CHAPTER III
In a few moments I was sufficiently in control again to stop the useless artificial respiration. But I stayed squatting there by the bodies in the wet grass and weeds. Part of my mind knew that I was coroner for the county and would have to call Inspector Cobb in Grovestown. But the other part, less organized, scurried from one tenebrous thought to another. Dawn had invented that vulgar parody of the ballad, and someone had made it prophetic. Less than an hour ago we had been ordinary people chatting and squabbling our way through an ordinary picnic. Skipton had been just one of many little Massachusetts towns with its faintly pretentious summer people and its square-dancing natives.
Now everything was different. The two small bodies, gleaming palely in the moonlight at my side, were more disastrous than an earthquake. An earthquake might have altered the contours of Skipton. But this brutal murder of two children would alter the very fiber of the community, the very minds of its inhabitants.
Trailing up from the village, the base thumping of the piano exaggerated, came the strains of “Lay That Pistol Down.” A female voice, tired and irritable, sounded from the mountain above me:
“Bobby … Billy.”
Skipton didn’t know it yet—all except one of its members—but life had changed for it as remorselessly as day changes to night. And I had to be the herald of that change.
I stood up. I stared down at the two small boys. They looked so cold. Absurdly, I stripped off my raincoat and laid it over them. I turned back into the trail which led down to the Bray house.
Lorie, Caleb, and Avril Lane were still sitting glumly in the living room. The shock I had experienced had been so violent that it seemed almost inconceivable that the three of them, obsessed with their tiny problems of desire, jealousy, and frustration, could have kept their mood unbroken. I half expected too that I must have brought the horror of what had happened with me on my face. But they didn’t seem to notice anything.
Lorie said: “Given up already, Doctor?”
Avril giggled: “The bad things, I expect they’re having high jinks in that old sawmill.”
I said: “Where’s the telephone, Lorie? In the hall, isn’t it?”
Lorie’s young face hardened then into sudden, anxious curiosity. Caleb swung round too and stared at me brightly.
“What’s the matter? Has something happened?”
I didn’t answer. I went out into the hall. The telephone stood by a smart, striped sofa in an alcove. Normally Cobb stayed late at his office Saturday night. I called Police Headquarters and reached him at once. Inspector Cobb was my oldest friend. There was no need for any Inspector-Coroner formality with him, but I wasn’t sure whether or not my voice could be heard in the living room, so I went into no detail. I merely told him to come and to come quickly and to bring the homicide boys with all their trimmings.
Cobb asked the one, blunt question. “Bad?”
“Terrible,” I said.
“I’ll be right over.”
I went back to the living room. All three of them had risen and were standing in a little group, watching for me. Avril Lane, looking bizarre with her sodden, wrinkled skirt, was arranging her face for Drama. Lorie and Caleb, young, blond, extraordinarily alike in their expression, stood instinctively close together. I was sure then that they had at least heard I was calling the police.
Lorie said: “Something’s happened, hasn’t it?” And then, tentatively: “Did you find them?”
“I found them,” I said.
Avril gave a faint scream. Caleb said: “And they’re okay?”
I looked at Lorie. “How about a drink for me?”
She ran to a sideboard, clattered glasses, and came back with a highball.
Caleb repeated: “If they’re okay—where are they?”
I took a gulp of the drink. Everything in me shied away from saying the thing that was going so terribly to change our lives.
“Please, Dr. Westlake,” said Lorie, “tell us. Are they all right?”
I sat down in one of Ernesta’s beautiful gold brocade chairs. I felt suddenly tired and spent.
“They’re dead,” I said.
Avril Lane clutched her throat. I never knew people really clutched their throats, but she did.
Caleb, his face a sickly gray under his atabrine tan, said: “You kidding?”
Lorie whirled on him. “Don’t be a fool. As if Dr. Westlake would kid.” Her thin, cold hand clutched my arm. “Tell us. Please, please, tell us. You called the police, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“Then…?”
