Dorothy was standing at the mirror, but she caught my glance. She reached over, picked up the purse and shut it with a sharp click.
It was impossible to conceal the fact that I had been staring into her purse. I said with such assurance as I could muster, “I see you’ve been catching up on your correspondence, Dorothy.”
She said, “Yes,” and began humming again, a habit of hers which definitely got on my nerves. Then she stepped back into the foyer and called up the stairs, “Jane, are you using your car this evening? If not, I’d like to borrow it. I’ve some important mail to get off.”
Jane appeared at the head of the stairs. She descended swiftly, pulling on her hat and coat as she came. “I’m sorry, Dorothy, but I’m driving in to the movies. Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone. I’ll drop your letters for you.”
Marian, who had ears like a fox’s, at this point swept down the stairs and into the. room. “What’s this about movies, Jane? I thought you were staying home with Aunt Margaret.”
Jane looked momentarily confused. Then she said candidly, “That’s what I meant you to think.” She added with a trace of defiance, “Ames and I were going to the movies. I haven’t seen him for three days now.”
“Isn’t your cousin coming out tomorrow?” asked Dorothy in innocent tones.
“Yes,” said Jane shortly, “but it happens we wanted to see the movie tonight.”
I knew Jane missed Ames sadly, but I was inclined to agree when Marian said tartly, “Well, you can make up your mind to a change of plans, young lady. Ames is not a well boy, this is a school evening and if he has time to spare he can spend it studying. If you aren’t going to stay home, you can come to the theater with your father and me.”
Jane looked to me for support, and failed to receive it. She realized that the battle was lost. Her cheeks very red, she turned to Dorothy. “It seems I’m not using my car, after all. You’re welcome to it.”
“Thank you,” said Dorothy, and smiled.
Jane pretended not to see. With fairly good grace she went upstairs to change her dress and slippers. I regretted the child’s disappointment, and I was distinctly annoyed with Dorothy. Marian had a habit of treating Jane like a three-year-old, and it seemed to me that Dorothy had enjoyed the little family contretemps a shade too obviously.
With that in mind, I followed Jane to her room. Rather unnecessarily I asked her if she needed help with her frock.
“No, thanks, Aunt Margaret.” My niece dropped .yards of ruffles and flounces over practically nothing in the way of underclothes. Her head emerged. “I hate that girl,” she said calmly. “She’s always meddling in my affairs. Listening in when I telephone, watching the time when I go out. Not that it matters, but I’m sure she was on the upstairs extension when I took a wireless from Ted this morning. She’s probably already reported to Mother that Ted’s boat docks tonight, and that he’ll be down next week.” Jane gave me no chance for a display of interest, but instead returned to her grievance. “I’ve half a mind to start concentrating on Dorothy’s private life. Maybe I could make some trouble myself.”
She looked so outraged and so virtuous as she stood there, garbed in the dress of the eighteen-eighties, that I had to smile. I said something to the effect that Dorothy’s private life might prove uncommonly dull.
“That’s what you think,” said Jane darkly. “Well, go ahead and think it. Sometimes I believe you’re as innocent as Mother.”
I’m used to the indictments of the young, and I only said mildly, “You might explain that, Jane.”
My niece faced me defiantly. “Very well, I will. Where would you say Dorothy spent last Wednesday night?”
“I haven’t the least idea,” I began, and paused. I suddenly remembered that on Wednesday evening Dorothy had asked permission to attend some function at the Grosvenor Hospital at which Dr. Smedley was to speak. I said, “She went into Washington to that nurses’ dinner.”
“So she told you and Mother,” said Jane. “I happen to know she did nothing of the kind. She went to the Paradise Roof. Ames and I saw her there.”
For a moment I was startled. I had previously observed that Dorothy wasn’t always truthful in small affairs, but this seemed such an unnecessary lie. Where the nurse spent her off-duty time was a matter of indifference to Marian and me. The Paradise Roof was as respectable as any night club can be, and I could think of no reason why Dorothy should conceal her intention of going there.
