She was a writer of fiction, so naturally the scene in the garden fascinated her. And made her feel so terribly guilty for watching.
Anna Simms wrote mysteries, but that didn't mean she didn't harbor a secret desire to write a mad love scene now and then. As a matter-of-fact she did, but these little sexy tidbits never saw her publisher's desk.
At the moment, Anna was mesmerized.
The two lovers she watched from her bedroom window were at the point of heavily breathing "ahhs" and "hramms" as their bodies moved in a slow and rhythmic dance against the backdrop of the evening sky.
Exciting, true, but the scene also saddened Anna. She could easily identify the pair, and it pained her to realize that here were two people she knew, becoming involved in an illicit relationship that certainly could result in nothing but trouble for everyone.
And then the two figures were gone, running off somewhere. Dead silence.
She strained her eyes against the night's darkness.
Anna watched a thin stream of blue smoke ascend without haste from the long throat of a tiger lily. Michela, then, had escaped also. She was not, however, on the long veranda, for the clear, broadening light of the rising moon revealed it wide and empty, and nothing moved against the silvered lawn which sloped gently toward the pine wood.
Anna listened a moment for the tap of Michela's heels, did not hear it or any other intrusive sound, and then pushed aside the bowl of lilies on the low window seat, let the velvet curtains fall behind her, and seated herself in the little niche thus formed. It was restful and soothing to be thus shut away from the house with its subtly warring elements and to make herself part of the silent night beyond the open windows.
A pity, thought Anna, to leave. But after tonight she could not stay. After all, a guest, any guest, ought to have sense enough to leave when a situation develops in the family of her hostess. The thin trail of smoke from the lily caught Anna's glance again and she wished Michela wouldn't amuse herself by putting cigarette ends in flowers.
A faint drift of voices came from somewhere, and Anna shrank deeper into herself and into the tranquil night. It had been an unpleasant dinner, and there would still be an hour or so before she could gracefully extricate herself and escape again. Nice of Christabel to give her the guest house-the small green cottage across the terrace at the other side of the house, through the hedge and up the winding green path. Cristabel Frame was a perfect hostess, and Anna had a week of utter rest and contentment.
But then Randy, Christabel's young brother, had returned.
And immediately Joe Bromfel and his wife Michela, guests also, had arrived, and with them something that had destroyed all comfort. The old house of the Frames, with its gracious pillars and long windows and generous dim spaces, was exactly the same-the lazy Southern air, the misty blue hills, the quiet pine woods, and the boxed paths through the flowers-none of it had actually changed. But it was, nonetheless, a different place.
A voice beyond the green velvet curtains called impatiently: "Michela-Michela!"
It was Randy Frame. Anna did not move, and she was sure that the sweeping velvet curtains hid even her silver toes. He was probably at the door of the library, and she could see, without looking, his red hair, lithe young body, and impatient, thin face. Impatient for Michela. Idiot, oh, idiot, thought Anna. Can't you see what you are doing to Christabel?
His feet made quick sounds upon the parquet floor of the hall and were gone, and Anna herself made a sharply impatient movement. Because the Frame men had been red-haired, gallant, quick-tempered, reckless, and (added Anna to the sage) abysmally stupid and selfish, Randy had accepted the mold without question. A few words from the dinner conversation floated back into her memory. They'd been talking of fox hunting-a safe enough topic, one would have thought, in the Carolina hills. But talk had veered-through Michela, was it?-to a stableman who had been shot by one of the Frames and killed. It had happened a long time ago, had been all but forgotten, and had nothing at all to do with the present generation of Frames. But Christabel said hurriedly it had been an accident; dreadful. She had looked white. And Randy had laughed and said the Frames shot first and inquired afterwards and that there was always a revolver in the top buffet drawer.
"Here she is, " said a voice. The curtains were pulled suddenly backward, and Randy, a little flushed, stood there. His face fell as he discovered Anna's fair, smooth hair and thin lace gown. "Oh " he said. "I thought you were Michela."
Others were trailing in from the hall, and a polite hour or so must be faced. Queer how suddenly and inexplicably things had become tight and strained and unpleasant!
Randy had turned away and vanished without more words, and Tryon Welles, strolling across the room with Christabel, was looking at Anna and smiling affably.
"Anna Simms," he said. "Watching the moonlight, quietly planning murder." He shook his head and turned to Christabel. "I simply don't believe you, Christabel. If this young woman writes anything, which I doubt, it's gentle little poems about roses and moonlight."
Christabel smiled faintly and sat down. Mars, his black face shining, was bringing in the coffee tray. In the doorway Joe Bromfel, dark and bulky and hot-looking in his dinner coat, lingered a moment to glance along the hall and then came into the room.
"If Anna writes poems," said Christabel lightly, "it is her secret. You are quite wrong, Tryon. She writes-" Christabel's silver voice hesitated. Her slender hands were searching, hovering rather blindly over the tray, the large amethyst on one white finger full of trembling purple lights. It was a barely perceptible second before she took a fragile old cup and began to pour from the tall silver coffee pot. "She writes murders," said Christabel steadily. "Lovely, grisly one, with sensible solutions. Sugar, Tryon? I've forgotten."
"One. But isn't that for Miss Anna?"
Tryon Welles was still smiling. He, the latest arrival, was a neat gray man with tight eyes, pink cheeks, and an affable manner. The only obvious thing about him was a rather finicky regard for color-he wore gray tweed with exactly the right shades of green-green tie, green shirt, a cautious green stripe in gray socks. He had reached the house on the heels of his telephoned message from town, saying he had to talk business with Christabel, and he had not had time to dress before dinner.
"Coffee, Joe?" asked Christabel. She was very deft with the delicate china. Very deft and very graceful, and Anna could not imagine how she knew that-Christabel's hands were shaking.
Joe Bromfel stirred, turned his heavy dark face toward the hall again, saw no one, and took coffee from Christabel's lovely hand. Christabel avoided looking directly into his face, as, Anna had noticed, she frequently did.
"A sensible solution," Tryon Welles was saying thoughtfully. "Do murders have sensible solutions?"
His question hung in the air. Christabel did not reply, and Joe Bromfel did not appear to hear it. Anna said: "They must have. After all, people don't murder just-well, just to murder."
"Just for the fun of it, you mean?" said Tryon, tasting his coffee. "No, I suppose not. Well, at any rate," he went on, "it's nice to know your interest in murder is not a practical one."
He probably thought he was making light and pleasant conversation, reflected Anna. Strange that he did not know that every time he said the word "murder" it fell like a heavy stone in that silent room. She was about to wrench the conversation to another channel when Michela and Randy entered from the hall: Randy was laughing and Michela was smiling.
At the sound of Randy's laugh, Joe Bromfel twisted bulkily around to watch their approach, and, except for Randy's laugh, it was entirely silent in the long book-lined room. Anna watched too. Randy was holding Michela's hand, swinging it as if to suggest a kind of rank camaraderie. Probably, thought Anna, he's been kissing her out in the darkness of the garden. Holding her very tight.
Michela's eyelids were white and heavy over unexpectedly shallow dark eyes. Her straight black hair was parted in the middle and pulled severely backward to a knot on her rather fat white neck. Her mouth was deeply crimson. She had been born, Anna knew, in rural New England, christened Michela by a romantic mother, and had striven to live up to the name ever since. Or down, thought Anna tersely, and wished she could take Randy by his large, outstanding ears and shake him.
Michela had turned toward a chair and her bare back presented itself to Anna; she saw the thin red line with an angle that a man's cuff pressing into the creamy flesh had made. It was unmistakable. Joe Bromfel had seen it too. He couldn't have helped seeing it. Anna looked into her coffee cup and wished that Joe Bromfel hadn't seen the imprint of Randy's cuff, and then wondered why she wished it so fervently.
"Coffee, Michela?" said Christabel, and something in her voice was more, all at once, than Anna could endure. She rose and said rather breathlessly: "Christabel darling, do you mind-I have some writing to do-"
"Of course." Christabel hesitated. "But wait-I'll go along with you to the cottage."
"Don't let us keep you, Christabel," said Michela lazily.
Christabel turned to Tryon Welles and neatly forestalled a motion on his part to accompany her and Anna.
"I won't be long, Tryon," she said definitely. "When I come back-we'll talk."
A clear little picture etched itself on Anna's mind: the long, lovely room, the mellow little areas of light under lamps here and there, one falling directly upon the chair she had just left, the pools of shadows surrounding them; Michela's yellow satin, and Randy's red head and slim black shoulders; Joe, a heavy, silent figure, watching them broodingly; Tryon Welles, neat and gray and affable, and Christabel with her gleaming red head held high on her slender neck, walking lightly and gracefully amid soft mauve chiffons. Halfway across the room she paused to accept a cigarette from Tryon and to bend to the small flare of a lighter he held for her, and the amethyst on her finger caught the flickering light and shone.
Then Anna and Christabel had crossed the empty flagstone veranda and turned toward the terrace.
Their slippered feet made no sound upon the velvet grass. Above the lily pool the flower fragrances were sweet and heavy on the night air.
"Did you hear the bullfrog last night?" asked Christabel. "He seems to have taken a permanent residence in the pool. I don't know what to do about him. Randy says he'll shoot him, but I don't want that. He is a nuisance of course, bellowing away half the night. But after all, even bullfrogs have a right to live."
"Christabel," said Anna, trying not to be abrupt, "I must go soon. I have work to do-"
Christabel stopped and turned to face her. They were at the gap in the laurel hedge where a path began and wound upward to the cottage.
"Don't make excuses, Anna honey," she said gently. "Is it the Bromfels?"
A sound checked Anna's reply-an unexpectedly eerie sound like a wail. It rose and swelled amid the moonlit hills. Anna gasped and Christabel said quickly, though with a catch in her voice: "It's only the dogs howling at the moon."
"They are not," Anna said, "exactly cheerful. It emphasizes-" She checked herself abruptly on the verge of saying that it emphasized their isolation.
Christabel had turned in at the path. It was darker there, and her cigarette made a tiny red glow. "If Michela drops another cigarette into a flower I'll kill her," said Christabel quietly.
"What-"
"I said I'd kill her," said Christabel. "I won't, of course. But she-oh, you've seen how things are, Anna. You can't have failed to see. She took Joe-years ago. Now she's taking Randy."
CHAPTER TWO
Anna was thankful that she couldn't see Christabel's face. She said something about infatuation and Randy's youth.
"He is twenty-one," said Christabel. "He's no younger than I was when Joewhen Joe and I were to be married. That was why Michela was here-to be a guest at the wedding and all the parties." They walked on for a few quiet steps before Christabel added: "It was the day before the wedding that they left together."
Anna said; "Has Joe changed?"
"In looks, you mean?" said Christabel, understanding. "I don't know. Perhaps. He must have changed inside. But I don't want to know that."
"Can't you send them away?"
"Randy would follow."
"Tryon Welles," suggested Anna desperately. "Maybe he could help. I don't know how, though. Talk to Randy, maybe."
"Randy wouldn't listen. Opposition makes him stubborn. Besides, he doesn't like Tryon. He's had to borrow too much money from him."
It wasn't like Christabel to be bitter. One of the dogs howled again and was joined by the others. Anna shivered.
"You are cold," said Christabel. "Run along inside, and thanks for listening. And-I think you'd better go, honey. I meant to keep you for comfort. But-"
"No, no, I'll stay-I didn't know-"
"Don't be nervous about being alone. The dogs would know if a stranger set foot on the place. Good night," said Christabel firmly, and was gone.
The guest cottage was snug and warm and tranquil, but Anna was obliged finally to read herself to sleep and derived only a small and fleeting satisfaction from the fact that it was over a rival author's book that she finally grew drowsy. She didn't sleep well even then and was glad suddenly that she'd asked for the guest cottage and was alone and safe in that tiny retreat....
Anna's dream was very real. Randy, was there, and he was naked. He stood by the bed, his thick shaft grasped tightly in his hand. Anna was smiling, totally relaxed and ready.
He spoke quietly to Anna, and though she couldn't make out the words, she knew exactly what he wanted her to do. At first she refused, but he implored her, and finally she threw off the bed covers and pulled up her nightgown. His eyes grew round as he stared between her legs. He worked his hand over his tool, and it grew larger and thicker.
Anna watched Randy, and her own hand crept between her legs; she worked her index finger between her labia, soothing and arousing at the same time.
It was what Randy wanted to see. She knew now that she had to continue-her own pleasure had been sparked by Randy's lusty attention.
She fingered herself slowly at first, her legs opening as she worked finger after finger into her lubricated vagina. She had never done it like this before, so rough and so wanton. Anna kept glancing at Randy's face, and his smile of pleasure made her moan with sensual delight. Anna worked furiously now, eager to achieve an orgasm while Randy watched.
She wanted to feel his hot seed on her breast as she climaxed and her last thought before awakening was that of Randy's throbbing member as it neared her face.
Morning was misty and chill.
It was perhaps nine-thirty when Anna opened the cottage door, saw that the mist lay thick and white, and went back to get her rubbers. Tryon Welles, she thought momentarily, catching a glimse of herself in the mirror, would have nothing at all that was florid and complimentary to say this morning. And indeed, in her brown knitted suit, with her fair hair tight and smooth and her spectacles on, she looked not unlike a chill and aloof little owl.
The path was wet, the laurel leaves shining with moisture, and the hills were looming gray shapes. The house lay white and quiet, and she saw no one about.
It was just then that it came. A heavy concussion of sound, blanketed by mist.
Anna's first thought was that Randy had shot the bullfrog.
But the pool was just below her, and no one was there.
Besides, the sound came from the house. Her feet were heavy and slow in the drenched grass-the steps were slippery and the flagstones wet. Then she was inside.
The wide hall ran straight through the house, and way down at its end Anna saw Mars. He was running away from her, his black hands out-flung, and she was vaguely conscious that he was shouting something. He vanished, and instinct drew Anna to the door at the left which led to the library.
She stopped, frozen, in the doorway.
Across the room, sagging bulkily over the arm of the green damask chair in which she'd sat the previous night, was a man. It was Joe Bromfel, and he'd been shot, and there was no doubt that he was dead.
A newspaper lay at his feet as if it had slipped there. The velvet curtains were pulled together across the window behind him.
Anna smoothed back her hair. She couldn't think at all, and she must have slipped down to the footstool near the door, for she was there when Mars, his face drawn, and Randy, white as his pajamas, came running into the room. They were talking excitedly and were examining a revolver which Randy had picked up from the floor. Then Tryon Welles came from somewhere, stopped beside her, uttered an incredulous exclamation, and ran across the room too. Then Christabel came and stopped, too, on the threshold, and became under Anna's very eyes a different woman-a strange woman, shrunken and gray, who said in a dreadful voice: "Joe-Joe-"
Only Anna heard or saw her. It was Michela, hurrying from the hall, who first voiced the question.
"I heard something-what was it? What-" She brushed past Christabel.
"Don't look, Michela!"
But Michela looked, steadily and long. Then her flat dark eyes went all around the room and she said: "Who shot him?"
For a moment there was utter shocked stillness.
Then Mars cleared his throat and spoke to Randy.
"I don' know who shot him, Mista Randy. But I saw him killed. And I saw the hand that killed him-"
"Hand!" screamed Michela.
"Hush, Michela." Tryon Welles was speaking. "What do you mean, Mars?"
"They ain't nothin' to tell except that, Mista Tryon. I was just comin' to dust the library and there was just a hand stickin' out of them velvet curtains. And I saw the hand and I saw the revolver and I-don't know what I did then." Mars wiped his forehead. "I guess I ran for help, Mista Tryon."
There was another silence.
"Whose hand was it, Mars?" said Tryon Welles gently.
Mars blinked and looked very old.
"Mista Tryon, God's truth is, I do' know. I do' know."
Randy thrust himself forward.
"Was it a man's hand?"
"I reckon it was, maybe," said the old Negro slowly, looking at the floor. "But I do' know for sure, Mista Randy. All I saw was-was the red ring on it."
"A red ring?" cried Michela. "What do you mean-"
Mars turned a bleak dark face toward Michela; a face that rejected her and all she had done to his house. "A red ring, Miz Bromfel," he said with a kind of dignity. "It sort of flashed. And it was red."
After a moment Randy uttered a curious laugh.
"But there's not a red ring in the house. None of us runs to rubies-" He stopped abruptly. "I say, Tryon, hadn't we better-well, carry him to the divan. It isn't decent to-just leave him-like that."
"I suppose so." Tryon Welles moved toward the body. "Help me, Randy-"
The boy shivered, and Anna quite suddenly found her voice.
"Oh, but you can't do that. You can't-" She stopped. The two men were looking at her in astonishment. Michela, too, had turned toward her, although Christabel did not move. "But you can't do that," repeated Anna. "Not when it's murder."
This time the word, falling into the long room, was weighted with its own significance. Tryon Welles' gray shoulders moved.
"She's perfectly right," he said. "I'd forgotten-if I ever knew. But that's the way of it. We'll have to send for people-doctor, sheriff, coroner, I suppose."
Afterward, Anna realized that but for Tryon Welles the confusion would have become mad. He took quiet command of the situation, sending Randy, white and sick-looking, to dress, telephone into town, seeing that the body was decently covered, and even telling Mars to bring them hot coffee. He was here, there, everywhere; upstairs, downstairs, seeing to them all, and finally outside to meet the sheriff ... brisk, alert, efficient. In the interval, Anna sat numbly beside Christabel on the love seat in the hall, with Michela restlessly prowling up and down the hall before their eyes. Her red-and-white sports suit, with its scarlet bracelets and earrings, looked garish and out of place in that house of violent death.
And Christabel. Still a frozen image of a woman who drank coffee automatically, she sat erect and still did not speak. The glowing amethyst on her finger caught the light and was the only living thing about her.
Gradually the sense of numb shock and confusion was leaving Anna. Fright was still there and horror and a queer aching pity, but she saw Randy come running down the wide stairway again, his red hair smooth now above the sweater, and she realized clearly that he was no longer white and sick and frightened; he was instead alert and defiantly ready for what might come. And it would be, thought Anna, in all probability, plenty. And it was.
Questions-questions. The doctor, who was kind, the coroner, who was not, the sheriff, who was merely observant-all of them questioning without end. No time to think. No time to comprehend. Time only to reply as best one might.
But gradually out of it all, certain salient facts began to emerge. They were few, however, and brief.
The revolver was Randy's, and it had been taken from the top buffet drawer-when, no one knew or, at least, would tell. "Everybody knew it was there," said Randy sulkily. The fingerprints on it would probably prove to be Randy's and Mars', since they picked it up.
