Chiffon Scarf

by Mignon Good Eberhart

  She never knew exactly what happened. All at once Noel was leaning in the strangest way against the controls. The plane had stopped. Had the engine died again—had Noel’s hand cut off the ignition? There were people—she could hear shouts. And waves of gray clouds swirled around her, gray as the chiffon veil that had choked Creda’s life out.

  Eventually something solid was holding her secure above the swirling veils that threatened to engulf her.

  She was being made to move; half-carried along a narrow aisle. Sunlight blinded her. There were voices and she couldn’t distinguish what they said; then she was lying flat down, with a great silver wing above her, shielding her from the glare of the sun.

  “Is she all right?” That was Sloane’s voice, she thought dimly. Sloane—how had he got there?

  The pillow under her head moved a little; it wasn’t a pillow, it was someone’s arm. Jim said: “I think so.”

  “Miss Shore, it’s all right. You’re safe. It’s all over.”

  She wouldn’t open her eyes. But she put out her hand and Jim took it and held it to his face.

  “Eden—”

  “It was Noel.” She thought she was shouting it. But Jim said: “What did you say, Eden? I can’t understand—”

  “It was Noel.” She made an immense effort to explain and said: “Noel.”

  “Yes, Eden. I know. Sloane knows now. You can tell him about it later.”

  There was a long silence. Then she made another effort and said:

  “Dorothy—told—?”

  “Dorothy; yes. She had lied about his alibi; he got up while Sloane was at the piano, walked out the window and came back—afterward. He wasn’t gone long; only Dorothy saw him. She had faith in him in spite of what she had seen. She—poor Dorothy—”

  “She protected him?”

  “Yes. Until she realized that—that he’d lied to her when he made love to her. Until she heard us talking there in the hall this morning. That was what she wanted to tell me. But she had no chance to tell me until we came back to the house. Just now. And you were gone, and Noel, and we remembered that Strevsky had repaired the plane. So we got here. In time.”

  “Was that how you knew?”

  “No. Eden—don’t talk—just let me hold you. Oh, my dear—”

  “I must know, Jim. What happened?”

  There was a short silence. Then his voice: “Sloane—I was riding beside him; it was as we rode out to Wilson. He had me come up beside him so we could talk. And he—Eden, he asked one question. It was queer. Like a searchlight. He said: ‘Why did you make the trial flight so early in the morning?’ I said, ‘On account of the weather reports; showers.’ He said, ‘And did it storm?’ I said, ‘No; it was clear all day.’ And he—he said, Eden, ‘Who got the weather reports?’ And I remembered it was Noel; he kept going to the telephone the night before. That was when we decided to make the flight early, before the storm. And then we—we looked at each other. And Sloane said, ‘Anybody who fixed the engine would have to make sure the engine had no chance to heat up before the plane was in the air.’ He said, if the flight took place late in the day, the engine would likely have been started and tuned up a dozen times and the heat would have melted the wax; or some mechanic would have discovered the break. But the flight had to take place early, Sloane said. And I saw it, too. But we—we had to explore it. It could have been Noel in your room last night; that would have been simple—all he had to do was throw the coat and hatchet down the back stairway and turn around and run back and ‘rescue’ you. The only reason we could see for that was because he was afraid, all along, that you had seen or heard something in the cabin when Creda was killed; you said you saw a face, all of us heard the sheriff tell you to try to remember. He, Noel, must have been frantic to know exactly what you saw, exactly what you thought, and whether or not you intended to tell it.”

  “Yes,” said Eden, “yes.”

  “I think he started something it was hard to finish; he built himself a Frankenstein; once he had stolen the plans and caused the crash he had to go on. Creda had seen him at the plant—she must have told him. Dorothy says he and Creda had had some kind of affair, trivial or I would have known it, a year or so ago. Creda would flirt with a snow man. And it meant, probably, nothing to Noel.”

  Something out of a nightmare repeated itself in Eden’s memory.

