Rob, with an air of defiance mixed with something like desperation, kissed her.
And she had no more than reached the Godden house than she wished he had accompanied her. For on the table in the hall was a hat she recognized. A hard, black derby which, because he had always had one in hand when she had seen him, was associated in her mind with Henry Fitterling.
Ancill, who had opened the door for her, confirmed it.
“Mr. Fitterling,” he said, looking over her shoulder, “is here. He and Miss Beatrice are waiting for you. In the library.”
He took her coat and added, “And Mr. Trench is here, too.”
“Mr. Trench?”
“Yes, ma’am. He has come to stay. He is in the green guest room.”
The dining-room door opened.
“Marcia!” said Gally. “There you are. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Gally! When did you come?”
He rubbed both hands through his hair. There was a look of doubt and perplexity about him, and an entire and startling absence of his usual gay and careless good humor. He looked pointedly at Ancill, who withdrew reluctantly, giving a last look over Marcia’s shoulder which reminded her that they were waiting in the library.
“I came,” said Gally, “this morning. Just now. But I’ll be damned if I know why.”
“But—Ancill said something about the guest room—”
“Sure. I’m installed. Bag and baggage. For the duration of hostilities, so far as I can see.” He looked up and down the hall, leaned toward Marcia and whispered, “Beatrice sent for me.”
“Beatrice? But she—”
“I know. She hates me.” He shrugged and spread out both thin hands and looked very tall and very bony in spite of his loose tweed suit. “Figure it out. I can’t.”
“But you came—” Marcia began incredulously.
“Oh, I came,” he said grimly. “One does when Beatrice summons.” He looked up and down the hall again. “I’m afraid of her,” he said. “Good God, how you’ve stood it, living in this mausoleum for three years! I hope you’ll get out now.”
“Gally, the lawyer’s here, and they’ve sent for me.”
“I know—old Fitterling. Saw him coming and ducked. Want my moral support in the interview? Okay, if you say so, but they’ll likely throw me out.”
“Didn’t Beatrice tell you why she wanted you to come?”
“Nope. Not a word. Just to bring my bag and come. And I did. Tell the truth, I was sort of glad of the chance. I’ve got no brains at all,” he said with nice candor. “But I’m here in case of need.”
Bless him, thought Marcia. Harum-scarum and feckless and unswervingly loyal. If only he wouldn’t drink while he was in the house—but Beatrice would see that the buffet was locked. Beatrice—Fitterling—Ivan’s property—perhaps now she could do something for Gally—start him in some small business. Or had Ivan made any arrangements for her own inheritance?
At the library door Gally ran his hands over his hair, repressing it only slightly and momentarily, and settled his green tie.
“It’s Beatrice,” he whispered to Marcia. “She looks like a teacher I had in Miss Neet’s Day School. Remember? The tall one that spatted your hands with a ruler. Buck up, my dear, they can’t eat us. I suppose,” he added rather dubiously and opened the door for her.
Beatrice was sitting at Ivan’s desk.
Marcia might have expected it, but she hadn’t, and it gave her a definite sense of shock to see Beatrice’s long pale face and thick black eyebrows there in Ivan’s place. Even her hands were spread out on the desk and looked very long and white and beautiful. Instinctively Marcia looked for the green glass paperweight but did not see it, and Beatrice said, lowering, “You were a long time. You needn’t come in, Galway. Here is Mr. Fitterling, Marcia.”
“How do you do? No, please stay, Gally.”
Gally, fidgeting toward the door, paused, gave Marcia the look of a worried but faithful dog, and remained, avoiding Beatrice’s eye. Mr. Fitterling, a round, nervous little man, turned from surveying the empty aquarium through an eyeglass as if searching for its recent tenants, said, “How do you do?” to Marcia and advanced to shake hands softly with her. He looked uncomfortable, and scattered phrases of condolence began to well out of his small mouth.
“Galway cannot possibly be concerned in this matter,” boomed Beatrice in the middle of them and completed their shattering.
