by Jerry eBooks
Dorothy hung up, and there was a roar crashing against her eardrums . . .
THE house had quieted, and some of the others had gone to bed. Dorothy was alone on the porch with only the night around her, strewn with stars, and a moon too faint and white to be real. The soft breeze moved leaves on the trees, and the warm air was mixed with the dampness of the Sound, so that breathing bathed her throat, refreshing her. She tried not to think too much, because there was no answer to the trouble in which she floundered.
She heard footsteps behind her suddenly and stiffened. Then there was Johnny West’s soft voice.
“It’s all right, Dorothy.” He moved toward her through the darkness and stood there.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I saw you when you came out. I had one of the policemen keep watch so that—well, experience wouldn’t repeat itself.”
“Thank you,” she said.
There was silence between them and he lighted a cigarette. She saw his face in the flare of the match. He looked quite unlike a detective.
“I wanted to ask you about that phone call,” he said.
“As a detective?”
“Yes,” he said.
She laughed bitterly. “I thought I killed a man, and didn’t. It was in Michigan. I ran away. He’s in New York now looking for me.”
“Is that all?”
“It has nothing to do with this case,” she said.
He touched her arm, then gripped it. “I didn’t think it did. I wanted to know for your sake. I don’t want you to be afraid.”
She looked up, a little startled.
“Nothing is going to happen to you,” he went on. “Not if every other person in there is murdered. I’ll see to that. Funny—one goes along so far like a machine and then sometimes one suddenly turn’s human. It’s something you can’t help.” His voice dropped. “I thought I’d tell you.”
“I’m grateful, Johnny,” she said. “Really I am. I can’t help being scared. No matter how sane I try to be. And this other. This phone call. Thinking about the man haunted me every day.”
“I know. I killed a man once.”
“You killed a man?”
“On duty,” he said. “He was a criminal. He might have killed me. But he didn’t. I killed him. I saw him afterward in the morgue. For that you get a raise and promotion. They pat you on the back, and they send you out to do it all over again. You don’t look at life like other people. People turn into units. Little units with legs and arms and motives. Even the men you work with aren’t human. You see them on duty and they’re your extra arms and extra legs. You are the first person I’ve seen that was warm and fresh and real. You are the kind of girl I knew before I became a cop. Only better, more vital.”
“Johnny—”
He flicked his cigarette over the side of the porch. “Am I making a speech? I’ve been trying to think how to tell you this. I wanted to explain it in some way that would sound sensible. But I guess I haven’t.”
“But I—I couldn’t realize that—”
“I know,” he said. “All you’ve seen and heard of me has been asking questions, and trying to keep from being tough, and trying to get the jump on this thing that’s in the house. But even a play has an intermission between acts. You’ve got to live and breathe some time. I came out to tell you.”
“I don’t know what to say, Johnny.” His face was expressionless. “You don’t have to say anything. It won’t matter, really.”
He put his hand across to her other arm. “Do you think you—”
She jumped down from the ledge and put herself in front of him.
“I think you’re swell,” she said, and her voice was throaty with emotion. “I’ve thought so much about a career that I never considered a man seriously. But suddenly—well, you’re here. It’s as natural as that moon in the sky.”
SHE was afraid of the emotion that pounded suddenly from within her. He took her into his arms and kissed her. She clung to his arms, holding him, and said:
“Don’t ever leave me!”
“I won’t.”
“I’m afraid. Even of myself!”
“It won’t be like that any more, Dorothy.”
“This is crazy, Johnny. You and I.”
“Could you live in a small town?” he said.
“Mamaroneck?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “I could live anywhere with you.”
“Could you stand the life a cop has to lead? Could you stand one murder investigation after another, and people threatening me, and Department jealousy, and politics sometimes, and turning down bribes even when we’re broke?”
“Anything,” she said.
“Then you love me!”
“No,” she said, “it might be hysteria. So much has happened. We can’t be sure of anything.”
“But we’re young. We’re attracted to each other.”
“It’s that,” she said, “at least. And maybe it’s love. Let’s put it that way. Let’s say it’s wonderful.”
“All right.”
“Good night.” She kissed him, then she ran across the porch and into the house . . .
She told Clifton in the morning, she brought him to her room after breakfast, because she wanted to tell him in private, and she wanted to know what he thought of it.
“Something wonderful has happened,” she said.
He leaned back against the French door to the terrace.
“Has Rhea Davis come back to life?”
“I’m serious, Clifton. I think I’m in love.”
“Love?” The word was almost foreign to him though he had made mad love to a hundred girls and written it into a dozen plays.
“Yes,” she said. “You know. Something that happens to people when they’re young.”
“Ha!”
“Like with you and Sherry once.”
“Sherry was a—a good friend.” He sobered.
“From Sherry’s standpoint then,” she said.
He flushed. “Go on.”
“Don’t you know the rest? Who he is?”
“Don’t tell me it’s our fat friend Tulley. He couldn’t put you in a play even if he did love you.”
“Clifton—it’s Johnny West.”
He rubbed his jaw. “How funny.”
“I mean it.”
