“This may be the only murder you’ll ever have,” Mr. Pennyfeather suggested helpfully.
“One is enough.”
“And you’ll have something to remember.”
“I’ve got plenty to remember. I’ve lived here through a gold rush, a lost-mine expedition, two oil booms, and the war. The war’s been the worst. Till now, of course.”
Glee Hazzard put her arm on the table and leaned her head into it. “Excuse me. I—I’m so tired.”
“Would you like to get back to the hotel?” asked Mr. Pennyfeather.
“No,” said Glee. “I like it here. I like the juke box and the smells. Did Tick ever tell you we picked each other up in a beer joint?”
“He mentioned something about some beer.”
“That would be the beer I poured on him. We quarreled horribly, always. You know, I haven’t eaten since our breakfast together, and the beer is making me very silly. I think I’m going to cry.”
Mr. Pennyfeather was facing the open door. In the dusky street, against the light in the lobby, he saw Mrs. Blight. She was on the front porch of the hotel; her head was high; and something about the glitter of her glasses alarmed Mr. Pennyfeather. He decided all at once that Taffy Whittemore’s condition—as far as Tick was concerned—had taken a turn for the worst, and that Mrs. Blight was bringing the message.
He recalled for no reason whatever his remark to her about making a plot against Tick when the time had been better, and her reaction to his words. He ran an experimental finger into a pocket, making sure he had Tick’s letter with the remark written on its envelope. When he saw Tick, he’d ask him why it should have frightened her.
Perhaps Tick would know.
The clock above the bar showed the time as seven-forty. If he left here now and dawdled on the way, he shouldn’t be too early for his rendezvous with the baked steak and mushrooms.
“If you feel like crying,” he told Glee, “I’d advise you to go right ahead and cry. You’ve had a bad day.”
“I’m going to buy some more beer,” said Mr. Johns.
“I’m afraid I can’t stay to enjoy it with you,” said Mr. Pennyfeather. Mrs. Blight had swung off the porch and was looking about in a way that suggested a hawk ready to pounce. “I’m going to slip out. Will you see Miss Hazzard to the hotel?”
“When she’s through crying,” Mr. Johns said hastily. “I wouldn’t take a weeping woman in my place for a thousand dollars. You’ve no idea the kind of mind this town’s got.”
“Until later, then.” Mr. Pennyfeather fled for the rear entry, leaving Glee and Mr. Johns staring after him in surprise. The alley behind Mama’s Place was deep in shadow and full of weeds with stickers in them. The wind was like a cold breath blowing through a slot.
He remembered his overcoat in his room at the hotel. If he crossed the street warily and made sure that Mrs. Blight was still in it, there was no reason he couldn’t slip up the opposite alley and into Mr. Johns’s back door and to his own room. The dusky light made him a trifle nervous, though there was little enough, really, to be frightened at. There was a feeling of being suddenly alone—that came from leaving the lights and the music of Mama’s Place so quickly—and there was the odd hunch that someone might have heard all those things he’d told Stacey and perhaps didn’t like him for them.
He crossed the street furtively, caught sight of Mrs. Blight examining Mama’s Place through the open door, and scurried up the other alley to the rear of the hotel. The lower hall was quite dark. Mr. Pennyfeather rushed through it to the yellow brightness of the lobby. The lobby was empty. He sprinted for the stairs.
The upper hall was not quite so gloomy as the lower, for doors stood open here and there to let in any stray breath of breeze. He noted Taffy’s door ajar, his own at the end of the hall letting in a gray blob of light, the bathroom opposite showing a patch of green linoleum, the color faint because the light was faint, grayed with the touch of twilight. He was hurrying past when he saw that Mrs. Andler’s door, also, stood slightly open.
Unreasonably, because he hadn’t even been thinking of the problem, the pieces fell into place.
He knew where Mrs. Andler had been while Taffy and Mrs. Blight put on their scene for Tick.
He knew, too, with a freezing certainty, that he shouldn’t touch that door.
Chapter Twelve
There was someone in Mrs. Andler’s room. The person might, of course, be Sheriff Stacey. Or someone just being curious.
Or it could be the unpleasant someone who had killed Mrs. Andler.
