Wall

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  “Only thing I can think of is to figure who were her friends when she used to come here,” he said. “Who liked her, and who didn’t. And which of them has been seeing her since. You’d know that, Marcia.”

  I hesitated.

  “I believe she saw Marjorie Pendexter now and then,” I said, “and she’s met her since. Howard Brooks too. They all hunt, you know.”

  “Brooks? The fellow with the big yacht?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s something,” he said, and got up. It was then that he made an observation which made me vaguely uneasy.

  “What about this fellow from the camp on Pine Hill?” he inquired. “Pell’s his name. You and he are getting pretty thick, aren’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t call it that. I bought a picture from him.”

  “Swam over from the foot of Cooper Lane to bring it, did he?”

  He was smiling, but his eyes were on me, keen and intent. I could feel the blood in my face.

  “I suppose that’s meant to be funny,” I said. “That night he was out swimming. He stopped here to rest.”

  “It took him about an hour and a half to rest, down there on the float with you,” he said quizzically. “And a cold night too! I just happened to see him. I was looking over the boats along the shore, and there he was.”

  He became sober after that.

  “Better be careful, Marcia,” he said. “We don’t know anything about this fellow. Pell may be his name, and maybe not. But I don’t know any better way to hide out than to take a trailer and keep moving.”

  It was that day that I told him about Mrs. Curtis and the broken cellar window. He went downstairs before he left and took what he called a look around. But he apparently thought it unimportant, for soon after I heard him driving away.

  The rest of the day was quiet. Arthur took Mary Lou home and was to stay a day or two at Millbank; and save that the bells rang once or twice nothing happened. I played a round of golf with Tony; but he did not refer to the button, nor did I. Seeing him there on the course, debonair and cheerful, I could not suspect him of anything, unless perhaps when unobserved of slightly improving the lie of his ball!

  On the way back to the club he took my arm, and astounded me by asking if I had entirely ceased to care for him.

  “Things are looking better now, Marcia,” he said. “And I’ve never forgotten you. You know that, don’t you?”

  A few months ago that would have touched me. Now it merely surprised me.

  “I don’t know anything of the sort, Tony. You have managed extremely well without me, haven’t you?”

  He looked hurt, and dropped my arm.

  “If that’s the way you feel about it,” he said sulkily, “I suppose it’s no use.”

  “No,” I told him. “It’s no use. I’m sorry.”

  The next morning I received a note from Allen Pell. At least I could guess that it was from him. It was unsigned, except for a rough drawing of a man sitting at an easel, with a squirrel on his shoulder and what purported to be a cow chewing at his hat.

  The note itself was brief:

  “Did you ever take tea in a trailer? If not, it may be an amusing experience. How about this afternoon at five? You need not answer. Just come if you can.”

  I was excited and happy, I remember, and late afternoon saw me on my way up the path again. I had not gone a half mile, however, when I saw a woman ahead of me. She was sitting on a rock, gazing out over the bay, and when I got closer I saw that it was Agnes Dean.

  She smiled when she recognized me, and I noticed that she was thinner and more fragile than ever.

  “Isn’t this rather steep for you?” I asked.

  “I’m not going much farther; but I sleep badly, so I thought maybe a little exercise—”

  Her voice trailed off, and I sat down beside her and took off my hat.

  “I suppose I’m not used to the quiet,” she said. “‘The green stillness of the country or the dark gray town.’ It’s funny how few people know Longfellow any more, isn’t it? Mr. Dean likes the island, but then he goes about more than I do. He likes noise and excitement; I suppose most men do.”

  Her voice was the voice of a tired woman, and I wondered if Mansfield Dean himself did not tire her. He was cheerful and exuberant, fond of people, fond of living. Then, too, he had loaded her with possessions, and probably they tired her also.

  “I wish I could be gayer, for his sake,” she added, and sighed.

  But she seemed more normal that day than I had ever seen her She had lost some of her self-consciousness, and after a brief hesitation she said: “I hope you don’t mind my speaking of it. I’m terribly sorry about your trouble.”

