Fair Warning

by Mignon Good Eberhart

  “I don’t know. First I thought it was Rob—”

  “Rob!”

  “Yes. I—” She could feel a warm little wave coming. over her face. “He—he thought Ivan was not good to me. He—”

  Dr. Blakie was watching her, seeing too much. He stepped back toward the desk and leaned lightly against it.

  “Rob’s in love with you,” he said finally, very quietly. Marcia did not answer; she met his steady, searching gray gaze for a long moment but did not speak.

  “I see,” he said at last, smiling a little. “Well—after all, it’s happened before this. You needn’t look so—upset about it, my dear. Remember, doctors see a lot of humanity—too much sometimes. However, you are a beautiful young woman, obviously mismated, it’s not surprising that Rob would constitute himself a sort of knight-errant. So you thought at first it was Rob?”

  “But it wasn’t,” said Marcia quickly. “I know it wasn’t. It was only because Rob had—chanced to see something, and he thought I was in danger.”

  “So Rob was the man in the garden?”

  “He wasn’t in the house. He wasn’t the man Ancill heard here in the library.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. He told me. And Rob—you know Rob.”

  He nodded shortly.

  “Rob’s honest. And while I suppose he could go off on a tangent—most men could under sufficient provocation— still I can’t see Rob as a murderer. No. I agree with you there. But who was the man in the library? Isn’t there any clue to him?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps the police know by this time. It would be so much easier if we only knew what they are doing—what they’ve discovered—it’s the terrible uncertainty …” She was twisting her hands together, her voice rising unevenly.

  “I know. I know. Hang on, my dear. Don’t worry about Rob, if that’s what you’re doing. He’ll take care of himself. The only evidence they have is the raincoat.”

  If it were only the raincoat!

  He walked over to the french windows, glanced out into the rain, and came back.

  “I never thought of Rob doing it; I thought of—” He shot a gray, clear look at the door and said, “Listen to me carefully, Marcia. There’s something I want you to understand. I told you just now that a doctor saw a lot of humanity. I do. So much that I think I might understand things. That I might see things that other people would be less likely to see. I mean—impulses, reasons—justice as it actually is.” He paused to look down into her face in a kind remote way that was as disarming as a priest’s may be. She felt obscurely that there was something she ought to understand in what he had said and that he expected her to reply. But she had nothing to say, and he continued, “What I’m trying clumsily to say is that I deal, all the time, with life and death. I know their intimate secrets. And I know that there are matters beyond the usual course of law and legality. I know that—that there are things that are as necessary as fighting cholera. As burning a malignant growth. As—”

  “Murder is never justifiable,” said Marcia with stiff lips.

  “Oh, my dear, my dear! I only want you to know I am your friend. I knew Ivan. I know you. What’s more important,” he said dryly, “I know the nervous system.”

  Tears were not far from Marcia’s eyes. She leaned forward.

  “You’re trying to say that even if I murdered him you’ll still—help me.”

  “You didn’t murder him,” he said abruptly.

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Well, then, that’s all right,” he said briskly. “Forget all this. Forget it—but tell me just one thing. Mind, I’m not questioning you. I only want to help you—for God knows you need it. Why did you come back from Verity’s last night?”

  “Come back! But I didn’t. I hadn’t gone. I—”

  He looked at her slowly. His face was tired and all at once old.

  “Your silver evening wrap was there. I saw it on the bed in Verity’s room when I arrived.”

  “So that’s why—oh, Dr. Blakie, that’s why you thought I might have murdered him. But I didn’t. Beatrice had borrowed my silver wrap.”

  “Beatrice—Forgive me. Why did she borrow it?”

  “It was too warm for a winter wrap, and she hadn’t got the summer things out from the cedar closet yet.”

  “Oh—so she borrowed your wrap. Wore it to Verity’s. Left it there when she went downstairs. H’m. I thought you were already there because I saw your wrap. So did Rob.”

