Fire Will Freeze

by Margaret Millar

  She flapped around for a while like a walrus on ice, then she sat straight up and looked over at Paula Lashley to see if she was sleeping.

  Paula’s eyes were closed and she lay very quietly.

  “Are you sleeping?” said Mrs. Vista loudly.

  No answer.

  Ah, youth, youth, thought Mrs. Vista with sadness. No nerves, no indigestion, not even any feelings, when you come to think of it.

  “At any rate, I have lived, Mrs. Vista murmured, and thought of Cecil, the supplier of her name and fortune, and purveyor of virility.

  Mrs. Vista, then Evaline Smith of Cincinnati, had gone to Europe on an organized tour. She didn’t return for fifteen years and then she had defied tradition by not creeping back like a wounded animal but arriving by Clipper swaddled in mink, diamonds and smiles. She threw herself into culture. At a meeting of her Poetry Club she met Mr. Anthony Goodwin and because he was English and alone and defenseless among Americans who misunderstood him and printed shocking lies about him in the papers, Mrs. Vista took him up. Cecil had, unaccountably, heard of this new interest, for he sent her a friendly cable telling her to watch her step or he’d send the King’s Proctor after her and how was she, anyway?

  No one else but Cecil would do a thing like that, Mrs. Vista thought with nostalgia. She flipped over again on her side. Paula made a funny little noise which sounded like a sob.

  “Why, you aren’t sleeping!” Mrs. Vista said with great reproach.

  “I am so!” Paula whispered savagely. “Leave me alone.”

  Mrs. Vista usually acted inversely to the wishes of other people. She raised herself on one elbow and squinted over at Paula. The tears were rolling down Paula’s cheeks.

  “Well, really!” said Mrs. Vista. “What are you crying about?”

  “N-nothing.”

  “Nerves?” Mrs. Vista diagnosed. “I’m a great sufferer from nerves myself.”

  “It’s not nerves,” Paula said into her pillow. “I just want to go home.”

  Mrs. Vista sighed, “So do we all. A few more hours yet and we’ll be on our way.”

  “I don’t want to go to the Lodge. I want to go home.”

  “What did you come for, in the first place?”

  Paula rolled her head back and forth and sobbed into the pillow.

  Mrs. Vista sighed and thought, she looked so quiet and thin. What a mistake! I should have taken a room to myself but this house seemed so eerie.

  “I think you should go down to the bathroom and wash your face and stop this nonsense,” she said firmly. “There’s nothing like a dash of cold water . . .”

  “Oh, be quiet,” Paula said angrily and sat up and wiped off her tears with a handkerchief. “If I’m disturbing you, I’ll go some place else. I’ll go downstairs.”

  “You can’t. Mr. Goodwin is sleeping down there.”

  Paula rolled off the bed. Like the others, she had not undressed and she looked very funny standing there dressed for skiing, her hair tousled and her eyes red from crying. Mrs. Vista began to laugh, holding her sides and rocking back and forth on the bed. Her laughter was punctuated by the banging of the radiator and the snores of Crawford coming from the next room.

  Paula sat down again on the bed and tapped the floor with her foot. Mrs. Vista stopped laughing and said, “What time is it?”

  “Midnight,” Paula said shortly.

  “What were you making all that fuss about?”

  “Nothing. Homesick, I guess.”

  “Well, you didn’t come here alone. Your cross young man . . .”

  “He’s not my young man. I’ve just known him since we were children. We’re just friends.”

  Her eyes flickered, and even Mrs. Vista, who was no observer of human nature not her own, decided she was lying.

  Paula rose and yawned. “I think I’ll have that dash of cold water now. I have to take the lamp with me.”

  “Don’t be long,” Mrs. Vista said. “And close the door behind you.”

  Paula went out with the lamp. She was too engrossed in her own troubles to be nervous about the dark or to remember the dead cat.

  She opened the bathroom door and went in. A trickle of pinkish brown water escaped from the tap. She dashed some on her face and dried it off with her last clean handkerchief.

