Death on the Aisle

by Frances

  “In any case, Mary Fowler was convinced that the operation Bolton performed had changed her eyes, and ended her career—had changed her from a beautiful woman into a woman people tried not to look at. She had told Berta that, and Berta told Kirk when they were driving down to—well, to tell Mary that they knew, and give her a chance to run for it before they told the police. Remember, Berta had lived most of her life with her aunt and—oh, well, it was natural.”

  Weigand paused, staring at nothing. Then he spoke again.

  “We’ll never reconstruct all of it,” he said slowly. “What people did, or about what they did—yes, perhaps. But about what they felt—then we’re always guessing. All we can say is, ‘Perhaps it was something like this.’ Perhaps, with Mary Fowler, after she had lost everything else, her whole life came to center on Alberta, so that Alberta was everything and she felt toward her all that desperate protectiveness that a mother may feel toward a child. If we assume that it explains a good deal. Say she felt that way and then, whether she was right or not—and probably she was partly right and partly wrong—she saw the girl going along precisely the tragic road she had gone along herself. She saw the girl turning emotionally to Bolton, as she had turned; caught as she had been by the charm he must have had for women, and by their knowledge of what he could do for them—and in the end by his ruthlessness. She saw it all starting over, and saw for Alberta all the betrayal and anguish she had lived through. And she saw the end the same, down to the same physical disfigurement, with all that it meant to any woman and, most of all, to any actress.”

  Weigand hesitated a moment.

  “I don’t suppose she was right in all this,” he said. “About the disfigurement, for example, she was almost certainly wrong. That, even if the operation Bolton performed caused it, was an ugly accident, and accidents don’t often repeat themselves in the same pattern. And there’s no certainty that even the other thing—the emotional involvement with Bolton—would have happened again. But I think that Mary Fowler believed utterly that it would all happen again. I think that—for her—it was already happening again. And so …”

  There was a pause.

  “And,” Mrs. North said, “I think she was a little mad.”

  Weigand’s face was thoughtful. Finally he said that, in a certain sense, all murderers are a little mad—all murderers who premeditate, at any rate.

  “So perhaps Mary Fowler was,” he said. His voice sounded tired. “She had, when you come to think of it, almost enough to make her so—she had been lovely and famous, and lost it all; Bolton had pretended to love her, and had injured her and then because she wasn’t beautiful any longer, had no more use for her. And staying in the theatre, as she had, seeing him going on, untouched—unhurt—well, I suppose bitterness lasted longer than it might have otherwise. What she felt about him made it—well, say easy—to decide that the only way to protect Alberta was to kill Bolton.”

  He paused and drank slowly.

  “That’s the madness of murder, Pam,” he said. “The madness of not seeing any other way out.”

  He put down his glass and for a while nobody said anything. But now the silence, for the first time in many hours, was relaxed and peaceful. Looking at Pamela North, Bill thought she might go to sleep at any moment, and gently he pulled at Dorian’s hair, so convenient to his hand.

  “Sleepy, Dor?” he asked.

  She looked up at him, and smiled gently and shook her head. Bill looked down at her a moment.

  “We might take a ride somewhere,” he said. “Upstate somewhere, perhaps?” His voice was questioning.

  Dorian continued to look up at him, smiling faintly. When she spoke her voice was low.

  “I think that would be very nice,” she said, a little like a child.

  Bill and Dorian looked across at the Norths, and Mrs. North was really asleep. Her head had fallen on Jerry’s shoulder, and her hand was tight in his. Bill and Dorian stood up quietly, while Jerry North watched them, and then, with their lips only they made the movements of “Goodnight.”

  Jerry looked down at Pam for a moment and then at the others with lifted eyebrows, which did for a shrug. Dorian and Bill Weigand went out very quietly.

  In the car, Bill’s fingers automatically switched on the radio with the ignition, and a voice began raspingly: “Car Number—” But before the voice went any further, Dorian reached across and twisted the radio knob until it clicked. The voice, baffled, disappeared.

  “Right,” Bill Weigand said, in a very low, soft voice. Then they drove away.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries

  1

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 21

  3:15 P.M. TO 4 P.M.