  She stood there looking perplexedly at him. It had been so natural, that request. In all that terribly crowded twenty-four hours there had been nothing more natural or ordinary.

  “I don’t like it. You see, I did a little detective work today. It’s not exactly in my line. But you—there’s no use in denying the fact that you’re in rather a spot, my dear. Any little thing that can help … Well, it occurred to me that since, summing it up, the last month of Ivan’s life was spent in the hospital there might be some clue there, so I got hold of his nurses—there were five altogether. More nurses than information. However, I did get hold of two things. One wasn’t important. Only that Galway Trench had been to see Ivan.”

  “Gally! But I didn’t know—”

  “No. He made a very short call, and not a very pleasant one, according to the nurse. That is, she didn’t hear the conversation. But Ivan was in a rage when the boy left and told the nurse that—don’t mind this, my dear; we knew Ivan—that his wife’s relatives seemed to think he was made of money. So I take it Gally tried to borrow some money and was refused.”

  “Oh.” It did hurt. But it was like Gally. And he’d been, she suddenly remembered, out of a job for six weeks. Since a fortnight before Ivan was injured. And she remembered, too, swiftly, that feeling of anxiety and urgency when he asked her, only a few moments ago, if she had any money.

  “The other,” Dr. Blakie went on, “is more important. And that was that Beatrice and Ivan quarreled. Quarreled bitterly and terribly just a week before he came home. This time the nurse heard part of it, but she doesn’t know what the quarrel was about.”

  Beatrice. Marcia heard herself saying stiffly, “Beatrice has the letter.”

  “What letter?”

  She would tell him, she decided swiftly. He would see Rob.

  She told it briefly, honestly. He listened, trying, she thought, not to show in his expression the increasing anxiety he felt, and asking a few terse questions.

  “And no one but Beatrice and the cook knew of the will?”

  “So Beatrice says. And I suppose Emma Beek knew only of its existence, not the contents.”

  “And it lets you out entirely. Ivan would have changed it again sometime, probably. Odd he was killed just then. Are there any other substantial bequests? Anyone else, I mean, who would benefit largely by his death while this will is in existence?”

  “I don’t think so. That seemed to be the main provision.”

  “And Beatrice has Rob’s letter? Why on earth did the young fool write it! Well, never mind. They do. When did she get hold of it?”

  “Yesterday. Stella brought it just after Ivan had returned.”

  “And she found it in the cupboard over there? When?”

  “While I was at the bank in the afternoon.”

  “Queer she didn’t just hand it over to Ivan.”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t tell you why?”

  “No. That’s all she said.”

  “Well, you’ll have to go along with her for a while. Do as she says. There’s something more behind it than a fear lest they think she knew of the new will. It may be linked up somehow with this quarrel at the hospital. I don’t know.” He paused, frowning at the desk, thinking. “I’ll try to find out. What are you going to do about Rob? Marry him?”

  “I can’t. Not when people will say—”

  “ ‘ There goes Ivan Godden’s murderer,’ ” he finished.

  “You see it, too.”

  “I’m afrai
d so,” he said reluctantly. “But things may break right—look here, I’ll go over and tell Rob about this. I’ll go right away. Now don’t worry too much. And promise me something.” He was suddenly very grave.

  “Yes.”

  “You know my telephone number. Promise me, if any thing at all happens that seems—oh, unusual in any way, or that frightens you, to telephone to me at once. Will you?”

  “Yes.”

  He went away then. Marcia with her heart lighter watched from the french windows and could barely see, beyond the iron fence and the dripping green shrubs, the dark figure going along the street through the rain toward the Copley house. A light flashed on in the lower hall; he’d rung and been admitted. Rob would know now.

  It was just then that she remembered that she hadn’t told him Gally was there. That at Beatrice’s mysterious request Gally had come to stay in the house.

  But it didn’t matter. There’d been so many other more important things.