  She had her hand on the knob to go out again when she heard a faint scream. It seemed to come from nowhere. It was just there, like the howling of the wind, and then it was gone again.

  Though it lasted only a second and was barely audible above the other noises, the scream was full of terror. It seemed to be torn from a throat that wouldn’t scream again.

  Her legs shaking, Paula walked quickly out into the hall. The doors were all shut, the house undisturbed and dark. No one else heard it, Paula thought. Perhaps I imagined it, or it was an animal outside . . . ?

  But she knew she had not imagined it when she went back to her room and found Mrs. Vista standing at the window, her face pale with fright.

  “Did you hear it?” Mrs. Vista whispered huskily. “Did you hear someone scream?”

  Paula nodded wordlessly.

  “Someone died,” Mrs. Vista said, putting her hand over her shaking mouth. “I feel it. I feel that someone is dead.”

  6

  “I feel it,” Mrs. Vista said again, while Crawford’s snoring rose to a crescendo and died into an echo. “We’d better wake him up. Rap on his door.”

  “You come with me,” Paula said.

  For a full minute neither of them moved. Then Paula took a long breath. “Are you coming? Someone’s life may be in danger.”

  She walked out and Mrs. Vista, trembling inside her huge coat, followed her.

  Paula rapped on Crawford’s door. Almost instantly the snoring ceased and a sharp alert voice called out, “Who’s there?”

  “Open the door,” Paula said.

  When Crawford came to the door he was wearing his overcoat and one hand rested in his pocket. His hair was tangled from sleeping but his eyes were wide awake and bright.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  “We heard a scream,” Paula said. “Someone screamed and we don’t know what to do about it. We thought—we thought perhaps you could . . .” She stopped because Crawford was looking at her with such a dry, unconvinced smile.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “We both heard it separately,” Mrs. Vista said shrilly. “If you don’t intend to do something I’ll wake the others.”

  She opened her mouth and began to shriek. “Help! Help! Murder!”

  Crawford was too late in putting his hand across her mouth. He cursed at her softly when the doors started to open along the hall.

  Mrs. Vista took a deep breath, put her hands on Crawford’s chest, and pushed. Crawford landed ungracefully on one hip. There was a sharp clink of metal as he hit the floor.

  He picked himself up, wincing. He said, “You bitch,” so Mrs. Vista began to shriek

  again and the hall came alive with lamps and people and resounded with the screams of Maudie and Mrs. Vista, and the roar of Miss Rudd pounding on the locked door.

  Mr. Goodwin came leaping up the stairs like an overgrown gazelle, for he had recognized Mrs. Vista’s voice, and poet or no poet he knew a good thing when he saw it and fifty thousand dollars a year must not perish. When he saw that Mrs. Vista was not perishing he decided to go back downstairs. But it was too late. Mrs. Vista had spied him and was flinging herself at him. Since Mrs. Vista weighed nearly two hundred pounds, Mr. Goodwin wisely propped himself against the brass banister railing and closed his eyes.

  The impact came. Mr. Goodwin fancied he heard the crunch of bone. “There goes a vertebra,” he muttered, and patted Mrs. Vista’s shoulder.

  The tumult gradually died down except for Miss Rudd’s pounding, and Paula was able to explain w
hat she had heard.

  “But we’re all here,” Isobel said in a puzzled voice. “Nothing happened to any of us. We’re all here.”

  “Except,” Mr. Hunter said, “Floraine.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Isobel said, “Nothing could happen to Floraine. I mean, she’s probably in Miss Rudd’s room.”

  “That’s easy to find out,” Gracie said. “Just go in and look.”

  “She’s locked in.”

  “We could smash in the door,” said Herbert, who liked the idea since it was always being done in the stories he read.

  “The doors are oak,” Mr. Hunter said.

  “Well, pick the lock,” Gracie said with a shrug. “Or yell. Yell Floraine. Like this. Floraine!”

  Miss Rudd also began to yell “Floraine!” evidently with a great deal of enjoyment.

