The Haunted Lady

by Rinehart, Mary Roberts;

  Who else? Marian was away. Jan was out of the question. Eileen was sick and under the influence of the hypodermic. Susie? But how could Susie get into the room? How could anyone get into the room?

  She went back carefully over the night. Eileen had left Mrs. Fairbanks at midnight and Hilda had put her to bed. At a quarter after twelve she had shut off her radio and apparently gone to sleep. It was almost half past twelve when Courtney Brooke had gone down to have a drink with Carlton in the library, and soon after that Eileen had complained of pain.

  During all that time she—Hilda—had left the door unguarded only for the brief excursion to the head of the stairs to the third floor, along the back hall to carry her tray back, and much later when Susie crashed into it. True, she had been in the kitchen for some time, but Mrs. Fairbanks had been alive after that. Witness the radio.

  Her mind was whirling. She had been in Eileen’s room once or twice, but only for a matter of seconds. In any case she could have seen Mrs. Fairbanks’s door, and any movement outside. Susie? But the old lady had been dead for some time before she left her in the hall to close Eileen’s screen. An hour at least; maybe more.

  She leaned her head back in her chair. On the table still lay her equipment for the night, the heavy textbook, her knitting bag, the thermometer in its case, the flashlight, her charts and records. She could see the last thing she had written, after Eileen’s visit. Patient nervous. Not sleepy. Refuses sedative. She felt sick again.

  From beyond the closed door came the muffled sounds of men moving about, and the soft plop of the cameramen’s flash bulbs. A car drove in below, a bell rang, and a man with a bag came up the stairs. The medical examiner, she knew. But what could he find? A little old lady on her back, with her arms outstretched and a knife in her heart.

  He was a brisk, youngish man with a mustache, and he was in a bad humor when the inspector came out to meet him.

  “Pity you fellows can’t move without a panzer division,” he said. “I had the devil of a time getting my car in.”

  “Well, we won’t keep you long,” said the inspector. “Stab wound in the chest. That’s all.”

  “How do you know that’s all?”

  “It seems to have been enough.”

  The medical examiner ignored Hilda. He went inside the room, followed by the inspector, and was there five minutes. He was still brisk when he came out, but his irritation was gone. He seemed depressed.

  “So that’s the end of old Eliza Fairbanks,” he said, tugging at his mustache. “Who did it? You can bet your bottom dollar she didn’t do it herself.”

  “No,” said the inspector. “No, I don’t think so. How long ago, do you think?”

  The medical examiner looked at his watch.

  “It’s half past three now,” he said. “I’d say two hours ago. Maybe more. Say between one and two o’clock, at a guess. Nearer one, perhaps, from the body temperature. Hard to tell, of course. Rigor sets in earlier in warm weather. I’ll know better after the autopsy. What time did she eat last?”

  He looked at Hilda.

  “She had a tray at seven-thirty,” she said. “She didn’t go down to dinner. Poached eggs, a green salad, and some fruit. She was alive a little after one o’clock.”

  “How do you know that?” he asked sharply. “See her?”

  “No. She turned on her radio.”

  He was still brisk as he went down the stairs. This was his job. When he went to bed he left his clothing ready to put on, the cuff links in his shirt, his shoes and socks beside the bed, his tie on the dresser. Even his car had a permit to stand out on the street all night. He lived like a fireman, he would say. But now he was slightly shocked. Mostly his work took him to the slums. Now there was a murder in the Fairbanks house. Somebody had jabbed a knife into old Eliza. Well, he’d be damned. He’d be doubly damned.

  The inspector watched him down the stairs. Then he got a straight chair and sat down, confronting Hilda. There was no softness in his face. He looked angry and hard. Hard as nails.

  “All right,” he said. “Now let’s have it. And it had better be good. No use saying it couldn’t happen. It has.”

