Chiffon Scarf

by Mignon Good Eberhart

  There was a charged silence. Then the detective said: “What do you mean, someone got there first?”

  Pace lifted his eyebrows.

  “Just what I say! We reached the plant; the watchman was snoring in a cool spot under some trees. We simply went to the front door and entered. That was all. She went ahead of me to see that the coast was clear. (I had told her, merely, that I must see the engine.) When she came back she was frightened. She said someone was working at the plane; that whoever it was had an electric torch and was doing something to the engine. She said, I believe, that it must be a workman. But she wouldn’t let me go to see for myself. She said we had to leave at once. I—I believed her. There was truth and genuine fear in her manner. I know, now, that she recognized someone. There was nothing, then, I could do. We went back by taxi as we had come. No one saw us enter the house. She kept the key. I admitted defeat. Naturally I didn’t want to buy the engine if I could help it.”

  “Then you really meant to fix the engine and steal the plans.”

  Again Pace lifted his eyebrows.

  “Whatever I meant to do (and mark you, I admit nothing) I failed. Except that the plans alone would have been no good to me if there had existed a complete and thus saleable model of the engine. Besides,” he added with a sigh, “when I looked in the library table for the plans—where I had seen Miss Averill place them only a few hours earlier—the plans were already gone. No,” he sighed again, “I failed. All the way around. But that’s my whole story. And you can’t touch me.

  “Who was in the plant?”

  “I don’t know. I told you that. I don’t know. She didn’t say. But she was terrified. Blue with fright. Undoubtedly whoever it was killed her.” He put his cigar at last to his lips, drew on it, frowned when he discovered it had gone out and reached for a match.

  The curious thing was that his story sounded true in every detail.

  “Was it Cady?” said the detective suddenly and harshly.

  “I cannot say. I don’t know. It may have been.”

  “It wasn’t,” said Jim. And Pace, having found a match, interrupted:

  “But there is the letter she wrote before she died, addressed to him. ‘Cold-blooded murder is too much,’ ” quoted Pace. He added thoughtfully: “It must have terrified her when (after she kept silent about what she had seen, because naturally she didn’t dare tell under what circumstances she had seen it) the plane crashed and killed two men. One of them her husband. I’m sorry she had to die. However,” he shrugged, “her usefulness was at an end.”

  “P. H.” It was Charlie, speaking a little diffidently at the detective’s elbow.

  “What? Oh! Yes, we’ll be right along. You’ve got horses?”

  “Yes, boss. Maybe we’d better be getting back to Wilson.”

  “Right. You’ll come along, Cady?”

  “P. H. You’ve got to listen. I checked those plans; yes, I found them in the house after the others had gone. I went back to look for them. And I didn’t tell you because I had to convince you the crash was phony and the disappearance of the plans helped. I intended to tell you later that I’d found them. But I had to have your help—I had to interest you—”

  “Do you admit you took the plans from the library table?”

  “No. No, they were stolen. But I found them still in the house. Hidden in a drawer of an unused bedroom. Whoever took them would have had to come back for them. I checked them simply for safekeeping until we returned. And—oh, it may have been a mistake. If they’d been hidden anywhere but in that damn bureau—I mean if it had been a more ingenious hiding place, so it looked as if somebody’d stolen them, I’d have told you. But if I told you the truth you’d say they were simply mislaid. And I knew damn well they weren’t. It was a crazy impulse—perhaps coming out here at all was crazy—but I had to do it. The way I did it. I had to make you believe me. If I was wrong I’ll take the consequences.”

  “Consequences,” said the detective softly. “But that includes murder. Creda Blaine. And now young Wilson.”

  And Charlie said, rather plaintively: “I told Ed we’d be right back, boss. You know Ed. He kinda hated staying there with Curly. Alone.”

