Leave Well Enough Alone

by Rosemary Wells

  “Dear, I don’t know. I expect she might have a little tummy ache.”

  Dorothy shuddered. “Oh, for crying out loud,” Mr. Hoade replied angrily.

  I wonder if I’ll be attacked in Grand Central Station, tonight. Dorothy asked herself as she lay on her bed. She figured she’d better lie down in case someone checked on her. Maureen had told her several times to get the early train from Philadelphia in order to get the last train out to Newburgh. Instead, Dorothy had chosen to go riding just one more time with Baldy. That meant she’d have to wait four hours in Grand Central Station for the morning milk-train home. “Go ahead,” had been Maureen’s parting shot yesterday morning over the phone. “So long as you’re here by seven A.M. and we can leave for the beach. But don’t blame me if some hobo comes up to you. If you see a policeman, stay nearby. Don’t fall asleep on a bench or someone will come up and take your purse or maybe knife you.” Dorothy punched her pillow. She pictured herself following a policeman around the station for four hours. She pictured herself going downstairs with a razor blade, one side protected by adhesive tape. Opening up the painting again. The girls would be watching television, of course. Other than Jenny and Lisa, the house would be empty. As she fell into a doze, Dorothy remembered about Mrs. Hoade’s book. She’d been so disappointed for Mrs. Hoade that she’d hardly had time to feel disappointed herself. Her name wouldn’t be in print, after all. Nothing to impress Sister Elizabeth with, after all. Well...

  An empty house would have been too good to be true. Dinna, who had been asked to sit for the girls, had stayed on to finish some sewing. Dorothy stood in the darkened living room watching Dinna’s broad back through the laundry-room door at the end of the pantry. Could I still be dreaming in bed? she asked herself. If I am, I’m definitely not going to do this when I wake up. You don’t have to, she said reasonably to herself. There’s still time to put the razor blade back. Take the tape off, go watch Sid Caesar with Jenny and Lisa, and forget about the whole thing.

  The laundry-room door was closed. Through the glass Dinna could have a full view of Dorothy, standing at the foot of the stairway, opening the strongbox in the wall. On the other hand, she probably couldn’t hear much. The window was thick.

  She slid her hand around the back of the frame and released the tiny clasp. The blade went into the paper easily, at the outlines of the safe. Dorothy looked up. Dinna still sewed away. The red, raw arm lifted the needle and fell to the cloth, something tweed, in a mesmerizing rhythm. The single light in the laundry room twinkled on Dinna’s yellow hair. Dorothy pressed the blade against the depressed circle around the knob. She scraped away enough paper to free it. She couldn’t see the numbers.

  She closed the painting again and walked over to the chair that Mrs. Hoade favored. She turned on the whaler’s lamp. After a minute by the grandfather clock, Dorothy sauntered back, her hands in her pockets. Dinna had not turned around. She had not finished sewing. Twelve-six-forty-eight, Dorothy repeated to herself. Is it to the left first, the right? Am I supposed to listen for clicks? Dinna’s shoulders breathed heavily under her flowered housedress in the pool of light in which she sat. The metal door swung away, suddenly. Oh, dear Jesus, bless me, said Dorothy. Dinna stopped sewing. She shook out some threads from the tweed jacket she’d been mending and turned around. She walked directly from the laundry room through the pantry into the kitchen. Dorothy sat in Mrs. Hoade’s chair beside the whaler’s lamp. The safe and the painting were closed. In her hands was a manila envelope....

  One more time, Dorothy got up and checked that the door to her room was locked. She sat on the bed. The shrill laughter from the television echoed down the hall. Dorothy tossed the envelope onto her bureau, noticing as she did that the handwriting on it looked familiar. WILL, it said, in a hand identical to the numbers on the locket picture. The same purple ink, as well.

  I, Miriam Hess Coburg, it began. Dorothy listened for half a minute. No one was in the hall. She would have heard them come up on the creaking stairway.

