by Andre Norton
“Susie’s not like that,” Jim said complacently. But before he could enlarge on Susie’s virtues, they both heard the sound of a car outside. “More visitors,” he muttered as he stood up and went to the front door. A moment later Fredericka heard him say: “Hi, Phil.” And then: “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
The screen door banged. Fredericka got up and, as she went out into the hall, Philippine came toward her. There was no sign of James.
“Oh Fredericka,” she said breathlessly, “I’m sorry if I’m terribly late. I—I had to come. It’s Margie. She’s died. I felt I had to talk to you. You’re the only one who seems normal in this whole town.”
“Guess you want some coffee,” Jim said gently, steering them both into the kitchen.
“Where’s Brewster?” Jim asked when they had sat down.
Philippine held the steaming cup between her small hands and drank it gratefully like a thirsty child. “After we left here,” she said, between gulps, “we decided to go back to the hospital. Then—then, when we heard, about Margie, I mean—James thought we ought to take Martha Hartwell and Margaret back to the Farm. They’d been there most of the day—both of them—saying nothing, doing nothing—not even crying. But I—I just couldn’t go back with them. I wanted to talk to someone sensible so I took the jeep, and James took them home in his car—”
Fredericka said nothing for a moment. It was hard to find the right consoling words. Jim coughed self-consciously and then, in the silence that followed this burst of sound, they could hear the ticking of the kitchen clock and the subdued chirping of crickets outside.
After a few uncomfortable minutes, Jim could not bear the tension. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Well,” he said slowly, “I guess you two would like to have a heart-to-heart. I’ll clear things up here and then walk around for a smoke and a look-see. Why don’t you go into the other room? It’s more comfortable in there.”
Fredericka and Philippine got up obediently and walked, as if by clockwork, into the office. They sat down stiffly and then there was another silence until Philippine got up and searched aimlessly for cigarettes. Fredericka handed her one from a packet in her pocket. Philippine lit it, and as she did so, Fredericka noticed that her hand shook uncontrollably.
“You’re terribly upset, Philippine,” Fredericka said quietly, and then added, “I’m glad you came to see me—that is, if I can be any help.” The last words were a question.
“Oh my God,” Philippine said, drawing in her breath and letting a fine trickle of smoke out through her small even teeth, “I’ve got to talk to you—got to. Will—will Jim leave us alone?”
At that moment the telephone shrilled from the desk beside them and both women jumped. “We’re a couple of coots,” Fredericka said with an attempt at her ordinary voice. She reached an arm for the receiver and said: “Hello” rather fiercely.
“Is that the bookshop?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Yes.”
“Is Jim Brown there?”
“Yes, yes, he is. I’ll just call him.”
Fredericka was aware that she felt both disappointed and relieved. She had dared to hope that it might be Peter calling from Washington, but for some reason which she didn’t stop to analyse, she didn’t want to talk to him in front of Philippine. She hurried out of the room with a muttered word of apology.
Jim looked worried as he came in and picked up the receiver, and increasingly worried as he carried on a monosyllabic conversation.
Both women listened and both tried not to listen. After a series of yes’s and no’s, Jim finally said: “I left Dr. Scott’s number written out there by the phone.” There was some reply to this and then he said firmly: “Look here, Susie, you know I can’t. I’ve been off all day and I’m on duty. You know that.” It was obvious that Susie didn’t. There was a splutter of sound in the receiver. “Get Maud to come over, then,” Jim said desperately. “Gee, Susie, I can’t help it.” There was another eruption of sound and then, with a gesture of helplessness, Jim laid the receiver back on its stand.
“I couldn’t help hearing, Jim,” Fredericka said quickly. “What’s the matter? Is it the baby?”
“Yes, Miss Wing. Susie’s wild—says he’s took bad.”
“Did she call Dr. Scott?”
“He’s out.”
“He was up at the hospital when I was there a few minutes ago,” Philippine said quietly. “Why don’t you try to catch him there before he leaves.”
