Yellow Room (22 page)

“C to M,” the chief said grudgingly, “if that’s any help to you.”

“Mind if I borrow it for five minutes?”

“What for?”

“Just an idea I have. Make it ten. I’ll be right back.”

He did not wait for consent. As he left he heard the chief’s voice raised in protest, and Campbell’s milder one.

“If he’s got any ideas we need them,” he was saying. “So far as I can see—”

Dane was longer than ten minutes. It was a half hour before he had wakened the local jeweler from his Sunday nap, induced him to open his shop and produce his watchmaker’s glass. With this screwed in his eye, Dane examined the ring carefully. It was, as he had thought, of the light and inexpensive kind, but he focused his attention on the engraving.

His face was sober as he thanked the watchmaker and returned the ring to Floyd. He made no comments as he put it back on the desk. Floyd was less truculent now. He put the ring back into the box, and the box into the drawer again.

“Sorry if I’ve been kind of rough with you, major,” he mumbled. “Fact is this thing’s got me. I don’t sleep. I don’t eat. This is a resort town, and things like these in the papers don’t help any.”

“Maybe we can clean up some of it.”

Floyd eyed him.

“If you’ve got anything you ought to tell me,” he said resentfully.

“I’ve found Pine Hill.”

“Still after X, are you?”

“I think it’s worth looking into. You might find some prints, for one thing.”

“And then what? I can’t fingerprint everybody in this town. Or any tramp who chooses to break into an empty house and sleep there.”

Dane drove to the hospital after he left the police station. Elinor Hilliard was still allowed no visitors, but her husband had been located and was expected at any time. He had somehow managed to get a plane and was flying up.

In spite of his new knowledge Dane found himself wondering about Hilliard. So far he had been only a name, but he could not afford to eliminate anybody. And this was corroborated when, on reaching Crestview, he found Carol still in bed and Marcia Dalton and Louise Stimson snugly settled in the library. They had walked up, they said, and finding Carol and Greg both asleep had come in for a rest and a drink.

“How’s the sleuthing going?” Louise asked, her smile faintly impertinent.

“Sleuthing? If you mean finding Mrs. Hilliard—”

“The talk is that you were watching this house when you found her.”

“Then you’ll have to admit I failed pretty completely,” he said gravely.

It was obvious that they meant to stay, and he groaned inwardly. They gave him the local gossip, however. According to it, Greg was out. He would never shoot Elinor. And someone, coming home by the back road, had seen a car driving madly along the main road at two o’clock that morning. They had no authority for it. It was being told, that was all.

“What sort of car?” he asked.

“Not Elinor’s this time,” Marcia said. “A long dark one. I wish I knew how people get the gas they do. I can’t.”

“It sounds like Elinor Hilliard’s husband,” Louis drawled. “They seem to have all they want, don’t they? And Howard always drove like the devil. Maybe the girl they found here was living with him, and Elinor put her out of the way. She might, you know. She’s a pretty cool proposition.”

He got rid of them at last, and went back to the kitchen. Greg was still asleep, Maggie said, and the two girls, Freda and Nora, were upstairs packing to leave.

“I can’t hold them,” she said. “Not any longer. They’re scared. So am I, but I’m staying. I can’t leave Miss Carol like this. Maybe I can get somebody from the village. Only the town’s scared too. It’s as much as I can do to get the groceries delivered.”

“I might be able to locate the man Alex got you for a day or two. Tim Murphy, wasn’t it?”

“A fat lot of good he’d be! He walked off without notice.”

“He could wash the dishes.”

In spite of what was waiting for him upstairs he smiled to himself. The thought of Tim washing the dishes and scouring pans was almost too much for him. But he needed a man in this house, and Tim had done worse things in his time.

“I’ll try to find him,” he said. “He may have a perfectly valid reason for not showing up.”

The two girls were lugging suitcases down the back staircase as he went toward the front of the house. One look at their determined faces showed him the uselessness of protest, and he went forward and up to Gregory Spencer’s room.

Greg was awake. His shower was running, and he did not hear the knock at the door. When he came out of the bathroom, clad only in a pair of shorts, he found Dane settled in a chair calmly smoking, and stared at him in amazement.

“Sorry,” Dane said. “I rapped, but you didn’t hear me. I had a question to ask, and it couldn’t wait.”