“Let’s wait,” I said, “till the others get back. They’ve got to know. I don’t want to go over it twice.”
To my surprise, even Avril Lane had enough dignity not to press the matter any further. Caleb poured himself a drink, and then all three of them sat down, picking chairs far apart as if they sensed that life was different now and that the new life might mean a drastic change of alliances.
I sat with my drink, gazing at the luxurious, well-known room. Little things about it reminded me of earlier parties at Ernesta’s … The concert grand piano at which one of Ernesta’s protégés from New York had played Debussy, straining almost to its uttermost the loyalty of her Skipton following; the long Spanish refectory table at which Ernesta had, much more successfully, served a potent punch. The room was imbued with Ernesta’s energetic, bossy personality. Ludicrously, a Skiptonite after only three weeks, I found myself thinking:
This would never have happened if Ernesta had been here.
The moment I was dreading came. Confused footsteps and voices sounded on the terrace. Phoebe, Renton Forbes, and George Raynor came in through the french windows. They were disheveled, and their faces wore the tentative expression of people who were worried but did not yet want to appear so.
Phoebe, trying to be her normal spry self, gave a little laugh and said: “Well, this time they’ve done it, the fiends. Poor Love’s distracted. I’ve made her come back. It’s hopeless, just a handful of us. We’ll have to call the police and collect a posse from the village.”
Renton Forbes grunted: “If I had my way, there’d be two very bruised bottoms in Love’s house tomorrow.”
He crossed to pour himself a drink. George Raynor, his dark handsome face heavy with anxiety, moved instinctively to his wife. Avril cracked then. The opportunity for being the fragile wife comforted by her big, strong husband must have been too much for her. She ran to him, threw her little arms up to his shoulders and wailed:
“Dr. Westlake found them. They’re dead.”
Renton Forbes swung from the table, the liquid splashing out of his highball. Panic creeping into her black gypsy eyes, Phoebe stared straight at me.
“It’s not true, is it, Doctor? It’s just that horrible woman making a scene?”
No one in Skipton had ever been rude enough before to call Avril a horrible woman to her face. Already the new regime was starting. Phoebe’s face was so expressive that I could read her thoughts, as easily as if she were speaking them: Something’s happened. Ernesta’s away. In a way I’m responsible. I chose the picnic ground.
“Where’s Love?” I asked.
“She’s coming with Dr. Jessup. They must be right …”
There were footsteps on the terrace again. It wasn’t fair, I felt, to have Love hear what had happened to her nephews in front of the others. I hurried out of the french windows. Love Drummond and the Reverend Jessup were moving toward me.
I said to Love: “Stay there. Please. Please don’t move till we come back.”
I took the Reverend Jessup by the elbow and guided him down the terrace out of earshot. He was Love’s oldest friend in the neighborhood. I knew that. While he listened in apparently dazed silence, I told him the bare facts of what had happened to the twins. That is, I told him most of the facts. I told him they were dead, that I had found them in the duckpond, drowned. I said nothing about the blows on the back of their heads.
I said: “I’m goi
ng to tell the others now. Take Love somewhere—anywhere. Break it to her.”
The old guy was quite wonderful. Years of faithful if plodding service to his God seemed to have given him a certain spiritual fortitude. Asking no more questions, he moved back along the terrace and put his hand on Love’s arm.
Rather irritably, she snapped: “What on earth is all this whispering in corners?”
“Come, my dear,” Dr. Jessup’s voice was steady, reassuring. “I only hope that God will give us strength.”
He led her firmly down the terrace toward the french windows which opened into the library. I watched them move away—the old, rain-soaked priest and the tall, ungainly spinster with the heavy hips. I went back into the living room.
Avril was curled up on a couch, whimpering. Her husband sat next to her holding her hand. Phoebe, Renton, Caleb, and Lorie stood in a phalanx, watching me.
I said: “I’ve called Inspector Cobb. He’ll be out soon.”
“The police!” said Phoebe.
