Alice’s clenched hands slowly relaxed.
Richard said, “You are wrong, Alice. Nobody is trying to blackmail you. Our own situation has nothing to do with this. We’ll talk about divorce and a settlement later. …”
Someone was coming down the stairs. All of them heard it and looked and Sam came hurrying into view. He was in pajamas that were too big for him, Richard’s, and a topcoat. His narrow sallow face was sharp with curiosity. “What is it … ?” he said. “I thought I heard somebody …”
He stopped, caught by their looks, their attitudes. In the short silence, away off toward the back of the house, a bell rang and rang. And then Richard went to the table and picked up Mildred’s letter and gave it to Sam.
“She killed Jack.”
“Mildred …”
“She killed herself a few minutes ago. Her body’s in there. She took poison. That’s the doctor at the door. I’ll let him in. …”
Sam was reading the letter again, his face waxen, like a yellow candle. The bell rang distantly in the pantry, and Richard started toward the door. Sam said, “You’ll have to phone the Governor, too. The district attorney. You’ll have to get the police. You women had better get dressed. They’ll have to question all of us.”
“Yes,” said Alice. She moved toward the door, passing Myra so near that she could hear the light swish of her dressing gown. As Alice passed she lifted her eyes and met Myra’s in a brief, yet curiously deliberate, glance. She went on into the hall.
The fire was burning brightly. Yet, quite suddenly the chill from the hall seemed to seep into the room.
Alice had been lying. All at once Myra knew it, as certainly as if Alice had admitted it.
Her soft, brown eyes were implacable with purpose. She had no intention of giving up her claims upon Richard; she only wanted him to believe so.
CHAPTER 16
ALICE’S SLENDER FIGURE WENT on ahead, her dressing gown whispering softly. What, actually, did Alice intend to do?
Or rather, how did she intend to accomplish her aim: to dispose of Myra, somehow, some way, and reestablish herself in Richard’s house? And in his heart?
And again Myra thought, her own heart sinking, that Alice was in the right. Her house—her husband.
She followed Alice slowly up the stairs. Below, at the end of the hall, the front door opened. Myra heard Richard’s low voice, the doctor’s shocked exclamations and the sharper, higher voice of Sam at the telephone. She could see Richard and the doctor, short, grizzled, bald from that angle, trotting beside Richard, swinging a shabby leather case. They reached the ivory-and-gold room and the door resisted a little, as if the thing that lay there held it against intrusion, demanding mutely the dignity of death.
There would be now no new investigation. Tim was safe, and Richard. Alice was cleared beyond all question. That much, at least, was settled.
But the situation between Richard and Alice and herself, Myra, was unchanged. Even if Richard was determined, even if whatever Alice planned to do failed, even if Richard’s love for Myra was like a fortress, impregnable to approach of any kind, could Myra—could she—let him insist upon a divorce? There were glimpses certainly of a marriage which was not well-built. It would have been too easy for Myra to let herself build upon those glimpses.
And besides, suppose Alice’s plan, whatever it was, succeeded!
Alice had turned to glance back curiously. “Why are you stopping?” she said. “What are they doing?”
“Nothing. The doctor has come. I think Sam is telephoning the Governor and the police …”
“Oh,” said Alice blankly. She put her hands up again to push back her hair. “Oh,” she said and went into her own room.
Myra went on. She aroused Aunt Cornelia; she aroused Tim. Rather she intended to arouse Aunt Cornelia. Actually Aunt Cornelia was sitting upright in bed, in an elegant white fur bed jacket, smoking nervously and pretending to read. She had heard voices, she explained, and listened while Myra told her.
“Mildred!” she said, her face old and bleak. “Mildred! I’m going to get up!”
“But the police …”
“That’s why. No, no, don’t wait to help me. I can manage. I’ll ring for Barton to help me downstairs.”
But as Myra moved toward the door Aunt Cornelia said abruptly, “Wait, Myra. I think I have something to say to you. Come here.”
She went back to the bed and the old lady reached up to take her hand. Her touch was gentle, her old, deep-set eyes were very bright and compelling. She said directly, “You’re in love with Richard. Aren’t you, my dear?”
