The Iron Gates

by Margaret Millar

  He reached out and grasped her shoulder savagely.

  “Get out of this house. Run. Don’t let anything stop you.”

  Neither of them had heard Andrew approaching. He spoke from the doorway. “Mr. Sands is right. I advise you to go.”

  He sounded tired but perfectly under control. “Lieutenant Frome’s leave is up Sunday, isn’t it? Today is Thursday, you haven’t much time.”

  She looked from one man to the other, her mouth open in bewilderment.

  “I don’t understand. You know I can’t leave you here alone, Father.”

  “Why not? Has it occurred to you that I might prefer to be alone?”

  Sands stepped back and watched the two of them. It might have been an ordinary family argument except that the girl’s eyes had too much fear in them, and there was too much acid in the man’s voice.

  “I think I’m old enough to be allowed some freedom, Polly. Edith is dead now, the whole business is ended. Do you know what that means to me, in plain realistic terms? It means I’m no longer phone-ridden.”

  The girl’s face moved, and it seemed for an instant as if she was going to cry or laugh at the ridiculous word.

  “It means,” he said, “that wherever I choose to go, at whatever time, I won’t be required to phone home and give my exact location, the nature of my companions, and the state of my health. I am now a free agent, an emancipated man. I’ve had to suffer to get to this point, but I’m here now. Nothing whatever is expected of me”

  “I’m not the type who interferes,” Polly said. She tried to sound cold and scornful but her voice trembled. “I don’t require ten-minute reports, you wouldn’t have to be phone-ridden. I’m not—I’m not Edith.”

  “No. But Edith wasn’t always Edith either. Years ago Edith too was engaged to a young man. But when Mildred died she broke her engagement, she said it was her duty to stay with me. The fact was that she didn’t love the young man enough to take a chance on marriage, so she eased herself out of it by that word duty. As the years passed Edith closed her mind to the real facts. She blamed me for ‘her frustrated love affair. She took it out on me, not overtly, but by kind and gentle and loving nagging.”

  She looked at him, stubborn and mute.

  “I’m wasting my time pointing out analogies. I’ll have to give you a direct order, Polly. Leave this house.”

  “I won’t. This is ridiculous.”

  “Leave this house immediately, do you hear?”

  “You might at least keep your voice down. The maids . . .”

  He saw that she had no intention of going. Even though she might have wanted to, her own obstinacy was in the way.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and struck her on the cheek with the flat of his hand.

  Her face seemed to break apart under the blow. With a sudden whimper she turned and ran out of the room holding her hand to her cheek.

  The two men stood in silence. They heard the front door open and slam shut, a car engine racing, the blast of a horn, and then just quiet again.

  “I’m sorry,” Andrew repeated. “I—I don’t really believe in violence.”

  “No,” Sands said. “It boomerangs.”

  “The poor child, she was frightened to death.”

  “She’ll get over it. Edith won’t.”

  “Edith—yes. You want to see Edith, of course?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very peaceful. Morphine is a peaceful death. You go to sleep, you dream, you never know where the dream ends.”

  Where the dream ends—for Greeley in an alley and Edith in her soft bed.

  14

  She had not undressed. She lay on the bed, a blanket covering her to the waist, her head resting easily on two pillows.

  “She didn’t go to bed,” Andrew said softly, as if she might wake at any minute and be displeased to find him in her bedroom talking about her. “She wouldn’t have liked to be found in a nightgown.”

  “You think that’s it?”

  “Perhaps. I’m only guessing. It’s all we can do now.” Sands moved closer to the bed. Edith’s hands were folded and he saw that one of her fingers had a smudge of ink on it. His eyes strayed to the night table beside the bed. It held a glass of water and a pitcher and a lamp. At the base of the lamp lay a fountain pen with the top jammed carelessly on.

  Sands thought, she sat here marking the passages in the diary. She worked quickly—why? Was she fighting against time, or was she in a hurry to go to sleep, to dream, to die?

