Episode of the Wandering Knife

by Rinehart, Mary Roberts;

  In spite of herself Hilda started.

  “Herbert Johnson?” she said. “What was he here?”

  “Miss Tony found him somewhere. They knew him in the Islands. He wasn’t rightly a butler. More of a houseman really. And he wasn’t any good. Always sort of snooping around. Miss Alice fired him, and not too soon if you ask me.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, two—three months ago. We really got him because of the wedding. His sister Delia used to be Mrs. Rowland’s maid. If she wasn’t any better than he was …”

  “Where is the butler’s room?”

  “Off the back hall, so he could answer the doorbell. It’s closed now. Nothing there.”

  Hilda left the kitchen, but she did not go upstairs. She found the door to the room, slipped inside and closed it carefully behind her. The window was closed and the shade down, but a glance told her that someone had been in it briefly and recently. Possibly the police too. But certainly the police had not put a blanket on the dismantled bed, or a fresh cake of soap and a towel on the stationary washstand in the corner. Both soap and towel had been used, and the underside of the soap was still moist.

  Someone had made hasty preparations to sleep there the night before. To get a supper of sorts and then to sleep, and she had no doubt whatever as to who it had been. When she went back to the kitchen Stella was pouring milk into a saucer for her cat and looking rather sulky.

  “I guess I talk too much,” she said. “But if that Herbert was here last night he’d be the one who did it. Him and his goings-on, scaring Miss Tony half to death’ and getting her little bit of money from her.”

  “How do you mean he scared her?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Something about that sister of his—as if anybody cared! And Tony slipping him into her mother’s room when she drought nobody was around! I didn’t draw a full breath until Miss Alice fired him.”

  Hilda went back upstairs. She had not told Fuller about the envelope from the kitchen floor, and she had no real doubt as to why it had been where she found it. To make certain however she went into Alice’s room and to the chest where she had locked the letter the day before.

  The chest was not locked now. The keys were hanging in the upper drawer and Hilda opened it. It contained nothing however but neatly arranged piles of stockings and gloves, and the other drawers were equally innocent. If she had had any doubt that Alice had had the letter in her hand when she went downstairs that night the doubt was gone.

  Just to be certain she searched the rest of the room. The letter had definitely disappeared, however, and the picture of the murder grew clearer in her mind: of Alice, letter in hand, following Tony to the kitchen, of her telling or reading its contents, and of Herbert, hiding from the police and seeking sanctuary in his old room, overhearing her. Coming up behind her maybe and picking up the milk bottle.

  Still, in the light of what she already knew, why had he killed her? Either he had only meant to knock her down and escape, or she had some knowledge which made it necessary for her to die.

  Somewhat grimly, Hilda picked up the telephone on the bedside table and called Fuller.

  “Can you talk to Honolulu by wire?” she inquired.

  “I can. I’ll be monitored, of course. Why Honolulu?”

  “Herbert Johnson came from there.”

  “Herbert Johnson?”

  “The man who knocked me down and robbed me. You may recall that,” she said drily. “He was butler or something of the sort here two or three months ago. Tony got him, but Alice Rowland fired him.”

  He whistled.

  “I think he was here last night,” she went on. “Tony seems to have hidden him here, or someone did. He comes from Hawaii. He may have a record there. You’d better find out all you can about him. About his sister too. You might see what you can find out about the Rowlands at the same time.”

  Fuller was duly impressed.

  “You think this Herbert’s the killer, don’t you?” he inquired. “Anybody but Tony Rowland, eh?”

  “I’m only saying he’s been hiding out, and Tony was probably getting him something to eat last night. If Alice came in and recognized him … She may have known him. Or she may have written to someone in Hawaii about him. She got a letter from there yesterday and I can’t find it.”

  “If he was there why didn’t Tony say so?”

  “She probably has a reason,” Hilda said drily and put down the receiver.