  Pamela North got out of the cab and leaned against the wind. It was a furious wind, banging through the street and full of street dust; as she stood with her back to it, the wind rounded her skirt against her legs and tugged at the cab door as she held it open. The cab driver, peering out at her, knocked his flag down and, with a little shrug, climbed out on the other side and came around. He said it was windy.

  “Because New York’s on the bias,” Pam North told him. “If it weren’t, the wind couldn’t blow through it this way, because northwest would be up that way.”

  Pam pointed. The taxi driver looked at her with some doubt, said “Yeh, maybe you got something there, lady,” and took the tugging door from her. He hauled two bags from the interior of the cab and reached for a black box with a mansard roof. The box, on being jiggled, yowled. The taxi driver let go of it and looked at Mrs. North reproachfully.

  “Cats,” she said. He said, “Yeh!”

  “Look, lady,” he said. “I don’t like ’em. Creeps. You know how it is.”

  “Of course,” Pam said. “Lots of people are that way. I’ll carry them.”

  Gingerly, he handed out the black case with the mansard roof. It yowled on two tones. The taxi driver looked puzzled.

  “Two of them,” Mrs. North explained. “But quite small, really. Will you carry the bags up for me?”

  He nodded and carried the bags across the walk and up the gritty stone steps to the door of the house. Pam, carrying the cats, followed him and stood just inside the doorway, looking very new against the old house. Sand opened the door while she searched her purse and said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. North.” The taxi driver took his money, skirted the black case, which had ceased to yowl, and went away. Back in the cab, he leaned across and looked at Mrs. North and the black case and shook his head doubtfully. Then he drove off. Sand carried the bags inside and Mrs. North lifted the black case over the threshold. It yowled on one note.

  “One of them’s getting tired,” she told Sand. “They’ve both been yelling all the way, nearly. Is my aunt—?”

  “Yes, Mrs. North,” Sand said. He looked frail to be carrying the bags, she thought, but there was nothing to do about it. He followed her into the foyer and put the bags down by a small table which held a silver tray and a vase which sprayed daffodils.

  “In the drawing room, Mrs. North,” Sand said. “Shall I tell madam that you—?”

  “No,” Pam said. “Don’t bother, Sand. If you’ll just take care of the bags, please?”

  Sand thanked her for the opportunity, started toward the stairs which spiraled grandly upward from the hall, stopped and turned. His face had a slightly different expression, as if he had become momentarily, and within proper bounds, a slightly different person.

  “She’s Mrs. Buddie again, Miss Pam,” he said. “I thought you ought to know.” He paused a second. “Since this morning,” he added.

  Pam said, “Oh.” Then she smiled at Sand.

  “I should think you’d rather like it, really,” she said. “It must be—well, homey? I mean, there’s nothing as comfortable as an old name, is there, George?”

  Sand really smiled. It was an affectionate smile.

  “Well worn, Miss Pam,” he said. “A well worn name. It is—more comfortable.”
Then he became, to a reasonable degree, a butler again. “Thank you, Miss Pam,” he said. He carried the bags up the spiraling stairs. Pam watched him a moment, smiling. Then she straightened herself, took a deep breath, and advanced toward the drawing room and Aunt Flora.

  “Maybe this time I’ll really believe in her,” Pam thought, stepping into the room which opened off the hall, the box banging softly against her right calf and yowling quietly; the arching feather which rose from the back of her hat and peered out over her face bobbed briskly. “Maybe—.” But Pam knew that she was whistling in the dark, because she had not seen Aunt Flora for weeks and because, after even one day’s separation, Aunt Flora always drew from her niece an astonished, inward gasp of disbelief. There was, Pam realized anew, never going to be any getting used to Aunt Flora.

  Aunt Flora occupied a chair by the fire as few can occupy chairs anywhere. She turned her head as Pam advanced across the room and spoke.

  “Hello, dearie,” said Aunt Flora deeply. “A new cat?”

  Pam’s inward gasp interfered with immediate answer. Aunt Flora’s wig, which Aunt Flora fondly believed to resemble hair, was as yellow as always. Her face was, as always, immobilized behind its uncrackable facade—unwrinkled because it could not wrinkle, fadeless because it was put on afresh each morning.