  “Why?” he said aloud. Why go to all the trouble of marking the diary and seeing that it got in neutral and therefore safe hands?

  “Why kill herself?” Andrew said, quietly. “Because she’d written a letter. When I came upstairs last night she was in my room trying to find it. It was in the bundle of Lucille’s clothes that came from the hospital. She was afraid that I might read it and find out that she had driven Lucille to suicide.”

  “I see.”

  “Here it is. I read it last night.”

  He brought the letter from his pocket and handed it to Sands.

  Sands read the agitated scrawl:

  “Dear Lucille: I hope you received the chocolates and pillow rest I sent day before yesterday. It is very difficult to get chocolates these days, one has to stand in line, We all miss you a great deal, though I feel so hopeless saying it because I know you won’t believe it. Everything is such a mess. The policeman Sands was here again, talking about the train wreck. You remember that afternoon? I don’t know what he was getting at, but whoever did anything to you, Lucille, it wasn’t me, Lucille, it was not me! I don’t know, I can’t figure anything out any more. I have this sick headache nearly all the time and Martin is driving me crazy. They have always seemed like my own children to me, the two of them, and now, I don’t know, I look at them and they’re like strangers. Meals are the worst time. We watch each other. That doesn’t sound like much but it’s terrible—we watch each other. I know Andrew wouldn’t like me to be writing a letter like this. But, Lucille, you’re the only one I can talk to now. I feel I’d rather be there with you, I’ve always liked and trusted you. Everything is so mixed up. Do you remember the night Giles came and I said, God help me, that we were a happy family? I feel this is a judgment on me for my smugness and wickedness. I don’t know how it will all end. Edith.”

  It had all ended now, for both of them. Edith’s calm cold face denied all knowledge. Whoever did anything to you, Lucille, it wasn't me, Lucille, it was not me! The words rang clear and true in Sands’ mind.

  “She had to get the letter back,” Andrew said. “She knew that Lucille killed herself soon after it was read to her, and she realized that if other people read it they would know the letter was mainly responsible for Lucille’s death.”

  Sands barely heard him. He was looking at Edith, seeing the cold denial on her face. The diary felt large and heavy in his pocket, as if it had grown since he’d put it there.

  He turned suddenly and walked back to the door. The diary swung against his side, and when he passed Andrew he saw Andrew’s eyes on his coat pocket.

  “Do you carry a gun?” Andrew said.

  “No.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A book.”

  “If you don’t carry a gun, what do you do In an emergency?”

  “I plan for emergencies. Then they are no longer emergencies.” He smiled, very faintly. “Do you carry a gun?”

  “No.”

  “You are against violence, I had forgotten. Excuse me, I have to phone in a report. Your sister—must be attended to.”

  “Yes, of course. You know where the phone is.”

  Sands was gone for ten minutes. When he came back Andrew was standing in the hall outside Edith’s room, waiting for him.

  “That book in your pocket,” he said, “that’s my wife’s diary, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought it would be. I couldn’t find it. I gave it to Edith last night to read.”<
br />
  “Why?”

  “She found it in my room when she came to look for her letter. I thought it was the natural, thing to do, to let her read it.”

  “Natural,” Sands repeated. “Everything’s been pretty natural all down the line, hasn’t it? Everything has more or less just happened “

  “I’m glad you see that. I feel it very strongly myself.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “The only really unnatural thing is where you got my wife’s diary.”

  “Your sister wrapped it in a paper bag and mailed it to Janet Green last night before she died.” Seeing Andrew’s frown he added, “She was at the funeral yesterday. Cora Green’s sister.”

  “Oh, yes. The little old woman who ate the grapes.” He flung a quick uncertain glance at Sands. “Well, at least nobody could claim that was anything but an accident.”

  “Nobody has.”

  “And Lucille herself, and the Greeley fellow, and now Edith—all accidents.”

  “If you plan accidents,” Sands said grimly, “then they are no longer accidents.”