“I will then.” He looked to Fredericka who nodded toward the telephone. Jim managed to get on to Dr. Scott who promised to go in to see the baby as soon as he possibly could. But as this would not be for another half an hour, he gave Jim brief instructions for the immediate care of the baby.
When the anxious father had hung up the receiver for the second time, he asked Fredericka if he could call his wife and pass on the doctor’s message. Fredericka agreed at once, and then another thought occurred to her.
“Look, Jim,” she said quickly, “why don’t you run home and be with your wife until Dr. Scott comes? I’ve got Philippine here.” She turned to the woman beside her. “You can stay for a bit can’t you?”
“Of course,” Philippine said. Then, after a moment, she added suddenly, “But look, there’s no need for Jim to come back at all until morning. I can stay the night with you, Fredericka. I mean, if you’d like me to.” Then seeing Fredericka’s hesitation, she said, “I don’t need a bed. I can sleep on the couch. I’d much rather, than go back to the Farm.”
“But you can’t do that, Philippine. It’s so lonely down here. You wouldn’t sleep a wink, would you?”
“Of course. You forget that I’ve not lived a sheltered life—” For a moment Fredericka thought she was going to add “like yours” in one of her sudden flashes of bitterness. Instead she went on quickly, “Don’t stand there and stare at me, Jim. Scram.” She pronounced the word shcram, but Jim did not mistake its meaning. After a quick look to Fredericka for her approval he hurried out. Everything had happened so suddenly that Fredericka felt dazed. She lit a cigarette and tried to collect her thoughts.
“You don’t mind, Fredericka? You are just as glad to have me, are you not? I would so much—oh so much—rather be here—than—than—there.” She waved a vague hand in the general direction of the Farm.
“Mind? I think you’re a saint, Philippine. I’d be, well, reasonably willing to stay alone only—well, I promised—er—Thane Carey that I wouldn’t and well, I admit that these last weeks haven’t exactly strengthened my courage.”
“I know. Mine either. It’s such a horrible business—and so close to us. But it isn’t so bad any more. That’s really what I want to talk to you about. It will help me to do so and I think it may help you, too. We really are alone now, and I want to tell you what I know. You’ve no idea how much it will help me—oh so much it will help me—to tell you who are not close to it.”
“What is it, Philippine?” Fredericka sat forward in her chair, as the other woman’s voice became hoarse with the intensity of her feeling. Philippine lit another cigarette from the end in her mouth and then said slowly and very distinctly. “You see, now that Margie is dead, we have nothing to fear any more.”
“What do you mean?” Fredericka fairly shrieked her question.
“I will tell you,” Philippine went on, and her voice had now become gentle, “only just please to sit back in your chair. It is so miserable and sad what I have to say.”
“You mean—surely you don’t mean that Margie killed Catherine Clay? But, Philippine, it just isn’t possible.”
“Why not?”
“She was a tiresome child, but murder—oh, no, Philippine.”
“Listen.” Philippine now sat forward in her turn. “I am not guessing this. I know it. I have known it from the first, but I couldn’t say anything. I felt sorry for the child because she is too young to know what she does. And, besides, I myself hated Catherine Clay.” As she said this, her fac
e hardened and her brows drew together fiercely, but she hurried on, “I have seen enough and plenty of death myself—in the war—in the camp. What does it matter—one more dead who is better dead?—who makes everyone, I say everyone, miserable—her mother, her brother, Margie, James—yes, all of us.” She stopped abruptly and then went on more quietly, “But yes, it was Margie who killed her—that I know. And for that I bless her.”
“But how could she? How do you know?” Fredericka asked.
“Catherine was killed on a Saturday—the day of the bazaar. That morning I told Margie I was going out collecting, but when I got started I remembered that I hadn’t done up some orders for herbs, and I thought I’d better do them first or Margaret would, and she ought not to stand up so long, especially as she insisted that she would go to the bazaar. She’s not been well, you know, and she’d already done all that extra work for her booth. Besides, I knew I could probably get Roger to go with me and help me with the herbs later on because he’d want to get as far away from the crowds as possible. So—well, I went back. I had on rubber-soled shoes and I went into the lab quietly, thinking more about the work I had to do than anything else.” She paused for a moment and shut her eyes as if in an effort to shut out the sight that her next words would recall. “Margie was there,” she said simply, “she was making—making,” she paused, “capsules.”