  After a couple of minutes of this Crawford went to the door and snarled, “Shut up in there!” Then he took out a pocket knife and pried at the lock.

  The door swung open and revealed Miss Rudd in her grey flannel nightgown holding a chair over her head.

  “Put that down,” Crawford said.

  Miss Rudd said nothing, but glared at him balefully.

  “Put it down. I won’t hurt you. I want to find Floraine.”

  The chair started to descend. Crawford stepped back and the chair crashed at his feet. He thrust the door shut and held his hands against it.

  “She’s strong as hell,” he said through clenched teeth. “Somebody help me. Hunter. Put your back against it while I slip the lock back.”

  Mr. Hunter did as he was told. Crawford said, “The rest of you, get the hell back to your rooms.”

  The hall began to empty. Only Isobel remained, as if her feet were too heavy to move. She heard the lock slip back in place and felt herself trembling with relief.

  Crawford turned from the door and saw her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Admiring your versatility,” Isobel said evenly. “And waiting to see Floraine.”

  Crawford smiled slightly. “I’d like to see her myself. I don’t get along well with Miss Rudd.”

  Mr. Hunter said, “It’s very queer she didn’t hear this racket if she’s around. You don’t think she’s had an accident?”

  “I intend to find out,” Isobel said.

  “Because a couple of women imagined a scream?” Crawford said. “Go ahead and find out then. Search the house.”

  “If we’d had any men around with any courage we’d have searched it some time ago,” Isobel said. “And if it’s of any interest to you, Mr. Crawford, I already have done a little searching.”

  “With my flashlight?” Crawford said dryly. “Watch those light fingers, Isobel.”

  Flushing, Isobel continued. “And the driver did come here. I found parts of his clothing. And if you want to hear the rest of it, I think he’s dead, do you understand? I think they killed him and you stand there raising your silly eyebrows and . . .” She broke off in a sob.

  “Dear, dear,” said Mr. Hunter. “Tut, tut. Don’t cry.”

  “She’s putting it all on,” Crawford said in a hard voice. “I don’t know what her game is . . .”

  “Crawford, you’re a brute,” said Mr. Hunter.

  “He’s scared,” Isobel said huskily. “He’s scared silly.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Crawford said. “All right. You want to search, all right let’s search. What in hell you expect to find I don’t know. Where’s my flashlight?”

  “I lent it to someone,” Isobel confessed weakly.

  “You are beginning,” Crawford said gently, “to annoy me intensely.”

  He walked towards the staircase. Mr. Hunter hung back and looked wistful.

  “Why don’t you come, too?” Isobel said. “Heaven knows we can’t have too many.” She raised her voice. “And I can’t spend the whole night trying to persuade Mr. Crawford to put one foot in front of the other.”

  “Nuts,” Crawford said. “Make it snappy. I’m tired.”

  “Tired?” Isobel said. “You’re moribund.”

  “Mightn’t it be a good idea to examine the third floor first?” Mr. Hunter suggested. “Make sure it’s really shut up, I mean, a sort of process of elimination.”

  Isobel said, “Mr. Crawford, if you’re not too tired, think that over, will you?”

  “Sure,” Crawford said. He turned around and led the way to the back staircase. It was enclosed, and the door was shut and padlocked. Mr. Hunter held his lamp directly over the padlock.

  “Rusted,” Isobel said. “Hasn’t been used for years.” She bent down and examined the sides of the door. The cracks had been filled in with putty.

  “Nobody could get through here without a battering ram,” Crawford said. “Now what? More eliminations? What, no suggestion from the little lady?”

  “You talk too much,” Isobel said coldly. “Obviously the next step is to go through all the bedrooms. She may be simply hiding. Had that occurred to you?”

  “Last year,” Crawford said. “How do you go about searching bedrooms?”

  “Let’s try yours first, shall we?”

  “Sure,” Crawford said. “Welcome, I’m sure.”

  Crawford’s bedroom was small and without a clothes closet or fireplace. There was obviously no place anyone could hide except under the bed. And there Isobel looked, her face reddening under Crawford’s exaggerated leer. He said, “T-t-t-t. Sorry, Isobel. Better luck next time.”

