by Helen Reilly
Oliver didn’t move. He continued to look at Bill, over arms folded on a crossed knee, with the grave attention he might have given a revolutionary engine that aroused ihis interest. Finally he spoke. “Sorry, Heyward—but you’re off your nut. I didn’t make that telephone call. Odd that you thought of it, thought a call had been made. Odd, too, that you gave the man following you the slip at around noon. Was it to give yourself plenty of time? There’s one person Mike Jones would have gone down to the brook to meet without question. Quite a coincidence your being in the neighborhood, your turning up here at this stage in the proceedings."
Damien sat stiffly in her chair, white and shaken. The room was full of bitterness, the clash of accusations and counteraccusations. The Scotsman put an end to it. He said, rousing himself when he saw that there was to be no more forthcoming, “Well, that will be all, for now. We'll probably want to talk to you people later on, so keep yourselves available,’’ and walked out of the room and out of the house.
The state police had things under control, were search ing for a gun they probably wouldn’t find. He had an appointment for which he was already tardy. Twenty minutes later he and Luttrell went up the steps of the large, ugly, red-brick funeral home opposite the library on the edge of Eastwalk, and into the undertaker’s private office. Arthur Manford, the head of the firm, was waiting for them, small and dapper and flurried.
“There they are, sir.’’ He waved at a bridge table set up in the corner. “We had to—eh—clothe the deceased in the—eh—suit in which she passed away. But the valuables and—eh—other atcessories are there. We had no use for them.” He flushed.
McKee walked over to the table and looked down. He gazed at the black-pearl ring and the black gloves that Anne Giles had worn, at the red cloche with the nose-veil, wondering idly how a woman would look in a coffin with a hat on. No, Mr. Manford was right to be shocked at the idea. It would be too obviously a gesture of departure, mocking and cynical.
The silver necklace with which Anne Giles had been choked was lying on the table. After being fingerprinted without result, it had been handed over to the undertaker with the rest of her things and it was carefully draped on a sheet of white paper as though it were in a show case exposed for sale. The clasp was fastened. McKee frowned. The neat circlet looked remarkably small. He leaned forward and picked the necklace up with a sudden sharp movement. The silver circlet parted at the front so that it was simply one long string of heavy links.
“What’s this?” he demanded of both men. Luttrell looked mystified. McKee touched the swinging ends of the necklace. “What’s this break here?” McKee held up the necklace pointing to the broken links at the two loose ends, where they had been crudely joined together in a hasty attempt at repair.
“Oh, that.” Luttrell was relieved. “It broke when the killer gave it a final and needless twist at the last, I guess. It had already done its work. The windpipe was crushed.”
McKee put the necklace in his pocket. Luttrell gave the undertaker a receipt for it. It wasn’t until they were outside, at the top of the broad shallow flight of steps, built for the carrying of burdens, that McKee explained to Luttrell.
“The police searched the cottage in which the Giles woman was killed at the time she died, and they evidently weren’t there,” he said musingly.
“What wasn’t there?” Luttrell was in a complete fog.
The Scotsman answered almost mincingly, as though he were juggling delicately with something precious, fragile, something that might shatter in his hands unless the most extreme care was used. “The missing silver squares at the front of the necklace, two squares, I think. Yes, probably two. Come on, Luttrell, I want to look at that cottage myself.” He started quickly down the steps.
Chapter Fourteen
The Silver Choker
The two square silver links of the necklace with which Anne Giles had been strangled weren’t in the living-room of the cottage on the bank of the little river, or anywhere else in the house. The links were small, four-fifths by four-fifths of an inch. They were also heavy. They had not been found earlier by the police. They had not been entangled in the dead woman’s clothing. They should have fallen in the vicinity of the chair in which Anne Giles had been sitting “when she was struck from behind and then, while she was dazed and helpless, the necklace was twisted and pulled tight. The police hadn’t found them, therefore the killer had. Whoever the killer was, he had taken the links away with him when he fled the cottage, leaving Anne Giles dead on the floor behind him.
