“So I figured I’d get in touch with Ira so I could go back to his house if things worked out bad here, and I’d try to get rid of this Australian. Wally’s always thought I’m half-cracked”—he leered at his nephew—“and’s afraid they’ll lug me off to a madhouse before I could make a will in his favor, or they’ll break it if I do. You see, he’s got a pretty bad reputation, what with that Stock Exchange trouble and all, and he knows no court would appoint him to handle my affairs if I went screwy—not as long as I’ve got another nephew”—he turned his leer on Ira—“who’s a respectable lawyer. So now I know that rather than have me kick up a row that might wind me up in the madhouse, he’ll chase this visitor, and I put on a show for Molly, who happened to be the nearest one to hand. She took it too seriously, though.
“I had a gun and I did a lot of raving about being spied on by my enemies in Australia and that I was going down and shoot this fellow. But she got too excited and tried to take the gun away from me, and the first thing I knew it had gone off, and I had to make these marks on my neck and think up that story about the big dark man.” He looked contemptuously at Wallace. “I didn’t know he was covering me up. Little as I thought of him, I never thought he’d be low enough to cover up his wife’s murderer—even if he didn’t like her—just for the sake of money.” Spade said: “Never mind that. Now about the butler?”
“I don’t know anything about the butler,” the old man replied, looking at Spade with steady eyes.
Spade said: “You had to kill him quick, before he had time to do or say anything. So you slip down the back stairs, open the kitchen door to fool people, go to the front door, ring the bell, shut the door, and hide in the shadow of the cellar door under the front steps. When Jarboe answered the doorbell you shot him—the hole was in the back of his head—pulled the light switch, just inside the cellar door, and ducked up the back stairs in the dark and shot yourself carefully in the arm. I got up there too soon for you; so you smacked me with the gun, chucked it through the door, and spread yourself on the floor while I was shaking pinwheels out of my noodle.” The old man sniffed again. “You’re just—”
“Stop it,” Spade said patiently. “Don’t let’s argue. The first killing was an accident—all right. The second couldn’t be. And it ought to be easy to show that both bullets, and the one in your arm, were fired from the same gun. What difference does it make which killing we can prove first-degree murder on? They can only hang you once.” He smiled pleasantly. “And they will.”
WOMAN IN THE DARK
One
The Flight
Her right ankle turned under her and she fell. The wind blowing downhill from the south, whipping the trees beside the road, made a whisper of her exclamation and snatched her scarf away into the darkness. She sat up slowly, palms on the gravel pushing her up, and twisted her body sidewise to release the leg bent beneath her.
Her right slipper lay in the road close to her feet. When she put it on she found its heel was missing. She peered around, then began to hunt for the heel, hunting on hands and knees uphill into the wind, wincing a little when her right knee touched the road. Presently she gave it up and tried to break the heel off her left slipper, but could not. She replaced the slipper and rose with her back to the wind, leaning back against the wind’s violence and the road’s steep sloping. Her gown clung to her back, flew fluttering out before her. Hair lashed her cheeks. Walking high on the ball of her right foot to make up for the missing heel, she hobbled on down the hill.
At the bottom of the hill there was a wooden bridge, and, a hundred yards beyond, a sign that could not be read in the darkness marked a fork in the road. She halted there, not looking at the sign but around her, shivering now, though the wind had less force than it had had on the hill. Foliage to her left moved to show and hide yellow light. She took the left-hand fork.
In a little while she came to a gap in the bushes beside the road and sufficient light to show a path running off the road through the gap. The light came from the thinly curtained window of a house at the other end of the path.
She went up the path to the door and knocked. When there was no answer she knocked again.
A hoarse, unemotional masculine voice said: “Come in.”
She put her hand on the latch; hesitated. No sound came from within the house. Outside, the wind was noisy everywhere. She knocked once more, gently.
The voice said, exactly as before: “Come in.”