It was useless to deny it. Besides, there was no reason for denial. “Yes,” said Myra.
“That’s why you are going to leave me?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. He loves you.” It was a statement, not a question. She waited a moment, her wise yet anxious gaze seeming to search Myra’s. Then she said, “I’m going to meddle further. I’m going to tell you to do something which seems contrary to what I—so much older than you—ought to tell you. The things we call old-fashioned are new-fashioned, too, based on simple principles of right and wrong. But if you love Richard, fight for him.”
Her searching eyes, her forthright manner, and her long and tried love for Myra made it possible for Myra to reply as directly. “No,” she said, “I can’t.”
“Because of Alice, of course.”
There was no need to reply. Aunt Cornelia said, “Yes. Alice. I have not seen much of Alice really. Richard brought her to me in England shortly after their”—her voice was a little dry—“after their whirlwind courtship and marriage. I saw her again when I came to America to get you, Myra. I stayed here for a couple of months, waiting for you to finish your school term. But I believe that under no circumstances could I know Alice,” said the old lady deliberately, “better than I knew her in the first fifteen minutes of our acquaintance. But that isn’t the point. Myra, listen to me: Mildred has confessed—Alice is free and now fully exonerated. Richard was loyal to her, during her need, but now …”
“Perhaps he still loves her,” said Myra. “In his heart.”
“I see,” the old eyes delved mercilessly into her own. “I see. So you’re going away. You’ll leave them together. Let time and propinquity work. I should warn you that Alice is a very shrewd and a very—” again her tone was dry—“a very determined woman. Also very beautiful.”
“And she’s his wife,” said Myra.
There was another short silence. Then the soft, withered yet strong old hand released her own abruptly. “I’ve taught you too well,” said Aunt Cornelia rather irritably. “All right. We’ll say no more about it. Go and get dressed.”
Fight for him? thought Myra, hurrying to Tim’s room. Cornelia Thorne Carmichael, with all her years and wisdom, knew as well as Myra that she could not fight Alice.
Tim was sound asleep and so was Willie, a black little shadow on the foot of his bed. Neither proposed to be wakened.
She had to shake Tim and call him and shake him. But when she told him, he was instantly awake and out of bed. “Have they called the police?”
“Yes.”
“Get out. I want to dress.” But he stopped and looked at her and said, in the stunned and exploring way that Aunt Cornelia had spoken, “Mildred!”
Willie yawned and stretched and yawned. Tim said as she left, “We’d better phone to Webb, too.”
Webb, however, was not at home. Sam had already tried twice to reach him when Myra, dressed now in the gray country suit and sweater she had taken off so long—so long ago, she thought incredulously—came downstairs again.
But the police had already arrived. The village police, a sprinkling of state police, and eventually some men in plain clothes.
It seemed a long time that they were in and out of the house, in and out of the ivory-and-gold room, mysteriously busy, talking in elliptical undertones to each other—and less elliptically, very definitely and specificall
y, questioning Alice, questioning Myra, questioning Richard. They wanted to question Webb, too. They wanted to ask him if he had known of his brother’s “friendship,” said one of the men in plain clothes, clearing his throat, with Mildred Wilkinson. Again Sam telephoned Webb’s cottage, and again there was no answer.
Willie, by that time too widely and vociferously awake, had been shut in the kitchen, where Barton and his wife, Francine, and the other servants apparently gathered. Even the gardener, in his cottage away back of the garage, had been aroused by the cars and the commotion and had come to the main house to inquire. Myra, looking into the hall, saw him standing, pale-faced and goggle-eyed, beside Barton in the door of the dining room.
The village police, of course, knew Richard and Alice. They knew Mildred and the gloomy old Wilkinson house; they knew all the circumstances. They were respectful and they showed their sympathy for Alice and Richard. The others were more businesslike but obviously felt that a great wrong had been righted and their job was to tie up the ends of it quickly and with as little further grief and publicity to the Thorne family as was humanly possible. At the same time, in view of rigid instruction from the district attorney who, himself, by telephone, took a hand in the case, it was also their obvious job to leave no loose ends dangling. It was the district attorney, too, who undertook to keep reporters out of the case. “Until morning,” he said. “I’ll be there before they get there.”