“What happened?” Caleb’s face now was dark with exasperation. “For God’s sake, what happened?”
There was no point in beating about the bush. “I found them in the duckpond,” I said. “They were dead. I can’t tell yet whether they were drowned or not. But if they were drowned, it was still murder, because they were both hit on the back of the head—hit hard enough to have stunned them before they were thrown in the pond.”
The brutality of those facts and the familiar, shining luxury of Ernesta’s living room were hopelessly at war. What I had said was too much for them. It took them several moments to adjust to it.
Phoebe was the first to speak. With a natural, feminine pity which, under the circumstances, sounded almost silly, she whispered:
“Poor little things.”
It was Avril Lane who said the thing that I knew would have to come. For all her silly affectations, her mind moved more quickly than the others’. Pushing herself up on the couch, she stared at me, half horrified, half accusing.
“You and your little daughter,” she breathed. “Your little daughter singing: ‘Hit them on the head and throw them in the pond.’”
“I know,” I said. I added wearily: “Someone must have heard Dawn. Maybe it gave them the idea.”
Renton Forbes cut in quickly: “You mean you think someone on the picnic did—did it?”
“What I think,” I said, “isn’t any more important than what anyone else thinks.”
“No, no, it isn’t possible. It isn’t possible.” Phoebe had clutched her son’s arm as if to steady herself. “You know it can’t be one of us. Someone from the village … someone must have overheard Dawn or … or it’s all a coincidence. It could be a coincidence.”
“It’ll be easy to check on the village people,” I said. “Most of them will have been at the square dance and will be able to alibi each other.”
Lorie had been standing alone, very straight, her arms stiff at her sides. Her eyes, drained by horror of all expression, met mine.
“But why, Doctor? Tell me why? Why should anyone kill those—those babies?”
“It’s a crazy person,” broke in Caleb gruffly. “Some crazy person, escaped maybe from an institution or …”
“But why did it happen like the song? Why?”
I said grimly: “That’ll come later. We can all do one thing right now. We can give an account of our movements coming down the mountain. Cobb will ask. We might as well get ready.”
A door at the back of the room opened and Dr. Jessup came in. Everyone turned to look at him. He crossed to me.
“Love Drummond is a very brave woman, Dr. Westlake. She wanted to come in with the rest of us, but I persuaded her to remain in the library, and soon I shall take her home.”
Phoebe went to him and took his arm silently. They were old friends. Dr. Jessup patted her hand and turned to me with a faint, gentle smile.
“Love has told me all she knows. She came down the mountain alone. She thought the children were with me and did not worry. It was a tragic misunderstanding. I thought they were safely with her.” He paused, watching my face. “I have been thinking. You have held back some of the truth from me, have you not? That duckpond is not deep. It is almost inconceivable to me that the children could have stumbled into it accidentally and—”
“They were hit on the head, Hilary,” breathed Phoebe. “Dr. Westlake has told us. They were hit on the head and thrown—”
She broke off with a shiver. Dr. Jessup patted her hand again.
“We must be strong, my dear. We can combat the works of darkness only if we have strength.”
I said: “I was telling the others, Dr. Jessup, that we would have to account for our movements coming down the mountain from the picnic ground. Perhaps you’d be good enough to begin.”
“Of course, although I am afraid I have little to tell. It was dark, confusing. I lost my way and came down through the scrub as best I might. I met no one on the journey—no one at all.”
“Neither did I,” said Phoebe. “I heard people around me, of course. But I didn’t actually see anyone or talk to anyone.”
“I didn’t either,” said George Raynor.
I glanced at Renton Forbes. “You met up with Avril, didn’t you?”
He glanced at George’s wife. “Only at the end. We didn’t meet until we were almost at the house.”
“That is correct.” Avril was very firm and precise now. “Earlier, someone ran past me—running very fast. I could not tell who it was. Otherwise I met no one until I encountered Renton.”
