The Frightened Fianc?e

by George Harmon Coxe

  Pilgrim said that arrangement would be fine and Baldwin then walked from the room without glancing back. Pilgrim lingered in the doorway to the hall.

  “If you’re serious about that coffee, Eric,” he said, “I could use a cup when it’s ready. I’ll be up at the guesthouse.”

  seven

  IT WAS NEARLY a quarter of seven before Holland returned to his room. The promise of coffee had been enough to make him wait at Carver’s cottage and now, as he slipped off his trousers, he saw in some astonishment that he still wore his bathing-trunks. He stepped to the window then, and when he saw the sun upon the water, he grabbed his robe and slippers and left the room.

  He saw no one on the stairs or in the hall and he continued on across the lawn to the pier. Farther out the haze was thick, but inshore it rose like steam from the calm and sparkling surface to break apart in wispy streamers that vanished quickly as he watched. Even this early the air was warm, holding forth the promise of another hot day, and Holland walked straight out to the end of the pier, diving in immediately he kicked off his slippers.

  He took twenty fast strokes, relishing the water’s coolness after the first refreshing shock, then turned over and paddled slowly on his back, using only his hands and keeping his toes on the surface. He paid no attention to the shore line but turned after a while and swam slowly back to the canvas-decked float and the ladder that rose beside it. He climbed this and stood shaking the water out of one ear until he saw from the corner of his eye that someone else was coming along the pier; after that he stopped and gave the newcomer his attention while he slipped into his robe.

  Frances Erskine came hurrying toward him on bare feet, a slim, fit, and vital-looking figure in a tight yellow swimsuit that accented her supple curves and the deep tan of her arms and legs. Her straw-colored hair shone in the sunlight as she began tucking it under a white cap. She did not smile or say good morning. Her blue eyes were disturbed, and her voice when she spoke was jerky and a little breathless.

  “Arthur just told me about Roger Drake,” she said. “Was it you that found him?”

  “Carver found him first.”

  She shuddered visibly. “How perfectly ghastly. They say the police will be here after breakfast. And what will happen then? I wondered if I heard cars in the night but I wasn’t sure I didn’t dream it.”

  She kept talking, her tone brittle with shock and nervous excitement as the tension inside her unwound. Just as suddenly she stopped and took a breath.

  “And poor Tracy,” she said. “Have you seen her? What will this do to her? And I’m the one who used to think she was lucky and had the best of things. It just goes to show you how wrong you can be.”

  Holland heard her out, understanding a little of how she must feel and the things that made her talk like this. He wanted very much to quiet her and make her speak not of the murder but of Tracy.

  “I want to talk to you when we have time,” he said. “About Tracy.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I want to. I know after what happened here on the pier last night that you must have been very fond of her, too. I—”

  She broke off as someone called from the shore and when Holland turned he saw Arthur Baldwin on the steps, his hands cupped over his mouth as he yelled something about breakfast. Frances waved in return.

  “Yes, Arthur,” she shouted. “Right away.” And then to Holland she added, “We’d better hurry.”

  She turned as she spoke and took two running steps. Then she took off from the end of the pier, her yellow-clad body arching with expert grace as it cut the water below and disappeared with hardly a splash. Holland watched her white cap break the surface before he turned and walked quickly back toward the house.

  Lieutenant Pilgrim was waiting in the drawing-room when the family came from breakfast, and this time his support was from a higher echelon, a uniformed captain of the state police whose name Holland didn’t catch, and a plump, high-domed man named Thornton, who was introduced as the state’s attorney. This trio remained standing while the others seated themselves and then Thornton, who was to be the spokesman, delivered himself of some preliminary remarks.

  He began by apologizing for being there. He said he realized that it was a trying and difficult time for all of them, but since murder had been done the best possible thing that could happen would be a quick solution to the crime. Unfortunately there was bound to be publicity. It would be necessary as a matter of course to question each and every one of them separately and take statements. With their co-operation this could be done in the library at the conclusion of this conference.

  As he went on Holland listened absently and gave his attention to the others in the room. Twin divans flanked the huge fireplace on either side and on one of them Arthur Baldwin sat with Nadine Winsor and a girl Holland had not seen before, a slender, dark-haired girl two or three years younger than Tracy and more delicately made. This, he knew, must be Ginny Marshall, and when he saw how pretty she was he wondered whether Eric Carver had resented Drake’s attention to her because they were old friends or whether he was jealous of the newcomer.

  Fanny Allenby sat off to one side in a barrel-back chair, her faded white hair taking on the quality of pale gold in the morning light. She wore her glasses and she was knitting, her attention centered on her work so that her eyes were not visible. Frances Erskine and Tracy sat on the other divan with Carver between them. All three were watching the state’s attorney and this gave Holland a chance to look at Tracy unobserved.

  He had tried to see her alone after breakfast, to speak with her a moment if only to express his sympathy, but always she was with someone else. Now she sat on the edge of the divan, her head up, her face pale and immobile. Her eyes viewed in profile were dry and resolute, as if all the warmth and compassion that so typified her nature had been frozen tightly within her. She did not move in the time that he watched her; in the midst of her friends she seemed utterly alone, and because it hurt him to sit by helplessly and see her like this, he looked away deliberately and gave his attention to what was being said.

