The Vanished Child

by Sarah Smith

  “Why does he, Richard?” Gilbert asked.

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  Because of Richard? Because of something Jay had done. What would Jay have done? He was always accurate and reliable, he was William’s. The silence stretched on. Reisden shrugged. “No one knows, of course. Let’s leave it for the moment and concentrate on the action. Jay reaches out—” Reisden stretched out his hand— “and picks out a little pistol, it looks like a .22-caliber, from this board of guns. Daugherty, do you have the photographs? Yes. There is the gun on the board. Look how easy it would be to get it out of the fasteners; one would only give it a tug.

  “Now the other gun is much larger. It was a Civil War revolver, which disappeared during the murder so we’ve no pictures of it. It was a Colt .36-caliber six-shot Navy revolver, a much larger-barreled gun, about a foot long, with much larger bullets. The difference in caliber is important because there were bullet holes all over this room. Big bullets make big holes, small bullets usually make smaller. It’s possible to tell which bullet holes came from which gun.”

  Reisden looked through the material in the envelope and came out with a piece of paper.

  “This is a drawing of where those bullet holes were. Daugherty, would you draw them on the wall with this red chalk? You’ll be able to feel where the wall has been patched. There should be eight: five on this north wall, two on the south, one on the east by the door. Mark each big or small.”

  Daugherty took the drawing. “Where’d you get this?”

  “I made it from the police report.”

  Daugherty turned it around suspiciously. “The big ones are all on the north wall and the little ones are on the south and east.”

  “As you’d expect if William had the big gun and Jay were standing by the office door with the little one. But there’s something interesting about those bullet holes. Draw them in.”

  They were in entirely different places from the ones Charlie remembered. He thought he had pointed at Jay all the time, but one of the little bullet holes was way over to the right of the doors (had Jay ever been there?) and one was almost in the ceiling; Daugherty had to stand on a chair to draw it. The big bullet holes were spaced very close together around the north wall and the mantelpiece. One was over the mantelpiece, where one of the pictures had hung. The bullet had ripped through the canvas—what had it been, a picture of a ship? Sunset in a harbor, or perhaps sunrise. The walls had smoked with plaster dust.

  “So you see,” said Reisden, “they’re shooting at each other. Little Gun’s first three shots go wide. Big Gun gets off four or five shots; the one that hit the picture may be a ricochet from the mantelpiece. ” He pointed at the scar. Charlie remembered its whine. No, there had been five shots; that one had come earlier. “There are six shots in that revolver, which William Knight keeps loaded, so there is at least one bullet left.” Charlie remembered the copper-green percussion cap in the chamber when he had dug the gun out from under the hay. The gun was in his doctor’s bag now; what would Reisden say if he knew that?

  “Little Gun’s fourth shot hits William and kills him. It hits him here.” Reisden touched the inner edge of his left eye. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to talk details. The bullet goes through the eye, does extensive damage to the brain, and goes out the top left of the skull. The entrance hole is small and very neat and around it is a kind of tattooing. I have—had—a friend who studied murder, and he knew what that mark was because he’d seen it before. It was powder from the muzzle of the small, not very powerful pistol. William Knight was killed with the muzzle of the gun not more than a few inches away.

  “Gilbert, would you help me with this?” Gilbert, startled, nodded yes. “I am Jay, you are William. Shoot at me as I walk toward you.” They were about ten feet away from one another.

  “Shoot at you?”

  “With the fountain pen. You should get off four or five shots.”

  “Do I have to, Richard? All right,” Gilbert quavered.

  Reisden walked forward shooting an invisible gun. Gilbert pointed the fountain pen at him and whispered, “Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!” Reisden’s shots looked real somehow—oh, Charlie thought: His hand jerked up a little with the recoil every time he shot. Not as much as the real guns had.

  “Wait a second,” Daugherty said. Gilbert had fired five shots; Reisden was still about four feet away. Daugherty came back and stood by Charlie, arms folded. “That don’t make sense,” he said. “Try it faster, Reisden.”

  “Shall I shoot more slowly, Richard?” Gilbert murmured.

