Episode of the Wandering Knife

by Rinehart, Mary Roberts;

  “We’ve had a letter from my father,” she observed. “He’s not coming home after all. Things in the Pacific have changed. Everything is moving fast now.”

  “That must be rather a blow,” Hilda said drily, and saw Tony flush.

  “It has rather upset Mother,” she said. “She was counting on seeing him soon. But he’s a soldier. He wouldn’t want to miss anything even if he could.”

  Hilda made her way upstairs. To her surprise Nina’s door was open and her room empty. And as she reached the upper hall she heard voices in Alice’s room. Evidently Nina was there, and equally evidently the sisters-in-law were quarreling. Nina’s voice was raised and shrill.

  “You’re having her watched,” she said stormily. “That’s why the nurse is here, isn’t it? First a psychiatrist, now a nurse. What are you trying to do? Prove she’s crazy?”

  Alice’s voice was hard.

  “I think you’re hysterical,” she said. “You can’t blame me because Charles isn’t coming home. As for Tony, if you think it’s normal for a girl to shoot at her own mother …”

  “She never shot at me, and you know it. She had the gun and it went off in her hand. She’d never fired one in her life before.”

  “She did pretty well, in that case,” Alice said drily.

  “Just remember, you found her. She doesn’t remember anything about it. It’s your story, not hers. And I’m no fool, Alice.” Nina’s voice was still high. “I know you don’t want us here. I begged Charles to make other arrangements, but he said you would be hurt if he did. If he’d only come home …”

  Hilda heard Tony coming up with Nina’s breakfast tray and had only time to duck into her own room. When some time later she went back to her patient she found her indignant and highly nervous. She looked up at Hilda resentfully.

  “Nina’s been here,” she said. “She thinks I’m trying to have Tony put away.”

  “And are you?” Hilda asked bluntly.

  Alice looked shocked.

  “Certainly not. But I am worried. She may do something dangerous, to herself or someone else.”

  “I suppose,” Hilda said, “there’s no chance Mrs. Rowland had the gun that night and Tony tried to take it from her?”

  Alice laughed.

  “To shoot herself?” she said bitterly. “With looks like that? And a husband who adores her? I assure you she likes to live, Miss Adams. She likes clothes and money. She’s fond of herself, too. She’s had a wonderful life. While I …”

  She did not finish, and Hilda, going methodically about her work that morning, realized that there were undercurrents in the house which were being carefully concealed from her. Nevertheless in spite of the quarrel between the two women the day was better than the preceding one. After she had settled her patient with a book that afternoon she wandered down to the kitchen.

  Tony was out, and Stella was pouring milk out of a bottle for the cat. She gave Hilda a curt good afternoon. Hilda merely nodded and sat down.

  “I want to ask you about the night of the shooting,” she said without preamble. “What do you know about it?”

  “Me? Nothing. I heard the shots and came down. So did Aggie.”

  “Is that all?”

  “I don’t know what you mean, miss.”

  “Who attended to Mrs. Rowland’s arm that night?”

  “Her arm? I never heard anything about her arm. What was wrong with it?”

  Hilda watched her, but Stella’s thin face was impassive. She tried again.

  “How often do you find that something’s been burned in your stove when you come down in the morning, Stella?”

  This time Stella gave her a sharp look and turned away.

  “My stove’s the way I leave it, miss. If you don’t mind my asking, what business is it of yours?”

  Hilda knew defeat when she faced it.

  “All right,” she said resignedly. “Who put Mrs. Rowland to bed the night this shooting took place?”

  Stella looked relieved. “She never really got out of it. She was faint, as well she might be. Miss Alice helped get her settled after the doctor came for Miss Tony. Or maybe it was Aggie. That’s all I know.”

  It was possible, Hilda thought as she got up. Alice might have tried to avoid scandal by dressing Nina’s arm herself. The story that one bullet had gone out the open window had been hers. She could have washed the sheets too, and ironed them in the sewing room where an electric iron was kept ready for use. But when she followed Dr. Wynant down the stairs later and put the question to him in the library he merely laughed at her.

