Yellow Room (18 page)

To her surprise he laughed, although rather grimly.

“I can suspect Elinor of a number of things,” he said dryly. “I know her. But the last thing in the world she would do would be to soil her pretty hands with gasoline, or go out in the night alone in a dressing gown and carrying Granny’s old pitcher to start a fire. That’s out, Carol. Don’t be a little fool.”

Perhaps he was right, she thought. It wasn’t like Elinor, none of it, and when Elinor herself arrived soon after, bringing a half dozen people for a drink before lunch she felt still more doubtful. This was Elinor at her best, the perfect hostess, the fastidious, immaculate person she had always been.

They sat around, well dressed and prosperous appearing. Some of them had been on the links. The talk was idle, of golf, of the party the night before, of the war, of politics. It was some time before Lucy was mentioned. Then someone said that Floyd was still clinging to the idea she had been murdered, that he had found where the fire escape had been used.

Louise Simpson looked up at Greg with her faintly malicious smile.

“And Greg with no alibi for last night!” she said. “Where did you vanish to, Greg?”

“Me?” He grinned at her. “I wasn’t climbing any fire escapes. I had a lot to drink. I drove it off.”

She persisted, still apparently only mischievous. “There’s a story you were here the night of the murder, you know. You’d better get busy on a couple of alibis.”

Greg looked astonished. He put down his glass and glanced around the group.

“I don’t get it. What story? I haven’t heard it.”

“Just that you were seen here, coming out of the drive in Elinor’s car,” Louise said pertly.

“In Elinor’s car? For God’s sake, what would I be doing here in Elinor’s car?”

She laughed. “That’s the question, of course,” she said, and finished her cocktail.

It was Peter Crowell who broke the startled silence that followed.

“Why don’t you mind your own business, Louise?” he demanded. “Of course there are stories, Greg. There always are. That’s only one of them. Don’t let it worry you. Nobody believes it.” He got out of his chair. “It’s time to go,” he said. “More than time, if you ask me.”

T
HE NEWS OF LUCY’S
death did not reach Dane until Alex returned from his marketing that morning. There was still no word from Tim in St. Louis, and Dane was restless. He had walked again over to the hillside. Most of the watchers had left and the last vestige of fire had gone, but he knew the uselessness of further search. When he went back he had determined to see Lucy Norton, police or no police. There was still the question as to why she had allowed the dead girl to stay in the house, had fixed her bed, even carried soap and towels to her. What sort of story had she put up that Lucy would agree to let her stay there? He felt the whole answer lay there.

He considered that, ruffling through such notes as he had made. He had always believed in following the essential clue, and so far he had considered the dead girl’s identity as probably providing that. Now he wondered if her story to Lucy was not more important. These New England women, he knew, were not soft. They were as hard and firm as the soil that bred them. They had character and a certain skepticism, especially about strangers. Yet Lucy had accepted her. Why? What proof had she had? What, for instance, had she shown? A card? A letter?

Some identification she had certainly produced. Something she had carried with her in her bag, something now either buried or in the murderer’s possession.

The news of Lucy’s death was therefore a shock to him.

“Found her on the floor, sir,” Alex reported. “Floyd’s running around in circles. According to all I can find out, he thinks somebody climbed up the fire escape and knocked her down.”

Dane ate a hasty lunch and drove into the village. He found the police chief grim and not inclined to be communicative.

“She’s dead. That’s all I’m going to say, Dane. The district attorney’s coming over. I wish to God he’d keep out of this. I’ve got enough trouble of my own.”

“What brings him?” Dane inquired. “If it was her heart—”

“Well,” Floyd said grudgingly, “there are one or two more things I don’t like. Somebody jerked the pushbutton off the bed, for one thing. Then about one
A.M.
one or two of the patients report somebody opening their doors and looking in. Searching for her, probably. Didn’t know what room she was in.”

“That ought to let out some of your prize suspects.”

“Yeah? Just who? None of the Spencers except Carol knew where she was. And Greg Spencer says he was driving all over the map when it happened.”