Caleb had flushed crimson. “I guess the person running was me. I caught up with Dr. Westlake and Dawn halfway to the house. The three of us came in together.”
“You saw no one before me?” I asked, although I knew the answer. Caleb, with his morbid dread of the dark, would have attached himself to the first person he met.
Caleb shook his head.
I turned to Lorie. “There’s only you left,” I said quietly.
Above the delicate shell pink of her suit, Lorie’s face was very pale. One hand went up to the shining, silvery hair.
“I saw no one. No one at all.”
Her lips were trembling. She moved suddenly, running to her aunt and burying her face against Phoebe’s shoulder.
“It’s all my fault,” she sobbed. “I was giving the picnic. I should have taken care of the twins.”
The sobs rose, racking her thin body.
“Oh, if only Mother had been here. This would never have happened if Mother had been here.”
I wondered if there was anyone in the room who didn’t agree with her.
CHAPTER IV
Soon Cobb came. I heard cars approaching and hurried out to meet them. None of the others attempted to accompany me. I think the very idea of the homicide squad coming to one of their houses on official business was difficult for them to absorb. They were all the type of people whose traffickings with the police hitherto had been limited to a telephone call about a lost dog or a reluctant but civic-minded purchase of tickets to the Annual Policeman’s Ball in Grovestown.
There were two automobiles. Inspector Cobb had come alone in his own old coupé. Grovestown’s rather impoverished homicide squad, consisting of Dan Leaf, Cobb’s young assistant, a photographer, and three other detectives, arrived in a police car.
They crowded around me curiously. In the glare of the headlights Cobb’s weather-beaten New England face, with its deceptively placid china-blue eyes, was wary. He threw an impressed glance at Ernesta’s fancy house and said:
“Well, Westlake, what have you got us into?”
I told him the facts bluntly. The photographer whistled. One of the detectives muttered: “Geez.” Cobb’s face went ominously grim. The inspector was very much the family man. In fact, I personally had supervised the appearance in this world of four out of his five children. This wasn’t the kind of case he could be cold-blooded about.
He said: “You’re
sure it’s murder? Not just an accident?”
“I’m the coroner, remember?” I said grimly. “I’m not an old lady in ground-grippers complaining there’s a burglar under my bed. Come on. I’ll show you.”
We tramped through Ernesta’s formal gardens, her pine grove, which I believe she called her “spinney,” and up the mountain trail to the duckpond. The moonlight was bright enough now for us to see my raincoat yards before we reached it. I hated having to disclose what lay under it, but I picked it up. The circle of men stood around the little bodies, staring down, not saying anything. I pointed to the spot in the pond where I had discovered the boys and the reeds I had trampled down.
“I doubt whether you’ll find any footsteps,” I said to Dan Leaf, who was swinging his flashlight around. “I messed up the place pretty thoroughly.”
“Wouldn’t have been anything anyway, Doc. The rain wasn’t strong enough to soften up the grass for footprints, and the water’s high enough to cover all the mud.”
The photographer was propped on one knee taking photographs. Cobb had scattered his men to search the area. He stood bulky and quiet watching the camera flash. The music, shrill and twangy, still sounded from the Community House below us.
I said quietly: “A maniac. Someone who’s nuts.”
He grunted and then asked: “You knew the kids?”
“Sure. They were little demons, both of them. But if sane people started killing off kids because they were demons, there’d be a sharp drop in the population.” I added: “There’s something I haven’t told you—something about Dawn and a song.”
I told him about Lorie’s ballad and Dawn’s silly parody. “‘Green grow the rushes-O,’” I said. “‘The lily-white boys all clothed in green-O. Hit them on the head and throw them in the pond-O.’ It’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“Which means you think someone on the picnic did it?”
“I don’t think. I’m just telling you the facts.”
“Or maybe,” said Cobb quietly, “someone who overheard Dawn singing; someone who was lurking around in the fields; someone with a crazy tic in his brain, with some urge to kind of make the song real.”
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