  Daugherty shook his head. Reisden moved faster this time, low, dodging; he almost reached Gilbert by the time Gilbert had fired his five shots, didn’t stop himself in time and stumbled into Gilbert’s chair. He reached out the hand with the invisible gun to shoot Gilbert in the eye, but instead turned to look at the big lawyer.

  “Daugherty?” Reisden said.

  “Well, you got him, you probably got him, but you’re dead, you been dead about two seconds now. And he’s going to get you once more before you get him.”

  “Yes, that’s what I think.”

  “Can you try it with Jay coming in this way?— Get outa the door a minute, Charlie.” Reisden moved to stand in the door and Gilbert turned to face him. ‘ ‘S’pose they had the same fight, but he’s here, try that, it’s closer. Now you go at him from here.”

  “Should I shoot at Richard,” Gilbert asked, “or at the wall?” He turned a full quarter circle toward the wall where the large bullet holes were. Daugherty squinted at the wall, then back at the door.

  “Well, I will be,” he said. “That don’t make much sense either. Reisden, you got any ideas?”

  “Yes. Try it the other way. As the letter said.”

  Daugherty glared at him.

  “Try it,” Reisden said quietly.

  “Reisden, we know who done it, we just don’t know how yet. I don’t want no complications.”

  “Do it. Here, Charlie, stand there.” Reisden pushed Charlie toward the chair where he had been sitting. “Where you were before.”

  “Who am I?”

  “We don’t know. You’re the third hypothesis, the man who came in, the one who kept William from calling for either Jay or Richard.”

  “Someone we don’t know about?” Charlie said.

  “Yes, someone new. William, sit down. You have the big gun. The little gun is on the board.”

  “Where’s Jay?”

  “Jay is still upstairs. Charlie, walk forward. You’ve come to see William about something. Something quite desperate perhaps. You’re talking to William. Stand right in front of him, that’s it. Reach forward.” Reisden was kneeling by Gilbert’s chair with the black pen in his hand. He held it by one end for Charlie to take. “Pick up the small gun from the board, tug it out of its fasteners, it comes easily. Now shoot William.”

  Charlie reached forward, moved Gilbert’s glasses aside, and touched the inner canthus of William’s eye with the end of the pen. The gun exploded all the air in the room. His heart was full of blood, too full to pump; it labored, and the aching fullness drained, and it went painfully on. He dropped the pen.

  “What shall I do?” Charlie asked Reisden.

  “Sit in the chair.”

  He sat, the gun between his hands. He saw the blurred whiteness of Perdita’s dress at the door. Daugherty was there, arms crossed, watching him, as they were all watching, Gilbert looking at him solemnly, Reisden gazing with black unreadable eyes; and William was dead on the floor. Don’t you know who I am? he said to all of them. Gilbert, without anyone telling him, lay down on the floor, a dead body.

  “Jay comes downstairs; he’s at the door to the hall. He comes inside. He sees William dead on the floor and the murderer there with a gun. He takes the big gun and begins shooting at the murderer. The murderer has the little gun and shoots back.” Charlie raised his arm, hypnotized; he stood up, he pointed the gun at Reisden, he began shooting, and Reisden was firi
ng back, accurate, the gun kicking in his hand. They all see, they see who I am, but Charlie could not stop firing. “He fires at Jay, and Jay runs away from him, outside, then fires at him again through the glass,” said Reisden. “There is a third man.” He pointed at Charlie. “And he is there—just there.”

  Charlie sat down in the chair, not able to stand. Reisden was looking directly at Charlie, and Charlie saw the cold intelligence in his eyes fade away and be replaced by a look of very human confusion. “Charlie?” asked Reisden, so very quietly that no one knew except the two of them. Charlie gasped and put his hand to his chest, though for once it didn’t hurt at all. Daugherty took his arm.

  “Whoa, Charlie, sit down! He don’t mean you. Reisden, what do you think you’re doing?”

