Someone—Noel probably—had put Eden in a chair. Everybody was talking. Everybody was questioning. Somebody screamed thinly and sharply. She closed her eyes against the turmoil, against horror, against sickening reality.
It wasn’t a nightmare. Five—perhaps three minutes—in time had made a gulf none of them could ever recross.
Noel was still beside her, holding both her hands, patting them a little as if he didn’t know what he was doing. There was talk and they were lifting Creda and saying she was dead and there was nothing anyone could do and what had happened. They kept repeating that. What had happened? When? And at last Jim’s voice said: “Who did it? It wasn’t suicide. It couldn’t have been suicide. Who—”
“Eden found her,” said Noel. “Give her a moment. She can’t talk yet. Has anybody got any brandy or whisky or—”
“Chango, go to the house. Get some brandy—” Dimly Eden thought she didn’t recognize that voice and then recognized it. It was Sloane, the rancher. No, no, the detective. But no one knew that except herself and Jim. A detective—what would he do?
And who was Chango? Oh yes, she knew perfectly well, it was the Chinese houseboy.
She was, then, sensible; all that dizziness and confusion didn’t mean that she had fainted or that the black waves of sickness had completely submerged her. She was perfectly sensible. But her eyes were closed and her muscles like lead and the voices of all the others were blurred and only now and then a clear phrase or word came to her ears out of the hubbub.
Moments must have passed without her consciousness of time for all at once someone was holding a glass to her lips.
“Drink this,” said a voice. She opened her eyes and the rancher—no, the detective—P. H. Sloane was bending over her, his face a queer ash gray in the bright light, his eyes two bright points of light. He was telling her to drink. She drank and choked on the fiery brandy and drank again, still choking.
And there was something she had to tell him.
“There’s blood,” she said, coughing. “There’s blood. On the table.”
“Finish the brandy. Yes, I saw that. Can you talk?”
She opened her lips again and he tilted the glass. Jim was standing beside the rancher; she saw Jim now, and felt, through the curious haziness around her, that he was trying to speak to her. Yet he said nothing; it was only that there was some message, some urgent message in his eyes. And something she couldn’t understand. And she must talk to him, though just as that instant she couldn’t remember what she must tell him.
The brandy was like a flame. Already it was running along her pulse; her head was clearing a little. She still wouldn’t look but was conscious of Creda, on the bed now. Of others crowding the little room. Of Dorothy Woolen, pasty-faced, sitting as flaccid as a pillow on a chair, hands gripping its arms. Of Noel’s warm hand, encouraging, on her own shoulder. Of Pace standing in the far corner of the room, face a blank, livid mask, little eyes darting suspiciously here and there about the room. Strevsky was beside him, thick neck and handsome Slavic head thrust forward above Pace’s short broad shoulder. The little steward was there, too, shrinking in a corner behind Pace, frightened, pale as a shadow. And the Chinese houseboy was there too, and—why, cowboys, of course. Several of them; blue jeans and flannel shirts and brown faces which wore exactly the same expression of intense but extremely guarded interest.
And Averill.
She stood beside the little writing table as erect as a knife; she clung to Jim’s arm but that was the only sign of weakness about her. She wore now a silk coat—pale pink with glimmering swirls around her feet; her face was extremely white and rigid but her eyes were very much alive. And Averill, too, seemed to be saying something to Eden, mutely, with her eyes.
Averill. Whose yellow cloak was wrapped about that lifeless thing on the bed. They shouldn’t have moved Creda, Eden thought suddenly. You weren’t supposed to move a murdered person until someone had given you permission to do it. Who, then; what official? But this Sloane before her was some kind of official. No, that was wrong. He was retired. But he expected her to reply to a question he had asked.
She put her hand to her head which seemed extraordinarily light and said:
“Yes. Yes, I can talk.”
Jim said: “Easy there.” He looked from her to Sloane. “She’s had a shock—”
“I know,” said Sloane, watching her, “but I think she’s all right. I think she can talk. And I’ve got to know what happened, quick.”
