I bent to pick up my cap and the pin which had slipped out from it. The cap had fallen on the rug — a handsome affair all in deep red with a touch of blue and gold: I believe it was called a Sarouk.
Strange that it was damp. That the one spot where my cap had fallen was wet to my touch.
I pushed my fingers down against the silky nap and brought them away again.
There was blood on the rug. It had soaked into the thick nap.
But it was the wrong rug.
CHAPTER V
That tragic figure lay on a rug in the library. If he’d been shot here, in the little study, he couldn’t possibly have got to the library rug before he fell. I knew that he had died at once. Why, then, was there blood on the Sarouk? And why were his eyes closed? There wasn’t any niche for either fact in the story as I had heard it; no conceivable relation to the sequence of events as they’d been rehearsed by the Thatchers and Dr. Bouligny. Yet there was blood on that rug.
The opening of the door and a strange voice — that of the sheriff, I found — saying, “Well, let’s have a look at the safe,” aroused me. Dr. Bouligny, Hilary, and the sheriff crowded into the small room and around the safe. The sheriff bent to examine it with what seemed to me a rather exaggerated air of professionalism, and I walked quietly back of them and into the library.
My footsteps on the rug were inaudible. Allen Carick did not look up until I stopped abruptly, and he became aware of my presence. He, the only one left in the room with the dead body, was kneeling beside it, going rapidly — feverishly, in fact — through the pockets of the dressing gown and trousers. And the curious thing about it was that even when he felt my astounded gaze and looked up at me he did not stop his search. He only gave me an abstractedly annoyed glance and shot a quick look at the door to the study and shifted the weight of the body a little so he could reach another pocket. Then, frowning and breathing rather quickly, he got to his feet, gave me another annoyed look, as if he didn’t like my witnessing his occupation but was too engrossed with far more urgent anxieties to do anything about it, walked swiftly to the door into the hall, and disappeared.
He must have met someone in the hall, for I heard a murmured word or two, and Emmeline appeared at the doorway ushering into the room a fat, ruddy, jolly-looking man who proved to be Frank Whiting, the local undertaker. He lost his color abruptly as he bent over the body.
I did not linger, of course, but went directly upstairs. I did, however, turn for a moment at the doorway to take a last look at Bayard Thatcher. People say a nurse grows callous to death, but it isn’t true.
At the top of the stairs I turned at once into Bayard Thatcher’s empty room. My instrument kit was in the bathroom, with various bandage scissors and my thermometer scattered about. The room was orderly, the bed smooth save for the outline made by the pressure of Bayard’s body on it early in the afternoon. I felt a little sick and dizzy as I looked at that, but even so I was quite certain about the condition of the room. Not a thing was out of place.
I went straight into the bathroom to get together the various articles of mine that lay about. The room was small, and in reaching behind the door for my bag I had closed that door. It may have taken two or three minutes to place the small articles in their respective pockets, and I remember smoothing my hair before the mirror and pinning my cap more securely on my head. I had a drink of water, too, letting it run from the faucet for some time so it would be cold. Perhaps altogether it was five or six minutes before I emerged into the bedroom again — a bedroom which looked exactly as if a hurricane had struck it.
I could not believe my eyes. The bedding was torn from the bed, the pillows out of their linen cases. Even the mattress had been pulled about. The cushions had been jerked off the chairs, every drawer in the old-fashioned dresser was out, the contents flung hurriedly about, even the rugs were flung back, and the pictures crooked on the walls.
And all this had been done in five minutes, and so silently that I, in the very next room, had heard nothing of it.
It frightened me.
There was something ruthless, something incredibly sinister in the swift, silent destruction in that room.
Without warning one of those strange moments of keen perception came upon me; one of those terrifying, chilling moments when you suddenly see yourself in relation to existence and wonder at yourself and what you are and what you desire and why — and that leave you feeling inexpressibly futile and perplexed. It is as if, for the barest moment, veils had dropped from your eyes and you caught a glimpse of reality, and there is always a feeling of apprehension, a need to grasp desperately for your sense of personal identity, as if that, too, might escape you. But this time that subconscious terror had something definite and objective to fasten upon.
