Then, for the first time in her life, Hilda fainted. The inspector caught her as she fell.
Chapter 27
Two nights later Inspector Fuller was sitting in Hilda’s small neat living-room. The canary was covered in his cage, and the lamplight was warm on the blue curtains at the windows and on the gay chintz-covered chairs. Hilda was knitting, looking—he thought—as she always did, blandly innocent. Only her eyes showed the strain of the past two weeks.
“Why did you do it, Hilda?” he said. “Why did you telephone her that night?”
“I was sorry for her,” said Hilda. “I didn’t want her to go to the chair.”
“She wouldn’t have done that. After all, a prospective mother—”
“But you see she wasn’t,” said Hilda. “That was her excuse to get into the house.”
He stared at her.
“How on earth did you know?”
Hilda looked down at her knitting.
“There are signs,” she said evasively. “And it’s easy to say you have a pain. Nobody can say you haven’t.”
“But Garrison didn’t deny it.”
“What could he do? She was his wife, even if he hadn’t lived with her for years. I suppose he had suspected her all along, after the arsenic. I knew he was watching her. He’d followed her there at night, maybe when she went to see Ida. In the grounds, perhaps.”
“Then she knew about the agreement? That if Mrs. Fairbanks died the alimony ceased?”
She nodded.
“He must have told her. If they quarreled and she taunted him because he was hard up he might, you know.”
“How did she get the arsenic into the sugar?”
“Maggie says she came to the house the day before Marian and her mother returned from Florida. Jan was home by that time. She came to see her. But Mrs. Fairbanks’s tray was in the pantry, and she went there for a glass of water. She could have done it then.”
“But the poison didn’t kill Mrs. Fairbanks. So then it was the terror. That’s it, of course.”
“The terror. Yes. Ida had told her about the hole in the wall, and—I think she had something on Ida. Maybe an illegitimate child. There was a boy at the farm, and Eileen’s people lived nearby. She’d have known.”
“It was the boy who brought in the bats and the rest of the zoo, including the snake?”
“Well, I can’t think of any other way,” Hilda said meekly. “She may have told him she sold them, or something. Of course it was Ida who got Eileen the position as Jan’s governess.”
“And got a cup of poisoned tea as a reward!”
“She got the five hundred dollars, too. Don’t forget that. In new bills that Mrs. Fairbanks gave Eileen the night before she was murdered. Maybe Eileen bought her off with them. Maybe she just kept them. I don’t know. But she couldn’t stand for the stabbing anyhow, poor thing. Remember how she looked the next morning? And she must have had the phonograph in her room while we were there. She must have been scared out of her wits. It wasn’t until later that she took it to the loft, under the blankets, and hid it there.”
“Where Eileen retrieved it the next night. And nearly killed Jan. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Hilda looked thoughtful. “It’s odd, but I saw her. I didn’t know who it was, of course. I raised the window and she was across Huston Street. She pretended to be calling a dog.”
He got up, and lifting a corner of the cover, looked at the bird. It gazed back at him with small bright eyes, and he dropped the cover again.
“You’re a funny woman, Hilda,” he said. “In your heart you’re a purely domestic creature. And yet—well, let’s get back to Eileen. How and when did she use this radio-phonograph? Have you any idea?”
“I knew she had it,” she said modestly. “I found the man who sold it to her. She said it was to go to the country, so he showed her how to use it. As for the rest, I think she killed Mrs. Fairbanks and set the dial by her bed while the doctor was with Jan. Then he gave her the hypodermic and left her. That’s when the music started. He was in the hall.”
“Where did she have the thing?”
“Anywhere. Under the bed, probably. There’s a baseboard outlet there. She let it play until Carlton went in and turned off his mother’s radio. If he hadn’t she would have stopped it herself. She didn’t even have to get out of bed to do it. But of course things went wrong. I was there, in the hall. She hadn’t counted on my staying there every minute. And Ida was busy with Marian. I suppose that’s why she fainted when she did. She hadn’t got rid of the machine, and I’d found the body. She had thought she had until morning.”
