Hilda felt better the next morning. Her neck was stiff, and she had bruised a knee and torn a stocking in falling. Otherwise she was all right. She was uneasy, however. The case would not last much longer. Alice was much improved. She was to sit up in a chair that day, and Hilda was no nearer the solution of the problem than when she came. Rather less, in fact. It had looked at the start like a neurotic or unbalanced young woman, desperately determined to kill her mother, even if she finished herself in doing so.
But she was convinced now that Tony Rowland was not psychopathic. She was a desperately frightened and unhappy girl with a trouble she was refusing to share with anyone. Her thoughts were busy as later on she got Alice up in a chair by the window and turned her mattress. What was the secret? And as if she had read her mind Alice spoke.
“You’ve seen Tony now for two or three days,” she said. “How does she impress you?”
“She seems worried,” Hilda observed.
“Worried?” Alice smiled her thin smile. “That’s a polite word for it. She’s not herself at all. She really ought to be in a sanitarium, but what can I do?”
“You have no idea what the trouble is?”
“None, unless it’s in her own mind. We did send her to a psychiatrist, but she wouldn’t talk to him. He was furious. You see, she may have been asleep the night she fired those shots. She certainly wasn’t asleep in broad daylight when she wrecked my car.”
“I don’t think you’ve told me about that,” Hilda said.
“Well, perhaps I shouldn’t now. Only I keep thinking about it. That accident when Tony hurt her arm. At least they say it was an accident. Something about the steering gear. But the steering gear was all right, Miss Adams. The garage says so, and Tony won’t even talk about it.”
“That would look as though she meant them both to—to have the accident,” Hilda said thoughtfully. “It doesn’t sound like her, does it? She’s a devoted daughter. If she wanted to kill herself why kill them both?”
Alice shrugged her thin shoulders. “She loves her father too. Then why was she relieved when she found he wasn’t coming to America? She was, you know.”
Hilda smoothed the spread over the bed, and eyed it. The effect was sufficiently geometrical to satisfy her.
“I’ve been wondering,” Alice said, giving a pillow a final pat. “The attack on Honolulu must have been quite a shock. Did she lose anyone in it? Anyone she cared about?”
“I don’t know. After all she was only sixteen. If you mean a man … There is one strange thing. Nina likes to talk about the Islands. She hopes to go back there when the war’s over. She’s done her room here much as it was there, and Tony keeps it full of flowers. But Tony hates the place. In the almost four years she’s been here she’s hardly ever mentioned it. She seems to hate the thought of it.”
Hilda considered this. She was no moving picture fan, but she had seen the films of Pearl Harbor. Even when the attack was over they could not have felt safe there. Colonel Rowland had given his wife a gun, had sent them to the mainland as soon as possible. And with the lights out everywhere …
“Something must have happened to her there,” she suggested. “Something Mrs. Rowland doesn’t know. Something nobody but Tony knows. There are such things as psychic scars. If she had been attacked—”
“I’m sure it was nothing of the sort,” Alice said, flushing. “And she got over it, Miss Adams: She was perfectly normal after the first month or two.”
“Does she get any letters from the Islands?”
“I never see her mail. She gets, it first.”
While Hilda straightened the bathroom Alice had evidently been thinking, for when she emerged she threw her first words like a bomb.
“What was Herbert Johnson saying to Tony last night, Miss Adams? Aggie says you were across the street.”
Hilda managed to keep her voice smooth.
“She was talking to a man. I didn’t know who it was.”
“You didn’t hear anything?”
“I was pretty far away.”
Alice looked disappointed.
“I think he’s been bothering her off and on for the last four years,” she said fretfully. “His sister Delia was Nina’s personal maid in Hawaii, and he comes from there too. He’s no good and I’ve told them so, but they were fond of Delia.” She eyed Hilda. “Would you think Tony gave him any money last night?”
“I don’t know, Miss Rowland. I didn’t see it if she did.”