Why? Why bother to remove two links of a necklace which the most casual eye could see was the instrument of death? Certainly not to conceal the means. Then—what intrinsic value had the two silver squares? It was one of those small and apparently inconsequential puzzles that occasionally cropped up in a murder case. In this instance McKee had a feeling that when the question was answered of why the killer had bothered to recover and remove the missing bits of necklace they would have taken an important step forward.
He dallied with the thought of a locket attached to the two front links, a locket holding something valuable— the key of a safe-deposit box, a scrap of paper, the combination of a safe—but Luttrell was positive that there had been no locket, that nothing had depended from the necklace. He had seen Anne Giles wear it several times when she was alive and walking around town. However, perhaps they had better check with the Monts.
McKee said positively not. It was the first real lead in a rank undergrowth of disconnected facts concealing the truth. For the time being, at any rate, they would keep the links strictly to themselves.
The file on Anne Giles was accumulating bulk. Meanwhile another file was being assembled, a file on Michael Albert Jones. Jones had been shot at five minutes of two. Death had been instantaneous. One of the first things that had been done was to establish the whereabouts of everyone under scrutiny in the killing of Anne Giles, at between one and three o’clock that afternoon.
The Dalrymple lodge, like the murdered woman’s cottage, was some distance from Arroways by road, the first a good five miles, the second almost three. Across the fields the route was considerably shorter, the distance cut almost two-thirds. An agile walker could, for instance, have gotten from Arroways to the lodge in half an hour, so that it would have taken approximately an hour to go over to the brook in the valley on the Dalrymple place, shoot Jones in that secluded spot, and return to home base.
Luttrell used the phone in the cottage, hung up, and read a list of names off to the Inspector, covering the period from one to three o’clock. Eleanor Mont—puttering around the grounds at Arroways and in the little guesthouse. Roger Hammond—out for a good walk. His wife, Jancy—in her car driving over the countryside. Hiram St. George was lying down nursing a cold and, as it was the maid’s day off, Linda had remained in and around the house after a brief trip to Arroways.
Listening, McKee shrugged. “Not much good without verification, and from the circumstances, they were all separated and alone, there can’t very well be any.”
Their work in the cottage was done. They were on the point of leaving it when a visitor arrived. McKee opened the closed door and came face to face with the dead woman’s cousin, Miss Stewart.
When the door opened the nurse took a step backward, and her hand went to her mouth. “Oh! You frightened me.”
Her hand dropped and she straightened her jacket, mlled at the brim of an unbecoming felt hat. Brown jumps, a short brown coat chosen for long wear rather han beauty, a plain, square face, reddish hair, and round brown eyes; there was something in Miss Stewart’s eyes hat detained McKee. She wasn’t dull-witted; there was nore cleverness in her than this careful, slightly dour, woman permitted to show. No doubt she was an excel-ent nurse. Nursing was not a profession that led to the iccumulation of wealth, of ease, pretty things. Anne Giles Iiad had money, it was now Miss Stewart’s. Look into her ivhereabouts last Friday night—
Her gaze moved past him to Luttrell
. McKee glanced over his shoulder. Luttrell had taken the necklace in order :o examine it more closely, was holding it in his hands, the broken ends dangling. Miss Stewart said, surprised, ‘That’s Anne’s choker, isn’t it?”
The trinket could hardly have been more aptly named; McKee was sharply annoyed at the nurse’s catching sight of it. Nothing to do now but go ahead. The woman looked close-mouthed, and if there was a leak they would know its origin. He said, “Miss Stewart, two of the silver squares are missing from your cousin’s necklace. Was there anything attached to the necklace? Were the two squares at the front a locket, and not, like the others, solid pieces— anything like that?”
But Miss Stewart corroborated Luttrell. There was no locket, and all the squares were the same. Where had she been earlier in the afternoon, at between one and three o’clock? She said she had been over here at the cottage :aking inventory. “In the middle of it I ran out of cigarettes md walked into town to get some.” She showed a new jack, displayed a sheet of paper with articles listed on it ‘I came back to try and finish the inventory. Mrs. Mont is very kind, but I’m anxious to get back to New York.”