  She braced herself. She had failed, and he knew it. He wanted no excuses. He wanted the story, and she gave it as coherently as her tired mind would allow; Eileen’s arrival, her story and subsequent collapse; Mrs. Fairbanks’s demand to see her, and after that the unusual settling her for the night. Then came Eileen’s pain, the two trips downstairs, one to speak to the doctor, the other to boil some water, leaving the doctor on guard, and the later discovery of Eileen’s open screen slapping in the wind. But it was over Susie’s appearance, wet and bedraggled, that he spent the most time.

  “What about this Susie?” he asked. “Devoted to the old lady and all that?”

  In spite of herself Hilda smiled.

  “Not very. Mrs. Fairbanks disliked her, and Susie—well, I thought she tried to annoy her mother-in-law. But that’s as far as it went.”

  “What about this excursion of hers? For cigarettes in the rain? Do you believe it?”

  “It might have been. She smokes a good bit.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think she’s particularly scrupulous. But I doubt if she would kill anybody. She and her husband wanted to leave here and buy a farm. Mrs. Fairbanks objected. Still that’s hardly a reason—”

  “Any chance she could have unhooked this screen over the porte-cochere? Earlier in the night?”

  “She didn’t come upstairs after dinner. She and Mr. Fairbanks went to the movies.”

  “What about later? After the Garrison woman came?”

  “She wasn’t in the room at all. She hates Eileen Garrison like poison.”

  “What’s she like? Strong? Muscular?”

  “She looks pretty strong. She’s a big woman.”

  He looked back along the hall. The screen which usually protected Hilda’s chair had been folded against the wall, and he had an uninterrupted view.

  “Where is her room?”

  Hilda told him, and he went back and inspected it, including the door to the service staircase.

  “You didn’t see her leave?”

  “No. The screen was in the way.”

  “So,” he said thoughtfully, “she was outside for nobody knows how long. She’s big enough to handle a ladder, and she had no reason for loving her mother-in-law. People have gone to the chair for less!”

  All at once Hilda found herself defending Susie. She was too direct, too open. She was—well, she was simply Susie.

  “Suppose she did get into Eileen’s room? Eileen Garrison was there. She was awake until she had the hypodermic. And after that how could she get into Mrs. Fairbanks’s room? I was here, in this chair. When we found the body at half past two it was already—cool.”

  Nevertheless, he sent an officer to locate a ladder, in the house or on the grounds, preferably wet. He did not sit down again after that. He stood still, frowning thoughtfully.

  “What about this radio?” he asked abruptly. “Sure the old lady turned it on herself? Somebody might have used one of these remote control affairs. They operate as far as sixty feet.”

  “Don’t they have cables, or something of the sort?”

  “Not the new ones.”

  The men were coming out now. He let some of them go and detained two of the detectives.

  “I want every room in the house searched,” he told them. “Look for one of those remote radio controls. Look for a phonograph, too. And for anything suspicious, of course. Miss Adams will have to go into the room here in front. There’s a sick woman there.”

  They moved off, quiet and businesslike. From the driveway below came the sounds of cars starting as the fingerprint and cameramen departed. No voices came from the library, and Hilda could imagine the group huddled there, stricken and dazed. She got up.

  “Now?”

  “If you please.”

  She wen
t into Eileen’s room. Eileen was asleep, but she roused at Hilda’s entrance.

  “What is it?” she said peevishly.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll have to search the room. All the house is being searched. I won’t bother you.”

  “Go ahead. What are they looking for? Another knife?”

  But the net result was nothing. The suitcase revealed a dress or two and some undergarments, most of them showing considerable wear. The closet, hung with Marian’s luxurious wardrobe, provided a bitter contrast, but that was all. And Eileen, yawning, looked bored and indifferent.

  “I wish you’d get out and let me sleep.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “How do you expect me to feel?”

  She was half asleep when Hilda left the room.

  The search was still going on when she closed the door behind her. One of the detectives was on his way to the third floor, and she gathered nothing had been found. There was a uniformed guard outside Mrs. Fairbanks’s door, and two men in white were inside by the bed with a long wicker basket.

