She went out of the room and along the hall to Alice’s room and knocked. Would Richard open the door?
He didn’t. Alice’s high, sweet voice called out, “Is that you, Myra? Come in.”
The room was already a bower. Flowers were all over it. The windows were open, letting in the cool spring night. A small fire crackled within the oval, pink-marble mantel. Richard was not there. Alice, in pink satin and lace, her fair hair still down her back so she looked like a rather luxurious but very beautiful Alice in Wonderland, was lying back in the chaise longue. She smiled rather nervously. “Come in, Myra. How nice you look. Red and white is becoming to you. Please sit down. …”
Her eyes were gentle, half-hidden by long soft eyelashes. She was very small and very frail-looking, lying there with the blue shadows of fatigue in her eyes. Myra felt tall and strong and earthy, somehow, beside her. But her knees were trembling. She sat down in the green slipper chair near Alice, who stretched out one hand pleadingly and said, “I had to talk to you. About Richard and you—and me.”
CHAPTER 12
HAD RICHARD TOLD HER?
But that would have been too cruel, something that Richard could not have done.
Well, then, had she guessed? Had there been something in the air, something intangible, untetherable and yet present whenever Myra and Richard were together in the same room, breathing the same air, allowing their eyes to meet, no matter how swiftly, nor how impersonally.
The fire sighed softly. Lilac sachet lay in a fragrant cloud in the room. Alice twisted her small hands together; on one of them shone her wedding ring. “I wish you would say something, Myra. It’s so hard to try to do this alone.”
Myra said slowly, “You are very tired, Alice. Can’t we talk later?”
Alice’s eyelashes swept upward for a fractional second in a glance that was half-frightened, half-bold, like the bright inquiry of a bird peering from underbrush. She leaned forward, speaking rapidly and unevenly. “We haven’t ever known each other very well, Myra. But I know so much about you, you see. Tim adores you. So does Aunt Cornelia. And then you’ve been so very kind to Richard and to Aunt Cornelia since you both came back home, in spite of the horror that happened here.”
“Don’t think of that.”
“Yes, yes. That’s what the Governor said to me. Try to forget. Resume your life as if you had only been away for a time. He said that. I will.”
But she turned her head, nevertheless. She put her chin upon her hand and looked into the fire and added, in a musing voice, “I must pretend it never happened. I must make a new life. I must try to be firm and determined. I must build up self-confidence. I must be the kind of wife Richard wants. That’s why”—she turned to Myra—“I had to see you tonight. I can’t rest, I can’t sleep until I know what you are going to do.”
“What I am going to do?” repeated Myra with a kind of astonishment.
“About Richard, of course,” said Alice.
So Richard must have told her. What had he said?
Alice went on with that weary swiftness and breathlessness. “I thought we could talk about it alone together. He needn’t know. He mustn’t know. You see, I’d heard so much of you from others, that I felt we could talk about it honestly and frankly, the two of us.” She leaned forward, a soft lock of her hair fell over her Dresden china-like face. She brushed it back and said, “I don’t blame either of you. It was bound to happen. I expected it even sooner.”
“You expected it!” Myra was caught again in amazement as if Alice had spread a soft net about her which had tripped and entangled her.
“I knew he’d be lonely. I knew that there are always attractive girls—and, of course, you are extremely attractive, Myra, in that sensible, crisp way of yours.”
Something very feminine, very swift and very absurd in the smallness of its resentment stirred in Myra. Was her claim to feminine charm that of being sensible?
The wide, gilt-framed mirror over the dressing table with all its glitter of gold and crystal, reflected them, and oddly, quickly, both women glanced in that mirror. Yet they did not observe their own faces for their eyes met in the mirror, met and held inquiringly, like the exploring glance of two strangers meeting for the first time.
And then as swiftly, again at a shared impulse, both women looked away from the mirror. Alice said, with a rather nervous laugh, “That mirror is too dark. I must have it changed.”
