The Hangman's Whip (15 page)

“They don’t suspect you, do they?”

“I wasn’t here the other times it happened.”

“She never mentioned poison—Ludmilla, I mean. We all knew something was wrong. But”—he turned to her again quickly—“look here, Jonas got a notion from something he heard that somebody was in the house last night.”

“Yes—yes, that’s true, but it—it’s all over, and I am all right and I don’t know who—”

“Search! For God’s sake, do you mean—” He caught her shoulders hard in his hands, his eyes, intent. “Tell me.”

She told him that too, quickly, minimizing it, but telling of the chloroform and the handkerchief—his own—also; repeating that she didn’t know who it was or why she had been, apparently, the object of the attack.

“But that’s the way—”

She nodded. It was the way Eve had died. There was horror in his face and deep, still anger. He rose abruptly, walked to the window and stared out. “
Who was it
?” he said in a tight voice over his shoulder.

“But I don’t know—”

Jonas began to whistle. She stopped, and Richard jerked around to listen, his hands thrust in his pockets, his face grim and a little drawn in the growing dusk. The first two bars of “Annie Laurie” arose shrilly from below and stopped, and Howland’s voice said: “Well, Jonas, I didn’t know you were so musically inclined.”

“Any news, Mr. Howie?” said Jonas in an alarmingly loud voice, intended to warn them.

“Not much.” They could hear Howland walking about. “I haven’t been in the barn for years. We used to play here—remember, Jonas? Well, well, I see you kept some of the old feedboxes. Where do these stairs go? Isn’t there a room up there in the loft?”

“Used to be. Keep old harnesses there now. Mr. Howland, you’re a lawyer. They say there’s an inquest tomorrow. What will they do?”

“What will they do? I’m afraid, Jonas, they’ll recommend that the sheriff arrest Dick and try him for murder. Well, I was only walking around the place. See you again, Jonas.”

“Good night, Mr Howland.”

He was leaving. They heard his footsteps on the graveled driveway in front of the garage, then silence.

Richard turned abruptly and came to her, standing above her, looking down into her face.

“Search,” he said, “there’s something I’ve got to tell you and I hate to. I started to—that night down there on the pier. It—it’s one of the damnable things about Eve’s murder. The police don’t know it yet, but it’s only a matter of time until they do. You see—oh, it’s too long a story; there’s so little time. You must go before anyone—Listen, Search, I was in trouble. I had to have money. I came here to Kentigern to get money. Any way—anyhow. It was my last hope.”

“I know.”

“Who—”

“Diana told me. She said she would have given you money.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s true.”

“But you didn’t take it.”

He didn’t answer for a second or two. Then he said: “No. She didn’t want to buy more stock, and I can’t let her give it to me. But I did come here to get some money somehow—anyhow. I’m in a—a jam. And you see, Eve had some money.”

“Eve!” She rose quickly to face him. “But she—”

“I know. Everybody thought she hadn’t any money at all, and God knows I never had much to give her. But she—Well, one time her bankbook came to me, accidentally. I didn’t notice it was hers; I opened it. I don’t know how she did it, but she’d saved something over seven thousand. It was in a savings account. Not much, but it would have helped me just now. I thought perhaps she—wouldn’t mind helping. I meant to repay it. So—well, I asked her for it.”

“She refused.”

“I didn’t blame her. But you see, that money—as soon as they know, and they will know—is an added motive. She’d saved it, a little at a time; she was clever about money.”

It would be, in the hands of the sheriff, an added motive. Not the amount of the money, but Richard’s need. Yet at the same time it emphasized the falsity and the emptiness of his marriage with Eve.

Jonas, below, started across the barn. He came to the stairs and began to ascend slowly. Richard went quickly to the door.

“All right, Jonas,” he said low. “She’s coming.”

“Better hurry,” said Jonas.

“But—Richard, there are other things. You must know—” He came back to her. Hurriedly she tried to tell him of things Jonas might not have known of the inquiry: of the sheriff’s questions, of things that might be clues—Ludmilla’s bathrobe cord, the figure she had seen watching the cottage. “Who?” said Richard at once. And when she shook her head he said tersely: “Never mind. Go on. What else?”

That was really all. Except he must understand that Howland was his enemy.