No one knew anything of the murder, and no one had an alibi, except Liz (the Negro second girl) and Minnie (the cook), who were together in the kitchen.
Christabel had been writing letters in her own room; she'd heard the shot, but thought it was only Randy shooting a bullfrog in the pool. But then she'd heard Randy and Mars running down the front stairway, so she'd come down too. Just to be sure that that was what it was.
"What else did you think it could be?" asked the sheriff. But Christabel said stiffly that she didn't know.
Randy had been asleep when Mars had awakened him. He had not heard the sound of the shot at all. He and Mars had hurried down to the library. (Mars, it developed, had gone upstairs by means of the small back stairway off the kitchen.)
Tryon Welles had walked down the hill in front of the house to the mail box and was returning when he heard the shot. But it was muffled, and he did not know what had happened until he reached the library. He created a mild sensation at that point by taking off a ring, holding it so they could see it, and demanding of Mars if that was the ring he had seen on the murderer's hand. However, the sensation was only momentary, for the large clear stone was as green as his neat green tie.
"No, suh, Mista Tryon," said Mars. "The ring on the hand I saw was red. I could see it plain, and it was red."
"This," said Tryon Welles, "is a flawed emerald. I asked because I seem to be about the only person here wearing a ring. But I suppose that, in justice to us, all our belongings should be searched."
Upon which the sheriff's gaze slid to the purple pool on Christabel's white hand He said, gently, that that was being done, and would Mrs. Michela Bromfel tell what she knew of the murder.
But Mrs. Michela Bromfel somewhat spiritedly knew nothing of it. She'd been walking in the pine woods, she said defiantly, glancing obliquely at Randy, who suddenly flushed all over his thin face. She'd heard the shot but hadn't realized it was a gunshot. However, she was curious and came back to the house.
"The window behind the body opens toward the pine woods," said the sheriff. "Did you see anyone, Mrs. Bromfel?"
"No one at all," said Michela definitely.
Well, then, had she heard the dogs barking? The sheriff seemed to know that the kennels were just back of the pine woods.
But Michela had not heard the dogs.
Someone stirred restively at that, and the sheriff coughed and said unnecessarily that there was no tramp about, then, and the questioning continued. Continued wearily on and on and on, and still no one knew how Joe Bromfel had met his death. And as the sheriff was at last dismissing them and talking to the coroner of an inquest, one of his men came to report on the search. No one was in the house who didn't belong there; they could tell nothing of footprints; the french windows back of the body had been ajar, and there was no red ring anywhere in the house.
"Not, that is, that we can find," said the man.
"All right," said the sheriff. "That'll be all now, folks. But I'd take it kindly if you was to stay around here today."
All her life Anna was to remember that still, long day with a kind of sharp reality. It was, after those first moments when she'd felt so ill and shocked, weirdly natural, was if one event having occurred, another was bound to follow, and then another, and all of them quite in the logical order of things. Even the incident of the afternoon, so trivial in itself but later so significant, was as natural, as unsurprising as anything could be. And that was her meeting with Jim Del Mar.
It happened at the end of the afternoon, long and painful, which Anna spent with Christabel, knowing somehow that, under her frozen surface, Christabel was grateful for Anna's presence. But there were nameless things in the air between them which could be neither spoken nor ignored, and Anna was relieved when Christabel at last took a sedative and, eventually, fell into a sleep that was no more still than Christabel waking had been.
There was no one to be seen when Anna tiptoed out of Christabel's room and down the stairway, although she heard voices from the closed door of the library.
Out of the wide door at last and walking along the terrace above the lily pool, Anna took a long breath of the mist-laden air.
So this was murder. This was murder, and it happened to people one knew, and it did indescribable and horrible things to them. Frightened them first, perhaps. Fear of murder itself came first-simple, primitive fear of the unleashing of the beast. And then on its heels came more civilized fear, and that was fear of the law, and a scramble for safety.
She turned at the hedge and glanced backward. The house lay white and stately amid its gardens as it had lain for generations. But it was no longer tranquil-it was charged now with violence. With murder. And it remained dignified and stately and would cling, as Christabel would cling and had clung all those years, to its protective ritual.
Christabel: had she killed him? Was that why she was so stricken and gray? Or was it because she knew that Randy had killed him? Or was it something else?
Anna did not see the man till she was almost upon him, and then she cried out involuntarily, though as a rule she was not at all nervous. He was sitting on the small porch of the cottage, hunched up with his hat over his eyes and his coat collar turned up, furiously scribbling on a pad of paper. He jumped up as he heard her breathless little cry, whirled to face her and took his hat off, all in one motion.
"May I use your typewriter?" he said.
His eyes were extremely clear and blue and lively. His face was agreeably irregular in feature, with a mouth that laughed a great deal, a chin that took insolence from no man, and a generous width of forehead. His fair hair was thinning but not yet showing gray and his hands were unexpectedly fine and beautiful. Hard on the surface, thought Anna. Terribly sensitive, really, Irish. What's he doing here?
Aloud she said: "Yes."
"Good. Can't write fast enough and want to get this story off tonight. I've been waiting for you, you know. They told me you wrote things. My name's Del Mar. James Del Mar. I'm a reporter. Cover special stories. I'm taking a busman's holiday. I'm actually on a Chicago paper and down here for a vacation. I didn't expect a murder story to break."
Anna opened the door upon the small living room.
"The typewriter's there. Do you need paper? There's a stack beside it."
He fell upon the typewriter absorbedly, like a dog on a bone. She watched him for a while, amazed at his speed and fluency and utter lack of hesitancy.
Presently she lighted the fire already laid in the tiny fireplace and sat there quietly, letting herself be soothed by the glow of the flames and the steady rhythm of the typewriter keys. And for the first time that day its experiences, noted and stored away in whatever place observations are stored, began to arouse and assort and arrange themselves and march in some sort of order through her conscious thoughts. But it was a dark and macabre procession, and it frightened Anna. She was relieved when Jim Del Mar spoke.
"I say," he said suddenly, over the clicking keys, "I've got your name Louise Simms. Is that Right?"
"Anna."
He looked at her. The clicking stopped.
"Anna. Anna Simms," he repeated thoughtfully. "I say, you can't be the Anna Simms that writes murder stories!"
"Yes," said Anna guardedly, "I can be that Anna Simms."
There was an expression of definite incredulity in his face. "But you-"
"If you say," observed Anna tensely, "that I don't look as if I wrote murder stories, you can't use my typewriter for your story."
"I suppose you are all tangled up in this mess," he said speculatively.
"Yes," said Anna, sober again. "And no," she added, looking at the fire.
"Don't commit yourself," said Jim Del Mar dryly. "Don't say anything reckless."
"But I mean just that," said Anna. "I'm a guest here. A friend of Christabel Frame's. I didn't murder Joe Bromfel. And I don't care at all about the rest of the people here except that I wish I'd never seen them."
"But you do," said the reporter gently, "care a lot about Christabel Frame?"
"Yes," said Anna gravely.
"I've got all the dope, you know," said the reporter softly. "It wasn't hard to get. Everybody around here knows about the Frames. The thing I can't understand is why she shot Joe. It ought to have been Michela."
"What-" Anna's fingers were digging into the wicker arms of her chair, and her eyes strove frantically to plumb the clear blue eyes above the typewriter.
"I said it ought to have been Michela. She's the girl who's making the trouble."
"But it wasn't-it couldn't-Christabel wouldn't-"
"Oh, yes, she could," said the reporter rather wearily. "All sorts of people could do the strangest things. Christabel could murder. But I can't see why she'd murder Joe and let Michela go scot-free."
"Michela," said Anna in a low voice, "would have a motive."
"Yes, she's got a motive. Get rid of a husband. But so had Randy Frame. Same one. And he's what the people around here call a Red Frame-impulsive, reckless, bred to a tradition of-violence."
"But Randy was asleep-upstairs-"
He interrupted her.
"Oh, yes, I know all that. And you were approaching the house from the terrace, and Tryon Welles had gone down after the mail, and Miss Christabel was writing letters upstairs, and Michela was walking in the pine woods. Not a damn alibi among you. The way the house and grounds are laid out, neither you nor Tryon Welles nor Michela would be visible to each other. And anyone could have escaped readily from the window and turned up innocently a moment later from the hall. I know all that. Who was behind the curtains?"
"A tramp-" attempted Anna in a small voice. "A burglar-"
"Burglar, nothing," said Jim Del Mar with scorn. "The dogs would have had hysterics. It was one of you. Who?"
"I don't know," said Anna. "I don't know!" Her voice was uneven, and she knew it and tried to steady it and clutched the chair arms tighter. Jim Del Mar knew it, too, and was suddenly alarmed.
"Oh, look here now," he cried. "Don't look like that. Don't cry. Don't-" He took her in his arms and she thought for a moment he was going to kiss her.
"I am not crying," said Anna. "But it wasn't Christabel."
"You mean," said the reporter kindly, "that you don't want it to be Christabel. Well-" He glanced at his watch. "Shit!" He flung his papers together and rose. "There's something I'll do. Not for you exactly-just for-oh, because. I'll let part of my story wait until tomorrow if you want the chance to try to prove your Christabel didn't murder him."
Anna was frowning perplexedly.
"You don't understand me," said the reporter cheerfully. "It's this. You write murder mysteries, and I've read one or two of them. They are not bad," he interpolated hastily, watching Anna. "Now, here's your chance to try a real murder mystery."
"But I don't want-" began Anna.
He checked her imperatively.
"You do want to," he said. "In fact, you've got to. You see-your Christabel is in a spot. You know that ring she wears-"
"When did you see it?"
"Oh, does it matter?" he cried impatiently. "Reporters see everything. The point is the ring."
"But it's an amethyst," said Anna defensively.
"Yes," he agreed grimly. "It's an amethyst. And Mars saw a red stone. He saw it, it has developed, on the right hand. And the hand holding the revolver. And Christabel wears her ring on her right hand."
"But," repeated Anna. "It's an amethyst."
"M-m-m," said the reporter. "It's amethyst. And a little while ago I said to Mars: 'What's the name of that flowering vine over there?' And he said: 'That red flower, suh? That's wisteria.' "
He paused. Anna felt exactly as if something had clutched her heart and squeezed it.
"The flowers were purple, of course," said the reporter softly. "The color of a dark amethyst."
"But he would have recognized Christabel's ring," said Anna after a moment.
"Maybe," said the reporter. "And maybe he wishes he'd never said a word about the red ring. He was scared when he first mentioned it, probably; hadn't had a chance to think it over."
"But Mars-Mars would confess to murdering rather than-"
"No," said Jim Del Mar soberly. "He wouldn't. That theory sounds all right. But it doesn't happen that way. People don't murder or confess to having murdered for somebody else. When it is a deliberate, planned murder and not a crazy drunken brawl, when anything can happen, there's a motive. And it's a strong and urgent and deeply personal and selfish motive and don't you forget it. I've got to hurry. Now then, shall I send in my story about the wisteria-"
"Don't," said Anna choking. "Oh, don't. Not yet."
He picked up his hat. "Thanks for the typewriter. Get your wits together and go to work. After all, you ought to know something of murders. I'll be seeing you."
The door closed, and the flames crackled.
After a long time Anna moved to the writing table and drew a sheet of yellow manuscript paper toward her, and a pencil, and wrote: Characters; possible motives; clues; queries.
It was strange, she thought, not how different real life was to its written imitation, but how like. How terribly like!
She was still bent over the yellow paper when a peremptory knock at the door sent her pencil jabbing furiously on the paper and her heart into her throat. It was only Michela Bromfel, and she wanted help.
"It's my knees," said Michela irritably. "Christabel's asleep or something, and the help in the kitchen are scared of their shadows." She paused to dig savagely at first one knee and then the other. "Have you got anything to put on my legs? I'm nearly going crazy. It's not mosquito bites. I don't know what it is. Look!"
She sat down, pulled back her white skirt and rolled down her thin stockings, disclosing just above each knee a scarlet blotchy rim.
Anna looked and had to resist a wild desire to giggle. "It's n-nothing," she said, quivering. "That is, it's only jiggers-here, I'll get something. Alcohol."
"Jiggers," said Michela blankly. "What's that?"
Anna went into the bathroom. "Little bugs," she called. Where was the alcohol? "They are thick in the pine woods. It'll be all right by morning." Here it was. She took the bottle in her hand and turned again through the bedroom into the tiny living room.
At the door she stopped abruptly. Michela was standing at the writing table. She looked up, saw Anna, and her flat dark eyes flickered.
"Oh," said Michela. "Writing a story?"
"No," said Anna. "It's not a story. Here's the alcohol."
Under Anna's straight look Michela had the grace to depart rather hastily, yanking up her stockings and twisting them hurriedly, and clutching at the bottle of alcohol. Her red bracelets clanked, and her scarlet fingernails looked as if they'd been dipped in blood. Of the few people who might have killed Joe Bromfel, Anna reflected coolly, she would prefer it to be Michela.
It was just then that a curious vagrant memory began to tease Anna. Rather it was not so much a memory as a memory of a memory-something that sometime she had known and now could not remember. It was tantalizing. It was maddeningly elusive. It floated teasingly on the very edge of her consciousness.
Deliberately, at last, Anna pushed it away and went back to work. Christabel and the amethyst. Christabel and the wisteria. Christabel.
CHAPTER THREE
It was dark and still drizzly when Anna made her way down toward the big house.
At the laurel hedge she met Tryon Welles.
"Oh, hello," he said. "Where've you been?"
"At the cottage," said Anna. "There's nothing I could do. How's Christabel?"
"Liz says she is still asleep-thank heaven for that. God, what a day! You oughtn't to be prowling around alone at this time of night. I'll walk to the house with you."
"Have the sheriff and the other men gone?"
"For the time being. They'll be back, I suppose."
"Do they know any more about-who killed him?"
"I don't know. You can't tell much. I don't know of any evidence they have unearthed. They asked me to stay on." He took a quick puff or two of his cigarette and then said irritably: "It puts me in a bad place. It's a business deal where time matters. I'm a broker-I ought to be going back to New York tonight-" He broke off abruptly and said: "Oh, Randy-" as young Randy's pale thin face above a shining mackintosh emerged from the dusk. "Let's just escort Miss Anna to the steps."
"Is she afraid of the famous tramp?" asked Randy and laughed unpleasantly. He'd been drinking, thought Anna, with a flicker of anxiety. Sober, Randy was incalculable enough; drinking, he might be dangerous. Could she do anything with him? No, better leave it to Tryon Welles. "The tramp," Randy was repeating loudly.
"Don't be afraid of a tramp. It wasn't any tramp killed Joe. And everybody knows it. You're safe enough, Anna, unless you've got some evidence. Have you got any evidence, Anna?"
He took her elbow and jostled it urgently.
"She's the quiet kind, Tryon, that sees everything and says nothing. But she's got evidence enough to hang us all. Evidence. That's what we need. Evidence."
"Randy, you're drunk," said Anna crisply. She shook off his clutch on her arm and then, looking at his thin face, which was so white and tight-drawn in the dusk, was suddenly sorry for him. "Go on and take your walk," she said more kindly. "Things will be all right."
"Things will never be the same again," said Randy. "Never the same-do you know why, Anna?" He's very drunk, thought Anna; worse than I thought. "It's because Michela shot him. Yes, sir."
"Randy, shut up!"
"Don't bother me, Tryon, I know what I'm saying. And Michela," asserted Randy with simplicity, "makes me sick."
"Come on, Randy." This time Tryon Welles took Randy's arm. "I'll take care of him, Anna."
Anna watched them leave. It was so like Randy to behave like that. It was in his genes and there was nothing he could do about it. The Frame men were not backward about expressing themselves, Anna thought with a smile. Brash, bold, iconoclastic-they had it all.
But sometimes it was too much. Randy was drunk, and perhaps that had a bit to do with it. Usually he was a little more considerate of those around him.
But not always.
Anna remembered that summer a few years ago when she had taken a walk in the woods, attempting to find a short-cut through the trees and heavy underbrush to the village. She had been warned that many people had been lost in the woods, and that of course merely piqued her interest.
She remembered that it was a beautiful warm day and she had taken off her cardigan as she trudged amidst the pines. She heard something, and stopped. It was a girl's laughter, light as a bell, drifting through the trees.
Anna froze, wondering who it could be. Then she heard the answering harshness of a young man's laugh-boisterous, loud, recognizable. Randy Frame was around.
She walked towards the sounds of laughter and stopped in the trees that gave onto a clearing. There, in the grass, Randy Frame stood, his arms around the waist of Carrie Wade, a neighbor girl with sparkling blue eyes and long golden hair.
He pulled her to him and Carrie came willingly, and Anna sucked in her breath and crouched behind the tree. She felt oddly warm and dizzy and she could not tear her eyes away from the erotic scene that was unfolding.
Randy's hands were busy, and within seconds Carrie stood naked in front of him, her body beautifully warm and slender in the sun. Randy quickly shed his clothing, and his firm muscular body made Anna think of a young stallion, eager for a match.
His erection was gigantic-Anna was startled by the brute size of it. Carrie merely giggled and fondled it warmly with both hands, then dropped to her knees and licked it like a lollipop.
Randy's hands grasped Carrie's head and guided her mouth to his tool, then he grinned as she opened her mouth and he worked half of his length past Carrie's lips.
Anna's breathing seemed very loud to her. She moved her hand between her legs, surprised to find herself wet and ready. She frigged herself, moaning at the delicious moment she was enjoying.
Carrie was standing now, and it was Randy who crouched in the grass. He tucked his head between Carrie's outstretched legs, his mouth on her center, and Carrie's long blonde hair caught the sun as she shook her head in pure pleasure.
Anna wondered how they could do it so openly-it seemed totally unreal to her. She was an observer, a passive spectator to life. The movements and the actions of others intrigued and excited her. But she seldom understood them.
Carrie was lying down and Anna stood so that she could see what was going on. She realized that the knee-high grass was going to obscure her vision, and she quickly studied the tree behind which she had been hiding.
Anna decided to climb it.
She felt foolish as she worked her way about ten feet up into the tree. What if they saw her? She did not have an answer for that. All Anna knew was that she must see the entire act, and she wasn't going to worry about getting caught.
Once in the tree she saw that Randy was atop Carrie, and he had worked his massive member into her. Carrie's legs pointed straight in the air, spread wide apart, and Randy's strong hands were on the blonde's shoulders, holding her in place-though Anna thought that there was little chance of the blonde going anywhere!
Anna's hands were busy. She had worked herself into a sexual lather. Her hands were moist with pleasure. She had worked her fingers past her panties and was busy frigging herself, moaning with pleasure as she watched the young lovers from her vantage point.
