She felt exceedingly foolish as he passed her with his usual impeccable dignity, but in doing so he dropped one of the shoes. She picked it up and looked at it. It was an old tan one, with a smear of white paint across the toe, and the ones Carlton had worn that morning had been black. There could be no doubt of it. She could see him now, his black shoes, his morning coat and striped trousers, as he moved from room to room, carrying his cigar box and hammer, and later the small can of white paint.
William had not noticed. He thanked her and went out, and she turned off the light behind him. She did not go out, however. She stood still until she heard him going down the back stairs. Then she closed the door, fumbled for a box of matches and getting down on her knees, began systematically to examine the row of neatly treed shoes on the closet floor.
She did not hear the door opening behind her. Only when the light went on did she realize that Carlton had come into the room. She turned, still on her knees, the smoldering match in her hand, to see him coming at her, his face contorted, the veins on his forehead swollen with fury.
For a moment she thought he was going to attack her. She got up quickly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was in your mother’s room, and I heard a noise in here. I thought it might be another rat.”
He did not believe her. She saw that. He took a step or two toward her and stopped.
“Aren’t you through here? In this house?” he said, his voice thick with anger. “My mother doesn’t need you anymore. Eileen Garrison has gone. Are you supposed to stay indefinitely, snooping around about what doesn’t concern you?”
“Are you so sure it doesn’t concern me?” she inquired. “The police sent me here, at your mother’s request. And they haven’t released me yet. I assure you I am more than willing to go.”
He got himself under control with difficulty. He walked past her and closed the closet door. When he faced her again his voice was more normal.
“At least I can ask you to keep out of the family rooms,” he said. “There are no rats in the house, and if anything of this sort happens again I advise you to notify the servants.”
She left with such dignity as she could muster. As she opened the door of her room she heard again the soft slithering sound she had heard before, but she was too shaken to investigate it. She stood at her window for some time, trying to think. It was very black outside. With the disappearance of the crowd the guards had evidently been removed, for by the light of the lamp on Huston Street she could see no one there. The stable was dark, as though Amos was either out or asleep.
She was astonished when the luminous dial of her watch showed only ten o’clock.
She was still there a few minutes later when Marian rapped at her door and slipped inside.
“Don’t turn on the light,” she said. “It’s too hot. Miss Adams, you were here. You saw it all. Who did it? Who killed my mother?”
Hilda could not see her. She was only a vague figure in the room, but her voice was hard and strained.
“I wish I knew, Mrs. Garrison.”
“That woman—why did she come here?”
“I think Mrs. Fairbanks had told her—”
“Nonsense,” Marian said sharply. “She had some purpose of her own. That statement that Frank was with me! I suppose she was after money. Did Mother give her any?”
“I wasn’t in the room. She may have.”
Marian took a case from the pocket of her housecoat and lit a cigarette. In the light from the match she looked more haggard than ever, but it was Jan’s eyes, dark and tragic, that looked out from her raddled face.
“I don’t understand anything,” she said. “Why did they put her in my room? The whole third floor was empty. And why have the police taken the screen from one of my windows? They have it, haven’t they?”
“There is a chance somebody got into the house last night through that window,” Hilda said guardedly. “I found it open. It could have been done from the roof of the porte-cochere. It was only a hook, and the blade of a knife—Or, of course, it might have been opened from within, by someone in the room.”
Marian dropped her cigarette.
“Oh, God!” she said. “Frank, of course. They think it was Frank, and she let him in! Have they arrested him yet?”
“No. They’ve talked to him. That’s all.”
“They will arrest him,” she said in a flat voice. “Jan says he was outside. They will arrest him, and what defense has he? He could have climbed to the roof. He’s very strong. I’ve seen him do it, on a bet. They’ll say she let him into her room and hid him there. But he didn’t do it, Miss Adams. He cared for my mother. He was the kindest man on earth. He’s had the patience of God himself, and I ruined his life. I was a jealous fool. I let him go. I made him go. So now—”
Hilda let her talk. Mentally she was back at the window of Marian’s room the night before, and something was whipping about in the wind outside. She looked at Marian.
“When I closed the screen in your room last night, before I found your mother, there was a light rope fastened to one of the outside shutters. Do you know anything about it?”
“A rope? Something that could be climbed? Good heavens, are you trying to say that Frank—”
“It wasn’t strong enough for that. Or long enough. I just wondered about it.”
But Marian was vague.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “It might have been there for years. I don’t remember it.”
Hilda went back with her to her room. It had changed, she thought, since Eileen was in it. The bed had a silk cover and small bright-colored pillows. The dressing-table where Eileen had so defiantly made up her face only a few hours ago still had the gold toilet set, but it was crowded now with creams and perfumes. A silver fox scarf had been tossed on a chair, and sheer undergarments, unpacked but not put away, lay on the chaise longue.
“Ida wasn’t well,” Marian said indifferently. “I sent her to bed.”
She had apparently forgotten the rope. But Hilda looked for it, raising the window to do so. It was gone. Marian shrugged when she told her.
“Maybe you only imagined it.”