She opened the door. The wind blew it in sharply, her hold on the latch dragging her with it so that she had to cling to the door with both hands to keep from falling. The wind went past her into the room, to balloon curtains and scatter the sheets of a newspaper that had been on a table. She forced the door shut and, still leaning against it, said: “I am sorry.” She took pains with her words to make them clear notwithstanding her accent.
The man cleaning a pipe at the hearth said: “It’s all right.” His copperish eyes were as impersonal as his hoarse voice. “I’ll be through in a minute.” He did not rise from his chair. The edge of the knife in his hand rasped inside the brier bowl of his pipe.
She left the door and came forward, limping, examining him with perplexed eyes under brows drawn a little together. She was a tall woman and carried herself proudly, for all she was lame and the wind had tousled her hair and the gravel of the road had cut and dirtied her hands and bare arms and the red crepe of her gown.
She said, still taking pains with her words: “I must go to the railroad. I have hurt my ankle on the road. Eh?”
He looked up from his work then. His sallow, heavily featured face, under coarse hair nearly the color of his eyes, was not definitely hostile or friendly. He looked at the woman’s face, at her torn skirt. He did not turn his head to call: “Hey, Evelyn.”
A girl-slim maturing body in tan sport clothes, slender sunburned face with dark bright eyes and dark short hair-came into the room through a doorway behind him.
The man did not look around at her. He nodded at the woman in red and said: “This—”
The woman interrupted him: “My name is Luise Fischer.”
The man said: “She’s got a bum leg.”
Evelyn’s dark prying eyes shifted their focus from the woman to the man-she could not see his face-and to the woman again. She smiled, speaking hurriedly: “I’m just leaving. I can drop you at Mile Valley on my way home.”
The woman seemed about to smile. Under her curious gaze Evelyn suddenly blushed, and her face became defiant while it reddened. The girl was pretty. Facing her, the woman had become beautiful; her eyes were long, heavily lashed, set well apart under a smooth broad brow, her mouth was not small but sensitively carved and mobile, and in the light from the open fire the surfaces of her face were as clearly defined as sculptured planes.
The man blew through his pipe, forcing out a small cloud of black powder. “No use hurrying,” he said. “There’s no train till six.” He looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece. It said ten-thirty-three. “Why don’t you help her with her leg?”
The woman said: “No, it is not necessary. I—” She put her weight on her injured leg and flinched, steadying herself with a hand on the back of a chair.
The girl hurried to her, stammering contritely: “I-I didn’t think. Forgive me.” She put an arm around the woman and helped her into the chair.
The man stood up to put his pipe on the mantelpiece, beside the clock. He was of medium height, but his sturdiness made him look shorter. His neck, rising from the V of a grey sweater, was short, powerfully muscled. Below the sweater he wore loose grey trousers and heavy brown shoes. He clicked his knife shut and put it in his pocket before turning to look at Luise Fischer.
Evelyn was on her knees in front of the woman, pulling off her right stocking, making sympathetic clucking noises, chattering nervously: “You’ve cut your knee too. Tch-tch-tch! And look how your ankles swelling. You shouldn’t’ve tried to walk all that distance in these slippers.” Her bo
dy hid the woman’s bare leg from the man. “Now, sit still and I’ll fix it up in a minute.” She pulled the torn red skirt down over the bare leg.
The woman’s smile was polite. She said carefully: “You are very kind.”
The girl ran out of the room.
The man had a paper package of cigarettes in his hand. He shook it until three cigarettes protruded half an inch and held them out to her. “Smoke?”
“Thank you.” She took a cigarette, put it between her lips, and looked at his hand when he held a match to it. His hand was thick-boned, muscular, but not a labourer’s. She looked through her lashes at his face while he was lighting his cigarette. He was younger than he had seemed at first glance-perhaps no older than thirty-two or-three-and his features, in the flare of his match, seemed less stolid than disciplined.
“Bang it up much?” His tone was merely conversational.