Suddenly she saw Carrie's legs go into spasms and then Carrie folded then around Randy's broad back and dug her heels into him. Randy laughed so loudly it seemed that he was standing right next to Anna, and then the two woodland lovers achieved an uproarious orgasm that so excited Anna that she almost fell out of the tree.
But that was a long time ago, Anna thought. Everything was simple then, fun and pure.
The house was deserted and seemed cold. Christabel was still asleep, Michela nowhere to be seen, and Anna finally told Mars to send her dinner on a tray to the cottage and returned quickly like a small brown wraith through the moist twilight.
She was alone on the silent terrace, alone on the dark path. Strange that she felt as if someone else was there. Was the bare fact of murder like a presence hovering, beating dark wings, waiting to sweep downward again?
"Nonsense," said Anna aloud. "Nonsense-" and she ran the rest of the way. She was not, however, to be alone in the cottage, for Michela sat there, composedly awaiting her.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Do you mind," said Michela, "if I spend the night here? There's two beds in there. You see-" she hesitated, her flat dark eyes were furtive-"I'm-afraid."
"Of what?" said Anna after a moment. "Of whom?"
"I don't know who," said Michela, "or what."
After a long pause Anna forced herself to say evenly: "Stay if you are nervous. It's safe here." Was it? Anna continued hurriedly: "Mars will send up dinner."
Michela's thick white hand made an impatient movement.
"Call it nerves-although I've not a nerve in my body. But when Mars comes with dinner-just be sure it is Mars before you open the door, will you? Although as to that-I don't know. But I brought my revolver-loaded." She reached into her pocket, and Anna sat upright, abruptly. Anna, whose knowledge of revolvers had such a wide and peculiar range that any policeman, learning of it, would arrest her on suspicion alone, was nevertheless somewhat uneasy in their immediate vicinity.
"Afraid?" said Michela.
"Not at all," said Anna. "But I don't think a revolver will be necessary."
"I hope not, I'm sure," said Michela somberly and stared at the fire.
After that, as Anna later reflected, there was not much to be said. The only interruption during the whole queer evening was the arrival of Mars and dinner.
Later in the evening Michela spoke again, abruptly. "I didn't kill Joe," she said. And after another long silence she said unexpectedly: "Did Christabel ask you how to kill him and get by with it?"
"No!"
"Oh." Michela looked at her queerly. "I thought maybe she'd got you to plan it for her. You-knowing so much about murders and all."
"She didn't," said Anna forcefully. "And I don't plan murders for my friends, I assure you. I'm going to bed."
Michela, following her, put the revolver on the small table between the two beds.
If the night before had been heavy with apprehension, this was an active nightmare. Anna tossed and turned and was uneasily conscious that Michela was awake and restless too.
Anna must have slept at last, though, for she woke up with a start and sat upright, instantly aware of some movement in the room. Then she saw a figure dimly out-lined against the window. It was Michela.
Anna joined her. "What are you doing?"
"Hush," whispered Michela. Her face was pressed against the glass. Anna looked too, but could see only blackness.
"There's someone out there," whispered Michela. "And if he moves again I'm going to shoot."
Anna was suddenly aware that the ice-cold thing against her arm was the revolver.
"You are not," said Anna and wrenched the thing out of Michela's hand. Michela gasped and whirled, and Anna said grimly: "Go back to bed. Nobody's out there."
"How do you know?" said Michela, her voice sulky.
"I don't," said Anna, very much astonished at herself, but clutching the revolver firmly. "But I do know that you aren't going to start shooting. If there's any shooting to be done," said Anna with aplomb, "I'll do it myself. Go to bed."
But long after Michela was quiet Anna still sat bolt upright, clutching the revolver and listening.
Along toward dawn, out of the melee of confused, unhappy thoughts, the vagrant little recollection came back to tantalize her. Something she'd known and now did not know. This time she returned as completely as she could over the track her thoughts had taken in the hope of capturing it by association. She'd been thinking of the murder and of the possible suspects; if Michela had not murdered Joe, then there were left Randy and Christabel and Tryon Welles. And she didn't want it to be Christabel; it must not be Christabel.
After Michela left, Anna's memory tugged at her, and she wrenched herself out of the arms of sleep to dig for the phantom. It was something trivial-but something she could not project into her consciousness. And it was something she needed. Needed now. Anna drifted off, her mind still working on the problem.
Michela couldn't sleep. She stepped out into the garden, no longer afraid. Whatever it was, she no longer feared it. Perhaps it was a cat, she thought, or the wind. She peered around, tingling with excitement.
"Michela," Randy said.
"It's you! Why didn't you say something? I would've come out before!"
She saw him now, and he shrugged. "I didn't want you to come out," he said thoughtlessly.
Michela stiffened. "In that case," she said, "I'll go back in."
His hand was warm on her arm and she could see that he was smiling. "But as long as you're here ... "he said.
Michela glanced around. "What if someone hears us?" she whispered. "I was just talking to Anna. What if she's awake?"
Randy was still grinning. "Then she can watch," he said. "Learn something. Have a love scene for one of her books. I don't really care one way or the other!"
It was very still in the garden. Michela thought that someone must be watching. "Let's go inside," she whispered urgently. "It's more comfortable!"
"I like it out here," Randy said. "I like to make love in the open-always have. It makes me feel free." His mouth covered hers, wet and warm, and she felt his tongue probing.
She gave up. He lowered her to the grass and stood above her, framed in moonlight.
Michela wanted to be used, and Randy was just the man to do it.
"You feel good," he whispered, as he began to stroke her.
Inside, all slept soundly, unaware, at peace.
Anna awoke and was horrified to discover her cheek pillowed cosily against the revolver. She thrust it away, then dressed quickly.
Michela was still silent and sulky, Anna thought, as she passed her on her way to Christabel's room. Christabel looked years older. She was pathetically willing to answer the few questions that Anna asked. Feeling that Christabel wanted solitude, Anna left. But she went reluctantly. It would not be long before Jim Del Mar returned, and she had nothing to tell him-nothing, except surmise.
Randy was not at breakfast, and it was a dark and uncomfortable meal. Dark because Tryon Welles said something about a headache and turned out the electric light, and uncomfortable because it could not be otherwise. Michela had changed to a thin suit-red again. The teasing ghost of a memory drifted over Anna's mind and away before she could grasp it.
As the meal ended Anna was called to the telephone. It was Jim Del Mar saying that he would be there in an hour.
On the terrace Tryon Welles overtook her again and said: "How's Christabel?"
"I don't know," said Anna slowly. "She looks-stunned."
"I wish I could make it easier for her," he said. "But-I'm caught too. There's nothing I can do, really. I mean about the house, of course. Didn't she tell you?"
"No."
He looked at her, considered, and went on slowly.
"She wouldn't mind you knowing. You see-oh, it's tragically simple. But I can't help myself. It's like this: Randy borrowed money from me-kept on borrowing it, spent it like water. Without Christabel knowing it, he put up the house and grounds as collateral. She knows now, of course.
Now I'm in a pinch in business and have got to take the house over legally in order to borrow enough money on it myself to keep things going for a few months. Do you see?"
Anna nodded. Was it this knowledge, then, that had so stricken Christabel?
"I hate it," said Tryon Welles. "But what can I do? And now Joe's-death-on top of it-" He paused, reached absently for a cigarette case, extracted a cigarette, and the small flame from his lighter flared suddenly clear and bright. "It's-hell," he said, puffing, "for her. But what can I do? I've got my own business to save."
"I see," said Anna slowly.
And quite suddenly, looking at the lighter, she did see. It was simple, as miraculously simple as that. She said, her voice marvelously unshaken and calm to her own ears: "May I have a cigarette?"
He was embarrassed at not having offered it; he fumbled for his cigarette case and then held the flame of the lighter for her. Anna was very deliberate about getting her cigarette lighted. Finally she did so, said
"Thank you," and added, quite as if she had the whole thing planned: "Will you wake Randy, Mr. Welles, and send him to me? Now?"
"Why, of course," he said. "You'll be in the cottage?"
"Yes," said Anna and fled.
She was bent over the yellow paper when Jim Del Mar arrived.
He was fresh and alert and, Anna could see, prepared to be kind. He expected her, then, to fail.
"Well," he said gently, "have you discovered the murderer?"
"Yes," said Anna Simms.
Jim Del Mar sat down quite suddenly.
"I know who killed him," she said simply, "but I don't know why."
Jim Del Mar reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and dabbed it lightly to his forehead. "Suppose," he suggested in a hushed way, "you tell all."
"Randy will be here in a moment," said Anna. "But it's all very simple. You see, the final clue was only the proof. I knew Christabel couldn't have killed him, for two rea sons: one is, she is inherently incapable of killing anything; the other is-she loved him still. And I knew it wasn't Michela, because she is, actually, cowardly; and then, too, Michela had an alibi."
"Alibi?"
"She really was in the pine woods for a long time that morning. Waiting, I think, for Randy, who slept late. I know she was there, because she was simply chewed by jiggers, and they are only in the pine woods."
"Maybe she was there the day before?"
Anna shook her head decidedly.
"No, I know jiggers. If it had been during the previous day they'd have stopped itching by the time she came to me. And it wasn't during the afternoon, for no one went in the pine woods then except the sheriff's men."
"That would leave Randy and Tryon Welles."
"Yes," said Anna. Now that it had come to doing it, she felt ill and weak; would it be her evidence, her words, that would send a fellow creature over that long and ignominious road that ends so tragically?
Jim Del Mar knew what she was thinking.
"Remember Christabel," he said quietly.
"Oh, I know," said Anna sadly. She locked her fingers together, and there were quick footsteps on the porch.
"You want me, Anna?" said Randy.
"Yes, Randy," said Anna. "I want you to tell me if you owed Joe Bromfel anything. Money-or-or anything."
"How did you know?" said Randy.
"Did you give him a note-anything?"
"Yes."
"What was your collateral?"
"The house-it's all mine-"
"When was it dated? Answer me, Randy."
He flung up his head.
"I suppose you've been talking to Tryon," he said defiantly. "Well, it was dated before Tryon got his note. I couldn't help it. I'd got some stocks on margin. I had to have-"
"So the house actually belonged to Joe Bromfel?" Anna was curiously cold. Christabel's house. Christabel's brother.
"Well, yes-if you want to put it like that."
Jim Del Mar had risen quietly.
"And after Joe Bromfel, to Michela, if she knows of this and claims it?" pressed Anna.
"I don't know," said Randy. "I never thought of that."
Jim Del Mar started to speak, but Anna silenced him.
"No, he really didn't think of it," she said wearily. "And I knew it wasn't Randy who killed him because he didn't, really, care enough for Michela to do that. It was-Tryon Welles who killed Joe Bromfel. He had to. For he had to silence Joe and then secure the note and probably destroy it, in order to have a clear title to the house himself. Randy-did Joe have the note here with him?"
"Yes."
"It was not found upon his body?"
It was Jim Del Mar who answered: "Nothing of the kind was found anywhere."
"Then," said Anna, "after the murder was discovered and before the sheriff arrived and the search began, only you and Tryon Welles were upstairs and had the opportunity to search Joe's room and find the note and destroy it. Was it you who did that, Randy?"
"No-no!" The color rose in his face.
"Then it must have been then that Tryon Welles found and destroyed it." She frowned. "Somehow, he must have known it was there. I don't know how-perhaps he had had words with Joe about it before he shot him and Joe inadvertently told him where it was. There was no time for him to search the body. But he knew-"
"Maybe," said Randy reluctantly, "I told him. You see-I knew Joe had it in his letter case. He-he told me. But I never thought of taking it."
"It was not on record?" asked Jim Del Mar.
"No," said Randy, flushing. "I-asked him to keep it quiet."
"I wonder," said Anna, looking away from Randy's miserable young face, "just how Tryon Welles expected to silence you."
"Well," said Randy dully, after a moment, "it was not exactly to my credit.
But you needn't rub it in. I never thought of this-I was thinking of-Michela. That she did have it. I've had my lesson. And if he destroyed the note, how are you going to prove all this?"
"By your testimony," said Anna. "And besides-there's the ring."
"Ring," said Randy. Jim Del Mar leaned forward intently.
"Yes," said Anna. "I'd forgotten. But I remembered that Joe had been reading the newspaper when he was killed. The curtains were pulled together back of him, so, in order to see the paper, he must have had the light turned on above his chair. It wasn't burning when I entered the library, or I should have noted it. So the murderer had pulled the cord of the lamp before he escaped. And ever since then he had been very careful to avoid any artificial light."
"What are you talking about?" cried Randy.
"Yet he had to keep on wearing the ring," said Anna. "Fortunately for him he didn't have it on the first night-I suppose the color at night would have been wrong with his green tie. But this morning he lit a cigarette and I saw."
"Saw what, in God's name?" Randy exploded.
"That the stone isn't an emerald at all," replied Anna. "It's an Alexandrite. It changed color under the flare of the lighter."
"Alexandrite!" cried Randy impatiently. "What's that?"
"It's a stone that's a kind of red-purple under artificial light and green in daylight," said Jim Del Mar shortly. "I had forgotten there was such a thing-I don't think I've ever happened to see one. They are rare-and costly. Costly," repeated Jim Del Mar slowly. "This one has cost a life-"
Randy interrupted: "But if Michela knows about the note, why, Tryon may kill her-" He stopped abruptly, thought for a second or two, then got out a cigarette. "Let him," he said airily.
It had been Tryon Welles, then, prowling about during the night-if it had been anyone. He had been uncertain, perhaps, of the extent of Michela's knowledge, but certain of his ability to deal with her and with Randy, who was so heavily in his debt.
"Michela doesn't know now," said Anna slowly. "And when you tell her, Randy-she might settle for a cash consideration. And, Randy Frame, somehow you've got to recover this house for Christabel and do it honestly."
"But right now," said Jim Del Mar cheerily, "for the sheriff. And my story."
At the doorway he paused to look at Anna. "May I come back later," he said, "and use your typewriter?"
"Yes," said Anna Simms.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jim paused. "To hell with it," he said crisply. Then: "Listen. Get yourself together-we're going to make a night of it!"
They did just that. An excellent dinner at a charming steak house, thick slabs of beef grilled to perfection, a few potent drinks first to spark the appetite, and Anna was as happy as she had been in years. The restaurant was a newspapermen's hang-out, and the dark woods and comfortable leather exuded male taste. Jim was looking at her as she sipped her drink. "I've always heard that the direct approach works best," he said with a grin.
"Try it," Anna replied.
"I know this charming motel," Jim said. "It's only five minutes from here. Change the sheets every day, and there's a color t.v. in every room."
"I love t.v.," Anna replied.
Ten minutes later, Jim kicked shut the door to room 103 at the Sportsman's Haven, a clean modern motel where he seemed as well-known as he had been in the restaurant.
He turned down the bed covers, then began undressing. Anna watched with amusement, but inside she was shaking. Jim could read the signs. "New to this, are you?"
"It's a bit out of my daily experiences," Anna said.
"I'll turn down the lights," Jim said, moving to the wall switch. "Care to use the bathroom?"
"Maybe a shower," Anna said. "I'd feel better, I think."
Jim grinned. "I'll join you," he said. "It's been years since I've showered with a woman!" His grin took the edge off the remark.
Anna was surprised at how modest she was. She realized that there was no way to prevent Jim from seeing her naked, but it still brought a blush to her cheeks. He said nothing, but his smile took in her well-developed figure and helped put her at ease.
Once in the shower, with the warm water cascading over them, they were like two young lovers, delighting in each other's body.
Jim's soapy hands sought out her most sensitive areas, turning her around, doing her backside as well. She squirmed with a delicious sensual feeling that was totally new to her. Jim's hands were busy, and she felt herself urging him on, imploring him to explore every inch.
Then he handed her the soap.
Anna was on her knees, her sudsy hands running up and down the length of his erect member. She cupped his heavy scrotum in her hand, then directed the water flow into a warm rinse. She manipulated his shaft, loving the way it lengthened and thickened in her hand.
Then she leaned forward and kissed the tip, loving the soft velvet feel of it. Then-to her surprise-she opened her mouth and accepted half of his shaft, sucking it gently, for it was the first time that she had ever done such a thing.
Again to her surprise, Anna loved it, and she greedily sucked more, then moved her mouth away, staring at the object of her sudden worship.
"Just keep it up," Jim said. "You were doing great!"
Anna laughed, then licked the entire length of the shaft. The warm water, cascading on her back, added to the sensual delights she was experiencing.
Then she was on it again, sucking harder, working her tongue about the thick shaft. She had always wondered why women did this. It had always seemed to be nothing more than a service men demanded.
Anna had no idea it could be such a pleasure for the woman involved. She loved doing it, and she looked forward eagerly to doing it often.
Jim was moaning, and she realized that she had been so lost in her own pleasure that she had not taken notice of his erotic state. He was near climax, and he said to her, "Back off now or be prepared!"
She smiled, taking his thick member from her mouth. "I'd prefer that pleasure later on," she said. "For now-let's go to bed!"
Anna had never felt so excited in her life. She was stretched out and waiting while Jim toweled himself at the foot of the bed, his eyes fastened to the juncture of her thighs. Anna opened her legs and strummed her labia, smiling at the pop-eyed expression on Jim's face.
He dropped the towel and got into bed beside her. He was about to roll over atop her when she put a hand against his chest and said, "Let me!"
He did not protest. He lay on his back and Anna quickly rolled atop him, pillowing his face between her breasts. He felt his warm tongue on her nipples, then she reached between her legs and grabbed his throbbing shaft.
She arched her behind, positioned his member, then sank down upon it, shivering with erotic delight as she felt the first burst of penetration.
She wiggled her hips, settling more of his massive member inside her, and as she sat up straight, Jim reared up from the bed, capturing a breast in his hand, squeezing it and making her nipple protrude, an easy target for his hot, wet tongue.
She felt herself climaxing slowly, climbing as if on a roller coaster, seeing the top of the hill coming up, knowing that as soon as she reached it she would pitch over and fall quickly and breathlessly to the bottom. She cried out and Jim felt her vagina squeeze in convulsive. grasping motions around his penis, then she was sobbing on his shoulder, her breath hot and sweet.
That was one of the most spectacular nights in Anna's life. Jim was off on a sudden unexpected assignment the next day, begging off from their new-found affair.
Anna didn't hear from Jim for over two months, then....
CHAPTER SIX
"But it is fantastic," said Anna, clutching the telephone. "You can't just be afraid. You've got to be afraid of something." She waited, but there was no reply.