“So it was there under the bed when you searched her room!”
“It was nothing of the sort,” she said indignantly.
“All right, I’ll bite. Where was it?”
“Hanging outside her window on a rope.”
He looked at her with admiration, not unmixed with something else.
“As I may have said before, Hilda, you’re a smart woman,” he said, smiling. “My safe looks like a rummage sale. I’ll present you with some of the stuff if you like. But I’d give a good bit to know why you interfered with the law and telephoned her.”
“Because she hadn’t killed Jan,” Hilda said. “She could have, but she didn’t.”
“What did you say over the phone? That all was discovered?”
She went a little pale, but her voice was steady.
“I really didn’t tell her anything,” she said. “I merely asked her if she still had her remote-control radio-phonograph. She didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she said no, she’d given it away.”
There were tears in her eyes. He got up and going over to her, put his hand on her shoulder. “Oh, subtle little Miss Pinkerton,” he said. “Lovable and clever and entirely terrible Miss Pinkerton! What am I to do about you? I’m afraid to take you, and I can’t even leave you alone.”
He looked down at her, her soft skin, her prematurely graying hair, her steady blue eyes.
“See here,” he said awkwardly, “Jan and young Brooke are going to be married. Susie and Carlton Fairbanks are going on a second honeymoon, looking for a farm. And unless I miss my guess Frank Garrison and Marian will remarry eventually. I’d hate like hell to join that crew of lovebirds, but—you won’t object if I come around now and then? Unprofessionally, of course, little Miss Pinkerton.”
She smiled up at him.
“I’d prefer even that to being left alone,” she said.
After he had gone she sat still for a long time. Then she determinedly took a long hot bath, using plenty of bath salts, and shampooed her short, slightly graying hair. Once more she looked rather a rosy thirty-eight-year-old cherub, and she was carefully rubbing lotion into her small but capable hands when the telephone rang. She looked desperately about her, at the books she wanted to read, at her soft bed, and through the door to her small cheerful sitting-room with the bird sleeping in its cage. Then she picked up the receiver.
“Miss Pinkerton speaking,” she said, and on hearing the inspector’s voice was instantly covered with confusion.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Hilda Adams Mysteries
I
The night it happened Mother was giving a dinner party for the Mayor. I had no idea why she was giving a party for the Mayor. So far as I knew she had never even seen the man. But I knew what nobody else did that night. It was what you might call her last fling. Although the news wasn’t out, she had offered the place to the government for a convalescent home, and after six months it had been accepted.
Mother is just Mother, and my brother Larry and I let it go at that. She has her own idea of how to amuse herself. Once I remember she brought out a part of the circus for a charity benefit, and it took three years to repair the lawns.
I must say the farewell party was quite in character. We managed to seat two hundred people hither and yon, and when a mounted policeman took his place in the driveway and
the Mayor drove up with a screaming escort of motorcycle officers, there was a whole battery of photographers outside the gates. They had not been allowed inside, and from a distance it looked like summer lightning, all flash and no noise.
That was the point of the whole business. Nobody was allowed inside the grounds without being identified, and Alma Spencer, Mother’s friend, companion, secretary and general watchdog, checked the guests off her lists as they entered the house. It appeared that the Mayor had been threatened with assassination or something of the sort, and he was making the most of it. The result was a policeman at all the doors except the front one, and the mounted policeman was to keep an eye on that.
Not that the Mayor was assassinated. He is still alive and running for office again. But I just want to point out that the house was a fortress that night.
Well, the party ended, as everything must eventually. I had loathed it from start to finish. Larry had been frankly bored, and only Mother seemed her usual self. I can still see her, standing in the wreck of the house after the sirens had shrieked away and the last guest had gone. It was a warmish October night, and she was in the marble rotunda which the architect playfully called our hall. Someone had had the idea of dipping the goldfish out of the basin around the fountain with a soft hat and putting them in a champagne bucket. I remember rescuing them, torpid from the melted ice but still alive.