  “It’s all rather a mess. Of course my brother had nothing to do with it. His own wife! Even if they were divorced, she had been his wife.”

  She was silent for a minute. I offered her a cigarette, but she refused.

  “I ought to go back,” she said. “But I have wondered—I hear so much and I know so little, Miss Lloyd. What was she like, this Mrs. Ransom? Or would you rather not speak about her?”

  It was my turn to hesitate, but there was something so tragic and yet so simple in her that I could not take offense.

  “I suppose she was a mixture of bad and good, like the rest of us,” I told her. “She was what she was. Probably it wasn’t her fault. She made trouble, lots of it, but usually it was not deliberate; merely selfish. If that’s vague—”

  She seemed to consider that.

  “I’ve known women like that. Men’s women, mostly. I suppose men liked her?”

  “Some of them went crazy about her.”

  For just one wild moment I wondered if Mansfield Dean had ever met Juliette. She seemed to sense it, for I saw her smile faintly.

  “I’m afraid we did not move in her particular circle,” she said. “It must have been a gay one. And of course we did not live in New York.”

  She got up and brushed the pine needles from her skirt. Then she looked at me directly.

  “I suppose it is sad, but perhaps the world is better without her, Miss Lloyd. Women who are heartless and cruel can wreck many lives.”

  She left me after that, rather abruptly, as though she had realized that the conversation was unconventional, to say the least.

  Poor Agnes Dean! I can see her as she looked that day, her lips blue and her breathing difficult. I watched her down the hill, going back to Mansfield, to her big house, and to her servants. She had said that she had a hairdresser’s appointment, and I knew that some time that night she would put on one of her handsome dresses, color her blue lips, and play the game as her husband wanted her to play it.

  I went on and up the path, to find Allen Pell waiting for me at the top, as though he had known I would come.

  “Whether by car or road, I knew I’d catch you here,” he said. “Ever see a tourist camp before?”

  “I’m afraid I never have,” I admitted.

  “Then you’ve missed a lot of fun. I’m inclined to think you’ve missed a lot of fun anyhow,” he said, looking at me quizzically. “You people do, you know. Why not join the proletariat and see the world?”

  “I’ve never had a chance,” I said. “Until now.”

  That made him laugh. He was glad to see me, I thought. But seen in the strong light he had somehow changed. He seemed to have lost weight, and there were deep lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth which I had not noticed before. But he laughed that off when I spoke of it.

  “Me?” he said. “I’m as strong as an ox. Don’t waste any pity on me, my dear. At this minute, with you beside me, I could lick a carload of tigers.”

  The camp looked pleasant when we reached it. But strange too. It was the open road with a vengeance, small tents everywhere, open fires and cars. Here was family life, open and unashamed, with bits of washing hanging out, children playing, men reading newspapers, and women preparing supper.

  But I felt a pang when I saw it. I
t had been a picnic ground in the old days, with a good spring walled in, and I knew it well. Here Arthur and I used to be taken in the surrey to meet other children from similar vehicles, and there in the woods was the long table where we ate our supper, with the benches still on either side of it. I suppose I showed what I felt, for he eyed me.

  “Why the sudden melancholy?” he inquired. “Have we profaned some sacred spot?”

  “It’s nothing. We used to come here on picnics, Arthur and I. That’s all. I don’t know why I always have to be low in my mind when I see you. I’m not like that, really.”

  “It’s my normal effect on a lot of people,” he observed gravely. “If I could tell you of the tears which have been shed on this manly bosom—!”

  Which made us both laugh, and certainly relieved the tension.

  I was rather surprised when I saw his trailer, set a little apart from the others, at the edge of the camp. It was large and exceedingly comfortable, and the coupe attached to it was a substantial one. Up to that time I suppose I had taken his poverty for granted, and I think he enjoyed my astonishment.

  “Not so bad, is it?” he said. “Well, how about coming into the sitting room and having some tea?”