Sam gave the police the letter which was itself all the evidence that was needed. Alice told them the story of Mildred’s suicide.
She had combed her golden hair smoothly away from her white forehead and coiled it again in a shining bun at the base of her neck. She had put on a pale-blue dress, simple as a schoolgirl’s, with a short pleated skirt and a round white collar and cuffs. Even when Alice was never again to return to Thorne House, all her clothes had been kept, as if ready for her wear, in the great dress closets off her room. Except for her pallor, the blue stains of fatigue below her eyes, and the sad droop of her mouth, she looked like a child in the demure blue dress.
The police questioned her and Myra only once and seemed satisfied. One of them, a tall boy who stood as if he’d had military training and probably was barely out of the army, made rapid notes on a shorthand tablet.
And there was not much, really, for either Myra or Alice to tell. “She called me,” said Alice. “She was on the terrace and she threw some pebbles up against my window.”
“She knew your window?” said one of the plainclothesmen.
“Oh, of course,” said Alice. “She was my oldest friend. This house was like her own home.”
“Go on, please, Mrs. Thorne.”
Alice, in the ruby-red chair, took a long breath. All of them listened. The library was for a moment like a courtroom, like a stage. Aunt Cornelia in her wheel chair, Tim standing beside her, his hand on the chair, Sam roving the room as if unable to stand still, smoking constantly, Richard standing again by the mantel, leaning his elbow upon it, the groups of uniformed police, the dark figures of the plainclothesmen with their noncommittal faces and alert and watchful eyes—all of them were suddenly transformed to an audience, watching Alice, listening. Alice braced her hands upon the arms of the chair. “She asked me to come down. I couldn’t hear exactly what she said, except I knew it was Mildred and that she wanted to talk to me. So I came down. Here, to this room. She was here.”
The boy with the shorthand tablet scribbled quickly. The plainclothesman standing near Alice said encouragingly, “What did she say then?”
Alice lifted her soft brown eyes. “I don’t know. I think she said something about wanting to tell me something. Then she led me into the room across the hall. She turned on the light and closed the door. I thought that she closed the door because she didn’t want anyone to hear. Then she went to the desk. She had a little evening bag with her. …”
One of the policemen nodded. Alice went on. “She took out the poison—it was a pill—and put it down on the table. Then she took out a paper. Her own paper and her pen and then she”—Alice bit her lip and said unevenly—“then she began to talk wildly. In a rush of words. I couldn’t hear. …”
She stopped and put a small, lacy handkerchief to her lips. Sam said quickly, “Take it easy, Alice. You can tell them later if it is too much for you now.”
“No, no …” Alice steadied herself. “I’ll go on. I couldn’t hear everything she said. She was excited and almost incoherent. But then I began to understand that she was accusing herself of having killed Jack and of having sent me to prison. I didn’t believe her. I tried to reason with her. I—but then she said she’d write it and she did. I still didn’t think she had killed him. I thought she had brooded too much about it. I didn’t know what to think, except I didn’t believe her. And then …” again she looked up with troubled eyes. “It all happened so fast,” she said, catching her breath. “All at once she flung down the pen. She said she couldn’t bear to write any more; that everybody would read it, it would be in the papers, everything. And then, before I could stop her, she snatched up the pill. She told me what it was. She said it was cyanide and it would take only a minute. I still thought that she was hysterical, laughing and crying at once, but then, just as she put the pill in her mouth, I was afraid she meant it. I screamed then, I think. I don’t know what I did. But I ran to her, I struggled with her, she pushed me away. Then she fell and …” She was trembling, ashy white.
Sam said, “That’s enough. Isn’t it, Lieutenant? Mrs. Thorne has been through a terrible experience.”
“Yes, yes,” said one of the men in plain clothes. “Thank you. Now, then—Miss Lane?”
