“Fred!” said Marian.
At once he was himself again. His apology was quick and sincere and so was the accompanying smile. “I’m all in, Margaret. An evening with the Melancholy Dane is harder on me than a day at wood-chopping.”
Marian opened her mouth and then abruptly closed it. Jane said swiftly, “Let me mix you a drink, Father. Or would you rather have something straight?”
“I’m the bartender,” Harold announced hospitably. He moved to the liquor cart. “What’ll it be, old man?”
“Brandy and soda,” said Fred.
It seemed to me that his tone was curt. He was usually affable and even ingratiating where Harold was concerned. I detected undercurrents in the gathering, something strange in Fred’s attitude toward Harold, something strange in the way Marian kept her eyes fixedly on Fred. Even Jane and Ames had caught the general infection. Both were very quiet. Fred tossed down his brandy.
He said to me, “Jane’s car wasn’t in the garage. Isn’t Dorothy in yet?”
I said, “No,” and glanced in some surprise at my watch. If Dorothy only meant to mail some letters she should have been back long ago. The trip to Washington required only half an hour, and she had left my house at eight o’clock.
“She’s probably joy-riding in my car,” Jane said dryly
But Marian seemed disturbed. “Are you quite sure, Margaret, she hasn’t come in?. It isn’t like her to be so late.”
“You heard Fred say he hadn’t seen the car.”
“I heard,” said Marian, and added crisply, “Have you ever watched Fred hunt a collar button? Well, I have. Ames, you go and look in the garage.”
My nephew rose with the patient air of a man bound on what he considers a pointless errand. I could see that he resented Marian’s calm assumption of Fred’s congenital witlessness, and that Simon resented it, too. Fred merely shrugged. He was used to Marian’s little jokes about his various failings.
I said, “Don’t bother, Ames. If it makes you feel easier, Marian, we will establish definitely that Dorothy has not returned.” I rang the bell for Thomas. My other servants had long ago retired, but Thomas stubbornly refused to sleep until all the doors were closed and locked and all the lights were out. When he came in I asked him to go upstairs and rap at Dorothy’s door.
“She ain’t there, Miss Tilbury.” Thomas hesitated. “Maybe she ain’t coming back. I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Of course she’s coming back,” I said sharply. “Why should you suggest she isn’t?”
My New England upbringing hadn’t taught me how to deal with Maryland Negroes. My tone was wrong. Thomas retaliated promptly by taking refuge in evasion. He rolled his eyes at me.
“Was just a notion I had, Miss Tilbury. A silly kind of notion. Course Miss Fithian, she coming back.”
Then why did you suggest she wasn’t?”
“I done tole you, Miss Tilbury. It was all account of a silly, foolish kind of notion.”
‘Your notion,” said Marian tartly, “must have been based on something.”
Jane suddenly stood up.
“I’ll settle this,” she said, and immediately ran lightly up the stairs. Ames followed her. Dorothy’s room was on the third floor, adjoining mine. From the drawing room , below we could hear the youngsters’ voices. We heard Dorothy’s door open, close. Then there was silence.
Thomas stood very quiet, a look of curious satisfaction on his face. A moment passed. Harold, who had been valiantly attempting to conceal his boredom, reached for his coat. He paused. On the third floor Ames came to the landing and called down:
“Aunt Margaret, please, will you come here a minute?”
I don’t know what I expected to find. Ames’ tone had . alarmed me, and I’m sure I broke a record in reaching Dorothy’s third floor room. The others, Fred and Marian, Simon and Harold, similarly alarmed, were crowding at my heels. What we saw when we flocked through the door was merely a pleasant, orderly bedroom done in blue and gray—a cheerful room with a daytime view of fields and modest hills: Ames stood beside a walnut bureau, Jane was stationed at the clumsy wardrobe. I believe I noticed first that the bureau was entirely bare. Bare of toilet articles, and that clutter with which Dorothy invariably invested everything she used. Then Jane swung back the wardrobe door. The garment hangers were bare. Dorothy’s clothes—the neat uniforms, the diaphanous negligees she affected in her leisure hours, the smartly tailored suit and the less smart fur coat—were missing. Missing also were the two bags which she had brought into my house.