He slid into his own room and stood there in the dusk. His heart was doing drumbeats and his breath was a wheeze. He was a little surprised at his own lack of courage. He had a silly desire to call out for help, but the only person he was sure was on this floor was Taffy; Taffy with a skull fracture or an ability to act as though she had one.
He kept utterly still.
By and by there was a cautious step from inside Mrs. Andler’s room. The step approached the hall; Mr. Pennyfeather heard it. He darted across the room and lifted the lid of the window seat and folded his narrow length into the empty space. He had quite a lot of room, but he had guessed that he would have. If a woman as big as Mrs. Andler had been parked in one, he should be able to use one also.
The boards which faced his room were old and dried and cracked. He brushed a spider web off his face and put his eye to a gray-lit opening.
The white bulk of Miss Comfort came to stand in his doorway.
She seemed to peer about with a touch of nervousness. “Mr. Pennyfeather, didn’t I just hear you come in?”
Mr. Pennyfeather felt sorry for her, but he had a hunch that if he should rise suddenly out of the window seat at her the results would be disastrous. He remained quiet.
“I heard someone,” she quavered to herself. She looked back into the hall. “But there isn’t anyone now.” Then she walked into his room and peered under his bed. “Mr. Pennyfeather!”
As if, he thought indignantly, I’d be fool enough to get under there!
She must have noticed his windproof lying across the foot of his bed; she picked it up slowly; she murmured: “What a nice coat! I wonder if he’d mind?”
She slipped it on, and because it was a very large coat for Mr. Pennyfeather it was a pretty good fit for Miss Comfort. It covered the white uniform, and Mr. Pennyfeather had the odd impression that he was seeing a larger and feminine version of himself walking about the room.
“He wouldn’t mind,” she murmured.
I would, too, thought Mr. Pennyfeather angrily.
She went out with it on. Mr. Pennyfeather sprang from the window seat and ran after her; he wanted the coat for that windy trip through Superstition’s alleys. But Miss Comfort had vanished. Behind the closed door of the bathroom, water was running.
He went away defeated, noting that Mrs. Andler’s door was shut. He thought crossly that Miss Comfort had a trio of bad habits she ought to correct: she meddled about on the scene of crime; she talked to herself; and she wore strange men’s clothes without asking their permission.
All the way to Mrs. Jessop’s boardinghouse he thought up cross things to say to Miss Comfort.
He saw Tick before he ever rapped at the door. Tick and Caroline were seated at a table; they had coffee in front of them, and Tick was smoking, knocking ash into the saucer. Mrs. Jessop was seated in a rocker near the door to the kitchen; she was knitting something in bright blue wool. On the screen door a great many insects hummed and battered to get in at the light. Mr. Pennyfeather knocked.
Caroline sprang up to let him in. Mr. Pennyfeather thought that she looked a trifle discomposed, a little angry. She unhooked the latch and said, “Good evening. Come on in.” She didn’t smile, and the chin he had admired was stern.
“Good evening.” He waited for Tick to look up at him, and Tick didn’t do it. He saw all at once that they had had an argument. “Perhaps I’m interrupting.”
“Nonsense,” said Mr
s. Jessop firmly. “You come in and have some dinner. There isn’t a fit place to eat out in this town. As for these children, just ignore them. They’re fighting over getting married.”
“Oh.” He looked from Tick to Caroline. Mrs. Jessop was folding her knitting, and from the kitchen came the smell of the steak, kept warm in the oven. “Shouldn’t you leave the fighting till after the ceremony?”
Only Mrs. Jessop smiled at his little joke. Tick looked at the end of his cigarette. The tight mouth, the drawn look of anger around his eyes reminded Mr. Pennyfeather of the days at school when Tick had fumed over his aunt’s restrictions.
“As I was saying—” said Caroline, sitting down.
“I heard you,” said Tick rudely, “and you needn’t say it again. You won’t marry me until the murder’s cleared up. Why?” He shot her a blazing look. “Because you’re afraid I did it?”
“Now you’re being foolish and uncontrolled.”
Mrs. Jessop was in the kitchen; the aroma of steak and mushrooms was overpowering. Mr. Pennyfeather moved nearer the kitchen so as to smell it better. He didn’t try to read Caroline’s downcast face. He had known before that a young woman as careful of her reputation as Miss Pond would be wary of Tick until his troubles were settled.
