Death in the Back Seat

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  He lapsed into moody silence. Then suddenly he said, “Hark-way tells me she tried to persuade you two to move out of the cottage.”

  “She invited us to stay a while with her.”

  “Jack believes,” I said, “that something is hidden in the cottage. Something that Elliott wanted and couldn’t find. He’s been hunting for it. He hasn’t found it. Maybe Annabelle knows what it is. It wouldn’t hurt to ask her.”

  “It wouldn’t help. She refuses to admit that Elliott broke into the place.” Again the police chief was silent. He roused from his thoughts. “It occurs to me that you might like someone out there at night. My force is pretty small, but Harkway could probably shift his things from his boarding house. He mentioned it this morning.”

  “Thanks, but it isn’t necessary,” said Jack, before I could leap at the offer. He grinned. “Personally I anticipate no trouble, but if there’s trouble I’ll be prepared to take care of it.”

  I sent him a questioning glance. Standish looked curious, but Jack volunteered no information. Shortly afterward we separated. Standish went back to the station, and we started home. Jack stopped the car at the village electrical shop.

  I watched him through the plate-glass windows. He talked earnestly to the town’s electrician. Shortly he returned to the car with a large, bulky bundle which he conspicuously failed to explain. We arrived at the cottage and I started sorting the groceries. I kept my eye on Jack. He hunted up a hammer and a box of staples, took the package and retired to the bedroom. I heard pounding.

  When my curiosity became unbearable some five minutes later, I casually entered the bedroom. Affixed to the wall beside the bed was a small new electric bell. Dropping from the bell to the floor was a long ribbon of wire. Jack was busily leading this wire along the baseboard, securing it with staples. He looked up at me and grinned.

  “I really expected you sooner.”

  “What is that thing?”

  “It’s a burglar alarm. Next time—if there is a next time—anyone breaks into the cellar I’ll know it.” Jack’s grin vanished to leave an expression almost terrifyingly serious. “There’s been too much talking in this case. Lola. Talk always means leaks. I want this—this trap of mine kept strictly between us two. Then there’ll be no leaks. Particularly,” he said, “I don’t want Annabelle Bayne to find out.”

  I agreed with him. Many times since I have wondered whether the coming events would have been changed in their course if I hadn’t been so scrupulously careful not to mention our burglar alarm.

  Jack carried his operations on into the cellar, and summoned me to hold a flashlight. Moving along in the semi-gloom he awkwardly nailed the length of wire to the overhead beams. He cut it off at the cellar door. I have no clear comprehension of electrical appliances, but I realized that the small oval copper plate which Jack fastened over the raw ends of the wire must be the contact. A tiny, loosely joined copper crossbar was then screwed to the door frame in such a position that the parallel arm of the cross tilted to touch the copper plate when it met resistance. The opening of the door, of course, would furnish the resistance.

  Slicing into the main stem of the wire, Jack grafted on an offshoot and carried it to the cellar window, where he arranged a second electrical device. We were now, in his opinion, adequately protected against unannounced and unwelcome visitors. With a contented sigh he turned to me. “Let’s try it out. You run up to the bedroom while I go outside and shove up the window and open the door. It should work.”

  It did work. Hardly had I taken my position before the entire cottage exploded into sound. High, shrill, ear-splitting—like the scream of a locomotive in the night. Jack came rushing up. “My God, that would wake the dead.” An hour’s tinkering and a dozen tests eventually reduced the bell to a volume sufficient to wake us and insufficient to alarm a possible intruder.

  Jack firmly twisted the final screw. “Not bad—if I do say so myself. From now on, Lola, I sleep at my post like a fireman.” He then produced and examined the gun which Harkway had lent to him. He smiled grimly. He has had experience on clay-pigeon ranges at Coney Island and fancies himself as quite a shot. He slipped the gun and flashlight beneath his pillow.

  Our protection failed signally to improve my slumbers that night. Half a dozen times, certain that the bell was ringing and that hordes of intruders were congregated in the cellar, I started bolt upright only to sink back with the realization that I had been dreaming. It was a dark moonless night, very quiet. Not a leaf stirred outside, not a blade of grass.

