Murder at Arroways

by Helen Reilly

  The Scotsman shook his head. “Not conclusive—and not enough. No. I’m waiting now for a report on Maria Mont’s death. When I get it that report may tell the tale—” He broke off. Luttrell was no longer listening.

  Someone was calling to him. It was Linda St. George. When she saw the Scotsman she stood still, a lithe erect figure in a blue pleated skirt and a thick white sweater. The girl was harried, driven, and trying desperately to conceal it. She was afraid of him. Her effort at dissimulation was something less than successful. She asked where her father was in a quick anxious voice. “I can't find him. He came over a little while ago to get some things for Mrs. Mont.”

  Her father—it was her father she was worried about, not the man she was engaged to. McKee studied her thoughtfully. Luttrell said her father had been there but had gone home, and went over to her. Her face softened when she spoke to him. The life came back into it. Watching her with him, watching Luttrell with her, McKee reflected that they suited each other. They might have been happy together if it hadn’t been for Oliver Mont.

  He looked away, his gaze hardening. Oliver Mont might soon be in a position where it would be impossible for him to marry anyone. For one thing, he had pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact of murder—when forced to, not before. He hadn’t lost his head for a moment. Throughout there had been an air of calculation about him—as though he were saying to himself, “Admit what you have to, do the best you can with it, go so far and no further.” For another thing, he had lied about his reason for being on the road to the airfield when Mike Jones was killed. There was nothing wrong with his plane, and no mechanic had turned up at the field. The gun with which Jones had been shot had not been found. Oliver Mont had had a service revolver. He had no idea where it was or when he had last seen it—which didn’t of itself mean much. Randall Mont had had guns of all sorts. There was quite a collection in the house. One of them could be missing, there was no way to check. But then McKee had never had much hope as far as the murder weapon was concerned. Since the war untraceable guns were a dime a dozen. .

  Motive for the first crime was now the crux of the entire case. From the setup it looked as though Anne Giles had had something on the Monts. But what? Randall Mont had died of heart failure and not by force and/or arms. Maria Mont, then. There ought to be word on Maria soon.

  Luttrell rejoined him, and the two men left Arroways and drove into town.

  There was news. Maria Mont’s demise had been fully covered by men from his own squad. Unless there had been a gigantic miscarriage of justice, and that was scarcely possible, Maria, too, had died a natural death.

  Randall Mont—nothing.

  Maria Mont—nothing.

  Then why had Anne Giles been killed?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Murder Trap

  The state police, the town police, the state’s attorney, were duly informed of the discovery at Arroways, that Anne Giles had been strangled to death in a room on the second floor of the Mont house and her body removed after death to her cottage on the river. McKee didn’t know, or particularly care, what action would be taken. The case was not in his hands; it wasn’t officially his bird. He was simply giving an assist to Luttrell—not much of an assist so far, but a dim idea of the general pattern wTas beginning to take shape in his mind. It clarified further when Luttrell, who had gone to question Roger Hammond, returned to the office.

  Early on the preceding Friday evening Eleanor Mont had called her son-in-law in New York to tell him that Jancy was not at the sanitarium but with her. Hammond left New York at a few minutes before ten p.m. This had been corroborated by the doorman of his apartment. He had reached Arroways at between eleven-fifteen and eleven-thirty, stopping for gas at Ferris’s on the edge of town at a few minutes after eleven. “That,” Luttrell said, “puts Hammond on the scene. He was in the house in plenty of time to have killed Anne Giles.”

  Lying back in his chair McKee looked pleased. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, Hammond—” and broke off. The phone was ringing.

  It was the Danbury hospital calling. Miss Stewart showed signs of returning consciousness. Her pulse and respiration had improved, and if the Inspector wished to interrogate her it might be possible for him to do so in a short time.

  McKee said he would be there, and hung up. It was the moment for which he had been waiting. He didn’t immediately move. He was possessed by a curious reluctance to leave Eastwalk. The perpetrator was begging to go berserk, as witness the attack on the nurse, and the situation could easily get out of hand. Neither the state nor the town police had the personnel to keep the people involved under constant observation, and anything could happen. On the other hand, if Miss Stewart had seen her assailant, the case would be over.

