What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

by Henry Farrell

  Inside the doorway she stopped. Her eyes, glinting brightly, raked the rumpled, unmade bed, the ridiculous collection of stuffed animals heaped high on the pink satin chair, the endless photographic display of Baby Jane Hudson on the walls. Her gaze fell finally to the dressing table beneath the windows and she crossed over to it.

  She pulled out the drawers swiftly, angrily, one after the other, exposing the separate caches of cheap junk jewelry, artificial flowers, bright handkerchiefs and dime-store cosmetics. Finding nothing that even resembled a key, she shoved them closed again and turned her attention to the writing desk against the adjacent wall.

  Having rifled quickly and fruitlessly through the random litter on top of the desk, the magazines and circulars, she opened the center drawer. There was a disordered assortment of note papers and envelopes of different colors, pink, lavender, pale blue, white bordered with bright yellow roses. Raking this impatiently aside Mrs. Stitt uncovered at the bottom an address book with a white plastic cover. Looking inside she saw that it had never been used; not even one name had been written in it anywhere. She ran her hand toward the back of the drawer, found something there with her fingers and pulled it forward. It was an ordinary writing tablet with a brown cover. She was just about to thrust it back into the drawer in a gesture of disgust when something, scraps of paper, fell from between the pages and fluttered to the floor. Quickly she stooped down and picked them up.

  She stood there for a moment, holding them in her hand, feeling a quick stab of apprehension that she didn’t quite understand. They were checks, canceled checks; some of the ones that were always kept in the little accounts ledger in Miss Blanche’s room.

  Then Jane had taken them, appropriated them for herself. But why? Mrs. Stitt’s gaze shifted to the tablet which she was holding open in readiness to receive the checks back again between its pages. Quickly she brought it closer to the light. Line after line was filled with Miss Blanche’s name. Blanche Hudson… Blanche Hudson… Blanche Hudson… The name had been repeated over and over again the full length of the page.

  Miss Blanche’s signature! Or copies of it! Mrs. Stitt’s eyes moved swiftly back and forth between the tablet and the checks. It was plain as anything, Jane Hudson had been practicing writing out—forging!—Miss Blanche’s signature. Her gaze bright now with real fright, Mrs. Stitt looked down the hallway in the direction of the locked door to Miss Blanche’s room.

  Jane Hudson arrived at the bank just a few minutes after opening time, so she didn’t have to wait in line. Reaching into her purse with an air of poorly controlled nervousness, she took out the allowance check from Bert Hanley and stepped up to the nearest teller’s window. The young man who appeared before her was one she recognized, though she did not know him by name.

  “How are you today, Miss Hudson?” The teller asked.

  “Oh—I’m fine,” Jane said. Sucking in a deep breath, she put the check between them on the counter. “There…”

  Turning the check over, the young man observed the signature on the back, returned it to the counter and stamped it. He looked up with an air of polite expectancy. “Your deposit slip?”

  Jane, swallowing against a sudden dryness in her throat, managed to maintain her smile. “Cash,” she said in a quick, small voice. “I—Blanche—she wanted me to get it all in cash this time.” The young man lifted his brows. “She has some special reason, I guess,” she said quickly.

  Nodding, the young man opened his cash drawer, counted out the money—what seemed to Jane to be great mounds of it—and shoved it smoothly across to her with the flat of his hand.

  “There you are.”

  For a moment Jane merely stared at the money, almost afraid to touch it.

  “Is that how you wanted it?”

  Looking up, Jane nodded. Then, reaching out, she scooped the money haphazardly into her purse, eager to have it, all at once, safely in her possession.

  “Thank you,” she said with a sudden breathlessness. “Thank you very much.”

  Out on the sidewalk, she stopped and faced into the warm sunshine. I don’t have to ask anyone, she thought. I can buy anything I want. I can just walk down this street, if I feel like it, and buy everything I see. She turned her head slightly, and her earrings cast forth quick flashes of brilliant fire. And then she smiled, quite suddenly, as if the sun had caught, too, some clear reflecting surface within herself.