Mother had stepped out of her slippers, which let her down to her normal five feet two inches, and she had taken off her diamond collar, which has been too tight for the last ten years, and was holding it in her hand.
“I think it went pretty well,” she said complacently.
Alma was beside her. She had the usual pad in her hand, and she looked exhausted. Somewhere the caterer’s men were folding up tables and extra chairs, and she jumped at every bang. Larry was in the men’s room, looking for his hat.
“There has been some breakage,” Alma said. “That drunken waiter dropped a tray of cocktails. But the silver is all here.”
“What on earth did you expect?” Mother inquired sharply. “I don’t invite people who steal spoons.”
Alma raised her eyebrows. She had rather handsome eyebrows. And I remember I laughed. Matters were not helped either by Larry, who came back scowling from the men’s room. He hadn’t found his hat, and he pounced on the one by the fountain.
“Well, for God’s sake!” he said. “If that’s mine …”
It wasn’t, however. He picked it up and looked at it. It was a dreadful hat. It had been a poor thing even before it had been wet. It had no sweatband in it, and now it smelled of fish. Larry put it down distastefully. But Mother wasn’t interested in hats at the moment.
“Where was Isabel tonight, Larry?” she said.
Larry grinned at her. “You know she never comes to your brawls, Mother.”
Mother stiffened. “I resent that word,” she told him indignantly.
But she is never really angry with Larry. He is tall and very good-looking, especially in full evening dress as he was then.
He stooped over and kissed her. “Sorry,” he said. “She didn’t feel well. I told Alma in plenty of time. Isabel hasn’t been up to much for the last week or two.”
Mother glanced at him hopefully. She has always thought she would like a grandchild to dandle on her knee, but personally I thought she would be bored to death with one. Larry however was not looking at her. He went back to look for his hat again, and Mother sat down. The house was quieter by that time. As it is about the size of the White House in Washington there was a lot of it to be quiet. I watched the goldfish. They were beginning to recover.
“I do think Isabel might have made an effort,” Mother said rather plaintively. “After all I’ve done for her and Larry.”
Well, of course it hadn’t been necessary for her to do anything for either of them. Isabel had a lot of money of her own, and so had Larry. I have always thought that the reason she built them a house on our grounds was to keep Larry close at hand. But she had built the house, and that is the story. Not that she was jealous of Isabel. Deep in her heart she was proud of her. It was not only that she was lovely to look at. I had disappointed Mother in that, having only the usual assortment of features. But Isabel had been a Leland, and to be a Leland meant something.
It meant belonging to the conservative group in town, the people who lived elegantly but quietly in their hideous old redbrick houses, exchanged calls, gave stuffy dinners with wonderful food and—at least until the war—drove about in ancient high limousines.
Not that Mother wasn’t wellborn. She was, but our money had come from trade, and to the Lelands trade was simply out. Not even Strathmore House, built on the edge of town on what once had been my grandfather’s country place before the city grew up around it, had wiped out the smell of wholesale groceries years ago. It was just as well—Mother would rather have died than be conventional.
Larry did not find his hat, and came back scowling.
“Nice crowd you had here,” he said. “Somebody traded in my new opera hat for that thing on the floor.”
Alma looked unhappy.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I suppose it’s my fault. I found it on the floor in a back hall and sent it to the men’s room. It wasn’t wet then, of course.”
Larry picked it up gingerly.
“You owe me for a hat,” he said to Mother. “I’ll take this home to remind you of it. And to show Isabel what she missed!”
Mother yawned.
“She missed a good dinner,” she said.
She had relaxed by that time. She put out her feet and inspected them. They looked small and swollen, and vaguely pathetic. Larry saw them, and leaning over patted her bare shoulder.
“All right, old girl,” he said. “Forget it. Go to bed and get some sleep.”
