“What for?”
“I went to get something,” she told him. “Now if you’ll be good and go back to your room, I’ll come up and show you what I have.”
She was still carrying the brief case. If someone had seen her leaving with it, she had returned with it. Wasn’t she a private secretary? Why shouldn’t she carry one?
Lloyd had sent her on an errand. Who was to say he hadn’t, after tonight? And when her mother got to Mrs. Goldman’s? And no one had called? Mrs. Goldman would be chattering to her mother by now. Neither of them would even think to mention a telephone call. Bernice knew that.
“I’m going out!” Lloyd shouted down at her. “You knew that. Yet you went out. You were gone almost an hour!”
Bernice didn’t even answer that. “I’ll help you get ready,” she said. “I promise you won’t be late.”
He went back to his room then, still muttering. Bernice turned on the light in the downstairs foyer. Lloyd was going out. That light would be on. Now there was a light in the study, one in the foyer, and one in Lloyd’s bedroom upstairs. That was exactly as she wanted it.
She went into the small lavatory beside the study. She got a glass from the medicine chest in there. She unlocked her desk and brought out the fifth of whisky. And now her heart was thudding. Her eyes were bright behind her thick glasses. She started upstairs. The look was in her eyes that she was going to find when she looked in the lavatory mirror later. A look that no one must ever see. A look of exaltation.
Bernice ticked off in her mind the things she had to do, and everything was in place.
“What have you got?” Lloyd said when she entered his bedroom. He was dressed except for his suit coat. His hair was carefully brushed. He had shaved closely.
“I’ve got something for you to drink,” she told him. “You’ve been good. I want you to have a drink before you go out.”
“Let’s both have a lot of drinks and I won’t go out,” he said.
“I’ll drink with you,” Bernice said. “But you may as well go out. I’ll be here when you get back.”
His head went up at that. There was something pathetic about him.
“You mean that, Bernice?”
“I’ll be here,” she said.
He laughed. “Where is the bottle?” She got a glass for him, poured him a drink. She poured one for herself into the glass from the downstairs lavatory.
He drank it down and exhaled pleasurably, making a round O of his mouth. “Good. There isn’t another drink in that thing, is there?”
She poured another.
He drank it, and sank down on his bed. “You’re good to me, Bernice, all of a sudden. Why?”
“Maybe you were right,” she suggested. “Maybe I had to get to know you to get to like you.”
He seemed afraid to ask for another drink. A refusal would hurt just at that moment. “Hold your glass,” she said, and poured him a double one.
An hour later, Bernice left him singing on the bed. She went downstairs to the study, crossed it, and entered the lavatory. She filled the glass with water, rinsed it well, and replaced it in the medicine chest.
As she came out into the library, the telephone rang.
She ran to her desk and snatched up the receiver before it could shrill again. Suppose Lloyd struggled up enough to answer that telephone in his condition?
“Hello,” she said.
It was a man. He was an importer, he said, and gave his name. It sounded like Aboulschetti. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Deerman,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Her voice was firm. “This is Mr. Deerman’s secretary. Mr. Deerman is just this minute getting ready to leave the house. If you’d care to call in the morning—”
“But—”
“In the morning” Bernice said. She replaced the receiver.
On the way upstairs she did something she hadn’t done for a long time. She prayed.
Not for herself. And not for the soul of Lloyd Deerman. But just that the telephone wouldn’t ring while she was this far from it.
The thought sent her running upstairs and into Lloyd’s bedroom. She found him sprawled out on his back across the bed.
“Get up,” she said. “Get your coat on. It’s time to go.”
Lloyd struggled up on his elbows. His head flopped forward.
“Go? Are you kiddin’, Bernice? I couldn’t go anywhere like this.”
“You’re all right. Let me help you with your coat.” Oh, wonderful, she thought, I’ve overdone it. In a night club he consumes a bottle of Scotch. Tonight, with half a dozen drinks, he’s limp as a dishcloth. “What will your friends think?”
