Murder at Arroways

by Helen Reilly

  Damien pulled at her gloves, resettled a fold of her coat. She was thoroughly troubled. She had issued an ultimatum to Oliver; she was going to have to do the same thing to Bill. The police were searching hard for Jones. According to Mrs. Cambell, who had dropped in at Arroways that morning, he hadn’t yet been found. If Bill knew where Mike Jones was he ought to tell the police, friend or no friend. Innocent, Jones had little to fear; guilty, he should be handed over. But Bill might not know where Jones was now.

  She said aloud, “The police may never find Jones. No, I can't wait any longer—and if Jones is the murderer, your sister has nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Well, if that’s the way it has to be, that’s the way it has to be.” Oliver spoke quietly, with resignation. Damien didn’t look at him. She turned her head and glanced at trees and bushes and stone-walled meadows moving past the window, at a graveyard on the hill—

  A graveyardl She sat up sharply. There was no graveyard on the way into town. “Where are you taking me?” she demanded of Oliver. “This isn’t the road into Eastwalk.” .

  “Don’t get excited.” For the first time he smiled. The smile warmed the bleak planes of his face, brought him closer, made him human. “I have to go over to my ship. There’s something wrong with one of my fuel pumps. I’m going to meet a mechanic there. It won’t take long, the airfield’s only a couple of miles from here. Don’t think, Damien,” he returned his attention to his driving, “that I’m not grateful for what you’ve done. If you hadn’t kept quiet, Jancy might be under arrest. That would just about kill my mother.” The darkness was in him again. She watched him shake it off. “Tell me about yourself and Jane. I remember her from Middleboro. An indomitable lady. Do you like New York, like your job?"

  Damien settled back against the cushions. It was pleasant to talk idly. There was a liveliness in Oliver, an inner quickness that carried you on wings. The October sunlight coming from under a whipped-cream cloud was bright, the rolling fields a rich maize. Leaves fluttered down from scarlet maples, yellow hickory trees. There was a smell of wood smoke in the air. It was sweet to be alone like this in a car with Oliver Mont—sweet and dangerous. Suddenly Damien knew that, or rather realized it to the full, because hadn't she, in a way, known all along that he attracted her as no man had ever attracted her before? Rousing herself, drawing off from the danger, was like trying to break the clinging veils of a golden nightmare.

  All at once, without effort of her own, she was back in the ordinary world. The descent to earth was hard, jarring. The change of mood came, not from her, but from Oliver himself. They had entered hillier country. The terrain around them was wilder and more heavily wooded. They came suddenly to a driveway on the left, winding its way upward through tall pines. A sign near handsome cypress gates said Howard Dalrymple. Above the nearer trees the roofs of an extensive hunting-lodge were blocked against more distant pines. Smoke rose lazily from a big chimney.

  Oliver said briskly, stopping the car, “I’m glad Dal-rymple’s here. I want to have a word with him. I’ve been trying to get hold of him for a month. There’s no good reason why he shouldn’t use our line for his freight. Wait here a minute, will you? I won't be long. You don't mind?” Damien said no, and Oliver got out, walked up the driveway, and vanished among the trees.

  Damien was glad to be alone, free of Oliver Mont’s presence. Now that he wasn’t with her she could stop, look, and listen. What was this thing that happened to her when she was within sight and sound of him? It was as though her will ceased to function and she became someone else, a drifter, without roots or reason. It mustn’t go on. She must put an end to it.

  Bird songs, the distant tinkle of a cowbell, the wind in the grasses; the car was facing west. Fifty feet ahead the road went around a turn so that a wall of great trees confronted her. There was some underbrush, not much. The place was almost like a park, and yet lonely. The cow moved away. The birds went on chirping and calling. It was against those small noises that the explosion was pasted, a great jagged hole in the peace and stillness.