“Oh!” Fredericka said only the one word and it faded away in the silence like a note of despair.
“Yes,” Philippine went on after a moment, “I did not think anything of it then, you see, because I have taught her to fill up these capsules. We use them for our herb medicines and all these things. But later—afterwards—I remembered this and the whole scene came back to me when Thane asked us about the little silver box of vitamin capsules. I remembered, I think, because she had looked so guilty when I found her, and she had not expected me to come back. So then I asked her about this. At first she would not say, but then she knew that I knew too much and so she told me how she put the yellow jessamine into the capsules and put them in the little box and put it back into the dining room where Catherine had left it. I blame myself because that poison I had told her about and perhaps I should not have had it there, but we need it for our experiments—and how could I know? I never did dream such a thing—”
Fredericka felt the weight of Philippine’s words like a physical pain across her forehead. She closed her eyes. Of course. It was all plain now: this explained Margie’s fear and strangeness—her anxiety. “She tried to get back the silver box from me,” Fredericka heard herself say at last.
“From you?” Philippine asked.
“Yes. You see, Thane Carey’s man found it outside here and he left it with me to see if I could find out who it belonged to. He took out the remaining capsules, but perhaps Margie thought they were still in it, and that they would be used as evidence, especially after what you had seen.”
“That must have been how it was,” Philippine said slowly and thoughtfully.
“But,” Fredericka went on, thinking out loud, “But, Philippine, I just can’t believe it. She was such a blundering child. Perhaps she did hate Catherine, but to kill her!”
“That was what I thought at first. But then when she confessed to me, she poured it all out—all the hate and misery and things shut up inside of her ever since Catherine came back.”
“What things?”
“Catherine was cruel. More than cruel. She was a beast—like those Nazi fiends we all know about—but I more than you. It was cruelty of the mind—the spider to the fly in its web. Margie was afraid of Catherine and showed her fear and that made it worse. Little beastly things she did, always. Oh, I saw her but she was too clever. We could not stop her, any of us. And the cruel things she would say—and then, you see—Catherine she was beautiful like a film star, and Margie was an unattractive adolescent girl. She had no beaux and not very many friends. She was eaten alive with jealousy of Catherine. She hated her and the hate in her grew and grew until—until this. And I, I do not blame that child. As I have said already, and I would say over and over again, the world is better without that woman—she was evil!” Philippine spat out the word with such venom that Fredericka drew back as if she had been struck.
After a moment Philippine went on more quietly: “So, when Margie told me and I knew the truth, I told her that I would not tell this to anyone. I told her that if she did not say anything when they questioned her that no one could make her say anything. But, you see, she is a good child, really. She couldn’t live with herself any more. This illness. I think it is because she wanted to die. Oh, Fredericka—it is all such a terrible wicked wrong and needless thing.”
“But she couldn’t have had such an illness just from wanting to die,” Fredericka said.
“Well,” Philippine said slowly and with obvious reluctance, “there are those herbs in the lab. I should have taken away all the poisons, perhaps. But how did I know what she would do? I do not know now what she did take. I could not find anything missing. It is strange because if she really wanted to kill herself she could have had the yellow jessamine. But that she did not touch again. She kept all her private things here somewhere in her aunt’s house. I know because her mother is so strict. I tried to see if I could find anything that might have explained it. That was the day I came for her insurance and I kept thinking if we could know what she was doing to herself then we could have known what remedy.”
“You really did think, even then, that she was poisoning herself in some way?” Fredericka asked.
“Yes. That is, when she began to have the odd symptoms and be so very ill. But I could find nothing.”