He did not mention the fire escape, nor did Dane. He blustered about these tight-mouthed women who wouldn’t tell all they knew; that he was sorry as hell about Lucy, but if she’d only talked—However he was on the trail of something. That dead girl, now.

“She probably came from somewhere in the Middle West,” he said. “Say somewhere about St. Louis, eh?”

He grinned at Dane, and Dane gave him an amused smile in return.

“I imagine we’ll both know before long,” he said, and went out.

The hospital was quiet when he got there. It was inured to death. It did the best it could. After that things were either up to God or to the patient, depending on your view of things. It was busy, though. No one paid any attention to Dane as he wandered around, first outside and then through the halls. Floyd was right about the fire escape. It showed fresh scratches on the rusty iron. And upstairs he had no trouble locating Lucy’s empty room. But he was disappointed in finding it had been stripped and Lucy’s small possessions gone.

He was tired and exasperated as he drove home. If something had frightened Lucy into the heart attack that had killed her, what was it? Or who was it?

All along Lucy’s attitude had bothered him. So far as he knew she had not mentioned the presence of the girl in the house when she was found and taken to the hospital. All she had told was of a hand reaching out of the closet. Yet at the inquest she had come out flat-footed with the fact.

Had that caused her death? Sent her midnight visitor up the fire escape, to hunt her out and so terrify her that she died of shock? But why such a visitor, unless she either knew or possessed something that might be incriminating?

It was this possibility which had sent him to the hospital; to find if possible what clue to the girl’s identity Lucy had in her possession. He was still working on this idea when Tim called him late in the afternoon from St. Louis.

“No soap,” he said, “and hotter than the hinges of hell here. What do I do now?”

“Better catch a plane back. I may need you.”

Tim protested the plane violently.

“I was airsick all the way out, and how!” he said. “Have a heart! Lemme come on my back, in a good old sleeper. I’m apt to be shoved off the plane anyhow. Any fellow with a brief case under his arm can claim priority.”

Dane grinned and agreed. Nevertheless, he was uneasy. There was only one explanation of Lucy’s getting out of her bed, and that was fear. If this sort of thing was to go on—

He walked worriedly about the room. His limp was almost gone, and he realized that he had not much time left. Yet if Carol was in danger—and he began to think she might be—the mystery ought to be solved soon. Not that it was a personal matter, he told himself. No man with this type of job had any business falling for a girl. Any girl. But the thing had to be stopped.

That night he drove out to the Norton place, a small frame house on a back road some miles away. A number of cars parked around it showed that Joe was not alone in his trouble. As Dane got out of the car he realized that the drought had broken at last. A fine drizzling rain was falling, making the place look bleak and forlorn. He felt like an intruder as he rapped at the door.

A woman opened it, looking at him suspiciously. She agreed to call Joe, however, and he appeared, haggard and resentful.

“If you’re from the police I wish you’d let me alone,” he said roughly. “She’s dead. That’s enough, ain’t it?”

“It’s not enough if somebody terrified her last night,” Dane said. “Better think that over, Mr. Norton. She had a broken leg, but she got out of bed. Why did she do that?”

Joe doubled his hard fists.

“Just let me know who scared her,” he said. “He’ll never know what struck him.”

It was some time before Dane could persuade Joe to let him see what of Lucy’s effects he had brought from the hospital. They were disappointing, at that. Joe had cleared the kitchen of people, and under his suspicious eyes Dane examined what he laid out on the table; a few cotton nightgowns, some handkerchiefs, the clothing she had worn to the inquest, and last of all her shabby pocketbook.

There were only two or three dollars in it, proving that the murdered girl had not bribed her way into the house. These, a used handkerchief, and a slip containing a list of groceries bought from Miller’s market the day of the girl’s arrival merely bore out her story as she had told it at the inquest. And Joe knew nothing more than Lucy had told him, which was substantially what she had testified.

However, when Dane pressed him, he admitted that Lucy had been unlike herself when he saw her at the hospital.

