Yellow Room (7 page)

“Suppose,” he said, “you wanted to get rid of a girl’s clothes and had plenty of time to do it. How would you go about it?”

Alex pondered.

“How about burning them? Plenty of furnaces around.”

Dane shook his head.

“No good. Too much stuff in women’s clothes that won’t burn, zippers, hooks and eyes, God knows what. Nails from shoes, too. You ought to know that.”

“Well, if it was me,” Alex said, “and I had plenty of time I’d ship them somewhere. Hard to trace that way. I remember once—”

“I see. It’s worth thinking about. You might check on that today. See if the express people sent something of the sort from any of the families around here the last of the week or today. The office is closed Saturday and today’s truck doesn’t leave until four o’clock. Try to get a look at what they have.” He got up. “I’m going to the hospital. I’ll drop you off in town.”

While Alex cleaned up, Dane surveyed the possibilities. The nearest was Rockhill, the Ward property. But the Wards were elderly and lived largely in retirement, and Colonel Richardson, on the road below, was in the same category. The Dalton place was beyond the Richardson cottage facing the water, and with the Burton property, where he himself was staying, he had about completed the circuit.

None of them, he thought wryly, was likely to be involved in a cold-blooded crime. And the mystery was increased by the disappearance of the clothing. If she had been staying at Crestview, why in the name of all that was sensible hide it, since it had evidently been the intention to burn the house?

He climbed stiffly into the car when Alex brought it around, and that gentleman regarded him with a disapproving eye.

“You ought to be in bed, sir,” he said. “What’s the use my working on that leg if you don’t take care of it?”

“I’ll rest it later. I won’t be long at the hospital.”

Nor was he. Lucy Norton, according to the office there, was not so well and was allowed no visitors. If he suspected Floyd’s large hand in this he said nothing. And Alex, picked up in the village, simply reported no soap.

“Nothing going out,” he said. “Ladies in the town packed a barrel early last week for Greece. Nothing since.”

Dane had been right about Floyd. By noon that day he had already traced the girl’s arrival Friday morning, and after lunch he called a meeting of four men in his office: Dr. Harrison, Jim Mason, a lieutenant from the State Police, and Floyd himself. On the desk lay a bundle of partially burned clothing, and Floyd indicated it with a stubby finger.

“Well, there it is,” he said. “No marks, no anything. You gentlemen got any ideas?”

Nobody apparently had, and leaning back in his chair Floyd told what he had learned of her movements after her arrival.

“One thing’s sure,” he said. “She set out for Crestview and she got there. She wasn’t followed. She was the only passenger on the bus that got in at six-thirty that morning. So whoever killed her was around here somewhere already.”

There was no dissenting voices, and he got up.

“I’m going to the hospital,” he said. “Lucy Norton knows something, and she’s going to talk or I’ll know why.”

But Lucy in her hospital bed, her leg in a cast and her hands clenched under the bedclothes, could apparently tell only of the hand that had extinguished her candle, and that someone had rushed past her and knocked her down. Her shock when she was told of the body in the closet was genuine to the point of terror.

“A body?” she said weakly. “I don’t believe you. You mean somebody at Crestview was found dead?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. A woman. A young woman. Somebody knocked her on the head and killed her, then tried to burn her body. Probably the night you fell down the stairs.”

Put to her thus tactfully, Lucy went into a fit of convulsive weeping. The chief waited impatiently, but when he left he still knew nothing more. But he was satisfied at least that there had been no fire while she was lying at the foot of the stairs.

“I’d have smelled anything burning,” she said, sniffling. “I didn’t break my nose when I fell.”

“Maybe you passed out.”

“I guess I did for a while. But I’d have smelled it when I came to, wouldn’t I?”

She was certain, too, that all the doors were locked that night. She accounted for the front door by the fact that whoever knocked her down must have left it open. But she was still semi-hysterical when he left her. After that she lay still for a long time, her eyes closed and her hands still clenched. When a nurse came in she roused herself. The story of the murder had reached the hospital, and Floyd’s order as he left that Lucy was to see no one and communicate with no one had left it in a state of quivering excitement.

“I want to see Miss Spencer, Miss Carol Spencer,” Lucy said feebly. “She hasn’t any telephone. Maybe you’d send her a telegram.”