  The sound sending out blasting echoes was the sound of a shot. It tore through Damien’s nerves, shriekingly. Oliver, she thought. Oliver had gone up the driveway, and the shot had come from straight ahead, but the drive might have taken a turn to the west—

  She was out of the car. She stumbled, fell, got up, and began to run toward the wall of trees, in under them. Briars tore at her stockings, twigs snatched at her coat, her hair. The ground rose. Her lungs labored. There was a stitch in her side. A hundred yards inside the wood she stood still and leaned against a granite boulder for support. Below her a sizable brook tumbled and foamed through a miniature valley. What looked like a bundle of old clothes was flung down on the turf on the near side of the brook, and Oliver had his back to it and was running up the hill, wiping his hands on a handkerchief stained with the brilliant scarlet of blood.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hide-Out

  The phone in Luttrell's office rang at 2:08. The call was from the town police. McKee was with Luttrell when the call came through. The two men had already had a full day. The Scotsman had insisted on going into every angle of Randall Mont's death, purportedly from heart failure, almost seven months earlier.

  Like Damien, he had reflected that if by any chance Eleanor Mont had wanted her freedom, Randall Mont had died at a convenient time for his widow. Maria Mont was already dead. Everything Maria had went to Randall, and through Randall, by will, to his wife—except Maria's rings, destined for her granddaughter. He put the rings aside for a moment. They could be incidental, part of a larger pattern. Anne Giles, he was sure of it, had had something on the Monts, on Eleanor Mont, at any rate. Anne Giles had not only been in Eastwalk, she had been at Arroways on the night Randall Mont died. Later she had been killed herself. Mont's death had to be scrutinized.

  McKee had examined the ravine into which Randall Mont had crashed down. He had gone into the weather conditions, talked to the garage man who had removed the wrecked car. He had examined the photographs taken on the scene, and in the house at Arroways, and consulted at length with the medical examiner, Dr. Birchall. Birch-all was very sure of his ground. He wasn't a particularly clever man but he was conscientious and thorough. Randall Mont had been suffering from angina. He, Birchall, had occasionally treated him when he was at Arrow'ays. Birchall had had conferences with Danby Street, the big heart man in New York. Death had come as they both had expected it to come. The awful thing was, Birchall said, that Randall Mont should have been driving a car on such a night, particularly after he had received the news that Maria Mont, to whom he was devoted, had died.

  McKee reluctantly concluded that if the facts were correct, and they had been carefully gone into at the time, Randall Mont's death had to be accepted as a natural one.

  The search for Mike Jones had also been stepped up. The persistently missing man had been at Arroways on Sunday night; he had been seen leaving the grounds here after the ladder fell. This was his last public appearance, to date. The police of neighboring towns and states had been on the lookout for him since Monday morning, with no success. Jones could have slipped through the net before it closed, could have reached Poughkeepsie or even New York, where he could lose himself indefinitely. So far, his friend Bill Heyward had made no attempt to contact him.

  McKee was uneasy about the floating Mr. Jones. He had just finished saying so when the phone rang. He knew before Luttrell spoke. The younger man picked up the instrument, listened, and swung round. McKee said, “Mike Jones?"

  Luttrell nodded, his face gray.

  “Where?"

  “Out Finsbury way, in the direction of the airfield. On the Dalrymple estate. My car’s downstairs."

  Damien stopped shivering in the circle of Oliver's arms and turned her head stiffly. They were standing on the rim of the wood above the brook, the sight of the sprawled figure mercifully hidden by intervening brush. “Steady," Oliver said, and she said, “Listen. Here t
hey come. The police."

  The state police arrived first, with Luttrell and McKee on their heels. Emerging from the trees McKee took time to note the incidence of the two figures on the slope below. Oliver Mont had just released Miss Carey from his arms. Luttrell saw it, too, and a muscle in his jaw contracted, and his motith thinned.

  Mont left the girl and came to meet them. There was strain in him, and he was on the white side, but voice and manner were controlled. He said, “Down there, beyond those alder bushes.” Luttrell went to join the state police, already at the brook. McKee remained where he was.

  “You found the body, Mr. Mont?”

  “Yes,” Oliver Mont said. “If I’d been quicker, even by half a minute, I might have saved Jones. He was shot just as I came over that hummock back there. I heard the shot and saw him fall. The lower part of his body was hidden by those bushes. I don’t think there was anyone close to him. The shot seemed to come from a little distance away.” He waved a hand. “Maybe from in among those willows beyond that stone wall.”