  Oddly it brought the thing to an end if not a conclusion. P. H. said shortly: “You’ll come along, Cady. Anyone else—”

  In the end, as if every one of them had to see for himself, all the men went—Jim and Noel riding easily and well; Strevsky, all his grace gone, sitting like a block of wood on the saddle, grasping the horn anxiously but determinedly; Pace riding with unexpected ease and certainty. It was queer to see them leave in a group, following Sloane’s tall figure on a sleek bay mare, followed themselves by several cowboys who looked as if they’d been cut in one piece with their horses.

  Averill, standing by the railing of the porch and watching them leave, turned at last toward Eden, gave her a long enigmatic look and without speaking entered the house. Dorothy Woolen, a silent, recording figure, had already disappeared so quietly that Eden did not note her going.

  She stood still, watching the group of horses and men grow smaller and smaller in the distance, thinking of the suddenness with which the scene had ended, and of the questions that ending had left unanswered. The last horseman disappeared over the distant slope. Silence and heat settled down upon the ranch and claimed it. Silence and heat and emptiness. Averill did not return. Chango, whose beady, inquisitive eyes and flapping white apron Eden remembered vaguely as having hovered about for the past quarter hour, had disappeared, too.

  She sat down listlessly in one of the big chairs, leaned her elbows on the porch railing and tried to summon reason out of chaos. But the trouble was Jim’s explanation of the missing plans; his lack of explanation about the letter. She believed him. But perhaps no one else.

  Sloane had said the consequences included murder. Creda. And now Wilson.

  She thought back, touching certain memories cautiously as with frightened, cold little finger tips. The plane crash—flames shooting earthward from a bright sky, where a skylark had mounted and sung. As bright a sky as the sky that day—that stared down into the blank, blue eyes of the little, curly-haired steward.

  They were not pleasant thoughts. She rose restlessly and walked slowly, thoughtfully down the path. She paused in the cool shadow of the pines and remembered again. Irresistibly, with a heart that ached.

  How merciless, under that demure manner, Averill actually was! How cruelly able to govern emotions, to direct her will! Averill could have murdered. Had she so willed it.

  Suppose—suppose she had willed it!

  It was so sharp and clear a thought that, despite (again) her own instinctive denial, she had to consider it. She walked on slowly, thinking.

  The sun high above traveled slowly on, past its height, toward a descending arc. Brilliant sunlight poured down upon the ranch which looked small and unimportant in all that expanse of sand and sagebrush rimmed in distantly by mountains.

  Eden walked on, lost in thought. She turned away from the path leading to the gate and in a long circle skirted the house, went past barns and corrals and stopped for a while in the shade of the great cottonwoods.

  Off in the distance, shimmering in the sunlight, lay the great silver plane.

  Without thinking, perhaps because of a subconscious desire to assure herself that this tangible link with the outside world still existed and had being, she left the shade of the cottonwoods presently and walked slowly toward the plane over the hummocky land, flat as her hand at one moment and tumbling into and out of a dry stream bed the next.

  It was hot and the sun poured relentlessly down, leaving no shadows except that of the cottonwoods behind her and the outline of the plane’s wings flat upon sagebrush and sand.

  She hadn’t remembered it was so far to the plane.

  When she reached it the house and corrals looked small and unreal, like a distant mirage in the heat-laden air.

  She touched the side of the plane; it was hot,
warmed by the sun. The steps were down and after a while she pulled open the heavy door and entered the cabin. No one, of course, was there. The aisle tilted a little but the seats looked inviting and comfortable. She went to the front of the plane, paused, moved slowly back again and stopped at the seat she had occupied on that night flight. She had sat just here. With Averill in her yellow coat ahead of her so she could see the black satin cap that was Averill’s hair. Who had been across the aisle? Dorothy? Or Pace in his red shawl?

  She sat down in the seat she had occupied during the night in the plane and then because of the sun moved to the other side. The leather cushion sank softly downward. Pace had sat here—or Dorothy.

  If only the plane could speak! If only the metal furniture, the neatly upholstered, thin leather cushions could tell her what had been witnessed during that night.

  If she were a detective perhaps she could discover some clue, some tangible bit of evidence in that plane where they had all sat through the night, thinking what thoughts, planning what plans, arriving at what desperate, ugly decisions?