  Rain stopped with darkness, and it grew warmer, so that the earth steamed and halos of mist obscured street lights. Dinner was worse than lunch, for the house was, with the cessation of the rain, suddenly and unaccountably still, and the air heavy and lifeless. Gally looked white and nervous in the wavering light of candles, and lingered to give a longing look at the buffet. Beatrice saw the look and herded him firmly into the drawing room. She poured coffee and over it told them, all at once, that there was some question over the manner of Ivan’s death.

  “There’s been a post-mortem,” she said, abruptly. “Jacob Wait told me. It seems—his skull was fractured before he was stabbed. Sugar, Gally?”

  He started violently, said no and then said yes. She gave him a glance of disapproval.

  “One lump?”

  “Two,” said Gally, who never took sugar, and took the cup from her hand. “You were saying?”

  “They are inclined to think that his skull was fractured—before he was stabbed,” said Beatrice coolly.

  “B-but—” said Gally.

  “Well?”

  Gally was very white; the freckles stood out on his thin face.

  “But they—they said the fracture occurred as he fell.”

  “They thought it possible. If this later theory is correct, it rather reverses things. If he were already unconscious or stunned by the blow, it would be very much easier for—whoever did it—to approach Ivan and stab him. It would argue less physical strength necessary on the part of the murderer.” She did not look at Marcia but might as well have done so.

  “You mean—anybody might have done it? A—a woman, for instance?” said Gally.

  “A woman,” said Beatrice. “For instance.”

  Gally made an incoherent sound in his throat. Marcia stared into the small black pool of coffee in her cup. Gally said, “I’ll have more coffee, please,” and stood beside Beatrice watching the clear brown stream pouring into his cup as if his life depended upon it.

  Beatrice said suddenly, “The police are bunglers. I could have solved this murder long ago if I chose to do so.”

  Marcia’s head jerked toward the two there at the coffee table as if it had been on a wire. Beatrice’s black eyebrows were level, her hand steady at its task, the stream of coffee unwavering.

  “You see,” said Beatrice, “I saw the dandelion knife. It was hidden in the cupboard. The cupboard,” said Beatrice, glancing at Marcia, “at the east of the french doors in the library. It was there the afternoon of the murder. It and— some other things. I’ve not told the police—not yet.”

  “She means the letter,” thought Marcia, staring back helplessly at Beatrice.

  And Gally’s cup crashed out of his hand and down upon the floor.

  CHAPTER XII

  ANCILL CAME AT BEATRICE’S summons to pick up the small pieces and wipe up the coffee stains. His back was disapproving, and Beatrice looked at the pieces and said in an expressionless way, “The Minton cups.”

  She went upstairs shortly after that. And she had no more than gone when Rob came.

  “I had to come,” he said.

  But they couldn’t talk. For just then the policeman in the hall ambled past the doorway, paused to look at them and went on.

  Rob turned to Gally. “Talk to him,” he said in a half-whisper. “Sit out there in the hall. Cough if he comes to the door again.”

  Gally looked reluctant.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll try. But he won’t talk. I tried this afternoon. What’ve you been doing, Rob? Have you seen the papers?”

  “Yes,” said Rob rather grimly. “Where’s Beatrice?”

  “Gone upstairs,” replied Marcia. “Was the doctor—”

  He nodded, meeting her eyes. He knew, then, about the letter.

  Gally paused on his way to the door, tiptoed back toward Rob with extravagant caution and said in a stage whisper, “Beatrice says she knows who did it.”

  “What’s that?” said Rob sharply. “What do you mean? What did she say? Who?”

  “Oh, she wouldn’t say anymore,” said Gally. “That is, I didn’t ask her. She’s not exactly a pal of mine, you know. But she said she could have solved this murder long ago if she’d wanted to.”

  “Beatrice says that?” said Rob slowly. He looked at Marcia. “What does she know besides—”

  He checked himself abruptly, and Gally said, without noting that pause, “You tell him about it, Marcia. I’ll watch Brother Bill in the hall. Between us, I think Beatrice did it.”