“Why didn’t you tell Dr. Scott? Oh, of course, you couldn’t without letting him know why.” Suddenly Fredericka remembered the bottles and jars that she had discovered in the shed. “Philippine,” she said quickly, “I wish you had told me then, I mean that day when you came over. Margie did have a secret hiding place in an old shed, a sort of disused greenhouse, down by the alley. Thane’s men found a collection of oddments there and Chris told me they were Margie’s. I meant to ask her about them, but she was so odd these last days and I never managed to.”
“That’s it—that’s her secret hiding-place—of course. I’m sure that’s it.” Philippine jumped to her feet. “Come, Fredericka, we must see those things. Now. At once.”
“Oh no, Philippine. It’s—good heavens—it’s after midnight. It’s dark as pitch out back. Philippine, it’s madness to go poking around out there tonight. Please let’s go to bed. Whatever there is will keep until morning. What difference does it make now, anyway? Margie’s dead. We can’t get any remedy now.” Fredericka’s words fell over each other as she tried to hold Philippine back. “Oh, Philippine, don’t persist in this madness. I tell you, it’s black as night out there. We’d break our necks. I’m—I’m terrified to go out there now.” The memory of the other night was too real.
“What is there now to be frightened of, Fredericka? As you say, Margie’s dead. But don’t you see, we’ve got to get those things before Thane takes them away. He’s sure to now. And then he’ll put two and two together and know the truth. Don’t you see we’ve got to protect Margie? It’s most terribly important.”
“I can’t see what harm it is for Thane to know now. Surely you’ll tell him, won’t you?”
“Of course I won’t tell him. What of her mother and the Suttons and the business? Everything’s at stake. And I promised Margie. That’s as important to me as if she were still living.”
Fredericka stood up. “It’s utter madness. The police are bound to find out sooner or later and I’m not going to explore that jungle before daylight. I’ll set the alarm, if you like, and I’ll go out with you at six A.M., before Jim gets back. But I won’t go now.”
“Very well then, I’ll go myself—alone. I did not know when you say you are timid that you are so timid. It is nothing except the darkness and I’ve got a flashlight in the car. I’
ll get that.” Suddenly her voice dropped. “Oh, please, Fredericka, I suppose I’m really a little frightened to go alone. But I must, otherwise I can’t sleep. Please come with me; it’ll only be a minute and then we can go to bed and know that everything is all right.”
“I can’t see how it will be all right,” Fredericka persisted. “Thane and Peter will ferret this thing out even if you don’t tell them. They won’t leave the case open. They’ll have to know the truth in the end.”
“Oh, Fredericka, I thought you would understand. What can Thane and Peter do without proof? The family and the Farm are my whole life now. Margie is dead. It is all over. In time it will be forgotten. Perhaps it is madness. Perhaps you are right. But please, anyway, just come with me. You see, I must.”
She put her small strong hand on Fredericka’s arm, and suddenly Fredericka was too tired to care. What did it matter? It was all part of the nightmare and the sooner it was over, the better. Peter seemed very far away. “All right,” she said quietly.
“You will? Oh, bless you, Fredericka. I’ll fly and get the flashlight.”
When she had gone, Fredericka stood still in the silent room, trying to collect her thoughts and to absorb all the things Philippine had told her. Then, reluctantly, she walked across the room to the door. As she heard the quick returning step on the front path, a sudden thought occurred to her and she hurried out to meet Philippine. “Have you got the flashlight?” she asked at once, and when Philippine held it up she went on quickly, “Oh, thank goodness, you see there’s an open well out there. We haven’t got it properly covered yet. I’ll have to go first and then I can show you where it is. Do keep the flashlight low and shine it ahead of me. I’ve no desire to walk into the thing myself.”
“Of course, but that is nothing, nothing at all, Fredericka,” Her voice sounded excited—almost happy, Fredericka thought, and her own anxiety increased. “Yes,” Philippine went on quickly, “you lead the way and I’ll follow just behind you and direct the flashlight ahead of us, like you say. Good, Fredericka. Oh, good.”