"You mean," she said presently, in a hushed voice, "that I'm to go to this perfectly strange house, to be the guest of a perfectly strange woman-"
"To you," said Jim Del Mar. "Not, I tell you, to me."
"But you said you had never seen her-"
"Don't maunder," said Jim sharply. "Of course I've never seen her. Now, Anna, do try to get this straight. This woman is Caroline Wray. One of the Wrays."
"Perfectly clear," said Anna. "Therefore I'm to go to her house and see why she's got an attack of nerves. Take a bag and prepare to spend the next few days as her guest. I'm sorry, Jim, but I'm busy. I've got to do a murder story this week and-"
"Anna," said Jim, "I'm serious."
Anna paused abruptly. He was serious.
"It's just-I don't know how to explain it, Anna," he said. "It's just-well, I'm Irish, you know. And I'm-fey. Don't laugh."
"Irish? Del Mar is Irish?"
"On my mother's side. You're laughing, I knew it!"
"I'm not laughing," said Anna. "Tell me exactly what you want me to do."
"Just-watch things. There ought not to be any danger-don't see how there could be. To you."
Anna realized that she was going. "How many Wrays are there, and what do you think is going to happen?"
"There are four Wrays. But I don't know what is going on that has got Caroline so terrified. It was that-the terror in her voice-that made me call you."
"What's the number of the house?" said Anna.
He told her. "It's way north," he said. "One of those old houses-narrow, tall, hasn't changed, I suppose, since old Ephineas Wray died. He was a close friend, you know, of my father's. Don't know why Caroline called me; I suppose some vague notion that a man on a newspaper would know what to do. Now let me see-there's Caroline. She's the daughter of Ephineas Wray. David is his grandson and Caroline's nephew and the only man-except the houseman-in the place. He's young-in his twenties, I believe. His father and mother died when he was a child."
"You mean there are three women?"
"Naturally. There's Marie-she is old Wray's adopted daughter-not born a Wray, but more like him than the rest of them. And Jessica-she's Caroline's cousin, but she's always lived with the Wrays because her father died young. People always assume that the three women are sisters. Actually, of course, they are not. But old Ephineas Wray left his fortune divided equally among them."
"And they all live there together?"
"Yes, David's not married."
"Is that," said Anna, at the note of finality in his voice, "all you know about them?"
"Absolutely everything. Not much for you to go on, is it? It was just," said Jim Del Mar soberly, with the effect of a complete explanation, "that she was so-so horribly scared. Old Caroline, I mean."
Anna retraced the address slowly before she said again: "What was she afraid of?"
"I don't know," said Jim Del Mar. "And-it's queer-but I don't think she knew either."
It was approaching five o'clock, with a dark fog rolling up from the lake and blending itself with the early winter twilight, when Anna Simms pressed the bell beside the wide old door-pressed it and waited.
Lights were on in the street, but the house before her was dark, its windows curtained. The door was heavy and secretive.
But they were expecting her-or at least Caroline Wray was; it had all been arranged by telephone. Anna wondered what Caroline had told them; what Jim Del Mar had told Caroline to say to explain her presence; and, suddenly, what Caroline was like.
Little Johnny hung his sister.
She was dead before they missed her.
Johnny's always up to tricks, Ain't he cute, and only six. The jingle had been haunting her with the persistence of a popular dance tune, and it gave accent to the impatient little beat of her brown oxford upon the stone step. Then a light flashed on above the door. Anna took a deep breath of the moist cold air and felt a sudden tightening of her nerves. The door was going to open.
It swung wider, and a warm current of air struck Anna's cheeks. Beyond was a dimly lit hall and a woman's figure-a tall, corseted figure with full sweeping skirt.
"Yes?" said a voice harshly out of the dimness.
"I am Anna Simms," said Anna.
"Oh-oh, yes." The figure moved aside and the door opened wider. "Come in, Miss Simms. We were expecting you."
Afterward Anna remembered her own hesitation on the dark threshold as the door closed with finality behind her, and the woman turned.
"I am Miss Jessica Wray," she said.
Jessica. This was the cousin, then.
She was a tall woman, large-boned, with a heavy, dark face, thick, iron-grey hair done high and full on her head, and long, strong hands. She was dressed after a much earlier fashion; one which, indeed, Anna was unable to date.
"We were expecting you," she said. "Caroline, however, was obliged to go out." She paused just under the light, beside a long mirror.
Anna had a confused impression of the house in that moment; an impression of old, crowded elegance. The mirror was wavey and framed in wide gilt; there were ferns in great marble urns; there were marble figures.
"We'll go up to your room," said Jessica. "Caroline said you would be in Chicago for several days. This way. You can leave you bag here. James will take it up later; he is out just now."
Anna put down her small suitcase, and followed Jessica. The post and stair rail were heavy and carved. The steps were carpeted and thickly padded. And the house was utterly, completely still. As they ascended the quiet stairs it grew increasingly hot and airless.
At the top of the stairs Jessica turned with a rigid motion of her strong body.
"Will you wait here a moment?" she said. "I'm not sure which room-"
Anna made some assenting gesture, and Jessica turned along the passage which ran toward the rear of the house.
So terrifically hot the house was. So crowded with old, almost ancient furniture. So very silent.
Anna moved a bit restively. It was not a pleasant house. But Caroline had to be afraid of something-not just silence and heat and brooding, secretive old walls. She glanced down the length of hall, moved again to put her hand upon the tall newel post of the stair rail beside her. The carved top of it seemed to shift and move slightly under the pressure of her hand and confirmed in the strangest way her feeling that the house itself had a singular kind of life.
Then she was staring straight ahead of her through an open, lighted doorway. Beyond it was a large room, half-bedroom and half-sitting room. A lamp on a table cast a circle of light, and beside the table, silhouetted against the light, sat a woman with a book in her lap.
It must be Marie Wray-the older sister; the adopted Wray who was more like old Ephineas Wray than any of them.
Her face was in shadow with the light beyond it, so Anna could see only a blunt, fleshy white profile and a tight knot of shining black hair above a massive black silk bosom. She did not, apparently, know of Anna's presence, for she did not turn. There was a kind of patience about that massive, relaxed figure; a waiting. An enormous black female spider waiting in a web of shadows. But waiting for what?
The suggestion was not calculated to relieve the growing tension of Anna's nerves. The heat was making her dizzy, fanciful. Calling a harmless old woman a black spider merely because she was wearing a shiny black silk dress! Marie Wray still, so far as Anna could see, did not look at her, but there was suddenly the flicker of a motion on the table.
Anna looked and caught her breath in an incredulous little gasp.
There was actually a small gray creature on that table, directly under the lamplight. A small gray creature with a long tail. It sat down nonchalantly, pulled the lid off a box and dug its tiny hands in.
It's a monkey, thought Anna with something like a clutch of hysteria. It's a monkey-a spider monkey, is it?-with that tiny face.
It was turning its face jerkily about the room, peering with bright, anxious eyes here and there, and busily, furiously eating candy. It failed somehow to see Anna; or perhaps she was too far away to interest it. There was suddenly something curiously unreal about the scene. That, thought Anna, or the heat in this fantastic house, and turned at the approaching rustle of skirts down the passage. It was Jessica; she looked at Anna, then through the open doorway, and smiled coldly.
"Marie is deaf," she said. "I suppose she didn't realize you were there."
"No," said Anna.
"I'll tell her." She made a stiff gesture with her long hand and turned to enter the room beyond the open door. As her gray silk rustled through the door, the little monkey jerked around, gave her one piercing glance and was gone from the table in a swift streak. He fled across the room, darted under an old sofa.
But Jessica did not reprove him. "Marie," she said loudly and distinctly.
There was a pause. Jessica's flowing silk skirts were now silhouetted against the table lamp, and the monkey absently began to lick its paw.
"Yes, Jessica." The voice was that of a person long deaf-entirely without tone.
"Anna Simms is here-you know-the daughter of Caroline's friend. Do you want to see her?"
"See her? No. No, not now. Later."
"Very well. Do you want anything?"
"No."
"Your cushions?"
Jessica's rigid back bent over Marie as she arranged a cushion. Then she turned and walked again toward Anna. Anna felt queerly fascinated and somehow oddly shocked to note that, as Jessica turned her rigid back to the room, the monkey darted out from under the sofa and was suddenly skittering across the room again in the direction of the table and the candy.
He would be, thought Anna, one very sick monkey. The house was too hot, and yet Anna shivered a bit. Why did people keep monkeys?
"This way," said Jessica firmly, and Anna followed her down the hall and into exactly the kind of bedroom she might have expected.
But Jessica did not intend to leave her alone to explore its Victorian fastnesses. Under her somewhat unnerving dark gaze, Anna removed her cock-eyed little hat, smoothed back her light hair, and put her coat across a chair, only to have it placed immediately by Jessica in the enormous wardrobe. The servants, said Jessica, were out; the second girl and James because it was their day out, the cook to do an errand.
"You are younger than I should have expected," she said abruptly to Anna. "Shall we go down now?"
As they passed down the stairs to the drawing room, a clock struck slowly, with long, trembling vibrations.
"Five," said Jessica. "Caroline ought to return very soon. And David. He usually reaches home shortly after five. That is, if it isn't rainy. Traffic sometimes delays him. But it isn't rainy tonight!"
"Foggy," said Anna and obeyed the motion of Jessica's hand toward a chair. It was not a comfortable chair, and neither were the moments that followed, for Jessica sat sternly erect opposite Anna, folded her hands firmly in her silk lap and said exactly nothing. Anna started to speak a time or two, thought better of it, and sat in rigid silence. And as suddenly aware that she was acutely receptive to sight and sound and feeling.
It was not a pleasant sensation.
She felt queerly as if the lives that were living themselves out in that narrow old house were pressing in upon her-as if long-spoken words and long-stifled whispers were living yet in the heated air.
She stirred restively and tried not to think of Marie Wray. Queer how difficult it was, once having seen Marie and heard her speak, not to think of that brooding figure-sitting in its web of shadows, waiting.
Three old women living in an old house. What were their relations with one another? Two of them she had seen and had heard speak, and knew no more of them than she had known. What about Caroline-the one who was afraid? She stirred again and knew Jessica was watching her.
They heard the bell, although it rang in some back part of the house. Jessica looked satisfied and rose.
"It's David," she said. At the door into the hall she added in a different tone: "And I suppose Caroline, too."
Anna knew she was tense. Yet there was nothing in that house for her to fear. It was Caroline who was afraid.
Then another woman stood in the doorway. Caroline, no doubt. A tall slender woman, a blonde who had faded into tremulous, wispy uncertainty. She did not speak. Her eyes were large and blue and feverish; two bright pink spots fluttered in her thin cheeks, and her bare thin hands moved. Anna rose and went to her and took the hands.
"But you're so young," said Caroline. Disappointment throbbed in her voice.
"I'm not really," said Anna.
"And so little-" breathed Caroline.
"But that doesn't matter at all," said Anna, speaking slowly, as one does to a nervous child. There were voices in the hall, but she was mainly aware of Caroline.
"No, I suppose not," said Caroline, finally looking into Anna's eyes. Terrified, Jim had said. Curious how right Jim managed to be.
Caroline's eyes sought Anna's, and she was about to speak when there was a rustle in the doorway. Caroline's uncertain lips closed in a kind of gasp, and Jessica swept into the room.
But I must know what she's afraid of, thought Anna. I must get her alone-away from Jessica.
"Take off you coat, Caroline," said Jessica. "Don't stand there. I see you've spoken to Anna Simms. Put away your hat and coat and then come down again."
"Yes, Jessica," said Caroline. Her hands were moving again, and she looked away.
"Go on," said Jessica. Her voice was not sharp, it was merely undefeatable.
"Yes, Jessica," said Caroline.
"Marie is reading," said Jessica. "You needn't speak to her now unless you wish to do so. You may take Anna Simms in to see her later."
"Yes, Jessica."
Caroline disappeared and in her place stood a man, and Anna was murmuring words of acknowledgment to Jessica's economical introduction.
David, too, was blond, and his eyes were dark blue. He was slender and fairly tall; his mouth was fine and sensitive, and there was a look about his temples and around his eyes that was-Anna sought for the word and found it-wistful. He was young and strong and vibrant-the only young thing in the house-but he was not happy. Anna knew that at once. He said: "How do you do, Miss Simms?"
"Don't go upstairs yet, David," said Jessica. Her voice was less harsh; she watched him avidly. "You ought to rest."
"Not now, Aunt Jessica. I'll see you again, Miss Simms."
He walked away. "Aunt Marie all right?" he called from the stairway.
"Perfectly," said Jessica. Her voice was harsh again. "She's reading-"
Afterward Anna tried to remember whether she could actually hear David's steps upon the padded stairs or whether she was only half-consciously calculating the time it took to climb the stairs-the time it took, or might have taken to walk along the hall, to enter a room. She was sure that Jessica did not speak. She merely sat there.
Why did Jessica become rigid and harsh again when David spoke of Marie? Why did-?
A loud, dreadful crash of sound forever shattered the silence in the house. It fell upon Anna and immersed her and shook the whole house and then receded in waves. Waves that left destruction and intolerable confusion.
Anna realized dimly that she was on her feet and trying to move toward the stairway, and that Jessica's mouth was gray, and that Jessica's hands were clutching her.
"Oh, my God-David-" said Jessica intelligibly, and pushed Anna away from her.
Anna reached the stairway, Jessica beside her, and at the top of the stairs two figures were locked together and struggling in the upper hall.
"Caroline," screamed Jessica. "What are you doing? Where's Marie-where-"
"Let me go, Caroline!" David was pulling Caroline's thin clutching arms from around him. "Let me go, I tell you! Something terrible has happened! You must-"
Jessica brushed past them and then was at the door of Marie's room.
"It's Marie!" she cried harshly. "Who shot her?"
Anna was vaguely conscious of Caroline's sobbing breaths and of David's shoulder pressing against her own. Somehow they had all gotten to that open doorway and were crowding there together.
It was Marie.
She sat in the same chair in which she'd been sitting when Anna saw her so short a time ago. But her head had fallen forward, her whole body crumpled grotesquely into black silk folds.
Jessica was the first to enter the room, then David. Anna, feeling sick and shaken, followed. Only Caroline remained in the doorway, clinging to the casing with thin hands, her face like chalk and her lips blue.
"She's been shot," said Jessica. "Straight through the heart." Then she looked at David. "Did Caroline kill her, David?"
"Caroline kill Marie! Why Caroline couldn't kill anything!" he cried.
"Then who killed her?" said Jessica. "You realize, don't you, that she's dead?"
Her dark gaze probed deeper and she said in a grating whisper: "Did you kill her, David?"
"No!" cried David. "No!"
"She's dead," said Jessica.
Anna said as crisply as she could: "Why don't you call a doctor?"
Jessica's silk rustled, and she turned to give Anna a long, cold look. "There's no need to call a doctor. Obviously she's dead."
"The police, then," said Anna softly. "Obviously, too-she's been murdered."
"The police," cried Jessica scornfully. "Turn over my own cousin-my own nephew-to the police. Never."
"I'll call them," Anna said crisply, and whirled and left them with their dead.
On the silent stairway her knees began to shake again. So this was what the house had been waiting for. Murder! And this was why Caroline had been afraid. What, then, had she known? Where was the revolver that had shot Marie? There was nothing of the kind to be seen in the room.
The air was hot, the house terribly still-and she, Anna Simms, was hunting for a telephone-calling a number-talking quite sensibly on the whole-and all the time it was entirely automatic action on her part. It was automatic even when she called and found Jim Del Mar.
"I'm here," she said. "At the Wrays'. Marie has been murdered-"
"My God!" said Jim and slammed up the receiver.
The house was so hot. Anna sat down weakly on the bottom step, huddled against the newel post, and felt extremely ill. If she were really a detective, of course, she would go straight upstairs and wring admissions out of them while they were shaken and confused and before they'd had time to arrange their several defenses. But she wasn't a detective, and she had no wish to be, and all she wanted just then was to escape. Something moved in the shadows under the stairs-moved. Anna flung her hands to her throat to choke back a scream, and the little monkey whirled out, peering at her worriedly, then darted up the window curtain and sat nonchalantly on the heavy wooden rod.
Her coat and hat were upstairs. She couldn't go out into the cold and fog without them-and Jim was on the way. If she could hold out till he got there David was coming down the stairs.
"She says it's all right to call the police," he said in a tight voice.
"I've called them."
He looked down at her and suddenly sat on the bottom step beside her.
"It's been hell," he said quite simply. "But I didn't think of-murder." He stared at nothing, and Anna could not bear the look of horror on his young face.
"I understand," she said, wishing she did.
"I didn't." he said. "Until-just lately. I knew-oh, since I was a child I've known I must-"
"Must what?" said Anna gravely.
He flushed quickly and was white again.
"Oh, it's a lousy thing to say. I was the only child, you know. And I grew up knowing that I dared have no-no favorite-you see? If there'd been more of us-or if the aunts had married and had their own children-but I didn't understand how-how violent-" The word stopped in his throat, and he coughed and went on, "How strongly they felt-"
"Who?"
"Why, Aunt Jessica, of course. And Aunt Marie. And Aunt Caroline.
"Too many aunts," said Anna dryly. "What was it they were violent about?"
"The house. And each other. And-and other things. Oh, I've always known, but it was all-hidden, you know. The surface was-all right."
Anna groped through the fog. The surface was all right, he'd said. But the fog parted for a rather sickening instant and gave her an ugly glimpse of an abyss below.
"Why was Caroline afraid?" said Anna.
"Caroline?" he said, staring at her. "Afraid!" His blue eyes were brilliant with anxiety and excitement. "See here," he said, "if you think it was Caroline who killed Marie, it wasn't. She couldn't. She'd never have dared. I m-mean-" He was stammering in his excitement. "I mean, Caroline wouldn't hurt a fly. And Caroline wouldn't have opposed Marie about anything. Marie-you don't know what Marie was like."
"Exactly what happened in the upstairs hall?"
"You mean-when the shot-"
"Yes."
"Why, I-I was in my room-no, not quite-I was nearly at the door. And I heard the shot. And it's queer, but I believe-I believe I knew right away that it was a revolver shot. It was as if I had expected-" He checked himself. "But I hadn't expected-I-" He stopped, dug his fists desperately into his pockets and was suddenly firm and controlled. "But I hadn't actually expected it, you understand."
"Then when you heard the shot you turned, I suppose, and looked."
