Miller did not raise his head from the pillow, “Yes.” He answered.
“John, what happened? The police called here about you, they wanted to know the time you left here.”
“Albert Smith was killed.”
“Killed? Well, that doesn’t make me cry, how? Automobile?”
Her speech jarred Miller, she hardly knew Smith. “Yes,” he lied. “Automobile.”
He heard Julie put out the light, he lay in the darkness, pain beside him, if it were physical pain, he knew a drug could stop it, but no drug could stop the torture of the mind.
Long after he fell asleep, Julie shook him awake, Miller was aware of his chocked incoherent attempts at crying out from his dream, a misshapen man had been coming at him with a knife, closing in dreadfully fast upon him on the street of a mining town.
Julie familiar with his crying out from sleep, turned over was going to sleep again; Miller got up went into the living room, turning on all the lights.
His feet were cold, but he couldn’t return to bed. He knew if he went back to sleep, his nightmare would take up exactly where it had left off.
Driven by exhaustion, he finally did go back to bed. He slept fitfully. In the morning, he put coffee on the stove in the kitchen and dressed. Since he was in town, he might as well go to work, he decided. Square headed J. Liebermann would expect him, besides work might shut off his thoughts, might stop the merry-go-round of forever reviewing the scene of finding Albert’s body. Occupational therapy and psychotherapy had been important methods at Middleburg.
He took newspapers and a half eaten box of candy off the living room couch and lay down, waiting for the coffee to percolate. Julie liked to awake to the violent putt-putt of the bouncing pot.
Suddenly he realized that there was no strength left in him. He had felt all right on awakening, but the effort of dressing had exhausted him. He watched the clocks hands approach, and then go past a quarter of nine. He could not delay in leaving the house any longer if he wanted to get to the laboratory in time for work. The pill machines would be stamping aspirin, or perhaps, today placebos milk sugar tablets given to misdirect patients into thinking they were being medicated.
Julie walked into the room from the bedroom. “Sa-ay! Aren’t you going to work?” Miller turned his head from staring at the ceiling.
“No, I don’t feel well.”
“You mean you just want an excuse for laziness!” Her wide, beautiful eyes snapped. “First, you weren’t going to work because you were going fishing, and now that you’re not going fishing, you say you don’t feel well.”
She glared at him, demandingly, but he said nothing. He simply lay back on the couch and closed his eyes. He would never have the strength to do anything again. He was lifeless flesh, with no faculty of movement.
Hours later, Julie came into the room and roused him from a shallow sleep. “Are you going to lie there all day?” She asked.
“It’s lunchtime; don’t you want anything to eat?”
He opened his eyes and saw that anger had gone from her perfect face. She was sober now, concerned. “I’m not hungry.” Miller said.
She went out, there were sounds of puttering in the kitchen and presently she reappeared, carrying a tray on which was a steaming cup of coffee, eggs, and toast. She shoved a chair toward the couch with her foot and rested the tray on it. She looked at Miller. “If you don’t eat, you can’t get any strength.”
Her concern touched Miller. “Thanks honey.”
“Don’t thank me; it’s just that I’ve enough on my mind without having you sick on my hands!”
She tramped out of the room and Miller sighed. He started eating the food it tasted good, and he felt better, but he still had no strength to get up when he had finished. It was a little after nine when Miller became suddenly aware that the house was quiet. Julie apparently, had gone out he drank some water at the kitchen sink, rummaged in the refrigerator and ate some left over jello and cream. He felt stronger, better I’ll go outside he decided a walk, fresh air will be good.
The night wind stimulated him; he stood on the walk in front of the building, debating in which direction to go. A girl was just crossing Columbus Avenue. She wore a black fitted coat with buttons all the way down its front. Miller did not recognize Sally Daniels. It was almost automatically that he turned in the opposite direction, for he wanted to get away from people, from everything. He headed deep into the darkness of the park, a sign directed to the zoo, and he followed the path, the wind scattering dead leaves ahead of him. He passed empty outdoor cages, leopard, tiger, and civet cat.