  McKee said, “Yes,” murmuringly; then, “I want to have a look at Jones. You called from somewhere in the neighborhood?” and when Oliver said he had called from the Dalrymple lodge McKee said, “Then take Miss Carey up to the house, will you, and wait until we come?”

  He watched the two figures out of sight, sent one of the state troopers to companion them, and continued on down the hill.

  Thin sunlight slanted bleakly through the window of the enormous main room in the hunting-lodge belonging to Howard Dalrymple. There was a fire, the remainder of one, in the vast fieldstone fireplace at the northern end. A pot on the hearth contained the residue of what had been vegetable soup. There was a bowl and used spoon beside it. Cracker crumbs were white specks on the gray stone. The logs had burned away to a mere handful of glow. The room was cold. Damien stared at stumps of candles ' on the mantel. She was alone in the room. Three quarters of an hour had passed since she and Oliver had entered the house. The Inspector had already questioned her. He was talking to Oliver in the kitchen. A door opened, and Oliver and Luttrell and the Inspector came in.

  Oliver moved across to Damien, pulled a chair close to hers, sat down in it, then got up and went to the wood box and put some logs and kindling on the fire. “Might as well be comfortable.”

  McKee nodded affably. Luttrell had asked him to take over, saying through his teeth, “I want to be fair, but—” McKee unaerstood. He looked at Oliver. “Now just let’s run through it once again, Mr, Mont. You started into town from Arroways with Miss Carey at around half past one, changed your mind, and drove out this way, intending to go over to the airfield first to meet a mechanic going to look at your plane.”

  Damien had given him that. Oliver nodded, and McKee went on. “You had heard that Dalrymple had gone south and when you saw this house was occupied, when you saw smoke rising from the chimney, the idea crossed your mind that Jones might be hiding out here. You didn't say anything to Miss Carey because you didn’t want to frighten her. Your suspicion was verified. As you approached the house you saw Jones walking off across the lawn to the west, and in under the trees. You followed him, heard the shot, saw Jones fall, didn’t see wrho shot him, didn’t see anyone, didn’t find any gun. That’s about it, isn’t it?” “That’s about it, Inspector.” Oliver lit Damien’s cigarette and his own.

  McKee studied him thoughtfully. A brief survey of the lodge had given them Jones’s story. Mike Jones had been in hiding in the place for some days, sleeping in a maid’s room off the kitchen and cooking ana keeping himself warm at the open fire. The electricity had been turned off. He had, however, left the lodge on one occasion. That was on Sunday night. Jones, the Scotsman was sure of it, had seen the person who had carried the ladder to the wall outside the blue room. Jones hadn’t done that —his death was proof of it. He had died because, standing behind the oak at the edge of the terrace watching the house, in all probability in an attempt to get in touch with Jancy Hammond, he had recognized the man or woman who had placed the ladder against the blue-room window.

  Also, there was little doubt that Mr. William Heyward had brought Jones here, or that he had at least suggested the lodge as a hiding-place. Heyward knew Dalrymple, could know that Dalrymple was fishing down on the Keys. He had thrown the police off the scent by driving south from Eastwalk last week instead of north and making a wide circle. Have a little talk with Mr. Heyward, who was being brought out here—

  Certainly this crime, and the crime out of which it had grown, was tied to Arroways and the people in it and their intimates and associates. Anne Giles had bee^n a Mont Fabric executive and a friend, Jones had once been engaged to Jancy Hammond. But there were certain puzzling features. The rings bothered him. If Anne Giles had been killed for thirty thousand dollars worth of antique stones she had stolen from Randall Mont's body and which she had refused to share, it seemed unlikely that Eleanor Mont, her son, daughter, or son-in-law could be in any way involved. They were all people of means. Well, not Oliver Mont, perhaps, his air line was still in the red. However, he could get money. Asking his mother for it would be easier than choking a woman to death. On the other hand, all the Monts were holding back something that wasn’t trivial. They were guarded, watchful, and afraid. Of what? Randall Mont’s death was definitely not murder. He was at last sure of that.