Alice was obviously disappointed. She was silent for some time. Then what she said was apparently a non sequitur.
“My sister-in-law is a very attractive woman,” she observed dryly. “I imagine a good many men have envied my brother. It’s just possible that Nina—”
But she didn’t finish and Hilda made no comment.
IX
That morning Fuller saw Commissioner Bayard. They were old friends. The Commissioner offered him a cigar and Fuller sat down. Bayard had a cold, and was using a paper towel as a handkerchief. He crumpled it up and threw it in the waste-basket.
“Dab the thigs,” he said. “Bight as well use a dutbeg grater. Why dod’t they bake theb out of cottod? South’s full of it What’s wrog with you? You look as though you hadn’t beed to bed.”
“Hilda Adams had a narrow escape last night.”
“Od a case for you?”
Fuller nodded.
“Knocked out and her bag taken. Luckily it had an old-fashioned watch in it. If the fellow tries to sell or pawn it we’ve got him. But I’m not very easy. I’d like to have a man or two to keep an eye on the house where she’s working. There’s some sort of trouble there.”
The Commissioner sneezed.
“Good God,” he exploded. “Dod’t you know we’re dowd to less thad two-thirds of the force? What’s the matter? The Adabs wobad cad take care of herself. She always has.”
“She’s never had a case like this,” Fuller said, and proceeded to tell what he knew. The Commissioner listened grimly.
“So we watch a girl who’s god batty!” he said with disgust. “What good is a cop across the street? To call the Bedical Exabiner after it’s all over?”
“It’s going to be done, if I have to do it myself.”
“Don’t be a fool. You’ve got a job to do.”
In the end however Fuller got what he wanted, or a part of it. A plainclothesman would watch the Rowland house at night, and follow Hilda if she persisted in her evening walks. But Hilda did not go out that night.
She chose the afternoon instead.
“I’d like to get some fresh uniforms,” she told Alice after lunch. “If you’ll be all right I won’t be long.”
Alice yawned.
“I’ll take a nap,” she said. “Go right ahead. Just tell Aggie to look in now and then.”
So Hilda went downstairs in her neat black suit and hat and in her comfortable flat-heeled shoes. As usual she walked quietly, and in the lower hall she saw Tony in the library at the telephone. She hung up hastily when she saw Hilda, and the expression on her pale face was one of shocked alarm. Hilda saw it and ignored it.
“I’m going out for an hour or two,” she said. “Miss Rowland will try to sleep.”
Tony did not answer at once. She stood staring at Hilda, and when she spoke her lips seemed stiff.
“Aggie says you met with an accident last night.”
“I was knocked down and robbed,” Hilda said cheerfully. “I’m all right today. It takes a lot to kill me.”
She thought Tony went even whiter, and she was puzzled as she went out to the street. Did Tony suspect what had really happened to her? she wondered. And what was the truth about the man last night? What hold had this Herbert Johnson had on her? A hold of some sort he certainly had. He had shown it when he caught her arm and jerked her back. And what was it he had threatened to report? To report to whom?
She was still thoughtful as she took a bus downtown. For contrary to her statement to Alice she did not g
o at once to her apartment. She went instead to the Majestic Hotel and inquired for Mrs. Hayes. Mrs. Hayes, it appeared, was not well and seeing nobody. However on the mention of Tony Rowland’s name over the telephone she was told to go up.
The door was open into the sitting room, and when she knocked a voice called her to come in. She found Johnny’s mother in bed, still pulling on a bed jacket and looking exhausted and pale.
“You’re Alice Rowland’s nurse, aren’t you?” she said. “I saw you in the hall yesterday.”
Hilda agreed and sat down. She had no bag, so she folded her hands in her lap and eyed Mrs. Hayes serenely.
“I came because your son told me you were worried about Tony Rowland,” she said. “I don’t mind saying I am too, Mrs. Hayes. I thought if we could get together …”
Mrs. Hayes’s mouth tightened.