“What sort of question?”

The very fact that Greg’s face was suddenly wary convinced Dane he was right. At least he had to take a chance. He took it.

“I was wondering,” he said quietly, “just when and where you married the girl who was killed in this house ten days ago.”

I
F HE HAD DEPENDED ON
surprise he succeeded. Greg did not even protest. He stood still, his fine big body moist from the shower, a bit of shaving lather on the lobe of one ear, and threw out his hands in a gesture of resignation.

“I suppose it had to come out,” he said. “How did you know it?”

“A number of things turned up. For one, she wore a wedding ring. It said ‘G to M’ inside it.”

“A ring? I never gave her a ring.”

It was Dane’s turn to be surprised.

“She had it. Floyd has it now. His eyes aren’t too good. He thinks the G is a C. He may know better by this time.”

But Greg was still bewildered.

“I give you my word of honor, Dane, I never gave her a ring.” Then the full meaning of the situation began to dawn on him. He sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t kill her, either,” he said heavily. “You probably don’t believe that, but it’s true.”

“You must have wanted to get rid of her,” Dane said inexorably. “You were engaged to another girl. She was planning to marry you on this leave. And I’m telling you now, you haven’t an alibi worth a cent, unless you can prove you were in New York when it was done.”

Greg shook his head confusedly.

“I didn’t do it. I don’t even know who did.”

“But you knew she was dead, didn’t you? You went ahead with your plans for being married again. How did you know all that, Spencer? Who told you?”

“I’d rather not answer that,” Greg said slowly. “I knew it. That will have to do.” He drew a long breath. “I’d had a year of hell, Dane. It was a relief.”

He dropped his head in his hands. It was some time before he looked up, and his eyes were dull and hopeless.

“Let me tell you the story, Dane,” he said. “God knows I’ll be glad to get it off my chest. I came back on a special mission last May a year ago. I guess you know how these things are. I did the job—it was in Los Angeles—but I had to wait for a plane to take me back. I fell in with a lot of fellows, and they found some girls somewhere.

“We were drinking pretty hard, and one of the girls seemed to like me. I remember that, and by God that’s about all I do remember, except that I woke up a morning or two later below the border in Mexico with this girl in a room with me, and she said I’d married her.”

Dane nodded. He knew better than most the strain of the war, and the drinking that was so often an escape from it. He was no moralist, either. He offered Greg a cigarette and took one himself.

“Go on,” he said. “It’s a dirty trick, of course. It’s been done before.”

Greg looked grateful.

“Well, figure it out for yourself,” he said. “It was true enough. She had a certificate. And until I saw it I didn’t even know her name!

“I went back to the Pacific, and I tried my damnedest to get killed. That’s why I got that decoration. Believe me, I was sick at my stomach when they pinned it on me. I’m still sick. I’d tried all year to break off with Virginia. Imagine how I felt when I came home and found she had planned our wedding! I couldn’t marry her. I couldn’t marry anybody. I tried to prime myself to tell her by taking a few drinks, and that turned out as you might expect.

“That’s the story, Dane. I didn’t kill Marguerite, but I knew she was coming east. She wrote me at Washington. I haven’t seen her since I left, more than a year ago, but I sent her a thousand dollars then to keep her quiet. I thought maybe she’d let me divorce her. But she didn’t want a divorce. She was coming east to see Carol and my mother. I tried to stop her. I flew to New York, but I was too late. She’d left her hotel. The next thing I knew she was dead.”

“You didn’t know she was coming here?”

“How could I? Mother and Carol were in Newport. But she must have told poor old Lucy who she was, or she wouldn’t have let her in the house. That’s what gets me, Dane. I can’t pretend I’m sorry about Marguerite, but Lucy—what on earth happened to Lucy?”

He got up. He looked rather better, as though telling the story had given him relief.

“I’ve wondered,” he said. “Lucy was fond of us. She might have killed herself. She was a little thing—Lucy, I mean—but these New Englanders are capable of violence. The way their boys are fighting in this war—But of course that’s crazy, isn’t it? Who shot Elinor? Who burned the hill? What’s it all about anyhow?”

The contrast between the two men was very marked at that moment, Greg’s bewildered, not too clever face against Dane’s keen determined one. Dane lit a cigarette.