  Being of sound mind, the same flowing hand continued, and in full awareness that this will, called holographic because it was prepared without the assistance of attorneys (whom I have no wish to consult) or the signature of witnesses (whom I have no wish to inform), is legal in the state of Pennsylvania and shall remain so after my death. I do bequeath all my worldly goods to be held in trust, for the benefit during her lifetime of my faithful friend and companion, Hilda Borg. “Miss Borg!” said Dorothy in a whisper. “Miss Borg, you’re rich!” She read quickly through to the end. The rest simply stated that when Miss Borg died the “worldly goods” would be held in trust for whatever great-grandchildren might be alive. They weren’t to get the money until they had reached the “sensible age of thirty.” It was signed and dated September 11, 1944. “Miss Borg!” said Dorothy again. She stuffed the will into her pocket. The Hoades had been gone over an hour and a half. How far was the restaurant? She still had a little time. Perhaps thirty minutes? So Katherine Hoade really was a baby and really was at Crestview. The bill proved that. She wiped her hand on her dungarees before touching the light switch. She could feel the sweat form again in the creases of her palm the minute the light was out.

  “I left my bathing cap at the pool,” Dorothy said to Jenny and Lisa. “I’m just going to get it.”

  “Uh huh,” they both answered, not taking their eyes off the gray-blue screen for a moment. Their hands popped in and out of a shared Cracker jack box like mechanical pincers on an assembly line.

  “Don’t swallow the prize,” she advised them before she closed the door. The girls did not answer or seem to know she was gone. I think I’ll always picture them like that, Dorothy thought, open mouths, open eyes, blue light not found in nature.

  The sharp pebbles in the driveway abused the soles of her bare feet as she hopped over them. Dorothy cursed herself for forgetting her shoes. The raspberry runners around the cottage would hurt even more. The beginnings of a ground fog had gathered on the lawn. The dew soaked the cuffs of her dungarees and the cloth made an uncomfortable rim of cold around each ankle. As she ran across the grass her cross bounced up and struck her painfully in the teeth. Dorothy thought of finding Mrs. Hoade’s wallet over three months ago, of hoping to be paid for a good deed. I really am just trying to do what I should, she thought. It’s Miss Borg’s money, and I’ll just give her the will and be done with it. She searched her conscience. No, she certainly did not expect Miss Borg to reward her in any way. Perhaps she could finally believe that she was doing something just because it was right. What then was that newborn snake-in-the-grass at the back of her mind? Yes, of course. Dorothy Coughlin, Girl Detective. My, would Sister be pleased with her courage. Would they have a special assembly for her?

  “Miss Borg! It’s me!” she said as she knocked. The door opened under her hand. “Miss Borg! It’s me, Dorothy!” No answer. Dorothy flicked on the light. The house was empty.

  There was nothing left save the two beds, the chairs, and the dresser. Every book, every pot had been removed. “Miss Borg!” cried Dorothy, nearly weeping at the bare mattress and the empty hooks over the kitchen sink. She marched over to the dresser, looked at her reflection in the mirror, and stamped. Stuck in one side of the mirror was a long-dried palm frond. Palm Sunday. How long ago? Dorothy removed it. It crumbled into a hundred powdery pieces in her hand. She opened each drawer of the dresser. The smell of lavender was faintly evident. There was nothing in any of the drawers but a single straight pin.

  In the wastebasket next to the bureau was a long-dried broken nail-polish bottle. Windsor.

  Warily, she made her way back across the lawn toward the big house. I wonder what Mrs. Hoade would do? she asked herself, if she knew her husband’s been cut off from his inheritance. At once Dorothy was glad for Mrs. Hoade. It seemed just punishment for Mr. Hoade’s all-around awfulness. He’d paid Miss Borg well, of course. Now Dorothy realized that the ten thousand dollar cashier’s check he’d given Miss Borg
had been in case this will ever turned up. Miss Borg had Mr. Hoade over a barrel, if it did. On the other hand he had her over a barrel because he could easily prove prescribed medicine had not been given. He had the autopsy. Miss Borg must have been on the place taking care of Mrs. Coburg for years. Had she taken care of Jenny for a time too, before the Hoades had lived in South America? Jenny had recognized some German so perhaps she had.

  Dorothy wondered if Mrs. Hoade would leave Mr. Hoade, knowing he was no longer rich, or would she go along with his plan, which would undoubtedly be to destroy the will? If I give the will to her, she’ll at least have a choice. If she writes Miss Borg in Germany and lets her know, she’ll be free of him. If I were Mrs. Hoade, Dorothy decided, I would want me to give her the chance. What a position I’m in! she thought. “Pride goeth before a fall,” said someone in her mind.

