by Helen Reilly
Her departure from Eastwalk on the morning after Linda died had a dreamlike quality. She hadn't seen any of the Monts since. She had talked to Oliver over the phone once. His call was strictly business. It had ended in what, if they had been intimates, would have been an open quarrel. He had been cold, formal, had said, “Miss Carey, Maria’s money belongs to you. Your suggestion of sharing it—more than sharing it—is absurd. We can’t permit—”
She had interrupted him there.
“I’m not asking anyone’s permission, Mr. Mont. I intend to do as I please,” and on that she had hung up.
The doorbell rang.
It was the Inspector. She welcomed him pleasantly. McKee sat down, took one look at her, settled back, and began to talk about the case in a matter-of-fact voice. Cauterize the wound, it would heal faster. He had already had his troubles with Luttrell. This girl was another one.
He told Damien about the evidence they didn't need, that hairs from Linda St. George’s head had been found embedded in the collar of her own cherry wool coat and in her scarf. Linda hadn’t stopped to examine them when she put them in the hall closet at Arroways after she reentered the house through a back door when Damien had been disposed of in the freezing-chamber.
Motive had been the thing from the beginning, McKee said, trying to interest Damien. “I distrusted those rings, Miss Carey. I'll return to them later. Anyhow, when you established to my satisfaction that someone behind the little house beyond the tennis court eavesdropped on the talk between Anne Giles and Eleanor on that Friday afternoon, the pattern began to emerge. I knew the eavesdropper wasn’t Roger Hammond, who didn’t leave New York until ten p.m. Jancy Mont was incapacitated and in bed. Hiram St. George was already in Eleanor Mont’s confidence. That left Oliver Mont and Linda.’'
“Linda,” Damien said, repressing a shudder. “She seemed so fragile—and such a child—”
“Exactly.” McKee’s tone was dry. “In the first place, Linda St. George wasn’t fragile. She had plenty of physical strength—enough; and more than enough than was needed to do what was done. Anne Giles was struck down and helpless before that necklace was twisted around her throat, Mike Jones was shot, and Miss Stewart was assaulted from behind with some weapon that carried its own force. As far as Linda St. George having been a child goes, you’re more or less right. She refused to grow up. She liked being a child, and petted and loved. She didn’t know the meaning of no. She was completely undisciplined, and under that soft exterior she had an iron will.”
McKee drummed fingers on a crossed knee. “She was attracted to Luttrell, I believe, but Oliver was a prince of the House of Mont, and she wanted to be his consort, with the Mont money. She killed Anne Giles because Anne Giles would have prevented it. She killed Mike Jones because he would have exposed her. Linda knew where Mike Jones was. Jancy talked to me. Jones phoned Jancy early on Tuesday morning. He told Jancy where he was hiding out and said he was going to the police because he thought he knew who had killed Anne Giles. Jones, as Heyward said, was no dope, and he had seen Linda carry the ladder up the garden and place it against the blue-room window. Don’t forget the ladder was light. He didn’t tell Jancy over the phone that he suspected Linda. His caution brought about his death. Jancy confided in Linda, who called Mike Jones, saying that Jancy would meet him down by the brook on the Dalrymple place. Linda shot him from cover because she knew he had seen her move the ladder.”
“I don’t understand why she did that,” Damien said, drawn in in spite of herself.
McKee said, “The blue room was already an object of attention. It was Linda who took the key from the keyboard in the basement when you were down there looking over the house. Before Linda killed Anne Giles on Friday night she struck her down with one of the silver candlesticks on the blue-room bureau. She put the candlestick back on the bureau after Anne Giles was dead, but she had no time to wipe it off properly. She was afraid that Eleanor Mont might enter the room at any moment. That Saturday afternoon she got the key and slipped into the blue room to take care of the candlestick. She was very nearly caught by you, Miss Carey. That wooden ball didn’t fall of itself. She threw it down to distract attention and give her time to get away.
“Now, the ladder—and that brings up the rings again. Mr. Castle's revelation about the rings in the letter you saw Eleanor Mont read, and Castle’s arrival later, were a terrific blow to Eleanor Mont. She realized that if Maria’s rings were found in the house, the question would be raised of why her husband hadn’t executed the errand on which he had come, particularly as he had purportedly been at Arroways for more than six hours. If questions were raised there was a strong possibility that the truth would come out. Linda saw Eleanor Mont go through the blue room frantically and rip open Anne Giles's bags in a search for the rings early on Sunday evening. You say she was a child, and she was, in some ways. She had a child’s quickness and shrewdness. The condition of the room was bound to be discovered. Mike Jones was already a suspect. And the fire was getting hot, too much attention was being concentrated on Arroways. Linda put the ladder against the blue-room window to suggest that it was an outsider who had killed Anne Giles, an outsider who had subsequently torn the blue room to pieces.”
“And the attack on the nurse?” Damien asked.
