Hilda deliberately picked up her knitting. She had an idea that camouflage was not necessary with Susie, but it did no harm to try.
“I don’t suppose she would like it,” she said absently, counting stitches.
“Like it! Don’t underestimate our Marian, Miss Adams. She’s a tigress when she’s roused. She’d do anything. What on earth is that noise?”
The slapping had started again. It seemed now to come from Eileen’s room, and while Susie watched her Hilda opened the door cautiously. Eileen was asleep, her face relaxed and quiet, but one of the screens, the one of the window she had opened over the roof of the porte-cochere, was unhooked. It swung out, hesitated, and then came back with a small, sharp bang. The rain was coming in, wetting the curtains, and Hilda, having hooked the screen, closed the window carefully.
Susie had not moved. She was examining her foot.
“What was it?” she inquired.
“A window screen.”
“That’s funny. Marian always keeps them hooked. She’s afraid of burglars. That roof outside—”
She stopped suddenly, as if she had just thought of something.
“What about Eileen? Is she asleep?”
“She’s had a hypodermic. She’s dead to the world.”
“She couldn’t have opened it herself?”
“Not for the last hour or so. Anyhow, why would she?”
But the open screen worried her. She took her flashlight and went back into Eileen’s room. It was as she had left it, Eileen’s suitcase on the floor, the window closed, and Eileen still sleeping. She went to the window and examined the screen. It could have been unhooked from the outside. A knife blade could have done it. But if there had been any marks on the roof beneath, the rain had washed them away. One thing struck her as curious, however. A thin light piece of rope was hanging down from one of the old-fashioned outside shutters. It swayed in the wind and one end of it now and then slapped against the window itself. But although it seemed to serve no useful purpose, it might have been there for years.
She left the window and opened the bathroom door. The bathroom was empty, and so, too, was Marian’s closet, save for the row of garments hanging there. When she went back into the hall Susie was still there.
“Find anything?”
“No. How long has that rope been fastened to the shutter over the porte-cochere?”
“Rope?” said Susie blankly. “What rope?”
Hilda was worried. Useless to tell herself that nobody could have entered Mrs. Fairbanks’s room that night. Useless to recall all the precautions she had taken. Her bland cherubic face was gone now. Instead she looked like an uneasy terrier.
“I’m going in to see Mrs. Fairbanks,” she said. “She can’t do any more than take my head off.”
She opened the door and went in. The room was cool and dark, but outside the wind had veered and the curtains were blowing out into the room. She put down the window and then turned and looked at the bed. She only remembered dimly afterward that Susie was standing in the doorway; that there was a brilliant flash of lightning, and that all at once Susie was pointing at the bed and screaming. Loud piercing shrieks that could be heard all over the house.
She herself was only conscious of the small old figure on the bed, with the handle of a common kitchen knife sticking up from the thin chest.
Carlton was the first to arrive. He bolted out of his room in pajamas, and stopped Susie by the simple expedient of holding his hand over her mouth.
“Shut up,” he said roughly. “Have you gone crazy? What’s the matter?”
Susie stopped yelling. She began to cry instead, and he looked helplessly at Hilda, standing rigid at the foot of the bed.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Fairbanks,” she said. “Your mother—”
“What’s happened to her?”
“I’m afraid,” she said, her voice sounding far away in her own ears. “I’m afraid she’s been killed.”
He shoved Susie aside, switched on the lights and went into the room. He did not say anything. He stood looking down at the bed, like a man paralyzed with horror. Not until he heard Jan’s voice outside did he move.
“Don’t let her in,” he said thickly. “Keep everybody out. Get the police.” And then suddenly: “Mother, Mother!”
He went down on his knees beside her bed and buried his face in the bed.
When he got up he was quieter. He looked what he was, an insignificant little man, looking shrunken in his pajamas, but capable, too, of dignity.
