“Did you know, too?”
She couldn’t answer. He said urgently: “Did you know? Tell me.”
“Yes,” she whispered. And remembered.
They didn’t really hold their stars in their hands. Stars were already set in an inexorable course and couldn’t be altered.
There was Averill.
There was, even, Noel.
“What is it, Eden?”
“Averill,” she said. “This is all wrong, Jim. I didn’t realize—”
He continued to hold her but he was thinking.
“Yes,” he said at last, “there’s Averill. And I know what this makes me. But I—I can’t help it, Eden. There are such things as broken engagements.”
“Not—two or three days before a wedding,” said Eden. “Not like this.”
She must have spoken with rather desperate conviction for Jim’s hands went to her shoulders in a tight, hard grip and he said quickly:
“Eden, you’re not going to be silly about this. I’m going to marry the woman I love and that’s you. And thank God you came when you did—and not a week or two later.”
Eden took a long breath.
“I can’t do this to Averill. Jim, I can’t. I feel so—guilty. It—you see the same thing happened before—only, of course, it wasn’t the same thing, because I didn’t really love him. But, Averill—”
“Pull yourself together, my child; don’t gibber. Now then, what do you mean?”
“I mean Noel—a long time ago—was all but engaged to Averill; and then he—I—”
“You jilted him; I know that. What of it?”
“But, Jim, I can’t—”
“Listen, my girl, is that the extent of the desperate barrier you’re trying with bated breath to tell me about? My God, I love you, dear, but you really are being very silly. Now listen, and get this straight in your crazy little head. I love you. I loved you the moment somebody trotted you out on the terrace and said ‘This is Eden,’ and you looked at me and I looked at you. I don’t know what happened; I just instantly, then and there, loved you. And I love you now; I’ll always love you. How’s that for a declaration?”
“Jim—”
“Shush. I’m doing the talking. I love you and we’re going to be married. I know it’s not very—nice about Averill. If I’d had any sense I’d have waited till that was all over and in the past. But I didn’t.”
“It’s—it’s only been two days—”
“Time has nothing to do with it,” said Jim in a simple statement of fact.
“If—if we could have met another way—without Averill—”
“I’m sorry about Averill. I—well, I hate that part of it. But I’m not a fool. I’ll settle with Averill; and I’m going to marry you. If you’ll have me.”
It was just exactly then that both of them became aware of quick, light footsteps along the gravel drive. Involuntarily Eden moved away from Jim, who would have held her. A woman’s figure, light cloak distinct in the starlight, came rapidly toward them—rapidly and certainly as if she knew where to find them—and it was Averill.
Her small face, framed in black neat hair, looked extraordinarily pale in the starlight. She said at once but with the utmost composure:
“Jim—oh, it’s Eden with you. Eden, I want to talk to you. Won’t you come with me—it won’t take long.”
“Averill,” said Jim, “I want to talk to you myself. Something has happened—”
“Later, darling,” said Averill and linked her cool, slender hand around Eden’s arm and drew her toward the path leading to the cabins. “Later, Jim. No—no, you mustn’t come along. It’s a very private conversation.” She laughed a little, lightly, when she said it.
She was perfectly friendly, perfectly calm and restrained.
“But I really do want to talk to you, Averill. Now. I’ll come along,” said Jim.
“If you insist,” said Averill, still lightly. “But Mr. Sloane was asking for you. And Eden and I will be only a moment; then you can talk to me as long as you like.”
“Oh,” said Jim, “all right. It’ll keep. I’ll go and see what Sloane wants.”
“I’ll be along in five minutes,” said Averill, with nothing in the world except gayety and confidence in her voice. It struck Eden as queer that with such gayety in her voice, still her hand on Eden’s arm was exactly like a small band of steel.
They separated at the place where the two paths branched from the gravel drive. Jim said briefly, “See you after I’m done with Sloane,” and walked rapidly toward the lighted house.
And the two women turned along the path that led to the group of cabins at the south end of the house. Pines cast a heavy shadow over it and obscured the lights of the main house although they were so near it now that they could hear the piano clearly—could have heard voices perhaps had there been conversation instead of music.
A single light burned above the door of the cabin nearest the house which Eden and Averill shared. They entered the cabin silently. There was a tiny hall and Eden’s room was on the left, away from the house; the door was open with a small light burning above the bed.
“I’ll not take a moment,” said Averill and drew Eden inside and closed the door.
Her face in the light was extraordinarily pale; her eyes had suddenly retracted so they were small and wary. She too had pulled her heavy sports coat over her dinner dress. Her small black head rose from the wide fur collar venomously somehow. Like a small snake waiting to strike.
Unexpectedly it gave Eden the strangest sensation that was like—but couldn’t be—fear.
Averill said, almost lisping as if her mouth had gone dry, but very distinctly:
“Listen, Eden. We’ve known each other long enough—and too well. People don’t change, after all. I’m engaged to marry Jim Cady; we’ll be married in a day or two. My marriage will take place exactly as it has been planned. I’m not going to be humiliated—jilted at the altar.”