“When Eleanor Mont saw Miss Stewart dig up the silver links from the border where she, Eleanor, had disposed of them, she phoned Hiram St. George and told him what had happened. Linda overheard the call. Gathering, from what her father said, that Mrs. Mont was afraid the nurse was going to the police, she slipped over through the dusk, followed the nurse down the driveway, struck, and was scared off by you before she could gain possession of the bit of necklace.”
Damien frowned. “But Hiram St. George said that he and Linda were together when the nurse was attacked.” McKee shrugged. “St. George was covering for Linda. I think he suspected the truth.”
“Why did Roger Hammond search my bags?” Damien wanted to know.
“He didn’t,” McKee said. “Your bags weren't searched. Eleanor Mont searched the closet in your room, as she searched a number of other places, for the rings. Hammond was simply following in Mrs. Mont's tracks, anxious to see what she was doing. He knew there was something going on, didn’t know what it was. It was in order to get possession of the house, in order to be able to go over it inch by inch in solitude, that Eleanor Mont offered to buy Arroways from you, Miss Carey.”
“And Jancy?” Damien asked tiredly. “When she stood there in that doorway was she really going to kill herself?”
McKee said, “I don’t know. I’m not sure. She was half demented. She told me the whole story herself. She was one of the ones on the scene when her father’s body was discovered, you know. He was taken to Arroways. She had no sooner entered the house when she found, almost stepped on, an earring belonging to Anne Giles. Jancy jumped to the erroneous conclusion that Anne Giles had come up to Eastwalk to be with her father the night before, and that there had been an affair going on between them. That was what was at the root of her drinking. She’ll be all right now. Hammond will never dam up the Hudson River but he’s not the world’s worst guy. The girl has been through a lot. That Friday night, after she was carried upstairs, Jancy screamed out what she thought she knew—and her mother heard her. That was why Oliver Mont, at St. George’s urging, consented to help in the removal of Anne Giles’s body from Arroways to the cottage on the river. Oliver Mont was convinced that either his mother or his sister had killed her.”
A pause then. McKee said, “I must give you what I came for,” and took a small tissue-wrapped package from his pocket. He undid the tissue.
Maria Mont’s rings sparkled on the little mahogany table in front of him, reflecting their bright fire in the polished wood. He said, “Linda threw these into a clump of bushes at the back of -the grounds on her way home after locking you in that freezing-chamber.” Outside, the wind kept blowing. The Scotsman touched a great flawed emerald with a ran
dom forefinger. “These caused a lot of trouble, didn’t they?”
Looking down at them, Damien held back a cry of revulsion. “Yes,” she said sedately.
McKee stood up. “How’s Mr. Heyward?” he asked, getting into his coat. “For a while there I thought we had something.” He smiled.
Damien smiled back. Bill had been wonderful, there when she wanted him, but never pressing, never obtrusive.
“Bill’s fine,” she said. “You wouldn’t like to stay and have a drink? Bill’s calling for me in half an hour.”
But the Inspector declined. “I've got to get back to the office."
She accompanied him to the door. Just before he went through it, he said meditatively, “Too bad about Oliver Mont. Mont distrusted Anne Giles, even before anything happened. She was Maria’s hatchet man. Later he became convinced that there was something wrong about his fadier’s death and that Anne Giles knew more than she was telling. He played around with her for a while trying to get information out of her, with no success. Too bad he's selling his air line and going to South America. I guess he feels he's pretty much in the red, any way you look at it, even though Connecticut’s not going to prefer charges against him, or against his mother, now that the whole thing’s over. Well, good night, Miss Carey."
Damien said, “Good night, Inspector," and closed the door.
Three hours and twenty minutes later she dropped into a seat in a booth opposite Oliver Mont in the Green Goose on East Fifty-Fifth Street. She had had quite a chase. Oliver was sitting back, staring into an empty glass he held between his palms. He reared his fair head and looked up at her, startled.
Damien threw back her coat. “Hello, Oliver. You’re a hard man to find. I've been tracking you down since half past five." She propped her elbows on the table, put a match to her cigarette, her heart sinking. He didn’t answer. She couldn’t break his guard.
Looking at her through blond lashes he said finally, like a polite schoolboy and with just about as much interest, “Really? Have you? Why?"
It was Damien’s turn to hold Oliver’s eyes with hers. She put down her cigarette and looked at him steadily. “We're not children, Oliver," she said slowly. “What took place back there at Arroways in October, was pretty rough. But it’s past. Gone. Done with. Nothing’s going to happen to you, and nothing’s going to happen to your mother."
His face was still unyielding. Damien sighed, got up, went around the table, and settled down on the seat beside Oliver. He didn’t move, sat quiet, nursing his empty glass.
She signaled to a distant waiter, and put her hand on one of Oliver’s. “We’d both better have a drink, darling. I’m tired of this fooling around with the question of money.” Oliver was turning toward her. She went on a little breathlessly, “Let’s keep it in the family, shall we?” and didn't say any more.
The waiter who had come forward at Damien’s wave didn't complete his journey. He paused near the booth, looked at the dark girl and the fair-haired man, their heads together, and retreated.