  He did a swift mental roundup, placing people and locations. Oliver Mont and his mother at the St. George house with Linda and Hiram St. George, Heyward and his aunt at the Kendleton house in the village. Miss Carey, he glanced at his watch, on the way to Arroways to go over the house with" the architect, Jancy and Roger Hammond at the Black Horse Inn. He got to his feet, told Luttrell to keep checking, jammed on his hat, and left the office, Danbury-bound.

  The day went on as it had begun. It continued to be warm, hazy. No clouds dimmed the sun as it climbed the sky. Damien reached the top of the Arroways driveway at around a few minutes of three that afternoon. She had little heart for the expedition on which she was bound. It •seemed to her useless, silly, unreal. Half a dozen times she had been tempted to call it off, to phone the architect, Mr. Cramer, and say she couldn’t make it, that she had to go back to New York. It could have been done later on, she had said as much to Frances Kendleton. Bill’s aunt didn’t agree, urged her to go through with it, saying that the house was useless to her in its present state, and that with very little effort it could be turned into a paying investment. Her own wish to be finished with Arroways, to get something decided about it and be able to put it out of her mind if only for a little while, had made her decide to come.

  She had walked up from the village. Miss Kendleton had to go to a Woman’s Town Improvement meeting, and Bill was deep in a series of long-distance talks with he people who were interested in his new process. He was joing to join her at Arroways when he finished.

  The keys of the house had been delivered to her at Miss Pendleton’s by the Mont maid, after she got back from Jie bank. There were four sets of them, all labeled, another et for the stables and for the little house beyond the ten-lis court. The maid said, “Mr. Mont locked up before he vent. Mrs. Mont says you will find these correct.”

  The Monts were through with her, including Oliver— kVhat could they do to him for what he had done, he and 3iram St. George? Oliver certainly wouldn’t get off scot-ree. Her heart tw'isted. Then there was Bill. Bill who had :oncealed vital evidence— She paused in front of the house.

  She was a few minutes early. Soft October sunlight )athed the ivy-hung walls, taking away something of their rowning portentousness, perhaps because the Monts had jone. Birds were everywhere, on the lawn, flying in and >ut of the branches of the leafless trees. Mrs. Cambell was vorking in her garden. It was hot outside. Damien un-ocked the front door, letting in sunlight, and forced her nind to the business in hand. She ran up the Venetian jlinds in the dining-room and in the library, and the two ooms filled satisfactorily with brightness. The spaces of he hall continued to be dim. There was nothing much >ne could do about it, but if Mr. Cramer thought the re-nodeling project was feasible, the hall would soon be hanged. She opened the door to the transverse corridor eading to the terrace, opened the door at the far end of t. The air that came in was sweet, cool.

  Her thoughts returned to Oliver. Would he go to jrison? She paused beside the gambling-machine against he inner wall, propped an elbow on the glass, and looked lown at the little horses, their paint faded, poised in per->etual flight between rows of pins. The picture of Oliver ooped up, caged behind bars, hurt. She pressed one of l row of little knob
s absently, watched a green ball inside he machine start rolling down the slope, followed its ace in and out of grooves between rows of pins with :mpty eyes. She pushed another knob. If Oliver hadn’t killed Anne Giles, perhaps they wouldn't do anything to him. A yellow ball rolled in sweeps and curves. He and Linda would marry soon— Yellow counted fifteen. Whoever had killed Anne Giles had killed Mike Jones and attacked Miss Stewart—

  Damien took her elbow off the glass. Things were coming out of a hole to the right of the knob. A shower of nickels and dimes, a red flash, a blue one, gold circles, a lot of them, spots of white fire; Damien cupped her hands involuntarily, stayed the flood, and stared down. What she held in her cupped palms were rings—Maria Mont’s missing rings. The machine was supposed to be broken. By some quirk she had pressed the right knob. Maria Mont’s rings— Randall Mont hadn’t gotten them. They hadn't been stolen from the car in which he lay dead. Anne Giles hadn’t taken them—

  There was a faint sound somewhere. Damien put the rings down in a little heap on the glass top and raised her head. At her back, some fifteen feet away, the door leading to the terrace was open. She didn’t turn. She went on into the central hall. Was it the architect she had heard? Had Mr. Cramer arrived?