  There actually was a sort of sitting room. That is, the front end held two easy chairs and a table, as well as a bookshelf and a radio. He ushered me in with considerable manner.

  “Sitting room, bedroom, kitchen and bath,” he said. “Cold water all the time, and hot on bath nights. Now sit down in the parlor and I’ll fix the tea.”

  “Hadn’t I better do that?” I asked.

  “My dear girl,” he said. “I am one of the best cooks on the road. You should taste my fried eggs! As for tea, I’ll show you in just a second. China or India?”

  “China.”

  “That’s fine. That’s all I have,” he said, and retreated to the stove somewhere at the rear.

  It looked very domestic. The only inconsistency was Allen Pell himself, big and rather awkward, fussing over his teakettle, and after helplessly trying to cut thin bread and butter, turning it over to me.

  “I’ll be the hell of a good wife for somebody yet,” he said. “But I can’t cut bread. Let’s see what you can do.”

  I cut it, and he watched me.

  “To be honest, just for once,” he admitted, “it’s the food business that gets me. The rest is all right. No ties, quiet nights and the open road. I wasn’t cut out for a cook, and that’s a fact.”

  He was pouring boiling water over the tea, and he grunted when he set down the kettle.

  “You seem to think you weren’t cut out to be a painter, either,” I reminded him.

  “A painter? God forbid,” he said piously. “Someday, when I know you better, Marcia, I’ll tell you about that. And now here’s your tea. Lemon or cream?”

  Thinking it over later, it was a sort of Mad Hatter’s tea party that afternoon. People came and borrowed things from him. He ran out of cigarettes and borrowed some himself. I had to inspect his bed, which was a couch in daytime, and to admire his refrigerator, which he claimed to have cleaned for the purpose. I remember saying that I would like a trailer of my own, and that he smiled at the idea.

  “What?” he said. “No butler? No maid to dress you?” But he added more soberly: “Just now you rather like the idea. Sunset among the trees, wood smoke, camp clothes, and no parties. It looks pretty good. But how about rainy days, and cleaning up? You wouldn’t like it, and you know it.”

  By a sort of tacit agreement we had avoided discussing the tragedies. I had been thinking, however. There was something wrong with the picture. He was no painter. He painted, but that was different. He did not need the money. And there were other things. There was that handkerchief of his, spotted with paint, which I had found floating in front of the house. There were a dozen other puzzling incidents. And all at once I stumbled on what seemed the only possible explanation. He was lighting a cigarette at the time, and I summoned all my courage.

  “I wish you’d tell me something,” I said. “I don’t think you are what you pretend to be. If that’s true—”

  He threw away the match before he spoke.

  “None of us are what we pretend to be, are we?”

  “That’s no answer.”

  He turned and looked at me.

  “And what am I, my good woman?” he inquired lightly.

  “I think you’re a police officer of some sort, in—well, in disguise.”

  He laughed out loud at that. Then he sobered.

  “Listen,” he said grimly. “There isn’t a policeman in the world I’d lift my hand to help. Let’s get that clear. As for the rest—Well, I happen to believe that your brother Arthur is in a hell of a jam, and that he is innocent. In fact, I’m damned sure he’s innocent.”

  I gasped.

  “Does that mean that you know who is the murderer?”

  He did not reply directly.

  “Let’s say this. Say I think I know why those women were killed. That’s different, isn’t it?”

  But I had stood all I could.

  “It isn’t fair,” I said hysterically. “It’s wrong. What you know, whatever you know, you ought to tell it. Why wreck us? We have never hurt you.”

  I looked at him. He had a dogged look in his face, but his eyes were full of pity.

  “Put it this way, my dear,” he said. “If it becomes necessary I’ll tell what I know. I promise you that. But get this straight too, Marcia. If you try to force my hand or go to the police with this, I’m through. I’ll have to be.”

  “You are protecting somebody, aren’t you?”

  “I’m protecting myself,” he said quickly.