  But there was nothing. Blank, clean leather and steel. Small windows letting in sunlight. Nothing human; nothing that was evidence.

  Time passed without her consciousness of its passage. There was no sound anywhere. She wondered once what the men were doing; what they had found; if they had drawn any conclusions at all from the circumstances of the little steward’s death.

  He had sat in that plane, too, dozing childishly with his mouth open, in the end seat.

  There was some special significance about his murder.

  Her mind touched it, was caught again in the swirl of other thoughts, then returned, fumbling for that significance.

  How silent it was! She might have been the only living thing in all the world. It was curious how distant the ranch house seemed, how remote she was from it and from human life. The desert stretched away from the windows, flat, empty, shadowless.

  Roy Wilson.

  But if Roy Wilson had been dead twenty-four hours then he had not stood in the shadow behind the door, shielding his face with a coat, holding a hatchet in his hand!

  And in the same instant she discovered that she was not alone on the desert.

  The bright black shadow of the plane, stretched out on the ground below, moved a little. Rather the shadow itself did not move, it only changed its outline a little, briefly. As if something moved somewhere and cast a shadow, thinner, smaller, like the shadow of a man, which glided into being and then blended itself in the flat black shadow of the plane.

  A man! But there was no one at the ranch except Dorothy and Averill.

  Chapter 22

  SHE LISTENED. SHE TRIED desperately to hear over the beating of her heart which thumped so loudly she thought whoever stood outside in that bright, empty desert must hear it.

  Thoughts raced through her mind—none of them coherent. She’d been a fool to come so far from the house. Why had she done it! Why had she lingered there, lost in thought! Above all, who was it?

  And did that someone know she was in the plane?

  It became the all-important question.

  There was for a moment or two no sound of motion outside the plane. Then there were footsteps—light, hurrying around the plane. She tried to see below and couldn’t. Whoever it was passed—if he actually passed at all—too close to the plane. It was as if he were reconnoitering. Why?

  And who was it?

  Probably it was no one she need fear. She tried to tell herself that. The frantic pounding of her heart was sheer nerves, nerves and a sense of isolation in that bright empty world. And perhaps a memory of someone—not Roy Wilson—who had stood in the shadow, waiting for her.

  It was as if a paralysis held her and restrained her from moving, from calling out, from making the faintest betraying motion.

  He was now at the front of the plane. There was a slight quiver and jar running along the plane as if he had touched it—rocked it—how did you start a plane?

  She rose cautiously to peer forward. And then he passed a window and she caught the briefest glimpse of an outline that was familiar. Familiar—then who?

  He was coming into the plane. She sank down again in the seat, cowering instinctively as a hunted animal cowers. She couldn’t see his entrance. But she heard it. Quick steps—still light and curiously stealthy—or did she imagine that stealth?

  There was another jar, heavier, and less sunlight in the cabin. He’d taken up the steps, then? And closed the entrance? Odd. But there was no time to think for he walked quickly along the aisle and she saw him as he brushed past. And she sat up and cried on a great breath of relief: “Noel—”

  He stopped as if someone had struck him and turned slowly, almost rigidly, toward her.

  “Noel—thank heaven, it’s you! I couldn’t see—I thought—crazy things. I was terrified. Noel—”

  She was babbling, her voice high-pitched and unsteady.

  “Eden. You!”

  “Noel, I was terrified. It was silly of me—but it’s so far from the house I couldn’t see it was only you.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I just happened to walk this way,” she said, still speaking rapidly and nervously. “Noel—” Something in his manner, in the way he looked at her drove her into confused explanations. “Noel, I only happened—I was taking a walk. I—what is wrong?”

  After a moment he said slowly, watching her: “Nothing.”

  “But, Noel, you—you look so strange.”

  His brilliant eyes darted from her face to his wrist watch and back again.

  He said: “Why did you tell Jim we were to be married? Why did you tell Dorothy?”

  “But, Noel—” She shook her head queerly, as one shakes water out of his eyes so he can see the better. “I didn’t—he only guessed.”