  So Eliza Fairbanks was leaving the home to which she had come as a bride, going in a basket, without the panoply of flowers and soft music, without even dignity or any overwhelming grief.

  Standing in the hall Hilda swore a small and very private oath; to help the police to revenge this murder, and to send whoever had done it to death. “So help me God.”

  Chapter 13

  The family and servants were still in the library when she went downstairs. They paid no attention to her. It was as though the knife, now wrapped in cellophane and in the inspector’s pocket, had cut them all away from their normal roots, their decent quiet habits of living. Only Jan looked up when Hilda entered, her eyes swollen, and clutching a moist handkerchief in her hand.

  “Are they through?”

  “Not quite.”

  “But this is dreadful. We’re not prisoners. None of us would have hurt Granny.”

  “I don’t see how it’s possible for anyone to have done it.”

  Carlton turned his head and looked at her with blood-shot eyes. He was holding a highball, and it was evidently not his first.

  “Where were you?” he demanded. “I thought your job was to protect her. What do we know about you? How do we know you didn’t do it yourself?”

  “Oh, shut up, Carl,” Susie said wearily. “Why would she?”

  Watch them all, the inspector had said. They’ll have the gloves off now. Watch Carlton. Watch his wife. Watch the servants, too. They may know something. Tell them about the ladder and the screen. That may make them sit up.

  She sat down. The servants were huddled in a corner, Maggie stiff and resentful, Ida staring at nothing, her hands folded in her lap, and William on the edge of a chair, his head shaking with an old man’s palsy.

  “Someone may have got in from outside,” she said. “Mrs. Garrison’s screen was open. They’re looking now for a ladder.”

  She thought Carlton relaxed at that. He even took a sip of his drink.

  “Plenty of ladders about,” he said. “Police have some sense, after all.”

  Only Jan showed a sharp reaction. She sat up and stared at Hilda wildly.

  “That’s absurd,” she said. “Who would want to do such a thing? And even if they did they couldn’t get into Granny’s room. Miss Adams was always in the hall.”

  Hilda watched her. She was not only terrified. She knew something. And Susie was watching her, too.

  “Don’t take it too hard, Jan,” she drawled. “They’ve got to try everything. No use getting hysterical. That won’t help.”

  It sounded like a warning. Again Hilda wondered if there was a conspiracy among them, a conspiracy of silence. As if, whatever had once divided them, they were now united. She got no further, however. Outside an ambulance drove away, and immediately after the inspector appeared at the door.

  “I’d like to talk to you,” he said to the room in general. “There are some things to be cleared up. If there’s a place where I can see everybody, one at a time—”

  Carlton got up. His truculence had returned, and he was feeling the whisky.

  “I’d better tell you,” he said thickly. “I suppose this Adams woman has already done it. I was in my mother’s room tonight. I went in to turn off the radio. But I didn’t touch her. I thought she was asleep. I—”

  “We’ll talk about that later. You’re Mr. Fairbanks, I suppose?”

  “Yes.”

  “And don’t be a fool,” said Susie unexpectedly. “He didn’t kill her. He was fond of her, God knows why. Anyhow he hasn’t got the guts for murder. Look at him!”

  Her tone was half contemptuous, half fiercely protective. The inspector ignored her.

  “If there is a room I’ll talk to you there, Mr. Fairbanks. And I’ll ask you to come along, Miss Adams, to check certain facts.”

  “I’m not talking before her,” Carlton snapped.

  “Miss Adams is one of my most able assistants, Mr. Fairbanks. If you prefer to go to my office—”

  But the fight was out of Carlton. He looked at Hilda and shrugged.

  “All right. God knows I have no secrets. Come in here.”

  He led the way to the small morning room behind the library, and the inspector closed the door.