“She is gone, Aunt Margaret,” Jane said, both excited and mystified. “How did Thomas know? Are you sure you aren’t holding out on us?”
“Certainly not!” I was completely baffled. “She didn’t say a word to me of leaving. I can’t imagine…”
Jane’s eyes lighted up. “She’s eloped! I’ll bet my hat on it. She’s had something on her mind the last week or so. Probably she’s run off with some married man and that’s why…”
“Jane!”
Before the argument between Jane and Marian could develop, Harold chimed in. “It doesn’t matter why she’s gone. The point is she’s stolen Jane’s car.” He turned to me. “You must notify the police at once, Margaret. Every minute counts.”
There was immediately a clamor of protesting voices. I refused to make any move whatever until I had interviewed Thomas. I discovered then that the servants had known since noon what we had just discovered—that Dorothy Fithian had planned to leave my service four days before her term was up, without one word of explanation, and with a month’s pay still owing her. Philomena, the upstairs maid, had broken the news to the kitchen force. She had seen Dorothy packing her bags that morning when she went in to sweep the room. Later on, at Dorothy’s request, Thomas had actually earned the two bags down the back stairs and placed them in the garage. There they had remained until eight o’clock, at which time Dorothy had lifted the baggage into the rumble seat of Jane’s car and had driven off. Thomas admitted his own surprise at this procedure.
“Why, then,” I demanded, bewildered and annoyed, didn’t you speak to me or Mrs. Brierly? You knew quite well that we expected Miss Fithian to remain here until Wednesday of next week.”
“Old Missy,” said Thomas sullenly, “tole me to keep my mouth shut. Said not to bother you.”
Old Missy was Verity. Thomas insisted that Verity , had been notified at noon of Dorothy’s activities and of the presence of her bags in the garage. After assuring herself that the silver and the petty cash account were intact, Verity had calmly ordered him to keep the matter quiet. Indeed I believe she threatened him with prompt dismissal if he so much as breathed a word.
Meantime Harold was continuing his demands that we report the stolen car. Jane said sharply, “After all, Harold, it’s my car and I don’t believe Dorothy has stolen it. If she meant to keep it overnight she might have asked, but I don’t doubt we’ll hear from her tomorrow.”
“Jane’s right,” Ames declared. “Dorothy’s bad news, but she’s no thief. She’ll turn up with some explanation. She won’t forget Aunt Margaret owes her ninety dollars.”
The situation was rapidly getting out of hand. Everybody seemed to have a different idea of what should be done. I couldn’t believe that Dorothy had set out deliberately to steal my niece’s car, but I didn’t share the children’s cheery optimism that we could expect the nurse in the morning. That prearranged plan to leave my house secretly, with no announcement to me or Marian, argued something different. Marian and Fred appeared to believe that Dorothy had met with an accident, and wanted to call the hospitals. Simon, who had taken little part in the proceedings—his quiet voice was I drowned in the general clamor—seized the chance to say mildly:
“Before we call the hospitals or the police, before we bother a lot of busy people, we should be very sure of our facts. After all, what’s happened? Miss Fithian has been gone a little over five hours, which you, Marian,” he glanced at my sister, “seem
to think highly unusual. The way she left does look strange. But I doubt your- average policeman would be impressed. And if she’s had an accident the hospital would notify us.”
His sensible words were infinitely reassuring. Even Harold calmed down. I rose decisively. “Before we do anything, I intend to talk to Verity.”
I was angry with my cousin. Verity had never accustomed herself to thinking of me as an adult capable of managing my own affairs, but that didn’t make her silence in the matter of Dorothy Fithian more palatable. Verity occupied a downstairs bedroom immediately off the kitchen—the better to keep an eye on the servants—and unlike most old people she slept heavily. I found it difficult to wake her, and in the end I might as well have spared myself the trouble. Verity admitted she had been aware of Dorothy’s plans, and blandly confessed that she had gone to the garage, opened and examined the nurse’s bags.