The list could have been made previously. Miss Stew-irt’s lack of curiosity as to why she had been asked such a question was unusual. Told of Mike Jones’s death she merely looked thoughtful. But when McKee spoke of Damien Carey and the material Anne Giles had collected about her, a gleam, quickly suppressed, appeared at the back of the round brown eyes. Definitely Miss Stewart I knew more than she was telling, or meant to tell.
They left her. Driving into town, McKee suddenly recalled something else about the dead woman's cousin. Randall Mont’s death was a natural one beyond the possibility of a doubt. Yet this case had its origins somewhere in the past. He wasn’t yet satisfied that Maria Mont’s missing rings explained all the circumstances. Randall Mont wasn’t the only one who had died. There had been another death in the Mont family a little earlier. Maria Mont had died in the Mont apartment in New York, and Miss Stewart had been Maria Mont’s nurse and had been on duty at the time. Re-cover Maria Mont’s death and see whether there was anything there; back in Luttrell’s office in East- ' walk, he crossed directly to the desk, picked up the phone,„ and called New York. That was around four o’clock.
Damien didn’t get back to Arroways until a little after half past four. She returned to it not with Oliver in Oliver's car, but on foot with Bill Heyward. After the Inspector left the lodge, the naked animosity between the two men covered itself over. It was still there, under the surface, but there were no further verbal exchanges, they ignored each other, addressed themselves to her. Bill said, “Tough for you, Damien, to be in on this. Arroways hasn’t been exactly a bed of roses for you, has it?”
They were all on their feet. Oliver, cool and in perfect i control of himself, stood near the door in a waiting attitude. “If you’re ready, Miss Carey, shall we go?”
Damien was torn apart inside. Because she was aware then. Somewhere during those dreadful hours complete realization had overtaken her. Her feeling for Oliver was no passing infatuation. My dear, my dear, she thought, looking past his tall fair head, if only I could go with you, and we could be always together. The thought was almost unbearably sweet. She knew that it was impossible. Oliver was another woman’s property. It was terrible that this should have happened to her, that she should have learned fto love a man fully and completely, a man from whom she must be forever divided—but there it was. Linda stood between them, and Bill—at the moment very much Bill.
Bill could have gotten a ride into town with one of the state troopers. But he was still reeling under the impact of Mike Jones’s death. And even if tilings had been otherwise as far as she and Oliver were concerned, she couldn’t have left Bill summarily, without a word of sympathy, understanding, such consolation as a friend could offer, however empty. She had tried to convey something of the compassion she felt to Oliver, with her eyes. “I think I’ll walk back with Bill, Mr. Mont, if it’s not too far.”
Oliver had refused her message. His fleeting glance at |her was cold. He shrugged. “Okay. Whatever you please.” He went out of the room, taking the light with him, leaving pain and emptiness behind. Damien knew it was the sort of pain she would have to learn to accustom herself to. Perhaps in time the edge of it would dull. She wasn’t going to die because she had conceived a passion for a man she couldn’t marry, a man, moreover, who had given no sign that he loved her in return.
The walk across the fields wasn't too long. Bill didn’t talk much. He was as thoughtful and courteous as ever. He had much better manners than Oliver, who was careless, indifferent, sometimes didn’t seem to know that you were there. Bill helped her over walls and through gates, but it was like being with the shell of a person, until they started up the drive at Arroways. Then Bill jerked himself out of his dark abstraction.
“Damien—” He stood still on the gravel under a tall elm banked with rhododendrons and laurel. “You can’t go on staying here with the Monts. Not after this—”
She stopped him. “I don’t intend to stay here, Bill. If the bank people haven’t decided to give me a mortgage by tomorrow, I’m going back to New York. The mortgage can be arranged later, from there.”
“But what about now? Come down to Frances’s and have dinner. Stay the night. You can come back here tomorrow and get your things.”