  He sat back and considered this after he had put in the Honolulu call. He had in fact some hours to consider it, due to wartime delay. He went back to the beginning of the case and Alice’s story to him when she brought the gun. Getting out the rough sketch she had drawn of Nina’s room he studied it again: the doorway, the bed, the location of the open window. Suppose this Herbert had been the one who shot at Nina and missed her? Hilda was laying emphasis on him. Was he in the house as butler at that time?

  He looked over his notes. No. Only the family and the two women servants, he saw. Of course someone might have admitted him. Tony, by choice. In that case why had she protected him? As she was still doing, he thought irritably, getting Hilda’s watch before the police found it, and hiding him the night before. Unless it was blackmail, and of a serious sort. Not of Tony probably. Very possibly of her mother. What he had seen of her had shown him a beautiful and not too intelligent woman, the sort who expected admiration from men and undoubtedly received it. What did Herbert have? Letters and photographs were the usual stock of the blackmailer. Outside of those …

  At five o’clock he called Hilda on the phone.

  “We’ve picked up a dozen or so fellows who more or less answer your Herbert’s description,” he said. “Can you come down?”

  She did not answer at once, and when she did she was doubt-fill.

  “I can,” she said. “I’d rather not, of course. Tony’s beginning to rouse. I don’t like to leave her.”

  “Put Aggie there. How’s the mother?”

  “Still shut away. Perhaps I ought to tell you she’s sent one word. I’m fired.”

  “You seem to be still there!”

  “What do you think?” she inquired.

  She agreed to come however, leaving Aggie with Tony and before six she was viewing a sorry-looking line of men in the glare of the lineup. None of them was Herbert, and Hilda, looking them over much as she would a row of Christmas turkeys, rejected them in much the same businesslike manner and prepared to go. He followed her to the door.

  “If Tony’s coming out of the hypo I’d better talk to her,” he said. “It’s time she spoke up.”

  Hilda stopped and turned chilly blue eyes up to his.

  “You’re not going to question her until I get the bandage off her mother’s arm,” she said coldly, and walked out.

  So Hilda still thought Tony had shot her mother, he reflected. Well, what if she had? And once more his mind turned to a possible lover, to blackmail, and the girl’s probable resentment at both. But it was Alice who had been murdered, not an attractive but certainly an inoffensive onlooker. Or was she?

  He went back to his office to wait for his call and—he thought grimly—for Hilda to get the bandage off Nina Rowland’s lovely white arm. How had they managed it? he wondered. After all a bullet wound was a serious matter, even if it only plowed through the flesh. There would have been blood to hide, and pain to conceal. Not for the first time he wondered if Hilda had not got off on the wrong foot. But long experience had taught him to respect her methods.

  He decided to give her a few hours more, which turned out to be a mistake. And an almost fatal one at that.

  XIII

  When Hilda got back to the Rowland house she found the young police officer in the hall below staring up the stairs.

  “Say,” he said. “I thought the girl was sick.”

  “So she is. What’s wrong?”

  He scratched an ear reflectively.

  “I don’t know as it’s anything,” he said.
“I just saw somebody up there out of the tail of my eye. Looked like a young lady. Maybe I’m wrong.”

  Hilda scuttled up the stairs, but everything was quiet. Tony was in bed, awake but not moving. Aggie, however, had disappeared, and Hilda was immediately suspicious. Nothing seemed to be wrong, but she was confident Tony had been in the hall for some purpose of her own.

  “How long have you been alone?” she demanded.

  “Only a minute or two.” Tony’s voice was flat. “She went to get me some soup.”

  Hilda glanced around the room. Nothing was apparently changed. Colonel Rowland’s picture still stood on the toilet table. The few drops of blood on the blue carpet from Tony’s cut hand had been washed up, her slippers and dressing gown were in the closet as before. But Tony was watching her with the eyes of a sick child. She walked over to the bed.

  “What have you been doing?” she asked bluntly. “You’ve been up to something, haven’t you? That policeman downstairs saw you.”