“Nothing—nothing happened,” said Eden. “I just found her—like that.” She felt all at once quite clear and lucid and the nightmarish, confused quality of the scene was leaving her. Struck by a sudden thought she put her hand upon the rancher’s brown, hard wrist. “She is—dead, isn’t she? There’s nothing I could have done—”
P. H. Sloane straightened a little, his face looking very bronzed but still pale under the bronze, his white shirt front and black tie appearing curiously orthodox somehow, orderly in all that debauch of disorder. He said rather quietly:
“Was she dead, then, when you found her?”
“Oh yes. Yes, I made sure. I touched her wrist.”
“What for?”
“Why, for—for the pulse, of course. There wasn’t any.”
“You did nothing else?”
Jim was looking hard at her again as if he were trying desperately to make her understand something he could not say. Warning—was it? But why? She hadn’t killed Creda.
She had thrust a note into her pocket. She’d done nothing else. She said:
“No. I—I was frightened.”
There was a catch in her voice. Sloane said: “Of course you were. But now suppose you tell me quickly how you happened to find her. Where were you—what were you doing? I suppose you”—he hesitated—”you didn’t actually see her killed, did you?”
Eden shrank back and put her hands over her face. “No, no,” she cried. “I—I just came in. Only a few moments ago. I was in my room, you see. Next door. And I—it was so silent in here—”
A cowboy entered, glanced at Sloane and said quietly: “I got the sheriff. He’ll start in an hour or so with a deputy. Ought to be here by two or three o’clock … Boys haven’t found anybody yet.”
“All right. Take lights into the pines. Get both cars out along the roads.”
“Sure.” The cowboy disappeared again. Sloane said to Eden: “Now you were in your room next door. It was quiet in this room. Why did you come in here? Did you know she was here?”
“No, no, I didn’t know it. I—there were footsteps, you see.”
“Listen, Miss Shore, I realize you’ve had a shock. We’ve all had. It is imperative for me to know at once exactly how and when you found her. Will you please try to pull yourself together and tell me?”
“Yes.” Eden swallowed hard. “Yes, of course. I was in my room you see. I don’t remember hearing anything. But all at once there was a sound from this room as if—as if something had been moved. As if a drawer had stuck and someone pulled it out. Then it was quiet—but of course I thought someone was here. Then—then all at once I heard the outer door open and footsteps enter this room and then after a few moments tiptoe away again. It was after they’d gone that I—I came. And she was there. Just as you found her. That’s all I know.”
“Did you hear the sound of voices?”
“No. That is, not then. I—” She glanced at Averill whose small white face was as hard as that of a marble statue. “I had come to the cabin with Averill; we talked in my room for a few moments, then Averill went away. I don’t remember hearing her leave—or hearing in fact anything that was clear and definite. I do have a kind of impression that I heard voices—”
“Men’s voices, or women’s?”
“I think—women’s. I can’t be sure. I didn’t notice any thing at all until I heard the—the sound—”
“What kind of sound?”
“I told you. As if a drawer had stuck—”
It made a distinct, scraping sound.
“Yes,” said Eden. “It was like that. It might have been that.”
P. H. Sloane stood for a moment beside the chest.
“I see,” he said. “Well, it doesn’t help us much. You’re sure she was—dead?”
“Yes—yes—”
“She didn’t speak to you?”
“Oh no,” cried Eden on a sobbing breath. Noel took her hand again and patted it absently and Averill stared at her with bright, enigmatic eyes, and turned suddenly to the detective.
“Creda is wearing my coat. She’s wearing it now.”
P. H. Sloane glanced at her, said, “Yes, I know that,” and came back to Eden. “Then what did you do?”
“After I came in here, you mean? Well, it was so quiet after those footsteps had gone—it—there was something—I can’t describe it. I had to come. So I—I did. The light was turned out. I found it and turned it on and there she was.” It was rather dreadful to tell it. She fastened her eyes upon the detective so she need not look at the room—at the floor—at the dark splatter on the little writing table.