  With a gleam of his more customary cheerfulness, Gally disappeared.

  “What does she mean?” said Rob. “The letter? He told me—Dr. Blakie. Do you think we can get it away from her, Marcia?”

  Marcia shook her head.

  “There isn’t any way, Rob. But I don’t think that was all she meant. You see, she says she saw the—the dandelion knife. Yesterday afternoon. It was in the cupboard—the same cupboard where she found the letter, and where, later, the detective must have found the envelope.”

  “So that’s it!” He looked thoughtfully at her. “Has she told the police about seeing the knife?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Oh, Rob, what are we going to do about the letter?”

  He glanced at the door and took her suddenly in his arms.

  “That’s why I came,” he said, holding her tightly. “To tell you not to worry about it. We know now where it is. We’ll do something about it—I don’t know just what, but something. So long as she’s inclined to trade silence for silence—”

  “But, Rob, she may give it to them any moment.”

  “I know. It’s a chance. But trust me, Marcia—”

  Gally coughed frenziedly in the hall. By the time the policeman passed the doorway again, Marcia was sitting on the divan and Rob standing near the table.

  “I’d better go,” said Rob in a low voice. “But, Marcia—don’t take any chances. I don’t want to frighten you, but—after all—just last night—”

  He stopped again, looking at her with dark, worried eyes.

  She knew he’d been about to remind her that it was only last night that Ivan was murdered. That someone had murdered Ivan, that that knife hadn’t found its own way into a man’s heart—that the house was big and old and shadowy, that there might be ways into it and out of it. That they didn’t know who had done it. That it might be any of them. Must be one of them. And yet could not be, for there were only, the servants. Herself. Beatrice. Gally, now.

  “Did you know,” said Marcia, “that Gally’s staying here? Beatrice invited him.”

  “Beatrice! Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m glad. I hated your being so alone in the house. Oh, my darling, if I could just take you away, now—take care of you—”

  He was so near. It was so good to have him there. The very touch of his hand and tone of his voice warmed and strengthened her.

  But he didn’t dare stay long. And their talk was spasmodic and not satisfact
ory, with Gally and the prowling policeman in the hall and the rest of the house so silent that every word they said seemed to be caught up and multiplied and carried away to other ears.

  Mainly, of course, he wanted to reassure her, somehow, about the letter in Beatrice’s possession. But the curious bit of evidence Beatrice had so unexpectedly revealed to them seemed to interest him, too, for he kept returning to it.

  “Hidden in the cupboard, she said?”

  “Yes.”

  “On the afternoon before the murder. And when did the knife disappear?”

  “Nobody knows,” said Marcia. “Or if they do I haven’t heard.”

  “Of course you know what it means?”

  “That somebody in the household put it there?”

  “Yes. Intending to use it later.”

  Marcia nodded.

  “I know. But it’s only what the police have been saying—or implying—from the first. It’s why they questioned me so much about the knife last night. There wasn’t any doubt ever that it was a—a knife that belonged here.”

  He looked at her strangely.

  “Are you going to tell the police this thing about Beatrice seeing the knife in the cupboard?”

  “I don’t know—I—”

  “Well, don’t,” said Rob abruptly. “After all, that’s where the envelope was found, too.” He added suddenly, “When you put it there did you see the knife?”

  She hadn’t, of course. She hadn’t opened the door. She explained it to Rob briefly and he listened, watching her with those intent, dark blue eyes.

  “Well,” he said finally, “you’d better try to get some rest and sleep. You look as white as a lost little ghost. Remember, if you get scared or anything happens, yell like hell.”

  It was shortly after that that he went away, Gally following him to the gate.

  But in spite of Rob’s and Dr. Blakie’s half-expressed misgivings, the night was a quiet one. Too quiet, with only the blurred figures of policemen moving here and there through the wet blackness and, that night, no sounds of footsteps about the lily pool.