“Averill—”
“I won’t talk of loyalty or friendship or decency. We’ve known each other all our lives—and really, in spite of pretense, hated each other. You’re jealous of me, now. You’re trying to take him away from me because you’re jealous, because you want to hurt and humiliate me. To show me you can still—but you can’t. You always won in the past: well, that’s over. You can’t do this to me. I won’t let you. That’s all.”
Her dry voice shook a little; her fingers worked as if actually they wanted to claw. She gave Eden one still, concentrated look that despite its hatred had something thoughtful and purposeful in it, and turned without another word and left the room. The door closed behind her.
But the really singular thing about that terse, altogether curious interview was that Eden was left with a sense, mainly, of threat.
She didn’t hear Averill leave the cabin; she did hear a door close, and she did hear a murmur of voices—women’s voices. It lasted only a moment or two and she was only vaguely aware of it.
Silence followed; and she was only vaguely aware of the silence.
But after a long time she stirred, walked absently toward a chair near the fireplace and then leaned instead on the mantel, her elbow on the low wooden piece, her chin in her hand.
Averill was, again, wholly within her rights. Eden was poaching on another woman’s preserves; she was as culpable, really, as she would have been if the wedding had already taken place. She was, altogether, indefensibly in the wrong.
And in a definitely strong sense she was the more culpable because of what had already gone on between her and Averill. Because of those years of rivalry—because of Noel.
Jim had taken a perfectly simple, perfectly straightforward, slightly rebellious masculine view. But Jim was wrong.
And she was wrong and Averill—bitter though it was to admit and contemplate it—was right.
Moments must have passed when she heard a kind of jar in the next room. It was loud enough to rouse her from her reverie—yet not exact
ly loud and sharp either. It sounded as if Averill had opened or closed a door—perhaps dropped something—or jerked hard at a sticking drawer.
She listened simply because it was so still, after that sound, in the next room and because she was standing so close to the fireplace and could hear in that position so clearly. Evidently the fireplace in her room and the one in Averill’s room were built on the same chimney.
Hadn’t Averill gone, then? She tried to recall what sounds she had heard but there was nothing clear and definite.
But she did all at once hear the door of the cabin open and a second or two later, the door into Averill’s room.
It closed quietly and she heard that, too.
As she heard footsteps which crossed the room, very quiet footsteps. It struck her that they were cautious.
There was a long silence before the footsteps recrossed the room.
She heard that quite distinctly. She heard the door to Averill’s room close very softly and then softly, too, the outside door of the cabin. And there was certainly a quality of stealth in the cautiousness of those footsteps, in the soft closing of both doors.
It was completely silent in the next room. A long moment or two passed. Then she went to her own door, opened it, crossed the bare little hall and opened Averill’s door. She moved quickly; if she gave herself time to think, some indescribably ominous quality in that continued silence would frighten her.
Averill’s room was dark. If the night light had been turned on when the bed was turned down as her own had been, then someone had turned it out again.
The room was perfectly quiet—but it was a laden kind of quiet. Ominous again. As if someone were there, waiting, observing.
She started to speak and her throat was dry. She reached inside the doorway and found the electric light switch and turned it on.
And froze there—fingers still on the little brass plate.
A woman lay on the floor; the yellow cloak was flung out around; there was a small spreading mass of crimson—wet, shining dreadfully in the garish light. Over her face and tight around her throat in strong knots was a gray scarf.
A gray chiffon scarf that belonged to Eden.
A window across the room was open and the shade was up and there was no screen over it—so the stars looked in, too, and the waiting night. Breathless and still with horror.
Beyond the pines lights in the main house were visible—so near yet, just then, so dreadfully far away.
Her knees were dissolving under her; she took a fumbling step or two and knelt. Her knees struck something hard and painful and without thinking she reached for whatever it was, thrust it aside and bent over the figure on the floor, stretching out her hand as if to pull the scarf away from the face.
But the gray scarf was so horribly blotched and stained that she couldn’t touch it. However, it was then that she saw that the dead woman was not Averill. It was Creda Blaine.
Chapter 10
MOST OF THE FACE mercifully was covered by the gray folds of chiffon. But there were soft yellow curls in wild disarray above it and one white fat little hand lay on the floor beside the yellow outflung cloak with its fingers doubled over. And it was Creda.
Not Averill as Eden had thought in that first horrified, Incredulous instant.
But Creda couldn’t be dead. It wasn’t possible.
She tried to speak and whispered: “Creda.” And then cried aloud: “Creda … Creda!”
Her own voice was unrecognizably thin and high.
There was no flutter of motion in the inert mass there at her feet. No sound in the room but the thud of her own heart.
No one could be hidden in the room for there was no place to hide and the door upon the bathroom was open, revealing its emptiness. Eden remembered that but she didn’t, then, consciously make note of it.
Eden had never seen violent death before; it was only deep instinct that warned her of its presence. There wasn’t time to explore the fact, to consider why and how, to think of murder. She leaned over Creda again, forcing her fingers to touch those stifling gray knots, to try to unloose them, to seek a pulse on Creda’s soft wrist, to try to find her heart. And to fail. The knots were tied with desperate tightness; there was no breath, no flutter of pulse, no motion. She pulled the scarf at last away from the upper part of the face and quickly, almost frantically, covered it again. Her scarf. That wasn’t possible either. She never thought of removing it.