Mr. Fitterling said unexpectedly, getting twisted, “It is the companion of age—as natural as life—in life we are in death—”
Beatrice interrupted again.
“Ivan,” she snapped, “was very little older than I. And his death was not natural. Quite the contrary.” She looked severely at Mr. Fitterling, who had become a gentle mauve. “Galway can stay if he insists, but it’s none of his business.”
“Galway,” said Marcia, “is my only relative.” Gally, who had looked a trifle wilted and very much as if he wished himself elsewhere, straightened up at that and regarded the white head of Caesar with a show of dignity, and Marcia continued, “What is it, Beatrice?”
Beatrice looked at Gally, suddenly capitulated, and turned to Mr. Fitterling, who was touching his round face with his handkerchief.
“Tell her,” she said.
Obviously he didn’t want to. He hesitated, avoided their eyes, had a sudden thought and pushed a chair forward for Marcia.
“Thank you,” said Marcia. “What is it, Mr. Fitterling? Something about Ivan’s—property?”
“It’s about Ivan’s will,” said Beatrice, folding her hands and looking at them.
“Will?” said Marcia rather faintly.
Mr. Fitterling cleared his throat, sensed rather than per mitted himself to see the dark look Beatrice gave him, and said, “Yes—er—will, Mrs. Godden. You see, it’s a little irregular—very irregular—but likely to stand—”
Beatrice’s dark impatience drove her.
“Ivan,” she said to Marcia, “made a new will yesterday. It—was found here in his desk. Emma Beek witnessed his signature. In the will he—made me the sole beneficiary. With the provision that I was to take care of you as your guardian. He felt,” said Beatrice slowly, “due perhaps to your recent somewhat singular behavior, that you were not competent to handle your own affairs.”
She stopped speaking and sat there, staring at Marcia and looking exactly like Ivan.
CHAPTER X
THE FRENCH DOORS WERE a dreary gray rectangle upon a dreary wet world. The white head of Caesar looked down but could not tell the things it had seen in the room. The glasses over the bookshelves glimmered, and Mr. Fitterling clucked a little like a troubled and indecisive hen. Marcia said at last:
“When did he make the will?”
“Yesterday,” said Beatrice. “It is dated.”
“But—when? I was here all afternoon.”
“Not all afternoon. You went to the bank. It was—”
Beatrice’ did not quite catch herself, but she swerved neatly and said, “It must have been during your absence. It is written with a pen. Signed. We all know Ivan’s signature. Witnessed. Show it to her, Mr. Fitterling.”
Mr. Fitterling was heard to say it was most irregular, the whole thing, but showed her a paper. It was in Ivan’s handwriting, neat and small and regular.
“Emma Beek witnessed it?”
“Yes,” said the lawyer. “And that’s the trouble.”
“No trouble,” said Beatrice.
“Well, it remains to be seen. You see, according to Illinois law there must be two witnesses. But the chances are it will hold all right—”
Beatrice interrupted: “Suppose he told someone that this will was his, wouldn’t that be the same as a witness?”
Mr. Fitterling wasn’t sure. He fidgeted and took the paper nervously from Marcia’s hands as if she might destroy it.
“I think it will stand,” he said. “Oh, yes, I think it will stand. The intention is obvious.”
&
nbsp; “Very well,” said Beatrice, still with that dark impatience. “That’s all now, Fitterling. Here, take the will along with you. Put it in your vault. There’s no need just now for anybody else to know about it.” She turned and fixed Gally with her eyes as one might fix a grasshopper with a pin. “No one,” she repeated. “Until this—unfortunate entanglement with the police is over with.”
Mr. Fitterling shook his head disapprovingly and helplessly. Gally looked startled and mumbled, “Unfortunate entanglement—oh, my God!”
So Ivan had punished her, as Marcia had known he would do. That was what he had meant. He’d said she would “understand certain things.” She would know why it was done. “Incompetent” to handle her own affairs. Beatrice must be her guardian—the sole legal beneficiary and inheritor of Ivan’s property and income. His widow to have nothing at all. No means of support, no small measure of independence.