  “Can’t I even see my own mother?”

  “Not at the head of the stairs. Where were you? What were you doing?”

  Tony however refused to answer, and Hilda felt vaguely uneasy. She looked down at the girl.

  “Now you’re awake,” she said, still bluntly, “I’d like my watch again. It belonged to my mother, and I know you have it.”

  “It’s in the toe of a shoe in the closet,” Tony said indifferently. “When are they going to arrest me?”

  “Why do you think they are going to arrest you?”

  “Because I did it,” she said, with that strange new indifference. “They needn’t look any further. You can tell that man downstairs. Or maybe I’d better tell him myself.”

  “You killed your aunt? With a milk bottle,” Hilda inquired blandly, “and that stiff arm of yours?”

  “I did it. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

  Hilda’s patience gave way.

  “Now listen to me,” she said crossly. “You’re behaving like a child. You’re too old to go on dramatizing yourself. Who are you protecting? Herbert Johnson? Did he kill your Aunt Alice?”

  “I told you I did it.”

  Hilda wanted to shake her.

  “Has it occurred to you,” she said, “that you’ve done more than your share of damage? That if you’d acted like a sane person your Aunt Alice might be alive now?” And when Tony only shuddered and closed her eyes: “And that you haven’t helped anybody or anything? Suppose I tell you that the police are looking up Herbert Johnson’s record in Honolulu right now.”

  To her horror and dismay she realized that the girl had fainted again. She was still not conscious when Aggie came in with the soup, and to turn a blistering tongue on her.

  She went back to her room after Tony was better, but she was uneasy. What had the girl been doing in the upper hall? And why had she fainted when she learned about Herbert’s record in Honolulu? She felt defeated and deflated as she changed from her street clothes into her uniform again. Nina’s door was still obstinately closed and probably locked. There had been no sound from it And there was still no word from Fuller.

  She went downstairs to her supper in an unhappy frame of mind. Even the theory she had been slowly evolving seemed farfetched and unlikely. After all why kill Alice? If anyone had to be killed it should have been Herbert Johnson. Unless …

  She ate very little. She was still too uneasy to be hungry. Outside in the hall she saw Aggie carrying a supper tray to the library for the police officer, and saw him eating it as she went up the stairs again. Nothing suspicious had happened, however. Tony was not asleep, but she refused to talk, and there was no sound from Nina’s room. She located her watch where Tony said she would find it, and wound and set it automatically by the bedside clock.

  It was eight o’clock, she was to remember later.

  For two hours she sat in the dim light in the bedroom, aware that Tony was watching her. But she made no effort to speak or to get out of bed, and at last Hilda got stiffly to her feet and prepared to go to her room and get ready for the night.

  Tony asked for a glass of water then, the first time she had spoken. Hilda placed it beside the bed and stood watching her. But she did not drink it. She lay there looking up with tired, sunken young eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t get up. And I’m sorry I’ve given you so much trouble, Miss Adams.” She smiled faintly.

  “That’s a promise, is it?” Hilda looked down at her.

  “Absolutely. I’m going to sleep.” She yawned, and turned on her side.

  That was at ten o’clock. As she went out Hilda heard Aggie and Stella going up to their rooms on the third floor, and she looked down into the front hall for the officer there. Rather to her surprise he was not in sight, and she suspected him of being in the kitchen searching for food or in the library smoking.

  One of her profoundest beliefs being that men were all right in their place but seldom in it, she made her usual systematic preparations for the night. She took a short bath, brushed her teeth and her hair, began to wind her watch and remembered she had already done so, put on her nightgown and a warm dressing gown over it, and then having switched out her light went to her door.

  To her astonishment it did not open. She pulled at it vigorously, but nothing happened. And when she found the switch and turned on the lights again she saw the key was not in it.

  For the first time she felt terrified. She stood staring at it incredulously. This could not be happening, not to her, Hilda Adams. It happened to people like Nina, but not to her. She shook it violently and called.

