Andy’s departure. He said as Rue entered:

“Two persons are waiting to see Madam. They insisted on waiting. I told them Madam was at the opera —”

Rue’s heart gave a heavy throb in her throat. She turned slowly toward the butler.

“Who?”

She was aware that Andy had come into the hall too. Gross closed the door, shutting off escape.

“They say they are from police headquarters, madam.”

T
his is preposterous,” said Andy. “Mrs Hatterick can’t possibly see them tonight, Gross. Tell them—”

They were all aware of the man who stood suddenly in the doorway opposite them. Although he was actually only a symbol, impersonal, commonplace, completely, utterly ordinary. He was mediumly tall, mediumly bulky, his face was full, and his cheeks puffed below small, cold eyes; he was partially bald, and the most minute description of him would equally well have described a hundred other men you’d encounter in the Loop, say at Madison and State streets on a busy noon hour. His name was Oliver Miller; he was important then and always to Rue merely as a symbol, as a mouthpiece, as a voice through which a hidden, massive, utterly forbidding power expressed itself.

“Mrs Hatterick,” he said. “We are waiting for you. I am Oliver Miller of the police. Will you be so good as to give me a few moments? The district attorney sent me here.” He had actually, in the most ordinary way in the world, a card in his hand. One that, apparently, he had not chosen to relinquish to Gross. Gross murmured and was still.

Andy said: “By what authority —”

“Good evening, Doctor Crittenden. By the authority of police headquarters, as you know. It’s only a short interview; if you wish anyone else to be present, Mrs Hatterick, it’s quite all right.”

Rue turned swiftly to Gross: “Has Doctor Hatterick returned?”

“No, madam.”

“Rue, there’s no need for you to see them now. We’ll get Guy —”

Guy — that was Guy Cole, their next-door neighbor and one of the best criminal lawyers in Chicago. Something stiffened and tightened about Rue’s throat.

Miller said easily: “Only a few questions, Mrs Hatterick. It won’t take long. I assure you we’ll not distress you. You can be present, Doctor Crittenden, if Mrs Hatterick wishes it. It isn’t important.”

Not important!

Rue nodded dismissal to Gross. She walked into her own drawing room, followed by Miller and Andy. Another man was waiting there; his name was Funk, said Oliver Miller in the most polite way, like an introduction. She found herself acknowledging the mousy, thin, gray little man; he looked like a rabbit, and scared, as if he might pop under the Louis Quatorze sofa at any moment. Yet in his way he was as commonplace and as ordinary and as unthreatening as Miller.

She sat down, trying to appear self-possessed and calm. Andy, still in his black overcoat and white scarf, took up a position near her.

“Won’t you sit down,” she said, and Miller did so — in a fragile French armchair which looked as if it might collapse at any moment under the man’s bulk. Funk discovered himself in the shadow of the stiffly draped, pale green satin curtains, and no one knew how he’d got there.

That drawing room, too, had been Crystal’s; she had decorated it. Its pastels, its French chairs, its gilded mirrors and crystal-hung lamps had been Crystal’s selection. Rue had never liked the room; now it seemed garish and full of a grisly contrast. Crystal’s room; Crystal’s white hands touching and selecting those soft fabrics; and now the two men in the room had come, businesslike, to investigate Crystal’s murder.

Murder. The word caught at her again, squeezed her heart, sickened her.

“What do you want to ask me?” she said.

“I expect Doctor Crittenden has told you why we are here,” said Miller, while the little Funk watched with frightened, nervous eyes under thick black eyebrows that had a worried-looking slant. Miller waited for her answer.

Andy said: “I told her something of it, yes. That you had got the idea from a series of mischievous letters saying that the former Mrs Hatterick’s death ought to be investigated.”

“Yes. Now if you’ll be good enough to answer my questions yourself, Mrs Hatterick. You are Doctor Hatterick’s second wife?”

“Yes.”

“You were married two months ago in the vestry of the Third Presbyterian Church —”

“Yes.”

“Before your marriage you were a nurse?”

“Yes,” said Rue again and named the hospital. Her hands were shaking. She stripped off her gloves slowly, trying to control her trembling fingers.

“Exactly. In fact you were the nurse who took care of the first Mrs Hatterick at the time of her fatal illness?”

“Yes. That is, I was the night nurse; there was also a day nurse.”

