Episode of the Wandering Knife

by Rinehart, Mary Roberts;

  “I’ve been thinking things over,” he said coldly. “Perhaps you’d better raise chickens. You won’t mind cutting their heads off, will you?”

  “What’s the difference between using an ax and breaking their necks?”

  “That’s no excuse for what you have done. And you know it.”

  “There were only two alternatives.”

  But this was not the old Hilda. There was defense in her voice, and resentment. He lit a cigarette and pulled up a chair. He was still furiously resentful.

  “How long did you know this thing?” he demanded.

  “What thing?”

  “The secret Tony Rowland was trying to keep. The hold Johnson had over her.”

  “I didn’t know it. I only suspected it. I kept trying to have somebody look at Nina’s arm. Nobody would do it.” She was still indignant. “Last night I made her show it to me. It wasn’t what they were afraid of, and I told her so.”

  “I see. And that’s the reason she—”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” she said hastily.

  “But you suspected something wrong from the start?” he persisted.

  She moved in her chair.

  “If I had I’d have saved Alice. All I was sure of was that Tony Rowland was not a psychopathic case. I didn’t think she’d shot her mother in her sleep, either.”

  “But you thought she had shot her?”

  “What was I to think? At first, anyhow,” she said defensively. “I hadn’t been in the house five minutes before she told me to keep away from her mother’s room. And she locked the door at first, too, until she saw I was minding my own business.”

  Fuller smiled rather wryly. The idea of Hilda on a case minding her own business amused him.

  “All right,” he said. “You were attending strictly to your job. Then something set you off. What was it?”

  It was some time before she answered. The room was still dark. Over her head the canary chirped sleepily. That and the cries of children playing in the street below were all that broke the silence. When she did speak her voice was tired and dispirited.

  “I don’t know much about girls,” she said. “But it isn’t usual for them to lock their mothers in their rooms, is it? And there was Herbert, of course. He had to fit in somewhere.”

  “Don’t tell me you suspected him because he knocked you down and robbed you?”

  Some of the resentment was gone from his voice.

  “I wasn’t within a mile of the truth at that time,” she confessed. “Tony had a secret of some sort. I knew that. And the Johnson man was involved in it. But it seemed queer for her to be using the Encyclopedia Britannica for a doorstop.”

  He looked astonished.

  “The Encyclopedia! What on earth did that have to do with it?”

  She sighed. “Did you ever go through a whole volume of it page by page? It’s horribly tiring. But one page had a smear on it, as if it had been put facedown on something.”

  “I see. Of course that explained everything!”

  She ignored the irony in his voice. Probably she never noticed it, engrossed as she was in what she knew.

  “It simply suggested something. Why for instance Tony burned the bandages from her mother’s arm at night. And I never was really certain even then. It was just a possibility—until the end.”

  “Why for God’s sake didn’t you take me into your confidence?” he demanded. “You could at least have told me what you suspected.”

  “Why should I? Nobody had been killed then. If Tony had a secret like that it was hers, not mine. But if she had, Herbert knew it too. There had to be some reason why she bought my watch. Apparently she didn’t want him arrested. Then she’d sold a couple of dresses, so she evidently needed money, probably for him. But I began to suspect something very serious after I talked to Stella, the cook. She said he had been in the house as a butler just before Tony broke her engagement and tried to kill both her mother and herself. You gave me the clue to that yourself before I even took the case.”

  He stared at her.

  “I gave you the clue! What sort of clue?”

  “In the park that night. You said there was one motive for crime usually forgotten. That was desperation. Tony Rowland was desperate. Any idiot could have seen that.”

  Angry as he was Fuller grinned in the darkness. This was Hilda again, not the cowering creature he had found on his arrival. And a Hilda ready to talk, to justify the thing she had done.

  “I suppose I began by wondering why Tony locked her mother’s door. She relaxed later, but it was a queer thing for a girl to do. Then there was her broken engagement. No one knew why, even Nina herself. After Herbert appeared I decided it was a case of blackmail, but blackmail didn’t explain everything. The queer thing was that her mother didn’t seem to know anything about it. She was perfectly willing to talk about Herbert and his sister Delia, who had been her maid. She even talked about the change in Tony.

  “I thought of everything from Japs to a lover for Nina Rowland. I even wondered if Alice had tried to shoot her sister-in-law, and Tony was taking the blame. Then I saw Mrs. Hayes. She worried me. She wouldn’t talk, except that her son was to keep away from the girl. She looked shocked and half sick. It was more than his marrying her. She didn’t even want him near her. I thought Tony had told her the truth, or what she thought was the truth, so—”

  “So you went to the Encyclopedia?” He looked at her with a sort of awe. “Don’t tell me, on the basis of what you had, you went through twenty-four volumes, including the atlas!”

  “Only one. She had been using it as a doorstop.”

  “Of course. Why not?” he said, his mouth twitching. “I always thought there must be some practical use for the damned things.”

  She remained unsmiling, however.

