Nobody spoke.
And all at once it was over, the police and the boy with the notebook and the plainclothesmen were all leaving.
Richard went with them to the door. Tim strayed after them like a restless, inquiring colt. Aunt Cornelia, wrapped in a long white wool negligee with cherry-colored ribbons, leaned back in her chair and sighed. And Alice, only then, seemed to lose hold of the composure and courage that had sustained her and put her face in her hands and sobbed.
“Now, now,” said Sam, “it’s all over.” He went to her and stood looking down at her helplessly. “Don’t go to pieces now, Alice. It’s all over. As a matter of fact, it’s a good thing it happened. Terrible and tragic and all that—but it’s over.”
“I know,” said Alice, sobbing, “I know …” She lifted her face and wiped tears from her cheeks.
The heavy front door closed with a jar. “That,” said Sam, “is the last of them,” and went to open the French door and let the night breeze sweep through the library. “Some fresh air won’t hurt us.”
It was not far from dawn, although still dark. Something in the air that swept into the library was an invisible harbinger of day. And the weather was changing. The breeze was damp and cold, with a hint of chill spring rain in it.
“Poor Mildred,” said Alice unsteadily.
Aunt Cornelia sighed again. “Poor Mildred,” she echoed. “But whatever guilt and terror she suffered it is over, as Sam says. I am sorry for her. Yet she brought a terrible thing upon you, Alice, and upon Richard. It would be foolish to deny Mildred’s cowardice and—and wickedness,” said the old woman in a voice that suddenly trembled. “It would be equally foolish and hypocritical to deny our own relief now that she confessed. They might have arrested Richard. They might have done anything.”
“They would have arrested Dick,” said Sam. “No doubt about that.”
Aunt Cornelia looked at Sam. “Is the district attorney coming here?”
“He’s on his way to the village. He said it might be a couple of hours before he could get to the police station. But I don’t know whether or not he’ll come here to the house. In any case he’ll not want to question any of us. Alice won’t have to go through that again!”
“But he is coming,” said Aunt Cornelia. “Why?”
“Only because of the wide publicity of this case. He said he wanted to be on the spot. I imagine the Governor asked him to come, so he’d be in a position to make a full statement to the press at the first possible moment. It’s nothing to worry about.”
The chill breeze from the terrace sifted across the room. Alice shivered. “Shut the door, Sam, will you?” she said. “It’s very cold.”
Sam’s face softened as he looked at her. “Of course, Alice.” He closed the door and came back to pull up a big footstool beside her. He took her hand. “Do you realize that it’s all over? The Governor said he had expected a break but not so soon. …”
Aunt Cornelia interrupted sharply. “Did he think Mildred did it?”
“Oh, no, no!” said Sam. “But when we talked to him over the phone, he seemed not a bit surprised—satisfied but not surprised. I think that’s part of the reason he brought Alice home as he did, and started things moving. He was going on the principle of stirring up mud.”
“Mud!” said Aunt Cornelia with distaste. “The word is not applicable now, thank God.”
“I never dreamed that Mildred killed him,” said Alice. Her brown eyes fixed, staring into space. “She always liked me. She must have suffered. …”
Sam said angrily, “She liked her own neck better. She’d have let you go to the chair.”
Richard came in from the hall and Tim followed. “Well, they’ve gone,” said Richard. He looked tired and white. All of them looked like that, thought Myra. Drawn and shocked and pale—anyone looking in at them from the terrace, not knowing what the night had held, would have thought they were ghosts, each with his private burden still tying him to earth.
Tim sat down, sprawling his legs out lengthily in front of him. “What do you suppose has happened to Webb?”
“Nothing,” said Sam promptly. “He’s asleep and doesn’t hear the phone, that’s all.”
“The police will get hold of him,” said Richard quietly.
“Oh, sure,” said Tim. “The only thing he won’t like about it is that it clears Alice.”
Aunt Cornelia said slowly, “But if he knew about Mildred and—and Jack, surely he’d have told it at the trial.”
“Not Webb,” said Sam. “He was all out to make Alice take the rap. Dick, when is the inquest, did they say?”