  Thornton was speaking now of Drake’s business. They were aware, he said, that Drake was a private detective. With that in mind, and considering Drake’s activities and background, he conceded the possibility that someone from outside the Point had made an early-morning rendezvous—Thornton’s own word—with Drake and, for one reason or another, had shot him.

  “Can anyone,” he said after a moment’s hesitation, “remember hearing a car last night?”

  The question jogged Holland’s memory and his mind went back to that moment when he stood in the guesthouse and realized that Drake was dead.

  “I think I did,” he said.

  “Ahh,” Thornton said with a quick glance at Pilgrim. “When?”

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  “I mean, what time in relation to the shot you heard?”

  “Maybe five minutes afterward.”

  “Would you say that this car you think you heard was in the vicinity of the house?”

  “It sounded farther away than that.”

  Thornton thanked him. He said they could rest assured that any evidence pointing to an outsider would be thoroughly investigated.

  “I can tell you now,” he said, “that at present it is our belief that the murder was done along the lines I have already outlined to you. However”—he stopped, frowning, making it clear that he regretted having to say this—“it is my duty to add that we cannot stop our investigation there.”

  He took a breath and said, “Much as we would like to we cannot overlook the possibility that some one of you is involved. We will ask a lot of questions of you individually. Should it develop that we have grounds to believe that one of you is responsible we will proceed accordingly.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Thornton had to look about to find out who had spoken. He discovered it was Fanny Allenby.

  “I mean the whole thing is ridiculou
s,” she said, not looking up.

  Thornton flushed and turned to whisper something to his colleagues. He consulted a notebook in his hand and spoke again.

  “Just one more thing I’d like to bring up here. Mr. Baldwin, I believe you were the executor under Robert Allenby’s will.”

  “Coexecutor,” Baldwin said. “With the Federal Trust in Boston.”

  “Do I understand that Miss Lawrence was to receive a bequest of three hundred thousand dollars upon her marriage to Roger Drake?”

  “On her marriage to anyone. The papers are drawn. On Monday I was ready to turn that amount over to her.”

  Thornton nodded. “This may seem somewhat irregular at this time but as the Allenby attorney—and, I believe—trustee, we would appreciate it if you would outline the will in general terms.”

  Baldwin thought it over. He leaned back and crossed his knees, looking important, well groomed, and at ease.

  “I can outline it, yes,” he said. “And if no one in the family objects, I will. But to understand its provision you should also understand the personal elements involved. I think Mrs. Allenby can explain them better than I can.”

  There was a moment of silence; then Thornton said, “Would you mind, Mrs. Allenby?”

  The woman made some comment under her breath. Aloud she said, “And what good will that do?”

  Thornton shrugged. “If you’d rather not—”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t.” She hesitated, needles flashing furiously. “I’ll tell you if you want to know,” she said, and then she went on, a blunt impatience riding her words, her explanation given in deliberate, primer-like simplicity, like an illustrated child’s book.

  “Robert Allenby was my son. His father left the bulk of his estate in trust for me. It seemed enough at the time—though with prices the way they are it hasn’t quite turned out that way—and because of that Robert made only a token bequest to me when he drew his own will. He married a girl he had met in college and they had one child—Frances—named after me.”

  She paused and said, “Robert was trained as an architect. Later he went into speculative building, I suppose you’d call it, and made quite a bit of money. He always liked boats and sailing and he bought a small cruiser that he used week-ends during the summer. He and his wife were out with another couple on this particular time. It was at night and they were off Martha’s Vineyard and for some reason there was an explosion aboard. When the Coast Guard picked them up the next morning Robert’s wife was dead.”

  She hesitated again and there was no sound in the room but the faint click-click of her needles. The silence lengthened until Thornton, apparently afraid that the story was over, broke it.

  “And then, Mrs. Allenby?”

  “Later Robert married again. A young widow named Ruth Lawrence—she had been Ruth Baldwin, Arthur’s sister—who had a daughter about a year younger than Frances. As I remember it Frances was eight and Tracy seven at the time of the marriage.”

  She glanced at the slim blond woman on one divan and then let her gaze move on to Tracy who sat quite still and stared vacantly across the room.

  “From that day on,” she said, “my son had two daughters. He loved them both and he showed no favoritism. If I ever saw a happy family it was Robert and Ruth and the two girls. They had five years of that before Ruth was killed when her car skidded on an icy road and smashed into a truck. Some years later Robert sold out his business. He went to work in ’forty-three for the government as a dollar-a-year man and died that same year from heart trouble and overwork.”

  She leaned back then, her knitting momentarily forgotten as she removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She put the glasses back on and looked at Thornton.

  “If you can understand all this, you can understand his will,” she said. “You might also bear in mind that he found real happiness in both marriages in spite of the tragedy that terminated them.”