“I’d better look after my wife,” he said. “She has had a shock. Will you—do you mind calling the police? And the doctor? Although I suppose—”
He did not finish. He went out into the hall, leaving Hilda in the room alone.
She did not go downstairs at once. She went to the bed and touched the thin old arm and hand. They were already cool. An hour, she thought. Maybe more. She had sat outside and eaten her supper, and already death had been in this room, in this body.
Automatically she looked at her wrist watch. It showed a quarter after two. Then her eyes, still dazed, surveyed the room. Nothing was changed. The card table and rocking chair were by the empty hearth. The door to the closet with the safe was open only an inch or two, and when she went to it, being careful not to touch the knob, the safe itself was closed. Nothing had disturbed the window screens. They were fastened tight. And yet, into this closed and guarded room, someone had entered that night and murdered the old woman.
She was very pale when she went out into the hall. The household was still gathering. William and Maggie in hastily donned clothing were coming along the back hall. Ida was halfway down the stairs to the third floor, clutching the banisters and staring, her mouth open. Jan was standing in a dressing-gown over her nightdress, her eyes wide and horrified, and Susie was in a chair, with Carlton beside her and tears rolling down her cheeks.
Hilda surveyed them. Then she closed the door behind her and turning the key in the lock, took it out.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Nobody is to go in until the police get here. I’ll call them now.”
But she did not call them at once. Eileen, roused from her drugged sleep, had opened her door. She stood there swaying, one hand against the frame.
“What is it?” she said dazedly. “Has something happened?”
It was Carlton who answered, looking at her without feeling, as if he could no longer feel anything, pity or love or even anger.
“Mother is dead,” he said. “She has been murdered.”
Eileen stood very still, as if her reactions were dulled by the drug she had had. She did not look at Carlton. It was as though she saw none of them. Then her hold on the door relaxed and she slid in a dead faint to the floor.
Chapter 12
Hilda left her there with Jan and Ida bending over her. She felt very tired. For the first time in her sturdy self-reliant life she felt inadequate and useless. She had failed. They had trusted her and she had failed. Jan’s shocked face, Carlton’s dazed one, Susie’s tears, even Eileen’s fainting showed how terribly she had failed.
And it was too late to do anything. What use to call the doctor? Any doctor. Or even the police. The best they could do would be to exact justice. They could not bring back to life a little old lady who, whatever her faults, should not be lying upstairs with a kitchen knife in her heart.
She sat down wearily at the library desk and picked up the telephone. Even here things were wrong. It was some time before she got young Brooke’s office. Then the girl she had seen there answered it indignantly.
“Give a person time to get some clothes on,” she snapped. “What is it?”
“I want the doctor.”
“You can’t have him. He’s out.”
Eventually she learned that a woman had been knocked down at the corner by a bus, and Dr. Brooke had gone with her to a hospital. The girl did not know what hospital.
“Tell him when he comes back,” Hilda said sharply, �
��that old Mrs. Fairbanks has been killed, and to come over at once.”
“Jesus,” said the girl. “There goes the rent.”
Hilda hung up, feeling sick.
After that she called Inspector Fuller at his house. Her hands had stopped shaking by that time, but there was still a quaver in her voice. To her relief he answered at once.
“Yes?”
“This is Hilda Adams, Inspector.”
“Hello, Pink. What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’ve found some goldfish!”
Hilda swallowed.
“Mrs. Fairbanks is dead,” she said. “She’s been stabbed with a knife. It couldn’t have happened, but it did.”
His voice changed. There was no reproach in it, but it was cold and businesslike.
“Pull yourself together, Hilda. Lock the room, and hold everything until I get there. Keep the family out.”
“I’ve done that. I—”
But he had already hung up.
She went slowly up the stairs. Ida and Maggie had got Eileen into bed and were standing over her, the door to the room open. In the hall the group remained unchanged, save that Carlton was sitting down, his head in his hands.