  “Or,” Pam thought suddenly, “maybe once a week. And just left.”

  Aunt Flora’s wig was undulant with immaculate curls. Above the waist, Aunt Flora expanded dramatically; Aunt Flora’s head sat atop Aunt Flora without the punctuation of a neck.

  “I know,” Pam thought. “She’s built like a snowman. That’s it.”

  Aunt Flora was dressed in a red silk dress, and ruffles fluttered on her bosom. Pam advanced toward Aunt Flora, and, circling, came to a pause before her. Aunt Flora had on red shoes.

  “Look at me, dearie,” Aunt Flora commanded, deeply. “Did you ever see the like? I said, a new cat?”

  “You look—lovely, Aunt Flora,” Pam said, her voice hardly weak at all. “Yes—only it’s two. Do you want to see them?”

  “Sly,” Aunt Flora said. “That’s what cats are. Of course I want to see them, Pamela. Why two?”

  “Because one gets lonely,” Pam said. “Everybody advises two.” She opened the black box and looked in. “Come on, babies,” she said. “Come on, Toughy. Come on, Ruffy.” The cats yowled. “They’re part Siamese,” Pamela North explained. “It makes them yell. They’re brother and sister.” She paused and looked down doubtfully. “So far,” she added.

  Aunt Flora laughed. Her laughter was deep and her blue eyes were bright and alive and merrily wise.

  “You’d better say ‘so far,’” Aunt Flora advised. Her advice was a chortle.

  “I know,” Pam said. “Jerry says—.” She paused, wondering whether to report what Jerry said.

  “I’ll bet he does,” Aunt Flora told her. “Where is that man of yours?”

  This was characteristic of Aunt Flora. Because she knew where Jerry North was; Jerry North’s absence in Texas, where he pursued an author, was part of the complex which had brought Pam North to the home of her Aunt Flora, the family legend.

  “Listen, darling,” Pam said. “You know perfectly well where Jerry is. I told you all about it on the telephone. There’s this man who’s written a big book, something like ‘Gone With the Wind,’ Jerry hopes, and they want to publish it—Jerry and the firm, that is. And there are a lot of other publishers after it, because they all think maybe it’s another ‘Gone With the Wind.’ On account of it’s about the South, I guess. So Jerry had to go to Houston, which is where it lives and now he’s got to stay there and read it right away, because of all the other publishers. And it’s very long. That’s why they think it’s another ‘Gone With the Wind,’ really—that and the South. Jerry says he thinks it is even longer than ‘Gone With the Wind.’”

  “God!” said Aunt Flora simply. “About Oklahoma, you say?”

  “Texas,” Pam said. Aunt Flora said “Oh.”

  “I never thought much of Texas,” she said, dismissing it. “Not a patch on Oklahoma. The Indian Territory. I can remember—.”

  “Yes, darling,” Pam said. “I know you can.”

  Aunt Flora laughed. It was the hearty laugh of one amused.

  “All right, dearie,” she said, shaking throughout. “All right, dearie.”

  The cats came out of the box cautiously. They were gray cats. One was a curious dark gray from nose to tail. The other was lighter and had a white collar of fur.

  “Ruffy,” Pam explained, pointing. “Because of the ruff. But either spelling. And Toughy”—she pointed now at the all gray cat—“because it fits. And—.”

  Toughy looked at Aunt Flora with growing consternation. Then he yowled, went across the room in a streak and vanished under a sofa. Ruffy, with rather the air of one who performs what is expected, streaked also, squirming under a chair.

  “She wasn’t afraid,” Pam pointed out. “She’s the she, by the way. She just didn’t want to let him down. Make him feel foolish.”

  “Naturally,” Aunt Flora said. “Why don’t you sit down, dearie? They’ll come out.”

  Pam sat down in a deep chair on the other side of the fireplace.

  “D’you want a drink?” Aunt Flora said. “I do. Cold weather always makes me thirsty.”

  A small, rectangular box housed a button on the arm of Aunt Flora’s chair. She pressed it.

  “I don’t know,” Pam said. “Isn’t it early? But—.”