His eyes grew hot. “Then it’s funnier. You and West. You and a hick cop. It’s a scream.”
“Stop it!” she shrieked.
He turned and looked out the French door glass. “Maybe I was in love with you,” he said.
“Clifton!”
“Well,” he went on without turning, “maybe I was. That’s hot, isn’t it?”
“What about Sherry?”
He said: “What about her?”
“You change women to suit your convenience and whim,” said Dorothy, “and if you think I ever had considered that kind of love, you’re crazy.”
“All right, I’m crazy.”
“Do you think you can go through life fixing things to meet your fingers? Are you going to try and tie yourself to any girl who is in a position to help you in one way or another? Don’t you think you’re too mercenary even to have a decent, honest emotion?”
“Maybe.”
“Don’t you care?”
“No,” he said. “I like Clifton Dell.”
“You’re cold. You’re not worthy of any woman.”
“But I’ll always have them.”
“Yes. You’ll always have them. And broken hearts scattered in your wake like broken bottles.”
HE TURNED suddenly, facing her.
“And what’ll you have? Chickens and babies and corn growing in your back yard. All right. You want that, I want success. I want to write the best plays that were ever written in this generation. And I will. I don’t care what’s left in the wake. Bottles or bodies or hearts. I’m going to get to the top. That’s the spirit I thought you had. But you haven’t. You’re the eternal
woman. Soft and weepy. Something to put on a stage to tear the hearts out of a sentimental audience. Something in whose mouth to put stinging dialogue and renunciations about the home is better than a theater dressing-room.”
“Clifton!”
“Take it. I took it from you. If it isn’t love I feel for you, it’s love for the art of the theater which is, and always will be, the only real love in my soul. It’s hearing you talk about throwing your life away in a town twenty miles from the Broadway that can make you immortal!”
She had turned pale with rage, but knew nothing to say to him.
“Please go,” she said.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“That’s all.”
“Then you know I’m right, don’t you?”
“No. I don’t know that.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” he said. “You’re as stupid as Betty Smyth.”
He turned and walked out of the room.
VI
DOROTHY sank down on the bed and sobbed. She could not help herself. She did love Johnny West, she knew that now, and yet, as with Clifton, the theater would never leave her soul.
There was a high, shrill scream from the hall.
She jerked rigid with terror. The scream started again, but a crashing sound shut it off. For a moment there was silence. Then someone else was screaming.
Dorothy ran into the hall. Clifton was there just ahead of her. Mike Wiggam came running from his room, in the opposite direction.
Part of the rail near the stairway had been torn away. Dorothy looked down to the first floor. She saw a body there. Betty Smyth was standing staring at it, screaming. Sam Tulley was rushing toward it from the living room. Grant was coming from the direction of the servants’ hall. Clifton was racing down the stairs. Halfway down, he stared over the banister, and stopped.
“Frances!” he said. “It’s Frances! Dead!”
Frances had been thrown through the upstairs banister and had landed on her head and shoulders. She was crushed lifelessly, her arms thrown out, and Dorothy could look at her only for a second. She had just turned away from it when Johnny West came in. He stared down and Dorothy, sick, moved into the living room and sat down.
The others came in presently, at West’s request. He had thrown a tablecloth over Frances. He followed Grant and Betty. His face was white, his lips thin and bloodless. He picked up the telephone.
“Coroner’s office? This is West. Mamaroneck. I’m at Mrs. Davis’ house. The maid is dead. . . What?”
He hung up and looked around the room soberly.
“This thing is bad,” he said slowly.
“So bad that when I get a line on somebody I’m personally going to pound the life out of him with my two hands.” He looked up and around the room again. “I’ve given you people too much of a break. From here on it’s an express train . . . Who Was the first to see her?”
Betty Smyth started to speak, but paused as Roy moved quietly into the room and sat down. Betty made another start.
“I was standing there in the foyer when she fell.”
“Did you look up to see who had done it?” Johnny asked.
“No. Not right away. I couldn’t take my eyes away from Frances. I was—I was stunned.”
Johnny West was patient. “When you did look up,” he said loudly enough for her to hear, “whom did you see?”
“Mr. Dell.”
“Is that all?”
“No. A minute later I saw Miss Noel and Mr. Wiggam.”
“A minute later?”
“Well—no. I don’t know how long it was.”
West shifted his glance to Clifton. “You were the first in the hall upstairs.”
“I guess so,” Clifton said.
“How soon did you get there?”
“The moment I heard the scream,” Clifton replied. “I had just gone into my room.”
“Just gone into your room. Where had you been?”
“In Dorothy Noel’s room.”
West looked at Dorothy, but he was expressionless. He turned back to Clifton.
“You had come from Miss Noel’s room and had just gone back into your own. You had closed the door. Then you heard the scream. You opened the door again and dashed into the hall.”
“That’s right.”
“Had Frances already hit the floor then?”
“Yes.”
Johnny West tossed his cigarette into an ash tray.
“Do you know what I’m getting at?”
“Not exactly,” said Clifton, “but since you’ve asked to be qualified, I’d say it was something like the old French proverb—doing nothing sweetly.”
