But she brought back to him sharply everything he had learned about women at an earlier period of his life — and shore leave in wartime had been an effective education. He knew Elizabeth Wilson well enough already to accept her theatrical remorse for what it was, a kind of apology for the grim revelations she was about to make. Women could dramatize anything, apparently even homicide.
He grimaced at this, and spoke with deliberate brutality: “Never mind the mess you made of your life just now, Lizzy. Let’s just hear about the mess you made of your husband.”
It brought her around to look at him, shocked and indignant. They faced each other stiffly.
“Don’t call me Lizzy,” she whispered. This was irrelevant, and he did not respond to it. Presently she laughed somewhat sharply, and touched his knee. “I was kind of putting on an act for you, wasn’t I, honey?”
“I had that impression, Mrs. Wilson.”
“I do that,” she whispered. “I know I do; I can’t help it. It’s — nice to have someone around who can see through it. Larry never did. Even after he began to hate me, I could still—”
This was getting them nowhere, either, and he had no strength to waste on it. “He came here that night?”
“Yes, of course,” she said, and glanced at Young. “I am beating all around the bush, aren’t I, honey? It’s — it’s so hard to — If I could only see your face! I — I can’t tell at all what you’re thinking of me.”
“Never mind my face,” Young said, but his voice was gentler than it had been. Unlikely as it seemed, he had forgotten the bandages. You had to admit, he thought, it was tough on a girl to have to make her confession, not only to a stranger, but to a stranger hidden behind an expressionless mask of surgical gauze. “Carry on,” he said.
She hesitated. “I was glad to see him,” she whispered, averting her eyes. “Honest. I was so — so lonely. When you’ve been married, even if it doesn’t work... I thought he must have come back to — to try to make it up between us, somehow; and I was glad, you understand! What did I care about his silly politics, anyway; and maybe I’d even been wrong about them. I — I wanted him to tell me I’d been wrong, that I’d made a terrible mistake, that I’d done him a terrible injustice, but that he was willing to forgive me. I — I dropped the gun on the table by the stairs and ran across the room to him, hoping he’d take me in his arms and — and kiss me—”
“Hold it,” Young said, “Let’s go back. You had a gun?”
She licked her lips. “I’m telling this all wrong, aren’t I? Yes, I had a little gun. Larry himself had given it to me after we were married. This is kind of an isolated place, and when he was commuting to Washington he sometimes didn’t get home till late. Sometimes he’d stay over all night.”
Young said, “Okay, you had a gun. Now, what made you take it with you when you went downstairs to greet your husband?” It was becoming hard for him to concentrate, but instinct warned him that he had to get this all now. She was ready to talk about it now; she might never be again.
“Why, I didn’t know it was Larry!” she said, surprised. “I was scared to death. I thought — All I knew was that somebody was in the house. Downstairs. I just lay in bed and shivered, hoping they’d go away and not come up, but they didn’t go away. There were all kinds of crashing and rattling. I couldn’t imagine what was going on. At last I couldn’t stand it any longer. I got the gun and slipped down the stairs... He was drunk,” she breathed. “That’s what he was doing, getting drunk and falling over the furniture. He — he laughed at me. He said — people were getting wise to the way the world was going and everybody was trying to jump on the nice, Red bandwagon; but that lots of people were going to find that there wasn’t room, and if I thought he was going to take me with him—”
“He was going somewhere?” Young interrupted.
Elizabeth Wilson nodded. “That’s what he said. I didn’t understand it, exactly; but somebody was coming for him in a few days. If he hadn’t been drunk, he wouldn’t have talked so much, I guess; and if I hadn’t — hadn’t acted so glad to see him —” She shivered a little at some memory. “He even relented a little. He said that if... if I was a good girl and kept him hidden here without letting anybody know, and co-operated, he’d see what could be done about letting me come along.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“Not exactly, but it was out of the country—”
“Did he say how long he was going to have to wait?”
“Several days, at least. He didn’t seem quite sure of that himself.” Her hands were tightly clasped together in her lap now. “Then he began to boast,” she whispered. “He said I didn’t know he was in the Navy, did I? He said I didn’t know his name was David Martin Young, Lieutenant, U.S.N.R.; and he pulled on the jacket he had taken off—”
“Blouse,” Young said mechanically.