“Seemed like she had something on her mind,” he said. “I asked her, but she wouldn’t tell me. Said she’d tell Miss Carol when she came. Only thing I got out of her, she said she thought the girl was scared of something the night she was killed. She didn’t know what.”

So it was back to the Spencer family again, Dane reflected glumly as he drove home. But how? Which one of them was involved? Gregory could have burned the hillside. His easy statement that he had arrived after the fire meant nothing. And so far they had all taken his alibi for granted. But a man could not be in Washington receiving the Medal of Honor for bravery and committing a murder at the same time. Nor could the sight of Greg, knowing him as she did, have alarmed Lucy Norton to her death.

Nevertheless, he called Washington that night, driving over to the railroad station to do so. He asked that no name be used in the return telegram or telephone message, and felt he had done all he could as he drove back.

It was his turn to keep an eye on the Spencer place. Alex was to relieve him at four in the morning, and was already snoring stertorously in his bed when Dane went out. It was still raining, a thin drizzle which would do little to help the crops but was enough to wet him pretty thoroughly as he went through the trees. It was very dark. His landmark was the light marble of the fountain, and he found it and stopped there. From where he stood the house was a dark mass, looming a hundred yards ahead. Its very darkness and stillness reassured him. He moved, limping slightly, toward it.

There was a clap of thunder then, and somewhere not far off a car backfired. Or was it a backfire? He was not certain. The rain had suddenly increased to a roar and made all sound uncertain.

He finally decided it had been a car, and began as usual to quietly circle the house. He moved first along the side toward the sea, where the terrace was empty, the chairs and tables taken in against the rain, and he went on noiselessly, until he had reached the entrance at the rear.

Each night he or Alex had watched the windows and tried the doors. Now, as he felt for the one on the drive, it was open. What confronted him was only the empty darkness of the hall. It startled him by its very unexpectedness, and it was a moment or two before he stepped warily inside. Except for the splashing of the wall fountain in the patio everything was quiet, and he was uncertain what to do. Either one of the household had left the house for some purpose, or someone had been admitted. The door had surely been locked before the family went to bed. But the total darkness made it unlikely anyone had come in. Then who was missing?

He stood for a second or two before he decided to make a move. He knew the house fairly well by that time, and he found the stairs without trouble. Still groping, he passed the door to the yellow room and went on to Carol’s. It was closed and locked. He began to feel rather absurd, but he knocked finally, and felt an enormous relief when he heard her voice inside.

“Yes? What is it?”

“It’s Jerry Dane,” he said. “Don’t be frightened. I found the front door open and the house dark. I was afraid someone might have come in.”

“Just a minute.”

He heard her light snap on, heard her closet door open and knew she was putting on something hastily over her night clothes. She looked very young and startled when she opened the door, her hair loose about her face and her eyes wide.

“Did you say the front door was open?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand. I locked it myself tonight. What time is it?”

“After one o’clock. Perhaps you’d better check up and see if anyone has gone out. I’ll look around myself. Somebody may have come in, but I doubt it.”

He turned on the lights in the yellow room while she hurried on. It was empty, and the windows were closed. He was still there, remembering it as he had first seen it, when Carol came back.

“It’s Elinor,” she told him. “I can’t understand it. Why would she go out on a night like this? And Greg’s asleep. I heard him snoring. She must have gone alone.”

He glanced into Elinor’s room before they went downstairs. The bed had been used. The book she had been reading was on the table beside it, and a breeze from the open window was ruffling its pages and sending in a thin spray of rain. A pair of sheer stockings hung over the back of a chair, one or two silk undergarments were strewn about, and her evening slippers were on the floor.

“You see,” Carol said, her lips stiff. “She had undressed for the night. She had gone to bed too. Why would she go out? Or where?”

“There’s a chance she’s in the house. I didn’t look in the service wing downstairs.”

But Elinor was not in the house. Five minutes after he had discovered the open door Dane turned his flashlight up the hill and saw something lying there among the burned and sodden bushes near the lane.

It was Elinor, and she had been shot.