Death Has a Small Voice

by Frances Lockridge

  “Mr. Wilmot certainly goes to a lot of trouble,” Pam said at one point. “Why a special face on the dummy?”

  “Why any of it?” Jerry said. “What an evening!”

  “An—an inventive man,” Monteath said, of Wilmot, but let it drop there. Sherry rubbed against his leg and he stroked her, absently. Then he stood up, quite suddenly. He would, he said, be getting along. He appreciated the coffee. He smiled, then, and the smile changed his face.

  “The fact is,” he said, “I’m keeping us all up.”

  The protest was only polite. They went with him to the door, waited until the elevator came, the door closed and the mechanism ground.

  “There wasn’t much point to that, was there?” Jerry enquired, and yawned and undid his tie. “What was all that about not being able to go to sleep?”

  Pamela said she didn’t know, and yawned too. It had been an idea, only an idea; not a good idea. Of course, she added, there was always the ambassador’s book. But to that Jerry, coat-less, removing studs from his shirt, said only, sleepily, “Huh,” dismissing all books by all ambassadors.

  Yet they were too sleepy, too tired, to hurry into bed. In robes, they drifted back to the living room, sleepily they drank more coffee, which did not arouse them. The cats suggested activities. Martini brought a battered catnip mouse, urging that it be thrown, and Jerry threw it, feebly.

  “Why don’t we go to bed?” Pam asked. “Wake up and go to bed?” and absently poured herself the remaining half cup of not hot coffee. Jerry didn’t know; he said he didn’t know, and did not move. Then nobody said anything and then Jerry began to breathe deeply.

  That sufficiently aroused Pam, who sufficiently aroused Jerry. But they still went to their beds without opening the window and Pam was just experiencing a pleasant blurring of thought when she remembered.

  She went to the window, from which one could look down to a quiet street, and raised it wide.

  And then, because of what she saw, she drew her breath in quickly and then cried out, “Jerry! Jerry!”

  “Wha—what!” Jerry said, coming out of sleep. “What!?”

  “Something just fell by,” Pam said. “Something—Jerry, it was a man! Jerry—somebody fell out!”

  She had turned from the window.

  “Jerry,” she said. “I think it was Mr. Wilmot!”

  There was a group already there. The superintendent of the building was there, with his wife, who hugged around her a robe she filled without shaping. Several people had come out of nowhere to form a circle, and more came. Then the police came in a prowl car. They came simultaneously with the Norths, who had had to dress—who had hesitated to come at all, being people who gave wide berth to street accidents, hurrying past them, with Pam always a little white. But if it is callous to stare in curiosity it is also callous to say, in effect, “Oh, Mr. Jones just went by” as Mr. Jones falls past your bedroom window. “Particularly,” Pam North pointed out, “if he’s just been your host.”

  Why she was so certain the man who had fallen was—or now, more accurately, had been—Byron Wilmot, Pam could not explain to Jerry as, after waiting a moment for the elevator, they ran down the stairs. “I know there wasn’t time to tell,” Pam said. “But—who else would it have been?”

  One of the policemen looked at what was on the sidewalk. The other said, “All right, now. Stand back,” and then, “Anybody here named North?”

  There was, Jerry admitted.

  “You made the squeal? That is, you telephoned?”

  “Yes,” Jerry said.

  “Yeah,” the policeman said. “You telephoned. Said a man had fallen.”

  “Somebody,” Jerry said. “My wife thought it was a man.”

  “Oh,” the policeman said. “She did, huh? You his wife?”

  “Yes,” Pam said.

  “O.K.,” the policeman said. “So you’d better have a look. Let these people through there.”

  But Pam shrank back, shaking her head. Jerry, feeling a little sick, went through the circle. He looked at what was on the sidewalk. He said, “My God!”

  The dummy was fragments, strewn widely. There was nothing left of the face over which someone had taken such pains. If the red wig had not been among the shards, if one arm had not escaped disintegration, it would have been difficult to tell what had been shattered on the sidewalk.

  “Quite a joke, mister,” the articulate policeman said. “Very funny joke. Ever think it might have hit somebody? Ever hear there’s a law against throwing things out windows?”