"Yes. Yes, I think so. Anyway, there was Caroline in the hall too. I think she was screaming. We were both running. I thought of Marie-I don't know why. But Caroline clutched at me and held me. She didn't want me to go into Marie's room. She was terrified. And then I think you were there and Jessica. Were you?"
"Yes. And there was no one else in the hall? No one came from Marie's room?"
His face was perplexed, terribly puzzled.
"Nobody."
"Except-Caroline?"
"But I tell you it couldn't have been Caroline."
The doorbell began to ring-shrill, sharp peals that stabbed the shadows and the thickness of the house.
It's the police, thought Anna, catching her breath sharply. The boy beside her had straightened and was staring at the wide old door that must be opened.
Behind them on the padded stairway something rustled. "It's the police." said Jessica harshly. "Let them in."
Anna had not realized that there would be so many of them. Or that they would do so much. Or that an inquiry could last so long. She had not realized either how amazingly thorough they were with their photographs and their fingerprinting and their practiced and rapid, searching investigation. She was a little shocked and more than awed, sheerly from witnessing at first-hand and with her own eyes what police actually did when there was a murder.
Yet her own interview with Lieutenant Mohrn was not difficult. He was brisk, youthful, kind, and Jim Del Mar was there to explain her presence. She had been very thankful to see Jim, who arrived on the heels of the police.
"Tell the police everything you know," he said.
"But I don't know anything."
And it was Lieutenant Mohrn who, oddly enough, brought Anna into the very center and hub of the whole affair.
But that was later-much later. After endless inquiry, endless search, endless repetitions, endless conferences. Endless waiting in the gloomy dining room with portraits of dead and vanished Wrays staring fixedly down upon policemen. Upon Anna, upon servants whose alibis had, Jim had informed her, been immediately and completely established.
It was close to one o'clock when Jim came to her again. "See here," he said. "You look like a ghost. Had anything to eat?"
"No," said Anna.
Jim led her to the kitchen. The fridge was well-stocked; Jim prepared dishes of cold roast beef, heavy dark bread, cake, salad and condiments. Anna brought along soft drinks snatched from a special nook in the fridge door. Jim led her upstairs to a bedroom, locking the door behind them. "Those damn cops will nose in here if we let them," he said darkly.
"So what? Two people having a sandwich? Hardly enough to lock the door!"
Jim's grin told her all she needed to know. "Well! And all the while I thought you were only thinking of feeding me!"
Jim dragged her to the bed. Her hands worked on the zipper of her skirt-she was as anxious for it as he was. Slipping off her skirt, she then pulled off her sweater. Her breasts jiggled free. Jim's eyes were aglow.
"Come here," he said roughly. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, and she stood before him, offering him her breasts.
It had been a long time since their last fevered encounter. Months, she thought. She needed more sexual attention than that. She'd have to speak to Jim about it later. She shivered as his warm tongue sought out her nipples.
His tongue hardened them quickly, and Anna's hips began moving on their own, humping up against Jim. He slid his hand between her legs, smiling when he encountered her scented moisture.
She sat down on the bed, unzipped his pants, and hauled out his stiffening member. Sitting side by side, Jim was aware of the light touch of perfume that Anna was wearing-clean and fresh and a stimulant to him.
Then she suddenly leaned over his lap, eagerly tonguing a droplet of moisture that gathered at the tip of his penis.
She didn't stop there. It was something Anna had grown to love, and she quickly sucked in half of Jim's length, cradling his hard shaft with her tongue.
Jim's hands on her head were all she needed in the way of guidance. She lapped eagerly, sinking down upon his member, cradling his testicles in her other hand.
She could feel her own arousal building, and it never failed to amaze Anna that she could derive such enjoyment from such an otherwise degrading task. Perhaps that was it-the act itself was one that placed her in a submissive, passive position, and she frankly loved the feeling it caused.
Jim suddenly pulled her back and she looked him in the eyes and said, "I want it all this time!"
Jim laughed. "And you'll get it," he said. "But I'd like something to do besides sit here!"
He pulled her onto the bed and stretched Anna out. Then, as she watched, he quickly took off the rest of his clothing.
Naked, he looked even more fierce, Anna thought. His hard member shot out from his body, throbbing as she watched. Then he climbed into bed, positioning himself atop her, their bodies reversed.
She looked up at the juncture of his thighs, loving the way his great shaft and heavy scrotum dangled above her. Sighing, she felt his warm hands on her thighs, and then she watched as he dipped his head down, his warm lips grazing her labia.
Then he was licking her clitoris, hardening it with pleasure. She began to moan, her hips churning in hot, wanton sensuality.
His tongue probed eagerly and expertly, seeking out those pockets of flesh where her sensitivity was greatest. Aroused, Anna reached up and seized his thick shaft, guiding it to her mouth.
Jim's legs spread a bit, lowering his genitalia to her eager lips. She sucked easily now, her own pleasure assured by Jim's incessant tongue.
Anna wanted to take it all, but she knew that Jim's massive size precluded such an act. She was content to take the first four inches of his hard shaft, laving it with her lips and tongue, sucking eagerly on the glistening head.
She felt herself opening her legs obscenely, flat out for his hot tongue. His palms lay against her inner thighs and she felt totally wanton as she sucked, aware that his hot seed was but moments from her mouth.
And then-as her climax caused her thighs to clamp tightly around Jim's head, squeezing with pleasure, she felt the throbbings of his orgasm race through his body and she accepted the warm delicious outpourings of his love totally, keeping him in her mouth until he rolled over onto his side.
Ten minutes later, it was back to business. "You do manage to get things done," she said. "I thought newspapermen wouldn't even be permitted into the house."
"Oh, the police are all right-they'll give a statement to all of us. Treat us right, you know. More cake? And don't forget I'm in on this case. Have you found out what Caroline was afraid of?"
"No. I've not had a chance to talk to her. Jim, who did it?"
"You're asking me? They've established, mainly, three things: the servants are clear; there was no one in the house besides Jessica and David and Caroline."
"And me," said Anna with a small shudder. "And-Marie."
"And you," agreed Jim imperturbably. "And Marie. Third, they can't find the gun. Jessica and you alibi each other. That leaves David and Caroline. Well-which of them did it? And why?"
"I don't know," she said. "But, Jim, I'm frightened."
"Frightened! With the house full of police? Why?"
"I don't know," said Anna again. "It's nothing I can explain. It's just-a queer kind of menace. Somewhere-somehow-in this house. It's like Marie-only Marie is dead and this is alive. Horribly alive." Anna knew she was incoherent and that Jim was staring at her worriedly, and suddenly the swinging door behind her opened, and Anna's heart leaped to her throat before the policeman spoke.
"The lieutenant wants you both, please," he said.
As they passed through the hall, the clock struck a single note that vibrated long after ward. It had been, then, eight hours and more since she had entered that wide door and been met by Jessica.
Lights were on everywhere now, and there were policemen; the old-fashioned sliding doors between the hall and the drawing room had been closed, and shut in the sound of voices.
"In there," said the policeman and drew back one of the doors.
It was entirely silent in the heavily furnished room. Lights were on in the chandelier above and it was eerily, dreadfully bright. The streaks showed in the faded brown velvet curtains at the windows, and the wavey lines in the mantelpiece mirror, and the worn spots in the old Turkish rug. And every shadow on Jessica's face was darker, and the fine, sharp lines around Caroline's mouth and her haunted eyes showed terribly clear, and there were two bright scarlet spots in David's cheeks. Lieutenant Mohrn had lost his look of youth and freshness and looked the weary, graying forty that he was. A detective in plain clothes was sitting with the small of his HO back against one of the slippery plush chairs.
The door slid together again behind them, and still no one spoke, although Jessica turned to look at them. And, oddly, Anna had a feeling that everything in that household had changed. Yet Jessica had not actually changed; her eyes met Anna's with exactly the same cold, remote command. Then what was it that was different?
Caroline-Anna's eyes went to the thin bent figure, huddled tragically on the edge of her chair. Her fine hair was in wisps about her face; her mouth tremulous.
Why, of course! It was not a change. It was merely that both Jessica and Caroline had become somehow intensified. They were both etched more sharply. The shadows were deeper, the lines blacker.
Lieutenant Mohrn turned to Caroline. "This is the young woman you refer to, isn't it, Miss Caroline?"
Caroline's eyes fluttered to Anna, avoided Jessica, and returned fascinated to Lieutenant Mohrn. "Yes-yes."
David whirled from the window and crossed to stand directly above Caroline.
"Look here, Aunt Caroline, you realize that whatever you tell Miss Simms, she'll be bound to tell the police? It's just the same thing-you know that, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, David. That's what-he said."
Lieutenant Mohrn cleared his throat abruptly and a bit uncomfortably.
"She understands that, Wray. I don't know why she won't tell me. But she won't. And she says she will talk to Miss Simms."
"Caroline," said Jessica, "is a fool." She moved rigidly to look at Caroline, who refused to meet her eyes, and said: "You'll find Caroline's got nothing to tell."
Caroline's eyes went wildly to the floor, to the curtains, to David, and both her hands fluttered to her trembling mouth.
"I'd rather talk to her," she said.
"Caroline," said Jessica, "you are behaving irrationally. You have been like this for days. You brought this-this Anna Simms into the house. You lied to me about her-told me it was a daughter of a school friend. I might have known you had no such intimate friend!" She shot a dark look at Anna and swept back to Caroline. "Now you've told the police that you were afraid and that you telephoned to a perfect stranger-"
"Jim Del Mar," fluttered Caroline. "His father and my father-"
"That means nothing," said Jessica harshly. "Don't interrupt me. And then this young woman comes into our house. Why? Answer me, Caroline. Why?"
"I-was afraid-"
"Of what?"
"I-I-" Caroline stood, motioning frantically with her hands. "I'll tell. I'll tell Miss Simms. She'll know what to do."
"This is the situation, Miss Simms," said Lieutenant Mohrn patiently. "Miss Caroline has admitted that she was alarmed about something and why you were here. She has also admitted that there was an urgent and pressing problem that was causing dissension in the household. But she's-very tired, as you see-a little nervous, perhaps. And she says she is willing to tell, but that she prefers talking to you."
He smiled wearily. "At any rate (it's asking a great deal of you), but will you hear what she has to tell? It's-a whim, of course." There was something friendly and kind in the look he gave Caroline. "But we'll humor her. And she understands-"
"I understand," said Caroline with a flash of decision. "But I don't want anyone but Anna Simms."
"Nonsense, Caroline," said Jessica. "I have a right to hear. So has David."
Caroline's eyes, glancing this way and that to avoid Jessica, actually met Jessica's gaze, and she succumbed at once.
"Yes, Jessica," she said obediently.
"All right, then. Now, we are going outside, Miss Caroline. You can say anything you want to say. And remember we are here only to help." Lieutenant Mohrn paused at the sliding door, and Anna saw a look flash between him and Jim Del Mar. She also saw Jim Del Mar's hand go to his pocket and the brief little nod he gave the lieutenant.
"Do you mind if I stay in the room but out of earshot, Miss Jessica?" Jim asked.
"No," Jessica agreed grudgingly. "We'll be just outside," said Lieutenant Mohrn, speaking to Jim. Something in his voice added: "Ready for any kind of trouble." She saw, too, the look in Jim's eyes as he glanced at her and then back to the lieutenant, and all at once she understood the meaning of that look and the meaning of his gesture toward his pocket. He had a revolver there. And the lieutenant was promising protection. But that meant that they were going to leave her alone with the Wrays. Alone with three people, one of whom was a murderer.
But she was not entirely alone. Jim was there, in the far corner, his eyes wary and alert and his smile unperturbed.
"Very well now, Caroline," said Jessica. "Let's hear your precious story."
"It's about the house," began Caroline, looking at Anna as if she dared not permit her glance to swerve. "The police dragged it out of me-" Jessica laughed harshly and interrupted. "So that's your important evidence. I can tell it with less foolishness. It is simply that we have had an offer of a considerable sum of money for the purchase of this house. We happen to hold this house-all four of us-with equal interest. Thus it is necessary for us to agree before we can sell or otherwise dispose of the property. That's really all there is to it. Caroline and David wanted to sell. I didn't care."
"But Marie didn't want to sell," cried Caroline. "And Marie was stronger than any of us."
"Miss Caroline," said Anna softly. "Why were you afraid?"
For a dreadful second or two there was utter silence.
Then, as dreadfully, Caroline collapsed into her chair again and put her hands over her mouth and moaned.
But Jessica was ready to speak.
"She had nothing to be afraid of. She's merely nervous-very nervous. I know, Caroline, what you have been doing with every cent of money you could get your silly hands upon. But I intended to do nothing about it."
Caroline had given up her effort to avoid Jessica. She was staring at her like a terrified, panting bird.
"You-know-" she gasped in a thin, high voice.
"Of course I know. You are completely transparent, Caroline. I know that you were gambling away your inheritance-or at least what you could touch-"
"Gambling!" cried David. "What do you mean?"
"Stocks," said Jessica harshly. "Speculative stocks. It got her like a fever. Caroline has always been susceptible. So you have no money at all left, Caroline? Is that why you were so anxious to sell the house? You surely haven't been fool enough to buy on margin."
Caroline's distraught hands confessed what her trembling lips could not speak.
David was suddenly standing beside her, his hand on her thin shoulder.
"Don't worry, Aunt Carrie," he said. "It'll be all right. You've got enough in trust to take care of you."
Over Caroline's head he looked at Jessica. The look or the tenderness in his voice when he spoke to Caroline seemed to infuriate Jessica, and she arose amid a rustling of silk and stood there tall and rigid, facing him.
"Why don't you offer to take care of her yourself, David?" she said.
David was white, and his eyes brilliant with pain, but he replied steadily: "You know why, Aunt Jessica. And you know why she gambled, too. We were trying to make enough money to get away. To get away from this house, To get away from-" He stopped.
"From what, David?" said Jessica.
"From Marie," said David desperately. "And from you."
Jessica did not move. Her face did not change. There was only a queer luminous flash in her eyes. After a horribly long moment she said: "I loved you far better then Marie loved you, David. You feared her. I intended to give you money when you came to me. You had to come to me. You would have begged me for help-me, Jessica! Why did you or Caroline kill Marie? Was it because she refused to sell the house? I know why she refused. She pretended that it was sentiment; that she, the adopted daughter, was more a Wray than any of us. But it wasn't that, really. She hated us. Arid we wanted to sell. That is, you and Caroline wanted to sell for your own selfish interests. I-it made no difference to me."
Caroline sobbed and cried jerkily: "But you did care, Jessica. You wanted the money. You-you love money." There was a strangely incredulous wail in her thin voice. "Money-money! Not the things it will buy. Not the freedom it might give you. But money-bonds, mortgages, gold. You love money first, Jessica, and you-"
"Caroline," said Jessica in a terrible voice. Caroline babbled and sobbed into silence. "Caroline, you are not responsible. You forget that there are strangers here. That Marie has been murdered. Try to collect yourself. At once. You are making a disgusting exhibition."
All three looked at Anna.
And as suddenly as they had been diverted from each other they were, for a moment, united in their feeling against Anna. She was the intruder, the instrument of the police, placed there by the law for the purpose of discovering evidence.
Their eyes were not pleasant.
Anna smoothed back her hair, and she was acutely aware of a small telegram of warning that ran along her nerves. One of them had murdered. She turned to Caroline.
"Then were you afraid that Marie would discover what you had been doing with your money?" she asked gently.
Caroline blinked and was immediately ready to reply, her momentary feeling against Anna disseminated by the small touch of kindness in Anna's manner.
"No," she said in a confidential way. "That wasn't what I was afraid of."
"Then was there something unusual about the house? Something troubled you?"
"Oh yes, yes," said Caroline.
"What was it?" asked Anna, scarcely daring to breathe. If only Jessica would remain silent for another moment.
But Caroline was fluttering again.
"I don't know. I don't know. You see, it was all so queer, Marie holding out against us all, and we all-except Jessica sometimes-obeyed Marie. We've always obeyed Marie. Everything in the house has done that. Even Spider-the-the monkey, you know."
Anna permitted her eyes to flicker toward Jessica. She stood immovable, watching David. Anna could not interpret that dark look, and she did not try. Instead she leaned over to Caroline, took her fluttering, ineffectual hands, and said, still gently: "Tell me exactly why you telephoned Jim Del Mar. What was it that happened in the morning-or maybe the night before-that made you afraid?"
"How did you know?" said Caroline. "It happened that night."
"What was it?" said Anna, so softly that it was scarcely more than a whisper.
But Caroline quite suddenly swerved.
"I wasn't afraid of Marie," she said. "But everyone obeyed Marie. Even the house always seemed more Marie's house than-than Jessica's. But I didn't kill Marie."
"Tell me," repeated Anna. "What happened last night that was-queer?"
"Caroline," said Jessica harshly, dragging herself back from some deep brooding gulf, "you've said enough."
Anna ignored her and held Caroline's feverishly bright eyes with her own. "Tell me-"
"It was-Marie-" gasped Caroline.
"Marie-what did she do?" said Anna.
"She didn't do anything," said Caroline. "It was what she said. No, it wasn't that exactly. It was-"
"If you insist upon talking, Caroline, you might at least try to be intelligible," said Jessica coldly.
Could she get Jessica out of the room? thought Anna; probably not. And it was all too obvious that she was standing by, permitting Caroline to talk only so long as Caroline said nothing that she, Jessica, did not want her to say. Anna said quietly: "Did you hear Marie speak?"
"Yes, that was just it," cried Caroline eagerly. "And it was so very queer. That is, of course we-that is, I-have often thought that Marie must be about the house much more than she pretended to be, in order to know ah the things she knew. That is, she always knew everything that happened in the house. It-sometimes it was queer, you know, because it was like-like magic or something. It was quite," said Caroline with an unexpected burst of imagery, "as if she had one of those astral body things, and it walked all around the house while Marie just sat there in her room."
"Astral-body-things," said Jessica deliberately. Caroline crimsoned and Jessica's hands gestured outward as much as to say, "You see for yourself what a state she's in."
The old room was silent again. Anna's heart was pounding, and again those small tocsins of warning were sounding in some subconscious realm. All those forces were silently, invisibly combating-struggling against each other. And somewhere amid them was the truth, quite tangible, altogether real.
"But the astral body," said Caroline suddenly into the silence, "couldn't have talked. And I heard Marie speak. She was in. Jessica's room, and the door was closed, and I heard her talking to Jessica. And then-that's what's queer-I went straight on past the door and into Marie's room, and there was Marie sitting there. Isn't it queer?"
"Why were you frightened?"
"Because-because-" Caroline's hands twisted together. "I don't know why. Except that I had a-a feeling."