  The hall was empty. Beyond thirty feet of shadow brightness streamed into it from the library on the right and from the dining-room on the left. More shadow, and then the rectangle of the open front door, filled with sun and vista of trees and bushes and rolling green lawn. Nothing moved anywhere. The stillness was profound. It was broken by a loud wheeze.

  Damien jumped. It was the clock. The clock struck three deep sonorous notes. They died away. Staring through gloom at the big mahogany shaft, the indistinct face, the swinging pendulum, Damien knew suddenly why the clock had stopped on Monday afternoon. It had stopped because someone had interfered with the works, searching its interior for the rings she had found.

  A quick, tight premonition of danger, the same cold thrust she had registered that morning, struck at her again. It was sharper this time. She had found what the searcher vanted. She was alone at Arroways. Rooms and rooms and nore rooms and passageways and corridors stretched away m every side. The front door seemed incredibly distant. Ihe took a step in shadow—and froze to a halt.

  This time there was no mistake. She did hear some-hing. She was no longer alone in the house. There was omeone else in it. Gathered faculties, body taut, she istened intently. She was standing near the back of the lall with the stairs and the mouth of the little corridor on ler right. The door to the corridor was half closed. Had he sound come from behind it? Had someone entered by vay of the terrace? Was that a footfall her ears picked up, Dr was it the thumping of her own heart, the echo of the ick of the clock? Silence, gloom, sunlight and safety and Jie open air far away; she mustn’t move without knowing tfhere she was going. If she moved in the wrong direction It would be fatal. Knowing nothing else, she did know iliat. Desperately.

  Her alerted senses shouted at her, Careful— There’s Something coming. Her eyes traveled the surrounding padows. Yes, the door leading to the corridor had just frioved a fraction of an inch, no more. It was enough. Pamien moved, too, soundlessly, in the only direction in which she could go. The front door was too much to attempt. She would be caught long before she reached it, but off to the left the mouth of the corridor to the kitchen wing yawned grayly.

  She reached the doorway, stepped into obscurity, and glanced back over her shoulder. Nothing yet. So far she was safe. The margin wasn’t good enough. Eliza crossing the ice, she thought with grim levity, the ice being that block of central hall that separated her from whoever was concealed beyond it. To proceed on into the kitchen and from the kitchen to the outside staircase and so into the 3pen, she would have to turn her back on the danger.

  Make a dash for it? No. Walk, do not run to the nearest exit. She did turn her back. Quickly now. One foot in front of the other—but no noise. Hold it, don't give way. Don’t pause. Don't panic. There was linoleum under her feet so that she had to use exquisite care. A faint slither. She had made the sound. No. No. There were footsteps behind her. She would, she thought despairingly, never make the kitchen—but she was level with the mouth of the staircase leading down to the basement. The darkness down there would give her cover and, what was more important, there were doors there that opened on the gardens.

  Twisting sideways she began to drop into the stairwell, testing each step as she descended. It was a snail's progress, maddeningly slow. But caution was the whole of it. Abandon that, and she would be done. She reached the bottom of the stairs. The darkness was all but absolute, but she dared not switch on a light. As she recalled the arrangement, straight ahead there was a narrow corridor that emptied into the central enclosure. She wouldn't have to go that far. There were doors in the right-hand wall, doors that led to the outside world.

  She stood still, her head up. What was that? Had her course been traced? Had she been followed down the stairs? Blackness behind her—was there someone hidden in the blackness? She went on, creeping forward sideways like a crab, both hands on the wall feeling for a door— and found one at last. It was a heavy door. There was a big iron handle to it. It didn't give. There must be some sort of locking mechanism. She thought, The keys are in my coat up in the hall—and felt a sort of latch and pressed it lightly.

  The resultant click was like thunder in the stillness. But the door was yielding. Now. Damien pulled the heavy door open, went through it, raced forward, and came up against an inner wall with a crash. A sob of rage and frustration choked her throat. The faint cry that emerged was drowned in echoes, soft—and final. She whirled. The door behind her had closed. Two minutes later she stood still, perspiration trickling down her face from her forehead. She was locked into some sort of cubicle with smooth walls and an immovable door. She reached for a handkerchief, and her tight muscles unlocked, and she drew a long breath of relief.