“And you—”
“What did I do, you mean? Why, I—I suppose I called out. Spoke to her. She—she didn’t answer. I was kneeling beside her then. But she was dead. I—I got up and went to the window and screamed.”
And that glimpse of what looked like a white face. She must tell them that, too. As she started to speak Sloane said:
“Listen, Miss Shore, when those footsteps, as you say, tiptoed out of the cabin, you are sure whoever it was really did leave the cabin?”
“Yes—oh yes. Besides, there was no one here. Except Creda.”
“And you don’t know who it was that entered and then tiptoed out again?”
“No. I didn’t see him.”
“Him?”
“Whoever it was,” amended Eden hastily. “I don’t know who it was.”
There was a little silence.
P. H. Sloane glanced at one of the cowboys.
“Slim, you and Harris stay here. Don’t let anybody touch anything. Now then, folks.” He turned to the others. “We’ll go up to the house. The sheriff will be here soon as he can make it. Meantime we’ll wait where it’s more comfortable. By the way, Miss Blaine—when you left Miss Shore in her room where did you go?”
Averill drew herself up deliberately.
“I did not leave Eden in her room,” she said distinctly. “I was not there with her. I met her on the path, talked to her for a moment and went directly to the house. I did not come to the cabin at all.”
Eden gasped with the shock of it.
“Averill, that’s not true,” she cried, starting to her feet. “Tell him the truth.”
“I am telling him the truth,” said Averill quite coolly. “I can’t imagine why you lied to him.” She turned again, coolly, to the detective. “I saw nobody and heard nothing. I went directly to the house, stood for a moment or two on the porch, smoking, and then went inside. You must have seen me there with the others.”
“But, Averill—” cried Eden and stopped. For to her dismay the detective nodded slowly.
“Yes, I remember you were there. You mean Mrs. Blaine could have been dead for some time before she was discovered. In that case it becomes more and more important to discover just who it was that Miss Shore heard enter the cabin.” He took out a package of cigarettes, withdrew one, and turned it in his fingers for a moment before he said: “If that person will step forward and explain—”
Instantly there was almost unearthly silence in the crowded little cabin—with Creda lying there on the bed, stained gray chiffon unknotted at last but replaced in light folds over her marred face. With her fat white little hand hanging limply downward.
After a moment P. H. Sloane shrugged a little. He said dryly: “I expect it’s too much to ask. However—Miss Blaine, as you remarked, Mrs. Blaine is wearing the yellow cloak you were wearing earlier in the evening. Can you explain that?”
“Certainly,” said Averill instantly. “As you see, I’m wearing her evening wrap. I met her on the porch, just as I walked out of the house. You were playing the piano, Mr. Sloane. I walked out for a breath of air and because the night was so beautiful. I met her on the porch; she said she was cold and I wasn’t; we traded coats. Mine was warmer than hers and I’m never cold. She went away then. I didn’t notice where. I walked on down the path where I met Eden—Miss Shore. We talked for a moment and I went back to the house as I’ve told you. I was not near the cabin. I don’t know anything of this.”
“Averill, that’s not true. You were here with me. And you were wearing that yellow cloak.” Eden turned almost passionately toward Sloane. “I swear it,” she cried. “I’m telling you the truth.”
Sloane put up his hand as if for silence. He said: “You noticed the yellow coat when you found Mrs. Blaine dead?”
“Why, yes, of course,” cried Eden. “I thought—”
“You thought what?” said P. H. Sloane very softly. Again it was silent in the packed little cabin with all these faces watching. And again there was a kind of warning in Jim’s eyes. Noel said suddenly: “Take it easy, Eden.”
And Eden said: “I thought it was Averill. Until I saw it was Creda.”
“I see,” said P. H. Sloane slowly.
And Averill, with a swirl of taffeta, swept suddenly across to P. H. Sloane and put both her hands upon his black sleeve and lifted her white face and cried: “Don’t you see? Don’t you see that it was I they meant to kill? My coat—my room—the veil was over her face so they couldn’t see it was Creda. They meant to kill me.”