“—and strutted up and down in front of me. I didn’t know I was a widow, he said; and told me about you. He had arranged things so nobody would miss him, he said; if anybody started looking, it would be for a stray Navy Lieutenant. Lawrence Wilson had died in a terrible accident and would be buried in the family plot in the Bayport Cemetery. If I really wanted to show that my heart was in the right place, I would go over and identify the body right, when they called me; in fact, that was what he had come here for, to make real sure I made the proper identification. If I didn’t, if I tried anything, if he was caught, he would make damn sure that people would think I was just as deeply involved as he was. He said, what could I lose? I could even change my mind about going — and he wasn’t quite sure he could arrange it even if he wanted to — and still, just by saying a few words I would be the rich widow of the late Lawrence Wilson, at least until wealth was no longer allowed to exist for private purposes.” She looked down at her clasped hands and was silent.
“Carry on,” Young said gently.
She glanced at him. “That’s Navy talk, isn’t it, honey? Larry used to affect a lot of slang he picked up at—” She shivered abruptly. “I said no,” she whispered.
“That wasn’t very smart,” Young said.
“No,” she breathed. “It was real silly, I guess. I should have — played along. But I was so — so sick and ashamed... He got mad, of course, perfectly furious. He hit me. I fell against the table and the gun dropped to the floor. I — I crawled over and got it. I p-pointed it at him and told him to get out. I said I would give him until morning to get away from here, because he was my husband, and then I was going to call the police.” She licked her lips. “It wasn’t a very — dignified scene. I told him if he wanted help to go to his redheaded girlfriend; and he told me how funny I looked giving him orders, sitting there in the middle of the rug with my nightie up around my neck. He laughed at me and walked up to me and reached for the gun and — and I shot him. Maybe I thought he was going to kill me. Maybe I really hated him then. Anyway, I shot him.”
Her voice stopped, and there was no sound in the room. Outside, a large insect of some kind blundered against the screen, and an outboard motor buzzed industriously on the river. Elizabeth Wilson rose abruptly, her hands still gripping each other desperately.
“I called Bob Henshaw,” she said. “He — we got it down to the boat. There was an old chain lying on the dock —” Her throat worked. “... burned the rug and my nightie — it was all over rust and blood — while Bob took it out... Then the telephone rang. It was the Rogerstown General Hospital. They told me” — she licked her lips —” they told me that my husband — that my husband had been in an accident, but was going to be all right.” She sank down on the bed again. “They said not to worry — not to worry.”
Then she turned to him, and he held her as she cried. He was tired, and his face hurt, and she had forgotten in her misery that he was a badly bruised man who should be treated gently. But he did not mind. He did not mind the pain, or the awkwardness, bandaged as he was, of holding in his arms a weeping girl, practically a stranger,
who was not fully dressed, or even the uneasiness of wondering — as you could never help doing when they spun you one of these long, sad yarns — just how much of the story it was safe to believe. He did not mind because, for the first time in more than seven years, he was concerned with the troubles of someone other than himself. But then he was getting drowsy again, and not even the excitement of Elizabeth in his arms could keep him awake.
Chapter Five
He awoke slowly, to the sound of voices. It seemed to him that he spent all his time awakening, these days, although he could never quite recall the circumstances of going to sleep. Bright striped sunshine was entering the room through the Venetian blind, and he was hungry. A subdued conversation was being conducted in the hall outside his room; by listening attentively he could distinguish the words clearly.
“The Decker girl?” This was a man’s voice, oddly familiar. For a moment Young could think of only one man around here whose voice he might recognize — a man who was dead — and his breathing stopped and the little hairs rose along the nape of his neck. Then he realized that this was just the doctor, whose voice he had heard in the hospital the previous day. “You let her in here?” Dr. Henshaw was demanding incredulously. “Elizabeth, what were you thinking—”
“Let her!” The girl’s voice was sharp. “The brat almost knocked me down and stepped on me. She was up the stairs before I could do a thing to stop her.”