“You should,” added Jane with relish, “have seen Dorothy’s face when Ames and I appeared. She and her man left at once. The man,” Jane finished meditatively, “was quite good-looking. Slim and tall and awfully blond. Kirk his name was, and Dorothy made good and sure I didn’t meet him.”
“How do you know his name if you didn’t meet him?”
“I eavesdropped,” my niece said cheerfully, and ran downstairs to join her parents.
It was some time later when I returned to the drawing room, but Dorothy was still there. I have a strong dislike of petty deceit, and it was on the tip of my tongue to mention what Jane had told me, but I thought better of it, and instead said coldly:
“Hadn’t you better be getting started, Dorothy?”
She yawned. “It’s so rotten out I hate to leave. There’s no hurry anyhow. The post office is open until ten.” She lighted a cigarette. When I picked up a book, she settled herself comfortably into a chair, smoking, looking meditatively at the perfect series of rings she blew, one after another.
Some minutes went by before the telephone rang. Usually one of the colored maids answers the telephone, but Dorothy rose at once.
“I’ll get it, Miss Tilbury.”
She stepped to the telephone which was in the far corner of the room. Her face was partially in shadow, but I fancied I detected a faint change in her expression as she said, “Hello,” and heard the answering voice. I watched and listened.
Dorothy said, “No, she’s not here now... I can’t help it… She just left a few minutes ago... of course she will be back.” Dorothy’s voice sharpened. “It isn’t necessary that she call you personally. I’ll take care of everything. Good-bye.”
Dorothy replaced the telephone with a smart bang. “Of all the rude people!” she said vehemently.
I asked, “Who was it?”
“Your sister’s tailor. Evidently Mrs. Brierly broke an appointment for a fitting this afternoon, and the tailor wants to pass on the pleasant news that she has to pay for it. He seemed to think that she was trying to skip out on him.”
I hadn’t known that Marian was buying new clothes and I didn’t think she needed any. I asked a few sharp questions on my own, but Dorothy blandly evaded answering them.
“Wouldn’t it be better,” she said gently, “to question Mrs. Brierly?”
She put me in my place so thoroughly and I was so irritated at having given her the opportunity that I overlooked certain inconsistencies in the conversation I had overheard, and in her explanation of it.
Dorothy crushed out her cigarette and pulled on her gloves. All her movements were leisurely. Then she glanced down at the small wrist watch she wore, and started. “Heavens, I have been killing time. It’s past nine now.”
At once her pace quickened, her air of indifference vanished. She left my home, for the last time, in a decided rush. She seized her pocketbook and rapidly wound a scarf, around her throat. Her high heels clattered across the floor, her wine-colored cape fluttered as the door closed behind her. A moment later I heard Jane’s car roar out of the driveway. Almost immediately the clock in the foyer struck eight. I know, for, unwilling to trust the evidence of my ears, I rose and looked at it. I was, however, only mildly puzzled. I wondered only casually why Dorothy Fithian had seen fit to inform me that it was past nine when she certainly knew that it was not yet eight.
Standing beside the clock, I suddenly felt a recurrence of intense weariness. Simon Hargreaves’ brother Harold had promised to come out from Washington for a game of cutt
hroat bridge, but I hardly felt I could stay up to receive him. I wanted my bed, my hot water bottle, my warm glass of milk. Simon’s train left at eleven in the morning, my good-byes could be said at breakfast, and such an old friend would probably understand my absenting myself on his last evening.
I started upstairs, and then changed my mind. I felt restless, inexplicably on edge. I tried to read and laid aside the book, I got out my knitting and found that I was unable to settle myself to anything. Considerable time elapsed before Harold arrived, and I welcomed him with honest pleasure. Harold Hargreaves was very different from Simon. For one thing he was much younger, and being younger was more flexible. During the six or seven years he had spent practicing law in Washington, he had lost every trace of the stiffness of his New England boyhood, and had acquired the easy man-of-affairs air which so many successful lawyers possess. Typically enough he brought me flowers—a great sheaf of chrysanthemums.
“They’re all rust,” he said. “I hope you like them. I thought rust would do better with your color scheme than either white or yellow.”