If she did, she wouldn't be with Oliver, have to look at him, listen to his voice— Better that way. Begin as you meant to go on. “If your aunt wouldn’t mind, Bill, I'd like to have dinner and spend the evening. I won’t stay the night. It would seem too marked. After all, the Monts haven’t done anything to me, and Mrs. Mont has tried to be kind.”
“What about that wooden ball that almost hit you?” Bill demanded.
“That was an accident.”
“Well, maybe it was,” Bill conceded grudgingly, and went into the house with her.
There was no one in the shadow-hung spaces of the hall. Thinking of the sprawled body on green grass beside the brook, Damien shivered. Was it someone here who had pulled the trigger of the gun that had killed Mike Jones? She conquered an impulse to turn and flee, run out through the door. Instead she said, “I won’t be long,” and went upstairs. She longed for a shower, but it would take too much time. She contented herself with cold water on her face and throat and arms, changed into a fresh blouse and skirt and did her face and then her lips, with the remains of an old lipstick—not the one Roger Hammond had stepped on when he searched her things. Roger Hammond seemed a great distance away, so did Mike Jones, who had never been anything but a name. She put them aside for the moment. There was nothing, no one, but Oliver in the world. She had to learn to put him aside, permanently, for good. Pain struck her. It was going to be a bitter lesson. She left her bedroom, and Arroways closed in around her again with its soft, inexorable pressure. Going toward the staircase, she had a clear view of the corridor running into the west wing.
She stood still. Miss Stewart was at the door of Eleanor Mont's room, solid back turned. The nurse was leaning forward, as though she were listening. There was a crouched air about her, an air of secrecy, purpose. She gave a quick glance over her shoulder, a glance that, because of the dimness and the position in which Damien stood, didn’t take Damien in, made her invisible. Then, after making sure that she was unobserved, Miss Stewart fopened Eleanor Mont's door, slipped inside, and closed jthe door soundlessly behind her.
Chapter Fifteen
Another Murder Attempt
Damien remained where she was at the head of the stairs i for a full half minute trying to decide what to do. Miss Stewart, there was absolutely no doubt of it, was illicitly in Oliver’s mother’s room. Why had she gone in like that, stealthily, surreptitiously? Damien was still motionless when the door of Eleanor Mont’s room began to open.
A sudden unreasoning wave of fear surged through her. I So much shadow-filled space, so many doors with puzzles behind them, so many people do
ing queer things—Miss Stewart not the least— She found herself descending the stairs fast and on tiptoe and reached the bottom, to be confronted by Jancy Hammond walking toward her.
Jancy didn’t look at her, didn’t seem to see her, although there was no more than ten feet of space between them. She went quickly past and up the stairs, a hatless young woman, her hair in disorder, her face a white blur, her head bent. She had no coat on, had evidently been wandering around the grounds in her thin yellow silk blouse and black skirt. There was a quality of hopelessness in her that aroused Damien’s pity. Jancy must have been told that Mike Jones was dead. Hammond loomed up in his wife’s wake, a tail at the end of an invisible kite.
Roger Hammond was not a man to ignore solid objects in his path. He said with an effect of breathlessness, and he really was out of breath, “Terrible thing this, about that man Jones. My wife knew him, you understand.” He ducked his head with a pallid smile as though apologizing for not lingering, and followed Jancy upstairs.
In spite of what she had learned about him, Damien couldn’t help feeling sorry for Hammond, too. He was a neat man with bandbox emotions who didn’t know how to cope with the situation in which he found himself.
Jancy, all the Monts, were too much for him. Nevertheless, she resolved, at the first opportunity, to tell the Inspector about his search of her room. And yet—could she? The whole picture had changed. Oliver hadn't killed Mike Jones. Remembering how gently he had held her in his arms, taking her away from the pitiful figure below them, soothing and quieting her, she was sure of that. And whoever had killed poor Jones had killed Anne Giles. In any case she couldn't bring herself to say one word about Oliver to Inspector McKee. The idea was unthinkable. Then what about Roger Hammond? Leave that for later. At the moment she was too tired to wrestle with problems.