“But—”
“Honey, I was ready to die! But he came through for us, he really did. He called her Bunny like he’d known her all his life, and thanked her kindly for the flowers she’d sent to the hospital. You should have seen her face: I declare, she turned positively green! She could have scratched my eyes out! She thought he was Larry, of course; and I reckon it looked to her like I’d managed to make up with him somehow and turn him against her. She stamped out of here and slammed the door so hard I thought the house was going to fall down.”
There was a brief silence. Then the doctor’s voice said reluctantly, “Well, I suppose that’s all right, then, and no harm done. In fact, having her see him and talk to him is the best possible thing that could have happened, since it worked. If she’s convinced, certainly nobody else is going to have any suspicions.”
The conversation moved away down the hall. Presently the doctor returned alone and entered the room. Hearing him approaching the bed, Young stirred, and for the second time that day went through his impersonation of a man waking up.
The doctor set his bag on the bedside table and looked down at his patient. “I am sorry to have to disturb you, Mr. Young,” he said. “But this was my only free time today; and I thought I’d better take the opportunity to check how you were getting along. How do you feel this afternoon?”
“Fine,” Young said, rather thickly. His face felt stiff and awkward beneath the bandages. “Hungry.”
“Mrs. Wilson’s down in the kitchen getting you something to eat.” Dr. Henshaw was shaking down his thermometer and did not glance aside. “She says you had a bit of excitement here this morning.”
Young whispered, “Well, a little redheaded kid came barging in, all worked up about something, if you call that exciting.”
“Um,” the doctor said, regarding the instrument in his hand skeptically. “I understand you handled the situation quite well.”
“I’m glad you approve, Doc.”
“Very few medical men like to be called Doc, Mr. Young.”
“Sorry,” Young whispered.
“I don’t want to seem unduly suspicious,” the older man said, frowning at the thermometer. “Naturally, we’re grateful that you didn’t give us away. But I’m curious about your motives, Mr. Young. Why did you let the young lady believe you were Larry Wilson? Come to that, why didn’t you declare your identity at the hospital?”
Young moved his shoulders briefly. “In the hospital, I didn’t have much of a chance before you snatched me out of there. Most of the time I was out cold. I did try to talk to the nurse, but she just shushed me like they do.”
“And this morning?”
“Well,” Young whispered, “let’s say it just didn’t seem like the right time to upset the applecart.”
The doctor turned toward the bed. His voice held no particular expression. He might have been inquiring about a minor symptom. “How do you feel about it now, Mr. Young?”
“I don’t know,” Young whispered. “I guess I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
Everything was on a very calm and polite level of conversation, and the doctor bent over him and said, “Open your mouth, please,” and inserted the thermometer and glanced at his watch. Straightening up, he regarded his patient for a moment, then turned away and walked around the bed to the window. He spoke to the sunlight outside.
“I don’t know exactly what Mrs. Wilson told you,” he said quietly. “She tends to be — well, she’s a sensitive person. She feels things very deeply, Mr. Young. It has — made my task of protecting her rather difficult.” He was silent for a period of time; then he went on: “The facts, I think, speak for themselves. You have reason to know her husband’s character; he was a violent, ruthless man, and we suspect that he was also a traitor to his country, although that is an accusation I prefer not to make against any person without absolute proof, which I do not have in Larry’s case. How Elizabeth came to marry him is neither here nor there; suffice it to say that it was a wartime marriage which she has had cause to regret — not that she has ever told me so, but I have eyes, Mr. Young, I have eyes. He came here that night, as you know, with blood on his hands — your blood, Mr. Young. It is clear that he expected to be able to bully her into helping him to escape. When she refused, he became furious. There was a scuffle in which a gun was involved. The weapon was discharged somehow. Mrs. Wilson says she fired it; I doubt that she really knows how it came to be fired.”
His voice ceased. He glanced at his watch, came around the bed, removed the thermometer from Young’s mouth, read it, and put it down without comment. Then he returned to the window.