“You make me sick,” said Tick. “You’re so damned buttery and nice. You’re so damned respectable.”
“Try to see my side of it.” She was holding her voice down, keeping a stern check on the thing that flared in her brown eyes. “I’m in the Woman’s Army Corps, a part of something a lot bigger than I am. We don’t want scandal. We need women—good, decent women—and they won’t come in if there’s a mess.”
Mr. Pennyfeather felt unwillingly that now it was time he took a hand. He walked to the chair Tick sat in. “She’s right, son. Don’t snarl at her any longer. Maybe she’s overdoing it a little. If she is, it’s for a cause we all believe in.”
Tick mangled what was left of his cigarette and stood up. It was at that moment that Joe Jessop walked into the kitchen. His sandy hair was blown, and there was a whipped ruddy look to his face. Mr. Pennyfeather judged that he had been out for some while and that he had come home through the alleys.
He said to his wife: “Are you going to let me in, Lou?”
“Don’t I always?” she snapped.
It was then that he caught sight of Mr. Pennyfeather. Mr. Pennyfeather nodded. Mr. Jessop didn’t do anything but stare. The lights of the kitchen shone in his prominent eyes and marked the little lines dissipation had etched in his skin. He was wearing the green sweater and the gray pants. His throat made some spasmodic movements as though he were swallowing something rather too big for comfort.
Mr. Pennyfeather gathered that his presence there was more than startling to Mr. Jessop. He wondered if Mr. Jessop would mind his having dinner.
“Here you are,” said Mrs. Jessop, coming out of the kitchen. “Just sit down anywhere. I’ve got coffee getting hot.” She put a plate on the table. On the plate was a baked swiss steak covered with mushrooms and gravy, some candied sweet potatoes, half an avocado spread with cream cheese, some buttered carrots, and a hot roll oozing jam.
Mr. Pennyfeather sat down in a hurry. He relegated Mr. Jessop’s staring amazement to the back of his mind and gave himself up to the senses of smell and appetite. There was a touch of orégano to the steak, and the carrots had been exposed to garlic. He stuffed himself into a state of bliss.
When the plate had been emptied, she took it away and brought a wedge of pie. “Try this,” she said. “It’s a very old-fashioned recipe. Apple custard. With whipped cream, of course.”
Mr. Pennyfeather began on the pie. He was rather full, but the pie deserved attention.
Joe Jessop had remained in the kitchen; Mr. Pennyfeather felt his intent regard. He also sensed that Jessop was taking in the attitudes of Caroline and Tick. They were at opposite ends of one of the big tables; Tick had sat down again, but he wasn’t speaking to Caroline. Caroline, inside her uniform, was straight as a stick. She was pretending to read the WAC manual, perhaps in an effort to impress Tick and to remind Mr. Pennyfeather that her motives were of the highest.
“I think it’s time you children quit this foolishness,” said Mrs. Jessop, settling again to knit. “Caroline, you always were stubborn, and I’ve never liked it. Mr. Burrell, your temper seems a bit on the explosive side. I think you both should come down off your high horses and make up.”
Tick frowned, looking quickly at Caroline.
Caroline said primly, “Aunt Lou, I’ve got to do as I think right.”
Mr. Jessop’s face took on an expression that was not happiness. “Carrie,” he said from the kitchen, “could I talk to you for a minute?” Caroline put the book down slowly. “Excuse us, folks,” Mr. Jessop added with a touch of trying to be humorous. “No state secrets, just a minor thing I wanted Carrie to know.”
Caroline vanished with her uncle into the darkness of the alley. Mr. Pennyfeather decided that this was as good a time as he might have to ask Tick about his remark to Mrs. Blight. Between his last two bites of pie, he skidded the envelope down the table toward Tick. “That’s a remark I made to Mrs. Blight today. She seemed very cut up over it. See whether you’d know why.”
Tick murmured the written words: “Why didn’t you figure out something like this when you had him? When he was really interested in her?” He frowned the length of the table at Mr. Pennyfeather. “You mean this stuff was a shock?”
“A drastic shock,” Mr. Pennyfeather amplified.