“I didn’t intend that she should go off with anything of Jane’s.”
“Why didn’t you come and speak to me?”
“Because,” said Verity waspishly, “I was glad to see her go. You’ve got a soft heart, Margaret, and a softer head. Marian’s a born idiot. Between the two of you, you’d probably have talked her out of leaving.”
I suppressed my rage. “Then Dorothy told you she was leaving?”
“She told me nothing. I wouldn’t have listened if she had. I made sure she wasn’t thieving and that was enough for me. I’m not interested in that young woman’s doings. Now, Margaret, you can turn out the light and let me get some sleep.”
My cousin thumped her pillow and closed her eyes. There was nothing else to do. I left.
Why this conversation should have disturbed me I don’t know, but it did. I was used to Verity’s prejudices, I discounted them in advance, and I was perfectly aware of her dislike of Dorothy. Nevertheless, I returned to the drawing room in an uneasy frame of mind. There I found that the party had scattered. The men had gone outside and separated to conduct an entirely pointless and quite superficial search of the grounds. I believe that Harold was anxious to assure himself that Jane’s car was missing, a fact which he appeared to consider the most important phase of the whole affair. Jane and Marian had gone upstairs. Fifteen minutes must have passed before we reassembled. No one of us seemed to know what steps to take. Half an hour spent in completely fruitless speculation went by before Harold, still somewhat miffed, rose to go.
As he pulled on his coat, he paused at the window where a few hours earlier Dorothy had stood and looked at the uninviting prospect outside. He half turned, reversed himself, and again stared. “Look, Simon,” he said. “What do you make of that light out there?”
“It’s probably the headlights of a car,” said Simon. “You can see them down the road a quarter of a mile J or so.”
“Maybe it’s Dorothy coming' in!” exclaimed Marian in great relief.
“No, this is a sort of glow out in the fields.”
Jane sprang to the window. “It isn’t headlights at all,” she cried excitedly. “It’s a fire. A big fire in the strawstacks. You’d better call the fire department, Aunt Margaret. I’ll get the extinguishers.” She rushed upstairs.
I took one look through the window, and went at once to the telephone. Broad Acres was six miles from the nearest fire department—a volunteer fire department at that—and consequently we were equipped with fire extinguishers, pails of sand, hose and the like. While I was at the telephone, the others, augmented by the hastily roused servants, streamed outside, lugging this awkward paraphernalia, calling instructions back and forth. The red glow from the fields was deepening steadily, and was now casting a faint sickly light into the drawing room. There were four stacks of straw in the fields and it was plain that at least three of these stacks were blazing. I remember that my great fear was for the stables.
I remained at the telephone for several minutes attempting to rouse the operator. It took me at least that long to realize that the line was dead. Then I, too, grabbed up a coat and hurried toward the fields. The night was dripping with damp, dank moisture, and there wasn’t a trace of wind. A wan moon shone down, as motionless as though it had been nailed to the blank gray sky overhead.
I could plainly see the three blazing strawstacks and confused, ruddy figures moving from one to the other. As I approached, running, I crashed into Simon.
He said, “Margaret, you shouldn’t be here. Did you get the fire department?”
I said, “The line’s out of order. Are the stables going?”
“I don’t think so, but anyhow we’ve got the horses out. Lucky there’s no wind. Watch out there for the hose!”
I saw then that he was dragging a long length of hose toward the pump connected with our subsidiary well. He went on and so did I. The scattered fires were mercilessly hot but the servants with the help of Harold and Fred were doing valiant service with the extinguishers. Some of my apprehension vanished. The grass which surrounded the stacks was too wet to ignite, and such sparks as there were fell almost directly into the area from which they rose.
Marian was flapping a blanket with much efficiency and little purpose at the one stack of hay which had not yet caught fire. She turned a smudged and beaming face to me.