"Nonsense." Jessica laughed. There was again the luminous flash in her shadowed eyes, and she spoke more rapidly than usual. "You see, Anna Simms, how nonsensical all this is. How utterly fantastic!"
"There was Marie," said Caroline. "She was talking to you."
Jessica's silks rustled, and she walked rigidly and quickly to Caroline and leaned over so that she could grip Caroline's shoulder and force Caroline to meet her eyes. David tried to intervene, and she brushed him away and said hoarsely: "Caroline, you poor little fool. You thought you'd get this young woman here and try to establish your innocence of the crime. All this talk is sheer nonsense. You are cunning after the way of fools such as you. Tell me this, Caroline-" She paused long enough to take a great gasp of breath. She was more powerful, more invincible than Anna had seen her. "Tell me. Where was David when the revolver was fired?"
Caroline was shrinking backward. David said quickly: "She'll say anything to protect me. She'll say anything and you-"
"Be quiet, David. Caroline, answer me."
For a long moment Jessica waited. Then with terrible deliberation she relaxed her grip and straightened and looked slowly from one to the other.
"You've as good as confessed, Carrie," she said. "There was no one else. You admit that it was not David. Why did you kill her, Carrie?"
"She didn't kill her!" David was between the two women, his face white and his eyes blazing. "It was you, Jessica. You-"
"David! Stop!" The two sharp exclamations were like lashes. "I was here in this room when the shot was fired. I didn't kill Marie. I couldn't have killed her. You know that. Come, Caroline."
She put her gray hand upon Caroline's shoulder. Caroline, as if mesmerized by that touch, arose, and Jessica turned to the doorway. No one moved as the two women crossed the room. Jim glanced at Anna unrevealingly and then, at Jessica's imperious gesture, opened the door. Anna was vaguely aware that there were men in the hall outside, but she was held as if enchanted by the extraordinary scene she was witnessing.
No one moved, and there was no sound save the rustle of Jessica's silks while she led Caroline to the stairway. At the bottom step Jessica turned, and there was suddenly something less harsh in her face; it was for an instant almost kind, and there was a queer sort of tenderness in the pressure of her hand upon Caroline's shrinking shoulder.
But that hand was nevertheless compelling.
"Go upstairs," she said to Caroline, in a voice loud enough so that they all heard. "Go upstairs and do what is necessary. There's enough veronal on my dresser. We'll give you time."
She turned as if to barricade the stairway with her own rigid body and looked slowly and defiantly around her. "I'll make them give you time, Carrie. Go on."
There was the complete and utter silence of sheer horror. And in that silence something small and gray and quick flashed down the curtain and up the stairs.
"Holy Mother," cried someone. "What was that?"
And David sprang forward.
"You can't do that-you can't do that! Caroline, don't move-" Anna knew that he was thrusting himself between Jessica and Caroline, that there was sudden confusion. But she was mainly aware of something that had clicked in her own mind.
Somehow she got through the confusion in the hall to Lieutenant Mohrn, and Jim was at her side. Both of them listened to the brief words she said; Lieutenant Mohrn ran rapidly upstairs, and Jim disappeared toward the dining room.
Jim was back first. He pulled Anna to one side.
"You are right," he said. "The cook and the houseman both say that Marie was very strict about the monkey and that the monkey always obeyed her. But what do you mean?"
"I'm not sure, Jim. But I've just told Lieutenant Mohrn that I think there should be a bullet hole somewhere upstairs. It was made by a second bullet. It is in the ceiling, perhaps-or wall. I think it's in Jessica's room."
Lieutenant Mohrn was coming down the stairway. He reached the bottom of the stairs and looked wearily and a bit sadly at the group there. Caroline crumpled against the wall. David was white and taut, Jessica a rigid figure of hatred. Then he sighed and looked at the policeman nearest him and nodded.
"Will you go into the drawing room, please," he asked Anna. "And you, Jim."
The doors slid together and, still wearily, Lieutenant Mohrn pulled out from his pocket a revolver, a long cord, a piece of cotton, and a small alarm clock.
"They were all there hidden in the newel post at the top of the stairway. The carved top was loose as you remembered it, Miss Simms. And there's two shots gone from the revolver, and there's a bullet hole in the wall of Jessica's bedroom. How did you know it was Jessica, Miss Simms?"
"It was the monkey," said Anna. Her voice sounded unnatural in her own ears, terribly-tired, terribly sad. "It was the monkey all the time. You see, he was sitting there, stealing candy right beside Marie's chair. He would have been afraid to do that if he had not known she was dead. And when Jessica entered the room he fled. When I thought of that, the whole thing fell together; the hot house, obviously to keep Marie's body warm and confuse the time of death; everyone out of the house to permit Jessica to do murder; then this thing you've found-"
"It's simple, of course," said Lieutentant Mohrn. "The cord fastened tight between the alarm lever and the trigger-the bit of cotton to pad the alarm. The clock is set for ten minutes after five. When did she hide it in the newel post?"
"When I went down to telephone the police, I suppose, and David and Caroline were in Marie's room-I want to go home," said Anna wearily.
"Look here," said Jim Del Mar. "This sounds all right, Anna, but, remember, Marie couldn't have been dead then. You heard her talk."
"I had never heard her speak before. And I heard the flat, dead tone of a person who has been deaf a long time. It was Caroline who actually solved the thing. And Jessica knew it. She knew it and at once tried to fasten the blame upon Caroline-to compel her to commit suicide."
"What did Caroline say?" Lieutenant Mohrn was very patient.
"She said that she'd heard Marie speaking with Jessica in Jessica's room behind a closed door. And that she'd gone straight on past that door to Marie's room and found Marie sitting there. Caroline was confused, frightened, talked of astral bodies. Naturally, we knew that Jessica was-rehearsing-her imitation of Marie's way of speaking."
"Premeditated," said Jim, "Planned to the last detail. And your coming merely gave her the opportunity. You were to provide the alibi, Anna." Anna shivered.
"That was the trouble. She was sitting directly opposite me when the shot was fired upstairs. Yet she was the only person who hated Marie sufficiently to-murder her. It wasn't money. It was hatred. Growing for years in this horrible house, nourished by jealousy over David, brought to a climax that was inevitable." Anna smoothed her hair. "Please may I go?"
"Then Marie was dead when you entered the house?"
"Yes. Propped up by pillows. I-I saw the whole thing, you know. Saw Jessica approach her and talk, heard the reply-and how was I to know it was Jessica speaking and not Marie? Then Jessica bent and did something to her cushions, pulled them away, I suppose, so the body was no longer erect. And she turned at once and was between me and Marie all the way to the door so I could not see Marie, then, at all. (I couldn't see Marie very well at any time, because she was in the shadow.) And when David and Caroline came upstairs, Jessica warned both of them that Marie was reading. I suppose she knew that they were only too glad to be relieved of the necessity to speak to Marie." Anna shivered again and smoothed back her hair and felt dreadfully that she might cry. "It's a t-terrible house," she said indecisively, and Jim Del Mar said hurriedly:
"She can go now, can't she? I've got a car out here. She doesn't have to see them again."
The air was cold and fresh and the sky very black before dawn, and the pavements glistened.
They swerved onto the Drive and stopped for a red light, and Jim turned to her as they waited. Through the dusk in the car she could feel his scrutiny.
"I didn't expect anything like this," he said gravely. "Will you forgive me?"
"Next time," said Anna in a small clear voice, "I'll not get scared."
"Next time!" said Jim derisively. "There won't be a next time! I was the one that was scared. I had my finger on the trigger of a revolver all the time you were talking to them. No indeedy, there won't be a next time. Not for you, my girl!"
"Oh, all right," said Anna agreeably.
Her face was turned to Jim, and when he glanced at her, he smiled. "We're only a few miles from the Sportsman's Haven," he said.
"What are you waiting for?" Anna asked.
It felt like home. The motel hadn't changed a bit, nor had the room 103. Jim shed his clothing quickly, then turned on the radio. A nice warm shaft of sunlight fell through an opening in the drapes. Soft music floated on the air.
"Ever do a striptease?" Jim asked. He was buck-naked, grinning like a satyr. Anna smiled, turned up the volume of the radio, and began to move sensuously around Jim.
Her hands fumbled at first with the buttons on her blouse, but after that it was smooth sailing indeed. She was pleasantly surprised to see that her dancing had an aphrodisiac effect on Jim-he was hard in a minute, loving her every move.
He showered with her again, and it was the same erotic joy it had been the first time. She was able to satisfy her hunger for oral sex in the shower stall, while Jim grinned and hung onto the metal bar that ran across the shower door.
Then in bed, Jim repaid the favor, laving her labia with lips and tongue. She sighed in orgasmic relief as he worked on her, and then-while she was surging from one orgasm to the next, the first time in her life that such multiple pleasures had been hers-he stopped what he was doing and grinned at her.
He made her kneel down on all-fours. "You'll love this," he said confidently. He knelt behind her, admiring the sensual curve of her milk-white buttocks.
He slapped each cheek, bringing a rosy glow to her behind, and she wiggled her hips, eager for him to get it on. Then he grabbed her by the flesh of the hips, pulled her close to him, and w-edged his member between her legs.
Anna reached between her legs and angled his shaft up into her vagina, and she shivered with pleasure when his outsized member penetrated her from behind. She wagged her behind for him, and she sighed contentedly when he pushed in all the way, his scrotum banging against her fleshy buttocks.
His movements were slow and controlled until she again reached the peak of her excitement, then he picked up the pace, slamming into her, and she whined a bit and felt herself collapsing in sexual bliss as his penis seemed to grow larger inside her, thicker, and the throbbing that foretold his own orgasm caused her such a racking, intense pleasure that she almost passed out from sheer delight.
To Jim, their total sexual compatability was a source of wonder. He had never been so comfortable-so totally at ease-with any other woman.
It was serious and he knew it. But he didn't know where their love was going to take them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Anna Simms sipped her coffee and quietly contemplated devils. Outside, rain beat down upon cold, dark streets, but inside the drawn curtains of Anna's small library it was warm, with a fire cheerful in the grate, and the dog lazy upon the rug, and cigarettes and an old book beside the deepest armchair. An armchair which Anna just then decorated, for she had dressed for her dinner in soft trailing crimson. Too bad, thought Anna regretfully, that her best moments were so often wasted: a seductive crimson gown, and no one to see it. She smashed her cigarette sadly and returned to her book.
Devils and devil-possessed souls! Of course there were no such things, but it was curious how real the old writers made both. Anna was storing up this knowledge for future use in her mystery novels.
Then the doorbell rang. The dog barked, scrambled to his feet and bounced into the hall; Anna followed.
Two men, beaten and wet with rain, were waiting, and one of them was Jim Del Mar, with a package under his arm.
"Company?" asked Jim tersely, looking at the dress.
"No. I was alone-"
"You remember Lieutenant Mohrn?"
Of course she did! It was her volunteer work with him on a recent Chicago crime that had led the police force to regard her as a valuable consultant.
"How do you do?" said Lieutenant Mohrn. "I hope you don't mind our coming. You see, there's something-"
"Something queer," said Jim. "In point of fact, it's-"
"Murder," said Lieutenant Mohrn.
"Oh," said Anna. Her own small, warm house-and these two men with sober faces looking at her. She smoothed back her hair. "Oh," she said again.
Jim pushed the package toward her.
"I got size thirty-six," he said. "Is that right? I mean, that's what we want you to wear."
That was actually Anna's introduction to the case of the Easter Devil. Fifteen minutes later she was getting out of the glamorous crimson gown and into a brown tweed suit with a warm topcoat, and tossing a few things into a bag-the few things included the contents of the package, which proved to be several nurses' uniforms, complete with caps, and a small kit of tools which were new and shiny.
"Do you know anything about nursing?" Jim Del Mar had asked.
"Nothing," said Anna. "But I've had appendicitis."
"Oh," said Jim, relieved. "Then you can-oh, take a pulse, make a show of nursing. She's not sick, you know. If she were, we could not do this.
"I can shake a thermometer without dropping it," said Anna. "If the doctor will help-"
"Oh, he'll help all right," said Lietenant Mohrn somewhat grimly. "We have his consent and approval."
She pulled a small brown hat over her hair and then remembered to change gold slippers to brown oxfords.
In the hall Jim was waiting.
"Mohrn had to go," he said. "I'll take you out. Glenn Ash is about an hour's run from town."
"All right," said Anna. She scribbled a note to Huldah and spoke soberly to the dog, who liked to have things explained to him.
"I'm going to a house in Glenn Ash," she said gravely. "Be a good dog. And don't chase Mrs. Petruchkin's cat."
He pushed a cold nose against her hand. He didn't want her to go, and he thought the matter of Petruchkin the cat might better have been ignored. Then the front door closed and he heard presently two doors bang and a car drive away. He returned to the library. But he was gradually aware that the peace and snugness were gone. He felt gloomily that it would have been very much better if the woman had stayed at home.
And the woman, riding along a rain-swept road, rather agreed with him. She peered through the rain-shot light lanes ahead and reviewed in her mind the few facts that she knew. And they were brief enough.
At the home of one Gladstone Denisty in Glenn Ash a servant had been murdered. Had been shot in the back and found (where he'd fallen) in a ravine near the house. There was no weapon found, and anyway he couldn't have shot himself. There were no signs of attempted burglary. There were, indeed, no clues. He was a quiet, well-behaved man and an efficient servant and had been with the Denisty family for some time; so far as could be discovered, his life held no secrets.
Yet that morning he had been found in the ravine, murdered.
The household consisted of Gladstone Denisty and his wife; his mother and brother, and two remaining servants.
"It's Mrs. Gladstone Denisty-her first name is Felicia-whom we want you to nurse," Lieutenant Mohrn had said. "There's more to the thing than meets the eye. And we thought if we could get you inside the house-just to watch things, you know. There's no possible danger to you."
"There's always danger," said Jim brusquely, "where there's murder."
"If Miss Simms thinks there's danger, she's to leave," said Lieutenant Mohrn wearily. "All I want her to do is get a-line on things."
And Jim, somehow grudgingly, had said nothing; still said nothing.
It was a long ride to Glenn Ash, and that night a difficult one, owing to the rain and wind. But they did finally turn off the winding side road into a driveway and stop.
Anna could barely see the great dark bulk of the house looming above with only a light or two showing.
Then Jim's hand was guiding her up some brick steps and across a wide veranda. He put his mouth to her ear: "If anything happens that you don't like, leave. At once." And Anna whispered, "I will," and Jim was gone, and the wide door was opening, and a very pretty maid was taking her bag and leading her swiftly upstairs. The household had retired, said the maid, and Mrs. Denisty would see her in the morning.
"You mean Mrs. Gladstone Denisty?" asked Anna.
"Oh, no, ma'am. Mrs. Denisty, "said the maid. "Is there anything-? Thank you. Good night, ma'am."
Anna, after a thoughtful moment, locked her door and presently went to bed, listened to the rain against the windowpanes and wished she could sleep. However, she must have fallen asleep, for she awakened suddenly and in fright. It had stopped raining. And somewhere there had been a sound.
There had been a sound, but it was no more. She only knew that it had awakened her and that she was ridiculously terrified. And then all at once her heart stopped its absurd pounding and was perfectly still. For something-out there in the long and empty hall-had brushed against her bedroom door!
She couldn't, either then or later, have persuaded herself to go to that door and open it and look into the hall. And anyway, as the moments dragged on, she was convinced that whoever or whatever had brushed against her door was gone. But she sat huddled under blankets, stonily wide awake until slow gray dawn began to crawl into the room. Then she fell again into sleep, only to be waked this time by the maid, carrying a breakfast tray and conveying what she thought of trained nurses who slept late. Mrs. Denisty, she informed Anna, wished to see her.
Not, thought Anna, getting into the unaccustomed uniform, an auspicious beginning. And she was shocked to discover that she looked incredibly young and more than a little flip in the crisply tailored white dress and white cap. She took her horn-rimmed spectacles, which improved things very little, and her thermometer, and went downstairs, endeavoring to look stern enough to offset the unfortunate effect of the cap.
But on the wide landing of the stairs she realized that the white-haired woman in the hall below was interested only in the tongue-lashing she was giving two maids. They were careless, they were lying, they had broken it-all of it. She looked up just then and saw Anna and at once became bland.
"Good morning, Miss Simms," she said. "Will you come down?" She dismissed the servants and met Anna at the foot of the stairs. "We'll go into this drawing room," she said. She wore a creamy white wool dress with blue beads and a blue handkerchief and did not ask Anna to sit down.
"The household is a little upset just now," she said. "There was an unfortunate occurrence here, night before last. Yes-unfortunate. And then yesterday or last night the maid or cook or somebody managed to break some Venetian glass-quite a lot of it-that my daughter-in-law was much attached to. Neither of them will admit it. However, about my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Gladstone Denisty, whom you are here to care for; I only wished to tell you, Miss Simms, that her nerves are bad, and the main thing, I believe, is merely to humor her. And if there is anything you wish to know, or if any-problem-arises, come to me. Do you understand?"
Anna wondered what was wrong with the room and said she understood.
"Very well," said Mrs. Denisty, rising. "That is all."
But that was not all. For there was a whirlwind of steps, and a voice sobbing broken phrases swept through the door, and a woman ran into the room clutching in both hands something bright and crimson. A queer little chill that she could never account for crept over Anna as she realized that the woman clutched, actually, broken pieces of glass.
"Did you see, Mother Denisty?" sobbed the woman. "It's all over the floor. How much more-how much more-"
"Felicia!" cried Mrs. Denisty sternly. "Hush-yes, I know. It was an accident."
"An accident! But you know-you know-"
"The nurse is here-Miss Simms."
The young woman whirled. She was-or had been-an extraordinary beauty. Slender and tall, with fine, fair hair and great, brilliant gray eyes. But the eyes were hollow and the lids swollen and pink, and her mouth pale and uncertain.
"But I don't need a nurse."
"Just for a few days," said Mrs. Denisty firmly. "The doctor advised it."
The great gray eyes met Anna's fixedly-too fixedly, indeed, for the look was actually an unwavering stare. Was there something, then, beyond Anna-near Anna-that she did not wish to see?
"Oh," said Felicia Denisty with a thin sharp gasp and looked at her hand, and Anna ran forward. On the slender white hand was a brighter, thicker crimson than the Venetian glass which was only then, quite slowly, relinquished.
"You've cut your hand," said Anna inadequately. Felecia had turned to the older woman, who was unmoved.
"See," she said, extending her bleeding hand. "Just to be in the room with it-"
Mrs. Denisty moved forward then.
