“Where are the furs? Where is the jewelry?”.
“Well—then the stock market …”
“There are records there, too.”
“Well, you could transact your business with cash. Still …” Amanda bit her lip and said: “Gambling,” but rather tentatively, as if she didn’t really expect Serena to agree to that. Serena said nothing and Amanda added: “Well, then. I have it. You put it all in a safe deposit box.”
“Amanda, listen! Get this straight in your mind. I will not tell them that I took money from you. I simply will not do it.”
Amanda waited an instant or two and then said obliquely: “They would never do anything to you, you know, Serena. You’re too pretty. I doubt if they really were going to arrest you. And I know perfectly well that they’d never let you stand trial.”
“Amanda …” But there wasn’t any way to appeal to Amanda. Anger didn’t help either. Serena forced herself to speak slowly and reasonably as one would to a child. “Listen, Amanda: Why? There’s some reason for your saying what you’ve said about money. The bracelet Leda bought in New York was the bracelet that you hid in my room. Did you find it?”
Amanda’s eyes shifted. A bare ripple of discomposure seemed to cross her lovely face. “Well—no.”
“It was the Cartier bracelet. Wasn’t it?”
“I’m not going to tell you. Remember, Serena, it’s only your word against mine. All of this.”
“Why did Leda give you the bracelet?”
“What makes you think she did?”
“Oh, Amanda, don’t be childish. She either gave it to you, or bought it for you. Why?”
Amanda’s smile had vanished but her face was still unmoved.
“What did you do for her that was worth that?”
“Nothing. I didn’t …” Amanda seemed to catch back her words.
“All right. She didn’t give it to you. Then who did?”
Amanda answered again; this time, however, she smiled rather uneasily and her eyes were guarded. “Nobody, darling. I don’t take twelve-thousand-dollar bracelets from people. I tell you Leda’s bracelet and mine were not the same.”
“I saw the bracelet, Amanda. It was real. Johnny said he didn’t give her the money to buy it. And the police didn’t find it among Leda’s things. Why did she give it to you?”
“I tell you she didn’t! My bracelet was junk and it was stolen.”
“Oh, Amanda, people don’t steal junk bracelets!”
“Don’t they?” said Amanda, and smiled.
“Amanda,” said Serena slowly, “you’ve got to believe that this is serious. Every statement you make will have to be capable of proof. The bracelet—your claim to have given me money—everything. You and I know that you gave me nothing. There’s no use pretending to me. Why did you tell them that you’ve been sending money to me?”
Amanda’s eyes flickered; then she smiled calmly. “Well, I have to admit that that was a mistake. I wished I hadn’t said it. But it was the first thing I could think of. So then”—she shrugged—“well, then I had to stick to it.”
“But good Heavens, Amanda …”
“That’s my story, and I stick to it, darling. And you are going to stick to it, too!”
“That’s exactly what I’m not going to do.”
“Then they’re going to know all about Jem and how he’s been in love with me and how Luisa interfered and—oh, by the way, Serena.” She stopped smiling and leaned forward. “I thought I told you hands off about Jem. I meant it.”
“Are you in love with him, Amanda?”
Amanda’s eyes flickered. “I—certainly. And he’s terribly in love with me. He’s always been.”
Serena ignored that. “Are you going to leave Sutton and marry Jem?”
Amanda hesitated. “When I’m ready to. Yes.”
“Does Jem want to marry you?”
An ugly look came into Amanda’s face. “Listen to me, Serena March! If you think you’re going to have Jem now, you’re not! Do you think I’m willing to be stuck in this place all my life! Look at me! I’m beautiful—I’m attractive—people like me. I’m not going to stay here all my life—seeing the same people, doing the same things! I’m going to …” she broke off and gave Serena a queer, rather crafty look. “Did Jem tell you why he’s here? Well, I’ll tell you! He’s waiting an appointment. It’s a government thing, so big that when he tried to get in the army they asked him not to. He’s important, Serena; only none of us knew how important. He’s … It’s like diplomacy. They’re sending him—I don’t know where exactly, India and Australia and—but that’s not the point—they’re sending him because he gets along with people. Because he can get what he goes after, because … Oh, you wouldn’t understand, Serena, but Jem’s important. He’s going places. And I,” said Amanda softly, “am going with him. When I’m ready.”