“If you want a blanket, Margaret, there’s a pile over there.”
I said dryly, “It seems to me we might shift our activities to a spot where they would be more useful.”
“What…” she began. “Oh, I see!” she laughed half excitedly, half hysterically, and turned to move.
My eyes fell upon the sloping side of the adjacent strawstack, exceedingly clear in the light of its own consuming flames. Halfway up the stack and emerging from the straw I saw a small, gloved hand. A woman’s hand encased in a brown kid glove.
I screamed.
I am a little incoherent about, what happened next. I don’t remember exactly. Someone—I think it was Simon—pushed Marian and me toward the stables, and my colored butler stayed there with us while the other men tore to pieces that burning strawstack and uncovered Dorothy Fithian’s body.
They laid the limp, still body on one of the blankets we had brought to fight the fire. Dorothy Fithian was dead, murdered. She had been strangled with her own scarf.
4
When death, and violent death at that, strikes in the average household nobody seems to behave in a manner which will be ultimately pleasing to the police authorities. Later on we were much criticized by the local police for moving Dorothy Fithian’s body; they appeared to believe that either Harold Hargreaves, a well-known lawyer, or Simon Hargreaves, an experienced physician, should have realized the possibility of destroying important clues as to the circumstances under which the unfortunate young woman met her death. The fact that they found no such clues after an exhaustive examination of the burned and trampled haystack, the fact that Simon could not certify that Dorothy was dead until she had been removed from her fantastic burial place, did not appear to mitigate our offense. Also, and with more reason, the authorities resented our long delay in calling them in. This delay had a logical excuse, but as Inspector Chant was to say to me, “Cops don’t like excuses; they like results.”
Everything moved swiftly enough at first. Five minutes after his rapid examination, Simon came into the stables and broke the news that Dorothy Fithian had been murdered. It was not news to me. In some queerly fatalistic way I had known, from my first glimpse of that small gloved hand, whose body was hidden in the strawstack, and I had known the body was hidden to conceal the fact of murder.
I shall never forget our wild rush toward the house, nor the scene outside. All efforts at fire-fighting had been abandoned and the flames from the burning strawstacks leaped unchecked toward the sky. The whole vicinity was light as day. The stables, the scattered trees, the stretches of tall, motionless grass. In the open field a group of dismal, silenced people huddled together. Near them was spread the blanket—a dark blot upon the ground.
Dorothy Fithian lay in a sm
all crumpled heap. Simon had made an attempt to straighten her clothing, but her gloved hands were clenched and her torn dress showed evidences of a terrific struggle for life. Her long hair had come unpinned, and mercifully covered her face; one of her shoes had been found at some distance from the body and together with her purse had been placed beside her. I wanted to hurry past, but Marian hung back. I felt her fingers clutch my arm.
She said, “Where are her hat and cape?”
Simon pointed toward one of the blazing strawstacks. A stack, lopsided, half collapsed, yet still bright with flame. “In there, I suppose,” he said. “We barely managed to recover the body.”
I said then, “She drove Jane’s car. Where is the car?”
“Jane’s car,” said Simon grimly, “undoubtedly went with the murderer… Unless the poor young woman left it parked somewhere on the road and walked here. We’ve searched the vicinity of the stables.”
The picture of the murderer putting miles between himself and the scene of his crime sped us toward the house. I remember practically dragging Marian in that frantic rush, and I was vaguely conscious that Harold and Fred were running on ahead. The others remained behind with the body, and later on I believe that the servants, superintended by Ames and Simon, dug trenches to keep the scattered fires from spreading.
The house was scarcely a city block from the strawstacks, but it seemed to me, burdened with Marian, that I would never reach it. She was stumbling, weeping,, near hysterics.
When we entered the drawing room I saw that Harold was already at the telephone. Fred, shaking with nervousness, stood beside him. In the horror and confusion we had all forgotten that the instrument was out of order. The wire was still useless.
The Strawstack Murders Page 4