  “Did I mention marriage? Did I say I wanted you to marry me? Did I say anything that gave you a right to tell them that?” He stopped, looked at her and said: “You fool.”

  Queer she couldn’t get to her feet. It was as if an invisible hand held her pressed into that deep seat.

  “Noel—” It was only a whisper—not quite that

  He glanced swiftly again at his wrist watch.

  “You’ve brought it on yourself. I can’t help it. I couldn’t help any of it once I’d got started. It wasn’t my fault. And now I’ve got to finish what I’ve started.” He paused, looked at her as if he hated her and said: “In a way it’s justice. If you hadn’t told them and turned Dorothy against me—! I never thought of marriage. I only wanted to make sure that you kept anything you knew to yourself. I didn’t know you were in the other room when Creda—when I—when I had to do it. Good God,” he said furiously. “Why couldn’t you stay out of it! Why did you tell them you saw someone—me, of course. Or the steward. Why did you play cat and mouse with me so I never knew whether you were willing to keep what you knew to yourself, or going to tell them you saw me?”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “You met me halfway—yet you never told me I was safe with you. Dorothy believed in me. She lied for me; you didn’t. But she’ll tell them the truth now. I saw it in her eyes. So I came back. Well, it’s your own fault. I can’t stop now.”

  She had to get out of the plane. She had to get out of the deep seat—she had to force open that door—she had to escape—

  “Stay where you are. You’ve brought it on yourself. I—I’m too tired,” he said with the strangest effect of simplicity. “I can’t think any more. You’ll have to come with me.” His bright eyes darted around the plane and fastened on a small locker at the rear.

  She tried to stand. He pushed her back in the seat and opened the locker, watching her all the time, and took out a squarish bundle, secured with leather straps. He slung it quickly over his shoulders, fastening it with trembling but very quick fingers.

  “But that—that’s a parachute—” She must have said it aloud.

  “Of
course. Get up. Quick—”

  She had to rise. She couldn’t do anything else.

  “Walk up ahead—I mean it—do you understand? Don’t drive me to—do anything. If Creda hadn’t driven me! She thought I killed Bill for her. Because a year ago I showed her some attention. Vain little fool! Take that seat at the right. Do as I say—”

  She did it. She was an automaton. She was walking in a frightful dream.

  He slid into the seat beside her. There were controls, instruments, she stared at them helplessly and didn’t know what one of them was for. He adjusted the cord of the parachute.

  “There’s gas enough still. Queer—when we left the St. Louis airport I thought, we’ve got more gas than we need. The plane’s heavy Don’t move!”

  Whatever she’d been about to do, she stopped.

  He was mad. No, he was terribly, desperately sane. The lines in his face were sharp and there were dark pockets around his eyes. The easy, facile charm of his smile had had the power of disguising that hagridden look.

  “Noel—why—” she said, her voice as thin as paper.

  “Obvious,” said Noel. His shaking, nervous hands reached toward the instrument board. “I was tired of being without money; I was born to have money—as I used to have.”

  He was certainly starting the engine. Adjusting this lever and that—a little uncertainly, frowning as if trying to remember. He had a pilot’s license he’d said; but he hadn’t flown much.

  “Let me out—please, let me out; Noel—what are you doing! Noel—I beg you—”

  “Don’t—where’s the starter—oh, I see.”

  “Noel—you’ve got to let me out! I won’t stop you—I can’t—Noel—where are you going? What—”

  Her voice would have been unrecognizable. She had no thought, no strength, she could only beg, implore, plead.

  “It’s your own fault,” he said. The engine started.

  The throb of the engine completed chaos. She didn’t faint; she was aware of the throb all through the plane. The engine wheezed and died and the propeller became a propeller instead of a glistening arc. He swore and pulled and pushed at levers and started the engine again with a roar and this time the plane moved and—and how loud the engine beat. Loud and irregular and horrible—only it wasn’t the engine! It was revolver shots—unutterable confusion, glass cracking and shattering—the plane jerking, half turning in a great staggering whirl.