Escape the Night

by Mignon Good Eberhart

  But the sound of the waves had been too far from the shadowy patio of the Condit ranch to muffle the sounds of violent, angry whispering. Serena sat up. “Jem, somebody was in the patio last night. Talking. That is, whispering. Just before you came.”

  He tossed the match in his hand toward the fireplace. “What do you mean? You said something last night, but I didn’t—I was thinking of something else. Who was there?”

  “I don’t know. It sounded like two people. I thought it was … Well, naturally, it would be someone in the house, but it seemed to me that whoever it was brushed against my door. In passing. That’s why I got up to see what it was. Although something else, I don’t know what, awakened me. I didn’t see anyone, though. And the whispering stopped and I thought someone, or both of them, went up the steps—those on the other side of the patio. But I couldn’t hear anything very distinctly. I was—I don’t know why—waiting and listening, when you lighted a match and I saw you.”

  “I didn’t see or hear anybody. I had just come in the gate when I lighted my cigarette, and you spoke. I wonder … It must have been somebody in the house. Amanda or Sutton. Or even Luisa. It’s—queer. Still, it couldn’t have been—oh, burglars, anything like that. After I left you I walked down the hill, took the short cut and came back to the cottage. Dave said he didn’t hear me come in. I went to sleep and didn’t hear anything at all. Then this morning Dave found the laboratory destroyed.”

  “But …” Serena fumbled her way to an extraordinary and unbelievable conclusion. “But whoever did that … Why, Jem, nobody could hate Dave like that! Dave never did anything to anybody that could make anyone hate him.”

  “I asked him about the records. I couldn’t understand the devilishness of that. It suddenly struck me that—oh, it sounds farfetched—but that maybe he had something in the records that somebody wanted destroyed.”

  “I don’t see … Oh, you mean a disease he was working on with people, so he’d have one’s case history?”

  “Something like that. I’m not sure how it would work. But suppose, say, somebody’d had an incurable disease and Dave knew it; and had worked with whoever it was, experimenting, and kept records of it. And then that person got worried and wanted the records destroyed. Before Dave went to war, you see; didn’t want to run the risk of anybody knowing about it. Something like that. Of course about the only disease I could think of in that case was leprosy! But anyway it struck me as a possible solution. Oh, I had it all doped out. But he said there wasn’t anything like that.”

  “I don’t know anything about Dave’s work. What is it exactly?”

  “Well, I didn’t either till this morning. I just knew vaguely that it was some kind of medical research. Well, I asked him, cautiously—after the foregoing theory came to my mind. Of course the flaw was that if anybody did want any record or note about himself destroyed all he had to do was to ask Dave to do it! But, at any rate, Dave told me what he’s trying to do. He’s working on blood infections—along the lines of the new sulfa drugs; but he thinks he’s got something else. I asked him what he did about experimenting and he said he had a working agreement with a hospital, the one where he trained as interne. He’s hand-in-glove with the fellows there. They think he’s brilliant, I gathered. Dave didn’t say so. Whenever he thinks he’s got a new slant, he goes to San Francisco and they work on it. I don’t know exactly the setup; but that’s it, approximately. I asked cautiously if anybody around here knew anything much of his work and he said no.” He glanced at the door and added: “Police ought to be here by now.”

  She wondered if he had told her of Dave’s laboratory partly in order to distract her from thoughts of Luisa.

  And just as she thought that, quite unexpectedly something somebody had said to her recently floated out of Serena’s memory. It was as clear as if the words had been repeated. “Something’s going to happen,” somebody had told her.

  Why, of course. Leda had said it. And Leda had said, too, that Jem was “eating his heart out—he’s been in love with her for years.” In love with Amanda, she’d meant; and then, after a few moments in the soft darkness there in the patio, Serena had dismissed Leda’s words. She hadn’t even done so consciously and intentionally; her sense of security and happiness had automatically shut out everything else.

  Yet she had seen Jem again; he sat now so near she could have touched him. He was kind, protective, solid—and only that slight hesitation in his manner admitted, even, that he remembered holding her in his arms his mouth hard upon her own, as he had held her.