“You can’t say that” cried Noel, and Jim said: “Averill
—stop—”
But Averill wouldn’t stop.
“Ask Eden whose scarf that is. Ask her if it belongs to her. Ask her why she did it.”
Chapter 11
JIM HAD TAKEN AVERILL by the arm and was shaking it and shouting: “Averill, that’s monstrous! That’s crazy! Don’t listen to her, P. H. She doesn’t mean what she’s saying. She wouldn’t make any such crazy accusation if she was herself. It’s the shock—it’s—Averill, tell him you didn’t mean what you said. Averill—”
And Noel was talking, too. Stepping between Averill and Eden so she could no longer see Averill’s slender, tense figure, swathed in billowing silk.
“Eden didn’t kill Creda. Averill doesn’t realize the thing she said. She didn’t mean it. Suppose it is Eden’s scarf around her throat; that doesn’t mean anything. Why, Eden couldn’t have killed her; she’s not strong enough. They would have struggled, Creda would have called for help, someone would have heard her. Besides, Eden had no quarrel with Creda, no possible motive. Eden—oh, it’s absurd, don’t listen to Averill.”
Again P. H. Sloane put up his brown, lean hand. The gesture induced silence and he said in a quiet and measured way:
“We’ll go to the main house and wait for the sheriff. Meantime, if, on consideration, any of you remember or discover any evidence you think ought to be known I’d strongly advise you to tell it. You may not have had time to comprehend the seriousness of this thing. And the importance of telling anything you know or observed.” He stopped rather abruptly, turned and said to Chango: “You have a flashlight. You go ahead, Chango, and light the way for the ladies. Now then—”
He waited until they all filed slowly from the cabin—all, that is, except two long, brown, capable-looking cowboys who remained. Eden herself was conscious of Noel’s arm around her; it was a light touch but sustaining; without it she doubted whether she could have risen and walked out of the horror-freighted cabin and along the path. The night was still, the stars as clear as th
ey had been half an hour ago. Ahead Chango’s flashlight glanced here and there eerily, lighting the pines, lighting the path in flashes. Behind her someone spoke and then was silent. Where was Jim? Oh yes; there he was ahead with Averill whose light, long skirt looked ghostly, glimmering in the half light from Chango’s torch. The coat she wore was obviously a coat belonging to Creda, one Averill couldn’t possibly have chosen; pale pink taffeta with ruffles, pulled in slenderly at the waist and then billowing downward in yards and yards of the silken, whispering stuff. Sometime certainly between Averill’s short, ugly interview with Eden in Eden’s own room and (a few moments later) the discovery of Creda’s body, Averill and Creda had changed coats. For Averill was wearing the yellow cloak when she came upon Jim and Eden in the shadow of the pines and went with Eden to Eden’s cabin. Eden remembered that clearly. Therefore that meeting with Creda and exchange of coats took place in the short interval following Averill’s talk with Eden. Why, then, had she lied?
But why, then, had she burst out with that sharp, ugly attack upon Eden? An attack so unexpected, and so plainly virulent that it robbed itself of its own sting. Or did it?
Was there stirring question in the eyes that turned toward Eden? Jim had tried to defend her and Noel had done so instantly, too. But what really did all of them think?
She had found Creda. She had been by her own admission alone in the cabin with Creda. And it was her own gray scarf knotted with murderous tightness and strength around Creda’s throat.
That scarf. Where had she last seen it—on the plane, of course. She had put it softly around her throat and gone to sleep. And when she awoke to the amazing sight she awoke to (only that morning?) the scarf was gone and she looked for it briefly and forgot it. Then had whoever murdered Creda been plotting murder even then? Exploring ways and means, deciding on the scarf not only as a means of murder, but as a means of confusing any possible clues?
Noel at her side said nothing; his arm warm and steady upheld her. They had reached the steps—they were crossing the wide porch. Incredibly the lights inside fell upon utter order and normalness. The room was exactly as it had been; nothing out of place, nothing changed except perhaps the chairs were pushed about a little as if people had sprung from them hurriedly when she and then Noel shouted for help.
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