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss her, Miss Adams. I am seeing you to ask you to talk to Johnny. He might listen to you. He won’t—to me. I don’t want him ever to see Tony again, or to try to.”
Hilda raised her eyebrows.
“That’s rather drastic, isn’t it?” she said politely. “Unless you have a very good reason.”
“I can’t discuss the reason.” Mrs. Hayes’s voice was frozen. “It’s not my secret. I’ve sworn not to talk about it. But any marriage, any engagement, is out of the question. Tony knows that herself. If she sent you …”
“No. She doesn’t know I’m here. I wondered—did she tell you there was insanity in the family? Because if I’m any judge she’s as sane as I am.”
Mrs. Hayes remained stiffly silent, and Hilda went on. “There is something wrong, Mrs. Hayes. I know that. Tony Rowland is pretty close to desperate. I’m only afraid … She may try to take her own life, you see.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Adams. I’m fond of her, or I was. But I assure you there is nothing I can do.”
Hilda eyed her, her handsome flushed face, reminiscent of Johnny’s masculine one, the platinum wedding ring and large square-cut diamond on her hand. The sort of woman, she thought, who would be a good homemaker, a good wife and mother. But also a woman without imagination.
She got up.
“It’s just possible,” she said, “that by keeping this secret to yourself you may actually cause trouble. How can I help Tony if I don’t know anything?”
“I’m afraid I’m more interested in my son. There must be no marriage, Miss Adams, if I have to sacrifice everything I care for to prevent it. And Tony knows it.”
On that note Hilda took her departure, feeling frustrated and more anxious than she had since she had taken the case. Her apartment when she reached it looked orderly and peaceful, and she sat down for a minute or two to try to assort her ideas. Mrs. Hayes had had an air of finality in everything she said. That she had been profoundly shocked by her talk with Tony was certain. Then what had Tony told her?
She was rummaging for a bag to replace her stolen one when her landlady puffed up the stairs to give her a message relayed from the Rowland house. It was to call Fuller, and she was tempted not to do it, to sit down for an hour or so in her comfortable easy chair and rest her head, still sore from the attack. Instead she took two aspirins and picked up the telephone.
Fuller was in a bad humor. He snapped a hello at her, stated that she ought to be in bed, and then said he wanted to know what sort of monkey business was going on in the Rowland house.
“I don’t know what you mean. If it’s because I saw Mrs. Hayes—”
“Oh, you thought of that, did you? No. It’s about your watch. It was sold this morning to a pawnbroker downtown who is known to traffic in stolen jewelry, and bought this afternoon. I’ll give you three guesses who bought it.”
“How would I know?”
“Tony Rowland,” he said. “Your nice gentle little friend. The girl who tried to kill her mother. Remember? She walked in there as bold as brass an hour or so ago, asked to look at watches and selected yours. Did you tell her you’d lost it?”
“No.”
“Then you see where that leaves it. She knew the fellow had it. He got word to her, describing it. He was probably scared we’d trace it. So she protects him by getting it first.”
Hilda was very still. It looked as though, instead of using her the night before to protect herself, Tony had warned him against her. She found her hands shaking.
“That’s your angel child,” Fuller said. “Now maybe you’ll change some of your ideas. Find out if she got a note or a telephone message some time today. It can help if we can trace it We’ve got a good description of the fellow. It’s your man all right.”
“She did get a telephone message. I know that.”
“When?”
“About half past two. I was on my way out.”
“That’s it, then. She hotfooted it down to the shop, getting there at three. What do you bet you’ll find it in your room when you get back?”
“I think it’s the last place I’ll find it,” Hilda said curtly. “She’s no fool. She’ll send it here or hide it, if she hasn’t dropped it in the river. The man’s name is Herbert Johnson, if he’s using it. He came from Honolulu after Pearl Harbor, and his sister was Nina Rowland’s personal maid. I think he’s blackmailing her.”