“Why?” said Richard. And saw the truth in her eyes, for he took a quick breath. “Howland! I never thought of that! That’s why, then—” He stopped again. His dark eyes searched her own. “Search, you don’t love him? You don’t—”

“You know I don’t, Richard.”

He caught her hands then. She thought he was going to take her again in his arms, but he didn’t. Instead, abruptly, almost harshly, he said: “You must go now. Jonas and I will be near—don’t forget that. Jonas can come and go anywhere. No one will question him. But don’t—don’t take any chances.”

It was dusk by that time in the bare little room with its grimy windowpanes and its smell of the old granary below it. Richard’s face looked white and tired and stern.

“Richard, who killed her?”

He didn’t answer. Jonas started up the stairs again. “All right, Jonas,” he said and made her go.

Jonas was waiting at the bottom of the steps, his face anxious and pale in the gloom. He went ahead of her to the wide doorway. “I’ll stay here, miss,” he said in a low voice. She glanced quickly around. No one was in sight, and the massed shrubs bordering the doorway were moist and heavy. It was almost twilight, and the mist was blue and thick in the shadows.

She went across the graveled open area. Where the driveway curved around the shrubbery and disappeared she turned and looked up at the grimy little loft window. Richard was watching her. She was sure of that although she couldn’t see his face. She started to make a little gesture of good-by when Jonas, lounging in the open doorway of the garage, caught her eye and made a sharp motion of negation. So she turned and went on.

Richard hadn’t murdered Eve. They couldn’t make it look as if he had.

She told herself that.

But she knew, too, the uncertainty, the unpredictable quality that is inherent in any trial. Circumstantial evidence; wasn’t that what they called it when direct proof was missing and the jury had to draw its conclusions from circumstances pointing toward guilt?

She had reached the fork where the driveway turned toward the gate in one direction, toward the house in the other, when Howland stepped out from the thicket of firs. Little drops of moisture shook from the fir trees, and Howland was smiling a little. He said: “There you are, my dear. And how was Richard?”

S
HE STOPPED STILL IN
the driveway.

It seemed to her a kind of evil, pursuing fate that it should be Howland. Howland who had happened (or had he followed her and watched?) to the garage. Howland who guessed Richard’s presence. Anyone else in the place could have been depended upon to keep Richard’s presence there a secret.

Howland said: “There’s no use pretending he isn’t there. I suppose he’s been hiding in the room up in the loft. Jonas must have been bringing him food and standing guard for him. He’s a sly old fox, Jonas. Well, my dear. Shall I go and see Richard? Although I don’t really want to see him. It’s you I want to talk to.”

She must warn Richard; that was mainly in her mind. Howland, still smiling imperturbably, drew her arm through his own and turned her toward the drive leading to the house.

“It’s a good time, Search,” he said, “to get things clear between us. Remember what I said to you—a few days ago in your little apartment way up on the tenth floor—there in Chicago?”

This time she answered. “Yes.”

“All right. You were ready to say yes then; you told me only to wait a little. You intended to marry me then. Didn’t you?”

“Not then.”

“But later. You almost promised. But that night you came up here and saw Richard. And turned me down flat.”

“Are you going to the sheriff? For revenge—” That was wrong; she stopped abruptly, wishing there had not been ridicule (and a thin edge of fright) in her voice. Howland was still smiling, but his upper lip began to draw back a little under his short dark mustache.

“Did I threaten to go to the sheriff and say, ‘Look here, the man you want for murder is hiding in the loft room of the old garage on the Abbott place’? Within a stone’s throw of the house and the cottage where the murder occurred.” He chuckled a little softly. “It is like the old saying, a murderer returns to the scene of the crime.”

“Howland,
stop
.”

“Oh, I’m not going to do it. Even if you can’t bring yourself to ask me “

“You can’t believe he murdered her!”

There was the spatter of gravel from beyond the next curve in the driveway and the sound of someone whistling sharply and tunelessly between his teeth. It was Calvin, and he walked around the curve and brought up quickly when he saw them.

“Oh, I was looking for you. Say, listen, Howland, it’s all set for the inquest tomorrow morning. At ten. Whether they find Dick or not between now and then. Don’t you think you’d better sort of—well, coach us in what kind of answers we are to make?”

“Nervous, Calvin?” said Howland, smiling.