"Will you go upstairs with Mrs. Gladstone, Miss Simms," she said firmly, "and dress her hand."
Upstairs Anna blessed a brief course of Red Cross lectures which during school days she had loathed, and made a fairly workman-like job of bandaging the wound.
But it was not so easy to spend the long hours of the slow gray day with Felicia Denisty, for she had fallen into a brooding silence, sat and stared either at her bandaged hand or out the window upon a dreary balcony, and said practically nothing.
The afternoon passed much as the morning, except that with the approach of dusk the wind rose a bit and rattled shutters, and Felicia grew restless and turned on every available light in her room.
"Dinner," she said to Anna, "is at seven-thirty." She looked fully at Anna, as if for the first time. "You've been inside all day, Miss Simms, I didn't think-would you like to take a walk before dinner?"
Anna said she would, and hoped she wasn't too eager.
But at the end of half an hour's walk through rapidly increasing gray dusk she was still no wiser than she had been, except that she had a clearer notion of the general plan of the house-built like a wide-flung T with tall white pillars running up to the second-story roof of the wide double porch, which extended across the front of the house-and of the grounds.
On two sides of the house was a placid brown lawn, searching downward to roadway and to rolling meadows. But on the south lay the ravine, an abrupt, irregular gash, masked now and made mysterious by dripping shrubbery. Beyond it appeared the roof of a house, and at the deepest point of the ravine it was crossed by a small wooden bridge which lost itself in the trees at the farther end. It must lead, thought Anna, to the house, but she did not explore it, although she looked long at the spot where (as revealed by a discreet inquiry of the pretty housemaid) the butler had been murdered.
It was perhaps ten feet from the entrance to the small wooden bridge and just behind a large clump of sumach. It was not in view from the windows of the Denisty house.
Anna, made oddly uneasy by the fog-enshrouded shadows of the trees, made her way back.
Inside, she turned at once to the drawing room. It was dark, and she fumbled for the light and found it. The room was exactly as she remembered it from the morning; a large room of spaces and many windows and massive furniture. Not, somehow, a pleasant room. It was too still, perhaps too chilly. She turned suddenly as if someone had spoken her name and saw the Easter image.
And she realized what was wrong with the room.
It stood there beside the fireplace-a black, narrow image of a man-a terribly emaciated man, with protruding ribs and a queer, painted face, roughly carved. It was perhaps two feet tall and there were white marks on it that looked like, but were not, chalk. Its emaciation and its protruding ribs suggested that it was a remnant of that strangely vanished race from mysterious, somber Easter Island. When you looked at it analytically, that was all there was to see.
But it was singularly difficult to look at it analytically. And that was because of the curiously repellent look in its face; the air of strange and secret sentience that somehow managed to surround the small figure. There was a hint of something decadent, something faintly macabre, something incredibly and hideously wise. It was intangible; it was not sensible. But, nevertheless, it was there.
Yes, Anna told herself sternly, the image itself was merely a piece of wood.
A carved piece of wood from Easter Island; a souvenir, probably, of a journey there. It had no connection with the murder of a butler, with the shattered fragments of Venetian glass.
Anna turned suddenly and left the drawing room. But when in the hall the door behind her opened, Anna all but screamed before she saw the man who had entered. He flung off hat and coat and reached for a stack of letters on the hall table, then finally looked at her and said: "Oh, hullo. You must be the nurse. Miss-"
"Simms," said Anna. He was thick, white-haired, brusque, with a blunt nose and bright, hard blue eyes. He wasn't over forty-five, and he must be a Denisty.
"Simms," said he. "Nice name. Well, take care of my wife." His blue eyes shot a quick glance up the stairway, and he bent and kissed at Anna; he turned, humming, toward the library, and vanished.
Kissed at her; for what she felt would have been a rather expert kiss had been pretty well deflected by some quick action on her part.
Well, that was Gladstone.
And Marlow Denisty, the brother, who turned up at dinner, was a handsome Byronic-looking youth who talked enthusiastically of practically everything.
It was Marlow who later, in the drawing room, spoke of the Easter image.
He had brought it, he told Anna expansively, from Easter Island himself. It was a present to Gladstone.
"An akuaku," said Anna absently.
"A what?" said Gladstone, turning sharply to look at her.
Anna wished she had not spoken, and Marlow flashed her a glance of bright approval.
"An akuaku," he said, "An evil god You remember, Glad, I told you all about it when I brought the thing home. These wooden figures, or moai miro, were made first, so far as can be discovered, by Tuukoihu, who ruled the island following Hotu Matua. These small figures with protruding ribs were thought to be reminders of the imminence of death, threats of-"
"Thank you, I can read the encyclopedia myself," said Gladstone Denisty sharply. "And anyway, it's all nonsense. A piece of carved wood with white painting on it can't possible have any sort of significance."
"It can have," cried Felicia with sudden unexpected violence. "It does have!"
Mrs. Denisty, with a glance at Gladstone, interrupted. "Felicia, dear child," she cried in a deprecating way. "How can you be so absurd!"
"Hush!" Felicia's voice was all at once taut; her eyes were wide and dark, and she flung out her hand toward the image. "Don't you realize that it hears you? Don't you realize what it has brought into this house? Misfortune-suffering-murder-"
"Felicia!" The interruption was loud and covered anything Felicia might have continued to say, and Mrs. Denisty went on swiftly, "You are hysterical, my dear, and not quite yourself. As to misfortune, we have lost no more than other people and are still very comfortable. And your illness couldn't possibly have been induced by a wooden image-"
"An evil god-an evil influence," muttered Felicia, staring at the image.
Mrs. Denisty swept on, though her mouth was tight.
"And William's death, which I suppose you are referring to, was the result of his discovering an attempt to burglarize the house. It is dreadful, of course. But it had no possible connection with this-this piece of wood."
Felicia was trembling. Anna put a hand upon her arms but could not stay the uneven torrent of words.
"What of the things that have happened to me? Why, even my kitten died. Flowers die if I touch them. Something happens to everything that is mine. Why-just last night-the glass-" She was sobbing. "William-he was kind to me-he-"
Gladstone intervened.
"Take her upstairs, Miss Simms," he said quietly. "See if you can quiet her. She has some capsules the doctor gave her-try to calm yourself, Felicia."
"Oh, I'll go. I'll go."
She sobbed weakly. But she said no more, and once in her room upstairs took the sedative and afterwards lay quiet, staring at the ceiling with great tragic eyes.
"Your illness," said Anna gently. "The doctor didn't tell me-"
Felicia did not look at her.
"Nerves, he says. That's all any of them say. But I was all right until he brought the image home. About a year ago." The sedative was beginning to take effect, and she spoke calmly. "It is the image, you see, Miss Simms. It hates me. I feel it. I know it. And-I heard the story-of a woman in Tahiti, an Englishwoman who had one, and it hated her, and it brought evil and suffering and misfortune, and finally-death."
She spoke the last word in a whisper.
"Did Marlow tell you of it?"
"Yes. He told us. We thought nothing of it-then. Mother Denisty says it is wrong of me to fear it. She's religious, you know."
"She clung very firmly to the church?"
"Oh, yes. Except in the modern trend. That is-divorce, you know. She is very much against divorce." Owing perhaps to the capsule, Felicia was beginning to talk in a rambling way. "She says my feeling about the image is superstition."
"How was William kind to you?" asked Anna.
"Oh, in so many little ways. I think he liked me. It was he who told me about the flowers. Of course, I didn't believe him. I know why they died. But he told me that, so I would feel better." She was becoming drowsy, and her words were soft and slow.
Anna felt and stifled with rather shocking ease a scruple against further questions and said: "What did he tell you?"
"Oh-something about acid in the water. I don't know-it couldn't have been true.
Flowers died because they were mine. And I don't want to study French anymore."
"French," said Anna. "French!"
Felicia's drooping eyelids flared open. She stared hazily but intently at Anna and suddenly lifted herself on one elbow and leaned toward her and whispered hoarsely: "It's Dorothy. She knows about the image, I can see it in her eyes. In her eyes." She dropped back upon the pillow, repeated, "In her eyes-in her eyes," and then quite suddenly was heavily asleep.
After a long time Anna tiptoed away.
But at midnight she was still broadly awake, strongly aware, as one is at night, of the house about her and all that it held-including the thing that brooded over a downstairs room.
Only a piece of wood.
And what possible connection was there between a piece of wood, some shattered fine glass, and a murdered butler? French lessons and dead flowers and an acid? A kitten-dead, also. An image that represented the imminence of death. A hysterical woman-talking of death.
That night, if anyone brushed against her door, Anna did not know it, for she fell at length into an uneasy sleep, that only slowly-and grudgingly-deepened into a state of relaxation and pleasure.
As always, her pleasure dreams centered on Jim, who had come to occupy her subconscious in a totally dominant fashion.
She was on a beach, clad in a string bikini. It was a tropical setting-Acapulco?-and she stirred lazily beneath the hot sun, aware that the eyes of many were attracted to her lithe, deeply tanned form.
Suddenly she felt the sand shift beside her. She opened her eyes, not knowing what to expect: a beach boy, teeth glistening? An overweight fetid-breathed tourist? Neither.
It was Jim, his muscular body relaxed as he sat on the sand next to her. But it was as if he didn't know her. Perhaps, Anna thought, it's my dark glasses.
"You look absolutely ravishing," Jim said. She opened her legs as his fierce gaze moved down her thighs. He leaned over and softly licked the patch of cloth that covered her vagina. She stiffened, thinking of all the people on the beach who had seen what he had done. And then the most delicious wet feeling she had ever experienced flooded her body and she didn't move as Jim pulled down her bikini bottom and leaned over, tonguing her hard between the legs. She opened her legs even wider and suddenly Jim was crouched between her legs, holding a thigh in each hand, licking her in the most obscenely wanton manner she could imagine. Her climax was so strong that it left her trembling, wide awake, still warmed by the throbbing currents of passion that Jim's phantom tongue had brought.
Anna's second day in the Denisty household was in many ways a replica of the first, except that nothing at all happened.
Once during the morning she heard Mrs. Denisty telephone to someone she called Dorothy, saying that Felicia would not be able to do French that morning, which left Anna little wiser than she had been. And once she herself was called to the telephone for what proved to be an extremely guarded conversation with Jim Del Mar. She succeeded only in reassuring him as to her own personal safety, told him carefully that she did not know how long the "case" would last, and hung up.
That night, too, was quiet. But the next day things happened.
In the first place, "Dorothy" came to call. Anna, just entering Felicia's room with the morning paper, heard her voice on the stairs.
"Is Mrs. Gladstone in her room?"
"Yes, Mrs. Laasch," replied the housemaid's voice.
"So I thought. No, no-I know the way. Mrs. Gladstone won't mind."
Anna waited. In another moment the owner of the voice came along the hall, glanced at Anna, and preceded her into Felicia's room with the ease of very old and intimate acquaintance.
"Oh, good morning, Dorothy," said Felicia.
So this was Dorothy. Dorothy Laasch.
Anna gave Felicia the paper and at Felicia's gesture sat down near her.
"Mother Denisty tells me there'll be no more French until you are feeling better," Dorothy was saying. She was a handsome woman in perhaps her middle thirties; a blonde with short hair, vivacious, of rather large features, and light, swift eyes. She wore a green wool suit, no hat, and suede pumps. Felicia murmured something and Dorothy went on: "Since Mother Denisty says so, I suppose that settles it. You ought to rouse yourself, Felicia. You let that woman rule you. Just because she controls the purse strings-"
"Dorothy," said Felicia in a remonstrating way.
Dorothy shot a quick glance toward the door into the hall.
"She's outdoors. I met her down by the bridge."
"But-" said Felicia.
"Oh, you mean the nurse." Dorothy looked at Anna and laughed. "Nurses neither hear nor care, do they, Miss-"
"Simms." said Felicia. She turned briefly to Anna. "This is Mrs. Laasch. I thought you'd met. Let's put off the French lessons for a couple of weeks, Dorothy."
"Nonsense," said Dorothy vigorously. "You'll be all right in a day or two. How's Mother Denisty taking this business of William's death?"
"I-don't know," faltered Felicia.
"No, I don't suppose you do know," said Dorothy with something like exasperation. "Really, Felicia, you can't see anything. Have the police done anything?"
"About William, you mean? Nothing more. At least, nothing that I know of."
Dorothy patted Felicia's hand briskly.
"Then why do you worry? Mother Denisty can't live forever. And think of the insurance-"
"Mother Denisty is very kind to me," said Felicia. Her hands were trembling.
"Kind," said Dorothy. She laughed abruptly. "You are all afraid of her. Every one of-"
"Ah, there you are, Dorothy," said Mrs. Denisty's bland voice from the doorway. Dorothy turned quickly, Felicia bent closer over her knitting, and Anna felt quite suddenly as if something had shifted and moved under her feet. Like quicksand, she thought, only it was nothing so perceptible.
"I hope you've cheered up Felicia," said Mrs. Denisty. Her eyes were as blank and cold as two blue beads, but her voice was pleasant. If she had heard Dorothy's words, she gave no indication of it.
"I've tried to," said Dorothy. She rose. "I must run now. Goodbye, Felicia. Goodbye, Miss Simms. Goodbye, Mother Denisty."
She kissed Felicia's white face; she kissed Mrs. Denisty. But Anna rose and walked downstairs and out the wide front door with Dorothy, who accepted her company with the breezy manner that seemed characteristic of her.
"Poor Felicia," said Dorothy. "Do walk along to the bridge with me, Miss Simms. The path goes this way. I live just across the ravine, you know. I should be so alone but for Felicia. I'm a widow, you know. Tell me, just how is Felicia?"
"She seems not much changed," said Anna.
"That's what I feared. It seems so queer and useless for her to brood over William. I can't imagine-" She checked herself abruptly and then continued in the same rapid way: "I don't believe any of them realize the state Felicia is in. And Miss Simms-I am afraid for her."
"Afraid! Of whom?"
Dorothy paused before she said, very slowly: "I'm afraid Felicia has Felicia to fear more than anyone else."
Suicide! Brooding over William. Was that what Dorothy meant? At their right was the patch of brown, dripping sumach. Anna said: "That's where the man was murdered, isn't it?"
"About there, I believe," said Dorothy. She met Anna's eyes for a long moment. "Take care of Felicia-watch her, Miss Simms. Goodbye."
Her heels tapped the wooden floor of the bridge. Anna watched, thinking of her last words, until Dorothy's blonde head vanished around the curve in the patch beyond the bridge. Then Anna turned. As she did so, something about the floor of the bridge caught her eye, and she bent to look.
Presently she rose and very thoughtfully went back to the house. But it was exactly then that terror clutched at Anna and would not be shaken off.
Yet, at the moment, there was nothing at all that she could do. Nothing but wait and listen and look.
It made it no easier when, that dreary afternoon, Felicia talked of death. Talked absently, queerly, knitting on a yellow afghan. What did Anna think it would be-did she think it would be difficult-would one regret at the last-when it was too late-would one "Has anyone talked to you-of death?" asked Anna sharply.
"N-no," said Felicia. "That is, Dorothy and I have talked of it. Some. And Marlow always likes to discuss such things."
"But that is wrong," said Anna abruptly. "You are sad and depressed."
"Perhaps," said Felicia agreeably. She knitted a long row before she said: "Dear-he is so good to me. He would, really, give me anything I want. Why, he would even give me a divorce if I asked for it; he has often said so. Not that I want a divorce. It only shows that he would put my wishes, even about that, ahead of Mother Denisty's."
"Then why," said Anna very gently, "does he keep the-Easter image?"
Felicia flinched visibly, but replied: "Why, you see, Miss Simms, he-he believes in its power. And he keeps it because he says it would be very weak to give in to his-feeling about it."
"But he talks as if-" began Anna irrepressibly and checked herself.
"Oh, yes," said Felicia. "But that's only because he doesn't like to admit it to other people."
It was that night that the thing happened in the drawing room. And that was the matter of the yellow afghan.
While they were at dinner, somehow, sometime, under the very eyes of the Easter image, the knitting was unraveled.
They found it when they entered the chill and quiet drawing room immediately after dinner. It lay in an untidy heap of crinkly yellow yarn, half on the chair where Felicia had left it, half on the floor.
Felicia saw it first and screamed.
And even Mother Denisty looked gray when she saw the heap of yarn. But she turned at once commandingly to Anna and told her to take Felicia upstairs.
Gladstone took Felicia's arm, and Anna followed, and somehow they got her out of the room. As they passed the still, black Easter image Felicia shuddered.
Upstairs, however, she managed to reply to Gladstone's inquiries.
Yes, she said, she had left the knitting there on the chair just before dinner.
"You are sure, Felicia?"
"Why, of course. I knew we would come into the drawing room for coffee and I-I wanted to have my knitting there. It-keeps me from looking at the image-"
"Nonsense, Felicia. The image won't hurt you."
Felicia wrung her hands.
"Glad, don't keep up this pretense. You know you are afraid of it, too. And Miss Simms knows-"
"Miss Simms-" He turned; his eyes, blue and cold and exactly like his mother's, plunged into Anna's eyes and Felicia cried:
"So there's no need to pretend because she is here."
"My wife," said Gladstone to Anna, "seems to be a bit hysterical-"
"Oh, no, no," moaned Felicia. "Don't you see? Listen to me, Glad." She was leaning forward, two scarlet spots in her cheeks and her great eyes blazing. "I left the knitting there in the chair. I was the last one in the dining room-do you remember?"
"Y-yes," said Gladstone unwillingly.
"No one left the table. No one was in the drawing room. And when I returned, it was completely raveled out. Oh, it isn't the knitting that matters: I don't care about that. But it's the-the cruelty. The-" She paused searching for the word, wringing her hands again. Finally it came: "The persecution," said Felicia Denisty.
"Nonsense," said Gladstone heavily. "You are making too much of an absurdly trivial thing. Now, Felicia, do be sensible. Take one of your capsules and go to sleep. The image simply couldn't have pulled hour knitting loose-if that's what you mean."
"The image," said Felicia slowly, "couldn't have killed William, either. But William is dead."
"Don't be morbid, Felicia," said Gladstone. He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Miss Simms, will you help me a moment, please?"
It was, of course, an absurdly transparent excuse. Felicia said nothing and Anna followed Gladstone into the hall. He closed the door.
"Did my wife unravel the knitting herself, Miss Simms?" he said directly. "I don't know."
His hard blue eyes, so strangely like his mother's, were plumbing her own eyes, seeking for any thought that lay behind them.
"She seems to have been talking to you a great deal," he said slowly.