  Perhaps Leda was right. About Jem and Amanda, and about “something” that was going to happen.

  She couldn’t have known about Dave, though.

  And nobody could have known about Luisa.

  Luisa and a glimpse of a bright green scarf heavily—horribly weighted. The Pekingese on the rug stirred and put up its round blunt little nose and looked at the door, just as someone knocked.

  It was a policeman. He’d not gone to the scene of the accident; another policeman had gone down there with Dr. Seabrooke and he’d like to use the telephone.

  Jem showed him the telephone. “I just want to talk to the Chief of Police,” he said, and called a number. And, as Jem and Serena listened, he said that he was Anderson and it was the old lady out at the Condit Ranch, all right.

  “The one that phoned to you yesterday,” he said. “Yeah, that’s right. Well, no, it looks like an accident. But since she told you somebody was trying to murder her, I thought maybe you’d better know. Sure. Okay.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE PUT DOWN THE telephone and turned around toward them. He was a big, hearty man with a deeply tanned face and sun-wrinkles around his eyes. Into the stupefied, abysmal silence in the room Jem said in a thunderstruck voice: “What did you say?”

  Serena never forgot the next five seconds. She remembered them though in a picture: the long, lived-in room, the books, and bright Mexican rugs on the floor; the flames in the fireplace and Jem standing there before them, his hands in his pockets, his expression one of frowning incredulity and disbelief. And the policeman walking quietly toward them. He stopped opposite Jem. He glanced at her and back at Jem, and said, “Why, this old lady, this Miss Condit, phoned in yesterday and said somebody was trying to kill her. Just like that. Chief asked her why she thought so and she wouldn’t say. But she said couldn’t the police do something about it. I don’t know what the chief said; he thought she was cracked. People here don’t …” he shrugged. “And then about noon she phoned again and said she guessed she was mistaken and to forget it. He thought she was having a brainstorm. People do, you know. You’d be surprised …” He appeared to ruminate on past episodes. Then his eyes fastened upon Serena again. “You the young lady that was with her? Did you see her fall?”

  “N-no,” replied Serena in a voice that seemed dragged up from some unfathomable depth.

  “Did she scream?”

  “No,” she said again in the same distant, nightmare voice.

  “Did you see anybody around?”

  “W-what?” It was queer but she couldn’t seem to take anything in.

  “Did you see anybody around? Anybody that could’ve pushed her,” explained Anderson.

  “No!” she cried in sharp horror. “No! We were alone. She rounded the curve ahead of me. I stopped to put down the dog. And when I got out on the curve she …” Serena’s throat closed so hard she had to stop.

  Anderson’s eyes were very keen. He said suddenly: “What’s the matter with your hand?”

  “Oh. That.” The handkerchief showed white and clear against her blue skirt. Scarcely knowing what she did, she pulled it off. “It’s stopped bleeding. I slipped and scratched my hand. It was what delayed me. I didn’t see her fall.”

  Anderson looked at her hand in a remote yet observant way. “Quite a bruise. Lucky you didn’t go over yourself. How far behind were you?”

  “Not far. Just around the curve.”

&
nbsp; “Wonder if you’d mind coming along to the place and showing us?” asked Anderson matter-of-factly.

  “But she—look here,” said Jem quickly. “Miss March has had a pretty bad shock. Couldn’t she show you tomorrow, or …”

  “Rather you’d do it now,” said Anderson.

  “But she couldn’t have been murdered!” cried Serena. “I was there. She couldn’t have been.”

  “Okay,” said Anderson agreeably. “You want to come too, Mr. Daly? It’s nearly dark, we’d better get along.”

  It was colder, too. Jem opened the door and closed it quickly on Pooky who, wearily, would have followed. The air was cold and moist, and it was much darker. The gray sky and gray sea when they came out above them again merged in the near distance with twilight. It was still light enough though to see the swirling white foam and the ugly rocks below. Along that treacherous path Jem again took her hand firmly in his own.