She leaned forward again toward Myra. “You were here in the house all these months. Propinquity is always the answer, really. Neither of you could possibly have expected me to come home—like this—back to Richard as his wife. I don’t blame either of you. And I don’t want anybody to be hurt. Yet—yet …” said Alice and stopped and put out both her hand appealingly again toward Myra.
The net was so soft that Myra could barely recognize its presence and yet it lay all at once all about her, as gentle and as pervading and persistent as the scent of lilac. And its meshes were imperceptibly drawing themselves together. Myra got up and went to the window and let the cool night air blow on her face.
“Please look at me, Myra,” said Alice softly. “I’ve hurt you. I’m sorry. Please look at me …”
Myra turned reluctantly. “Has Richard talked to you?”
Alice hesitated. She bit her small perfect lip and then said, “No. Not—directly. No.”
“How did you know?”
There was for a bare instant a fixed, set look in Alice’s face. She said, “It is true then!”
Again astonishment touched Myra. “But you already knew?”
Alice’s soft dark eyelashes lowered quickly. “Oh, yes. I knew. I—guessed. It was in the air somehow between you, Myra. Nobody told me. But I—knew. One does know those things. Of course I—I’d better tell you the whole truth, Myra. I had feared you. I knew Richard would be lonely. I would have offered to release him, if he had asked for it. If he had asked for it while I was in prison,” said Alice.
She paused and waited and then went on. “What else could I have done? I could not have expected Richard to live out his life alone. Yes, if he’d asked me then for a divorce I’d have consented. If it—broke my heart …” said Alice and leaned her head back against the lace pillows.
Again to Myra the very complexity of her feelings was bewildering. She could not grudge Alice her freedom and her exoneration. She did not. And Alice was in the right. That at least was clear and unquestionable.
Well, she had known that from the beginning. She must tell Alice, she must end this terrible interview. And Alice said, “I am not a practical person. I’ve never been. Yet—well, there is a practical, and, I admit, a selfish view which yet I must make myself consider. You see, it is true that if Richard leaves me now people will say that I killed Jack Manders, that Richard believes that I killed him.”
“Oh, no!” cried Myra, shocked. “No one can ever say that of you, Alice.”
Alice put her hand across her eyes. The wedding ring on it caught a gleam of light. “I dread the next few months. Myra, I need Richard. And I have to ask you this. Do you think that perhaps—I don’t mean to hurt you—but that perhaps Richard might have fancied himself in love with almost anybody? That sounds so cruel!” she cried in sudden compunction. “But wait—Richard loved me. He adored me. We were married a month after we met—one summer in Paris. Mildred Wilkinson introduced us. He had graduated only two weeks before and was having a holiday before settling into the harness that he’d always known was waiting for him. He adored me,” she said again softly. “He gave me everything I wanted. I hadn’t a cent, you know. There was barely enough to send me to a good school. Luckily for me, I met Mildred there—she gave me the trip abroad. And I met and married Richard. It was love at first sight. And always, even through the trial, even when everything went against me, he still loved me. He proved it. He was loyal all the time, every minute. Don’t you think it possible that now that I’m free he’ll turn back to me? Don’t you think that he may even no
w be a little—well, embarrassed—by whatever the situation has been between you?” Again she cried swiftly, “I sound cruel. I—all of us, are very much in your debt. But sometimes it is kind to be cruel.”
“Alice, you need not have said any of this.”
“What do you mean? It is true, isn’t it?”
“I am going to leave. I told Richard that before you came home. There is no question of divorce; there is no question of Richard and me marrying. There never will be. Now then …” She moved swiftly toward the door. “They are waiting for me. Is there anything I can do for you? Do you want Francine?”
“No …”
“I’ll go downstairs then. …”
“Myra,” said Alice, “when are you going to leave?”
Myra whirled around, for the last time astonished by that wholly astonishing interview. Again Alice’s gentle, pale face, her pathetically weary eyes were disarming.
“I don’t know. I can’t go immediately because the investigation is to be reopened, as you know. …”
Alice sat up suddenly. “Reopened!”