  “Nina shot!” he said. “You don’t know her. If she banged her finger she’d rouse the neighborhood.”

  “Her arm is bandaged.”

  “My dear girl,” he said pontifically. “Don’t ask me why she wears a bandage. Don’t ask me why she lies up there in bed either. She’s a perfectly strong healthy woman who likes to be coddled, that’s all. And that,” he added, “is one of the reasons why she doesn’t have me anymore. I told her so.”

  Hilda eyed him coldly.

  “So that’s all?” she said, her blue eyes icy. “It’s easy, isn’t it? Tony has tried twice to kill her mother, but her mother likes to be coddled, so it’s all right with you.”

  “My dear Miss Adams …”

  “Don’t dear Miss Adams me,” she said tartly. “They don’t have you anymore. You think none of this is your business. Well, I’m sorry, but it is mine.”

  “I suggested that you come here. You might remember that,” he said, highly affronted.

  “Then I have a right to know certain things.” She watched him put down his bag and look at her resignedly. “How were they—Tony and her mother—when they first came here from Hawaii? You saw them then, didn’t you?”

  “Certainly. Nina was complaining, but all right. Tony didn’t adjust very well. In the sense that a neurotic cannot adapt himself to a change of environment. I suppose you can say she was neurotic. She avoided me, for one thing. I thought she was rather afraid of me. We became good friends later, of course.”

  “And Mrs. Rowland? What did she complain about?”

  “Oh, just small things. The cold weather, a personal maid she’d been fond of had to be left behind, Alice’s rather rigid housekeeping. Nothing serious.”

  “And Miss Rowland herself?”

  “She did her best. It was rather hard on her. She and Nina are not very congenial, but as Nina spends most of her time in her room it hasn’t mattered much. It has helped since Tony came back from school, of course. She’s a friendly child, even if she does walk in her sleep.”

  He picked up his bag. He was not young and he looked very tired. Hilda felt rather sorry for him, although she stiffened at his parting words.

  “Don’t let your imagination carry you away, Miss Adams,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with Nina Rowland except a chronic case of inertia and an occasional neuritis in the arm. You’ll find that’s the trouble now, and Tony has merely tied her up as usual.”

  VI

  Hilda found Alice asleep when she went upstairs, and an Aggie with, the face of a conspirator waiting for her in the hall.

  “Miss Tony’s gone,” she whispered. “The car’s back and she’s tying it out. Would you like to see the wedding dress and her other things? I’m going to pack them away tomorrow, so if you care to look.”

  Hilda agreed. Nina’s door was closed, and she had nothing to do for the moment. She found that the trousseau had been relegated to the third floor, a floor she had not seen, and she surveyed it with interest. In general it followed the pattern of the second, with the servants’ quarters in the rear. The wedding clothes were in closets in the room over her own, and Hilda cautiously opened the door and going across raised a window shade.

  “The dresses are in the closet,” she said. “Such lovely things! And the wedding dress is a dream—wait until you see it.”

  But it became evident after a moment that Hilda was to wait some time to s
ee it, if ever. Aggie moved the sheet which had covered it and turned a bewildered face to her.

  “It’s gone!” she whispered. “Look, here’s where it was. Whoever could have taken it?”

  “Maybe she took it herself.”

  “Why? Where is it? It’s not in her room.” She poked around among the things hanging there. “Her cocktail dress is gone too. Do you think—maybe she’s changed her mind? Maybe she’s going to marry him anyhow. Everything was here yesterday. I showed them to Stella’s sister.”

  “Did you see her going out today?” Hilda asked practically.

  “No. I didn’t. Maybe Stella did.”

  But Stella had not seen Tony leave the house. She had been upstairs changing her uniform after lunch, and after cautioning both women to silence Hilda went back upstairs.