  Reuben was curled on an old coat near the bed. Occasionally in the darkness I would hear him whimper. Once he frightened me badly by leaping to the bed and attempting to crawl beneath the covers. I suppose that must have been his habit with Silas.

  The slow hours wore away. I dreamed and roused and dreamed again. In the morning I looked thirty. “Tonight we leave a light burning,” I announced at breakfast.

  “And spoil everything?”

  “You slept like a log. I didn’t close my eyes.”

  “You’ll sleep tonight.”

  I daresay no one can maintain a state of consistent terror. On the second night after the installation of our burglar alarm I retired at ten o’clock and didn’t wake until eight a.m.

  I was relieved and inclined to be a little caustic at Jack’s expense. I know that he was disappointed. He had felt so sure that another attempt would be made to enter the cellar. Curiously enough it was at this point, and with the conclusion of our tragedies so close at hand, that he declared his belief that the mystery would never be solved.

  “That suits me,” I said. “I’m fed up with gumshoe work. I’m sick of the country and of theories and of policemen bobbing in and out of my life. I want to go back to New York.” Jack said slowly, “I know how you feel. You’ve been a good sport, Lola. And it won’t be long now. We’re leaving soon.”

  “How soon?” I demanded suspiciously.

  “Next week if you want to. I saw Standish this morning when I went down for the papers. He said we could get out of Crockford on Monday. Regardless of whether Elliott turns up.”

  I gave a cry of joy. “Why not now? I’d love to pack and go in tomorrow.”

  “Try to contain yourself until Monday.”

  It was a gray, misty, sunless day calculated to increase my restlessness. The idea of New York took hold of me so that I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I made biscuits for lunch and left out the baking powder. I didn’t get my dusting done, and the carpet-sweeper sat in the living room until nearly two o’clock. I did straighten the papers in my office, but any mental work was out of the question.

  In the early afternoon I heard Dr. Rand’s ancient car passing on the road, and recognized at once the distinctive engine noises—a weird combination of a hiss and a chortle. I ran to the window and rapped on the pane. The physician alighted and came in.

  “You young folks look too healthy to need my services.”

  I gleefully imparted our news. “We’re going back to town next week. Jack just got word this morning. On Monday we’ll be free as the air.”

  “Lola!” Jack looked annoyed. “I was asked not to mention our going.”

  The physician smiled. “I’m tight-mouthed as a clam. Why the secrecy anyhow? I wonder.”

  Jack shrugged. “I suppose it’s a matter of pride. Once we leave, the whole village knows the investigation has blown sky-high. Until then we’re the only ones who know that Standish is completely stymied.”

  “Don’t deceive yourself,” Dr. Rand said sharply. “Standish is slow and maybe a little stupid, but my guess is he’s got something up his sleeve. I’ve thought so for some time.” He yawned. “I’m not in his confidence any more. He’s still miffed at me for holding back the Jane Coatesnash story—he called me an antisocial menace, said I was morally responsible for the Paris suicide. I daresay he’s partially right, but it’s a burden I’m glad to carry. Standish seems to feel that Mrs. Coatesnash would be better off
coming home in chains, standing trial, facing imprisonment and maybe worse—better off that way than lying peacefully dead. I can’t say I agree.”

  Pleading a long list of patients, the physician soon departed. Our boredom closed down again. We started a laggard game of double canfield. At four o’clock we had a surprise.

  Annabelle Bayne made a call at the cottage.

  She was dressed in black, that dead, dusty black which looks like mourning. She didn’t wear a trace of rouge, and her white face with its pronounced lines and angles was stark as a primitive. I had neglected to send down her cigarette case, and she brusquely announced that she had come for it. I was too surprised that she had been permitted to come to be very tactful. I simply gaped at her.

  “I can see,” said Annabelle, “you’re wondering how I broke out of prison. You Storms have transparent faces.”

  “Please—”

  “The police force is probably in a dither now.” She gave a mirthless little laugh. “At least I cost the county a little gas. I was followed from homeland it took me sixty miles to outwit a thick-skulled constable who had a faster car than mine. Now are you feeling easier?”