  The Hoades had come back. There was a single small light in the living room and one upstairs. The words laute Anschreien remained stubbornly in her mind. They had become loud-shrieking-at in a sort of English German. At any rate, they suited Mr. Hoade better than any English word she knew. So he had gone down there and tried to get the old lady to sign a new will, just in case the old one ever turned up. The unsigned new will was what had been thrown away the night she’d hidden in Jenny’s cave. An unsigned space for a witness on an unsigned will. He’d pushed her over the line, kept her alive on drugs beyond her own will to live, and made her last days so miserable that Miss Borg had simply let her go in peace. Well, he was going to see! He was just going to see!

  Dorothy’s feet rushed noiselessly through the velvety grass; the fog had now risen to a height level with her knees. She felt as if she were walking straight through a cloud. She glanced into the living room ahead of her. The red student shade glowed on the whaler’s lamp beside Mrs. Hoade’s favorite reading chair. Everything looked peaceful. Upstairs the light was quite a bit brighter. Then she stopped dead in the fine cloud of mist that swept over the garden and up the trunks of the trees. The upstairs light was on in her room, and she knew she’d turned it off. Someone was in there. The envelope, saying WILL in that distinctive purple hand, was sitting right on her bureau.

  She rubbed her hands on her dungarees exactly as she’d done before she touched the switch on her bedroom wall, as if, by this gesture, she could remember not doing it. She thought she saw a shadow move across the back of the room. Then she saw his profile, quite clearly, as he bent over and picked something off the floor. The fog, whirling around her now like a live creature, threatened to envelop the house, Dorothy, and the whole world around in its gentle, blinding embrace. Stuffing the will into her back pocket, she forced herself to move, to unroot her feet, to go into the house.

  “Dorothy?” said Mrs. Hoade. She put down her drink and rubbed one eye. “We were wondering where you were. I was going to go get you. Jenny said you went to get your bathing cap?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Hoade. I have something to show...

  “Dear, have you packed? It’s time to go!”

  “No, but...

  “Well, if you want to make your train you’ll have to hurry. You have no time. Come now, run upstairs and get your things together. When you come down I’ll give you my surprise! Hurry!”

  “But Mrs. Hoade...

  “Hurry!”

  I’ll tell her in the car. I’ll give it to her in the car, Dorothy thought. It’ll be better anyway since he won’t even be around. She made as much creaking noise as she could going up the stairs. If he was still in her bedroom he’d be able to slip out.

  No one was there. Her things had been given a thorough going through, however. Dorothy threw her clothes into her suitcase in a jumbled mass. She had no time to change into her slacks or her traveling skirt and blouse. All the better for not being attacked in Grand Central, she told herself. Where was he? Was he waiting in the bedroom? She picked up the envelope gingerly from the dresser and then stuffed it into her suitcase with everything else. She checked her closet and drawers and the spine of Ivanhoe, where she’d hidden Miss Borg’s paper just over a week before. For a moment she hesitated over her finished paperback mysteries. Because of the riding boots, the bulk was too much for the suitcase. The lid would not close. She scattered the books on her bed, closed the suitcase with one awkward knee on top, twisted the rope handle that Matthew had improvised for her, thanked God the hinges hadn’t given, and made her way downstairs, her wet bare feet slipping in her loafers.

  At the foot of the stairs, Mrs. Hoade held out the old tweed jacket Dinna had repaired as if it were a Paris original. “It’s old, but it’s still good,” Mrs. Hoade said. “I had Dinna mend the lining this evening. It’s an old cut, but a real riding jacket all the same. The Harris tweed will never wear out.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Hoade,” said Dorothy as she fingered the sleeve. The cloth was fuzzy and hard.

  “And here’s your check,” said Mrs. Hoade, handing her an envelope and draping the jacket over Dorothy’s shoulder. Dorothy slid the envelope into her pocket next to the will.

  “Now rush out and get into the car,” said Mrs. Hoade. “We haven’t a minute to spare. The train only stops a second in Monastery.”

  Mr. Hoade’s voice came from the darkness at the top of the stairway. “I’m taking her,” he said, and appeared almost instantly in the living room.