“You know that she called me,” he said, looking out. “I came, and sized up the situation, including her ability to stand up to questioning. She told me how Larry had already arranged for himself to be ‘killed’ in an accident many miles from here. It seemed too good an opportunity to dismiss; it seemed as if Fate had played a grim joke on Larry Wilson, letting him plan the official details of his own death. All that was necessary was to get rid of the body, which I did. It was — not an ethical act, by the standards of my profession, but sometimes the man takes precedence over the doctor, Mr. Young.” Henshaw cleared his throat. “We made one mistake. We failed to allow for the fact that Larry, having arranged to substitute a dead body — your dead body — for himself, had failed to make the body, shall we say, quite dead enough. Imagine our feelings, Mr. Young, when, after disposing of one Larry Wilson, we suddenly found ourselves with another on our hands, and that one an imitation! Fortunately for us, you were too badly hurt to speak out at once. There was only one thing to do; and we took you out of the hospital at the earliest opportunity and brought you here, hoping that, since you had no reason to love Larry Wilson, we might somehow persuade you... Do you have a price, Mr. Young? We can afford to pay a reasonable amount.”
The last words were spoken in a different tone, quite abruptly. Young looked up. “Price?” he asked. “For what?”
“For doing what you have already done once this morning. For impersonating Larry Wilson until we can arrange for you to leave in a manner that will not arouse suspicion. “As long —” The doctor made a sharp little gesture with his hand. “Don’t you see, Mr. Young? It is a very simple proposition. As long as Larry Wilson seems to be in this house alive, his wife cannot possibly be suspected of having shot him.”
Young did not speak at once and a little silence followed. Young watched the man at the window. Dr. Henshaw was wearing the rough brown suit of the day before, badly in need of pressing. It did not
hing to flatter his heavy figure. The condition of the pockets of his jacket indicated that he was in the habit of shoving his hands into them deeply. He did so now.
“She’s a wonderful person, Mr. Young,” he said. “When I think of the way she has been treated here —! I would do anything to protect her, Mr. Young, anything!”
His voice was impressively sincere. Young studied him, feeling a certain respect, and also a certain pity, because you could never take quite seriously the feeling of a bald and middle-aged man for a girl twenty-odd years his junior. Yet this man had apparently loved well enough to put his career and reputation on the line for Elizabeth Wilson when she needed him. It was a thing not every man would do for the woman in his life, Young reflected; the old boy must have something on the ball, even though he didn’t look it.
“Anything!” Dr. Henshaw said softly. “I would even let an innocent man be punished for a crime he did not commit.”
Young looked at him sharply, and the doctor swung around to face him. “What do you mean?” Young demanded.
“It should be plain enough,” the doctor said. “I do not know your motives for keeping quiet about your identity, Lieutenant Young, but I think I can make a fair guess at them. You were on your way to Norfolk to report for duty, were you not? And then, suddenly, you found yourself in the hospital under another man’s name... Are there, perhaps, reasons why you would prefer not to go back into the service, Lieutenant?”
“Listen—”
Henshaw waved the interruption aside. “No, your motives don’t really concern me, Lieutenant. I don’t think you are quite sure of them yourself, as a matter of fact; you’ve just been letting yourself drift with the tide, have you not? Well, I am suggesting that you keep right on drifting in the same direction, Lieutenant. It’s fair enough. We will keep your secret if you keep ours. But let me warn you; Mrs. Wilson’s welfare comes first with me. If you do anything at all to endanger her, I promise you that I will see you arrested, not only for desertion, but for murder.” The doctor leaned forward slightly to emphasize his words. “Consider your position, Mr. Young. You are the man who was found in Lawrence Wilson’s wrecked car, wearing his clothes, with his watch on your wrist and his wallet in your pocket. Who is going to believe that Larry Wilson — whose family has lived around here for generations — staged an unprovoked attack on a stranger he’d picked up along the highway, changed clothes with this man, and then came running home to be shot to death by his own wife? Do you think the police will pay any attention to this crazy yarn, when the logical theory is that it was the hitchhiker — a man panic-stricken at the thought of being called back into the armed forces — who murdered Wilson for his car and clothes and money, and then, perhaps injured in the struggle, cracked up the car trying to get away. Think it over, Mr. Young.”
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