“The doctor thought you ought to be quiet today, Mrs. Norton. I’m sure she’ll be as soon as she can.”

So that was it, Lucy thought helplessly. They wouldn’t let her see Carol, she wouldn’t know anything, and the police—

She lay still in her bed, her face desperate. She couldn’t even warn Carol, and they probably would keep Joe out too. Not that Joe knew anything either, but she might have sent a message by him. Only—murder! She shivered and closed her eyes.

It was after that visit of Floyd’s to the hospital that he sent for Carol to view the body and attempt to identify it. It was in the local mortuary, and lacking a morgue, it had been packed in ice and covered with rubber sheets. She took only one look, gasped and rushed into the air.

“That was cruel and unnecessary,” she said when she got her breath. “You know I couldn’t recognize her. Nobody could.”

“Well,” he said, “at least you can say that at the inquest. Sorry, Miss Carol. It had to be done.”

He did not take her home at once. He drove around to his office and let her out there.

“One or two things we got might help,” he said. “Won’t hurt to look at them. They won’t bother you any,” when he saw her face. “Just some stuff she was wearing.”

He sat down behind the desk and opening a drawer took out a small box which he emptied onto the blotter. There was a pair of artificial pearl earrings of the stud type, somewhat scorched and rather large, and a ring. He picked up the ring and held it out.

“Might be a wedding ring, eh?” he said, watching her with sharp eyes.

“Possibly. I wouldn’t know.”

He let her go then, still suspicious, still hoping to break the mystery through her. Then he got busy on the telephone.

“I want the phones put back in the Spencer house this afternoon,” he said. “Get a jump on, you fellows. This is a hurry job.”

“It will have to go to the War Production Board, chief. Make out your application and we’ll send it in.”

“The hell you will,” Floyd shouted. “You get three or four instruments out of that shed behind the hotel where you’ve got them stored, or I’ll arrest the bunch of you for obstructing justice.”

The instruments went in that afternoon, and Floyd walked around to where Bessie Content sat before her switchboard.

“Listen, Bessie,” he said. “I want you to do something for me, and keep your pretty mouth shut. Make a record of all calls from the Spencer place, and—you don’t have to be deaf, do you?”

Bessie smiled with her pretty mouth.

“It gets awfully dull here sometimes,” she said, “and my hearing’s good, if I do say it.”

After telling her to notify the night operator, Floyd went back to his office and again pored over the charred fragments on his desk. When he went home he took with him the fragment of red silk found under the body.

“Ever see a nightgown this color?” he asked his wife.

“No, and I never hope to.”

She examined it carefully, going to a window to do so.

“It’s good silk. That’s hard to get these days. It used to come from China, you know. And it’s sewed by hand,” she said. “It’s been expensive.”

“From China, eh?” said Floyd, and lapsed into silence.

Carol in the meantime had not been able to go to the hospital. By the time her car was ready the news had spread, and to a summer colony shrunken by the war, it came as a welcome excitement in what had promised to be a dull summer. Telephones buzzed, where there were any. At the club, usually deserted in the afternoons, small groups of people gathered, and at teatime a few who had know the Spencers well drove or walked up the hill to commiserate with Carol and—if possible—to get a glimpse of the closet.

Carol received them as best she could, the elderly Wards, old-fashioned and solicitous, Louise Stimson, the attractive young widow who had built a smart white house near the club, Marcia Dalton, the Crowells, and so on. She managed tea and Scotch for them, looking young and tired as she did so, but she could tell them nothing.

Actually the first real information she got came from Peter Crowell, a burly red-faced man with a mouselike wife.

“Well,” he said. “I guess they’ve traced that corpse of yours, Carol. Part of the way anyhow.”

The Wards looked pained, and Carol startled.

“Got it from Floyd himself,” Crowell went on, enjoying the sensation he was making. “She got off the Boston train at six-thirty Friday morning and took the bus for here. Quite a looker, I understand. Quite a dresser too. White hat, silver fox coat, an overnight bag, and a big pocketbook. The bus driver says she acted queer when she got off. Looked sort of lost, he said. She asked for the drugstore. Said she wanted to telephone. He told her it was still closed, but the last he saw of her she was going that way.”