“Miss Juliet Garder. Yes. We’ve already talked to her.”

Talked to Julie. What had they said? What had Julie said? What had Julie thought?

“She says on the night Mrs Hatterick died she left the house at seven. She went off duty, then, she said, and you arrived at that time.”

“That is right.”

“She says that at that time Mrs Hatterick seemed much better; she had been improving for some days and was definitely better.”

It wasn’t a question, and Rue waited.

The little man in the shadow of the window curtain discovered a heavy gold tassel which seemed greatly to interest and astonish him; he touched it with thin, not too clean hands, like little claws. Miller went on: “But at eleven o’clock that night Mrs Hatterick died. Is that true, Mrs Hatterick?”

He took, thought Rue, extra pains to roll Mrs Hatterick repeatedly over his tongue, as if the name alone had some significance. As, perhaps, to him it did.

She didn’t dare think of that significance. She said:

“Yes, that’s true. She fell into a coma shortly after I came on duty; I thought it was a natural sleep until I went to her about ten, I think it must have been, to take her pulse.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Take her pulse, you mean? I took it several times each night and made the entry on my chart; as a rule I did it, if she was asleep, without waking her.”

“Chart. Do you have those charts?”

Rue thought back.

“I don’t know. In the hospital your charts are kept on file, but when on private duty I’ve never made it a custom to keep my charts. Someone may have kept them; I don’t know.”

“You mean someone in the household? A maid?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps Doctor Hatterick has them.”

“Doctor Crittenden was the attending physician. Do you happen to have the charts, Doctor Crittenden?”

“No. I looked at them every day when I came to see — to see my patient.

The little Funk relinquished the gold tassel. Miller said: “Well, well — that will come later. Now don’t misunderstand me, Mrs Hatterick; I don’t want to exceed my duty; none of us want to do that; but as much for your protection and Doctor Hatterick’s protection as anyone’s, it is our duty to prove that there’s no truth in these letters. If there’s any rumors going about it’s our duty to prove those rumors wrong and slanderous. We feel you’ll want to help us do that.”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Therefore we feel you’ll do everything in your power to help us.”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll forgive me if my questions seem to — seem to touch on your personal and family affairs.”

“What do you want to say?”

“Now, now don’t get upset, Mrs Hatterick. I only want to know if — well, if you were very much surprised when the first Mrs Hatterick died?”

Steady, thought Rue. Andy was as still as a graven image.

“I hadn’t expected it. But unpredictable things like that do happen sometimes; a nurse and doctor can do their very best with a patient and still lose the patient.”

“Did your husband — that is, Doctor Hatterick himself — attend his wife when she was ill?”

“No. A doctor never attends members of his own family.”

“But I expect the attending physician enjoys the complete confidence of the, say, physician in the family. In other words, did Doctor Crittenden ever consult Doctor Hatterick about Mrs Hatterick’s illness?”

“I’ll answer that for you,” said Andy. “Yes, certainly. He knew and approved of my treatment and diagnosis.”

“Did he suggest any part of that diagnosis?”

After a second Andy said: “No. It was my case.”

“I see. Mrs Hatterick, was the first Mrs Hatterick altogether happy in her family relations?”

“I can’t possibly answer that question,” said Rue. “I was her nurse, not her confidante. There was no reason to suppose she was not happy.”

“Your marriage to your patient’s husband took place not more than ten months after Mrs Hatterick’s death? Now I don’t want you to misunderstand me; you must realize that when so short a period elapses between the death of a man’s first wife and his remarriage, people are bound to ask questions.”

“There were reasons; my husband will tell you what they were. Is there anything else you wish to know?” Rue was suddenly, furiously angry; but she was frightened, too.

The little man, Funk, discovered a bronze figure on the table near him, touched it with an exploring, dirty little claw and said in a morose and scared voice: “Home. Daughter…”

“Exactly,” said Miller. “Quite comprehensible, I’m sure.”

“… How long,” finished the little Funk, and shrank behind the table and wouldn’t look at anyone.

“How long have you known Doctor Hatterick?” asked Miller.

“I trained in the hospital where he was chief of staff. That’s been eight years; I was eighteen when — I was obliged to find a profession for myself so as to earn my own living.”

“Eight years ago; you’ve known him for eight years then?”

“Certainly.”

“Knew him well, I expect.”