  But there was no time now to visit the shops, or even to look in the windows. With Mrs. Stitt fired and Edwin coming, there were things for her to attend to. Turning away, she started around the corner in the direction of the parking lot where she had left the car. Everything had been so terrible before yesterday; she had been lost then and frightened. But now she was quite sure of herself, quite sure of everything she was doing. She had lots and lots of money. And she had a new friend.

  Edwin Flagg. Edwin. The mere thought of his name hastened her step, as if life itself had suddenly quickened so that she needed to hurry to keep up with it. He had said he would come to see her again this afternoon. And that was a sign that he really liked her; he wouldn’t have promised if he didn’t. She gave a quick sigh of contentment. It made you feel good just to know there was somebody somewhere who liked you and thought that what you did was all right.

  Reaching the entrance to the parking lot, she hurried along the rows of cars in the direction of the gray coupé. Drawing her purse close to her, she hugged it tight against her bosom. Fifty dollars a week, she thought happily, was very little to pay for a good friend like Edwin, very little indeed.

  Mrs. Stitt stared at the locked door with a rising swell of panic. Doubling her hands into hard fists, she pounded against it as hard as she could.

  “Miss Blanche!” she cried. “Miss Blanche! Can you hear me? Miss Blanche!”

  As her voice was absorbed by a sinister silence, she turned away, trying to think what she ought to do. Miss Blanche was drugged in there, she was convinced of it. It was just like Jane—drinking like she was—to give the poor creature one of her sedatives and then go off and leave her. It was wicked—criminal!

  With an air of sudden decision, she picked up the breakfast tray from the floor and carried it out to the gallery and down the stairs. She had made up her mind; she was going to get that door open if it took her all day and half the night. And if Jane Hudson walked in and caught her working at it, well, that would be just too bad—for Jane Hudson.

  Entering the kitchen, she put the tray down on the table opposite the sink, then crossed to the tool drawer under the cupboards and pulled it open. She took out a hammer, the largest and heaviest there was, and a large screwdriver. Armed with these, she started briskly out of the room and back in the direction of the stairs. One way or another, she told herself staunchly, that door was going to get itself opened.

  Mrs. Bates had spent so much time clipping the front hedge now that there just wasn’t much left to clip. Earlier, seeing Jane Hudson drive off in the car, she had quickly stationed herself at the hedge where she could watch for her return. Mrs. Bates knew by observation that when Jane Hudson went off like this of a morning she was rarely away more than a few minutes, just long enough to drive down to the market at the bottom of the hill and back again. This morning, however, just when there was something she particularly wanted to see Jane Hudson about, she would go off somewhere and stay forever.

  The newspaper clipping was one she had found in the TV section of last night’s paper: CRIPPLED STAR REGAINS POPULARITY VIA TV, it said in the heading. And there was a picture of Blanche, too, one of the old ones taken by the studio back in the ’thirties. The article itself didn’t say too much, but it was nice. Sweet. If the Hudson sisters hadn’t seen it, Mrs. Bates was sure they would appreciate her bringing it to them. Enough, she secretly hoped, that she might be invited into the house to meet Blanche Hudson in person.

  Already, as a matter of fact, she was planning what she would write to the folks back home. She wouldn’t exactly lie an
d say right out that she and Blanche Hudson were close friends, but she could just suggest it, just for the thrill it would give everybody to think such a thing about somebody they knew and a movie star.

  There was just one little trouble, though; Mrs. Bates wondered if Blanche Hudson’s health hadn’t taken a turn for the worse just lately. The thing that made her think so was that the window, the one at the center of the upper story that she had decided must be Blanche’s, had stayed closed up lately. Before, in the evenings, there had always been a light in that window even when the rest of the house was dark. For the last four nights now, however, it had remained dark. And even during the day the drapes had remained pulled. If Blanche Hudson was too ill even to have her window open, then she was surely too ill to receive visitors.