I went out with him. The driveway was empty now, and the early fall air felt cool. It was dark, because of the dimout. The only light was from the open door behind us. I remember leaning against a pillar, and Larry’s putting an arm around me.
“Pretty bad, wasn’t it?” he said.
“Awful.”
“Don didn’t come?”
“No. He’s like Isabel. He doesn’t like our brawls.”
No use telling him I had called Donald Scott myself and asked him. No use telling him the night had been a total loss for me because Don had refused. Politely, of course. Don is always polite. Anyhow, Larry wasn’t interested. He stood looking down toward his house, which stood not far from the gate at the foot of the lawn.
“Look, Judy,” he said. “You and Isabel get along pretty well, don’t you?”
“I like her. I don’t know how well she likes me. She’s not demonstrative.”
“Still, you do go around together.”
“Oh, that. Yes. She likes Alma better, you know.”
He seemed embarrassed. He got out a cigarette and gave me one.
“Have you noticed any change in her lately?” he asked. “I’ve thought she was looking tired. She doesn’t say anything. You know the Lelands. They don’t talk about themselves. But there’s something wrong.”
“She’s thinner. I’ve noticed that. I’m like Mother. I wondered if she was going to have a baby.”
He shook his head.
“It’s not that,” he said. “I wish to God she’d talk to me if anything is bothering her.”
He went off down the drive and I went inside. Patrick, the butler, was reporting when I got back. He looked old, tired, and disapproving. He said there was a hole burned in the Aubusson carpet in the Reynolds room, and someone had spilled a cocktail in the piano. Luckily he had got rid of the drunken waiter without trouble. What he meant, I gathered, was that he hadn’t been so lucky with some of the guests.
Like Alma, he seemed exhausted. After all he has been with Mother for thirty years, from birth to brawl, as Larry put it, and he was fully seventy. But his dignity was unimpaired. He looked around at the wreckage of the
big drawing room, much as Williams, the head gardener, had looked at his lawns after the circus, and he said much the same thing.
“After all, madam, with a crowd of people like that …”
Only Williams had said animals.
I sat down on the edge of the pool. I was a casualty too. Someone had stepped on the skirt of my white chiffon and torn it. But I didn’t mention it. What was the use? For months I had been trying to get into the WAACS or the WAVES and I was expecting to be called anytime. I supposed there would be hell to pay, but at least I was through with evening clothes. I looked at Mother. She was tired, but she somehow seemed even more complacent than usual. After Patrick had gone she spoke to me.
“I have something to tell you, Judy,” she said. “And Alma too. I hope you agree with me. I think you will. The fact is—”
She never finished that sentence. Patrick had left the front door open to air the hall, and we all heard someone running up the drive. It was Larry. When he got to the top of the steps he was staggering, and had to clutch the side of the doorway for support. He looked at us as if he had never seen us before.
“What is it, Larry?” Mother said. “Is something wrong?”
“Isabel!” he said. “She’s dead.”
Mother stood still. She was quite white under the liquid powder and rouge she insists on using, but her voice was calm.
“I’m sure you’re wrong,” she said. “She may have fainted. Get him a chair, Judy. And Alma, bring some brandy.”
She asked no questions. She simply stood by Larry and waited until he had had the brandy. Even then she was calm, except that her plump small body was quivering. Then she said, “Can you tell me about it, son?”
“She’s dead. That’s all I can tell you.” He got up, and looked around himself wildly. “I’ve got to call the police.”
“The police?”
“She’s been murdered,” he said, and staggered toward the library.
II
I thought I had seen Mother in action before. The time the boxing kangaroo she had brought for a children’s party got excited and began knocking the kids over one by one, for instance. I was one of the kids, so I remember. Before I could speak she told Alma to look after him. Then she was out the front door and running down the driveway in her stocking feet. She almost beat me to Larry’s house. I caught up to her finally and yelped at her to remember her blood pressure, and we entered the house together.
The Haunted Lady Page 21