  It wasn’t, Jerry explained, their joke. They had reported only what had happened, or what they thought had happened.

  “Look, Ben,” the cop who had been staring at the remains said, “whata we do with it?”

  Ben pondered this.

  “Of course,” he said, “the ambulance boys’ll be along.” He did not say this with confidence. He offered it with doubt.

  “Trouble is,” the other policeman said. “It’s not a body, is it? But on the other hand, it’s something like a body.” He looked at it. “Was,” he said.

  “I tell you,” Ben said. “It’s litter.” He looked around the circle, which was by way of becoming a crowd. “You!” he said. “You the janitor?”

  “Superintendent,” the woman in the robe said. “Tell him, Lennie. Don’t let him push you around.”

  Lennie was a small man.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Superintendent.” He paused. “Officer,” he added.

  “You know what this is, don’t you?” Ben demanded, in the voice of a policeman. “What you got here’s a violation. Ordinance—what’s the ordinance, Charlie?”

  “Littering the sidewalk, multiple dwelling,” the other patrolman said. “Number—I don’t know the number offhand. Also, throwing things out of windows to the public danger. Also—”

  The ambulance came then, its lights red. It stopped and panted and an interne came out on one side and the driver on the other.

  “We live in the basement,” Lennie said, and his voice quavered. “This came down from up.”

  “What the?” the interne said, looking at the remains of the dummy. He waved his hand at it. “What the?”

  “That gentleman,” Ben said, and looked at Jerry North with sternness. “Said a man jumped or fell.”

  “Defenestration,” Pam North said, unexpectedly, her voice rather high. “If people would just be quiet, we’d tell you. It’s Mr. Wilmot’s.”

  The patrolman named Ben took his cap off. He rubbed his head. He replaced the cap.

  “Listen, lady,” Ben said. “That’s Mr. Wilmot?” He shook his head. “Friend of yours, probably?” he said. “Friend of hers, Charlie.”

  “Ha,” the other patrolman said.

  “Mr. Wilmot’s,” Pam said. “He lives in the penthouse. There was a party and somebody shot—this.” She pointed. “It was his idea of a joke.”

  “His?” Ben said, and indicated the fragments.

  “Listen,” the ambulance interne said, “what the? You expect us to take this?”

  “Put a D.O.A. tag on it, doc,” the driver of the ambulance said. “That’s what they want. D.O.A. tag. Then we go get some coffee.”

  There was a siren around the corner. A prowl car came around the corner behind red lights. It joined the ambulance and the first prowl car. Two men, one of them rather drunk, came around the corner after it. Across the street, several people opened windows. A sergeant got out of the new prowl car and said, loudly, “All right. What’s going on here?” He looked around. “You, McGillicuddy,” he said. “What’s all this?”

  “You got me, sergeant,” Ben McGillicuddy said. “This was supposed to be a man.” He pointed.

  “By whom?” the sergeant said, in a voice heavy with skepticism.

  “I’ve been trying—” Pam said.

  “Always push you around, Lennie,” the superintendent’s wife said.

  “Those two,” Patrolman McGillicuddy said, and pointed. “They
made the squeal.”

  “Leave us get the hell out of here, doc,” the ambulance driver said. “We can’t take that in.”

  “All right,” the sergeant said. “What’s it all about, lady? What’s the name, lady?”

  “North,” Jerry said. “If you’d let us—”

  “Listen,” the sergeant said. “Gerald North? Mr. and Mrs. Gerald North?”

  “All right,” Jerry said. “Yes.”

  “My God!” the sergeant said.

  “I’ve been trying to tell this—this officer,” Pam said. “It belonged to Mr. Wilmot. He must have—have dropped it.” She paused. “After all,” she said. “It’s April Fool’s Day. Or just was.”

  “Wait a minute,” the sergeant said. He said, “All right, doc, nothing for you.” He said, “Get this broken up, McGillicuddy.” He took a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead, Mrs. North.”

  Pamela North went ahead.