“I thought you knew.”
“They’re going to try to find out who—murdered him?”
“Yes, naturally. I thought you …”
“I didn’t realize that,” said Alice sitting back. “I didn’t think—I—it’s all so horrible to me, you know. Does it mean police, questions, everything all over again? I thought they were only going to try Webb!”
“They’ll try Webb for perjury. You’d better rest, Alice. Try not to think of it.”
How strange it was that she could hate Alice and feel sorry for her at the same time. Hate her? But she did not hate her. It was impossible to hate Alice; and Alice was in the right. It always came back to that.
Alice said, “I thought Webb killed him! Nobody was here except Webb! And then Tim …” She broke off to stare at Myra and cried suddenly, “They can’t suspect Tim! Tim wouldn’t hurt anything!” Her face sobered. “Tim … I must see him, Myra. Tell him I must see him. I want him to know that I understand everything. He didn’t mean to hurt me; he suffered, poor Tim. No matter how important the curtains were he couldn’t help forgetting. Why I—even I, Myra—couldn’t have said whether they were open or closed when the shots came. They asked me that night. I didn’t know. Why should I? Tell Tim I understand and I want to see him.”
“But Tim didn’t …” began Myra and realized that Richard hadn’t told Alice of Tim’s lie which had so successfully and unexpectedly proved to be the truth. Why not? Because Alice might, unintentionally, tell it?
Alice said curiously, “Tim didn’t what?”
“He didn’t mean to injure you,” said Myra slowly.
“I know that,” said Alice. “I must tell him …”
Someone knocked, Myra opened the door and Francine, eyes glittering, said, “If you please, Miss Cornelia, says they are waiting, Miss Myra.”
Alice said quickly, “Darling, I’ve kept you! Go on down to dinner. I shall be quite all right. You might just build up the fire, Francine.”
Myra closed the door behind her.
The present pattern, the immediate path lay directly ahead of her. Some time she’d forget; some time pain would be only a memory of pain.
She went down the stairs. This time she kept herself from touching the newel post. The others were in the dining room, around the table, the candles lighted, the silver and crystal glimmering. Miss Cornelia in her wheel chair sat at the head of the table. Richard was not there. But then he’d already had dinner with Alice.
Miss Cornelia smiled and nodded toward the vacant chair. “We didn’t wait.” She turned to Sam, continuing their conversation, frankly, it seemed, before Barton, because he already knew so much. “Are we, do you think, to expect a perfect deluge of notoriety?”
Myra slid into the chair. Tim, silent, was opposite her.
Sam said, “We can’t escape a certain amount of it. The police may help us there. Indeed I’m surprised there is not a police guard already here.” He went on to talk of past experiences, nervously, watching the door.
Myra listened, hearing only the words. How swiftly and unerringly Alice had guessed the truth, and then as unerringly had gone about it to prove or disprove her suspicion. “It is true then,” she had said.
That perhaps was the really astonishing part of their astonishing talk. Alice’s instantaneous efficiency and courage in grappling with the situation in the very moment, practically speaking, of her return. Yet she had always been swift thinking and efficient, and, in spite of her fragile look, very courageous. Even the reporters, writing of the trial, had complimented her composure and dignity—understandable now. She had had the support of her own knowledge of the truth.
They were talking again of the investigation. Sam replied to some question of Aunt Cornelia’s and part of his reply caught Myra from her thoughts of Alice. “… the district attorney may have a new angle. A new clue.”
“A new clue? Such as”—Aunt Cornelia faltered but finished—“Richard’s gun.”
Sam nodded. “But of course I may be wrong. Perhaps he has no new angle so consequently is fishing for one.”
“Fishing?” inquired Aunt Cornelia sharply.
Sam explained. “Suppose they have no new clues, suppose there is no angle they haven’t already covered. So suppose the district attorney says to the Governor, release Alice. Tell everybody there is to be a new investigation. Scare the hell out of them if you can—and see what happens.”