  “Officer!” she said. “Officer, someone has locked me in.”

  There was no reply however, and she looked around her helplessly. She could open the window and shout, she thought. But she hesitated to do it. Anyhow the house was a detached one, and the patrolman was not in sight on the pavement outside. What had happened to the guard in the hall? Was he dead? Had someone knocked him out?

  It was wrong. All wrong. Something was going on in the house, and she was helpless. The nearest telephone was across the hall in Alice Rowland’s room, and it chose that moment to ring violently. It kept on ringing for some time, while she looked around for a method of escape. She glanced up at the closed transom over the door. She had no illusions that she could get through it, but at least she could look out, maybe call so someone would hear her. It took some time to move the table under it, and to mount by means of a chair. The transom too had apparently not been opened for years. She managed it at last, to realize that the light in both upper and lower halls had been extinguished, and that if the guard was there he was either unconscious or dead.

  She called without result, and as she was getting down from her perch the chair slipped and fell. She sat on the floor for a minute or two, a small and ignominious figure of defeat. A frightened one, too. For almost the first time in her life she felt helpless and desperate.

  To add to her confusion the telephone across the hall was ringing again, and she realized that something would have to be done, and done soon.

  She limped to the window and looked out. The policeman was still missing, but a man was walking along the pavement. He had a dog on a leash, and he stopped sharply and looked up when she called.

  “Do you mind ringing the doorbell?” she asked.

  “Doing what?”

  “Ringing the doorbell. I’m locked in my room and can’t get out.”

  He let the dog go and came up the walk. He was middle-aged and carrying his hat. He seemed to be quite bald.

  “There’s nothing wrong, is there?” he asked. “I mean—this is the Rowland house, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I don’t know what’s happened. Do try the bell. I think it rings on the third floor too. The servants will hear it.”

  He climbed the steps and put a thumb on the porch button. The dog had followed him, looking interested. Through the open transom Hilda could hear the bell far away, and after an interval Aggie�
��s heavy steps coming down the stairs from the third floor. She exclaimed when she saw the dark hall, and evidently turned on a light, for it was reflected in Hilda’s room. Hilda called to her.

  “You needn’t go down,” she said. “I’m locked in here. It’s Miss Adams. See if you can find the key and let me out.”

  “Whoever did that?” said Aggie. “Maybe the door’s stuck. There’s no key here.”

  Hilda went back to the window and leaned out.

  “It’s all right,” she said to the man below. “Thanks a lot. One of the maids is here now.”

  He went away, looking vaguely disappointed, as though he had expected something more dramatic. But Hilda wasted no time on him. She was back at the door.

  “Try Miss Alice’s key,” she said urgently, “and see if that policeman is around. I don’t know what’s happened to him.”

  It took some time to find a key which fitted. Aggie moved slowly, and her hands fumbled as she tried one after another. Hilda was on the verge of shrieking hysteria when at last the door opened and she shot out into the hall.

  Somewhere not far away the engine of a car had started to roar, then settled down to a purr. The telephone had stopped ringing, and save for the guard missing from the lower hall everything seemed quiet. But she saw that Tony’s door, which she had left open, was now closed. She felt her throat tighten as she ran back to it.

  It was not locked, however. She threw it open and stepped inside to find the bed empty and no sign of Tony in the room.

  Alarmed as she was, even then Hilda had no idea of the extent of the calamity. With Aggie at her heels she crossed to Nina’s door and banged on it. It took a long time to rouse her, but at last she came to the door and Hilda asked rather wildly if Tony was there.

  “Tony?” Nina said thickly. “Why no. What’s wrong? Where is she?”

  Hilda did not wait. She scurried forward to Alice’s room, and from there down the front stairs. In the library the young police officer was heavily asleep on the leather couch. He was breathing noisily, and a cigarette had fallen from his hand and burned a small hole in the carpet.