  Yet Carlton’s story, as it was dug out of him, offered little or nothing new. He had been in bed when his mother’s radio went on. It was very loud. It wakened him. He had gone in and shut it off. The room was dark. He had seen only her outline, but she had not moved.

  “You came out immediately?”

  “I did.”

  “Are you sure of that? Didn’t you open a closet door while you were in the room?”

  The question took him by surprise. He looked uncomfortable.

  “I closed it,” he said. “It was standing open.”

  “Wasn’t that rather curious? I mean, why do a thing like that?”

  “My mother liked it closed. Her safe was there.”

  “Did you stop to examine the safe?”

  He hesitated.

  “Well, I took a look.” He glanced at Hilda. “I didn’t know anything about Miss Adams. I just wondered—” He tried to smile and failed. “My mother was rather peculiar in some ways,” he said. “I’ve never seen inside the safe. But if she had money there—”

  His voice trailed off again.

  “I thought she was crazy,” he said heavily. “All this talk about bats and things. But I might have known better. Somebody tried to poison her this spring. I suppose you know about that?”

  “She told me herself.”

  Carlton looked stunned.

  “Are you telling me she went to the police?”

  “I am. I saw her last Monday, and I sent Miss Adams at her request. She believed that someone in this house was trying to scare her into a heart attack—and death.”

  “That’s absurd.” He lit a cigarette with unsteady fingers. “Who would try a thing like that? It’s silly on the face of it.”

  He looked profoundly shocked, however. Hilda, watching him, thought that for the first time he was really apprehensive. But the inspector shifted his questions.

  “Do you know the combination of the safe?”

  “No.”

  “Who benefits by her death?”

  “That’s the hell of it. We all do.”

  “Even the servants?”

  “I’m not certain. I haven’t seen her will. Her lawyer has it, Charles Willis. They may get a little. Not enough to matter.”

  “Have you any idea of the size of the estate?”

  The shift had brought some color back to Carlton’s face. He put out his cigarette and straightened.

  “I don’t know, and that’s a fact,” he said bitterly. “My father left about three million dollars. She must have quite a lot left. I wasn’t in her confidence. I tried to talk to her, about her taxes and so on, but she wouldn’t listen. She always thought I was a fool about money. But lately she
’s been cutting down expenses. I don’t know why. She should have had a fair income.”

  “What do you mean by fair?”

  “Oh, forty or fifty thousand a year.”

  The inspector smiled faintly. To him that amount represented capital, not income. There was a brief silence. Hilda looked at her wrist watch. It was half past four, and the early June dawn was already outlining the trees outside the windows. When the inspector spoke again his face was grave.

  “The medical examiner sets the time of death as approximately between one and two o’clock. Nearer one, he thinks. He may be able to tell us more accurately after the autopsy. The only person known to have entered your mother’s room during that time was yourself, Mr. Fairbanks.”

  Carlton leaped to his feet.

  “I never touched her,” he said shrilly. “I thought she was asleep. Ask Miss Adams. I wasn’t in the room more than a minute or two.”

  He was in deadly earnest now, and cold sober. Hilda felt sorry for him. Of all the family, she thought, he was the only one outside of Jan who had had any affection for the old lady. Marian had resented her, had blamed her for the failure of her marriage. Susie had frankly flouted her. Even Eileen had called her an old devil.

  “You went into the room, walked around the foot of the bed, turned off the radio, came back and closed the closet door. That right?”

  “That’s right.”

  He would not change his story, and at last he was allowed to go. The inspector looked at Hilda. “True or false?” he said.

  “Partly true, anyhow. If he closed the closet door, who opened it? He’s keeping something back. Something he’s not going to tell.”

  “Any idea what it is?”

  “Not the slightest. Unless he knows his wife was outside in the rain. He’s very much in love with her.”

  He got out the knife and laid it, still in its cellophane envelope, on the table beside him.

  “Let’s show this to Maggie,” he said.

  But Maggie, having worked herself into a fine state of indignation, repudiated it at once.