  “She thought he fixed the engine because of her. To free her from Bill.”

  After a moment Jim said: “It’s queer. The net was of his own contriving. Charm—Noel always had that. It was like a mask. And like a weapon which he did not scruple to use. Oh, I don’t mean you; if you believed him you deserve to be disillusioned. Although,” said Jim grimly, “not this way.” He held her tight to him and added, “But I’m sorry about Dorothy. She—it’s not nice for her. Her face used to light up like a Christmas tree when he spoke to her.”

  Presently Eden said soberly: “It had to be Noel. Creda wrote to him, telling him cold-blooded murder was too much and that—that you knew. She must have begun to write ‘Jim, believe me, knows something and they’—we all read it as if she were addressing you. Noel must have taken it from my pocket and added to it, deliberately trying to make them believe it was you.”

  His arm tightened and lifted her so her head pressed against his shoulder.

  “You didn’t believe it,” he said, his mouth close to her face. “Don’t talk, Eden. Nothing really matters now but you—us.”

  Sloane’s voice came as if from some distant existence. It sounded tired but taut, too, with excitement. “Shall I send somebody for you with a car?”

  “No—we’ll come. Later.”

  Eden opened her eyes and turned to look and Jim pressed her firmly back into his arms so she could not see.

  “It’s in the past, Eden,” he said. “Don’t look, don’t even think. They’ve all gone now,” he added presently. “After a while, we’ll walk back to the house. Sloane will want to know anything Noel told you. But don’t talk now. Except tell me—”

  “Tell you—”

  But he didn’t finish. He said, instead, smiling a little: “Shall we go?”

  He helped her to her feet. The sun was still golden; the sky still blue. The great silver plane stretched its wings above them. Away off in the distance a blue mountain rim was like a wall. The plane shut off their view of the cottonwoods and, the house; Jim looked down at her and took her in his arms and kissed her—kissed her as if it were breath and life and existence—kissed her as if he never would stop.

  But he did stop. He stopped and looked down at her without speaking and at last took her hand lightly and they went back to the ranch house.

  It was that night that Eden had another long talk with Sloane. The intervening hours she was never able to remember with any degree of certainty. There were conferences, telephone calls, cars coming and going; the sheriff arrived, and an hour or so later departed, his automobile clattering swiftly away, waking echoes from the twilight-edged mountains.

  She had told Sloane everything she knew; Dorothy, she thought, had talked to the detective again, too; she saw her emerge from Sloane’s study with her face as blank and white as a piece of marble. Averill waited, too, and questioned. She was still assured, still certain of herself. She asked Jim if he thought the Blaine Company would suffer from the publicity.

  “After all,” she said, “Noel was a vice-president and owned stock.” She shook her head slowly. “I can’t understand it. He didn’t make much money, it’s true. Nothing compared to what he once had—what he was born with. But he made enough to support himself so long as he didn’t buy—well, yachts and polo ponies and—”

  “But those were the things he had to have. Or at least as much as whatever price he could get for the engine would allow him. You know yourself, Averill, he was only a cipher. He did what he was told—that’s all. He—I think it goes deeper, perhaps, even than greed. When he was rich he was somebody—and he’d been rich all his life until he
lost his money. He knew exactly how much—how little rather—we valued him. When Dorothy showed him the letter offering money for information, it must have been the opening wedge. It showed him a way to make money; he would prevent Pace’s buying it by disabling the engine himself, for the deal was to be closed that day; he had to work fast. And then he would sell the plans to the highest bidder. And if he remembered the number of the post-office box it would give him a line on a possible purchaser. Although,” said Jim soberly, “purchasers for that kind of thing are not hard to find these days.”

  Averill looked at him speculatively.

  “If we can hush the thing up,” she said, “the plant may not suffer from it. And I don’t see why we can’t. Jim, I want to explain something—”

  “My dear, there’s nothing to explain,” said Jim cheerfully.