  “It’s all right, John, I’ll...

  “Give me the keys,” he said firmly. “You’re as drunk as a skunk.”

  “John! What a thing to say in front of Dorothy! I’m perfectly...

  “Give me the keys,” he said more firmly, his voice rising. Then he turned and smiled in Dorothy’s direction. “Dorothy knows all about us by this time, don’t you, Dorothy?” he added.

  Mrs. Hoade closed her eyes. He plucked the car keys from her outstretched hand as if they were a piece of fruit on a low branch. “Good-bye, Dorothy,” said Mrs. Hoade. “I’ll write to you, and I’ll tell the girls good-bye for you. And thank you,” she said, planting a shrunken kiss on Dorothy’s cheek.

  “Ready?” asked Mr. Hoade.

  As he hoisted her suitcase into the trunk of the car, Dorothy made the sign of the cross in the air. This, then, is what it’s for, she thought, but she wasn’t sure it would work, any more than she’d been when Baldy had asked about it. The last glimpse she’d had of Miriam Coburg’s portrait flashed into her mind as he started up the engine. She had been saying good-bye to Mrs. Hoade, but Mrs. Hoade’s distracted, humiliated eyes had not focused on Dorothy. It seemed, instead, that the woman on the wall behind her was gazing at Dorothy with new vehemence. Was there some fragment, not of life but of will, left in that face? Mrs. Coburg stood guard over an empty safe, but her bureau drawers, her possessions, still retained the fragrance of her perfume, the living smell of a time before she was dead. The courage it must have taken to withstand Mr. Hoade’s visits was evident in the doughty carriage of her body as the painter had seen it. Could a vestige of that strength live on like the perfume and reach out to touch Dorothy with more magic than the sign of the cross?

  “Fog’s coming up,” said Mr. Hoade as he turned right onto Route 8.

  “Yes,” said Dorothy. He must have seen the envelope. He couldn’t have missed it.

  “Too bad you have to baby-sit on a holiday,” he said.

  “Oh, yes, well, I don’t really mind. My sister hasn’t had a day off all summer and—”

  “Young baby?”

  “Nine months. Ten,” said Dorothy. A car whizzed by and swerved to avoid them.

  “Drunken kids,” he commented. “There oughta be a law against any kids driving. They cause all the accidents.”

  “Yes,” said Dorothy unsteadily.

  “Can happen to anyone,” he muttered. “The most innocent people get killed in accidents.”

  Dorothy could not think well. The fog swirling around the outside of the car seemed to fill her head as well as the highway. She glanced sideways at Mr. Hoade’s face. She could see no resembla
nce to Miriam Coburg’s features. There was a more severe distance, however, between his manner and the manner that sprung from the old woman’s being. The gentle hand on the dog’s head, the imperious yet easy smile, had probably surfaced in some sloppy, twisted way in her grandson. Or had it been lost in the two generations that separated them? Dorothy pressed her arms close against herself, as she felt a single drop of water fall into the seam of her sleeve and creep frigidly down her side. She wondered how this Mr. Hoade had become a part of her life. He had come into it like one of fifty strangers emerging from a bus and then vanishing into a stream of other strangers. But he hadn’t vanished. And he wouldn’t if he’d seen the envelope. If there was just that chance, if he wasn’t planning anything, if she got back to Newburgh, he and Mrs. Hoade would fade forever into the context of passengers in her life. In seventeen more minutes, when she was on the train and away, they would become members of the public at large. But there was no real possibility of his not having seen the envelope. Dorothy was tempted just to give over the will. What was he saying now? His words spun past her as rapidly as the white lines on the road. The hairs on the ugly maroon-and-green-plaid seat between them seemed to stand up in electric anticipation. “Accidents can happen to anyone,” he observed, lighting a cigarette.

  “I guess they can,” said Dorothy.

  “You never know when something’s going to come at you out of the blue.”

  “No, you don’t,” Dorothy agreed. The lonely countryside around them showed itself in patches through the fog. No car had passed since the drunken teenagers. Shrouded fields, and black unmoving trees that had cheered her so often on her rides with Baldy, offered her nothing but their mute immortality.

  “I hate dark roads like this,” he said.

  “I know what you mean,” Dorothy answered.