  I said nothing. Jack said nothing. Annabelle sank to the lounge. “You can phone and report me if you like. I’ve had my fun.”

  She didn’t look as though she were having fun. She stared hard into the fire and I knew it was to conceal the tears in her eyes. She was as remote, as rude, as deliberately mysterious as ever, but I pitied her. She turned.

  “Well, where’s my cigarette case? I mustn’t neglect to remember my excuse for calling.”

  “It’s in the bedroom.”

  She rose and started there. It was Annabelle’s habit always to make herself at home wherever she happened to be. Jack managed to stop her at the door. Sharp as her eyes were, she had not, I am certain, glimpsed our makeshift burglar alarm. Jack brought out the cigarette case.

  “Why did you come?”

  She glanced from him to me. “I meant to tell you how much I hated you, but now I’m here I’m softening.” Her lips twisted. “Some day you will learn the harm your meddling’s done. Some day very soon.”

  Her manner invited no questioning; it was impossible to enter a defense to an accusation so oblique. She was referring somehow to Franklyn Elliott, but I couldn’t say I hoped their affairs would straighten out when I felt quite sure they never would. Outside, a light breeze suddenly became a stiff wind. A shutter banged against the window. Jack started the radio.

  Annabelle listened tensely. “Is that a short-wave set? Can you get police calls?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “It doesn’t matter.” She forced herself to shrug. “I know they are still broadcasting Frank’s description.” She ended almost like a person speaking to himself: “Frank has been gone four days now. It seems much longer.”

  “You—” Jack hesitated. “—you could help if you would. Are you quite determined to wait out the week?”

  “If the little—the very little—I have to say would help the police find Franklyn Elliott,” she replied fiercely, “I would have said it. Why should I speak prematurely—perhaps endanger his life—merely to satisfy your curiosity?”

  Her hostility stood between us like a stone wall. Outside, the breeze was freshening and clouds were scudding along the sky. We sat in slowly growing tension. Annabelle smoked many cigarettes. She was in a crackling state of nerves. She talked rapidly, pointlessly, and her sentences ran together. At length, abruptly, she rose.

  “I have some news that might interest you self-appointed sleuths,” she said in parting. “Luella’s body arrives in Crockford some time next week. I thought you’d want to know.”

  The callousness with which she spoke echoed an earlier manner, the manner in which she had referred to the suicide. Yet where Franklyn Elliott’s safety was concerned she showed the deepest feeling. Once she had shown feeling for Luella Coatesnash. I remembered the day of the inquest when, in court, she had defended her old friend ardently, violently and to her own great danger. Annabelle dropped the cigarette case into her bag.

  “Bromley is preparing now to receive the body. The funeral will probably be the biggest this town has ever seen.” She wound up in a curious way, “That funeral, if nothing else does, may clear the air.”

  On this elusive note she left. She refused to permit Jack to escort her to her car. She declined to stay for supper, although we urged her strongly.

  “I must get home. I’m terrified of thunderstorms and this one is going to be a lulu.”

  Her prediction was correct. She had hardly stepped outside before the storm crashed down. Wind howled in the trees; a loose shutter whirled from the roof and struck in the yard. There was the sharp imminent smell of rain in the air. Jack started hurriedly closing doors and windows. With Reuben at my heels I rushed out to call Annabelle back. Her car was already gone from the drive.

  I was returning to the house when Reuben seized the opportunity to run across the road. I shouted at him, but he ignored my command, slipped under the pasture gate and made a beeline up the hill toward the Lodge. Poor dog, he, too, was terrified of thunderstorms and the dreary little dwelling still meant home to him. I shouted again, then started in pursuit. The rain was just beginning. A few heavy liquid drops struck upon my bare head, but I thought absurdly that I had time to capture Reuben and regain the cottage. My mistake was brought home to me an instant later. Suddenly the wind increased to gale velocity; there was a deafening clap of thunder; lightning jumped across the sky, and as if by signal the rain poured down. Yards ahead Reuben gave a terrified yelp, scudded off the path and took refuge on the open back porch of the Lodge. Angry and annoyed, drenched to the skin, I joined him there.