  “It’s after noon, isn’t it?” Aunt Flora demanded. “Well after. What are you talking about?”

  Sand came in and said, “Yes, madam?” Aunt Flora looked at Pam.

  “Oh,” Pam said. “Well—a martini, I guess. Dry please, Sand.”

  “I’ll have the usual sher—” Aunt Flora began. Then she stopped, and an odd expression made its way hesitantly along her jovially painted face. “I’ll have a martini too, Sand,” she said. “And bring them in a small shaker.”

  “Yes, madam,” Sand said. He turned.

  “Remember,” Aunt Flora Buddie said, and there was a curious insistence in her voice, “remember, Sand—in a small shaker. Don’t pour them out!”

  “Certainly, madam,” Sand said. “Thank you.”

  There was a somehow nervous silence for a moment after Sand left. Then Aunt Flora spoke.

  “You may as well know,” she said. “It’s one reason I wanted you here, really—one reason I insisted, I mean. You see, dearie, somebody’s trying to poison me.”

  She broke off and stared commandingly at Pam North.

  “I won’t have it,” she said. She said it with finality. Then she waited, having passed the conversational turn to Pam. It came over Pam, disconcertingly, that this was by no means one of Aunt Flora’s little jokes.

  “But—” Pam began. Aunt Flora seemed to feel that this finished her niece’s turn.

  “Surprises you, doesn’t it?” she enquired. “Surprised me, too, I can tell you. Arsenic, they say. I had the—that is—there was an analysis.” She looked at Pam defiantly. “I threw up,” she said. “Naturally. And they say it was arsenic. I might be dead.”

  “Yes,” Pam said, “I can see you might.”

  “Except,” Aunt Flora went on, “somebody miscalculated. There wasn’t enough. Except just to make me sick as a horse.” She paused, reflectively. “Why a horse?” she enquired. “They never were in the old days.”

  “Than a dog,” Pam substituted. She paused in turn. “Cats too,” she added, “particularly when they eat grass. They seem to enjoy it.”

  “Sly,” Aunt Flora said, apparently of the cats. “Where are they, do you suppose?”

  “Under things,” Pam said. “They’ll come out. But for heaven’s sake, darling—arsenic!”

  “Think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Aunt Flora enquired, in a tone more of detached interest than disclaimer. “Maybe. Your mother always thought so, Pamela. Still does, I shouldn’t wonder. It’s the
husbands—she wouldn’t understand about the husbands.”

  “Listen, darling,” Pam said. “Let’s get back—you’re—you’re worse than Jerry says I am. When it’s merely that he can’t follow, really. But you—” Pam paused, thwarted. “You said somebody tried to poison you. Who?”

  Aunt Flora shook her head.

  “Any of them, dearie,” she said. “They’re all here. For my money, of course—the major’s money. Because I’ve hung on to it, Pamela. And to the house and—by the way, I’m Mrs. Buddie again. I decided this morning. Stephen’s gone, you know. The whipper-snapper. He’s the only one it couldn’t be, because it was after he left. But there was no reason to go on being Mrs. Stephen Anthony, was there dearie?” She paused a moment. “Silly name,” she added. “I think myself he made it up.”

  “But, then, why—” Pam started to say. Aunt Flora shook her head. It involved shaking most of her torso, also, but Aunt Flora was up to it.

  “Don’t ask me, Pamela,” she said. “You’d never understand, anyway—you and your Jerry. But—well, take the cats, dearie. The little cats of yours. One cat gets lonely.”

  “Of course, darling,” Pam said. “I didn’t mean that. And I think you’re probably too hard on Stephen, really. But—” Pam pulled herself back to the business at hand. “You really believe—” she began. But Aunt Flora signalled with her eyes, as Sand brought cocktails, still in their shaker.

  “Just put them down, Sand,” Aunt Flora directed, pointing toward a coffee table by the side of her chair. “We’ll pour them.”

  Sand put them down and learned there was nothing else and went out. Aunt Flora picked up the glasses in turn and examined them; with a piece of paper tissue she polished their bowls. Then, and only then, did she pour from the shaker and before she drank she sniffed doubtfully at the cocktail. Pam sniffed too.