Yellow Room (6 page)

The stairs had made Dane’s leg ache. His limp was more noticeable as he went to the desk.

“Any idea where it is now?”

“I suppose Nora threw it out.”

“It that’s true,” he said, “the lipstick, I mean, it throws my first idea into the discard. What I thought was that as the house was supposed still to be empty, anyone wanting to dispose of a body could bring it here, set fire to the house, and then escape. That whoever did it possibly had no idea Mrs. Norton was here. But if the dead woman was here, and smoking in this room—”

He left soon after. She went out to the terrace with him, and for a moment they stood together, looking down at the shore line and the roofs of the houses buried in foliage below.

“It looks peaceful,” she said. “It’s hard to believe that anyone here could do a thing like murder.”

“There’s murder all over the world,” he said dryly. “Why think people like you are immune?”

She felt rebuffed as she went back into the house. It was obvious that Dane did not like what he called people like her. It had been in his face when he looked at Greg’s picture. And she could not tell him that she loathed her own uselessness. Why should she? she thought resentfully. Just because he had been wounded in Italy did not give him the right to criticize those who could not fight.

In the library she resumed her search for her father’s picture. It was not there, although she looked behind the books. It was not in the study either. When she went upstairs to continue the search she saw that the door to the linen closet had been sealed with strips of adhesive tape and blobs of red wax. They looked like blood, making her shiver. But the picture was not in her mother’s room either, and at last she gave up and went downstairs again, to find an angry Maggie waiting for her.

“Did you tell that man he could look at my garbage can?” she demanded. “The tall one with the limp.”

“You’ll have to expect things like that, Maggie,” she said wearily. “We’ve had a murder, you know.”

“And what’s happened to your mother’s china tea set?” Maggie inquired, her arms akimbo. “It ain’t here, and she sure thought a lot of it. If you’re asking me, we’ve had a burglary as well as a murder.”

“Who on earth would steal a tea set?”

“It was valuable, wasn’t it?”

Carol felt completely confused as she went back to the library. There were things she would have to do. She would have to call Elinor at Newport and ask her to break the news to her mother as carefully as she could. But she dreaded doing it. She could see Elinor’s lifted eyebrows and her angry reaction, as though she—Carol—was responsible. And of course she would have to see Lucy. If the girl had been in the house long enough to smoke a cigarette, Lucy must know about her.

She might even have admitted her. Only Joe Norton, the caretaker, had keys to the house, and Lucy would have used his, as she always did. Joe had the keys, so he could come in during the winter. So far as she remembered there were only two sets of keys.

But the real question was the identity of the body, and here she felt helpless. She would have to see Lucy as soon as possible, she thought. It would be only an hour or two before she had her car, and Lucy must know something. Only it was queer she had not said anything. According to Harry Miller, Lucy’s story was merely that someone had come out of the closet and knocked her down.

She was starting for the garage to see what progress had been made when Freda stopped her.

The drive was empty. By this time the village certainly knew what had happened, but no crowd of thrill-seekers had gathered. The town, self-respecting as ever, was evidently going about its business as usual. Down at the garage someone was hammering, and the morning chill had gone. The sun was warm and heartening.

She had taken only a step or two when Freda called her. The girl still looked pale, but she was no longer hysterical Carol stopped.

“What is it, Freda?”

“If you’ll excuse me, miss,” she said. “Maggie thought I’d better tell you. Somebody has been sleeping in the yellow room. There’s sheets on the bed, and two or three blankets. The bathroom’s been used too. The tub’s still dirty.”

Quite evidently she was enjoying the sensation she was making. For it was a sensation. Carol looked incredulous.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. “Mrs. Norton would never sleep there.”

“No, ma’am,” said Freda smugly. “She was using a room in our wing. Maybe you’d better come and look.”

She followed Carol up the stairs, to find the other two women in the upper hall. The yellow room was at the front of the house, so she did not pass the closet to reach it, but she was acutely conscious of it behind her, its seared door and ruined contents. She was still certain Freda had made a mistake. The last person to use it the summer before had been Virginia, and some oversight—

But she knew as she reached the door that there had been no mistake.