Tim’s sleek head jerked up. “A new round?”
“Exactly. Give everybody a new set of chips and see,” said Sam deliberately, “who bets, and how many cards they want and …”
Richard returned. They heard the heavy slam of the door directly across the hall and all turned. He was bareheaded and a topcoat was slung over his shoulders. He walked across to the dining room, gathering them in one quick glance, meeting Myra’s eyes, but so swiftly that the fleeting look told her nothing. “Hello, Sam.”
Sam rose and went to meet him. “Hello, Dick. I came straight from the club.”
“I’ve been to see Webb.”
“Webb Manders!”
“He’s coming here. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
A number of things happened all at once. Barton came in with peaches on a silver dish. The front door opened and closed again heavily. Aunt Cornelia’s hands clenched hard on the lace cloth, her sapphires glittering. Tim got up and dropped his napkin. Mildred Wilkinson crossed the hall behind Richard and stopped, peering over his shoulder.
Sam said to Richard, “Why did you do that?”
Mildred said, fluttering, “I came up the drive just after you, Richard. I didn’t ring. …”
Tim said, “If Webb shot him, what did he do with the gun?”
Myra saw every detail and heard every word but in the same moment a question, a frightening and terrible project came into full being in her mind.
Perhaps it had been there for some time unrecognized. Perhaps it had been planted by Sam.
If Sam could make a trap of the gun—could she?
Mildred, peering, fluttering, said, “I hope I’m not intruding. I simply can’t wait any longer to see Alice. Have I come at the wrong time?”
Aunt Cornelia unclenched her hands deliberately and looked at Myra. “Please take Mildred to Alice,” she said.
Her look said, “Get this woman out of here.”
CHAPTER 13
BUT MILDRED LINGERED, LETTING her coat drop, stooping, fumbling to pick it up, delaying long enough to hear Richard’s reply to Sam’s question.
“I thought we’d better talk. All of us.”
“You and Webb and Tim …”
“Webb has admitted to so much of the truth; maybe he knows more.”
Sam asked slowly, “Do you think he’ll tell it?”
“He might—if you question him, Sam.”
Mildred had the coat up nearly to her shoulders and dropped it again, h
er face blank with listening. Sam said, “How did you get him to come?”
“Told him facts. Told him we had till morning to pool what we knew. The truth is somewhere, Sam.”
“If Webb killed him he’s going to keep a close mouth.”
“But if he didn’t we’re in the same boat, Webb and I …”
“I’m in there, too,” said Tim. “Only, I don’t see how Webb could have killed him, even if he wanted to. I saw his car pass me, I heard him shut off the engine, and then only seconds later the sound of the shots. There simply wasn’t time for him to get out of the car, get around the library wing of the house and across the terrace in time for that.”
Aunt Cornelia said suddenly, “Tim, I never asked, I never thought—perhaps they asked you then. But are you sure it was Webb in the car?”
Mildred got her coat over one bony, freckled arm. Tim said, “It was Webb’s car, and when I got to the terrace Webb was there in the library.”
“But did you see him?”
“Not actually—no. The lights of the car were in my eyes. He said he saw me walking along the driveway.”
There was a short silence. Sam said, “Everything’s different now; the whole set-up is different. Well …” he paused again, his dark eyes narrow and thoughtful.
Richard said, “That’s not why he’s coming though. He’s coming because he’s scared …”
“Aren’t we all,” said Tim.
“… and wants to know what we intend to do.”
Mildred’s coat started to slide again and this time Myra caught it and said, “Alice will want to see you. …” She led the way along the hall and up the wide stairway. Mildred followed reluctantly, still, Myra thought, straining her ears toward the murmur of voices from the dining room. It was so strong an impression that she turned and Mildred had actually stopped and was leaning over the banister, her hand on the newel post.
Again Myra’s heart gave a sickening lurch. Mildred? But Mildred knew nothing of the gun. Mildred had never in any way entered the case. But, in spite of herself, Myra watched.
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