"No," said Anna quietly, "not a great deal."
When they arrived at Anna's room, Gladstone followed her in. Gladstone waited for her to say more. But Anna waited, too. "I hope," he said at length, "that you realize to what her talk is due."
Anna smoothed back her hair, and Gladstone's eyes glistened. "Yes," Anna said truthfully. "I believe I do."
"That's good," Gladstone said, his lips suddenly dry. Now Anna noticed the strange look in his eyes. "I must say," Gladstone said, "you're an uncommonly attractive woman."
"Thank you," said Anna defensively.
Gladstone pushed ahead. "My wife ... she's not like you." he blurted out. "She's cold. I can tell that you are not. I could make you happy," he said quickly. "I could give you more pleasure than you've ever had!" Suddenly Gladstone became animated. "Have you ever been eaten?" he asked.
Anna stared at him. She was aware now that his trousers were tenting in evidence of his arousal.
"I could do it for you," Gladstone said. "Here. Now. I'd love to suck your juicy pussy," he said. "I love pussy juice and I bet a hot cunt like you puts out plenty. I'd drain you dry, Anna."
"I'm sure you would," Anna said, amused by Gladstone's lunatic descent into verbal sex.
"Please," Gladstone pleaded. "No one need know. It's just that I dream about it-sucking your lovely cunt has become an obsession!"
"That can be aggravating," Anna said.
His face reflected hope for the first time. "Then you'll do it? Just sit in that chair-I'll lick you until you've had enough!"
"I think not."
Gladstone was crestfallen. "Perhaps I've spoken too graphically," he said. "I apologize."
"Not at all. I admire a man who makes his needs and desires plainly known. It's just that ... the time isn't right."
Gladstone nodded sagely. "Of course," he said. "Good night."
He went downstairs at once. In a moment, Anna heard the heavy outside door close. He had not, then, joined his mother and Marlow, whose voices, steadily and blandly talking, were coming from the drawing room. The room where the Easter image brooded and waited. She returned to Felicia.
"I took two capsules," said Felicia wearily. "You needn't stay, Miss Simms. I'll be asleep in no time."
Two capsules. Anna resolved to talk to the doctor the next day, did what she could for Felicia, and left. This time she met Marlow, his arms full of yellow yarn.
"Oh, hello there, Miss Simms," he said. "I was just looking for you. What shall we do with this? Mother is frightfully upset about it. Glad is the apple of her eye, you know. It's never been exactly a happy marriage-You've probably guessed it. Poor mother. And now Felicia's got this queer notion about the Easter image."
"How did she get the notion?" said Anna. "I mean-has it been long?"
"Mmm, a few months. Seems to have got worse since these unlucky things have been happening. Just accidents, of course. But it is a bit queer. Isn't it?"
"Very," said Anna. "Tell me, is she interested in the French lessons?"
"With Dorothy, you mean? Oh, I don't know. She goes regularly, nine o'clock every morning. Mother sees to that. But I don't know that she likes it much. Funny thing, psychology, isn't it? I suppose you see a lot of queer things in your profession, don't you?"
"Well," said Anna guardedly, "yes and no. Good night. Oh, I don't think it would be a good thing to give the yarn to her just now. Anyway, she's asleep."
He turned toward the stairway, his arms still full of yellow yarn.
In her room, Anna locked the door as she had done carefully every night in the silent haunted house. Haunted by a wooden image.
And then, vehemently, she rejected the thought. It was no wooden image that men aced that house and those within it. It was something far stronger.
And yet she was shaken in spite of herself by the incident of the knitting. After all, had Felicia herself unraveled it? The family were all at the table and no one left it even momentarily, and the pretty housemaid who was, since William's death, acting as waitress, had been busily occupied and also, naturally, the cook.
But Anna was dealing only with intangibles. There was still no definite, material clue.
She turned, smoothed back her hair, and sat down at the writing desk. And set herself to reducing intangibles to tangibles.
It was after midnight when she leaned back and looked at what she had written.
A conclusion was there, of course, implicit in those facts. But she needed one link. And, even with that one link, she had no proof. Anna turned off the light and opened the window and stood there for a moment, looking out into the starless, quiet night.
Through the darkness and quiet a small, dull sound came, beating with rhythmic little thuds upon her ears. And quite suddenly it was as if a small faraway tom-tom was beating out its dark and secret message.
Easter Island and a devil.
"This," said Anna firmly to herself, "is fantastic. The sound is made by footsteps on the wooden bridge."
She listened, and faintly the footsteps came nearer. She could see nothing through the soft damp blackness. But suddenly, not far below her window, the footsteps ceased. Whoever was on the bridge then had now reached the path.
There was no way to know who had passed.
Yet quite suddenly Anna knew as surely as if she had seen.
And with the knowledge came the strangest feeling of urgency. For she knew, with a blinding flash of light, what those footsteps on the bridge meant.
She snatched a dark silk dressing gown and flung it around her shoulders, unlocked her door and fled down the hall. She waited in the dusk above the stair railing, until the door below opened and she caught a glimpse of the person who entered. It was as she expected, and she turned and was at Felicia's door by the time steps began to ascend the stairs.
If Felicia's door was locked! But it was not. She opened it and slipped inside and leaned against it, her heart pounding as if she'd been racing. Felicia was sleeping quietly and peacefully.
Now what to do? If there were only time-time to plan, time to make arrangements. But there was not.
And she had no proof.
And the feeling of urgency was stronger.
Felicia lay so sunk in sleep that only her heavy drugged breathing told Anna that she was alive.
CHAPTER EIGHT
At the bedside table was a telephone-a delicate gold and ivory thing-resting on a cradle.
She went to the telephone, lifted it, and called a number very softly into the ivory mouthpiece, and waited.
"Hello-hello-" It was Jim Del Mar's voice and sounded sleepy and far away.
"Jim-Jim, this Anna."
"Anna-do you want me?"
"Yes," Did she imagine it or did the floor creak very softly just below the door? If anyone was out there, if her voice, not Felicia's were heard "Anna-what are you doing? Anna-"
Even at a distance the vibration from the telephone might be heard.
"Anna!" cried Jim and very softly Anna replaced the telephone on its cradle. Suddenly his voice was gone. And he was miles and miles away.
The floor under the door did not creak again. If she could only have told Jim what to do, what she was trying to do, where to wait until she signaled. Well, the thing now was to get Felicia out of danger.
She turned to the bed.
It was terrifically difficult to rouse Felicia. Anna was exhausted and trembling by the time she had managed to half-carry and half-push Felicia into the small dressing room. A chaise lounge was there, and when Felicia's slack, inert figure collapsed upon it gracelessly, she fell again into the horribly heavy slumber from which she had never fully roused. And all the time there had been that dreadful necessity for haste.
Anna, panting from the sheer physical strain, very softly closed the door of the dressing room.
Then, with the utmost caution, she turned the shade of the light so that it would not fall directly upon the door into the hall yet so that anyone entering the room would be obliged to cross that narrow band of light.
Then, because she was shaking from cold and nerves and the strain of the past few moments, she took Felicia's place on the bed. And waited.
And in the waiting, as always happens, she became uncertain. All the other possibilities crowded into her mind. She was mistaken. There was no proof. This attempt to trap the murderer would fail. She was wrong in thinking that the attack would be made that night.
She knew that Jim Del Mar, and probably Lieutenant Mohrn and a number of extremely active and husky policemen, were at that very moment speeding along the road to Glenn Ash.
The thought of it was inexpressibly comforting. But it was also fraught with dangerous possibilities. They might easily arrive too soon. They couldn't arrive too late, she thought, as, once she had proof, that was enough.
But there were so many ways the thing could go wrong, thought Anna rather desperately as the minutes ticked away on the little French clock on the mantel. And her own rapidly conceived plan was so weak, so full of loopholes, so dependant upon chance. Or was it?
After all, it had been intuitional, swift, certain. And intuition with her, Anna reminded herself firmly, was actually a matter of subconscious reasoning. And subconscious reasoning, she went on still firmly, was far better than conscious, ruleof-thumb reasoning. And anyway, the rule-of-thumb reasoning was clear too.
The attack upon Felicia must come. It had already been prepared and ready once, but then William, poor William, had come into it and interfered and had had to be murdered.
She was in the deep shadow, there on Felicia's bed. But the door into the hall was in deep shadow, too. Would she hear it when it opened?
How long was it since she had telephoned to Jim? Where was he now? What would he do when he arrived?
She became more and more convinced that the police would arrive too soon.
Yet, unless she was entirely mistaken, the attack must come soon. Although planned perhaps for months, that night it would be in one way an impulsive act.
She did not shift her eyes from the door. It was so quiet in the house-so terribly quiet and so cold. It was as if the Easter image downstairs had extended the realm of his possessions. So cold It was then that Anna realized that the cold was coming from that window and that it was being opened, moving almost silently inward. Her eyes jerked that way, and her heart have a great leap of terror, but otherwise she had not moved.
She hadn't thought of the window.
A figure, black in the shadow, was moving with infinite stealth over the sill.
From the porch, of course, thought one part of Anna's mind. There are stairs somewhere; there must be. And then she realized coldly what a dangerous thing she had undertaken.
But it was done, and there she was in Felicia's place. And she must get one clear glimpse of that figure's face.
It was so dark in the shadows by the window. Anna realized she must close her eyes and did so, feigning sleep and listening with taut nerves.
A rustle and a pause.
It was more than flesh and blood could bear. Surely that figure was far enough away from the window by this time so that it could not escape before Anna had a look at its face.
She moved, and there was still silence. She flung one arm outward lazily and sat up as if sleepily and opened her eyes.
"Is that you, Mrs. Denisty?" she asked drowsily.
And looked at the figure and directly into a revolver.
There was to be no pretense then. Anna's vague plan of talk, of excuses on both sides, collapsed.
"If you shoot," she said in a clear, low voice that miraculously did not tremble, "the whole house will be here before you can escape."
"I know that." The reply was equally low and clear. "But you know too much, my dear."
The last thing Anna remembered before that pandemonium of struggle began was the revolver being placed quite deliberately upon the green satin eiderdown. Then all knowledge was lost, and she was fighting-fighting for balance, fighting for breath, fighting against blackness, against faintness, against death. If she could get the revolver-but she could not. She could not even gasp for breath, for there were iron hands upon her throat. She twisted and thrust and got free and had a great gasp of air and tried to scream, and then hands were there again, choking the scream.
She kept on pulling at those hands-pulling at something-pulling-but it was easy to drop into that encircling blackness
-easy to become part of it-part of it....
Somewhere, somehow, in some curious, dim nether world, much time had passed. And someone was insisting that she return, forcing her to come back, making her open her eyes and listen and leave that dizzy place of blackness.
"She's opened her eyes," cried a voice with a curious break in it. Anna stirred, became curious, opened her eyes again, saw a confused circle of faces bending over her remembered, and screamed: "Let me go ... let me go...."
"It's all right-it's all right, Anna. Look at me. See, I'm Jim. You are all right. Look at me."
She opened her eyes again and knew that Jim was there, and Lieutenant Mohrn and a great many other people. And she knew she was being wrapped in the eiderdown, and that Lieutenant Mohrn and Jim made a sort of a chair with their arms and carried her out of the room and down the stairs. And then all at once she was in Jim's car, warm and snug.
"I'll get the story from her when she's better," said Jim shortly to Lieutenant Mohrn, who stood at the side of the car. Anna, in a very luxury of tears, was crying her heart out.
Jim let her cry and drove very swiftly. His profile looked remarkably grim. He said nothing even when they reached Anna's house, beyond ordering Huldah to fix some hot milk.
The story of the Easter image ended, as, for Anna, it had begun, in her own small library with a fire blazing cheerfully and the dog at her feet.
"What happened?" she said abruptly.
"Don't talk."
"But I must talk."
He looked at her.
"All right," he said. "But don't talk too much. We got in at the window. Saw the open window on the upper porch and heard-sounds. Got there just in time." He looked back at the fire and was suddenly very grim again.
"Where is-she?" whispered Anna.
"Where she belongs. Look here, if you must talk, Anna, how did you know it was that woman? She confessed; had to. She had the gun, you know. The one that killed the butler."
"It couldn't be anyone else," Anna said slowly. "But there wasn't any evidence."
"Huh?" said Jim, in a startled manner.
"I mean," said Anna hurriedly, "there was only my own feeling, the things I saw and heard and felt about the people involved. It was all intangible, you see, until I put the things I knew on paper-chronologically, as they revealed themselves. Then all at once there was a tangible answer. But there weren't ever any direct material clues. Except the gun, there at the last. And the attack upon Felicia."
A paper rustled in Jim's hand.
"Are those my notes?" asked Anna interestedly.
"Yes-Lieutenant Mohrn wanted you to explain them-"
"Very well," she said. "But it's rather Jike a-a-"
"Problem in algebra," suggested Jim, smiling.
"No," said Anna hastily. She had never been happy with algebraic terms. "It was more like a-a patchwork quilt. Just small unrelated scraps, you know, and a great many of them. And then you put them together in the only way they'll all fit, and there you gave a pattern." Jim read:
"Noise in night that must have been crash of Venetian glass and someone brushed my door; thus person breaking glass probably one of household. What on earth is that?"
"Part of the campaign against Felicia," said Anna. "It was evident from the first that there was a deliberate and very cruel campaign in progress against Felicia. The glass broken, her flowers dying always (William had said, she told me, something about acid in the water), her kitten, the knitting-it was all part of the plot. Go on."
"Why is Felicia the focus of attack? Obviously someone wanted her either to do something that she had to be forced to do, or wanted her out of the way entirely."
"Both," said Anna and shivered.
"Gladstone has a roving eye."
"Kisses maids," said Anna. "Kisses anything feminine in a uniform."
"Did he-" said Jim, threatening. "Slightly," said Anna, and added hurriedly: "The whole thing, though, was centered about the Easter devil."
"The what!" said Jim. She told him, then, the whole story. "So you see," she said finally. "It seemed to me that this was the situation. Mrs. Denisty ruled the household, controlled the purse strings, and was against divorce. Someone was deliberately playing on Felicia's nerves by threatening her with the Easter devil and by contriving all sorts of subtle ways of persecution. In this campaign the murder of the butler began to look like nothing more than an accident, for evidently the campaign was continuing. Then, when I found that the bridge had been tampered with (you can see for yourself tomorrow)-there's a place where it is quite evident; the nails holding the planks there in the middle have been taken out and then replaced. It would have been a very bad fall, for it's just over the deepest point of-the ravine-and I realized that owing to the French lessons Felicia would have been the first to cross the bridge in the morning, was, in fact, the only one in the household who crossed it daily and at a regular time. I knew thus that the campaign against Felicia had already reached its climax once, and yet had been for some reason interrupted."
"Then you think William was murdered because he saw too much?"
"And because he would have told. And his necessary murder, of course, delayed the plot against Felicia. Delayed it until the murderer realized that it could be used as a tool."
"Tool?"
"A reason for what was to appear to be Felicia's suicide."
Jim looked at the paper and read: "Dorothy inquires about William; Dorothy seems sincere only when she talks of Mother Denisty ruling the house. Why? Dorothy hints that Mother Denisty knows something of William's murder. Why? Is this smoke screen or sheer hatred of Mrs. Denisty? Dorothy nervous and quickzspoken until I lead her to spot where William was killed; is then poised and calm. Dorothy hints at Felicia becoming suicide. Why?"
"Exactly," said Anna. "Why, if not because she's keenly interested in the police inquiry-because she resents Mrs. Denisty's influence, and thus in some way Mrs. Denisty must have opposed Dorothy's own purposes-because she knows too much of the murder to permit herself to be anything but extremely guarded and careful in speech and manner when the subject is brought up. When you add up everything, there's just one answer. Just one pattern in which everything fits. And the knitting brought Dorothy directly into it again; that is, none of the family could have pulled out the knitting, the image didn't do it, I felt sure Felicia hadn't, and that left only Dorothy who was free to come and go in the house. But Gladstone pretended publicly that he wasn't afraid of the image, and told Felicia privately that he was afraid of it. Believe in its power for evil. You see, Gladstone had to make an issue of something. So he chose the Easter image. It was at the same time a point of disagreement between him and Felicia and a medium through which to work upon Felicia-it's nothing but a painted piece of wood, but I don't like it myself," said Anna. "He couldn't have chosen a better tool. But it was Dorothy who murdered and was ready to murder again."
"Then Gladstone-"
"Gladstone wanted a divorce, but wanted to drive Felicia to ask for it herself, owing to his mother's feeling about divorce. Dorothy had to be in the conspiracy, for she was strongly and directly concerned. But there was this difference: Gladstone (who must have thought he had hit on an exceedingly ingenious plan) only wanted to induce Felicia to leave him. But Dorothy had other plans. It wasn't fear that Felicia saw in her eyes; it was hate. I knew that when she talked to me of Felicia's possible suicide. There was the strangest impression that she was paving the way, so to speak; it was then that I realized Felicia's danger. Yet I had no proof. It was, as I said, altogether intangible. Nothing definite. Except, of course, the bridge. If I'd had only one real, material clue I shouldn't have worried so. The footsteps on the bridge, though, were a help, because then I had a link between Dorothy and Gladstone, and I hadn't had that-except intangibly-up till then. But I also realized then that he must have told Dorothy the things Felicia had said to me, that Dorothy would realize that it was dangerous to permit Felicia to talk and that Dorothy would probably act at once. Would carry out the plan that had once been interrupted."
"But you were not sure of this. You had no proof."
"Proof?" said Anna. "Why, no, there was no proof. And no evidence. But I would not have dared deny the evidence of my-intangibles."
Jim grinned rather apologetically at her. "After all," he said, "there's plenty of proof now. They think Dorothy intended to kill Felicia and leave the gun with Felicia's fingerprints on it, thus indicating suicide and also that Felicia had shot the butler herself-hence her possession of the gun, hence also the suicide. Remorse. Of course, there were a hundred ways for Dorothy to have secured the gun."
He paused and looked thoughtfully and soberly into the fire.
"Intangibles," he said presently. "But not so darned intangible after all. But all the same, young woman, you are going to get the worst scolding you ever had in all your life. The chance you took-" He stopped abruptly and looked away from Anna, and Anna smoothed her hair.
"Yes," she said in a small voice. "But I've got to go back there."
"Go back!" cried Jim Del Mar explosively. "There!"
"Yes. I forgot to burn the Easter image," said Anna Simms.
The dog grunted and stretched. The fire was warm, the house at peace, the woman at home where she ought to be, and she hadn't seen the scratch on his nose after all.