Probably he had not meant it to stand. Probably he meant it only as a gesture of punishment. He would have kept it secret for some time—letting her guess at it by hints. Finally he would have told her and watched, with that secret small shadow at the corners of his mouth, the wound it made. Years after, he would have changed it. Perhaps. For he wouldn’t have wanted Beatrice actually to inherit all his property.
He wouldn’t have wanted Beatrice to inherit.
It was a sudden and surprising and curiously illuminating thought. So sharply significant that it was as if a new and altogether different light had fallen on Beatrice as Marcia saw features and planes and shadows which, before, she had not seen.
She sat there, small and very still, staring at Beatrice. She seldom analyzed and pigeonholed. She couldn’t have said why or how she knew that in that dark twinship, under the show of affection and mutual dependence and sympathy, there might have been dark threads of something else—something too deeply inherent to be called hatred— rather the dark, strong antipathy that only very violent natures of the same blood can feel toward each other.
Ivan had ruled Beatrice as he had ruled Marcia, but toward Marcia he had on his side Beatrice’s acquiescence of blood against an outsider.
Beatrice said suddenly, “Good day, Fitterling. We may need your help again soon. I daresay if one of us is arrested for Ivan’s murder you can arrange bail.”
“Oh, dear me! Oh, Miss Godden! I beg of you—and I’m afraid you can’t get bail in case of—of murder.”
“Indeed,” said Beatrice. “Well, take care of that will. Good-bye.”
Ancill mysteriously was in the hall, ready with Mr. Fitterling’s hat.
Beatrice looked at Gally and said directly, “I wish to speak to Marcia. Will you please leave us alone?”
This time Marcia was lost in the morasses of possibilities that that one instant of comprehension had revealed to her, and did not restrain Gally and he ambled from the room in Fitterling’s wake. At the door he paused to give Marcia a commiserating glance, but caught Beatrice’s eye instead, and shut the door rather quickly.
Beatrice waited a moment as if to be sure he had gone, then rose and went to the door herself and locked it. Marcia sat upright abruptly as Beatrice swept on to the small closet opening off the room, opened the door and glanced inside, went on to the french windows and saw that they were closed and locked.
“Beatrice!”
“I want to be sure we are not overheard,” said Beatrice simply. “There are things we must talk of, Marcia. Immediately. This business of the police—”
She came back toward Marcia.
“Sit down again. It will take some time, and I don’t want you fainting on my hands.” She herself chose a straight-backed chair near Marcia. In a kind of daze Marcia watched her turn it so she could see the french doors.
“Now then, Marcia, please be so good as to remember not to raise your voice. Ancill can hear every word in this room and has for years. So speak low. Very well. First, did you kill Ivan?”
“No!”
“I saw you. With your hands on the knife. Bending over him.”
“I didn’t kill him. He told me to pull out the knife—I didn’t—”
Beatrice made a brusquely warning gesture with her hands and looked coldly at Marcia.
“Anyway, it doesn’t much matter,” she said calmly. “My point is this: I saw you in the very act, so far as appearance goes, of murdering my brother. I witnessed it with my own eyes—hush!—I have more to say. At any moment I may feel it is my duty to tell the police—”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I’m still speaking, Marcia. But you do realize this, don’t you? I see you do. Very well, then. Now about this will: you do know why it was done? And you realize also that I know, don’t you? Never mind answering.”
“Beatrice—” Marcia got to her feet and stood there compelling Beatrice to look at her. “Beatrice, when did you know about this will?”
Beatrice did not move or speak. It was only by a small tenseness of immobility in her face that Marcia knew she had touched a break in the older woman’s guard. Her eyes, though, were clouded and dark and betrayed nothing.
Marcia repeated, “When did you know, Beatrice? How did you know?”