All at once the house was a prison to me. I felt I must escape. I would tell Adela Thatcher that I could not stay.
Emmeline appeared on the threshold. If the frightful disorder in the room shocked her, she did not give any evidence of it.
“Miss Adela says will you come to her, please.”
I followed Emmeline. Somewhere along the hall the kaleidoscope shifted again, righted itself, and things were nearer normal. I was again Sarah Keate; was inside myself again, intact.
But still frightened.
Adela lay in the middle of an enormous old bed. Janice and Evelyn had got her into a lacy bed jacket; a glass with still a little sherry in it stood on the bedside table. There was a pink spot burning feverishly in each cheek, and her eyes were very bright. Janice sat beside her, still and white, and Evelyn, ever practical, was moving about the room, arranging clothes on delicately scented hangers, and telling Emmeline to send up a tray with dinner for Miss Adela and Miss Keate.
And again, blandly and reasonably, they overrode my protestations and persuaded me to remain. It was done without undue pressure and very deftly. “Just for a few days, Miss Keate, until we can get on our feet again,” said Evelyn at last. “This is a terrible shock to us all.”
At which Adela sighed and said faintly:
“Terrible. Terrible. I suppose it’s all over town by this time. Oh, Evelyn, what will people say?”
“Hilary stands to lose more than any of us,” said Evelyn a bit crisply.
“Oh, I can’t bear all this,” cried Janice. She rose, pushing back her dark hair with both hands in a curiously despairing gesture, and walked to the window. “How can you talk so! Of Hilary. Of what people will say. Of the effect on his bank! Suppose people do talk! What does it matter! We can’t help it. You don’t say a word of the real horror of it. The real —”
“Janice! Janice, darling! You are overwrought. You are hysterical —”
“Janice.” Evelyn took both the younger woman’s hands in her firm brown clasp and spoke with great earnestness. “You don’t know what you are saying, dear. You must try to control yourself. Think of the family name. Think of my boys. Think of —”
“Evelyn, why don’t you and Janice go into Janice’s room and try to rest? Or go downstairs and get Dave and Hilary to eat something. Evelyn —” Adela’s high-pitched, deliberate voice stopped abruptly, but she could not have said more plainly, “Get Janice out of here — before she says too much.”
The room was quiet after they left. Adela lay motionless, staring at the ceiling with blank blue eyes. I remember I moved uneasily about, taking her temperature, feeling for her pulse, from a vague notion that I must be doing something rather than from any particular need on her part for nursing care. Once or twice I caught her watching me silently, a curious look of speculation in her still blue gaze. And I marveled to find myself still in that house and thought how singular it was that I felt rather like a prisoner. Which was absurd. Yet — to be a prisoner in that house where murder had walked would be no pleasant thing.
Emmeline brought two dinner trays to the room. Her hands were still faintly purple from fruit stain, but she’d put on a fresh white apron, and her thin face was immobile. The tra
ys were daintily arranged, and I was a little astonished to find myself eating, and even to see Adela sit up against her laced pillows and touch this and that. She put the tray definitely aside when Hilary entered the room.
“No, don’t go, Miss Keate,” she said as I rose. “Stay here. Have you discovered anything, Hilary? What did the sheriff say? Had Higby seen anyone about? Sit down. You look dreadful. Did you have any dinner?”
He did look bad; his plump face was pale, and his eyes hollow, and his hands none too steady. He dropped into a chair, rubbed his eyes wearily, and said:
“Do you mind if I smoke, Adela?”
“Not at all. Not at all. What did Higby say?” And as Hilary looked at me and hesitated she added: “Don’t mind Miss Keate. Speak freely, Hilary.”