“Ah, you don’t like the way I work?”
“Personally,” Clifton said, “I think you have an odor.”
JOHNNY WEST shoved himself off the table.
“That’s quite personal,” he said. “Quite.” He moved slowly toward Clifton. Suddenly he lunged out and grabbed the front of his polo shirt. “One more smart word out of you and you’re going to taste knuckles.”
“Get your putrid hands off me!” Clifton roared.
West’s fist flew. There was a solid smack across Clifton’s mouth and he went backward, losing his balance. He hit the floor.
West stood there with his legs spread. “That goes for the rest of you. You, Wiggam. Old as you are.”
“I’ll be damned if I’m old,” said Wiggam, “and if this is a new way to solve murder cases I suggest you get a patent on it. You’re nothing but a hot-headed kid. Why weren’t you here when Frances was killed? Then you wouldn’t have to ask questions.”
“I might ask where you were.”
Mike Wiggam, at Clifton’s side, looked up and answered West’s question.
“I was in my room playing solitaire. Pass on to the next candidate, Sherlock.”
West said: “You, Tulley?”
The fattish producer lighted a cigar. “I was out getting a breath of air. I was close to the house, so I heard the scream.”
Johnny West glanced down at the fresh dirt on Tulley’s shoes. “Which entrance did you use coming in?”
“The side.”
Mrs. O’Malley, the cook, had come to the door and was standing there, holding her apron.
West looked at Grant. “You?”
“I was on the back porch. I came in through the servants’ entrance.”
Mrs. O’Malley said: “Mr. West.”
West looked up. “Yes?”
“Can I leave?”
“I’m sorry. I’d like to let you leave, Mrs. O’Malley, but I can’t. Where was your husband when this happened?”
“He was in the kitchen with me.”
“Well, if that’s true, I don’t suspect either one of you strongly, but you have to stay in the house until the killer is apprehended.”
“But I’m scared, and after just seeing poor little Frances run from her room a moment before she was killed, I can’t stand it!”
“You actually saw her run from her room?”
“Yes, poor tike. She was all excited. I saw her from the kitchen.”
“In which direction did she go?”
“This way. Toward the foyer. Then upstairs, I guess. She was probably hunting for you.”
“You think she had something to tell me, then?” West asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” Mrs. O’Malley replied. “All I know is what I saw.”
“She wasn’t carrying anything? A pair of shoes, a knife?”
“Sure, and she was,” said Mrs. O’Malley. “Now that you remind me.”
“What?”
“She was carrying a newspaper. I remember it clearly.”
“A newspaper? Is that all?”
Disappointment flickered across the cook’s red face. “That’s all. It was folded kinda. She had it in her hand and she was running.”
“I see,” said West. “Thank you very much. I’m sure you’ve been of help.”
Dorothy saw Johnny leave the room. S
he was beside Clifton now and she noticed that Johnny lifted the cloth from Frances’ corpse. He replaced it and began searching around for something. Clifton was spotted with blood and his jaw was swollen.
Wiggam said: “You led with your chin all right, kid. But he didn’t have any right to do that. I will say, though, you’ve been giving him an awful headache with that talk of yours.”
“It wasn’t what I said,” Clifton murmured, but he didn’t go on.
DOROTHY looked at him.
“He’s just trying to do his job, and you keep aggravating him. I suppose he’s sorry now, but I can understand how he did it.”
“Sure,” said Clifton, can understand. But if he had a wit of my brain he wouldn’t be soft heeling it for the Mamaroneck cops. He’s just a big fish flipping around in a little pond that’s going to dry up on him some day and leave him to bake and rot in country sunshine.”
“You should write plays,” said Wiggam.
“What do you think I do?”
“Oh,” said Wiggam, lifting his eyebrows, “now that you mention it, I remember something about it.”
“You’re lying. I’ve talked plays ever since I walked into this house. You wrote a play once, too. You also wrote a book about a crazy house that made you a neat piece of coin. Since I’m acquainted with what you’ve done, you might be more respectful.”
“As a matter of fact,” Wiggam replied, “I am. But you have no sense of humor. Drama to the bitter end. Hurrah for the sword of blood. Let liberty ring. Keep it, kid. Right or wrong, it’ll make you. It doesn’t matter in the theater whether you’re right. A lot of playwrights in history have had soap boxes. Do you remember Shakespeare?”
“I’ve heard he was the greatest.”
“You mean you’ve never read him?”
“No,” said Clifton. “I’ve been writing plays all my life and I’ve never had time.”
Johnny West was at the door. “Dorothy.”
She got up and went to him. His face was grim and white. He took her past the corpse and into the servants’ hall.
“You were talking to Frances the other night. I thought you might be able to help me.”
“I will if I can,” she said.
“Frances was killed, of course, because she knew something that would incriminate the murderer of Mrs. Davis. It must have been something she recently discovered. She was excited about it, and we’ll say she was on her way to tell me. The murderer saw her running up the stairs and he must have seen the newspaper in her hand. That newspaper possibly had something to do with it.”