He stopped in the open center court around which the zoo buildings were grouped. He leaned against the rail of the sea lion pool; it was the right place for his mood. Then someone entered the zoo court and the mood was broken, foot clicks slowed and stopped just behind him, Miller turned, “Miss Daniels!” He exclaimed.
She was breathing rapidly; her hands held expectantly, anxiously, in front of her, lines of anxiety were between her bunched brows and in her deeply dimpled face, she spoke urgently, breathlessly.
“I was going to your house. I saw you leaving; you looked right at me and then turned away. I followed after you. I saw you turn in the park, I called your name.”
“The wind blowing leaves makes it hard to hear.” Miller said. His eyes studied her brows that were her face so child like.
“But why do you want me? How did you know where to find me?”
Brightness glinted her eyes, “I had to speak to you, and so I found out from Sergeant Sammy where you lived. Doctor Albert Smith was your friend, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Well, your friend was murdered, Mr. Miller. Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”
Miller looked down at the water in the sea lion pool. “I can’t.” He said firmly.
“Why not?” She was artlessly blunt.
“I can’t explain it to you! It’s just something I can’t explain.” The thing was too much for him, why did she bother him?
“My dad’s helpless, you know.” She persisted. “He has only one leg, I have no one else to turn to.” If she knew what he was, would she come to him? If she knew what he had been done!”
“Turn to about what?” He asked how did Albert Smith’s dying concern her?
“Why have you come here? I don’t get it, who are you?”
“I saw you at the state police barracks, she almost sobbed. “I was waiting outside to see Sergeant Sammy. I heard them shouting questions at you about your friend being murdered, and I-I came there about murder myself.”
“A murder? Another murder?” His mind flashed back to Allendale. He saw it as an airplane view, its building in neat layout, and the pines. He struggled to blank it from his thoughts, murder was a disease, they called some killers pathological but that was not true, all were.
She wasn’t hard, she was afraid, beaten. He took her arm and led her away, another couple had strolled up. He stopped near the shadowed darkness of shrubbery that overhung a row of benches. She wasn’t hard, he now knew but small helpless and afraid, in his pocket he felt the handkerchief that she had worried to a rag. He remembered Albert speaking of meeting people coming on the 7:10 train. They might not have known they were being met. Perhaps Albert had wanted to warn them of danger. The fishing story could have been a ruse to get him up there to help, but to help on what.
“You were going to a weekend party? A house party at the home of someone you knew from South America?”
“Who said anything about a house party/”
“A man sitting next to me on the train mentioned it.”
“Paul Davis? He said were going to a house party?”
He hadn’t known she could laugh in such a bitter way; she was becoming a person to him.
“We were going to a funeral!” She said.
“A funeral?”
“Would that flock have come for anything else? They’re after Paul Allen.”
&nbs
p; “Money, that’s why Paul Allen was murdered.” She said. “I don’t understand.” Miller replied.
“Paul Allen was murdered, and I thought that your friend was murdered, perhaps as a cover-up for the real way Mr. Allen died, a forged death certificate or something. I don’t know I told the police nobody else in Allen’s house was safe, but that Sammy treated me like a hysterical child.”
Miller studied her face; he sensed she knew he was fighting something back, something deep rooted within him.
“Why are you afraid?” She asked suddenly.
Thrown water could not have shocked him more. “I’m not afraid! He answered angrily. Did her eyes look through him? Could she really think it was fear?”
“I mean why don’t you want to do anything?”
“I’ll go with you.” He hadn’t known he was going to say that, but Albert had wanted him to come, and she had said murder. He had to go back, he wanted to go back he’d need only someone to tell him he must go must face it; he led her from the park. “Why did you turn in at the zoo?” She asked.
“Why did you come into the park and into the zoo? It’s strange that you should have come into the zoo.” Her expression changed. “You’ll see, maybe you’ll understand what I mean later.”
