Voice Out of Darkness (21 page)

‘If you had any routine—accident.’ Katy smiled and lifted her martini and agreed with Pauline Trent about Fenwick’s growing prominence as a quaint resort town.

Underneath, she thought seethingly that it was all very well for Lieutenant Hooper to toss them together like ingredients for an experimental stew and then go serenely off by himself. But, even with Michael at his most diplomatic, the going with Uncle John’s cousin was rough. Miss Trent smoked and sipped a cocktail and threw abrupt remarks into the small silences. Her air of braced stiffness, her black unwinking eyes said plainly, “Now that you’ve got me here, what do you want with me?”

Michael inquired, nobly, about the local oyster industry.

Katy shifted imperceptibly and slid her fingers down the cold polished stem of her glass. ‘What happens then, Katy?’ She knew, dimly, that in the event of her death before she married the Meredith estate would revert to the few Meredith relatives, distant connections, by blood, on both sides of the family. There was a cousin in San Francisco, another in—was it Canada?—a twice-removed couple referred to, vaguely, as Morrow and Lucille.

And Pauline Trent.

Nonsense, thought Katy briskly, and looked up and took the full impact of the shining unreadable eyes across the table.

Voices in the doorway of the bar, someone saying, “—not by the window, it’s freezing, I know it of old.” Francesca Poole, slender and poised, looked restlessly over the little bar. At her shoulder, Cassie, in—why was it surprising?—the warm red wool she had worn the night she had come flying through the snow to stare at Ilse Petersen’s crushed body. Jeremy Taylor, at Cassie’s side, touched her elbow and bent his head and said something, and Cassie smiled brilliantly across the room at Katy and they moved forward.

“Mind if we join you for a drink?”

Jeremy was doing it smoothly, sliding chairs into place, tucking Francesca’s coat over her shoulders, folding Cassie’s back over her chair. “If you’ll finish those drinks, we can all start together… waiter?”

So it’s going to be social, thought Katy coldly and clearly. Why doesn’t Lieutenant Hooper come and watch us performing so prettily? There was a tiny knot of tension somewhere in her throat. Michael’s fingers touched her wrist warningly and she lifted her martini and finished it.

More cocktails were ordered; Katy wanted to say, ironically, that they might as well wait for Arnold Poole and Harvey Pickering. Then, when Francesca turned a shoulder to speak to Jeremy, she saw that the group was almost complete after all.

Harvey Pickering’s back was to them; he sat alone at a small table beside one of the wine-curtained windows. He could hardly have failed to turn his head at the greetings and the shifting of chairs. If he was aware of their presence, he didn’t show it. While Katy watched, a waiter deposited a Manhattan before him and went away and returned with a menu.

It was twenty minutes after seven.

At about twenty-five minutes after seven, Arnold Poole made a curiously flat entrance. He chose a table for two near the doorway, saw them, smiled and waved, and sat down. He ordered a drink; when it came he raised it toward their table in polite salute. Francesca said composedly, under her breath, “Heavens. Everyone we ever knew is here tonight. How long are you staying, Mr. Blythe?”

It seemed to Katy that they were all suspended, waiting. Michael said casually, avoiding a pause, “A day or two—or until I can coax Katy to come back with me.”

Might as well find out now, Katy thought; might as well know if it interferes with someone’s plans… She said clearly, “Whenever you say, darling. I’ll need a few days to resign at Paige’s and do something about the apartment, but we’ll be married right after that, shall we?”

She waited for a reaction that didn’t come. There were congratulations all over again, and just the right amount of pleased surprise. Francesca said quickly, “Katy, how wonderful!” and Cassie looked at Jeremy and laughed and said, “Why can’t I be that efficient?” Pauline Trent said, with no expression at all, that she was sure they would be very happy.

Michael didn’t speak. He had nodded, and now he sat looking at her with the secret blue glance that shut all the others away and left them delightfully alone. Katy dropped her eyes under the dazing directness of his. Seconds later, when she could think rationally again, she told herself that he had been wrong about any threat to her marriage. They had received the news like any polite group of friends, with smiling interest, with the usual questions.

She stopped twirling her glass and looked up. In time to catch the slow, furious stare which Jeremy Taylor had been directing at his fiancée.

At seven-thirty-five Lieutenant Hooper came in.