“I’ve got the police,” she said. “The doctor’s out. If you’d like me to call another one—”
Carlton looked up.
“What’s the good of a doctor?” he said. “She’s gone, isn’t she? And I want that key, Miss Adams. You’re not on this case now. She’s my mother, and she’s alone. I’m going in to stay with her.”
He got up, looking determined, and held out his hand.
“No one is to go in there,” Hilda said. “Inspector Fuller said—”
“To hell with Inspector Fuller.”
It might have been ugly. He was advancing on her when a siren wailed as a radio car turned into the driveway. Susie spoke then.
“Don’t make a fool of yourself, Carl. That’s the police.”
William went down the stairs. He looked old and stooped, and his shabby bathrobe dragged about his bare ankles. When he came back two young officers in uniform were at his heels. They looked around, saw Eileen in her bed, and started for the room. Hilda stopped them.
“Not there,” she said. “In here. The door’s locked.”
She gave them the key, and they unlocked it and went in, to come out almost immediately. One of them stayed outside the door, surveying the group in the hall with an impassive face. The other went down to the telephone. With his departure everything became static, frozen into immobility. Then Jan moved.
“I can’t bear it,” she said brokenly. “Why would anybody do that to her? She was old. She never hurt anyone. She—”
She began to cry, leaning against the screen and sobbing brokenheartedly, and with the sound the frozen silence ended. There was small but definite movement. Carlton lifted his head, showing a white face and blank eyes. Susie felt in her draggled dressing-gown for a cigarette and then thought better of it. And Hilda pulled herself together and went in to look at Eileen. She was conscious, but her pulse was thin and irregular, and Hilda mixed some aromatic ammonia with water and gave it to her.
“Let me out of here,” she gasped. “I’m all right. I want to go home.”
“Better wait until morning, Mrs. Garrison. You’ve had a shock. And anyhow you oughtn’t to move about. You know that.”
Eileen’s eyes were wild. They moved from Maggie and Ida back to Hilda.
“I’m frightened,” she gasped. “You can slip me out somehow.” She tried to sit up in the bed, but Hilda held her down.
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” she told her. “The police are here. They may want to talk to you.”
“But I don’t know anything about it,” Eileen gasped. “I’ve been dead to the world. You know that.”
“Of course I know it,” Hilda said gently. “They’ll not bother you much. I’ll tell them.”
Eileen relaxed. She lay back against her pillows, her eyes open but the pupils sharply contracted from the morphia.
“How was she killed?” she asked.
“Never mind about that. Try to be quiet.”
The second policeman had come up the stairs, and from far away came the sound of another siren. Hilda walked to the window over the porte-cochere and looked out. The rain had almost ceased. It was dripping from the roof overhead, but the wind had dropped. The room was hot and moist. She raised the window and stood staring outside.
The screen she had fastened was open again. It hung loosely on its hinges, moving a little in the light breeze, but no longer banging.
She did not fasten it. She went back to the bed, where Eileen lay with her eyes closed, relaxed and half asleep.
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Garrison,” she said. “Did you open a window tonight? Or a screen?”
“What screen?” said Eileen drowsily. “I didn’t open anything.”
Ida got up. She had been sitting by the bed.
“Better let her sleep if she can, miss,” she said. “Why would she open a screen?”
All at once the hall outside was filled with men, some of them in uniform. They came up the stairs quietly but inevitably, carrying the implements of their grisly trade, the cameramen, the fingerprint detail, the detectives in soft hats and with hard, shrewd eyes. A brisk young lieutenant was apparently in charge.
He nodded to Carlton.
“Bad business, sir,” he said. “Sorry. Can you get these people downstairs? In one room, if that’s convenient.”
Carlton looked overwhelmed at the crowd.
“We’d like to get some clothes on,” he said.
“Not yet, if you don’t mind. The inspector will be here any time now. He’ll want to see you all.”