“That’s my girl!” He was pleased with her. He always was when she came out coldly with important bits of information. “Fellow a Hawaiian?”
“No, and they’d cut me off the wire if I told you what I think he is.”
She hung up and, after looking in at the landlady’s quarters to see her canary, made her way stolidly back to the Rowland house. There was no Tony in sight, and she met the postman on the pavement and took the mail from him. There was a letter for Alice from Honolulu, and Alice looked triumphant when she took it.
“Maybe I’ll know something about Herbert now,” she said, as she ripped it open. “I wrote to a friend of mine out there.” She glanced up at Hilda. “Did Tony see you get it?”
“No. I met the postman on the pavement.”
She was reading the letter when Hilda went back to her room to change into uniform again. As she had expected the watch was not there. The room was as she had left it, except for one thing. Volume XIII of the Encyclopedia in her bureau drawer had been changed to XIV, Lihi to Mary, and a heavy china elephant with large pink roses painted on it was now propped against Tony’s open door.
When she went back to her patient there was no sign of the letter, and Alice had got out of bed and was standing in her nightgown in front of a chest of drawers, with a key in her hand. But something had happened to her. She had lost all her color, and she staggered as she turned to look at Hilda.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not as strong as I thought I was.”
Hilda had to help her back to her bed, and she lay there for some time, not speaking and with her eyes closed. It was some time before she spoke, and then it was not to explain anything.
“I’m all right now,” she said. “Just some bad news from Honolulu.”
A little later however, as her color came back, she said: “So it was Herbert Johnson who knocked you down and robbed you last night! I know you followed him. It’s the sort of thing he would do. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t bother my patients with my personal troubles,” Hilda said stiffly. “Why is he blackmailing Tony, Miss Rowland? If that’s what he’s doing.”
But Alice did not answer, and Hilda went down to dinner confused and in a bad humor. Except that Tony was present the meal that night was more or less a repetition of the night before. Nina for some reason chose to talk about Hawaii, and her hope to go back there eventually. Tony ate almost nothing, said even less, and smoked one cigarette after another. But there was something wrong with Aggie. She was clumsy and nervous and Hilda suspected that the Encyclopedia was involved.
She had a sudden desire to break the polite veneer of the meal, to destroy the illusion of well-dressed civilized people eating a highly civili
zed meal, to see the mask of Nina’s beautiful face change, if it ever did. She even made an attempt at it.
“I saw a rather dark-skinned man loitering on the pavement last night,” she said. “He looked as though he might be waiting for someone.”
If looks could have killed Tony’s would have slain her; Nina however was only politely interested.
“Was that Herbert again?” she inquired. “I thought you’d got rid of him, Tony.” She turned to Hilda. “He’s the brother of the maid I told you about in Honolulu,” she explained. “He’s no good, Tony. I wish you wouldn’t see him.”
Tony got up, her face set.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have some things to do,” and left without further explanation.
So Herbert was not to be discussed, Hilda reflected. He had taken her bag, suspected the police were after him and it, and got Tony to salvage the watch. But he was not to be suspected. What was the hold he had over the girl? Did it involve her alone, or was she protecting her mother? After all, four years …
With Tony gone, Nina looked at Hilda.
“I didn’t like to ask before Tony,” she said. “She’s very nervous these days. Aggie says you had some trouble last night. I hope it wasn’t serious.”
Hilda glanced at her. If she suspected Herbert it did not show in her face.
“I did a silly thing,” she admitted. “I took a bus ride, and got out in a low part of town. Someone knocked me down and robbed me.”
“How dreadful! Are you sure you ought to be up and around?”
“I’m quite all right, thanks.”
“Did you lose much? If that’s too personal, forget it. I just thought …”
“I never carry much money. I lost my mother’s watch. I valued that, of course.”
“What a pity! Have you notified the police?”
Hilda looked at her, but she was eating her chocolate souffle calmly and with enjoyment.
Episode of the Wandering Knife Page 23