Wall

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  “Are you sure you’re warm enough?” he asked.

  “Plenty.”

  “Then where can we talk? Not in the house. This is a private call!”

  I thought he was smiling.

  “There’s a bench down by the pond. But what is it, Mr. Pell? What’s it all about?”

  “What do you think it’s about?” he said, his voice altering. “Come along. Where is this bench?”

  I led him down to it, and once there he lit a cigarette and gave me one. But those preliminaries over, it was some little time before he spoke again. Then:

  “What do you actually know about Juliette Ransom?” he asked at last. “Why did she come back here? There must have been a reason. Did she tell you? She used to be pretty secretive; but after all—”

  “You knew her?” I said, astonished.

  “I knew her. Yes.” He turned and faced me. “Now listen, Miss Lloyd,” he said. “I’ve got some things I want to know, and I can’t keep you out here too long. In the first place, did she show any interest in the people here? Ask any questions, or see anybody? You know what I mean.”

  I was too surprised to grasp all this at first. He had known Juliette! I had seen him twice since her disappearance, and not until now had he admitted it.

  “Did you know her well?” I asked, in a thin voice.

  “Well enough,” he said, almost roughly.

  I was thinking fast.

  “She knew a lot of the people here,” I told him finally. “I don’t think she saw them. They—well, they avoided her. But there may have been somebody. She came home one day looking frightened, I thought. At least she went to bed and stayed there. But she kept on with her riding. If she had been really afraid—”

  “No,” he said slowly. “She wouldn’t be afraid. She wasn’t really afraid of man or devil. She wasn’t that kind. But what brought her back here? To this house?”

  “She wanted money,” I said. “She wanted to live in Europe.”

  “In Europe? Did she say why?”

  “No. Except that it would be cheaper, and she liked it.”

  “That’s all she said?”

  “That’s all.”

  I thought he seemed relieved. He leaned back against the bench and relaxed somewhat. I could see him faintly, and it is odd, everything considered, how completely at ease with him I felt.

  “I see,” he said. “It didn’t matter that you were having a hard time getting along. That wouldn’t occur to her. Sometimes I think—”

  He did not finish that. He threw away his cigarette and got up. But I sat still, looking at him.

  “I suppose you don’t care to tell me how you knew her?” I asked.

  He stood quite still.

  “No,” he said. “That’s over, thank God. Let’s forget it. And forget I’ve been here tonight. Will you?”

  But I could not let him go like that. It was not only that I liked him. It was all too mysterious. He himself was mysterious, clad as he was in an old sweat shirt and trousers, and with that queer background of tourist camp and trailer behind him.

  “If you know anything I think you should tell it, Mr. Pell,” I said. “After all, if she is dead—”

  “If she is dead, I didn’t kill her,” he replied grimly. “And the angels who keep the book ought to give me a good mark for that.”

  Whatever that meant, he did not explain it.

  He thanked me then rather formally for seeing him, hoped I had not taken cold, and explained that he had stolen the rowboat, as our gate was guarded, and would have to return it. But before he left he did a surprising thing, and did it almost automatically.

  He took out his handkerchief and carefully wiped the top rail of the bench.

  Back in bed again the entire episode had a quality of unreality. I listened to the sound of his oars die away, and tried to recall all that he had said. Only one thing stood out clearly. He had not killed her, and he thought he deserved credit for it!

  He had known her, and known her well. Perhaps he had been in love with her. I thought probably he had. There had been some quarrel, or—after her fashion—she had thrown him over; and he was still bitter. She might be dead. It was almost certain that she was dead. Yet he was still bitter. I tried hard to reconcile the pleasant, rather humorous young man, painting his little picture of Loon Lake by the road, with my visitor that night; but it was difficult. The youth and humor had both gone. He had seemed older, older and very tired.

  There was a second incident that night, and I record it for what it was worth. A storm was brewing, and I could not remember whether I had closed the window in the hospital room or not. Wide awake as I was by that time, the thing bothered me, and at last I got up and went to investigate.

  I had unlocked the door at the top of the stairs and was about to turn on the light when the bell rang, close beside me. It was the bell from Mother’s room, and I stood there, paralyzed with terror.

  Then I turned to escape and I fell on the stairs and twisted my ankle. I was in a dead faint when Maggie, aroused by the noise, discovered me.

  CHAPTER X

  I WAS STILL IN BED, with my foot bandaged, when they found Juliette’s body the next day. It was in a shallow grave some fifty feet back from Stony Creek, and a half mile or so below Loon Lake. She had been struck twice on the head with a heavy weapon of some sort, and she had been dead before she was thrown into the water.

  For it was evident that she had been in the water for some time. Her boots were still soggy when she was found, her riding clothes saturated. Yet she had been buried. More than that, she had been buried with some care. Her hands were folded over her breast, and there was a covering of leaves over her face.

  Whoever killed her, then, had suspected what had happened; had followed the creek, discovered her and hidden her in that wild spot, almost a mile above the road.

  I had my first news of the discovery from Mike, who reported an ambulance on the main road at the foot of the path. He stood in the door of my room and reported in detail.