  “Oh yes, there is, Jim darling.” Averill was never more demure, never so sweetly winning. “Surely you didn’t believe me this morning when I—we must have a long talk. We are free now, aren’t we, to go on to the plantation?”

  “Yes,” said Jim, “we can go any time.”

  But someone came in just then and asked for Jim and he went out.

  There was a confused kind of meal served sometime during that interval by Chango. And at seven o’clock the little new moon came serenely above the mountains and by nine was bright and gentle, away up in the blue sky.

  “What have they done with him, Jim?”

  “Sheriff took him to the hospital. I—doubt if there’s much chance. It’s better that way, of course.”

  After a long moment Eden said: “He was like a different man—there in the plane. He—perhaps we never really knew him.”

  “He was not the kind of man one knows. We thought we knew him because there seemed so little to know. He’s easygoing, always agreeable, always pleasant. Never seemed burdened with brains or force of character.” Jim stopped and then said: “And he was always charming. He relied on that. With Dorothy—with Creda, when she met him that day and told him what she knew.”

  “When she met him—”

  “Wilson saw him leave, walking out toward the arroyo, and he saw Creda go in the same direction a little later. He told Noel, trusting him as he didn’t trust Sloane or me. It was Wilson you saw that night, Eden; and Noel saw him, too. Wilson didn’t see Noel, but Noel leaped to the conclusion that Wilson had seen him and, when they talked late that night, that Wilson’s aim was to make money from Noel. I don’t think Wilson saw Noel murder Creda; I don’t think he had any such plan in his mind. It’s a case of the wicked flee where no man pursueth. Noel was in a state to doubt everything and everyone.”

  “How do you know Wilson told him anything?”

  “Wilson told Strevsky that he’d seen Noel and Creda go for a walk that afternoon; they went separately but in the same direction and out of sight of the house. Strevsky, thickheaded and set on Pace as a suspect, never told anyone, didn’t consider it important. To him Noel was a boss and all right. Wilson told Strevsky, too, that he’d been strolling around near the cabin that night when Creda was murdered but he was afraid to tell Sloane for fear Sloane would suspect him. He asked Strevsky what to do; Strevsky said to keep mum about it. But Strevsky didn’t come out with any of this until we found Wilson’s diary. A little, flat book which Noel overlooked. Or rather didn’t take time to search out. God knows how he managed to get Wilson away from the house and murder him. He wouldn’t tell that.”

  “You mean he has confessed?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jim slowly. “He and Sloane and the sheriff were alone a long time. Whether or not he’s told the whole story, they’ve got a complete case. I do know though (Sloane told me) that Noel saw Wilson and thought Wilson knew. So he had to kill him. But he missed the little diary. Wilson had written a few lines along with dates with girls, and the amount of money he’d put in the savings bank and the fifty-five cents he’d lost in a crap game. He was nineteen. He said he’d been walking near the cabins; that he had seen you find Creda and didn’t tell Sloane for fear of getting into trouble. And that he thought he’d better ask somebody else’s advice. He said, ‘Mr. Carreaux is always kind.’ ”

  Sloane came along the porch and said: “There you are. Everything all right, Miss Shore? I’m sorry you had such a scare. But it was nip and tuck really. You see Carreaux was riding in the rear of the rest of us—he gradually dropped back and returned. If he was seen any of the boys thought merely that he’d changed his mind and decided not to go with us. When we saw that, we came back.”

  Jim said: “P. H., will you tell Eden the whole thing? And me?”

  The rancher looked out into the still night, with the serene new moon climbing the southern sky. After a moment he sighed.