“Well,” said Hilary in a reluctant way. “Higby said there wasn’t anybody near all afternoon. That he mowed the lawn the whole afternoon and that Emmeline was in the summer kitchen, working near the window. That he didn’t stop mowing once, and of course, he was on the same side of the house as the windows to the library. He said he didn’t hear a sound except the telephone once. We asked him if the sound of the lawnmower so near him might not have muffled the sound of the shot.”
“What did he say to that?”
“He said, maybe, but he’d heard the telephone ring distinctly. That it broke off in the middle of one of the peals.”
“But he was closer to the house then,” said Adela. “He was at the edge of the lawn by late afternoon. I doubt very much if he could have heard the shot above the clatter of the lawnmower. I’ve been telling him to grease it for the last two weeks. And he’s rather stupid. I think it very likely someone could get past into the library windows, or even in the back door, without his seeing them.”
Hilary nodded.
“That’s what I told Jim Strove. Strove thought so, too. Dan Bouligny didn’t think it so likely. But Strove has sent out telephone calls to all the near-by towns. He’s doing everything he can to get a line on the thief.”
“When will they have the inquest?”
“Tomorrow. Dan said for you not to worry about it.”
Adela considered that for a long moment, while Hilary smoked nervously.
Then she said:
“Have many people called?”
Hilary nodded.
“The town’s crazy with excitement. A fellow out on Muddy Creek phoned in that there was a suspicious looking man out there, and Strove deputized a bunch of fellows and sent them out. They haven’t come back yet. And Mrs. Whiting says she saw a tramp running to catch the five-ten freight; Strove telephoned to Naper to hold him, but when the train got in the bum was gone. If there was one. You know Pearl Whiting. She’ll have everybody in town under suspicion by this time tomorrow.”
Adela nodded.
“I hope you told Frank Whiting exactly what happened.”
“Lord, yes. I’ve had Emmeline tell everybody that you were ill from shock — had a trained nurse — couldn’t see anybody. Dr. Lyman came; brought a cake from his wife. I don’t know what in hell she thought we’d want of a cake.”
“Hilary, don’t speak so. She’s your pastor’s wife, and she meant it well. Have you sent a telegram to the boys yet?”
“No,” he said rather hesitantly. “No, I haven’t. I’ll let Evelyn do it. She’s so — matter-of-fact about things. And I thought we could let the other telegrams go until morning.”
“Yes. Yes, that is right. We don’t want the house full of relatives for the funeral — I suppose we’d better get it over quite soon.”
“Yes. Yes, Adela. That’s what I thought.”
“Have you had anything to eat? You’d better try to eat. And Hilary — where is Dave?”
Hilary examined his cigarette carefully.
“He’s in his room, Adela. Dan gave him something to make him sleep. Quiet his nerves. Dave, you know,” he continued, turning in an explanatory way to me, “is a sort of invalid. Has been for years. Not well at all. Anything like this — a shock of any kind — and his nerves go all to pieces.”
“Indeed.” It occurred to me that Hilary’s own nerves were none too good.
He sat in silence for some time after that, and finally left. Just as he reached the door Adela said a peculiar thing.
“Don’t let Dave —” she paused, touched me with her eyes and said — “don’t let Dave go to the cemetery tomorrow.” She stopped again, and then added, “The sun is bad for him.”
I couldn’t see Hilary’s face. He said:
“Very well. I’ll be up again with Dan before you go to sleep.”
The soft summer night came on slowly. Presently I lighted the shaded lamp on the table. Adela lay without speaking. She had in her hands a long string of turquoise beads, and I remember how she twisted them, pulling them through her fingers, playing with them absently. They made a bright varying patch of blue against the white sheet and her laces. Her eyes looked a little like the beads.
Between nine and ten o’clock Dr. Bouligny and Hilary came again to the room. This time, finding they still had not eaten, Adela asked me to go and tell Emmeline to bring up some coffee and sandwiches. I did so willingly enough.