His face was pink with cold; it made him look demurer than ever. Katy had learned to be frightened of his muffler-and-rubbers mildness. The tight knot in her throat was back, sharpened by dread. Lieutenant Hooper came straight to the table. He said cheerfully, “Good news, Miss Meredith—I think this is yours, isn’t it?”

He handed her missing black suede bag across the table. The once-soft leather was crustily stiff in her fingers, the drawstring was gone. Someone said innocently, “Oh, had you lost it, Katy?” and someone else asked detachedly, “Everything intact?”

Harvey Pickering had turned to watch them at last; Katy was half-consciously aware of that. She sat holding the bag in tight fingers, looking up at Lieutenant Hooper for guidance. If he were right, and the wedding-invitation envelope contained the third of the anonymous letters, she might as well be clutching a cobra.

“Just see if everything’s there,” said Lieutenant Hooper gently.

Katy pulled at the shirred edge of the pouch. She pretended to probe with her fingers, to count the bills in the black wallet; she saw nothing but the square white envelope.

She said, “Yes. Everything’s here—even some ancient correspondence,” and sensed rather than heard a held breath go out somewhere around the table.

Eight o’clock.

“Marvelous shrimp,” said Francesca.

The two parties had not separated after all; they had slid somehow from cocktails to dinner still in a casual group. The snow-stiffened black suede bag was in Katy’s lap. She was as conscious of it as though it were a living thing. Francesca put down her fork and looked solicitously across the table. “Do you feel all right, Katy? You look a little—pale.”

“Country wear and tear,” Katy said, and smiled. “You get out of the habit of walking in New York. I feel as though I’d run a cross-country race, even though I only went as far as the little pond. Where we used to skate. The shrimp is heavenly, isn’t it?”

“There’s a message for you at the desk,” the bell-boy had said almost immediately after Lieutenant Hooper had taken his departure. Katy had gone out into the lobby, not startled at all to find the lieutenant beckoning from the stairs. In Katy’s room, standing with his back against the door, he had begun to talk.

Katy listened. They had found the bag yesterday afternoon in the snow in front of the Poole house, where she had dropped it on the night Ilse Petersen died. A photostatic copy had been made of the letter—the last one Katy had received—that she had slipped by mistake into the wrong envelope. The photostat was on its way to New York to go under the powerful glass of the homicide squad’s handwriting experts; arrangements were being made to round up samples of the handwriting of all concerned. Hooper shrugged discontentedly. He said, “It’s slow, and it’s not infallible. I think we’ll have quicker results right here.”

Katy stared. She said shakily, “What an unattractive proposition. You mean, don’t you, that someone’s going to try to get the letter back?”

“Yes,” Lieutenant Hooper said neatly. “Now pay attention to me, Miss Meredith. I’ll be watching, and I’ll have someone else watching, but we can’t, naturally, be under your nose. Be very careful. Don’t let the bag out of your sight for a second, and don’t give the letter to anyone, for any reason. If it’s out of your hands, your manner will give you away—and I think it will be very interesting to find out who wants it back.”

Katy stood up. She said, “They’ll know I’ve been talking to you just now.”

“Yes,” said Lieutenant Hooper serenely, holding the door. “I certainly hope so. I’m counting on it rather heavily. Er—careful on the stairs.”

And here she was, passionately admiring the shrimp.

She had tried to give Michael a reassuring signal, but they were all too alert, too watchful. It was, in a way, like waiting for the sound of a gun, or the explosive pop of a champagne cork; you knew it was going to come and you screwed your nerves down tight, but in the end it was always just as much of a shock.

They had steak and salad and, because of Michael’s and Katy’s announcement, wine from the Fenwick Inn’s doubtful cellar. Katy was lighting a cigarette, not looking at any of them, when it happened. There was a sharp crash of glass, a clatter of silver against china, a drench of wine; Katy didn’t realize what had spilled until she felt wetness soaking through her skirt. Pauline Trent said brusquely, “Oh, Lord. My fault. Here—”

Katy jumped up. Her bag slid to the floor and Jeremy Taylor retrieved it. Francesca said helplessly, “Wine… hot water, or cold? It’s in all the cookbooks.”

“Cold,” said Cassie.

“Hot, I think,” said Pauline Trent. “I’m sorry, Katy. Let me—”

Katy said quickly that it didn’t matter and it would only take her a minute to sponge it off and fled, gratefully, upstairs to the ladies’ room.