They shuffled down, accompanied by an officer, the three servants, Susie, Jan, and Carlton. Only Eileen remained, and Hilda, standing in her doorway. The lieutenant looked at her, at her uniform and at the room beyond her.
“Who is in there?”
“Mrs. Garrison. She can’t be moved. I’m looking after her.”
He nodded, and with a gesture to two of the detectives, went into the dead woman’s room and closed the door. The others stood around, waiting. A cameraman lit a cigarette and put it out. One or two yawned. Hilda closed the door into Eileen’s room and stood against it, but they showed no interest in her. Not at least until the inspector came up the stairs.
He took one look at her and turned to the uniformed man who had come with him.
“See if there’s any brandy in the house,” he said. “Sit down, Hilda. Bring a chair, somebody.”
They looked at her then. The hall was filled with men staring at her. Their faces were blurred. She had felt this way her first day in the operating room. White masks staring at her, and someone saying, “Catch that probationer. She’s going to faint.” She roused herself with an effort, forcing her eyes to focus.
“I’m not going to faint,” she said stubbornly.
“You’re giving a darned good imitation, then,” he said. “Sit down. Don’t be a little fool. I need you.”
The brandy helped her. When she could focus her eyes she found the inspector gone. But the phalanx of men was still in the hall, watching her with interest. She got up unsteadily and went into Eileen’s room. To her surprise Eileen was up. She was trying to get into her clothes, and the face she turned on Hilda was colorless and desperate.
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “If Frank goes home and finds I’m gone—I must have been out of my mind to come here.”
“I can telephone, if you like. You can’t leave, of course. They won’t allow anyone to leave the house.”
“You mean—we’re prisoners?”
Hilda’s nerves suddenly snapped.
“Listen,” she said. “There’s been a murder in this house. Of course you’re not a prisoner. But you’re getting back into that bed and staying there if I have to put a policeman on your chest.”
That was the situation when there w
as a rap at the door. The inspector wanted her, and Hilda went out.
In the old lady’s room nothing had yet been disturbed. Only the detectives were standing there, touching nothing. The inspector nodded at her.
“All right,” he said. “Now look at this room. You know how you left it when Mrs. Fairbanks went to bed. Is anything changed? Has anything been moved? Take your time. There’s no hurry.”
She gazed around her. Everything was different, yet everything was the same. She shook her head.
“Try again,” he insisted. “Anything moved on the table? Anything different about the curtains?”
She looked again, keeping her eyes from the quiet figure on the bed.
“I think Mrs. Fairbanks left that closet door closed,” she said finally.
“You’re not sure?”
“I’m sure she closed it. She always did. But there’s a small safe in it. I think Mrs. Fairbanks opened it at night. I don’t know why.”
“A safe?”
He took out a handkerchief and pulled the door open. He examined the safe, but it was closed and locked.
“Anyone else in the house have access to it?”
“I don’t think so. She was rather queer about it. She didn’t really like anybody to go into the closet, and she locked it when she went out.”
“I suppose this is the closet where—”
“Yes.”
He showed her the knife, still in the dead woman’s chest. She forced herself to look at it, but she was trembling.
“Ever seen it before?”
“I may. I wouldn’t know. It looks like a common kitchen knife.”
“There wasn’t such a knife upstairs, for instance? Lying about.”
She shook her head, and he let her go, saying he would talk to her later. As she went out the men in the hall crowded in, to take their pictures, to dust the furniture and the knife for prints, to violate—she thought miserably—the privacy of fifty years of living. And why? Who in this house would have killed an old woman? No one seeing the household that night could doubt that they were shocked, if not grieved. And who else could have done it?
Her mind was clearer now. The radio had been turned on before young Brooke left, so she was alive then. Who else? Carlton? He had gone in and shut off the machine. He could have carried the knife in his dressing-gown pocket. But—unless he was a great actor—he was almost broken by his mother’s death. He had gone down on his knees by the bed. He—
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