Richard shook his head. “They said definitely it was cyanide but they’ll have to do a post mortem just the same, and find out how and where she got the poison. They took all her things—the letter, her pen, her bag—everything …”
Alice said faintly, “Don’t talk about it, Richard, please. I can’t bear it. I never dreamed that she loved him like that!”
“Listen Alice,” said Sam vigorously, taking her hand again. “You’re not to feel sorry for Mildred. It’s tragic, sure. She was a lonely, unattractive woman and Manders made love to her. Probably he wanted her money and then decided that money or no money he didn’t want Mildred, too. Or maybe she discovered that he only wanted her money. She’d take it hard; sure she would. She’s exactly the type that would go right out of her mind for a little while. She was an immensely proud woman, and spoiled, because she’d had, always, all that money. I can see how she could get worked up to shoot him rather than let him leave her. He was a bully and a brute. I’ve always thought so. He got what was coming to him. But don’t waste sympathy for Mildred, Alice. It was bad for her, yes. We’re all sorry. But she let you go to trial and she’d have let you go to the chair. Don’t forget that.”
Tim said, “I can see the whole thing. She knew this house as well as her own. Some time she got hold of Richard’s gun. She’d planned it. That’s clear. She shot Manders from the terrace door or the hall door, and then got away without Webb seeing her, without me seeing her. She took the gun with her and got rid of it. And then came here the next day, sympathizing with Alice! Don’t waste time grieving about Mildred, Alice!”
“But didn’t they find the gun?” asked Myra.
It interrupted someone—Sam—who stopped abruptly to look at her. Everyone indeed, looked at her quickly and with surprise. Richard said “No” giving her a rather questioning look.
Tim said, “Good God, no! She got rid of that long ago.”
Sam, with decision, said, “I wish they had found the gun. It may of course turn up somewhere around the Wilkinson place, but I doubt it.”
“But surely,” began Myra … (And nearly said, “But it was here; it was in the newel post; Mildred took it out.” “Why didn’t you tell us,” they would say. “Why?” Again there was no time, to consider.) “I only thought that she might have brought it here with her.”
Sam’s sallow face was sharp, his dark eyes alert. He said directly, “Did you see it near her? Was it in the room?”
The phrasing of his question invited an easy reply. “No,” said Myra, subscribing to the letter of the truth and denying the spirit. She’d tell Richard, she decided swiftly, but nobody else. And now it didn’t matter. Richard was safe, Tim was safe. The case was closed.
Alice leaned back and sighed. Aunt Cornelia said, “It’s nearly morning. I’m going back to bed.”
Tim went to help her to the stairway. Barton, hovering in the hall somewhere, came waddling promptly into sight and the two men lifted her gently from her chair and disappeared on the stairs. The little clock struck briskly and suddenly. The rosy cupid smiled from beyond Alice. Sam yawned and said, “I don’t think the district attorney will get here before morning—if he comes at all. I’m for bed, too. That is,” he glanced at Richard, “unless you want to stay up to meet him, in case he does come.”
“I’ll stay up,” said Richard. “I’ll call you if he comes.”
/> Alice said suddenly, “Please don’t go yet, Sam. There’s something I want to tell you.”
Richard gave her a surprised and instantly alert and guarded glance. Sam, with a look of surprise too, said quickly, “Why, of course, Alice! Anything I can do for you
Alice leaned her fair head back and looked at Sam. “You can advise me, Sam. You see, Richard wants a divorce.”
Sam’s thin hatchet face, his narrow dark eyes, even his body seemed to tighten. He said nothing; he did not look at Richard or at Myra. Richard made a move forward and then stopped, with the effect of a shrug. Alice continued in her high, sweet voice, steadily, “He says that he wants a divorce in order to marry Myra. I …” Her voice shook a little, she leaned forward then, her small exquisite hands stretched out toward Sam. “I told them I would agree. …”
“Alice …” began Sam, going to her and taking her hands. She went on, “I told them that I wouldn’t stand in their way. But I didn’t know then, I didn’t realize what it meant to me.”