  Reisden looked from one to the other of them. He closed his eyes for a moment, then walked over to the wall and leaned his back against it as if he needed its support, suddenly pale all the way to the lips. “I don’t know,” he said. He looked as if he had been shot himself. He sat down rather abruptly on the floor. “No critical sense. Also no sleep last night, and all at once that’s catching up with me.”

  Charlie leaned forward on his chair. “Who was the third man?”

  “There wa’n’t no third man. Reisden is makin’ all this up. Reisden, what you want to do that for?”

  Perdita knelt beside Reisden with a mug of coffee. He tasted it and said something to her, something like a thanks under his breath. “Do you think I know who the third man was?” he asked Daugherty.

  “Jay come down before the first shot. He shot William. Then he made it look like there was some kind of fight. He shot one gun first and the other one after. That was it.”

  “And the letter?”

  Daugherty looked at Reisden. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and ripped it in half, then again, then again, until it was unreadably small. He put the pieces back in his pocket.

  “There ain’t no letter.” He looked at Gilbert, then back at Reisden and Charlie. “We got evidence, we got drawings, we got measurements. We don’t need more. It’s finished, Reisden. You got anything more to say?”

  “No,” said Reisden. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t mind, me and Gilbert are going to start talking. Come on into the library, Mr. Knight.”

  “Are you all right, Richard?” Gilbert leaned over him. “Don’t you think you had better have a sandwich? Mrs. Stelling has left some—”

  “I'm all right, Gilbert.” Reisden smiled up at him. “Go with Daugherty.”

  Perdita was still kneeling by him. He watched as Gilbert left the room with Daugherty, then turned to her. “Help Gilbert. This is the end of Richard; he’ll need you.” She put her arms around him, and he drew her to him and held her tightly. “As soon as I can, I’ll see you, love; as soon as ever I can.”

  And then there were only the two of them, Charlie and Reisden, alone in William’s parlor. Charlie was still sitting on the chair. Reisden blew on his coffee to cool it and looked up at Charlie.

  “I am not your ‘third man,’” Charlie said.

  “There was no third man. You didn’t go away.”

  Charlie’s heart squeezed.

  Reisden spoke very quiedy, almost pedantically. “Blocking is useful, Charlie. When one starts blocking a scene, one has the actors moving here and there, and so often they come back where they started and one realizes one simply shouldn’t have moved them. You went off as Charlie and came back as the third man. And I didn’t have to move you. You were talking with William, then you were the third man picking up the gun. . . . I don’t have a chance of proving it. But I’d like to know that it’s true.”

  “No,” Charlie said. “It isn’t true.”

  How you would like to control me, Dr. Reisden. You would say I killed Richard. Or that you are Richard. That I destroyed Jay’s body to protect myself. And you would have Richard’s place, Richard’s money; Gilbert and Perdita would give it to you and would be glad of it.

  Nineteen years ago a young man had walked out the front door into insignificance. Then he had turned and come back. Charlie got up and followed his young self with his eyes. “I went out the door, but I didn’t go far. William called Richard to come down. And Richard came. William brought him back here into the parlor.” Charlie felt, through nineteen years, the little boy’s arm tense and try to rise under his hand, to point the rat pistol at his grandfather.

  Richard, forgive me.

  “Afterward it happened the way you said. Jay came downstairs after the first shot. I was in the parlor with Richard. He shot at us both and I pushed Richard down to the floor and I shot at Jay. I must have hurt him. But he ran, he didn’t seem hurt. I must have killed him, and God save me, because I took communion all these years.

  “But it was Richard who killed William Knight.”

  Richard, Charlie, Perdita

  The rain rattled the windows. Inside the house there was no sound. Then, faintly from across the hall, Reisden heard Gilbert’s voice raised in short, sharp protest. Daugherty has told him; Richard is dead, Reisden thought.

  “You never told Gilbert?” Reisden asked.

  “No, no, certainly not.”

  “You needn’t worry. I won’t tell.” Richard’s words. Of course Richard wouldn’t tell. They had protected each other, Charlie and Richard.

  “What happened to Richard?” Charlie asked, very pat, as if he were quite innocent of what had happened to Richard, or at least wanted to reassure Reisden that he knew nothing.