The yellow room looked out over the bay, and had been one of her pet rooms. Its walls were yellow, its furniture painted gray, and the hangings and chair covers were a delicate mulberry. She saw none of that now, however. Freda had been right. The bed had been made up and slept in, there was powder on the glass top of the toilet table, and while the ash trays were empty there were cigarette ashes here and there on the floor. A candle on the table beside the bed had burned itself out. Only a shapeless blob of wax remained.

Maggie was the first to speak.

“Looks like she was sleeping here,” she said. “She had her nerve, if you ask me.”

Carol turned to Freda.

“You haven’t touched anything in here, have you?” she asked.

“No, miss. I just opened the door and saw it. Then I looked at the bathroom. It’s like I said.”

Carol stepped inside the room. The nightmare feeling was returning, and there was something wrong. It was a minute before she realized what it was. There was no clothing in sight, and when she glanced in the closets they were empty.

“She must have had clothes,” she said. “She wasn’t wearing any. At least not a dress,” she added. “They think she was wearing a kimono or something of the sort. There ought to be a bag too, and a hat. Unless the police took them.”

“Plenty of girls don’t wear hats nowadays.” This was Freda, beginning to enjoy herself.

Carol turned to them.

“There mustn’t be any talk about this,” she said. “I’ll tell the police, but nobody else is to know. Do please be careful. It may be very important.”

She locked the door behind her and took the key. No use worrying about fingerprints, she thought. Freda’s would be on the doorknob, and almost anywhere else. She waited until they had started down the stairs and then went into her own room. The bed had been made up with sheets from the servants’ linen closet, and was turned down ready for use. Her dressing case had been unpacked, and Freda had placed on the toilet table the photograph of Don in his flying helmet which she always carried with her.

She did not look at it, beyond seeing that it was there. After all, one remembered the dead. One could not go on loving them. What concerned her now was a mystery which only Lucy Norton could solve, and she could not see Lucy until her car was ready.

She bathed and dressed, changing her traveling clothes for a knitted suit, but she did not go downstairs right away. She went to the window and stood there, looking out at the bay. The tide was low, and the sea gulls were busy hunting for clams, the white ones the adults, the gray ones of this spring’s hatching. Even here back from the water she could hear them squawking. Over to the left, beyond the fountain her grandmother had sent from Italy, and hidden by the trees, was the Burton house. For a minute she was tempted to go there, to see Major Dane and tell him about the yellow room. But his final words had drawn a definite line between them. She decided against it. It would have to be the police.

When she went downstairs, however, it was to hear a male voice in the hall, and to find that the press had already discovered her. The press itself was in the shape of a rather engaging youth, who gave her a nice smile and looked apologetic.

“Name’s Starr,” he said. “Just happened on this. Came over from the big town to get a story on the new fish cannery here, and found this. I’m sure sorry about it, Miss Spencer. You’re pretty young to run into murder.”

“I’m old enough not to give any interviews to the press,” Carol said sharply.

“I’m not asking for an interview. I was just thinking. You and this other girl. Only she got the raw deal. She’s dead.”

“How do you know she was only a girl, Mr. Starr?”

“Saw the body,” he said, and reached into his pocket for some folded yellow paper. “Age approximately twenty to twenty-five,” he read. “Bleached blonde. Possibly married, as wedding ring on finger. Feet small, bedroom slippers originally blue. Silver fox jacket, no maker’s name. Clothing under body not burned. Looks like red silk negligee. Underwear handmade.” He looked at her. “Make any sense to you?”

Carol shook her head.

“Doesn’t sound like anyone you know?”

“It sounds like everyone I know.”

He stood looking over his notes.

“Where’s her dress?” he said. “She didn’t come here in a thin silk negligee, did she?”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Carol said. “I suppose the police looked over the house. If she left any clothes, they would know it.”

He thought that over. He looked young and rather shocked, for all his businesslike manner.