“I can tell you about the fire,” he said casually. “At least I’m morally certain. Your sister, Mrs. Hilliard, set it.”

Greg’s expression changed, hardened. He flushed angrily.

“You’d better have good reason for an accusation of that sort,” he said stiffly. “My sister is not mixed up in this. It’s my story, not hers.”

“You’re sure of that, are you?”

“Absolutely.”

“She knew you married this girl, didn’t she?”

For the first time Greg’s frankness deserted him.

“She didn’t know it until recently.”

“How recently?”

“I don’t remember.”

He was definitely on guard now, and Dane got up.

“About that ring,” he said, “How do you account for it?”

“She must have bought it herself. I never gave her one. I never even saw her, after Mexico.”

“Any letters of yours?”

“Only one with the check in it. The check had my name on it. I didn’t sign the letter. Only my initials.”

“Do you think she brought the letter with her?” Dane persisted. “She brought something, I am sure of that, and something somebody wants. I don’t know what it is. I don’t even know who wants it. If it wasn’t your sister who was shot last night I would think you were that person. Look here, do you remember any of the men in Los Angeles who were in that party?”

Greg shook his head.

“They came and went, the way those things are. I expect some of them are gone by this time. Anyhow I’d had plenty to drink before that. I was pretty well under before the party—if you can call it a party.”

“Was young Ward part of the crowd?”

“Ward? You mean Terry? He may have been. I didn’t see him.”

There was a long silence. Then Greg returned to Elinor.

“What about Elinor and the brush fire on the hill?” he asked. “That’s the hell of a thing to accuse her of.”

“Her car was seen here the night of the murder, captain. Now wait a minute—” as Greg made a move toward him. “I don’t think she killed the girl. It seems unlikely under the circumstances,” he added dryly. “The fact remains that she may have known more than she’s ever told. For instance, there was a definite attempt to conceal Marguerite’s identity. Her clothes haven’t been found, not even her overnight bag. Perhaps Carol has told you why we believed her things were buried on the hillside, about the spade we found and so on.

“But she may not have told you that Mrs. Hilliard was pretty badly scared when Lucy testified at the inquest. I watched her. I know. But Lucy Norton was careful. She told only a part of the truth, and Mrs. Hilliard knew it.”

“She didn’t kill her,” Gregory said thickly. “I’ll stake my oath on that.”

“Then why did she set fire to the hill?” Dane demanded. “I think you’ll find she did exactly that. She knew the pitcher was in this attic and Carol’s car was in the drive. She even had a rubber hose to siphon off the gasoline. I saw it in her bathroom, part of a shampoo arrangement. It still smelled of gasoline, although I imagine she had tried to clean it.”

“I don’t believe it,” Gregory said stubbornly. “I don’t believe she was here when Marguerite was killed. Why don’t you ask her?”

“Because she had an alibi of sorts.” Dane’s voice was bland. “She claims to have spent that night in her empty apartment in New York. She certainly was in New York Saturday. She says she had dinner with her husband that night and went to the theater. She probably did, unless he is involved in this too. But she could have been here, you know; have driven the rest of Friday night to Providence and taken an early train to New York. In fact, that’s almost certainly what she did.”

“So she shot herself!” Greg said roughly. “She went out in the rain, climbed the hill and shot herself in the thigh! For God’s sake, Dane, make sense.”

“All right,” Dane agreed. “Let’s try something else. She didn’t kill the girl. She came after her, because she knew she was coming here. When she got here the girl was already dead, so she did the only thing she could think of. She took the body upstairs in the elevator and put it in the closet.”

“It sounds crazy.”

“It does indeed, but something of the sort happened. The body was hidden to gain time, of course.”

“So Elinor could get to New York and go to the theater!”

“So she could protect you, captain. And her own position too. Want me to go on?”

“I’ll have to hear it sometime,” Greg grunted.

“All right. Let’s say Lucy’s still at the foot of the stairs. She’s unconscious, but she might recover any minute. Mrs. Hilliard didn’t know Lucy had broken her leg, but she had to get rid of the girl’s clothes. She found them in the yellow room, along with her bags. Lucy was stirring by that time, and probably moaning. What could she do? Take them with her? She was going to New York, remember, and Lucy might raise the alarm any minute.”