I knew Harold before he had ever heard of a color scheme, but I gravely agreed that his choice was excellent and rang for a vase. Thomas, my sad-eyed mulatto butler, arranged the flowers and wheeled in the liquor cart. Harold mixed himself a Scotch-and-soda.
“This is something like, Margaret. I rushed through dinner and missed my brandy so I wouldn’t hold up you and Simon.” Since it was nearly ten o’clock I felt that Harold’s virtuous self-satisfaction was somewhat out of place, but then that was Harold’s way. He gazed around the empty drawing room and added, “Where has Simon gone, by the way?”
I smiled. “He hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s upstairs packing. He began immediately after dinner but you know Simon.”
I thought Harold looked a little surprised, but then he grinned. “You don’t suppose he’d like my help?”
I said, “He refused mine.”
We both laughed. Simon was as fussy as an old maid about his possessions, and he packed a bag with the same delicate unhurried precision with which he performed an operation. Harold poured himself a second Scotch, and drank it neat.
“You’d better have a spot of brandy yourself, Margaret. You’re looking under the weather this evening.” He paused and added slowly, “That reminds me. Did Simon ever say anything, to you about Fred?”
“Fred?” I was considerably taken aback. “Do you mean Fred Brierly? Why should Simon say anything about him?”
Harold hesitated. “Do you think Fred is quite well, Margaret?”
“Well? Certainly, he’s well. He’s at the theater now.” Harold still hesitated and I went on. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. Does Simon think that Fred is ill?”
Just then Simon came in, greeted his brother with the shy joviality he had adopted since the younger man had grown up and become so amazingly successful. His manner was a mixture of pride and humility and always made me wonder, for I considered him twice the man his brother was. After the card table had been set up and the cards located—usually a difficult feat in my house¬hold—I returned to Fred Brierly. Or rather I asked Simon outright what he intended to say to me about my brother-in-law.
Simon was shuffling the cards. He laid them down. “I hadn’t intended to say anything, Margaret,” he began with a reproachful look at Harold.
The lawyer flushed. “Sorry,” he said briefly. He glanced at me. “Let’s forget then that I said anything and go on with our game.”
“Forget nothing!” I said. “If Fred is ill certainly I’m entitled to know it.”
“Fred isn’t ill, Margaret,” said Simon at last. “That is, he isn’t ill in any physical sense. I know, for I examined him. But I’m inclined to think there is something wrong with him, nevertheless. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it yourself. Noticed the change in him, I mean. Fred’s a stout man but he’s lost pounds since I was down here three months ago. His color’s bad. His nerves are bad. He’s jumpy as a cat.”
Fred was thinner. I had been so used to taking him for granted that an outsider had to point it out to me. I felt a pang of conscience and at the same time a feeling that both men were holding something back.
I said, “Go on.”
“There’s really nothing to add. I had an idea Fred was worried about something, more than ordinarily worried, but if he hasn’t spoken to you it probably can’t be serious.” Simon smiled. “Fred is hardly the type who keeps his troubles to himself.”
“Of course he isn’t,” said Harold cheerfully. “But in the office the other day I thought—”
“Was Fred in your office?” I demanded, astonished, for Fred seldom saw Harold Hargreaves and invariably mentioned if when he did. “What was he doing there?” There was an awkward pause. Then Simon said quickly, “He met us there for lunch. The three of us went out together. Pick up your cards, Margaret, and take that worried frown off your brow.” He leaned over and patted my hand.
I refused to be put off. “You may as well tell me now as later why Fred didn’t speak of having lunch with you. I shall most certainly ask him.”
Simon looked vexed. His, brother said smoothly, “There’s no reason you shouldn’t know, Margaret. Fred simply wanted to talk over a little business matter.” Talking over a little business matter with Harold Hargreaves was likely to prove expensive—as no one knew better than I, for he handled all of my affairs. Fred had no affairs to handle, which I also knew. I said tartly, “Whose business was Fred discussing? Mine?”
To my amazement there was an embarrassed silence. Then unwillingly the lawyer admitted that Fred had come to him with a suggestion that I be persuaded to sell what we call the Elm Street properties. I was outraged and indignant. In the first place what Fred didn’t know about real estate values would fill a very large book, and in the second place the Elm Street properties, located in the Vermont town where my father and his father had been born before me, were the basis of the family fortune and those lots had belonged to Tilburys since the eighteenth century. I drew a deep breath.