  Arthur Baldwin cleared his throat. “As Mr. Allenby’s brother-in-law,” he said without waiting to be invited to proceed, “I handled considerable work for him, representing him from time to time in business matters. I did not draw his will though I discussed the terms with him before it was drawn. Maybe the reason he went to someone else is because I advised him against the provisions he wanted to include.”

  “Why?” Thornton asked.

  Baldwin gave him an impatient glance and leaned forward. “Because I thought he was putting too great a premium on something that might not be, for any number of reasons, quite as acceptable to his daughters as it was to him—the institution of marriage. He believed in it wholeheartedly, he wanted the girls to share his experience, and his bequests are contingent upon their willingness to comply.”

  “You mean if they married they inherited, otherwise no?”

  “Not entirely.” Baldwin rubbed his palms and said, “Briefly, his estate was divided into four parts. It amounted to about a million, two hundred thousand in round figures. It has increased somewhat, but allowing for the bequest to his mother it remains around that amount now. Or I should say, the remaining seventy-five per cent of it does. The other quarter was paid over to Mrs. Erskine three years ago when she married Mr. Erskine. She will receive the other share when she is thirty-five.”

  “I see,” Thornton said. “And the same applies to Miss Lawrence. In case she does not marry she will get her half when she reaches the age of thirty-five.”

  “No,” Baldwin said, “she won’t.” Again his eyes flashed their annoyance, as if he resented the interference. “By the terms of the will should either girl fail to marry she would receive one quarter of the estate at thirty-five; by not marrying she would forfeit the other twenty-five per cent in my favor for so long as I lived, at which time it would revert to the other sister, if alive.”

  “Ahh.” Thornton nodded. “Then at the moment you control around nine hundred thousand dollars.”

  “That is correct.”

  “What about the interest or income on the unpaid portion of the estate?”

  “That is mine to do with as I see fit,” Baldwin replied. “It was Robert Allenby’s way of paying me, and it was left to my judgment as to how much of that income I would use in behalf of the girls. At present I contribute nothing to Mrs. Erskine. Tracy has an excellent job. I believe she makes forty-two hundred a year and I supplement that with three thousand more from the income, a figure she herself suggested. The rest of that income”—he spread his hands—“comes to me for my own personal use.”

  Holland had followed Mrs. Allenby’s story with interest because it explained some things about Tracy he did not know. By using the arbitrary figure of four per cent interest because it was easy to figure and not unattainable even with reasonable safety in these days, he saw that Baldwin had an income of thirty-six thousand dollars, less the three thousand he paid annually to Tracy. And when he got that far he realized that had Tracy actually married Drake, Baldwin’s income would have been automatically reduced by twelve thousand dollars.

  It did not surprise him any that Tracy had requested so small a sum from her stepfather’s estate, for she was a capable, forthright girl—at least that had been his impression until the night before—independent and proud of her independence. She lived well but not lavishly, and seemed quite content with her way of life. He had known nothing at all of any additional gain that would come to her with marriage and, in fact, had not even known that she would some day inherit considerable money.

  He forced his thoughts back to the moment as Thornton turned from a huddle with His associates to make a final announcement.

  “We would like to question each of you briefly in the library,” he said. “It should not take long and for those of you who have to wait I ask that you think back and see if you can remember any incident you heard or saw last night, no matter how inconsequential it may seem to you. Will you come first, Miss Lawrence?”

  eight

  TRACY LAWRENCE rose at once and, as though this was the si
gnal the others were waiting for, there was a flurry of movement in the room as first one and then another came to his feet, testing muscles that had been unused for the past forty minutes, everyone looking a little relieved.

  Eric Carver went directly to Ginny Marshall, spoke softly, and they moved off in the direction of the porch where a state trooper stood casually on the front steps pretending to be oblivious of all that went on about him. Baldwin and Nadine Winsor stood by the divan lighting cigarettes and Frances Erskine strolled over to join them. Holland watched Tracy move into the hall followed by Thornton and the two police officers until a blunt summons from Fanny Allenby demanded his attention.

  “Johnnie!”

  “Here, Nana,” Baldwin said, detaching himself from the two women. “Let me give you a hand.”

  “Johnnie can do it just as well.” The old woman was quietly fuming as she tucked her knitting into a bag. “You should be in there with Tracy. You’re our lawyer, aren’t you?”

  Baldwin stopped short and shrugged. He said something about there being no need for his services until there was a formal questioning, and then Holland was at the woman’s chair, helping her to her feet and wondering why she should turn to him instead of someone in the family.

  They proceeded across to the wide doorway giving on the sunroom that made up the rear half of one wing, a room with windows on three sides that was furnished mostly in wicker pieces, with here and there a more substantial antique. The overdrapes were gay and complemented the upholstered parts of the chairs and settee; there were plant boxes in most of the windows; flowers, mostly gladioli, filled a half-dozen vases.

  Fanny Allenby seated herself in a rocker beside a table holding ash trays and a small radio which she immediately switched on. She directed Holland to open certain windows and draw certain curtains, meanwhile fiddling with the radio dial until she found a station playing music, to which, apparently, she paid no attention whatever.

  “Now,” she said, “tell me what you did last night and how you happened to be up. When you left me you were pretty drunk.”