“I didn’t imagine it,” said Hilda dryly.
Back in her room she tried to fit the pieces of the puzzle together, but she got nowhere. The rope had been there. Now it was gone. It must be important, must mean something. Had Eileen taken it away, and if so why? Or had someone in the house removed it? Not Carlton. He had been away after Eileen left and Marian arrived. Not Jan. She had gone to see Eileen and had not come back. Susie? She was quite capable of it, if it was important. She would have no scruples, Susie. But why would it be important? A rope and a bit of white paint on a tan shoe. They must fit somehow. Or did they?
She felt the need of action. For days, she thought, things had been going on around her. Not only the murder; small stealthy movements, doors opening and closing, people talking and saying nothing, going out and coming in, and always she had been merely the watcher, seeing but not comprehending. The night Carlton had carried the bundle from the stable, the figure at the top of the stairs, the open screen in Eileen’s room, and now—of all silly things—a missing rope.
She looked across. Susie’s light was on. It showed over the transom, and she went over and knocked lightly at the door. But she did not go into the room. Standing there she could hear Susie crying, childish sobs that were as unrestrained as everything else about her.
She got her flashlight from her suitcase and went down the stairs. The doctor’s car had just driven in. There was no mistaking its rattle, or the cough of its ancient engine. Young Brooke did not come into the house, however. Jan opened the door and stood there, her voice cool.
“I don’t understand you. That’s all,” she said.
“I’ve told you. I’m not living off any woman. You’re going to have money now, and I’m peculiar about money.” His voice was stubborn. “I’ll support my own wife, or I won’t have one.”
> “I wouldn’t use the money, Court.”
“There’s where you’re wrong, my darling. You think you wouldn’t. You think you’d go hungry and without shoes. You wouldn’t. I watched you this afternoon and tonight, cleaning up the mess at your stepmother’s. You didn’t like it, did you? And that’s luxury, my child. One week of boiled beef and cabbage—”
“You can’t see anything but your perfectly sickening pride, can you?” said Jan, and closed the door on him.
Hilda went back to the kitchen. Unless the police had taken the rope it must be somewhere in the house, or in the yard. She tried the trash cans and the garbage pails outside without result. Then rather reluctantly she went down to the basement. It was enormous. She did not like to turn on the lights, and her flash made only a small pool of illumination in the darkness. There was rope there, a large coil of it for some reason in a preserve closet, but it was thick and heavy.
When she did find it it was in the furnace. A small fire had been built around it at some time, but it was only charred, not consumed. She pulled it out and turned the light on it, some eight feet of thin blackened rope, which must be important since someone had attempted to destroy it. She went back over the night before when she had seen it, Eileen asleep in her bed, the pouring rain, the slapping screen. And Susie in the hall, drenched to the skin.
She felt the ashes in the furnace. They were still faintly warm. Quite recently, then—within two or three hours—someone had tried to destroy it. She tried to think what it meant, but she was tired. She had slept a little that afternoon and since then she had been going around in circles.
Nobody saw her as she carried it upstairs. She wrapped it in a piece of newspaper and laid it in the top of her suitcase. Maybe tomorrow her mind would be clearer, or the inspector would fit it into his puzzle. All she wanted now was to go to bed.
She undressed by the open window, for the sake of the breeze. That was how she happened to see Jan when she left the house. Even in the darkness there was no mistaking her slim figure, the easy grace with which she moved. On her way to Courtney Brooke, she thought comfortably. To make it up, to say she was sorry, to effect a compromise between his pride and her own. Then she stared. Jan was not crossing Huston Street. There was no sign of her under the street light. She had gone into the stable.
Hilda never quite understood the fear which made her snatch up a dressing-gown and her flashlight and follow her. The lights were out in the lower hall, but the door to the porte-cochere was open. She was in her bare feet as she ran across the grass. Once at the stable, however, she began to feel foolish. The doors to the garage were closed and Amos’s windows overhead were dark. There was no sound to be heard, and it was not until she turned on her light that she saw the door to the staircase standing open. She stepped inside and looked up. It seemed to her that there was a small flickering light above in the loft.
Then it came, a crash from overhead that sounded as though the roof had fallen in. She was too shocked to move at first. She stood still, staring up. Her voice when it came sounded thin and cracked.
“Jan!” she called. “Jan! Are you there?”
There was no answer, and she ran up the stairs. At the top she turned the flashlight into the loft.
Jan was lying without moving on the floor, blood streaming from a cut on her forehead, and the heavy ladder was lying beside her.
Chapter 19
She was not dead. That was the first thing Hilda ascertained. Her pulse was rapid but strong, and she was breathing regularly; and Hilda’s heart, which had been trying to choke her, settled back into its proper place. The cause of the accident seemed obvious. For some reason Jan had used the ladder to reach the cupola, and it had slipped. The cut was from an old birdcage on the floor beside her.
Hilda’s first impulse was to go to the house for help. Amos was evidently out. His door was standing open and his rooms dark. But she felt an odd reluctance to leaving the girl there alone. She made her way across the small landing into Amos’s rooms and turning on the lights, found the bathroom. There she got a clean towel and a basin of water, and was turning back when she heard the far door quietly closing.