  All manner of things happen to policemen. Sergeant Fox thought this, getting out of the elevator on the twelfth floor, searching for and finding the flight of stairs to the penthouse. At two-thirty in the morning (not even of April Fool’s Day) he was required to ask a man named Wilmot why he had dropped a clothing dummy thirteen stories to a sidewalk, to the hazard of pedestrians—to ask him what kind of joke he thought that was. It seemed rather silly.

  Sergeant Fox reached the landing and found a door. He found a bell-push. Remembering what Mrs. North—and wait until he told Mullins he had finally met the Norths, under circumstances as screwy as were to be expected—remembering what Mrs. North had told him, Sergeant Fox braced himself for a woman’s scream. But he heard, instead, melodious chimes. He waited, heard nothing more, pushed again. He pushed several times.

  “Wha’s the matter,” a thick voice said, finally. It came closer to the door. “Wha’s going on, eh?”

  “Police,” Fox said.

  “Don’ want any policeman,” the voice said. The voice was very fuzzy. Since it did not clear, Fox decided it was fuzzy with drink.

  “I want to talk to you, Mr. Wilmot,” Fox said. “It is Mr. Wilmot?”

  “Don’ wanta talk to you,” the voice told him, fuzzier than before.

  “You are Mr. Wilmot?”

  “So I’m Mr. Wilmot. Go away.”

  “An—an object seems to have fallen,” Fox said. “Apparently from your terrace.”

  “Keep it,” the voice said. “Jus’ keep it, captain.”

  “Listen,” Fox said. “Open the door, will you?” He tried the knob. The knob did not turn.

  “Castle,” the fuzzy voice said. “Home is my castle. Talk about it in the morning.”

  The trouble, Fox thought, was that Mr. Wilmot had something there, had a good deal there. He had, presumably, dropped a dummy from his terrace to the sidewalk. Listening to the voice, this seemed to Fox quite likely. He might have killed someone. But—he had not killed anyone. He had violated a city ordinance. But his penthouse remained his castle, short of a warrant for search, or a warrant for arrest. Fox could, of course, stick a summons under the door.

  “You might have killed somebody,” Fox said, to the door.

  “Can’ hear you.”

  “Killed somebody,” Fox repeated.

  “Didn’t hit anybody,” the fuzzy voice said. “Looked. Smashed the dummy, s’all.”

  “So you admit—”

  “Go away,” the voice said. “Wanna get some sleep. Talk about it in the morning. Accident, anyway. Damned thing cost money.”

  “You do admit—”

  “Pushed it out on the terrace. Pushed it too far, s’all. Coulda happened to anybody.”

  “I’d still like—”

  “Morning, keep telling you. Gotta make something of it, come ’round in the morning. Hear me?”

  “Well—”

  “That’s a man,” the voice said. “Morning, eh? Fix it all up in the morning. Pay the fine. Whatever it is. Gotta sleep now.”

  “Well,” Fox said again.

  It was not satisfactory. It left the report messy. But—if Wilmot did not want him in, he was not going to get in. Wilmot was, in any case, clearly in no condition to talk coherently. He probably had, further, told all he could ever remember—he had pushed the dummy onto the terrace; he had pushed it too far. It was all extremely silly.

  “Somebody’ll be around for a statement in the morning,” Fox told the door.

  There was no answer. It occurred to Fox that Wilmot had already gone back to bed. Fox went down the stairs, and down in the elevator. Anyway, somebody else would see Wilmot in the morning. Fox would be in bed himself.

  III

  Thursday, 10 A.M. to 11:35 A.M.

  This would be the last time. That Martha Evitts promised herself, and again pressed the bell-push, heard again the melodious chimes from within. She had let it drift too long, and that was something she too often did. It was because there is a kind of violence about decision, and a violence which, at any given moment, usually seems excessive to the occasion. Such excessive violence becomes melodrama, and demonstrates that one has taken oneself too seriously, and so one becomes ridiculous, at any rate in one’s own eyes. But now, quite simply, she had had enough.