  Again she pointed and explained in full detail. The other policeman, waiting with Dave, had few questions but both listened. The sea pounded and roared and when they left the ledge of rock and started back it was so nearly dark that one of them took out a small flashlight, holding it carefully so there would be not even a pinpoint of light showing out to sea, but so they could follow that narrow path.

  They got back to the cottage. Amanda and Sutton, and Leda and Johnny Blagden were there—pale-faced, questioning, horrified. Somebody from the coast patrol had telephoned too. There was no hope of reclaiming the body that night, or even in several days.

  “Sometimes it’s a week or two,” said Sutton, his kind, rather weak face very white. “Sissy, did it happen very suddenly? I hope Luisa didn’t have time to—know.”

  She didn’t remember answering. The police were talking to Dave Seabrooke; they had spoken to Sutton sympathetically. As Johnny Blagden said, shaking his round, bald head, there was nothing anybody could do. Leda stood by the fire, wrapped in a fur coat, listening and exclaiming, her blue eyes round and shocked. They’d better eat, Amanda said, finally and decisively. Leda and Johnny had been coming to dinner anyway; there was food enough for Jem and Dave, too. Everyone fell in gratefully with her matter-of-fact suggestion and filed out to the two cars, the Blagden coupe and Sutton’s car, that choked the little drive.

  “I’ll go along with Leda and Johnny,” said Dave, and put his hand on Serena’s arm, detaining her momentarily. In the eerie twilight his thin face looked tired and strained. “That business of the laboratory—do you mind not telling them? Not tonight, at least. They’d talk so much,” he said wearily.

  “I’ll not tell them. Dave, I’m so sorry.” It sounded and was inadequate. Jem said: “We’re riding with Amanda, Sissy.” They got into the back seat together, and Jem had brought Pooky, a warm, panting little load which he put on the seat between them.

  Serena wondered what had happened to the two policemen. They had quietly disappeared but their motor bicycles were still at the edge of the drive.

  Jem answered her unspoken thought. He lighted a cigarette, and presently, when they were on the highway, leaned forward. “Anderson said they’d be up after awhile,” he said to Sutton and Amanda on the front seat. “Is that all right? They want to talk to you.”

  “Who—oh, the police?” asked Amanda. She was still in riding breeches and shirt, and had pulled a heavy polo coat around her. Her face was without make-up, except for her mouth, and looked drawn and tired and without her usual vitality. She’d heard the news, Serena remembered her saying, when she returned to the house and hadn’t stopped for anything but to get Sutton and the car.

  “Yes,” said Sutton. “I know Anderson. Why do they want to question us?”

  There was a short pause in the darkness of the car. Then Jem said in an extraordinarily quiet voice: “Hang onto the wheel, Sutton. This is going to be kind of a shock. The fact is Luisa seems to have had some kind of bug about—well, about being murdered.”

  The car gave a lurch, Amanda gave a queer little scream; Sutton got the car back on the road. “What on earth …!” he began.

  “It seems she phoned them yesterday. Said somebody was trying to murder her. Wouldn’t say who or why she thought so, but asked for police protection.”

  “My God! Nobody wanted to murder her! What did she mean? She—what’d they do?” That was Sutton. Amanda said nothing.

  Jem said: “Well, that’s what they told us. They thought she was having a—well, brainstorm, Anderson said. Didn’t believe it. Then she called up in a little while and said she was mistaken.”

  Sutton drove on in silence. Amanda still said nothing. Serena, with the cold and the horror, was again shivering a little. Pooky was cold too and crept onto her lap.

  They went on slowly, feeling their way through the night, with the small parking lights making only a faint glow ahead. Nobody spoke while they climbed through darkness and fog. They turned onto the level road leading to the house before Sutton spoke. “That’s not like Luisa,” he said suddenly and rather harshly. They stopped at the gate. The lights of the following car crept feebly out of the gloom behind them.

  “We’ll have something to drink,” said Amanda, leading the way across the patio. “Come along!” Her voice, too, sounded harsh and unlovely.