It was nice to escape them all for a few minutes. She found a towel and began to scrub at the silky wool crepe. Her bag—had someone thought she might drop it without noticing when the wine came flooding over the edge of the table? Katy held the towel still. She hadn’t heard the door open—but, abruptly, Pauline Trent was standing against the darkness of the hall, looking at her in the mirror.

Pauline closed the door. Katy brandished the towel and made a last flourish at her skirt. “That’ll do for the time being.”

Pauline Trent took her shoulders away from the doorway and walked around until she was almost behind Katy. Her eyes met Katy’s in the mirror; they were still flat and dark and shining, but her face was almost casual. She said, “Better give it to me, Katy.”

Katy was still holding the towel. Her fingers plunged deeper into it and tightened, her mind was suddenly very clear, as though she had been braced subconsciously for just this. The bag was on the makeup ledge, within reach of her other hand. The door—she didn’t take her eyes away from Pauline’s unmoving reflection—the door wasn’t more than four steps away from where she stood.

But her muscles were locked, and she was off balance. She took a small shifting step and said carefully, “Give you—?” and Pauline Trent stirred impatiently and put out one strong, thick hand. “The towel. You’re still dripping, here, at the side.”

Quarter of nine, and coffee.

We must do this more often, Katy thought grimly, staring at her linked fingers. Shouldn’t you, with your wedding only a few days away, be able to think about what you would wear to be married in, and where you would go, and who would hand Michael the ring? Stan, she thought remotely. Stan ought to be maid of honor.

It wasn’t any use. It was even rather foolish to count on there ever being a time when she and Michael would step out of the quagmire and think about things like wedding trips. Because he was in it now, too; a stray tendril of malevolence had reached out carelessly into his New York apartment. Probably to show them, thought Katy, that distance didn’t matter, that it could follow them wherever they went… “More coffee?” said Michael.

Katy shook her head. Michael said in an outraged mutter, under laughter all around them, “Hooper’s out of his mind. What does he think you’re made of?”

“Portland cement,” said Katy, and Francesca, who had caught it across the table, arched her eyebrows and said, “What did you say, Katy?”

Nine-twenty.

Michael went out to the lobby for cigarettes, Francesca looked in her compact mirror and made a face and vanished to the ladies’ room. Jeremy had gone up to the other end of the bar in response to a hail from a well cocktailed client and Pauline Trent had said vaguely that she would be right back. Katy and Cassie looked at each other, and Cassie drew a long, soundless breath. “That glove of mine,” she said. “I suppose Dad told you?”

“No,” said Katy. She wished Michael would come back. She wished Cassie would stop looking at her with that soft, smoky stare. Was it Cassie she had almost known about, up there at the northern end of the pond? But Cassie was at the other end, the south end, with her and Monica, her mind said confusedly.

“I’d dropped it at the police station when we went there after—when we went there,” Cassie said. “I suppose they must have been—talking to Dad later. Anyway, that’s where he found it.” She looked over Katy’s shoulder and slid her chair back and rose. “Jeremy’s waving… someone I’m supposed to meet, I gather.”

And she was alone, in a little wilderness of crumpled napkins and silver and suspended motion.

“Hello, Katy,” said Arnold Poole, dropping down beside her.

Katy smiled and said hello and let one hand stray, casually, to the stiffened suede pouch. Arnold nodded sardonically at the now-vacant table where Harvey Pickering had sat. “I see our friend’s out-of-town business wasn’t as pressing as he thought.”

“Apparently not.” Katy waited. Arnold Poole grinned and said, “What have you got in that bag of yours, Captain Kidd’s diary?”

Katy felt shock, like a light and unexpected touch on her shoulder. She shook it off and laughed, and was startled to hear her voice come out hollow and gay. “Heavens, no. The usual chaos… why?”

“Nothing,” said Arnold Poole. He rose lazily and stood looking down at her. “I saw Hooper—that his name?—hand it to you a while ago. It was down at the police station on Abbott’s desk this morning when I dropped in. You never saw a bag vanish into a bottom drawer so fast. Maybe he was just looking for beauty tips for Mrs. Abbott, though.” He leaned down and twisted out his half-smoked cigarette. He said suddenly and intently, “Take care of yourself, Katy,” and nodded briefly and strolled away.