  There would be no need to say why, so to reveal how seriously the whole ridiculous business had affected her—so to reveal that she could not, actually, “take a joke.” There was no reason to let him know that she knew what he had been up to—no reason to take an attitude about it, and lay herself open again to being laughed at. Or even, which was worse, pitied. She had been pitied last night and, standing alone before an unopening door, she flushed softly as she remembered. There had been sympathy, which was pity, in the eyes of the bright-haired woman named Mrs. North. It had been quick and warm and friendly, but that made it no better. Mrs. North had realized that she could not “take a joke” of this kind, although Mrs. North could hardly have realized the full implication of the “joke.” But perhaps she had—perhaps they all had. Certainly, and that mattered most, John Baker had. That was of course what had been intended.

  Probably it had spoiled things, which also probably had been intended. It had made it impossible—and it had all along, of course, been difficult enough for her—to accept this matter of a few years as a matter entirely trivial. It was, certainly; by any reasonable approach, it surely was. John had laughed about it, and she had believed his laughter, believed he thought it ridiculous of her to labor the matter of some three years and seven—no, eight, really—months. He had tried to laugh her out of it, and—part of the time—had almost succeeded. Almost he had persuaded her it was who you were, and how you felt, not a count of the days of your life, which mattered. He had been angry once, and the only time with her, when she had used an old phrase and a tired one—had said she would feel like a “cradle-snatcher.” But he had ended by laughing, making her laugh with him.

  But she had not, finally, been tough enough. A hundred young women—and twenty-nine was young; of course twenty-nine was young—would be tough enough, and good luck to them. She ought to be. She wasn’t. Wilmot had seen that; had based his joke on that. He knew how to hurt, which is a knowledge as useful to the practical joker as to the wit. To the world’s eyes, he said, she was an ancient crone, John Baker a boy in rompers. “Laugh at the fools,” he had said. “Or be sorry for them. Let them see how they look to the rest of us.”

  They should have known; should have refused. But they had hardly thought of it, having expected safety in numbers. Everyone would be in some fashion absurd in costume; they would not be singled out; nobody would notice anything. Oh, it had been well planned enough. And between her and John it would always be an ugly thing. Coming as it had before they had achieved any sureness of each other, it might be an ineradicable thing. If they went on, they would always fear that some moment which should go on wings would flounder, weighted by the grotesque.

  At least, Martha Evitts thought, reaching in her bag for the key she was going to h
ave to use, it would be that way with her. She could never hope again that any part of it might be perfect. Perhaps John would mind less, but even of that she was not sure. There had been an uncharacteristic hardness in him, when he took her home. The hardness underlay all the gentleness he showed toward her. So, no doubt, he realized, as she did, that things were spoiled.… Well, he had taught her to laugh at Wilmot’s heavy, middle-aged approaches; Wilmot’s suggestions of an “arrangement.” They had laughed together, in that equally young together. Mr. Wilmot, however, had laughed last.

  And now, for the last time, she was appearing dutifully at Mr. Wilmot’s apartment to take dictation, provided with a door key for use in the event that Mr. Wilmot had gone out to breakfast and lingered over it. For the last time she would avoid Mr. Wilmot’s words, and Mr. Wilmot’s patting hands. For the last time she would pretend not to notice what he was about. And for the first time, she would tell him she had had enough. That—

  No, she thought again, turning the key. What would be the use? She would tell him she had another offer, was going on to a job with a better future. There was no point in making the issue plain. There was no point, she thought, opening the door, in much of anything.

  As Martha Evitts stepped into the foyer she hesitated, and looked around warily. This was almost automatic; in the foyer of Mr. Byron Wilmot’s apartment, things often jumped at you. There was a strong possibility, this morning, that Mr. Wilmot might have a few tricks left over from the party, and would play them on her. But nothing jumped at her, nothing made alarming sounds at her, nothing slithered on the foyer floor. She took off her coat and hung it in the closet, made sure that her notebook was in her purse, unconsciously straightened her soft, brown hair. Then she went into the living room.

  Just inside she stopped, as if she had walked into a wall. She put both slim hands up in front of her, as if to protect herself from the wall. And she thought, No! This is too much. This is utterly too much.

  This time, presumably for her benefit, Mr. Wilmot had really gone to town. This time he had spared no effort, done anything for a laugh.