  He shifted to Arthur after that. He thought he had found a man who saw Arthur asleep on the bench that morning of Juliette’s death; but he was away. When he came back in a day or two he would be certain.

  “That’s the first thing to do,” he said. “Get your brother’s alibi fixed up. He mustn’t be indicted. I gather Bullard wants to hold him for the grand jury, and you know what that means.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  He sat still, staring out to where the sun was shining low through the trees.

  “It’s not very pleasant,” he said at last. “The prosecuting attorney runs the show, and he runs it the way he wants. His opening address is an indictment in itself. He brings in his own witnesses, and if he wants a true bill he generally gets it. In this case he wants it. Don’t forget that.”

  That upset me. I cried a little, and he waited patiently while I fumbled for a handkerchief.

  “I’m a fool,” he said. “See here, Marcia—you don’t mind my calling you that, do you? And my name is Allen in case you haven’t heard!—I’m going to tell you something. Your brother will never go to the chair. I promise you that, on my sacred word of honor.”

  I left soon after that, more lighthearted than I had been for days. It was six o’clock, and suppertime was approaching at the camp. Open fires and a sheet metal stove or two showed women bending over them, and there was an appetizing odor of food mixed with wood smoke in the air. Allen Pell eyed it with something like affection.

  “Nothing wrong with America when you can see this,” he said. “Plain people living plain lives, but sound to the core. Maybe you and I have missed something in life, Marcia.”

  He took me to the top of the path and left me there.

  “Not necessary for the local gentry to see us together,” he explained, with his attractive smile. “And don’t worry too much, my dear. We’ll see this through together.”

  Those were the last words I heard him say for a long and weary time. I left him there on the path, a big figure in slacks and a sweater; and when I looked back at the turn he was still standing there, looking after me.

  CHAPTER XXII

  THIS IS NOT A love story. In a way it is the story of a story, hidden from us at the time but underlying everything that happened. Now and then, like one of the seals
in the bay, it emerged for a moment; then it sank back again, leaving behind it despair and death. But that evening, as I left Allen Pell on the trail, I felt that I was leaving something of myself behind me. As indeed I was.

  It was that night that he disappeared.

  I can write that now, here on this upper porch, with the hills turned to a tapestry of red and brown and yellow, and the autumn sun warm on my bare head. But for a long time I could not. I could not even think of it.

  It was as though a new life had been opening for me. Then, without warning, it was gone.

  I did not know it until the next night, when matters had come to a head between Bullard and the sheriff. Bullard had sent for Russell Shand and stated flatly that he was tired of delay and being ridden by the press; that he intended to take Arthur into a magistrate’s court, have him held, and call a special grand jury at once.

  “I’ve let you play around with this case long enough,” he said. “Maybe you’ve forgotten it, but we’ve had two murders in this county. If you think I’m going to wait until we have another—”

  “Who’s to be the next?” said the sheriff, with interest. “Unless you’re looking for a lunatic. If it’s a lunatic it isn’t Arthur Lloyd; and if it’s Arthur Lloyd, who else would he want to kill? Looks as though he’s about cleaned up.”

  “Don’t be a God-damned fool,” said Bullard, bristling. “And don’t play me for one. I’ve got a case, and you know it.”

  “You’ve got two murders. That doesn’t mean you’ve got the killer.”

  Arthur was still at Millbank when I received a more or less faithful account of this over the telephone that night. Apparently time was short and if Arthur’s alibi was to be established it should be at once. If Allen Pell could help I had to see him that night.

  I had sent the servants to the movies in the car, and so I had to go on foot. It had been half past ten o’clock when I got the sheriff’s message, and not much later when, armed with a flashlight, I started up the Stony Creek path again. I remember that the lights were all on in the Dean house as I passed it, and knew that there had been a dinner party. I remember, too, again feeling resentful that life should go on as usual, that people gave parties, drank cocktails and champagne, walked or trailed in to elaborate food and service, as though there was no such thing as death by violence, or punishment for the innocent.