Serena wanted to say, childishly, “Does Jem know this?” She wanted to say, almost as childishly, “Jem says he loves me.” She wouldn’t let herself say either. “Not if he’s arrested for murder,” she said crisply instead.
But Amanda was still sure of herself. “That,” she said smiling, “is up to you. Is there anything else you’d like to know, darling?”
“Yes,” said Serena quietly. “Leda said that you’d had the upper hand a long time and now she had it. What did she mean?”
“I’m not going to tell you. Any more questions?”
“Who was in the room when I phoned to you from San Francisco?”
This time Amanda’s eyes sharpened. “What do you mean?”
“You spoke to someone. I heard you. You said, ‘It’s only Sissy. You can listen if you want to …’ And then you said, ‘Put that down.’ Who was it? Sutton—or Luisa—or someone else?”
The ripple of surprise that had crossed Amanda’s face was gone. It remained perfectly blank, but now, wary. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Amanda, stop lying!” Anger caught Serena like a furious gust of wind, shaking her. “You’ve got to tell me the truth!”
“How are you going to make me say anything I don’t wish to say?” asked Amanda—in exactly the blankly stubborn voice she might have used, ten or even twenty years before that.
Serena thought rather despairingly of that. Again, with anger still throbbing in her voice, she tried to reason with the lovely woman opposite her.
“Amanda, won’t you listen and think …” she began. And Amanda said: “I imagine that you are thinking of telling them what you heard Leda say to me; but if you do, remember it will make them suspect Jem of murder—and he was there, you know. He was at Casa Madrone. Don’t forget that. He could have killed her—and Jem has a temper, as perhaps you don’t know.” Amanda did not seem to be aware of her extreme inconsistency.
“You imply that you’re in love with Jem,” said Serena. “Yet you say you’ll give evidence against him.…”
Amanda laughed lightly. “Don’t be stupid, darling. That’s what I meant when I said you were soft with people you love. But I’m not. Remember that. You’ll give in, and do as I say. And even if you do forget yourself so much as to make them think Jem murdered her, don’t forget that, again, they’ll have only your word for what you heard. They’ll just say that you are trying to make me a scapegoat again. I’ll deny it,” said Amanda quite pleasantly. “I’ll deny everything.”
As she spoke, Sutton opened the door and came into the room. He did it so quickly and quietly that Serena wondered if he had heard any of their conversation. He was alone, standing there in his tweeds and yellow scarf with his amiable face now rather drawn as if it had withered somehow, overnight. He didn’t look at Serena but said, apparently to her: “Jem and Dave went with the police. They wanted to talk to Quayle. Will you come with me, Amanda?”
“Come with you …” began Amanda in a rather startled way. “Why? Where?”
“I want to talk to you. Come outside”
“I’ll go,” began Serena, but Sutton went to Amanda and
put his hand on her arm. “Now,” he said.
After an instant’s stare into Sutton’s face, Amanda got up. She shook off his hand rather disdainfully. But without another word she went out of the room and Sutton followed.
Sometime later, in her own room, Serena saw them from the window. They were standing in the fog down near the hedge that separated the grounds near the house from the corrals and barns. Sutton was talking. Even at that distance Serena could see the set, angry look of Amanda’s red mouth. And as she looked, Sutton caught Amanda’s arm and jerked her toward him. The violence of the gesture was unlike Sutton. Serena watched for a moment. Was there, under Sutton’s pleasant and lazy exterior another man, one capable of anger and violence?
They turned and moved slowly out of sight. Sutton was still talking—and once, when Amanda would have made a move toward the house, he caught her arm again and forced her to walk along beside him.
Serena saw that and moved away from the window. She wondered again if Sutton had heard any or all of the things she and Amanda had said. When Amanda had appealed to him he had not failed her. He had said that she’d given money to Serena. But was that merely blind loyalty to Amanda, or did he really believe that Amanda was telling the truth? “It was a mistake,” Amanda had said coolly, “but now I’ve got to stick to it.”