  Mrs. Bates had considered taking the clipping over and giving it to the cleaning lady. She knew she was there today; she had seen her walking up the hill. In the end, though, she decided against it; an employee would hardly be at liberty to ask her into the house.

  Mrs. Bates looked back along the even line of the hedge with a sigh of defeat; there just wasn’t one more lick of anything left to be cut, and she couldn’t just stand there, waiting, with nothing to do. She turned away and started back toward the house.

  She had just reached the walk when she heard the sound of an advancing car and looked back to see the gray coupé cross the intersection. Casting down her shears, reaching for the pocket of her smock, she hurried eagerly forward.

  “Miss Hudson!” Turning the corner, she made her way rapidly along the garden wall in the direction of the Hudson garage. “Miss Hudson! I have something here for you—for you and your sister!”

  Jane Hudson, emerging from the black mouth of the garage, stopped short in surprise, then took a quick step backwards in retreat. Her glance darted to the gate leading into the safety of the back yard. But then she remained where she was, watching Mrs. Bates’s approach with a closed and wary face.

  Mrs. Bates, stopping before her, smiled broadly. “I guess I really ought to introduce myself,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Bates—Pauline Bates—your new neighbor next door. I guess it’s just about time we got acquainted, isn’t it?”

  Jane Hudson simply stared at her, offering no response at all, not even so much as the flicker of an eyelid. A moment passed, uneasily. Mrs. Bates made a gesture of sudden nervousness.

  “Of course I already know who you are. I would, naturally, though, because of your famous sister.” Noticing what appeared to be a sudden coloring in the plump, unpleasant face before her, she hesitated. “I—I know how silly it probably sounds to you and I’m sure you’re sick of hearing it, but I really am one of your sister’s most ardent fans. I really am. Ever since I was a young woman back in Fort Madison I’ve just adored her. To me she was always so much more beautiful than any of the others.…” Again she faltered, self-consciously aware that she was talking childish nonsense. “You must be very proud of her… with her new success… on TV, I mean, and all…”

  Though her face remained blank, Jane Hudson nodded curtly. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”

  Mrs. Bates held out the clipping. “Well, anyway, what I came over for—I ran across this in last night’s paper and I thought—maybe, if you missed it—I ought to save it and bring it over.”

  After regarding the clipping for a moment with narrow suspicion, Jane Hudson reached out and took it. Again she nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Mrs. Bates smiled stiffly but with determined friendliness. “And—and while I’m talking to you, I wanted to ask—is your sister all right?”

  Jane Hudson’s gaze, which had moved off again toward the gate, came back to Mrs. Bates’s with fierce suddenness. “All right?” she asked. “What do you mean?”

  Mrs. Bates’s smile fell away under a look of open alarm. “Well—nothing—really.” For a moment she hovered on the brink of admitting her speculation about the window above the garden, but something in Jane Hudson’s face made her reject the notion. “I just remembered that she was—an invalid. I just thought I’d ask, that’s all.” She nodded at the clipping in Jane Hudson’s hand. “Well—I just wanted to bring that over to you—I thought maybe you’d be glad to have it.”

  Some of the tension seemed suddenly to go out of Jane Hudson’s face. “Why, yes,” she said, her voice just a shade more cordial than before. “I’ll—I’ll show it to Blanche.”

  “Fine,” Mrs. Bates said. “And give her my regards, won’t you? From an old fan of hers.”

  “Yes.”

  Hopeful that she yet might achieve the hoped-for invitation, Mrs. Bates hesitated a moment longer, but when it still did not come, she turned away. Then, with a sudden resolution born of an equally sudden resentment at Jane Hudson’s determinedly distant behavior, she turned back again.