At first she thought it had closed itself. She put down the basin and towel and pulled at it. It did not yield, however, and at last she realized that it was locked. Someone had reached in while the water was running, taken out the key and locked it from the outside.
Hilda was frantic. She beat on the door, but there was only silence beyond. Then her practical, rational mind began to assert itself. She opened a window and looked out. There was no one in sight save a woman whistling for a dog across Huston Street, and the distance was too great for her to drop. But there must be some method of communication with the house. She looked about, and found a house telephone beside Amos’s bed. Even then she was not too hopeful. It probably rang in the kitchen or back hall, and the household was upstairs. To her relief, however, it was answered almost at once.
Carlton’s voice, sounding resentful, came over the wire.
“What the hell’s the matter, Amos?” he said. “Place on fire?”
“It’s Hilda Adams, Mr. Fairbanks,” she told him. “Jan’s had an accident in the stable loft, and I’m locked in.”
His reaction was slow.
“What do you mean, you’re locked in?”
“Someone has locked me in Amos’s rooms. And Jan’s hurt. She’s in the loft. I don’t know what’s happening, but hurry. I—”
He did not wait for her to finish. From the window she saw him emerge from the house and come running across the lawn, his dressing-gown flapping around his legs. She stood inside the door as he climbed the stairs, but he went on to the loft. There was a brief silence, while he scratched a match or two. Then his voice, outside the door.
“She must have fallen,” he said. “I’ll get Brooke.”
“Don’t leave her there,” she said. “Not alone. I don’t think she fell. There’s someone around, Mr. Fairbanks. She’s not badly hurt. Not yet anyhow. But don’t leave her.”
“What on earth am I to do?”
“Look around for the key. It may be out there, or on the stairs.”
He found it finally. It had been dropped just outside the door. But he had used his last match. When Hilda emerged it was into darkness, and the loft also was dark.
“My flashlight,” she said. “I left it here.”
“No light when I got here. See if Amos has a candle, or matches. I’ll get the doctor.”
She felt her way to Jan. She was still unconscious, but when Hilda touched her she moved slightly. She sat down on the floor beside her in the dark, and she was still there when Carlton came back, bringing Courtney Brooke with him.
After that there was a good bit of confusion. The two men carried Jan to the house, the family was roused, and Susie, to everybody’s discomfiture, went into violent hysterics. Hilda gave her a good whiff of household ammonia and Susie, choking for breath, came out of it. She looked up, tears streaming from her eyes.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “I knew I ought to tell. But Carl—”
“What should you have told?”
Susie did not say. She closed her eyes and went into a stubborn silence.
Across the hall Courtney was sitting beside Jan’s bed, holding an ice pack to her head. Instead of a shirt he wore the coat of his pajamas, and his face was grim.
“Someone tried to kill her,” he said. “She fell first. Then she was struck with the flashlight. There is blood on it.”
Marian stared at him from across the bed, her face filled with horror.
“But who would do that to her?” she demanded. “Who would want to kill her?” She leaned over the bed. “Jan. Jan! Who hurt you? What happened to you?”
“I’d let her alone,” he said. “She is coming out of it. The quieter she is the better. She’ll be all right, Mrs. Garrison.”
At midnight Frank Garrison arrived. Carlton, telephoning wildly, had finally lo
cated him at his club. He came into the room, his tall figure seeming to fill it, and Marian went pale when she saw him.
“What are you doing here?”
“She is my child, Marian,” he said politely.
“You deserted her. You deserted us both.”
He ignored that. He asked about Jan, and Courtney gave him his place beside the bed. Marian got up, her face a tortured mask.
“You are driving me out of this room. You know that, don’t you? Why don’t you go back to your woman? Jan is nothing to you. Less than nothing.”
“Sit down, Marian,” he said gravely. “This is our girl. We have at least that in common. And be quiet. I think she is coming out of it.”
But Jan, coming out of it, was not much help. After her first wondering gaze around the room she simply said that her head ached, and after that she went to sleep. She was still sleeping when at three in the morning her father left the house, and the doctor sent Hilda to bed.
“She’s all right,” he said. “She’ll have a day or two in bed, but that’s all. You’d better get some sleep. You look as though you need it. I’m staying anyhow.”
She slept for three hours. Then she got up and put on her uniform. In Jan’s room Courtney Brooke was asleep, as was Jan herself, and she went downstairs and let herself out without disturbing anyone.
At the stable Amos had returned. Even before she climbed the stairs she heard him snoring. A dim light from the cupola showed her the loft as they had left it; the ladder lying across the floor, the trunks, the broken furniture. But lying where Jan’s body had fallen was something she had not noticed the night before, a large piece of unbleached muslin some four feet square. She picked it up and examined it. It looked fairly new, and it had certainly not been there when Amos showed her the loft some days before.
She put it down and was stooping over the ladder when Amos appeared. He had pulled a pair of trousers over his nightshirt, and he was in a bad humor.
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