Perhaps Sutton would succeed where Serena had failed. Perhaps Sutton would make Amanda say why she had made that preposterous claim. The reason must be an important one—to Amanda at least. Yet it was possible too that, whatever it was, it had no connection with the ugly thing that had caught them all like some peculiarly horrible octopus striking out of turgid depths, ever tightening its hold.
Herself as a suspect was still too incredible and too fantastic to be seriously considered; yet in another way it was altogether too real.
There was nothing she could do. Time seemed to stand still. Lunch time came, and Amanda, and then Sutton returned to the house. Amanda looked angry, but if she had told Sutton anything, he did not tell Serena and she did not ask him. Jem would come back. Jem would know what to do. She could not question Sutton then. She could not say: your wife—my sister —is lying to both of us. Why?
There were, that afternoon, things to do; queerly matter-of-fact things. Sutton undertook them. He made a statement to the newspapers about Luisa’s death. He telephoned to Johnny Blagden and talked to him, asking if there were anything they could do. He hung up, looking withered, somehow again, and older. His eyes were bloodshot. He said: “He says the police have put him over the jumps. They’ve searched the house and questioned him and the servants, but so far as he knows didn’t discover any evidence leading to the murderer.”
“Does he have any idea as to how Leda got to Casa Madrone?” asked Amanda.
“No. He says she didn’t take the car because he had it in Monterey. He doesn’t know how she got to Monterey, nor how she got from Monterey to Casa Madrone.” Sutton’s eyes shifted momentarily to Serena. “You remember, Sissy. They live inside the lodge-gate area. She couldn’t have walked to Monterey and then back to Casa Madrone. At least she wouldn’t have.”
“Someone picked her up, obviously,” said Amanda. She paused and thought and said: “Sissy could have done it. Not that I’m saying she did.”
Sutton suddenly lifted one of the small bronze horses and put it down with a bang. “Amanda! For God’s sake …!” He caught himself with an effort.
“What else did Johnny say?” asked Amanda unperturbed.
“If you want to know, something not very pleasant,” said Sutton rather savagely. “He says the police seem to think the murderer had to be somebody who knew her very well; somebody she’d come to Casa Madrone with, and somebody who knew the back door was unlocked. And he says—he says he thinks so, too.”
There was a silence. Then Amanda cried incredulously: “Johnny thinks that?”
“Johnny thinks that,” repeated Sutton, watching his beautiful wife.
And Serena remembered something the police had asked her. “Do you have a key to Casa Madrone?” she asked Amanda.
“Why, I—yes, I think so. Somewhere. I haven’t seen it for ages.”
Sutton said slowly: “Leda seemed to think that you knew the back door was unlocked.”
“Well, I did know it.” Amanda looked defiant. “I stop there once in a while just to take a look at the place. I imagine Pedro left it open. I don’t know. I—bolted it once or twice. And then left it open. I meant to speak to him about it. Perhaps he lost his key.”
It was not like Amanda to explain so fully and fluently. Sutton said very quietly: “They’ll ask Pedro, you know.”
Amanda shrugged: “He’ll say whatever he wants to say.”
“How did Leda know it was frequently unlocked?”
“Why, I don’t know. I suppose I may have told her! I don’t remember. Does it matter?”
“How long has it been since you were there?”
“Really, Sutton, you sound like a policeman!”
“I’m only asking questions the police will ask when they come back.”
“Nonsense.” Amanda’s voice and face were sulky. “I have no idea when I was last there!”
The afternoon wore on and there was no news from Jem, nothing from Dave or the police. Once Alice telephoned and talked to Amanda. .
“She’s upset,” said Amanda coolly, putting down the telephone. “She says the police have been questioning her. She thinks it’s preposterous to question us. She says there must be a homicidal maniac somewhere in the vicinity and the police ought to find him.”