  “Miss Hudson,” she said with smiling bluntness, “I wonder—I hope this isn’t too forward of me—but do you suppose I could meet your sister sometime? I mean, does she ever see anyone? I’ve written to all my friends back home that we’re neighbors—and they all keep asking about her. It would mean so much.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jane Hudson said abruptly, “my sister—Blanche—she won’t be here any more. She’s—she’s going away. I’m sorry.” She moved out toward the gate. “I have to go in now. The cleaning woman isn’t here today, so I have to——”

  “Oh, yes, she is,” Mrs. Bates said, eager, even now, to offer a piece of helpful news. “Yes, she came. I saw her come up the hill to the house just a little bit after you left——”

  Something in Jane Hudson’s face stopped her. There had been a tightening, a draining, so that suddenly the woman’s eyes, staring out of the pale mask of her face, seemed to grow larger, darker. And then, with no word of explanation, she turned, hurled herself upon the gate, tore it open and disappeared inside. At the same time something came fluttering back in her wake, swooping up and out into the street. Crossing, Mrs. Bates looked down and saw that it was the newspaper clipping. With a feeling of dark dismay, she picked it up, dusted it off and put it back in her pocket.

  At first Mrs. Stitt had thought that she would be able simply to remove the lock and get the door open that way. Then, taking a closer look, she saw that this was plainly impossible. The lock, a piece of thick, hand-hammered metal, had been somehow imbedded in the wood and made secure there without the help of the usual screws and bolts.

  Abandoning this plan, then, she turned her attention to the hinges. They were fastened to the door in the same mysterious way as the lock, but the pins were exposed so there was the possibility of prying them loose. Taking up the screwdriver and hammer, Mrs. Stitt knelt down to the lower hinge and set to work. Placing the edge of the screwdriver against the butt end of the pin she lifted the hammer and struck it.

  Engaged, finally, in a course of direct and positive action, Mrs. Stitt’s spirits experienced a decided lift. The fact that Jane Hudson might return at any moment did not disconcert her in the least now. If anyone was going to be made out the guilty party in this affair, Mrs. Stitt had decided, it was going to be Jane Hudson. The thought had no more than passed through her mind when she heard the slam of the kitchen door downstairs, followed by a series of hurried footsteps in the lower hallway. Calmly, Mrs. Stitt put her tools aside and got to her feet. As the footsteps sped up the stairs and across the gallery, she turned to face the entrance entirely poised and unalarmed.

  “Well,” she said evenly, “so you’ve decided to come back, have you?”

  Jane, appearing in the entrance, stopped, stunned for the moment into silence. And then her face contorted with anger.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “What was that pounding I heard?”

  In answer, Mrs. Stitt pointed to the locked door. “What do you mean, going off and leaving your poor sister locked in like that? What’s the matter with you that you’d do a thing like that?”

  Jane’s mouth snapped open, then closed
again. Her expression, now, was one of uncertainty. “It—it’s none of your business,” she said with false bravado. Then her eyes widened with sudden realization. “You said you didn’t have your key.”

  “Well, it just happens that I did after all. And a good thing, too, with this sort of thing going on. Suppose something happened while you were gone and Miss Blanche needed help? Suppose the house should catch fire. Did you bother to think of that?”

  Jane’s face clenched again with anger. She stamped her foot. “It’s none of your business what I do in my own house!” she cried. “It’s none of your business! You’re fired! Now go on and get out!”

  “Oh, it’s none of my business, isn’t it?”

  “No! No, it isn’t! Or anybody else’s! This is my house, and I’m ordering you to get out of it!”

  “Your house!” Mrs. Stitt took a threatening step forward. “This is Miss Blanche’s house, that’s whose house this is!”

  A light flamed wildly in Jane’s eyes. “Get out!” she screamed. “Get out, get out—right now!”

  Mrs. Stitt merely shook her head. “Oh, no. Not until I know exactly what’s going on around here. Not until I know Miss Blanche is all right.”

  A flicker of uncertainty cut through the heat of Jane’s gaze. “She’s—asleep,” she said. “I gave her a sleeping tablet.”

  Mrs. Stitt nodded in angry confirmation. “I thought so! You just went off and left her here doped. And I suppose that wasn’t enough, so you had to lock the door, too?” She paused, her eyes dark with a fierce determination. “I’m not moving an inch from this spot until you get out your key and let me see inside there.”