“That’s enough of that line, Miller,” said Andy. “Have you any real evidence that Mrs Hatterick — Crystal Hatterick, that is — was murdered?”

“We’ve put the cards on the table, Doctor. You know exactly what our position is.”

“Mrs Hatterick has answered everything you’ve asked her. She’ll be right here in case you have any further inquiries —”

“Going,” murmured a small voice at the door, and Funk scuttled out of sight into the hall.

Miller, unperturbed, said: “All right, Doctor Crittenden. The body’s to be exhumed as soon as we get Doctor Hatterick’s consent. Then there’ll be an autopsy. But if we had some notion of what to look for it’d be a quicker and easier job for the chemists. You don’t happen to know, do you, Mrs Hatterick, whether or not the first Mrs Hatterick took any kind of drugs — I mean, medicinally or otherwise? It’s a help, you know, to know what to eliminate when you’re searching for an unknown drug.”

“Naturally she was given medicines,” said Rue. “Nothing else.”

“Medicines. Did you give her medicine the night she died?”

“She doesn’t need to answer that,” said Andy quickly. “You’re exceeding your duty, Miller.”

“She will answer though,” said Miller.

Medicine. Yes, she had. She remembered it so clearly; the small glass with the prescribed medicine, diluted with water, already prepared. Julie had prepared and left it on the little table by the screen. Rue herself gave it to Crystal at eight. Crystal had taken it and…

The marquetry floor with its soft rugs wavered and rocked under Rue’s silver slippers; the lights trembled and blurred; the whole world as she knew it spun around and changed its order. For they were right. Crystal had been murdered.

And she, Rue, had murdered her.

Not intentionally; but actually, physically it had been Rue’s hand that finally accomplished Crystal’s death.

She’d given Crystal the little glass, prepared, waiting on the table. And now suddenly she remembered; Crystal had taken it and had complained of its taste; had said, “It’s bitter. Andy must have changed the medicine today,” and then she drank it. Drank it while Rue stood beside her, crisp, efficient in her white uniform. A travesty of her own ideals, for her own hand, trained and dedicated to mercy, had given Crystal poison.

Andy’s voice was speaking, sharply, with a warning note in it. He was saying: “Certainly she gave her medicine, and I prescribed it. Why not? Anything else would be most unusual.”

Somehow Andy was getting Miller into the hall. She heard them talking; she made some motion of recognition when Miller appeared, a shabby felt hat in his hand, and said good night and thanked her. His eyes said, I’ll question you again, my fine lady; this is not our last meeting. So you gave her medicine, did you? And she took it and died. And you married her husband. Andy came back into the room.

“They’ve gone. You weathered that. Rue, what was it you remembered? I knew by your look there was something.”

“The medicine. I gave it to her; Julie had prepared it and left it in a glass on the table where we kept her medicines and water. I gave it to Crystal, and I remember that she tasted it and looked at me and said it tasted bitter; she laughed a little and said, ‘Andy must have changed my medicine today,’ and then she drank it, while I stood there watching her.”

Up to that time, up to the very moment when that small, clear memory arose so sharply and unexpectedly from the faraway night of Crystal’s death and presented itself to her, the whole thing had seemed unreal. Every word Andy said to her might have been said through veils, on a stage, in a curious and fantastic dream. Everything else was poignantly real — the coldness of the wind, the swish of her skirt around her ankles, the heat of the coffee he had made her drink. It was as if all material things had taken on an extra and peculiar clarity. But not the thing they talked of.

And then all at once, while Miller questioned phlegmatically and the little Funk examined the satinwood table, memory had supplied that clear, small picture.

She could see the glass in Crystal’s hand, the way Crystal had looked up at her, her face pink and her lips crimson and her blonde hair carefully dressed. She had made a little face as she tasted it. And then, her eyes shut tight, had gulped it down. Because it was Andy’s medicine. Because she did not dream that there was poison in that little glass.

As there must have been.

Up to the onslaught of that memory the thing had been unreal. Rue had been shocked — and she’d been frightened and she’d had a paralyzing sense of catastrophe. But there hadn’t been cold, certain conviction. There hadn’t been, in the wake of knowledge, terror.

And some extra sense, some natural, primitive sense that went below all surface laws of comprehension, convinced her of the presence of truth. Crystal had really, actually, been murdered.