  “I guess it’s her all right, miss,” he said. “Them police photographers have gone up the trail, and about three carloads of reporters. I expect they’ll be taking her to Jim Blake’s. Skull’s bashed in, they say.”

  I found myself shivering violently. Jim Blake was the local undertaker, and his name brought with it the sheer horror of what had happened. Up to that time I had not fully accepted Juliette’s death. There was always the chance that she had only disappeared. Now she was dead, and was being taken to Jim Blake’s. She had loved to live. Now she was dead.

  “I thought you’d better know,” said Mike. “I’m sorry I broke it to you like that. But what with her being buried and the lock of the toolshed being broken, seemed like I’d better tell you.”

  “The toolshed!” I said. “What about it?”

  “Somebody’s been in it,” he replied phlegmatically. “Smashed the lock. Two or three days ago, that was.”

  “Is anything gone?” I asked, suddenly uneasy.

  “I don’t miss anything as yet. Things is moved about some, but that’s all. Still and all, miss, it’s queer to break in and take nothing; and with the shed where it is—”

  “Where it is?” I repeated, puzzled. “It’s where it always has been, isn’t it?”

  “It’s up against the Hutchinson place. And if I was asked who hated Mrs. Ransom around here, I’d say—”

  But this vision of Lucy killing Juliette and then finding and burying her body was too much for me. I burst into hysterical laughter, and it took Maggie and a bottle of aromatic ammonia to bring me around again.

  In the end it was from Doctor Jamieson—come belatedly to examine my ankle and pronounce it not important—that I learned all I did learn that morning. For the authorities had not been able to get in touch with Arthur. Apparently he had taken Mary Lou and Junior for a drive, and was still out.

  The doctor gave me the story in detail.

  It appeared that the sheriff, having
finished with the creek and the pond, had by no means finished with the murder.

  “What I gather,” he said, “is that Shand came back to the office yesterday and held a conference. He said they’d lost a week or more on the lake and the creek, and while in his opinion she’d been in the lake, she wasn’t there now. Then where was she? What if whoever killed her had located the body later? He wouldn’t want her found at all. There’s no murder without a body. But she was a goodsized woman, and this time probably he didn’t have a horse. So what would he be likely to do?”

  The upshot, according to the doctor, had been that shortly after daylight the sheriff had collected a dozen men, deputies, detectives, and so on, and they had commenced at the lake and worked down, searching the banks of Stony Creek and into the underbrush on both sides. Even then they might not have found her, but one of the detectives had stepped on a soft piece of ground and removed the leaves and pine needles which covered it. What he saw then was the outline of a grave.

  They uncovered the body carefully, and the doctor had already examined it. It was in fair condition. There was no question of its identity. And the word got out quickly. They had had to station guards about before the examination was over; they were still there, until a thorough search of the vicinity could be made.

  I felt rather sick, but I asked him to break the news to Jordan before he left. He did so, and he came back looking uncomfortable.

  “She must have been fond of Juliette,” he said. “She’s taking the news pretty hard.”

  “I thought she would. I’m sorry for her, doctor. But she has acted so queerly—”

  He looked at me shrewdly.

  “You don’t think she knows more than she cares to tell?”

  “If she does she is keeping it to herself.”

  “Well, what’s she afraid of, Marcia? She looks like a scared woman to me. Why should she keep her door locked, for one thing?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said, and sighed.

  But it was then, and to the doctor, that I told the story about the hospital suite. Not all of it, of course. Nothing about the bell ringing there. That was absurd and not pertinent. Nothing about Arthur’s night there. But about the state it was in, and the general mystery. He seemed rather amused at first, for he knew the place well. But before he left he went up there, and he came down looking bewildered.

  “It’s amazing,” he said. “When did it happen?”

  “I think it was the day before Juliette disappeared.”

  “You think she did it?”

  “I think she and Jordan did it. But why? What were they looking for, doctor? Juliette hadn’t been here for years, and there’s nothing of hers there.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “What could it be? And why should it be important now? Besides, I have been all over the place. There’s nothing.”

  He was thoughtful, however.

  “I don’t think you ought to keep it to yourself, Marcia. It’s queer, any way you look at it.”

  “I’ve had enough of Russell Shand and his outfit,” I said, and closed my eyes.

  He wrote out a prescription for me and left soon after. But the repercussion was not far off. Late that afternoon Maggie roused me to say that the sheriff was downstairs again, and that I was not to get up. He would see me where I was.

  The bromides had quieted me, but I was still not too sure of my legs. And it was with Russell Shand standing over me as I lay in bed that he said:

  “So you’ve been holding out on me again!”

  “I thought there was such a thing as professional confidence,” I said resentfully.

  “Don’t blame the doctor. He thinks you need protection. If what he says is true—”

  “You can go and look,” I said, feeling helpless and annoyed. “Maybe it will make sense to you. It doesn’t to me.”

  He was gone for some time. When he came down he stopped at Jordan’s door and, after some rather forcible urging, was admitted. His face was flushed when he came in to me a half hour later.

  “There’s a lot to be said for the third degree,” he said, angrily. “If I had my way with that woman—See here, Marcia, tell me about all this. And why in God’s name didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I’ve had other things to think about.”