“You’ll have to get some place to spend the night.” He said. “Of course, I can’t take you home.”
“Oh, no!” I want to go back to Millersburg, my dad’s alone there, can’t we? Can’t you?”
“Sure, I can.” He took her arm again; there was a sense of security in taking action, making decisions. He didn’t know where he’d find the strength to act, but she had said. “Why are you afraid?” and he couldn’t face that it was too near the truth to face.
At Grand Central Terminal he stopped at a phone booth, “I’ll only be a minute.” He said.
Later, when he stepped from the booth, Sally Daniels asked him doubtfully, “Is it all right.”
“My wife doesn’t like my going away.” He grinned wryly. “I’ll bet you could hear out here. I didn’t feel very well today, Julie doesn’t understand.”
“You feel all right now?”
“Yes.” he did feel better his mind had stilled.
Chapter Four
The mansion of Paul J. Allen was on the riverside of the railroad tracks and occupied a point of land several acres in area that jutted out into the river. The rest of the town of Millersburg-on the-Hudson lay to the east of the tracks.
Technically, all the land between the railroad’s right of way and the river belonged to the railroad, but at the start of the century, one of the company’s Vice-Presidents had wanted Millersburg point for his estate and at a cost of three hundred thousand dollars he had built a home there, modeled on the style of a French chateau he’d seen in his continental travels. When the massive wrought iron gate had opened in 1903 for the mansion’s brilliant inaugural ball, the elite of American industry hung its wraps with the ermine of visiting royalty.
That was the last ball ever held at the huge slant roofed house. The wife of its owner fell ill shortly after and died the following year. The owner himself never returned. The boarded up windows were a familiar sight to passing commuters until in 1913, Paul J. Allen, a man about whom very little was known except that he was a widower, brought the forty-four room chateau. Such was the house to which Sally Daniels brought John Miller. He found the bell, pressed it in the distant silence the muted ring tinkled and soon through the lace curtained door, the indistinguishable figure of a man appeared. He opened the door, his face staring inquiringly at Miller and then brightening when he saw the girl, “Oh, Miss Daniels come in.”
It was a Deep South accent, the man was tall, excellently proportioned and young, and he wore an old pair of trousers and a tight fitting crew shirt that concealed none of his muscular development. His tawny eyes were alert behind white gold glasses. The girl stepped inside, and Miller followed her. In the dim, uncertain light he saw the entrance hall yawning wide before him. A crystal chandelier, its pendants age fogged, the copper glow of its bulbs like a hidden nest within the pendants hung high between marble staircases curving upward on either side. Miller felt like a child walking into an imaginary world.
“John Miller, Jimmy Marks, the care taker.” Sally Daniels said turning to the muscular young man.
“Mr. Miller’s going to stay here; can you arrange a room for him?” She asked.
“Hello.” Miller said to the young man.
“How do you do, suh.” Marks voice was deep, resonant, “There’s a room made up on the third floor in the south wing.” Miller looked to the girl, she took his hand.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” Her brief smile brought dimples, the left one deeper than the right.
She went with Miller and Marks to the top of the first flight, then turned off down a corridor, Jimmy Marks crew shirted back led the way up another silent dark stairway, turned into one lit with a single bulb down the corridor and then down another. He stopped in front of a door, selected a key from a ring and fitted it to the lock.
Inside, he switched on a lamp, drew the drapes over the windows and lit another lamp. He indicated a door. “That’s your bathroom, suh. You’ll find soap and towels there, if there should be anything you want, just pull this cord here, I hope you have a pleasant night.”
The man was too polite; with a manufactured, coerced, menial politeness was a defense, an apology. Miller waited until the door closed, and then he looked about the room. The large chamber was uncomfortably furnished with cumbersome antiques. The bed was a four posted gilt relic of the empire period, scatter rugs worn to the warp covered sandalwood floor.