“Well, look,” he said. “She’s in a wrapper and she’s got a fur coat on. So she’s cold. So she looks around for a blanket. So she goes to the closet, and maybe she’s smoking. So she faints—maybe something scares her—and that starts the fire. How about it?”

“Is that what they think in the town? The police and the doctor?”

“Hell, no. That’s my own idea. Just thought of it, in fact. Anyhow, it’s out. The doc says she’s got a fractured skull. Sure you don’t know who it is?”

“I haven’t really seen her. All I saw was somebody lying there.”

“You didn’t miss anything,” he said gruffly.

He put the paper back in his pocket and picked up a rather battered hat.

“No interview,” he assured her. “Just a bit of local color. You know, big house, summer people, first murder in town’s history. The doc says it was probably kerosene. Maybe gasoline. Any about the place?”

“Gasoline?” she said with some bitterness. “We were out of it before we left last year. Even the matches were left in a closed jar, for fear of field mice.”

He departed finally, saying that he left his car at the gate, and promising not to quote her on anything. She rather liked him, engaging grin and all.

B
ACK AT THE HOUSE
Dane was met by a glum and scowling Alex. Even the black patch over the socket from which he had lost an eye looked peevish.

“What you been doing to that leg, sir?” he demanded.

“Nothing that a rest can’t help. How about lunch?”

Alex refused to be conciliated.

“Maybe you don’t want to go back to your job,” he said, forgetting the “sir.” “Just a smell of murder and you forget there’s a war.”

“Oh, go to hell,” Dane said wearily. “Get me a drink and something to eat. How do you know there’s a murder?”

“I buy our food in the town,” Alex said, still sulky.

“Know any details?”

“Cracked on the head. Killer tried to burn the body.” He added the “sir” here, and Dane grinned.

“Go on,” he said. “Get me a highball, and don’t be too stingy with the whisky.”

He limped out to the porch and sat down. Alex was right, of course. He had a big job to go back to, and the stairs at Crestview hadn’t helped his leg any. He put it up on a chair and fell into thought. He was still absorbed when Alex brought the Scotch. He roused, however.

“Sit down, Alex, and pour yourself a drink. I want to talk to you. We’ve got a case on our hands, and I’m damned if I know what it is. Except it’s murder.”

Alex fixed his drink and sat down, his one eye showing complete disapproval.

“If you’ll excuse me, sir,” he said, “I don’t think it’s any business of yours. Unless it’s a spy case.”

“No. I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with the war. No spies. No escaped PW. Somebody wanted a girl out of the way, that’s all. As far as they can tell, she wasn’t local. Nobody is missing from around here. Now, how did she get into that house next door? And why? The family wasn’t there. Only the Norton woman, and you know her story.”

Alex stirred.

“I still don’t see why you want to look into it, sir.”

“I suppose it’s because it’s something to do. God knows I’ve been bored for months, hospitals, doctors, nurses and—What do you know about the Norton woman? Any family?”

“Only herself and Joe. That’s her husband.”

“No wealthy connections? Anyone likely to visit her dressed up in an expensive fur jacket? That sort of thing?”

Alex thought it more than improbable, and Dane shifted to the Spencers. Where Alex got his information he never knew. Perhaps it was because of his long job on the police force before the war. But Alex knew quite a bit: Carol’s engagement to Don Richardson and the colonel’s defiant refusal to believe in his son’s death; Greg’s fine record in the war in spite of his reputation as a souse, to use Alex’s own words; and even Elinor’s marriage to Hilliard, with all that it entailed.

Dane was thoughtful when he finished.

“So we wash out the Nortons,” he said. “And apparently we wash out the village too. That seems to put it up to the family, doesn’t it?”

Dane ate his lunch on the porch, as absentmindedly as he regarded now and then the view of the bay below him. He was puzzled. Jim Mason had taken a hasty survey of the bedrooms at Crestview and reported no clothing anywhere. But if the girl had been staying at the house her clothes should have been there. That left two alternatives: she had not been staying in the house, or she had, in which case there had been probably three days to dispose of what she had worn.

When Alex came back for his tray he had lit his pipe, the cigarette he had found in Maggie’s garbage can on the table in front of him.