“Who cares? Nobody. Goin’ to see a man ‘bout some dog-eared rugs. Name’s Abulchetty. Something. Called this morning. ‘Member? Or did I tell you? Arab. Arab stuff. Don’t give God Almighty ’bout it—”
Bernice felt cold between her shoulder blades. Abulchetty had just called. Suppose he had called to cancel the appointment? She decided she had to force it, before the rug importer called back.
“He just called,” she said. “Do you hear? You’re late now. Lloyd, get up. If you don’t get a grip on yourself, I—well, whatever I said, I—I couldn’t mean it.”
“I didn’t believe you meant it, anyway,” he snarled at her. But he stood up and shrugged into his coat. She helped him across the room.
Her breathing was ragged now. Lloyd staggered out into the hall. She stared at the steep old stairwell. Her mouth parted. This was it. No rehearsal. No second chances. No misses allowed. It had to be quick, vicious, and right. She had no idea how hard a man could fall without dying, or how long it would take him to die. She knew only that Lloyd had to fall, and Lloyd had to die.
At the mouth of the stairwell she stepped back from Lloyd. She cried out as though missing her step. Arms outstretched like two thin battering rams, she struck against the tottering giant.
He spun almost all the way around on his heels, bending at the waist. For one horrible second, Bernice thought he was going to fall toward her. With paralytic motion he reached out for her, and then toppled backward. He didn’t utter a sound. His head struck the sharp edge of his wall guide rail. It sounded like the crack of a whip. Then he bounced away from the wall and sprawled out helplessly, striking head and shoulders first. His legs rolled over him then. The whole house shook. He landed against the railing. Bernice heard it rip and shatter under his weight. The flooring beneath her quivered. Bernice began to be paralyzed. By the time he had stopped twisting and rolling down the steps and lay sprawled out over the lower stairs, Bernice was rigid. For the moment, she was unable to move.
She stood at the head of the stairs, staring down at him.
He had lost his glasses in the fall. His empty, sightless eyes, white as slugs, were fixed on her at a crazy angle, because his head was twisted over his left shoulder.
Bernice thought sickly that she might have loved him, except for those hideous, sightless eyes. Eyes that had never seen her.
But eyes that were watching her now.
Four
Bernice was clever.
She told Findlay where she and Lloyd had met, how much he had offered her to leave Brennan’s and work for him. She looked at the detective. How could I refuse such an offer? her glance inquired. He made another note in his little black book. She explained again that she had been transcribing a letter. The paper was still in the typewriter. She gestured toward it. Lloyd had called out to her from upstairs. He was going out and was impatient when she didn’t answer quickly enough. When she came out into the lower foyer, Lloyd was already at the head of the stairs. She cried out, warning him. Then like something in a nightmare, she saw him trip, sprawl out, and fall down the stairs. She didn’t know until she smelled his breath that he was drunk. She had no idea where he had got the whisky, or how he had smuggled it into the house. Findlay nodded gravely. Her score: perfect. It was just that Findlay didn’t believe her.
Other people came into
the library. She felt better. Less alone. Less afraid.
Clive Behrens flopped into an easy chair. The lawyer was a classically handsome man in an expensively tailored suit. He was forty-nine. He’d been closely associated with Lloyd Deerman for the past fifteen years. He had known Lloyd in Deerman’s better years. Behrens continued to overlook the impatience and bitterness growing in Lloyd. He still considered Lloyd a rather heroic figure. A man who’d overcome terrific odds. Built up a fortune.
Joe Sanders was Lloyd’s business partner. He was a thin, salmon-colored man. He must have been in bed somewhere when his wife had located him. He was hastily dressed. When he sat in a leather chair and pinked up his trousers at the knees, you could see he hadn’t taken time to put on his socks.
Marsha Deerman was a stout little woman with graying hair. Her face was splotched from her weeping. She sat in a straight chair, her shoulders round. Her daughter, Francie, was a lovely brunette girl. She appeared slightly startled at the facts of life—or perhaps it was the way she plucked her eyebrows. But she was exceptionally pretty. In a few years she was going to be darkly beautiful.