  A part of the porch, equipped as the dairy room, was partially sheltered by a lattice to which clung dead morning-glory vines. Whimpering, Reuben crawled behind a pile of milk cans and pressed himself against the wall. I squeezed between a cream separator and an electric ice box—oversize because Silas had stored there Mrs. Coatesnash’s milk and cream—and began to wring out my soaked clothing.

  The dead vines like frantic castanets beat against the lattice, and the whole place was damp, dark, unutterably dreary. Water seeped across the plank flooring and blew in streamers through the crevices. Like Reuben, I pressed farther back against the wall. My eyes were fixed upon the world outside. A world of blackness, wind and rain. Something—I don’t know what—made me turn. There was a window just beside me, a window which looked into the kitchen of the deserted Lodge. I glanced through it.

  I went cold all over.

  Inside in the darkness someone struck a match. A brief flare which flickered and then went out.

  I screamed.

  Someone called, but my vocal cords were too paralyzed to permit of any answer. I couldn’t move or speak or think. I don’t know who I thought was moving inside the Lodge. Silas perhaps looking, just as he once had looked—or Silas’s murderer wearing a blood-stained suit, smiling a sleepy, murderous smile. The door leading from the kitchen to the porch opened, and John Standish stood blinking bewilderedly about. He had a flashlight in his hand. Another man peered over his shoulder.

  My paralysis of fright evaporated into weak and stupefied relief. But still I couldn’t speak. Eventually Standish’s flashlight picked me out.

  “Mrs. Storm! You—what are you doing here?”

  Then at once he came to me, took my arm and pulled me into the dry, dark kitchen. He set his flashlight on the table so that it served as a sort of lamp. He jerked a blanket from a bed in the other room and wrapped it around my shoulders, clucking at the foolishness of young people who don’t know enough to come in out of the rain. He introduced his companion as William Hardisty, a local lawyer who had been designated to take charge of Mrs. Coatesnash’s scrambled affairs. Mr. Hardisty, a methodical, fussy little man, was plainly astounded at my appearance and seemed more than half inclined to make something faintly illegal of it. Sta
ndish kept up a flow of bantering talk until, eventually, I smiled. He, too, smiled.

  “I’m sorry we gave you such a turn. We were caught here ourselves. Maybe you’d like a cigarette?”

  I gratefully accepted. Mr. Hardisty continued standoffish. While Standish and I enjoyed a companionable cigarette and while I began to laugh at my late fears, the little lawyer pottered about, listing the furnishings of the Lodge for the purposes of an eventual tax assessment. I believe he termed his activities “protecting the interests of Mrs. Coatesnash’s heirs.” Under the circumstances and with the storm roaring outside, his neat busyness struck me as ridiculous, and I daresay he read my thoughts, for he gave me an occasional cold, suspicious glance. Finally Standish said:

  “What did bring you up the hill, Mrs. Storm?”

  It was only then that I remembered Reuben, and somewhat conscience-stricken went to the door to summon him. A gust of wind and rain blew inside. Despite my urgent calls, Reuben refused to stir, and Standish plowed out after him. Mr. Hardisty followed. Reuben stuck stubbornly behind the milk cans until Standish’s impatient hand hauled him forth.

  The little dog huddled on the floor before the ice box. The hairs on his neck bristled. Through the sound of wind and rain came the ominous growl in his throat. A growl which rose and kept on rising.

  Standish frowned. “What’s got into the dog anyway?”

  “It’s the ice box,” said Hardisty. “It’s something about the ice box.”

  Standish was staring at the great white refrigerator. His flashlight shone on its polished surface.

  He said in a queer voice, “I hadn’t noticed that refrigerator before. I wonder what the trays are doing on the floor?”

  I saw the trays then. The refrigerator was an electric model—one of Mrs. Coatesnash’s real extravagances. The metal trays made to hold squares of ice and the wire fittings fashioned to cut off the interior into separate compartments lay in a scrambled heap under the cream separator.