Calvin’s shoulders gave a jerk. “Of course I’m nervous. I hate anything like that. Family troubles aired. All kinds of impertinent questions. Besides, there’s—there’s my position to consider.”

“Afraid you’ll lose a few votes?”

“If enough mud is thrown some of it is likely to stick,” said Calvin nervously. “Besides, whether Dick killed her or not, I—I don’t want him to hang.”

“You’re very squeamish,” said Howland. “You always were.”

“
Squeamish
,” began Calvin, his face flushing. “Good God—”

“But he won’t hang for it,” continued Howland quickly. “Not if he follows my advice. When he’s found,” he added deliberately, looking at Search.

“I don’t like your tone, Howie.” Calvin was flushed and angry. “I don’t think you quite appreciate our position.”

Again Search thought she must warn Richard. She said: “I’ll go on up to the house.”

“Good night, dear,” said Howland. His eyes tried to share understanding with her. His tone was warm and had a kind of intimacy; Calvin noted it and glanced quickly at Howland and then at Search. Search turned hurriedly toward the house, leaving the two men standing there in the driveway. It was dusk under the lilacs and on the big porch when she reached it. And Diana rose abruptly from the swing and came toward her.

Her long narrow face looked very white in the shadow; her eyes shone, reflecting what light was left in the sky as flatly and blankly as the lake reflected it. She said: “Search, where have you been? Did you see anyone? Something a little queer happened awhile ago.”

“What was it?” In the back of her mind she was considering how best she could reach Richard, without endangering him further. Jonas usually came to the kitchen for supper at about that time. She could send word by him.

Diana, frowning, was talking: “—and as no one was here Carter simply sent him away again. Without asking his name or anything about him. That must have been about an hour ago. Were you here then?”

“But—do you mean someone was here?”

“Weren’t you listening?” said Diana sharply. “What is wrong with you, Search? You look as if you’re sleepwalking! I said someone was here. A man. Came to the front door, and Carter answered it and sent him away again. Ludmilla was in her room resting. So was I. Calvin had gone to town to make arrangements for Eve—for the body to be sent East. She’s got a cousin or somebody; she’s to be buried there. Ludmilla thought it best and so did I. But, at any rate, while Calvin was gone this man came. And Carter sent him away.”

“Yes. But why …” began Search, and Diana said sharply:

“He inquired for Eve. That’s the point.”

“Eve!”

“He asked for Eve. And he said he had an appointment. And Carter said Eve was dead. Apparently he hadn’t seen the newspapers, although how on earth anybody in this vicinity could fail to know—But, at any rate, when she said Eve was dead he asked for Richard. Carter was upset, so she took refuge in that glacial formal manner of hers—which is, of course, why I hired her—but, at any rate, she seems to have said icily that Richard wasn’t here. So the man just said he’d be back, then, later and went away. Went down the steps to the pier. Carter watched him go.”

An appointment with Eve!

She was in the mood to snatch at any straw for a clue and realized it. But if someone had come to see Eve; if he had had an appointment; if he asked for Richard and then disappeared, saying he would be back, wasn’t it possible that some crumb of information might be extracted from him?

Diana said impatiently: “If Carter had only asked for his name! She wasn’t even able to give any kind of description of him. Anything, I mean, that would help us to find him—if he doesn’t come back. She said he was about average height, wore a gray suit, was a little shabby, seemed a little nervous. She said he wasn’t ‘quite a gentleman.’ That’s all. Except that it seemed queer to her that he didn’t come in a car. Apparently he walked up to the house from the lake path and so went back the same way. Did you see him, Search?”

“No.”

Diana watched her a moment in silence. “Carter thought you went down to the pier; she said she saw you go that way. I thought perhaps you saw him when he went away.”

“I didn’t.”

“He must have seen you. From the steps, I mean. It’s funny he didn’t speak to you.”

“I wasn’t on the pier all the time. I sat there for a while and then I went for a walk.”

Diana’s eyes narrowed. “How odd!”

“Odd?”

“To go for a walk, I mean. After what happened last night. I should think you would be—well, a little afraid. Search, why did someone enter your room last night? Was it just to frighten you, do you think? I—I wondered if whoever it was thought you had seen something at the cottage that was a clue.”