Francie pulled a straight chair over and sat close to her mother. She patted her stout hand as they waited. Dr. Mundy sat alone on the leather divan, reclining at one end with his arm resting on its side.
Findlay spoke first to Marsha Deerman. “I’m very sorry about what has happened to your son, Mrs. Deerman.
Anything I say, it’s just that I’m doing my job. I hope you’ll understand that. I’m only making sure that your son’s death was accidental.”
Marsha interrupted him. She looked up, her eyes red-rimmed. “I’m sure it was an accident,” she said huskily.
“Oh?” Findlay looked at her. “Are you?”
“Of course. Why must you—why must you make something else of it? My poor son fell down the stairs. In my fears it has happened a hundred times before. I didn’t want him to live here alone.”
“Doesn’t that seem rather pat?” Findlay inquired. “He was going to fall down the stairs. Everybody knew it. Now tonight he has done it.”
“He had been drinking,” Mrs. Deerman whispered.
Findlay nodded. “Yes.”
“He was often drunk,” she persisted. “He was my son, Mr. Findlay. I knew his strength. And—I knew his weakness. I’m sure Dr. Mundy will tell you it was—an accident.”
“I already have stated that,” Mundy said.
Findlay looked at him a moment. Then the detective’s eyes moved across Bernice and back to Marsha Deerman.
“How well do you know Miss Harper?” he said.
“I’ve known her during these last few months. My son spoke very warmly of her.”
“Oh? He did?”
“Very highly of her.”
Findlay nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Deerman,” he said.
Mundy broke in. “I’m sure you’re doing your job, Findlay,” he said. “But I was talking with the medical examiner—”
“I’ll talk to him, too,” Findlay said. “Just a few questions. If you don’t mind, Doctor. I’m representing the police department here tonight. Long as I do, I’ll have to do it my way.”
“What’s clearly an accident need not be subjected to scrutiny by the homicide bureau,” Mundy said.
“All right,” Findlay said. There was an edge to his gray voice. “Let’s say I’ll be brief about this, then.” He faced the lawyer.
“Mr. Behrens, I know it will be some time before Mr. Deerman’s will can be probated and read. I want to know only one thing about that will. Has it been changed—” he consulted his notebook—”within the last six months?”
Behrens smiled at him. “Deerman wasn’t a man to change his mind and his will precipitately. I assure you that his will was not altered in the last four years.”
Findlay shrugged, wrote in his notebook, and thanked the lawyer.
Bernice sat behind her desk. From beneath the glinting barrier of her glasses, she watched the people as Findlay questioned them.
Sanders was next.
Sanders said, “No, Mr. Findlay. The account books would have to be audited. But so far as I know, and our firm isn’t so large that I’m out of touch with the bookkeeping department, Mr. Deerman hasn’t withdrawn anything but his expense allowances in the past year.”
“And if anything like that happened, you would be told about it?”
“I certainly would.” Sanders laughed. “Besides, Lloyd and I were close. We had no secrets from each other.”
Bernice felt laughter stirring in her throat. She was thinking about the false-fronted account book, hidden in her room in her mother’s Bronx apartment. No secrets?
“All right,” Findlay said. He turned to Bernice. “When you saw that Deerman was dead, why didn’t you call the police?”
“I didn’t know he was dead.”
“She called me,” Mundy interposed. “Immediately.”
“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”
“I didn’t know what to do. I was frightened. I knew Dr. Mundy. The first thing I thought was to call him.”
“A very smart first thought, Miss Harper. Let a doctor pronounce him dead. You notice the lights that are burning, the whisky on Deerman’s breath, the fact that the servants are out of the house, and the first thing you think of is to call the doctor. Or were you simply too smart to call the police?”
Behrens said, “Just a minute, Findlay. That’s pretty rugged.”
Joe Sanders said, “What’s smart about calling the police?”