  Andrew laughed. “Ah, yes. Like the emergency.” He sobered at the look on Sands’ face. He felt that he must somehow deflect that cold direct gaze. “What were we talking about?”

  “Accidents.”

  “And the diary, yes. I didn’t imagine Edith would do anything so preposterous as sending it to Janet Green.”

  “Why did you give her the diary to read?”

  “I told you, she found it in my room, I thought she would be interested in it.”

  “No. I think you were making one of your experiments. On Edith’s mind, this time. When you first read the diary it threw you completely. You wanted to see what it would do to Edith.”

  “When I first read the diary?” Andrew repeated. “Why, I’ve had it for years, as I told Edith.”

  “But once she’d read it she didn’t believe you. Any more than I do. I think you found the diary two weeks ago last Sunday.”

  They were both silent. The words spun between them—two weeks ago last Sunday—and Sands could picture Polly sitting in his office yesterday morning, saying blankly: “It was the most ordinary Sunday . . . Father couldn’t find something, as usual, his scarf, I think it was. . . .”

  “You couldn’t have had the diary all this time,” Sands said, “without knowing that Lucille had killed your first wife. And having that knowledge you could never have lived with her for fifteen years. It is humanly impossible.”

  A door opened at the end of the hall and Martin came out. Though he walked slowly Sands had the impression that he was holding himself back, that if he thought no one was looking he would bound along the hall, as buoyant and unfeeling as an animal.

  “Oh, there you are, Father,” Martin said, and his voice too gave the impression of carefully imposed restraint. His eyes strayed to Edith’s door and then back to his father. “Conference in the hall?”

  “Mr. Sands and I are talking,” Andrew said.

  Martin raised his brows. “Not by any chance about me? You’re looking very guilty.”

  “Guilty?” Andrew laughed, but one of his hands crept up toward his face as if to smooth away the lines of guilt. “It’s difficult for you to believe, Martin, but people frequently talk about other things than you.”

  “Granted.”

  “I . . . Polly is not here. She’s gone down to meet Lieutenant Frome. I expect they’ll be married this, afternoon.”

  Martin flicked another glance toward Edith’s door. “Nice day for it.”

  “My suggestion entirely,” Sands said.

  “Don’t bother with explanations,” Andrew told him curtly, and turned back to Martin. “I want you to go down there now—where is it?—the Ford Hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go down there now. I—well, I forgot to give Polly some money. I’ll write a check and you can take it down to her and—and wish her luck. Wish her luck for me, Martin.”

  “This is a damn funny time to ask me to go traipsing around with checks and touching messages.”

  “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. Come downstairs and I’ll write the check.”

  He went to the staircase, and after a moment’s hesitation Martin followed him, frowning at Sands as he passed him. If Sands had not been there he would have made an issue of it and insisted on an explanation from his father. But Sands was there and in some strange way allied with Andrew, and together the two men had a personal ascendancy that Martin would not defy.

  Besides, he was a sophisticated young man and dared not show surprise. In the study he accepted the check from Andrew docilely, but with a quirk of his mouth to show that he was not in any way impressed.

  “Wish her luck,” Andrew said again.

  “Sure,” Martin said, and departed with a debonair wave of his hand.

  The sophisticate, Sands thought, the man about town, the babe swaddled by Brooks Brothers.

  “Sit down and make yourself comfortable, Mr. Sands,” Andrew said. “We have quite a lot to talk about. Cigarette?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you mind if I close this door?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I wouldn’t want the maids to hear me talking about my murders. It might destroy their faith in doctors.” He closed the door. “Murders, I don’t know how many, or how many causes . . . Faulty diagnosis, too much pressure on the scalpel, bad timing, sheer ignorance and lack of experience. . . . Every time I lost a case I used to brood about it. Then I began to believe that some time between now and the end of time everything would be put right again. In the forever-ever land the dead baby lifted by Caesarean section would have its second chance, would breathe again, and live, and grow beautiful. Mildred called it having faith.”