“I hope I have not.” She drew up her skirt to look first at her ankle, then at her knee. The ankle was perceptibly though not greatly swollen; the knee was cut once deeply, twice less seriously. She touched the edges of the cuts gently with a forefinger. “I do not like pain,” she said very earnestly.
Evelyn came in with a basin of steaming water, cloths, a roll of bandage, salve. Her dark eyes widened at the man and woman, but were hidden by lowered lids by the time their faces had turned toward her. “I’ll fix it now. I’ll have it all fixed in a minute.” She knelt in front of the woman again, nervous hand sloshing water on the floor, body between Luise Fischer’s leg and the man.
He went to the door and looked out, holding the door half a foot open against the wind.
The woman asked the girl bathing her ankle: “There is not a train before it is morning?” She pursed her lips thoughtfully.
“No.”
The man shut the door and said: “It’ll be raining in an hour.” He put more wood on the fire, then stood-legs apart, hands in pockets, cigarette dangling from one side of his mouth-watching Evelyn attend to the woman’s leg. His face was placid.
The girl dried the ankle and began to wind a bandage around it, working with increasing speed, breathing more rapidly now. Once more the woman seemed about to smile at the girl, but instead she said, “You are very kind.”
The girl murmured: “It’s nothing.”
Three sharp knocks sounded on the door.
Luise Fischer started, dropped her cigarette, looked swiftly around the room with frightened eyes. The girl did not raise her head from her work. The man, with nothing in his face or manner to show he had noticed the woman’s fright, turned his face toward the door and called in his hoarse, matter-of-fact voice: “All right. Come in.”
The door opened and a spotted Great Dane came in, followed by two tall men in dinner clothes. The dog walked straight to Luise Fischer and nuzzled her hand. She was looking at the two men who had just entered. There was no timidity, no warmth in her gaze.
One of the men pulled off his cap-it was a grey tweed, matching his topcoat-and came to her, smiling. “So this is where you landed?” His smile vanished as he saw her leg and the bandages. “What happened?” He was perhaps forty years old, well groomed, graceful of carriage, with smooth dark hair, intelligent dark eyes-solicitous at the moment-and a close-clipped dark moustache. He pushed the dog aside and took the woman’s hand.
“It is not serious, I think.” She did not smile. Her voice was cool. “I stumbled in the road and twisted my ankle. These people have been very—”
He turned to the man in the grey sweater, holding out his hand, saying briskly: “Thanks ever so much for taking care of Fraulein Fischer. You’re Brazil, aren’t you?”
The man in the sweater nodded. “And you’d be Kane Robson.”
“Right.” Robson jerked his head at the man who still stood just inside the door. “Mr. Conroy.”
Brazil nodded.
Conroy said, “How do you do,” and advanced toward Luise Fischer. He was an inch or two taller than Robson-who was nearly six feet himself and some ten years younger, blond, broad-shouldered, and lean, with a beautifully shaped small head and remarkably symmetrical features. A dark overcoat hung over one of his arms and he carried a black hat in his hand. He smiled down at the woman and said: “Your idea of a lark’s immense.”
She addressed Robson: “Why have you come here?”
He smiled amiably, raised his shoulders a little. “You said you weren’t feeling well and were going to lie down. When Helen went up to your room to see how you were, you weren’t there. We were afraid you had gone out and something had happened to you.” He looked at her leg, moved his shoulders again. “Well, we were right.”
Nothing in her face responded to his smile. “I am going to the city,” she told him. “Now you know.”
“All right, if you want to”—he was good-natured—“but you can’t go like that.” He nodded at her torn evening dress. “We’ll take you back home, where you can change your clothes and pack a bag and—” He turned to Brazil. “When’s the next train?”
Brazil said: “Six.” The dog was sniffing at his legs.
“You see,” Robson said blandly, speaking to the woman again. “There’s plenty of time.”
She looked down at her clothes and seemed to find them satisfactory. “I go like this,” she replied.