“I presume,” said Tick, flipping the envelope, “that the words referred to the tumble Taffy took downstairs.”
“She’s developing a skull fracture, you know.”
“She is?” Tick grew belligerent. “More funny business?”
“I’m afraid so. But explain the remark, if you can, or rather its effect on Mrs. Blight.”
“I can’t explain it. I don’t see why it should frighten her. It’s a mess.” He wiggled a black eyebrow at the paper.
“Give me the envelope, then. I’ll think about it some more.” He caught the envelope as Tick skidded it back to him. “One or two other things came up today, incidentally.”
“Yes, I’ll want to hear about them.”
Mrs. Jessop turned a corner, started a new row of stitches, yawned.
“The sheriff wanted to arrest Miss Hazzard.”
All expression drained out of Tick’s face. “Did he arrest her?”
“No. He let her know that she’s under a cloud, however.”
Tick got up and went to the screen door; he stared through it at the dark and at the bugs that battered and tumbled against the wire. He lit another cigarette. “Have you talked very much to Glee?”
“Quite a bit.”
Tick went on staring at the dark. “Sometimes when we had first broken up I used to ache for the sound of her voice. That touch of huskiness, of nervous warmth or something—I can’t express what I want to say. I used to sit looking at the telephone, trying to imagine her voice coming from it. She’s so awfully alive, and we—we were so damned crazy about each other.”
The room had grown very quiet, except for Tick’s voice. Mr. Pennyfeather had the nervous feeling that Caroline and Mr. Jessop were at the back door and that they must have heard. Mrs. Jessop hadn’t taken her eyes off her knitting; her mouth was no longer comfortable, half-smiling, tolerant. Mrs. Jessop had known what Tick had meant, and she hadn’t liked it.
“That interlude with Taffy …” Tick laughed, bitterly. “That was trying to fool myself.”
Mrs. Jessop dropped a stitch.
Mr. Pennyfeather wondered suddenly what Caroline’s marriage to Tick and to Tick’s five million dollars might mean to the Jessops. They seemed comfortably well off; Mrs. Jessop’s boardinghouse was thriving; Mr. Jessop seemed able to indulge his taste for drink. Still … ambition for flashier and livelier living thrived in odd places.
Mr. Pennyfeather recalled, not wit
hout emotion, how Tick’s own father had been the first young fellow in their little town to own a car and how flashy the car had been and what odd effects it had had on other people. On a certain girl, for instance, who had worn Mr. Pennyfeather’s ring and who afterward had wanted her son—not Mr. Pennyfeather’s son—to be a bishop. Yes, ambition was a queer and inexplicable trait, he thought; the Jessops might be plagued with it.
Mr. Jessop might simply be trying to drown the knowledge of his own futility and failure in the face of his wife’s success. Or he might be drinking up the profits and tottering on the verge of disaster. In which latter case, a niece with a bank roll like Tick’s wife would have would prove a valuable property.
He pursued the line of thought and found that his mind had skittered off upon another: the odd idea that whoever had rendered Mrs. Andler unconscious and stuffed her into the window seat had done so to keep her from ruining Taffy’s act of falling downstairs. This accounted for Mrs. Andler’s strange absence from that hysteric frame-up. Would it mean, necessarily, that the same person had committed the murder?
He tried to fit in other pieces of the puzzle: Mr. John’s ax from the linen closet, the blue glow in Mrs. Andler’s room, the cactus thorn. None of them seemed to fit.
Tick broke into his feverish mental skirmishing by pushing upon the screen door and walking out through it. His steps went off the porch; died in the dark street.
Mrs. Jessop began to fold her knitting. “It’s very early, but I believe I’ll just pop into bed and read for a while.”
Mr. Pennyfeather looked for any sign of Caroline’s return, or of Mr. Jessop. The kitchen was empty, fragrant of food; its screen door, like that at the front, showed nothing but the night.
“You might talk to Tick,” she suggested as though the matter were a trifle. “Caroline and he should make things up as quickly as possible. I don’t see why they shouldn’t be married right away. In fact, I think Joe’s telling Carrie that somewhere, right now.”
She smiled at Mr. Pennyfeather and covered a little yawn.
Bring the Bride a Shroud Page 10