Miller went to a window and help back the drape, beyond the crowns of black, swaying treetops he saw the Hudson, white metal in its wide channel. He must learn to know this place, he thought. He felt it’s unfamiliarly as insecurity. On the train coming up, Sally Daniels had said, “I need you; I need someone I can trust. I felt when I first saw you that you could be my friend.”
She could not tell him why, but he understood her feeling, something in the way your eyes met another’s told you if you were kin or not.
Miller walked to a mirror that hung above a cherub ornamented antique chest, he felt pleasantness at the thought that he might help Sally. But looking at his reflection, he touched his thinning, brown hair and this dulled his feeling of well being. The mirror was streaked, fogged by film. He rubbed absently at the fog, and then turned away to his bed, sat upon its high mattress. Thoughts disturbed him, moved erratically in his consciousness with Albert the background to it all Albert lying dead somewhere now, doing nothing thinking nothing.
He thought of Paul Davis sitting beside him on the train. Davis getting into the taxi at the station with Sally Daniels and her crippled father. This house, the meeting at the zoo, Julie bringing him lunch, shouting and Sally’s perplexed eyes.
“Why are you afraid? It’s something I can’t explain.” Miller said to himself.
Miller slept restlessly sounds filtered into his dreams, the cries of lions, wolves, and apes. Once he awakened and sat up in bed, he turned on the lights, straining to catch the labored bellowing of a lion that a moment before had seemed clearly audible or had it been himself crying out from his dreams? At Millersburg, he’d had a dog that had cowered in terror whenever he cried out, but there was no sound now except the fitful gusts of a northwest wind, a boat tooting on the river and a distant auto horn on Highway 10.
Next morning, after dressing Miller made his way down one of the curved marble staircases to the entrance hall, discovering no one about, he opened the front door and went out. He crossed the lawn the side of the house.
“Hello there, mate!” A voice called, it was Joseph Daniels, sitting in a tubular metal chair on the lawn, his crutches resting beside him. “Glad to see you here, Sally said you’d come.”
“Did you know your daughter was going after me?” Miller asked in some surprise.
“Yes
, I knew and approved.” The lids of Daniels eyes closed slowly, and he nodded at his pinned up pants leg. “I’m not even half a man any more, as you see.” He said.
“But Sally and I figured that since you were a friend of that doctor who was killed, you might be interested in helping.”
The man closely resembled Sally, they had the same high upper lip, the same full mouth and direct eyes, but the elder Rodger’s complexion was bloodless, and he breathed haltingly, his lips moving with the puff of each breath.
“I hope I can help.” Miller said.
Daniels he knew wasn’t aware of how hollow that sounded and he could not see the inward self that was the real John Miller. “Sally has an idea there was something irregular about the death of Paul Allen,” John went on. “And that doctor Smith, my friend might have been concerned with it, perhaps if we had a look at Allen’s body, or asked for a post mortem.” How much like a normal person he could speak!
“There’s Paul Allen’s lawyer to reckon with.” Daniels said. “He claims there has already been an examination, and he wants no scandal.”
Of course, Paul Allen would have a lawyer, but what had touched off suspicion in Captain Daniels? Miller leaned forward keeping his voice low.
“What makes you so doubtful Allen died a natural death.” Daniels grunted, “Well, just consider the facts and decide for yourself, do you know how Paul Allen made his money?”
“Your daughter told me on the train that he had inherited it from his wife.”
“What else did Sally tell you?”
“That he had lost it all in a South American rubber venture.”
Captain Daniels eyes blazed. “Venture?” He snorted. “It was an open and shut swindle from start to finish! Listen, Miller you didn’t know Paul Allen, but I did. I counted myself one of his few friends. Paul seemed brusque, tough, and hard but he was actually as soft as curd. He was a lamb for the fleecing when Paul Davis, and Jose Mendez and the rest got hold of him.”
Paul Davis! John Miller was somehow not surprised at the entrance of the dissipated man in the homburg hat into the picture, but who was Jose Mendez?
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