Later Slader and another policeman came, asked for Sutton and spent some time in the garage. They had brought molds (“Moulage, they call it,” said Sutton after they’d gone.) of the tire tracks found here and there about Casa Madrone and wanted to look at the tires on the two Condit cars.
Before the policemen went away they came into the house and, rather apologetically, took not only Serena’s and Sutton’s and Amanda’s fingerprints, but also those of Modeste and Ramon. It was a rather grim but businesslike ceremony, with Slader breathing very earnestly as he worked and Sutton standing by with a towel and cleaning fluid.
After they’d gone Amanda disappeared and spent some time, apparently in her room, changing and doing her hair and nails for she came down about five dressed in the red, long house-gown again, her dark hair in perfect order, her face beautifully made up, her crimson fingernails shining—her wrist again without the bracelet. Sutton looked up at her for a moment over his pipe.
Serena too, restless and uneasy, made one or two trips through the patio to her room, and down again. Once she looked at the blue jacket. There were the broken threads and the little torn place in the fabric. She looked at the remaining blue buttons—like that one in Leda’s hand.
Someone must have put it there. Why, then? Who would try to incriminate her, Serena? Who hated her that much?
She made herself change, too, as Amanda had done. She put on a white, thin-wool dress with a scarlet coat and again pinned a scarlet bow on top her head—and then almost hurriedly, her heart thumping, ran down the wet stairs to the patio. She’d been gone, it seemed to her suddenly, for a long time; perhaps something had happened. Perhaps someone had telephoned with news.
Perhaps Jem had come.
Jem hadn’t come. But it was as she crossed the patio and approached the door to the hall and the central part of the house that she discovered the bullet-hole.
It happened because Pooky, whom she’d almost forgotten, gave a small whimper from the upper veranda. It was from the middle section of the house, probably where Luisa’s room had been. She heard the whimper and remembered the little elderly dog and, happening to be near the right-hand flight of narrow wooden stairs, she turned toward it and called him, “Pooky—come here, Pooky.” He appeared instantly at the top, his red tongue hanging out, his eyes sad and worried. She started up the stairway, her hand on the railing, and then paused to call him again. And wa
s aware of a very faint roughness under her hand—small but sharp enough so she lifted her hand and looked at a round hole in the damp wood, which looked like the hole made by a bullet.
There were tiny splinters around it. And it was new because the wood where those splinters had been made was unweathered and unpainted.
Her first thought was that someone had been rabbit hunting. But people don’t hunt rabbits in a California patio surrounded on three sides by windows.
Pooky had tumbled down the steps and was nudging at her ankles. Presently, staring at that small round hole in the wooden railing, she stopped and gathered Pooky up in her arms where he snuggled down sadly and very wearily.
After a while she turned and went slowly down the two steps again—across the wet flagstones and in through the hall door. Amanda and Sutton were in the long living room. She didn’t tell them of the curious thing she had discovered. Suddenly Sutton was as strange to her as Amanda.
When Jem came she would tell him.
He came at about six o’clock, Dave with him, and they had news.
First, Jem said, with a quick look around the room until he found Serena, as if to assure himself of her presence and that she was all right—first, Captain Quayle was going to hold up any possible arrest for a—Jem hesitated there and said, “for a day or two.”
Sutton, in his usual hospitable way, was passing cigarettes, pouring Scotch and sodas. “Then they’re not going to arrest Serena?”
“No,” said Jem.
It was more a declaration however than a statement. Serena glanced at Dave, and he replied to the question in her look. “Honestly, Serena, I think they’ve decided not to make such an important move without more to back them up. Believe me. Besides, there’ve been some new developments.”
Amanda asked sharply: “What’s happened? Where were you? What were you doing?”
Sutton brought a glass to Jem and one to Dave. Dave sank down into a deep chair and Jem remained standing before the fire. He looked tired and rather white, but there was as always a solidity and strength about him. It went to Serena’s heart like a warm and comforting wine. Whatever happened in that suddenly chaotic and terrible world, Jem was there, unchanged and unchanging. That was faith, she thought suddenly. You didn’t know where it came from or why you felt it, only that it was there.
Escape the Night Page 18