And it was owing to that that I inadvertently caught a glimpse of that sad and tragic complication which, unsuspected by anyone, played such an important part in the dreadful entanglement of human motives and relationships of which Bayard’s murder and the shocking things that followed it were the prolonged climax. I say unsuspected by anyone: I must make an exception there. I’ve always thought that Evelyn knew of it almost from the beginning, and with her hard common sense recognized it as a factor to be taken into account; she allowed for it, I’m sure, with a sort of mathematical precision, and did not try to brush it aside or propound a fanciful and impractical solution as a more imaginative or even a more sensitive woman might have done. Toward the end, even, she was frankly sympathetic, although she always deplored it; perhaps she permitted herself sympathy because she knew so well that Janice possessed the unbending loyalty and pride that Evelyn herself possessed.
It was only a glimpse I had that night, but it was a glimpse of something real and touching.
All the lights were blazing through the wide rooms. I had found Emmeline, managed to make my message heard, and left her slicing bread and measuring coffee, and I was returning to the stairway. I felt rather uneasy as I passed the open library door; there was a bare space on the floor near the table, where the rug on which Bayard had lain had been rolled up and taken away, probably to be cleaned. I was thinking how strangely empty and lonely all those brightly lighted rooms were when the screen door leading to the dark porch opened and two figures entered the light of the hall. They did not see me; I was at some distance, and they were directly under a light.
They were Janice and Allen Carick. And now that I’ve come to tell it I find that after all there is very little to tell. The significance lay entirely in their look, and that was only a kind of stillness, as if they shared some tremendous and vital understanding. They didn’t speak; they just stood there for a moment. Then Allen put out his arms, and I thought he was going to take Janice into them. He took her hands, however, instead, and looked at them for a moment as if he might never see them again in all the world, and then held them against his eyes. And Janice lifted her face with all its beauty in full flame, and yet so white and spent-looking that I did not see how the man could gently relinquish her hands and step back. But he did just that, although he too was white under his tan, and he watched her turn and mount the stairs with a look of such sheer agony in his young eyes that I felt indecent witnessing it. Then he was gone; beyond the screen I saw his hand on the latch and then heard his quick steps across the porch.
It had lasted only a moment. And I felt shaken and pitiful, as if I had seen the sacrifice of something living and very lovely.
Which was, I told myself impatiently as I continued on my way, not only sentimental and maudlin, it was entir
ely without morals on my part. While I have never married and in all likelihood never shall, still I have my views about matrimony. I have always felt that flirtatiousness in a married woman is due to a sort of compound of vanity, idleness, and not enough spankings as a child.
But that moment in the hall had been real. And I suppose people do fall in love sometimes whether they want to or not. And how can they know it until it’s happened?
This untimely reflection threatened my own self-respect, and it was with further chagrin that I found I had brought up at the door of the room which had been Bayard Thatcher’s with my hand on the doorknob.
I drew it away sharply. The hall was long and empty and but dimly lighted. Was it only last night that I’d stood there watching in that mirror the reflection of a door closing? Since then murder had been at large in the silent house. Had ravaged the peace of a summer day; had charged the tranquil dignity of the house with fear and violence.
Where there’s been murder there will be murder.
As if by physical motion I could remove myself from that unwelcome thought, I stirred and walked hurriedly to Adela’s door, knocked, and at her word entered.
It was not more than an hour later that I came upon the letter.
Dr. Bouligny, in leaving, had ordered me to give Adela a rather heavy opiate to insure her rest during the long hours of the night, and I was fumbling in my instrument bag for the case which held a hypodermic needle when my fingers encountered an envelope, tucked well out of sight. It was not addressed. I opened it and took out the sheet of paper it held.
It was part of a letter. I never knew exactly why it was in my bag, although I was to surmise with, I think, a fair degree of accuracy. I did not realize what it was until I’d read a portion of it, and then I could not stop. Not that I’m making apology for what I did; still, it was quite evidently a letter meant for only one pair of eyes. The first of it was gone; the written words leaped to my gaze:
“… freedom and taking love when it comes and living your own life. But it’s all wrong. It doesn’t take into account — well, just integrity. One’s measures of honesty and pride. I can’t leave Dave. Though God knows I’ve reason to, poor Dave.
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