  Nothing of interest came to light in the bedrooms except Maudie Thropple’s beautiful bridgework which had been removed to prevent her swallowing it while in a faint.

  There remained Miss Rudd’s bedroom but no one seemed eager to tackle it, least of all Crawford who said it would upset all his favorite ideas of how he was going to commit suicide some day. So they went downstairs.

  Mr. Goodwin was giving his insomnia a workout in front of the fire.

  He said, “Well?” rather aggressively.

  “We want to search this room,” Isobel explained. “Mr. Crawford, could you take that side and I’ll take this side with Mr. Hunter.”

  “What about me?” Mr. Goodwin said.

  “All we ask from you is a cozy silence,” Crawford replied. He began to creep around the room, patting the chesterfield cushions and peering behind the drapes saying, “Ah!”

  Isobel gritted her teeth and tried hard not to pay any attention, but Crawford’s “Ah’s!” became too loud to ignore.

  “Stop your clowning,” she said sternly.

  “Hell, I was just getting into the spirit of the thing,” Crawford said.

  “If you think this is a joke you’d better not come with us.”

  “I do think it’s a joke. If I ever saw a woman better able to take care of herself than Floraine . . .” He stopped and shrugged. “Oh, come on. You lady detectives kill me.”

  He went out first. Mr. Hunter, after whispering something soothing but inaudible in Isobel’s ear, followed him.

  The room across the hall turned out to be a library. It hadn’t been used for years, evidently, as the furniture was covered with dust sheets and the sheets themselves were grimy. Only one shelf of books remained. Isobel picked one out and opened it, closing it hastily when a couple of bookworms stirred themselves and started to move across the page. The binding of the book was mildewed. Isobel replaced it on the shelf and looked at the titles of the

  rest of them. Historical books, mostly, with one or two on local geography and a vast tome

  on how to recognize and cure your own ailments. Isobel would have liked to sit down and pick herself out a couple of ailments and worry over them; but business before pleasure,

  she told herself firmly, and began swatting at the dust sheets in the faint hope that Floraine would be underneath one of them.
<
br />   But Floraine was not in the library. Nor, it developed, was she in the dining room. In the hall closet Mr. Hunter turned up a pair of old snowshoes and in the kitchen Crawford found a bottle of brandy, but Floraine remained elusive.

  Crawford wanted to open the brandy on the theory that it would provide inspiration for all. Isobel objected. Mr. Hunter wavered, then catching Isobel’s cold eye, he also objected. Crawford put the bottle in his pocket.

  “Are you sure you have room for it?” Isobel said sweetly. “Sure it won’t load you down when you’re carrying your arsenal?”

  “I’ll put it in the other pocket,” Crawford said.

  Mr. Hunter looked from one to the other. “I don’t quite follow . . .”

  “That’s all right,” Crawford said. “Nobody can keep any secrets from our Isobel.”

  Mr. Hunter was beginning to show signs of strain. He kept pulling violently at his mustache.

  “I wish she’d turn up some place,” he said. “I mean to say, there’s only one more floor, and if she’s not in the house, where is she?”

  They looked, simultaneously, out of the kitchen window. There was nothing to be seen but the snow beating on the window.

  Isobel swallowed hard and said, “She wouldn’t have gone out. She’d die in this blizzard. She must be here some place.”

  “Miss Lashley said the scream was very faint,” Mr. Hunter said. “That might mean it came from the cellar.”

  “Well, let’s go,” Crawford said, and opened the door into the cellar.

  In the main room Isobel’s eye fell on the two trunks that Joyce had said were empty. She opened the lids of both and found that Joyce, as usual, had been right. She examined the floor—solid concrete, impossible to bury a body here—and then followed Crawford into the furnace room.

  She saw that Crawford was staring intently at the furnace and that he was no longer amused.

  “She put the cat in there,” Isobel said weakly. “You don’t suppose . . .”