Tell them about the bag, Pete,” said Ida, his wife.

He took a sip of his Scotch and soda.

“That’s funny,” he said. “The bus driver saw initials on it, only he can’t remember them. There were three, and I understand they didn’t find it in the closet. You didn’t see it, did you?”

Carol’s voice was slightly unsteady.

“I didn’t look, Peter. All I saw—”

The Wards got up abruptly, and old Mrs. Ward took Carol’s hand and held it.

“I’m sure,” she said, looking around the room, “that Carol would prefer not discussing what has happened.” She turned back to her. “I’m sorry, my dear. If you can to stay with us for the next few days we’d be delighted to have you. That is really why we came.”

Carol felt grateful to the point of tears. She managed to smile.

“You’re both more than kind. I’d love to, but the servants wouldn’t stay here alone. Not after what’s happened.”

She went out to the door with them. A graveled path connected the two properties, broken only by the lane leading up the hill. She walked to it with them, asking about Terry, their grandson who was flying in the Pacific, and telling them about Greg. They looked much older, she thought, and rather feeble. The war was hard on people like that. She felt saddened, and this was not helped when on her return she learned that the telephones were in again.

She would have to call Newport now. There was no longer any excuse.

The others drifted away slowly, until only Louise Stimson and Marcia Dalton were left. Peter Crowell’s departing speech was characteristic.

“Any objection to my looking at that closet?” he said.

“The police have sealed it, Peter.”

He looked annoyed.

“Well,” he said, “soon as you can, get it opened and have it painted. Then just forget about it. What’s it got to do with you anyhow? A strange girl gets herself killed in it. You don’t know her. So what?”

She went back to Louise and Marcia. They were smoking, and she lit a cigarette and sat down. She had a definite impression that each was determined to outstay the other, Louise with an amused smile, Marcia’s horselike face and tall thin body rather grim.

“So you’ve met Jerry Dane,” Louise said. “Interesting type.”

“I wouldn’t know. Is he?”

“Definitely yes.” She glanced at Marcia. “A wounded hero, isn’t he? And good-looking too. Why on earth come here to recuperate?”

“There’s no mystery about that,” Marcia said tartly. “The Burtons offered him their house. At least,” she added, glancing at Louise, “Carol has managed to meet him. That’s more than you can say.”

Louise got up.

“I didn’t have a body around,” she said cheerfully. “There’s still hope, of course. Most things come in threes, don’t they?”

She left on that, but Marcia stayed, planted solidly in her chair, with her thin legs stuck out in front of her. Carol knew her well, and she relaxed somewhat.

“What do you think of Jerry Dane?” Marcia asked abruptly.

“I haven’t really thought of him at all. I haven’t had time.”

Marcia shrugged.

“Well, he’s definitely a mystery. We’ve all asked him to dinner. We’ve asked him for bridge. We’ve even, God help us, asked him for backgammon and gin rummy. But nothing doing. He’s still an invalid, and goes to bed early. An invalid! He climbs hills like a goat. I’ve seen him myself.”

“Maybe he doesn’t like games,” Carol said indifferently. “I hope you don’t mind, Marcia, but I’ve had a long day.”

Marcia got up, but she did not leave. She stood looking into the patio.

“I suppose this house is an architectural bastard,” she said, “but I’ve always liked it. It’s queer Elinor never comes here, isn’t it?” She fixed Carol with shrewd eyes.

“She likes Newport better. That’s all. It’s easier for Howard to get there for weekends.”

But she realized that Marcia had dragged in Elinor’s name for a purpose, and she felt herself stiffening.

“It’s queer,” Marcia said, still watching her. “I thought I saw her car about two o’clock last Saturday morning. I’d know that car anywhere.”

“That’s ridiculous, Marcia.”

“I suppose it is. I just thought I’d better tell you. Someone else may have seen it too, or thought so. It was going toward the railroad, and making sixty miles at least. I didn’t think there was another car like it in the world.”

“There must be. She hasn’t been here. I know that. She was in New York.”

“Well, if you’re sure of that—I’m a Nurse’s Aide, and I worked late at the hospital Friday night. When I got home I let that damned dog of mine out. He didn’t come back, so I went after him. That’s how it happened.”