  “Jay killed him.”

  Charlie looked up at him, questioning.

  “Stick to your story, Charlie. I’m not as omniscient as you think me, and not so cruel either. If you could get your little boy back I wouldn’t hide him.”

  “And Perdita?”

  “I didn’t hurt her.”

  No? Not until now. Reisden would not think about her now, her or anyone.

  Charlie picked up his bag. “I feel—” He hesitated at the door. “I hope I have misjudged you, Dr. Reisden. I feel I’ve hurt you.”

  “No, Charlie, you were right. I only wanted something I couldn’t have.”

  Charlie closed the door behind him, leaving Reisden alone in the white room. He sat there, a shadow in the light, quite numb. Staying numb was a job, like carrying a large beaker of some corrosive liquid. Something might break.

  “Reisden?” Daugherty knocked quietly at the door. Leave me alone. But Daugherty opened the door.

  “You all right?”

  “Fine,” he said dispassionately.

  “I’d like your help for a minute. Gilbert don’t believe me, about it bein’ Richard in the barn.”

  Why should he? I was supposed to be convincing. “Let me get what I need; then I’ll talk to him.”

  Upstairs, he had some idea of packing. He opened drawers, then stood overcome, keeping very still as though he were being hunted by something. He closed one drawer after another. In the top drawer was his box of collar studs, and behind that the gun he had used five years ago and the bullets he had bought at the Scollay Square shooting gallery the night he had met Harry. He stared at them. He could not look one moment beyond the instant he was in. He knew what he could do with the bullets in the red cardboard box and the grip of the gun and the trigger, and he didn’t know what else he could do.

  The chemistry notes were on top of the bureau. They seemed still warm from this afternoon’s sun. (He put the gun in one jacket pocket and the box of bullets in the other. This is my hand. Put the gun down, fool. Leave it. Let it go.) He took the chemistry notes, as though he could assert that he had some future in which he could use them.

  Gilbert was in the library, sitting pale and hunched by the fire. Perdita was by him. He looked up when he saw Reisden come in. “Richard?”

  “No,” Reisden said. “Not Richard.”

  He said what was required. He could not listen to himself other than to know he was saying something that Gilbert would
believe. “I’m sorry. In the beginning I didn’t expect you to believe it. I told you not to. Then eventually, to be human, to be Richard, I lied to you and said I was he.” He saw how, as he spoke, Gilbert’s face went white and old. He did not look at Perdita at all.

  He kept going until Daugherty touched him on the arm. “That’s enough, Reisden.”

  Out on the porch the rain sluiced across the granite step where Gilbert had dropped the glass. “Reisden, I got your coat and a couple umbrellas. You want to go and wait for the train together?”

  “No. I’m going to drive the automobile.”

  “You better not, it’s pretty wet.”

  “It’s all right.”

  Daugherty held out his hand. Reisden didn’t take it.

  “Well,” Daugherty said finally, “I guess that finishes up then. I’ll clean up in the office.” He opened his umbrella. It made a sound like a bat’s wings, and whatever else he might have said was drowned in the roar of the rain. He trudged off down the drive, toward the summer kitchen.

  Reisden lit the acetylene headlights of the car and then cranked the engine, and it started with a coughing roar. He adjusted the spark and the fuel mixture. Autos were not built for weather like this. Water was coming in through the leather roof. The rubber blade scraped back and forth on the windshield, clearing it for a moment before the rain opaqued it again.

  Tasy’s blood smeared across the windshield, turning the light from the headlamps red. I am a murderer. Not hers. Killing William was easy to live with by comparison; it ought to be easy.

  He drove the black auto down the long sweep of the drive and into the road that snaked through the woods, and then, once in the woods, he accelerated, the stiff steering bucking against his arms. Leaves whipped at the windshield and bloody water runneled across the glass like snakes. In the acetylene light, when the wiper swept away the rain, he saw the road in jerks and flashes. A tree trunk brushed close enough to scrape paint; he saw the pattern on the bark. Suddenly he was through the woods and close to the bridge and the gates and the chasm.