  The smoke from his cigarette slid up his face. “You used the phrase, humanly impossible. Practically nothing is that. A man can endure anything if he believes in ultimate justice, if he believes that somewhere dangling in space is justice and the wicked shall be punished and the good shall be rewarded. That is the working principle of the religion of the people I know. Revenge and reward.”

  He leaned forward. “Think of it! Somewhere dangling in space justice, great impartial justice built like a monstrous man straddling the universe. A big fellow, a strong fellow, a kind fellow, but still like us, with sixteen bones in each wrist and his pubic hair modestly covered with a bit of cloth.”

  Sands thought, another fallen idealist, the man who expects too much and loses his faith not all at once but gradually and with suspense and bitter doubts.

  “Don’t be boyish,” he said, and glanced at his watch. “My friends will be here in five minutes.”

  “And then?”

  “And then,” Sands said carefully, “I will try to prove that you arc a murderer.”

  “You have no proof?”

  “Circumstantial evidence only. Quite a bit of it in Greeley’s case. You had the means of committing the murder and you were around at the crucial time.”

  “So were a lot of other people.”

  “True. Then Miss Green’s death offers no problem to you. You can only be charged there with moral guilt, moral irresponsibility. Evil and fear grow like cancer cells, inexorably, aimlessly, destroying whatever they touch. Cora Green was one of its victims.” He blinked his eyes, dreamily. “Circumstantial evidence only,” he repeated. “Perhaps we’ll have to wait for that big fellow straddling the universe to get you.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  “What?” Sands said in an exaggerated drawl. “And him so big and full of vitamins?”

  They both smiled but there was a glint of rage in Andrew’s eyes and he crushed out his cigarette with a gesture that was almost savage.

  “You are making me out a fool and a villain. I am neither. I am an ordinary man, and if out-of-the-ordinary things occurred to me, they occurred naturally. You understand? They just happened. You said it yourself. I was not looking for that diary
when I found it, I had forgotten there was such a thing. I was looking for the scarf Lucille gave me last Christmas, a black scarf with little gray designs on it.”

  “Black? With little gray designs? It sounds terribly cute.”

  He leaned back, watching Andrew lazily as if the whole episode was a mildly amusing joke.

  A flush of anger rose slowly up Andrew’s face. He knew that Sands was baiting him, that he must control himself. But he felt too that he must impress the man and make him realize that he was not a child to be laughed aside.

  “The scarf was not in the cedar closet where Lucille said it was. I looked in my own room and then in hers. The diary was in one of her bureau drawers. It wasn’t even hidden properly, it was just there. As if she took it out now and then to read . . .” He stopped, sucking in his breath. “Think of it! She murdered my wife. And all these years she’s kept the evidence to convict her, casually, in a bureau drawer.”

  “It may not have been there all the time,” Sands said. “Perhaps she’d hidden it well, and came across it and wanted to read it again.” Why? To re-live it, and by reliving it to lay the ghost that haunted her mind?

  “I think you’re right. She’d been thinking of Mildred that day, Sunday. Martin and I found the sketches she made of Mildred. She had burned out the eyes with a cigarette.” He paused again, shaking his head half in sorrow, half in bewildered rage. “The systematic illogic of women. A man cannot believe it. When they are angry they are cold and merciless. When they have a grievance they tuck it up their sleeve and it comes out at some inexplicable and unconnected moment as tears. They can live, almost happily, with a man they hate, and harry a man they love to death.”

  “Like yourself?”

  “Like myself, yes. All my life I’ve been fair prey for any woman, because I value peace. I gave up my independence for the sake of peace. I’ve hired myself out to a series of managers—my mother, Edith, Lucille. A man has no redress against the soft lilting command, no refuge at all from the voices of the women who love him and are doing everything ‘for his own good.’ ”

  He was no longer angry. He even seemed bored with his own words, as if he had said them to himself a great many times and was now reciting a piece of memory work.