  “There was no other reason?”

  I saw that it was no good. He drew a chair by the bed and looked at me thoughtfully.

  “I suppose it was in order when you came?”

  “Of course. Mrs. Curtis always cleans it.”

  “Clean sheets on the bed and all that?”

  Too late I remembered. I must have looked fairly desperate, for he reached over and patted my hand.

  “Why not come clean, Marcia?” he said. “It pays in the end. Somebody has slept in that bed, or on it. I’m making a guess that it was Arthur. I’m guessing too that he left in a hurry, without his hat. And it isn’t far from that to Lizzie’s bareheaded man with a hatchet. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  I could not answer. Suddenly I found myself crying as though my heart would break. He handed me a large bandanna handkerchief, but I could not stop and at last I felt him give me a sort of apologetic touch on the shoulder and go creaking out of the room.

  The day was endless. Endless and terrifying. For I did not fool myself. There was a murder now, with a body, and at any minute the police might appear with a warrant. I knew that if the truth ever came out Arthur was the logical suspect. And there was that wretched story of Mike’s. I had no hope that he would keep it to himself. Probably all the servants knew it already.

  I lay there in bed, thinking it over. I thought of Mary Lou, and Junior. I thought of Mother and Father, and the old days in the house before Juliette came and peace departed. I remembered Arthur and myself as children, gathering clams and starfish and other queer jetsam of the sea, and the eel that had slithered down the stairs. But most of all I was thinking of Juliette, and Juliette’s death.

  I lit a cigarette and tried to recall the events of the last few days. It seemed an eternity since she had stepped blithely out of the bus and had said: “Don’t faint, Marcia. It’s me!” An eternity too since she had thrown those pebbles into the pond, and watched the widening circles, “Like life,” she had said.

  Now she was gone. What had happened to her? What had occurred, between her arrival and her disappearance, to set such a stage for her? Whom had she seen? Had she been followed to the island and murdered, or was someone on the island guilty?

  She had received no mail, and so far as I knew had sent none. Yet she had had friends, such as they were. I had never seen her New York apartment, but I had heard enough to know what it was like, either filled with people or empty while she and her crowd danced the night away, moving on and on.

  “Why go home? The night’s still young.”

  And Juliette going on, the center of the exotic gaiety, to come home at dawn and sleep the day through. Extravagant riotous living it had been, on Arthur’s money and mine, but I did not grudge it to her now. Yet that day for the first time I wondered if somewhere in it was not the answer to her death. She had been in a jam, to use her own words. She had even wanted to get out of the country. Not only that. She could have left no forwarding address for her mail when she left New York. Certainly that in itself was unusual.

  In other words, had she been looking for some sort of sanctuary when she came to Sunset? It might be. Probably the last place she would be expected to go was where she had come.

  I was still there, still thinking—and wondering—when Arthur arrived. He had had the news, but he had not yet gone to the village; and he looked completely devastated.

  “I suppose you’ve heard,” he said. “They’ve found her.”

  “Yes, Mike told me. And the doctor.”

  He looked down at me quickly.

  “Mike?” he said. “What does he know about it?”

  “Only what everybody does, I suppose,” I said wearily. />
  He sat down on the porch rail then and lit a cigarette, but I saw that his hands were shaking.

  “I don’t need to tell you what this means, Marcia,” he said. “They have a murder now and a body. They’ll have to pin it on somebody, and I’m the somebody. Why not? I had the motive, and it won’t take them long to learn that I was here the night before, or to break down that alibi of mine. They can trace the sloop, and what about the plane? I didn’t give the pilot my right name, but I don’t suppose he’s a fool.”

  “But plenty of people come here by plane, Arthur.”

  He looked at me and I think for the first time he realized what I had been through. Anyhow he leaned over and patted me—on my bad ankle, as it happened.

  “Poor little sister,” he said. “I’m sorry, my dear. Sorry as hell. But it’s bound to come out sooner or later. Haven’t you seen the papers lately?”

  “I didn’t want to see them,” I quavered.

  He drew a long breath.

  “Well, your picture has been in them, and mine. And I might as well tell you: a car turned into the driveway the night I came to see Juliette. The lights were right on me. If whoever was in that car saw me and knew me, I’m through.”

  “I know about that, Arthur. It was Lucy Hutchinson.”

  He stared at me. “Lucy Hutchinson,” he said. “Good God! Lucy!”

  “She won’t talk. She told me so.”

  “Listen, Marcia,” he said gravely. “There’s a woman in this somewhere. Maybe not Lucy, but a woman. Shand got a lipstick of Juliette’s from Jordan, and he says the smear on that cigarette they found was not the same.”

  “You don’t think it was Lucy’s!”

  “I don’t know. She walks up in the hills, you know. If she had a golf club with her—”

  I found myself gazing at him with a sort of terror.

  “Arthur!” I said. “How do you know she was killed that way?”

  He looked startled.

  “I don’t know,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “I haven’t seen the—seen the body yet. But I gather she was struck with something. Good Lord, Marcia, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t kill her, and I’m damned sure Lucy didn’t. I’m about off my head with worry, that’s all.”