“Now, look here, Luise,” Robson began again, quite reasonably. “You’ve got hours before train time-time enough to get some rest and a nap and to—”
She said simply: “I have gone.”
Robson grimaced impatiently, half humorously, and turned his palms out in a gesture of helplessness. “But what are you going to do?” he asked in a tone that matched the gesture. “You’re not going to expect Brazil to put you up till train time and then drive you to the station?”
She looked at Brazil with level eyes and asked calmly: “Is it too much?”
Brazil shook his head carelessly. “Uh-uh.”
Robson and Conroy turned together to look at Brazil. There was considerable interest in their eyes, but no visible hostility. He bore the inspection placidly.
Luise Fischer said coolly, with an air of finality: “So.”
Conroy looked questioningly at Robson, who sighed wearily and asked: “Your mind’s made up on this, Luise?”
“Yes.”
Robson shrugged again, said: “You always know what you want.” Face and voice were grave. He started to turn away toward the door, then stopped to ask: “Have you got enough money?” One of his hands went into the inner breast pocket of his dinner jacket.
“I want nothing,” she told him.
“Right. If you want anything later, let me know. Come on, Dick.”
He went to the door, opened it, twisted his head around to direct a brisk “Thanks, good night” at Brazil, and went out.
Conroy touched Luise Fischer’s forearm lightly with three fingers, said “Good luck” to her, bowed to Evelyn and Brazil, and followed Robson out.
The dog raised his head to watch the two men go out. The girl Evelyn stared at the door with despairing eyes and worked her hands together. Luise Fischer told Brazil: “You will be wise to lock your door.”
He stared at her for a long moment, brooding, and while no actual change seemed to take place in his expression, all his facial muscles stiffened. “No,” he said finally, “I won’t lock it.”
The woman’s eyebrows went up a little, but she said nothing. The girl spoke, addressing Brazil for the first time since Luise Fischer’s arrival. Her voice was peculiarly emphatic. “They were drunk.”
“They’ve been drinking,” he conceded. He looked thoughtfully at her, apparently only then noticing her perturbation. “You look like a drink would do you some good.”
She became confused. Her eyes evaded his. “Do-do you want one?”
“I think so.” He looked inquiringly at Luise Fischer, who nodded and said: “Thank you.”
The girl went out of the room. The woman leaned forward a little to look intently
up at Brazil. Her voice was calm enough, but the deliberate slowness with which she spoke made her words impressive: “Do not make the mistake of thinking Mr. Robson is not dangerous.”
He seemed to weigh this speech almost sleepily; then, regarding her with a slight curiosity, he said: “I’ve made an enemy?”
Her nod was sure.
He accepted that with a faint grin, offering her his cigarettes again, asking: “Have you?”
She stared through him as if studying some distant thing and replied slowly: “Yes, but I have lost a worse friend.”
Evelyn came in, carrying a tray that held glasses, mineral water, and a bottle of whiskey. Her dark eyes, glancing from man to woman, were inquisitive, somewhat furtive. She went to the table and began to mix drinks.
Brazil finished lighting his cigarette and asked: “Leaving him for good?”
For the moment during which she stared haughtily at him it seemed that the woman did not intend to answer his question; but suddenly her face was distorted by an expression of utter hatred and she spit out a venomous “Ja!”
He set his glass on the mantelpiece and went to the door. He went through the motions of looking out into the night; yet he opened the door a bare couple of inches and shut it immediately, and his manner was so far from nervous that he seemed preoccupied with something else.
He turned to the mantelpiece, picked up his glass, and drank. Then, his eyes focused contemplatively on the lowered glass, he was about to speak when a telephone bell rang behind a door facing the fireplace. He opened the door, and as soon as he had passed out of sight his hoarse, unemotional voice could be heard. “Hello? . . . Yes . . . Yes, Nora . . . Just a moment.” He re-entered the room, saying to the girl: “Nora wants to talk to you.” He shut the bedroom door behind her.
Crime Stories Page 88