  Quick footsteps; a state trooper hurried into the room. Williams, the man shadowing Heyward, had lost his quarry. Heyward had given him the slip at around twelve o'clock, by the simple expedient of climbing through a lavatory window in the crowded garage in the middle of town.

  Damien Carey hadn’t left Arroways until half past one. She was a friend of Heyward’s. “Miss Carey," McKee said, “you don’t happen to know where Mr. Heyward is, by any chance? When did you last hear from him, see him?"

  Damien stirred in her chair, tried to throw off the exhaustion of extreme mental fatigue. Why did the Inspector speak of Bill in that tone, Bill who had gotten himself into hot water to save a friend? Mike Jones’s death was going to hit him hard.

  “The last time I saw Mr. Heyward, Inspector, was on

  Sunday night when he brought me back to Arroways at around half past ten, after I spent the evening at the Kendleton house."

  Speaking, a sudden wave of relief washed over her cleansingly. How stupid she had been to suspect Bill, ever, for a moment. In spite of the telephone call to Anne Giles that he had concealed, in spite of his hatred of Anne Giles for what she was trying to do, he could have had nothing to do with her death. Damien went back over Sunday night. Between the time Bill left her at the front door of Arroways and the time the ladder fell from the blue-room window rousing the house, Bill couldn’t possibly have moved the ladder, entered the blue room, searched it, and slashed open Anne Giles’s bags.

  McKee was standing with his back to the French windows in the east wall that opened on a terrace. Luttrell and the trooper had left the room to put the search for Bill in motion. Looking past the Inspector, Damien turned cold.

  A familiar head and shoulders—Bill was there, crossing the terrace, hat pulled down over his eyes, a bundle under his arm. He had approached the lodge from the rear, hadn’t seen the cars at the front. He pulled open a leaf of the French door, stepped through it, and stood stockstill.

  In that first moment he seemed to know instinctively, without words. He turned very white, and his eyes darkened until they were expressionless brown disks. He looked at the Inspector. “Mike?"

  “Dead," the Scotsman said.

  The package Bill was carrying fell with a thud. A can of evaporated milk with a blue-and-green label rolled to the edge of the hearth. Bill dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

  There was no time out for grief allowed in a murder investigation. McKee began to question Heyward. Heyward dragged himself together and answered laconically. Yes, he knew all along Mike was here; he had brought him here himself. He had given the man watching him the slip at noon t
hat day in order to get food to Mike, hadn't wanted to lead the police to him.

  He said narrowly, out of an inattentive pause, “What I don’t get, Inspector, is why Mike left this house, even for a moment. Mike was no dope, he knew the police were looking for him. Once in the open there was always a chance that he’d be seen. After Sunday night he told me he was going to stay indoors and not budge. I talked to him on the phone yesterday morning from town. No, I don’t see why he left the house, unless—”

  Bill sat up, and his eyes began to burn. “Mike might have left this house if he got a message purporting to be from me, or”—he stopped and they all knew he meant Jancy—“a message that took him down there to the brook so that he could be—killed.” Bill’s mouth twisted. He looked sick.

  McKee went to the door. He spoke to a trooper in the hall. Heyward was right. Someone had called the Dalrymple house at 12:03 that day. The call had lasted until 12:05 p.m. The switchboard operator couldn’t remember whether it had been made by a man or a woman or where it came from, except that it wasn’t a long-distance call.

  Damien felt a nervous tightening under her rib cage. Bill had returned to life. He was looking at Oliver queerly, the burn in his brown eyes brighter. “How did you happen to get out here, Mont?” he asked evenly. And when Oliver told him, Bill smiled. It wa,s a meaning smile. He said, on a musing note, “So you came driving out this way, by chance, and happened to notice smoke rising from the chimney. And all at once, just like that,” Bill snapped his fingers, “you decided that Mike Jones might be here.” j He pushed the chair back and got to his feet. Suddenly there was passion in him, in the gaze he bent on Oliver. But he continued to speak drawlingly. “You happened to arrive at the house as Mike happened to be leaving it— j to keep a little appointment made over the phone, down by the brook. Like hell you did.”