She appeared to be making up her mind. She watched Marcia unhurriedly, finally moistened her pale mouth a little and said, “I knew yesterday. I knew when it was made.” She had made up her mind and went on coolly, now that she knew what she was going to do: “I knew about it, and they will make a motive for murder from that will. They will say I might have murdered him in order to inherit. So I intend to tell them I did not know it. That I knew nothing of it.”
“But you—”
Beatrice broke in: “Who can say I knew of it?” she demanded. “Who—but you, Marcia?”
“I—”
“And you won’t dare,” said Beatrice and leaned back in her chair.
The queer, dark triumph in her eyes—the look of knowingness—of certainty—of having played her game well. The little shadows at the corners of her mouth. Marcia turned abruptly away. It was, suddenly, as if Ivan had not died but sat there behind her—watching her, smiling secretly.
“Why,” said Marcia, “are you so sure?”
The little shadows deepened around Beatrice’s mouth. She leaned forward with her trump card.
“Because I have a letter,” she whispered.
Every drop of blood drained away from Marcia’s face. So that was it!
That was it—and Rob’s very life was in the hands of the triumphant woman watching her. A woman to whom hatred was a knowledgeable thing.
Beatrice was smiling openly now. Marcia must not let her see so completely her victory.
“I suppose you took it from the cupboard,” said Marcia, in a voice that was so flat and lusterless that it actually had an effect of coolness and poise.
Beatrice nodded. “While you were on your way to the bank. To get Ivan’s previous will. You brought it home yourself. I watched him destroy it, while you were removing your hat and coat. And while you were gone to the bank he wrote the new one. And I went to the cupboard to get ink for him—and there was the letter. Luckily I didn’t give it to him—I decided to save it. For another time.”
“I see. And if I tell the police that you knew of this will, you give them my letter. Is that it?”
“Exactly. Don’t raise your voice.”
“Beatrice—there must be something back of this—something—” Marcia groped in unexplored fields and said, “There must be another reason—another motive that might be discovered—another piece of—of evidence which you know of and which you think would lead the police to think that you—murdered Ivan.”
She didn’t like that. “Nonsense,” she said. Too quickly.
“What is it, Beatrice?”
“I tell you that’s nonsense. It’s just that I’ve seen something of cases like this. If they aren’t hushed up at the start, there’s no telling where they go. Besides—I—I wouldn’t want my own brother’s widow to be accused of
his murder. Give me credit for that.”
Marcia shook her head wearily. “No, Beatrice.”
“I didn’t say I had any affection for you. I’ve never liked you. And you’ve never liked me. But I do have a pride in my family name.”
“Beatrice,” whispered Marcia suddenly, “did you kill Ivan?”
“Marcia!”
“No one can hear you. No one would believe me if I told them you had—did you, Beatrice? You were here, you had a chance.”
“Marcia, you are beside yourself. Ivan—I loved him. My brother—”
“You hated him,” said Marcia from her new knowledge.
It was the only time in all those years together that she saw Beatrice flinch. She did then. She drew back, pressing against the chair. Even her mouth was white with rage— and something else; her eyes were two dark points beneath thick, lowering eyebrows.
“Suppose I did,” said Beatrice in a sudden harsh whisper. “Suppose I did.”
And as Marcia shrank involuntarily, Beatrice rose and came toward her swiftly, intently, like a cat, her eyes fixed on Marcia and her white face thrust forward.
“Suppose I hated him, what then? I didn’t murder him. And I don’t propose to be accused of it. Do you understand? One word out of you and I tell them. Tell them I saw you murder him. Tell them you did it to go to a younger lover. Give them his letter, threatening to kill Ivan himself. Do you see, Marcia? Do you see that you are both in my hands?”
Marcia was pressed backward against the desk, Beatrice’s long hands on her shoulders. She was trembling and, strangely and terribly, Beatrice was trembling, too.
Marcia said, gasping, “But you see—I didn’t know there was a will. I didn’t know that you already knew of it.”
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