  “Later she changed it for a china elephant, but I found it in the library. I didn’t have a chance to go through it until just before Alice Rowland was killed. I should have acted at once, of course. I blame myself. After all Alice had had the letter and hidden it, and it came from Hawaii. Up to that time Tony had watched the mail, but that day she happened to be out. I took it to Alice myself.”

  Fuller looked baffled.

  “What letter? What on earth are you talking about?”

  “The letter about Herbert’s sister Delia, the reason she didn’t sail with them from Honolulu. Alice got the letter, and everything broke wide open.”

  “Where is this letter now?” he inquired impatiently.

  “I have it,” she said. “I found it last night. But maybe I’d better tell you how I think things happened when Alice Rowland was killed.”

  And this is the story of the murder, as she told it, and as it actually happened.

  XVI

  Tony had not been asleep that night. She was waiting for the household to settle down before she burned the dressings from her mother’s arm. But also the meeting with Johnny Hayes had upset her. When she finally slipped into her mother’s room Nina had been awake and irritable.

  “You’ve been crying again,” Nina said, eyeing her. “I don’t understand you, Tony. It isn’t enough that you spoil everyone’s plans, including my own. You go around looking like a ghost yourself.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother. I’m all right, really.”

  “And why all this secrecy?” Nina demanded. “Why not tell Alice and be through with it? She can’t do anything about it, can she?”

  “You know how she is, Mother. She’d raise a row. She’d get Dr. Wynant in, for one thing.”

  Nina subsided. She loathed Wynant. Then too she was never certain of Tony these days. The night of the shooting, for instance. Had she been walking in her sleep? Or was Alice right after all and there was something wrong in Tony’s mind?

  Tony was dressing her arm by that time. It looked better, but she said nothing, and Nina lapsed into sulky silence. She lay back against her pillows and submitted glumly. Seen thus, even with her hair in curlers and a thin
gleam of cold cream on her face she still looked attractive. She waited until Tony had washed her hands in the bathroom and come back.

  “What happened to your wedding dress?” she said abruptly. “I happen to know it’s missing.”

  Tony did not answer. She was wrapping the dressings in a towel, and Nina went on petulantly.

  “Don’t you think you’ve acted the fool long enough?” she demanded. “What happened between you and Johnny Hayes’ I’ve a good notion to send for his mother and see what she knows. She’s in town. I saw it in the paper.”

  Tony stiffened, and her young face set in hard lines.

  “If you do I’ll never forgive you, Mother.”

  “Am I supposed to sit back and see my only child eating her heart out? No wonder Alice thinks you’ve lost your mind. I’m not sure she isn’t right.”

  “I’m doing what I think is best. If that’s crazy I can’t help it.”

  She left the room, closing the door carefully behind her, and went down the stairs. The house was very quiet, and following her usual custom she deposited the dressings in the stove and set fire to them. The kitchen was dark until she lit the match, but she was startled as she replaced the stove lid to hear someone rapping on the window outside.

  She stood still, afraid to move. There was no light from the stove now and the darkness was thick. But beyond the window a distant streetlight showed her a figure which she all too surely recognized.

  “It’s Herbert,” said the voice. “Let me in quick. The police are after me.”

  She stood uncertain for a moment. Then she went to the door and unlocked it, and Herbert burst into the room. He sounded as though he had been running, and he was in an ugly mood.

  “Who put them onto me?” he demanded. “If it was you, you know what that means.”

  “I didn’t. How do you know they’re after you?”

  “I’ve got ways of finding out,” he said cryptically. “It’s that damned watch. Look, pull down the shade and let’s have a light. I need food and a bed. How about my old room?”

  She was shaking, but she steadied her voice.

  “Did you have to come here? It isn’t safe, for either of us. Even if you do stay you’ll have to be out of there before Stella comes down in the morning. Suppose she finds you there?”

  “What if she does?” he said, impatiently. “Look, I’m hungry. How about something to eat?”

  She was trapped. She was afraid of him. She always had been afraid of him. Even in Honolulu. Even when he came to the ship and taking her aside had told her about Delia.

  She had never told anyone about that.

  Now she tried to steady herself. She got soap and towels and a blanket and put them in the bedroom off the back hall. When she went back to the kitchen Herbert was comfortably settled in a chair, smoking a cigarette and with Stella’s cat on his lap. The sight made her flush with anger.

  “You know your way around here,” she said coldly. “Why don’t you get your own supper?”

  His terror had apparently gone. He grinned at her.

  “You know your way too,” he said insolently. “What did you do with that watch?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Well, you better bury it. It won’t be nice if you’re found with it.”

  She had gone to the refrigerator and was getting out some food. Now with the milk bottle in her hand she turned and looked at him.

  “I wonder why I haven’t killed you before this,” she told him. “I’ve wanted to long enough. I lie awake at night and think about how to do it.”

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  “Killing takes a lot of nerve, Tony. You ought to know that. You’ve tried it twice, haven’t you? Only not me.”

  He looked wary however as she took a long bread knife from a drawer. She did not approach him, however. She went out into the pantry, and was there at the bread box when to her horror she heard the door into the rear hall open again and Alice’s voice, high and shrill with fury.

  “What are you doing in this house?”