The spotlight shifted. The small intent audience swerved its attention to Myra. She was sitting on the sofa at the end of the room, below the fateful, narrow red curtains. She knew that Richard had glanced at her encouragingly. She knew that Tim was nervous by the way he didn’t look at her. Alice sat very straight in the red chair, her beautiful face quiet, and again, Myra thought, meeting Alice’s eyes, stony. But Alice, Myra realized with a kind of shock, was afraid of what she might say! Webb had once accused her falsely. Suppose now Myra accused her! Alice, herself, had suggested it. She had said. “You are stronger than I—both of you—you can throw that paper in the fire—you can say I killed her. …” Alice who had to learn to trust again!
Myra was aware suddenly of the waiting silence. She looked at the man Sam had called Lieutenant. “I came downstairs only a minute or two before it happened.”
“What exactly did you see, Miss Lane? Take your time. We only want to have a full report.”
“It’s as Mrs. Thorne says. Mildred fell against the door and it opened and I saw it, just as she died.”
“Mr. Thorne said that you heard Miss Wilkinson on the terrace, too.”
“Yes. That is, I heard her whisper. I couldn’t hear much of what she said. I waited awhile and then I came down.”
And stopped on her way and looked in the newel post for the gun!
She thought of it then, for the first time. And for the first time wondered what Mildred had done with the gun, and had to decide in a split second whether or not to tell them what she knew of the gun.
Richard’s gun.
It seemed to her that already there was a faint premonitory stir and question in the air, as she hesitated. She went on swiftly. “Mildred and Mrs. Thorne were in the room across the hall. The door was closed and I could only hear their voices. Then the door swung open and … It’s all just as Mrs. Thorne said. I ran to them. Mrs. Thorne was trying to stop her, but it was too late.”
“Was Miss Wilkinson unconscious then?”
“No, she put her hands up to her throat. And then she was dead.”
“Did she say anything?”
“No. There wasn’t time.”
“Thank you, Miss Lane.” He turned to Richard. “As you told me, Miss Wilkinson knew that your wife was pardoned and that a new investigation was to be opened. I do
n’t think there’s any question of the motive. Probably all this time she’d been brooding over it, and her own conscience made her collapse. It’s not unusual. You’d be surprised how often this kind of thing happens. Well,” he turned to one of the other men, “the doctor says definitely it was cyanide. We’ll have to check the source of supply. I think that’s all now.”
“You mean,” said Richard, “that it’s all over. The inquiry and investigation?”
“Well, yes. I think so,” said the lieutenant briskly. “There’ll be an inquest, of course. We’ll have to get some samples of her handwriting, but there’s no doubt of that. You and Mrs. Thorne and Lady Carmichael have all assured me it is her handwriting and, besides, your wife saw her write it. It’s only a question of dotting the i’s—checking everything. We’ll take a look through her house. She may have saved letters from Manders or some such thing. We’ll talk to Webb Manders too, in case he knew anything of it. But all that is mere form. Yes,” he looked around the room and nodded cheerfully at Alice, “I think the case will be closed. No question of it, really. Now, then,” he glanced at the stenographer, “if you’ll just read all the statements again. Begin with Mr. Thorne’s. …”
Barton brought in coffee and sandwiches. The boy leafed through his fat, ringed notebook and read briskly and exactly all the statements it contained—Richard’s, Sam’s, Alice’s, her own, the doctor’s, who had said definitely that Mildred had taken cyanide. “This poison acts very quickly,” read the boy in his brisk and exact tones. “I don’t know where she procured it, but I imagine she simply went to the village drugstore and bought it.”
Nobody mentioned the gun. Hadn’t they found it then? What had Mildred done with it?
The boy finished, the lieutenant asked briefly if there was anything anybody wanted to change, or add.
There was another small, waiting silence. Suppose somebody spoke; suppose, thought Myra suddenly and queerly, somebody said, Yes. Yes, there was something to change, yes, there was something to add. Well, what then? Mildred was a suicide; Mildred shot Jack; Mildred confessed and died. What else was there to add?
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