“Don’t say it, Margaret,” said Simon warningly. He went On with considerable sternness. “You wanted to know what was wrong with Fred. If you will forgive me, my dear, you were on the point of illustrating the chief of his difficulties. Woman trouble.”
“Woman trouble!” I repeated sharply.
He smiled. “Not that kind. A much more common kind.” He hesitated and added gravely, “Since Ames moved into his fraternity house, Fred has spent a large part of his time in the company of four women, none of whom considers his opinions in the least important. You and Marian and Verity never listen to him at all. Jane hardly does. That isn’t pleasant for any man. Nor is it good for him.”
I felt a prick of conscience. “What has that got to do with his going to Harold behind my back, making suggestions about my affairs?”
“A great deal. Fred’s like all men—he’s got to feel important, he must for the sake of his own self-respect. It can’t be easy for Fred to live here on your bounty, and, believe me, you do very little to make it easier. Why can’t you ask his advice occasionally? You needn’t take it, but you could ask. He went to Harold because he didn’t dare go to you.”
I was hurt. Simon’s reproofs were rare, and I had a feeling that this one was justified. I said, “Perhaps you’re right. But I see no reason whatever for selling those lots.”
“I saw none either,” said Harold quickly, “and so I told Fred. He had a buyer, and he was disappointed. Since nothing came of the proposition, I said I wouldn’t mention the matter to you.”
Both men looked at me. I felt a kind of male solidarity between them which shut me out. I flushed and picked up the cards. “Very well, I’ll say nothing. And if it will make Fred happier I suppose I can consult him occasionally. Though you can’t convince me he’s any business man.”
“That’s my good girl,” said Simon approvingly, and with a total disregard of the fact that I couldn’t rightly hav
e been called a girl since the turn of the century.
I became immediately more cheerful. The contemplation of a projected good deed warmed my mind, and made me forget any past failings in regard to my brother-in-law. I grew interested in the card game. We played until well past midnight.
Harold and I were settling our losses—Simon won from both of us—when Jane and Marian came in from the theater. I looked instinctively for Fred, but he was putting the car away. It was still drizzling outside, and Jane and Marian discarded their damp wraps before they joined us for coffee.
Harold asked some question about the play. It was the Leslie Howard production of Hamlet, and Harold fancied himself as quite a Shakespearian scholar. He got no response from Jane or Marian. Instead my sister said casually:
“By the way, Margaret, we stopped at the fraternity house and brought Ames out with us. I thought it would be nice to save him the drive tomorrow.”
I wasn’t used to such thoughtfulness on Marian’s part where Ames was concerned. I gave her a startled glance. Just then Ames came in, and dropped his bag on the floor.
“I hope you’ve got a bed for a weary man, Aunt Margaret. And a tooth brush. I forgot to put mine in.”
His tone was precisely as casual as Marian’s had been, but as he stooped to give me an affectionate kiss I thought I detected a slight constraint in his manner. As though the situation weren’t quite as natural as he and Marian were determined it should appear.
“I’m tired,” Jane announced abruptly. “I believe I’ll go on up. Ames and I are riding in the morning.” She rose.
“Why don’t you finish your coffee?” said Marian. Your father will be here in a minute.”
Jane seated herself. Neither Simon nor Harold seemed to notice anything amiss. Indeed Harold, who had attended the theater earlier in the week, was set on airing his opinion of Hamlet. He was holding forth when, a few minutes later, Fred entered the room.
I viewed my brother-in-law with sharpened eyes. Perhaps I read something into his attitude but it did seem to me that he looked tired, nervous, unlike himself. The light shone on his bald head, and deepened the wrinkles around his eyes. Fred was a short man, shorter than Marian, and quite stout. But his coat, dripping with moisture, seemed to hang on him. His boots were very muddy and when I spoke of the tracks he was leaving his retort missed politeness by a considerable margin.
The Strawstack Murders Page 3