  Tony’s room was still empty when she went along the hall, and after ascertaining that Alice was still asleep Hilda went back to it and stepped inside. It was the usual girl’s room, feminine with its pale blue carpet, its white curtains, and its rose-colored bedspread and silk quilt neatly folded at the foot of the chaise longue. There was a tennis racket in a frame, and on the toilet table the photograph of a man in uniform, evidently of her father. Hilda inspected it carefully. He was a fine-looking man with a strong nose and jutting jaw, but with Tony’s sensitive mouth. It was inscribed “To Tony, my own girl, from Dad.”

  But the wedding dress was not in the closet, and the small desk by a window yielded nothing. The only incongruous thing, in fact, was the doorstop. It was Volume XIII of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and she was stooping over it when she heard Aggie behind her.

  “Is it here?”

  “Is what here?”

  “The dress. I’m scared, Miss Adams. I was responsible for it Only yesterday Miss Alice asked me about it and I said it was all right.”

  “They won’t blame you,” Hilda said soothingly. “I imagine she took it herself. She may be giving it to someone.”

  “Giving it away!” Aggie screeched. “It cost a fortune. Her father sent her the money for it. She’d never do that.”

  There was no use asking Aggie about the Encyclopedia. She was running around like a wild woman, looking under the bed, frantically opening bureau drawers and moaning to herself. Her search was only interrupted by the ringing of the front doorbell. She tried to smooth her hair as she went down the stairs, and Hilda watched her as she opened the front door.

  Standing on the porch outside was a woman in her early fifties, gray-haired and handsomely dressed.

  Aggie stood as if stunned, staring at her, and the woman smiled faintly.

  “I want to see Miss Tony, Aggie,” she said. “I know she’s at home. I just saw her driving back to the garage.”

  Aggie found her tongue.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hayes. Maybe she’s in, but I don’t think …”

  Mrs. Hayes however showed grim determination. She walked into the hall and stood there, planted with dignity and firmness.

  “Either she sees me now or I’ll wait until she does,” she said flatly. Then she saw Hilda in her uniform at the head of the stairs. “Is someone sick? I didn’t know …”

  Aggie explained, her voice bleak, and when she had finished, Mrs. Hayes walked with deliberation into the living room, leaving Aggie staring at her.

  Behind her Hilda heard Tony’s voice.

  “Who is it?”

  She turned. Tony was standing near her door, her hand holding to the frame of it as if for support. Her face had lost all its color.

  “I think it’s Mrs. Hayes.”

  Tony said nothing. She seemed to be bracing herself. Then with her head held high and a strange look of determination in her face she passed Hilda and went down the stairs. The living room door closed behind her, and an agitated Aggie came up and sat down abruptly on a hall chair.

  “I couldn’t help it, Miss Adams,” she said wretchedly. “You saw how she walked in. Right over me, so to speak. It’s his mother.”

  “So I gathered,” Hilda said. “Don’t worry. You couldn’t stop her. Aggie, how long has that book been holding back Miss Tony’s door?”

  “What book? I didn’t notice. She does her own room these days.”

  “Will you do something for me? Get another volume from the encyclopedia set in the library, and put that one in my room. Hide it in a drawer. I’d like to look at it.”

  She went back to her patient’s room, and a few minutes later she saw from the front window Mrs. Hayes going down the walk to her waiting taxicab. She walked slowly and almost unsteadily, and before she got into the cab she looked back at the house with her pleasant face bleak and incredulous. It was some time before Tony came up again. She did not go into her mother’s room. She went into her own and closed and locked the door.

  There was no sign of her that night at dinner. To Hilda’s surprise Nina was there, in a flowing housecoat with long sleeves, and with a troubled look on her face.

  “Tony won’t be down,” she said. “She’s not well. She said she didn’t want a tray. I wish she would eat more,” she added as Hilda sat down. “She’s so very thin lately. Perhaps I don’t understand girls anymore. It’s a long time since I was one myself.”

  “Why not have Dr. Wynant go over her?”

  “She won’t let him. She’s been very odd the last few weeks. She used to be so gay, Miss Adams. I don’t understand it at all.”