A wave of sickness swept over her. She turned blindly toward the window, thinking, if she thought of anything, of fresh air, of fighting off nausea.
And someone moved away from the open window. Someone outside it with a white blurred face looming from that darkness beyond.
She caught only the motion. She had an impression only that it was a face. That therefore someone stood outside the cabin and watched her and the dead woman and vanished when she turned.
She started toward the window; she could call for help. Yet whoever it was must have seen Creda—must have known—
She put her hands to her mouth as if to stifle words on her lips.
This was murder.
It wasn’t suicide. Creda herself couldn’t have tied those horrible knots. And if it was murder then someone did it.
That white face, vanishing silently like a ghost face into the darkness outside the window! Why hadn’t whoever it was called out to her, come to her assistance, demanded at least to know what was wrong!
Terror was in her very veins like an icy stream. She must call the others—rouse everyone—spread the alarm. Would they come if she screamed for help? Dared she leave the gastly, lighted little cabin and venture into the darkness toward the main house?
There was no telephone in the cabin. She turned toward the door. There was no key in the door.
It was then that, photographically, she saw that the small chest of drawers near the door had been pulled out a little from the wall but it meant nothing; she saw it and no more.
If she screamed would they hear her? But she hated to approach the window, with that blurred face, unrecognizable save that it was almost certainly a face, waiting perhaps outside—lurking in the shadow of the pines, aware of her every move.
Actually only a few moments had passed since she entered the cabin but it seemed to Eden that she had strayed far into a morass of incredible ugliness. Murder?
She went toward the window; her fingers were wet and sticky; with a sick kind of shudder she wiped them on her handkerchief and thrust the scrap of linen, marked with her first name, back into her pocket. A small writing table stood near the window. Still terrified and conscious of that unrecognizable white blur that had to be someone’s face dwindling into the darkness beyond the window, she approached the window cautiously and stopped at one side of it to listen. The tinkle of music no longer sounded from the main house and it couldn’t be far across that thicket of pines and rocks. Certainly in the blank stillness of the night they would hear her scream for help. She leaned against the writing table, one hand spread upon it. Paper crackled like a whisper under her fingers and she looked down. Creda had been writing a note. Words in Creda’s flowing handwriting leaped to her eyes: “Cold-blooded murder is too much. I won’t do any more, I can’t. Jim … you must believe me …”
Words stopped there and the ink was blurred as if a hand had brushed over it. And just beside it on the painted green table was a drop of a dark, thick substance which had spattered lightly when it fell.
Jim. She read it again, swiftly, and clutched the little paper and crumpled it and thrust it in her pocket. That, as every act of Eden’s so far had been, was dictated by sheer instinct. It was no good letting anyone see Jim’s name in that dreadfully interrupted note. If Eden had been questioned she would have given that as her reason. At the moment of taking the scrap of paper her reason actually did not operate.
She shrank away from the little table, sinister now because it was a peculiarly telling witness to the dark thing that had happened there
. She tried, now, to scream but her throat was dry and no sound came from it. And then someone in the main house came out onto the porch and banged the door loudly and cheerfully and she tried again to scream and did.
It was a dreadful sound, somehow, piercing the darkness and silence of the night. Her own voice—screaming—she heard it with a kind of curiosity. Had she ever in her life before screamed?
Sanity, order, things as they were and ought to continue being, all that normal state of being, was rapidly dissolving. The scream threatened to release her own rigid self-control. Or had it been self-control; hadn’t it been simply the paralysis of shock? In another moment she would collapse sobbing on the bed—she could scream again and gibber and—
She gripped the edge of the writing table with both hands and didn’t scream or sob or do any of those wild and threatened things. And whoever was on the porch heard her and stopped some vaguely whistled tune and cried out sharply:
“What’s that? Who—what’s wrong—”
It was Noel. Miraculously she found her voice: “Noel—Noel—”
Her voice must have told him of horror, for he called sharply to someone inside the house. And then footsteps came running along the path, crashing through the thicket.
Noel arrived first and flung open the door and stared, eyes like blue jet, and then ran across to kneel as Eden had done beside Creda.
“Eden, for God’s sake—”
“She’s dead.”
“How—are you sure … what happened …” His hands, too, were touching Creda, hunting that nonexistent pulse, seeking to pull that stifling, merciless chiffon from Creda’s face.
“She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead—” Eden heard her own voice as eerie and distant and monotonous as an echo.
He got up and came to Eden and took her in his arms. “Stop that,” he said tensely. “Tell me, what happened? What do you mean? What—Eden, tell me—” He turned her so she need not look, so she couldn’t stare at Creda. “Eden, for God’s sake—”
And then the others came. Strevsky, the pilot, was first, oddly enough. Then Jim and Pace and Averill. And Dorothy Woolen, too, face as flabby and white as a piece of dough.
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