Richard did not move. Again Sam tried to speak, but Alice went on, her brown eyes large and soft and determined. “You see, in spite of the pardon, Sam, in spite of everything, I was still under a—a cloud. It didn’t seem fair to Richard to let him share that cloud with me. If he wanted a divorce, I wanted him to have it. But now—now the cloud has gone. I have a right to the thing I want most in life, my husband and my home.” She held tightly, like a child, to Sam’s hand and said, “There is no cause for him to divorce me. And I can’t divorce him, Sam. I can’t. Not now,” said Alice and stopped.
There was a small tense silence. Then the telephone in the hall rang sharply and demandingly.
CHAPTER 17
RICHARD WENT TO ANSWER it. They could hear his replies. “Yes, this is Thorne. No, that’s all right; we hadn’t gone to bed.” There was a rather long pause. Then he said, “I see. Right. Then that is cleared up. Thank you for letting me know.”
He put down the telephone and came back, and said, lighting a cigarette, “Well, that was simple.”
“What was it?” asked Sam.
“She bought the cyanide herself.”
Alice cried, “Mildred bought it! How do they know?”
Richard put out the match and took a long breath of smoke. “She got it at Babcock’s. …” He glanced at Myra. “That’s the village druggist. Told them she wanted it for rats and signed the poison book. They have her signature and young Babcock, the son, he’s the pharmacy man, knows her well. Nobody questioned it, naturally. Cyanide, arsenic, strychnine, any of that stuff is available.”
“When did she get it?” asked Sam.
“The twenty-first of June, two years ago this summer.”
Alice’s eyes widened. She whispered, “The twenty-first—nine days after she killed Jack.”
“Yes.”
“She’s had it all this time!”
“Obviously she always intended to kill herself if she was discovered,” said Sam, “or if she had to confess.”
“She must have suffered terribly every minute of the time that I was in prison,” said Alice. “What a horrible punishment!”
Richard looked at his cigarette. His face was without expression, but he said very gravely and honestly, “It was a very terrible injustice to you, Alice. I wish I could remove the memory of it. I wish …”
“You can,” she said. “You can …” Her voice was as soft as a night wind, a little smile, tender and half-coaxing touched her lovely mouth.
How could Richard resist her beauty and her feminine sweetness? How could any man? Myra turned abruptly toward the door. Richard said, “I wish I could, Alice. I’m afraid nobody ever can make it up to you. Wait, Myra, don’t go …”
The smile froze on Alice’s mouth. Myra said stiffly, “Richard, it’s so late. It would be better for us to talk another time. When we’ve all had a chance to think and—and plan …”And by then she determined, inwardly, she’d be gone.
Alice said, “Richard, let me finish now, about you and me and—Myra. You see, when you came down just after I had had that frightful shock—those terrible minutes with Mildred—your only thought was Myra. Not me. Even then it hurt me.”
“I’m sorry, Alice.” Richard’s mouth was suddenly hard and white.
“No, no, don’t misunderstand me. I am not reproaching you. I am asking you to forgive me for the thing I said to you and to Myra. I said that you were threatening me. I said you were trying to force me to divorce you. I didn’t mean that, Richard.”
“I know …”
“You see, oh, it’s no excuse, but I trusted everybody one time. Always, all my life, I had trusted the people I knew and loved. And then all at once, overnight, like a—a nightmare, everything was against me. I was the center of horror. The newspapers, the accusations—then the trial!”
“That’s past,” said Sam. He gave Richard an indignant glance. “Alice needs peace and love and care.”
Alice swept on with soft vehemence. “Tonight I learned all in a minute that Mildred, my oldest friend, actually had let me go to prison, convicted of murder. And then you came and thought first of Myra. My only feeling then was despair! But now—now, I’ve had time to realize what divorce would mean. …” Suddenly she leaned forward and cried imploringly, “Richard, let me stay! Only to live in my own home again, only to see the roses bloom and to walk freely in the garden paths …”
Alice rose. Again it was as if she were drawn by the flowers. She went to the lilies and touched them with her fingers, she looked around the room. “My home,” she said. “I used to dream that I was here again. The books, the lamps, the pictures—everything would be clear, as if I could touch it.” She went to a bookshelf and ran her forefinger lightly along a row of leather-bound books. She went to the secretary and opened it, quickly and impulsively, and took the cupid again in her hand and smiled. “Do you remember, Richard, the Tanagra figure you bought for me one beautiful sunny day in Paris? So long ago …”
“Yes,” said Richard. He turned and bent over the fire. He took tongs and adjusted the logs. “I bought a kitten for you that day, too.”