  How long ago it had been, thought Serena, since she and Luisa had crossed the patio together. Only a few hours really; yet within that limit of time lay the difference between life and death. But Luisa couldn’t have been murdered!

  It was what everybody said.

  They discussed it at length. They—Sutton and Amanda between them—told Leda and Johnny and Dave at once. Luisa had talked of murder. Wasn’t it fantastic! There were more and incredulous exclamations. Dave, shrunken-looking, somehow, from his own private tragedy, retired behind a pipe and his glasses, and didn’t say much. Serena could see why he didn’t want to be present when those people, who knew each other so well, who said anything they felt like saying, frankly and repeatedly, learned of the destruction of his laboratory. Their very kindness would rub nerves already raw and exposed, almost past bearing. She was beginning to hold hard to her own nerves. It would be horrible if, again, somebody asked her how it could have happened, and she screamed! If only they’d stop talking of it, she thought desperately.

  They didn’t.

  Sutton poured the drinks and did so generously. He was shaken and still pale, but his pleasant face grew gradually less shocked and sick-looking. To all of them, in fact, the normal little routine of cocktails and a warm fire and talk, seemed gradually restorative. Even Serena was conscious of a kind of physical reassurance and comfort. She wouldn’t think of angry, gray waters and a sickening flash of bright green.

  None of them, however, could account for what they began to assume was a temporary aberration on Luisa’s part.

  “Why did she phone to the police? What happened to her?” demanded Johnny. “What got into her?”

  Nobody seemed to know. “As Sutton says, it wasn’t like her,” said Jem. “But apparently that’s what she did. And then told them to forget it.”

  Amanda said abruptly: “It may not have been like her to get nervous over nothing; it wasn’t. She was a very cool and phlegmatic person. Oh, don’t look at me reproachfully, Sutton. I meant nothing against her. What I was going to say was that while it wasn’t like her to be nervous, still you know as well as I do how stubborn she was about things?”

  Sutton, sitting in an armchair before the fire, his legs still in riding boots, stretched out toward it, nodded slowly.

  “So,” pursued Amanda, “if she got some notion of the kind, Heaven knows why or what, she would do exactly that.”

  Johnny Blagden, on the sofa beside her, his round, red face looking distressed and puzzled, nodded vigorously. “You mean she’d dash to the telephone without thinking it over. Yes, you’re right, Amanda. But what do you suppose made her get the wind up?”

  Amanda blinked. “I haven’t any idea,” she said flatly.

  �
��Let me see.” Sutton frowned thoughtfully. “I can’t remember a thing yesterday that was unusual. Except, of course, Sissy’s coming home, and that was at night. Luisa was alone a large part of the day. I was out and so were you, Amanda, weren’t you? But she seemed quite herself. She wouldn’t go to dinner with us last night, but she never would join us when it was a party. I mean just our little crowd. She didn’t say a word to me about anybody trying to murder her.” He laughed nervously and without mirth. “Did she tell you anything, Amanda?”

  “Certainly not,” said Amanda. “Not a word.”

  “It’s queer she didn’t.” Sutton pushed his slender hand over his thin, fair hair. “If she got such a terrible idea as that and was so convinced of it that she called the police, I don’t understand why she wouldn’t tell you or me, Amanda. Unless …” He sat up suddenly. “Unless she thought it was one of us!”

  Amanda shrugged her shoulders impatiently. “Oh, you never knew what she was thinking or why until she was ready to tell you. Don’t be so silly, Sutton. She didn’t think you were trying to murder her! Or that I was! She only wanted attention, probably!” She caught herself abruptly and pushed back her loosened dark hair. “I don’t mean to sound callous. I can’t tell you how sorry I feel about it. It’s horrible, but Luisa was unpredictable.”

  Sutton’s eyes were rather like Luisa’s. They were pale blue and observant but with such light eyelashes and eyebrows that his whole face seemed merely kind and rather negative, where Luisa’s had been full of purpose. His glance slid quietly and rather surreptitiously to Amanda and then back to the fire. He said, “What are you suggesting, Amanda? Suicide?”