“It’s a good idea,” Findlay replied. “Alone in the house. A fall.”
“I think I’d have done what Bernice did,” Sanders said. “I’d have called the doctor. He lives near. He would know what to do.”
“Shall we score another point for Miss Harper?” Findlay said. His gaze moved over them. “Let’s look at it this way. Deerman was drunk. How many times have you seen a drunk that’s been run over by a speeding car get up and walk away? Why, a drunk could fall off a church steeple and not get hurt.”
“Which makes the case for accidental death that much stronger,” Behrens said. “It was an impossible thing. You’re suggesting that Bernice Harper is a very sinister and clever woman. If she were as clever as you suggest, she’d know that there was not a chance in the world that a man as big as Lloyd would be killed falling down stairs even as steep as those.”
“Perhaps that explains the place where Deerman was hit at the back of his head?” Findlay said.
“No,” said Mundy. “The loose inside guide rail explains that. He reached for the newel post, tripped, spun around, cracked his head on the guide rail, and loosened it from the wall plaster.”
“Yes,” Findlay said. “That could be the explanation. Or it could be an explanation. Did he strike—or was he struck?”
Behrens snorted. “Will you get your salary this month, Findlay, without making a murder of my client’s death? Or are you paid on commission?”
Findlay looked at him. “You know how we are paid,” he said. “And how little.”
“Then why don’t you relax?” Behrens said. “Such devotion to duty is just a little chilling.”
Findlay didn’t answer Behrens. He looked at Bernice. Her face remained set. Her mouth was a straight line.
“You have a good score, Miss Harper. All your answers check and double check. Everybody is sure you’re innocent, I never saw a better score. A girl making a good salary, pleased with her job. No changed will, no insurance benefits. I’ll go out now and talk with the medical examiner.
None of you folks need stay, I guess. Maybe you would like to go up to your mother’s for tonight, Miss Harper? I’ll get a cab for you, if you like. Would you like that? It’s not that I bear you malice. How could I? We never met before. If you’re lucky, you’ll never see me again. I have a feeling you’re going to be lucky. I have a feeling there won’t even be an inquest. I’m pretty sure the M. E.’s office will release Mr. Deerman’s body to a
ny funeral parlor his mother would care to select. How about that, Mrs. Deerman? Of course, I’m not the final word on that. But it’s just a feeling I have. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go out and talk to the M. E.”
Bernice felt the breath sigh across her lips.
When she exhaled, her lungs burned and ached. She had no idea how long she’d been holding her breath.
Five
“That awful detective!” Marsha Deerman said.
She was holding both of Bernice’s hands. She was dressed in black. She had been wearing mourning the week since Lloyd’s death. She would continue to wear it. Lloyd had been her whole world. She had blamed herself that he was blind. He made a fortune alone and it seemed to her that he’d done it in part for her. Lloyd had been trying to show her he didn’t hate her because he was blind. When he drank, she understood. She could feel all his bitterness and loneliness. And when he died, part of her died with him.
“I wanted to hit that Findlay,” Francie said. “I wanted somebody to hit him.”
“He was doing his job,” Bernice said. No one would notice that she was bearing black. The dress did nothing for her. Francie’s showed off her figure. Mrs. Deerman’s displayed the darkness of her grief. “After all, I was the only person in the house. He had to suspect somebody.”
“Why?” Mrs. Deerman said. “Even the medical examiner said it was just one of those freak accidents that simply happen. I think my son had fallen before. He would never admit it. But once when I visited him, he was very bruised and couldn’t get around at all well. He only laughed at me when I questioned him, but I was sure that he had fallen.”
My God, Bernice thought, suppose he hadn’t died. Suppose he had lived, knowing that I had pushed him. She shivered.
“There,” Mrs. Deerman said. “The police have closed the whole case. It was an accident. We won’t talk about it.”
“Just the same,” Francie said, “I never saw a man I hated more than I did that detective.”
“I was afraid of him,” Bernice admitted.
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