  Hilda saw that she was using both arms, but the left one rather stiffly. And she did not mention Tony again. She chattered amiably through the meal. It was nice to be out of her room again. And wasn’t it sad that her husband was not to get back after all? She missed him dreadfully. And she missed the personal maid she had had so long in Honolulu. In fact of the two, Hilda considered as she ate stolidly, the husband’s absence was a grievance, but the maid’s was a grief.

  “She gave such a wonderful massage,” Nina said, and sighed. “And she was so good with hair. I have never looked the same since.”

  Not receiving the expected comment on this she went on. The maid’s name was Delia, and she was to have sailed with them to the mainland. Only at the last minute she didn’t show up. Her brother came instead, with some story about Delia’s being suspected of working with the Japs. Of course it was all nonsense. Colonel Rowland never kept any papers in the house.

  There was more, of course: her resentment of losing Delia, the inability to get the beauty treatments she was used to, and Alice’s niggardly housekeeping “with only two servants.” Hilda ended her meal with the feeling that Nina was a completely self-centered, self-indulgent woman, and a little puzzled too about Delia, the paragon, who was suspected of working with the Japanese.

  “This maid of yours,” she said as she got up. “What does she say about the accusation?”

  “I don’t know.” Nina’s voice was resentful. “She’s never even written to me. As good as I’d been to her, too.”

  “But you think she is innocent?”

  “Maybe she had her price. Most of us have, haven’t we? Only I don’t see how she could know anything important, when we didn’t even know it ourselves.”

  Neither one of them had mentioned Mrs. Hayes’s visit, and after dinner Nina went upstairs again. Hilda heard her rapping at Tony’s door, but there seemed to be no answer.

  At Alice’s request Hilda again left Aggie in her patient’s room that night when she went out for her evening walk. Alice was nervous, either because of the scene that morning with Nina or because she had learned of Mrs. Hayes’s visit. Evidently she had, for she was querying Aggie as Hilda in the room across got her cape and her bag.

  “What did Tony tell her?”

  “I don’t know, Miss Alice. I don’t listen at doors.”

  “You do when it suits you,” Alice said petulantly. “Now, when I need to know you go virtuous. How did Mrs. Hayes act when you let her out?”

  “I didn’t let her out. She just went.”

  They were still bickering w
hen Hilda left the house. And after what had happened she was not surprised to find young Hayes waiting for her across the street. He angled over and caught up with her, and under a street lamp she saw that his young face looked set and stern.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said without preamble. “What goes on in that house? What sort of song-and-dance did Tony give Mother this afternoon?”

  “I haven’t an idea,” said Hilda mildly.

  “You’re sure you don’t know?”

  “I don’t usually listen at doors.” Hilda recalled Aggie and smiled faintly. “Why? What happened?”

  “All I know is that Mother is in bed at her hotel, the Majestic. She won’t talk, but she’s in poor shape, crying and carrying on, and I’ve been across the street here for hours. What’s wrong anyhow? It must be pretty bad. Mother’s got plenty of guts usually. All she says now is that I mustn’t try to see Tony again, or bother her.”

  Hilda was silent. Had Tony told Mrs. Hayes about shooting her mother? Was that it? Or was there something else, something which went deeper, of which the shooting was a result? Whatever it was she was confident it was not over. But she could not say that to the boy beside her.

  “I’ll tell you this,” she said at last. “Tony didn’t do whatever she did easily, Lieutenant. She’s still shut in her room.”

  He drew a long breath.

  “I’ve been over everything,” he said. “There may be insanity in the family. Mother would be terrified of that. It must be something,” he added naively. “She did care for me, you know. We were frightfully in love. She wrote me every day in camp. I have her letters and I keep rereading them. They’re wonderful.”

  “You never did anything to make her change her mind? Or cause this change in her?”

  “Never. There’s nothing in my past either. I’ve been around a bit. Who hasn’t? But nothing that matters. Certainly not since I knew her.”