“Yes. I remember. The kitten broke the little figure.” Alice put the cupid gently upon the open leaf of the secretary. “I remember. I had time in prison to remember everything. But my dreams were not as sad as my thoughts. Except when I’d wake. I’d know before I opened my eyes that it had been a dream. I’d pretend it wasn’t.” She turned to Richard. “It was a bitter lesson—those two years. But I cannot believe that so much pain can bring no good. Perhaps I was selfish one day, Richard, childish, wrong about many things. I’ll never be again.” She came back to the red chair and said earnestly, “Let me stay for Myra’s sake as well as mine. We’ve suffered so terribly already from the notoriety, the talk. If you leave me now, Richard, if we are divorced, what will they say of Myra?”
Richard dropped the log and turned around. “Myra?”
“Everyone knows that she has been living here. Everyone knows that there was no move made for a divorce while I was in prison.”
“Myra came because Aunt Cornelia came. …”
“But she remained because of you, I think,” said Alice softly. “Perhaps you didn’t realize that. You weren’t thinking of Myra’s motive in remaining here with you so long. Oh, I’m not saying that there was anything wrong. And in any case I wouldn’t blame either of you. It was bound to happen, no matter what woman was here, Myra or anyone. …”
How precisely Alice cut the ground from Myra’s feet! How neatlv and deftly Alice’s words must shake Richard’s faith in his own love. Myra moved stiffly to put down the cup of coffee she had in her hand so its tiny tinkle against the saucer would not betray her shaking hand. Fight for him, Aunt Cornelia had said.
As Alice was fighting, for Richard and for her home. But Alice had a firm ground, a solid fortress of truth. It was her right to fight.
Richard said, “It would be better to talk of this another time, Alice. But if you i
nsist we can have it out now.”
Rain spattered against the French door which suddenly flung itself open. A surge of wind and rain swept through the room, blowing the crimson curtains inward. Smoke billowed out from the fireplace.
Sam sprang to close the door. He turned, in the sudden silence, and said abruptly, “I’m on Alice’s side, you know, Dick.”
Alice said gently, “You knew, Sam. There was no surprise in your eyes. You knew that Richard and Myra …”
“I was afraid of it,” said Sam. He glanced at Myra with a tinge of compunction but remained firmly, like a bulwark, beside Alice. “I was afraid that they would grow fond of each other. And as things were before today, I wanted them to marry. Forgive me, Alice …”
“I know,” she said. “I understand. If he had asked me for a divorce while I was in prison—for life, Sam, for life …” Her voice broke but she finished. “If he’d asked me then, I’d have agreed. Oh, I thought about it. I knew it would come some time. Yet I dreaded it too—my husband and my home, the bare fact of their existence, even if I could never come here again, was like a rock for me to cling to.”
“Well, that’s in the past,” said Sam firmly.
Richard said, “Sam will see to it that the divorce is arranged simply and quickly. You’ll have, of course, any money settlement that you want. …”
“Richard,” cried Alice brokenly.
Sam said, “Now, look here, Dick. Things are very different now.”
“They will never be any different between Alice and me,” said Richard quietly.
“Listen, Dick.” Sam released Alice’s hand and went to Richard. “Just think for a minute. I know Myra and I think she’s swell. She knows that and …” He turned directly to Myra. “My dear, I hope you’ll forgive me for what I’ve got to say. I’ve got to say it for everybody’s happiness. Yours and Dick’s and Alice’s. Believe me, marriage is marriage and this is a happy marriage. I’m in a devil of a position,” burst out Sam suddenly. “I hate to say this. But—you and Dick have been thrown together a lot. Don’t you honestly think, Myra, that if you leave, if you withdraw, Dick and Alice will eventually resume the really happy marriage that they had?”
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