  “It’s about as we figured it out, Jim. We’ve got a partial, confession. We’ve pinned down facts that were surmise. He saw Creda in Averill’s cabin; when it’s lighted it’s clearly visible from this end of the porch and thus from the window where he sat. It’s also very near if you cross through the pines instead of going by the path. He saw the exchange of coats, so he knew Creda was wearing the yellow coat. He’d been watching his chance for she’d been fool enough to tell him she knew; she’d started to write her note in the cabin; he simply walked out the window; he must have come to the cabin window and told her to meet him outside and she did, leaving the note. The circumstances of the murder itself are as we guessed though I could get very little of it from him. He had his revolver; he had the knife; he appears to have been frightened, nervous; it was bound to be a blundering kind of thing, as it was. When he came into the cabin after she escaped him, his revolver in his hand, knowing he had to finish the blundering job he’d begun, she had fainted and he saw the chiffon scarf. That made the murder silent and quick. He forgot the revolver. It had fallen under the coat. He wasn’t particularly smart, although he had a certain amount of cunning. At any rate, he simply returned to the lounge the way he had gone; I was at the piano; the thing hadn’t taken long, ten minutes at the most; no one except Dorothy saw him. I had my back turned toward him; so had Jim and Averill. Pace was sitting in the other window embrasure and couldn’t have seen him. So Dorothy lied and gave him an alibi.”

  There were the quick, light taps of heels across the porch. Averill came up beside them and put her white slender hand on Jim’s arm.

  “Let’s walk, Jim darling,” she said. Her voice was soft and very sweet; she put her black smooth hair against Jim’s shoulder. He looked down at her and said: “All right—”

  Eden, trying to listen to Sloane, watched them leave. Along the path, toward the shadow of the pines, Averill’s slender figure pressed close against Jim.

  It was a long time before they returned. Sloane talked steadily. As if he were checking and arranging the whole story in his mind, finally, rather than informing her. She must have heard what he said for she did realize that surmises and conjectures appeared now as facts, proven, or about to be proven. But she didn’t really listen. And apparently he expected no comment.

  “There will always remain,” he said, “a point or two that is obscure, that will always be explained by implication. Exactly how, for instance, he and Wilson managed to get away from the house the night of the murder without being seen; how he killed Wilson with Chango’s hatchet; how he returned alone, again without being seen. It was a very dark night. I suppose he simply carried the hatchet, hidden under his coat, and invited Wilson to walk with him.”

  A slight commotion arose at the door; a car swept up to it, its lights glancing ahead. Major Pace and two bags appeared on the threshold. Pace came toward them; he had his gray overcoat over his arm, a cigar and a fedora in his hand. He spoke to Sloane, he spoke to Eden, he bowed and went away. Getting into the car, vanishing into the night. As mysteriously as he had come.

  The lights of the car and the beat of its engine gradually diminished.

  And Averill and Jim returned, walking slowly along the path. At the steps t
o the porch they separated. Averill went inside, the light shining for an instant on her smooth black head. Jim came toward them.

  Sloane rose and said: “So that’s all, Miss Shore.”

  Jim said: “Not quite all. Eden—”

  Sloane had walked away; he stopped under the light to roll himself a cigarette with anxious, loving care and then he, too, disappeared.

  And Jim directly, without preamble, took Eden tight in his arms.

  “Will you marry me?” he said.

  “Jim—”

  “I didn’t mean what I said, about its being a mistake, Eden, you must have known that. I couldn’t help it; it was Averill; she said she would tell Sloane that you and she had quarreled—”

  “She did tell him that.”

  “She said she had evidence that would involve you; she—Eden, you’ve got to understand. Averill is an opportunist, and she had the stronger hand. I don’t think in her heart she ever believed you murdered Creda. But she resolved to turn the circumstances to suit her purpose.” His voice was a little rueful; she felt rather than saw through the dusk a little grin on his face. “I can’t flatter myself that it was my personal attraction; Averill has pride and ambition and she—she hated being a loser, especially to you, more than she loved me. Eden—” His voice became sober, “I want you to know this; I became engaged to Averill before I saw you. She never loved me but she was jealous of her possessions. I don’t know exactly how our engagement came to be, except her father wished it. At any rate, it’s all over now and in the past and, Eden—” His voice broke a little. He held her close in his arms and said unsteadily: “I love you so—”