  Her handkerchief, a fresh one, and her scarf, were in the pocket of her coat, and her coat was lying over a chair upstairs in the main hall. Not only that, but the front door was wide open and the Venetian blinds in the library and dining-room were raised and Mrs. Cambell knew she was there, had seen her arrive. The architect would come at any moment now. When Mr. Cramer couldn’t find her, when he saw her coat lying over the chair, a search for her would be immediately set on foot. It wouldn't be long before she was free. The thing to do was to keep calm and be ready to call out and announce her location as soon as someone entered the basement. She went over to the door and leaned against it, listening.

  “If you’re looking for Miss Carey,” Ida Cambell said, “She’s not here, she’s gone.”

  Jimmy Cramer, the architect to whom Mrs. Cambell spoke, was most certainly looking for Miss Carey. He and Mrs. Cambell, who had just joined him, stood on the gravel enclosure in front of the closed and shuttered house. The front door was locked. Cramer had already tried it. He was very annoyed. True, it was twenty-five minutes past three and his appointment had been for three. But when he found he was going to be a little late he called Arroways, didn’t get any answer, and decided that Miss Carey hadn’t arrived yet herself. Surely she might have waited for him, or at least she could have rung the office and saved him a fruitless trip up here.

  “When did Miss Carey leave, Mrs. Cambell?”

  “Not ten minutes ago.”

  “Did she say—”

  “I didn’t get to talk to her. I was over in my garden. She let down the blinds in the library, came out, and locked the front door and walked off.”

  The architect surveyed the closed and shuttered bulk of Arroways with offended dignity, got into his car, and drove off himself. When he reached his office the switch-boarcj girl who serviced the building gave him a message from Miss Carey. She was sorry but she had to go to New York and couldn't wait for him.

  Half an hour later Luttrell got the same report. Checking as McKee had asked him to do, and unable to raise anyone on the Arro
ways phone, Luttrell called the architect, who told him what had happend, that Miss Carey had returned to New York. Luttrell then checked with Mrs. Cambell, who verified Damien's departure from Arroways at around a quarter past three. The town prosecutor was annoyed rather than alarmed. McKee wasn't going to like Damien Carey’s slipping away like that, without permission. He himself had never particularly cared for the girl. She wasn’t his type, didn’t appeal to him. But to keep the record straight and with the Scotsman in mind, he called the relative in New York. That clinched it. The cousin, Miss Towle, had just had a telegram from Damien Carey saying that she would be home that night.

  Meanwhile, at Arroways, Damien waited for the release that didn't come. The blackness of the little room into which she was locked was the hardest thing to fight. Not to be able to see gave her a feeling of suffocation. Until someone came it was useless to waste strength pounding on the door, which presently, after she had gone around the walls of the invisible cell half a dozen times, she lost track of. The door fitted flush, without panels or molding, and there was no knob on the inside.

  It was bitterly cold in the cubicle. She walked up and down, stamping her feet and slapping her hands together. Why had she been locked in here? Who was it who had entered the house, followed her down the basement stairs, and slammed the door on her? Was it for the rings she had found, and that were in plain view on top of the gambling-machine? But why do that, unless to delay pursuit and detection? No, not detection. She hadn't seen the intruder, could be no menace to whoever it was. What good was it going to do to coop her up here—unless it was to gain time. It might be that.

  She mustn't, she told herself wamingly, let the cold and the darkness and the confinement get her down. All she had to do was wait. It was some time before this protective shield was rudely pulled away. There was a faint whirring somewhere diat she thought at first was in her own ears. She didn't associate the purr with the cold that was making itself more and more evident. It was bone-piercing. She had neither coat nor gloves, and her thin wool dress was no help. She went on walking up and down in an attempt to warm her blood. She might as well have tried to contain Niagara in a teacup. There was no draft, but the cold was steadily and inexorably deepening. It was a positive force that clamped down on her from which she couldn’t escape. Go on slapping her hands together and stamping her feet as she would, walk faster and faster until she was almost running, three yards one way, two the other, the last vestiges of warmth in her went.