  Herbert was startled. He leaped to his feet, dropping the cat. His cocksureness had dropped away, and he was trying to smile.

  “Now look, Miss Rowland,” he said. “There’s no harm in my bumming a little supper, is there? Miss Tony’s known me for years, and when I saw her in here …”

  Tony was in the doorway by that time, the bread knife in her hand. Herbert saw her, but Alice did not. She was holding a letter in her hand, and her face was hard.

  “You’re getting out of here,” she said. “Right now, before I put in a call for the police. You’re doing no more blackmailing. I know now what I should have known all along. Leave the house and don’t try to come back, or I’ll set the police on you.”

  He moved toward the door, picking up his hat as he went. But some of his cocky manner had come back.

  “You’ll set the police on me!” he said. “Ask your niece there about that. She won’t like it.”

  He left then, closing the door behind him. Tony was still near the pantry, the knife in her hand. Neither she nor Alice had seen the knob turn to the back hall, or that there was a motionless figure behind the door there.

  Alice sat down by the table. She looked collapsed, but the face she turned to Tony was stone cold.

  “How long have you known?” she asked.

  “Known what?”

  “Don’t try to act the innocent with me. I have this letter in my hand. Shall I read it to you? It came from the Islands today.” She drew it out of the envelope. “But of course you know what it says. You’ve known all along, haven’t you? That’s why you broke your engagement, isn’t it? Listen, I’m going to read this to you.”

  And read it she did, Alice by the table and Tony with the knife still in her hand and unconscious of it. Neither of them saw Nina open the door and stand listening, her face livid with amazement and horror. Neither of them knew she was in the room until she struggled to take the knife from Tony. And the letter was still in Alice’s hand when Nina picked up the milk bottle and struck with all her strength at Alice’s head.

  XVII

  That was the story as Fuller heard it that night from Hilda, and as he learned it in detail later. At the time he merely listened carefully, putting in a question now and then. When she had finished she reached over to the table and turned on a lamp.

  “The letter’s here,” she said, picking it up. “Shall I read it? Or will you?”

  “Carry on,” he said. “It’s your case, apparently. Not mine.”

  She made no comment on that. She put on the shell-rimmed glasses which made her look like a baby-faced owl, and under the light he saw her hands shaking. Her voice, however, was steady enough.

  “My dear Alice,” she read. “I was terribly shocked when. your letter came. It does look like it, doesn’t it? Why else the secret dressings at night and Tony burning them? And the refusal to see Dr. Wynant, or any doctor.

  “After all Tony would know. She has seen it here in the Islands. I remember years ago they had to dismiss her nurse for letting her see an advanced case. And you must have medical advice at once. I say that because I find that Delia, for whom you inquired, has it and is at present in a leprosarium. I happen to know that she had it before they left and was not allowed to sail for that reason. The family did not know it of course.

  “It sounds brutal, Alice, but you must get Nina out of the house at once. They have institutions for lepers in the States, I believe, and that is where she will have to go. I believe …”

  Hilda stopped reading. She put the letter down.

  “There’s more,” she said, her voice flat. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Fuller had found his voice.

  “Good God!” he said hoarsely. “No wonder Nina picked up the milk bottle!”

  “No. She was hardly sane. She was a beautiful woman, and she thought she was facing exile and horror.”

  “And Tony thought so too?”<
br />
  “Yes. She knew what it meant. Her father had told her to look after her mother, and when Herbert for his own reasons lied and told her it was what she was afraid of, she was desperate. You see, she had seen it as a child. It must have left a terrific scar on her.”

  “Nina never suspected?”

  “No. Alice Rowland had a morbid fear of infection of any sort. She would never touch Stella’s cat, for instance. When Nina’s trouble developed that was how Tony kept her quiet about it. But Tony had learned about Delia before they sailed, and she’d been on the watch for four years.”

  When Fuller said nothing she went on rather drearily. “You can see how it was for Tony. It was the end of the world for her. It had been ever since Herbert had lied to her about it. She must have let him see the arm somehow. And remember this, she’d been watching for trouble. And what she thought had happened to her mother was horrible beyond words.”

  “So she tried to kill her. Better death than what was happening, I suppose.”

  “She meant to kill herself too. Remember that,” Hilda said defensively.

  “All right,” he agreed. “Now let’s get to last night. Just what did you do to Nina Rowland last night to make her do what she did?”

  There was a longish silence. When Hilda broke it her voice was unsteady.

  “I did nothing,” she said finally. “I made her let me see her arm, and I told her it was harmless skin trouble. Psoriasis, I imagine. Nasty but not what Tony had thought it was.”

  “I see,” Fuller said, not ungently. “Only where did that leave her? It was all for nothing. She had committed a murder and Tony had tried to kill herself. All for nothing.” His voice sharpened. “What could she do? What’s the difference between using an ax or breaking a neck? That’s it, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you didn’t know what would happen, Hilda.”

  She made no effort to defend herself.

  “She made her own choice. What could she expect? Disgrace and life imprisonment, or maybe the chair. If her choice was to drive the car into the river I couldn’t stop her. I was at the hospital.”