by Steve Fisher
"Yes?" said Dorothy.
"Well, you were standing at her room door last night. I just wondered."
They had reached Frances' room now and Johnny opened the door. Dorothy saw the pile of newspapers on the floor and remembered at once what Frances had told her about collecting the Times and Tribune, to which Mrs. Davis had subscribed, and then reading them when she got blue or jumpy, in what Frances called her "newspaper mood." She recited this verbatim to Johnny.
"The thing is then," he said, "to check over the papers and see if the dates run consecutively. If one is missing, but the dates run on after the missing one, we'll know which paper she had. I looked for some trace of it around the body, and after that upstairs, but it's gone. The murderer possibly grabbed it away from her and has by this time burned it."
"Maybe," Dorothy suggested, "she struggled with him when he tried to grab the paper, and in the fight Frances put up to keep it—because the paper was so important to her—he shoved her back against the rail banister and she crashed through it. I mean, it could have been just about half accidental on the killer's part."
"That's true," Johnny replied, "but then he'd have to shut her up some way. I don't know how he'd do it if he didn't kill her. Merely getting the paper from her wouldn't solve anything. It's up to us to find what paper it was and read it through to see what she was going to show us."
He took the Times, and Dorothy took the Tribune. The papers were stacked neatly and it was a simple matter to run through them. The dates ran consecutively on each. There were no breaks, no papers missing. In addition to these there were copies of True Story and one edition of the Mirror.
Johnny rose wearily.
"I know!" Dorothy said suddenly. "I know which it was! I asked her if the Times wasn't just a little heavy. She said yes, but she had one copy of the Journal."
He snapped his fingers. "And the Journal isn't here."
Dorothy was biting her lip. Suddenly she said: "She even told me what day. It was—ah—it was Thursday! Last Thursday's Journal."
She looked up to see Grant Smyth at the door. His long thin face was lined, and his eyes were bleak.
"That was mine," he said softly. "I bought the Journal last Thursday. Betty and Roy were with me. I remember we got it from the stationery store nearest the Post Road." He sucked breath into his lungs. "I remember it well, because there was an argument with the storekeeper over a penny. So you see," he went on, "that's really no lead at all."
West said: "I think differently."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By the time the coroner finished with Frances' corpse and it had been taken away, it was almost three o'clock, and because in the end he stated only: "She was killed by a person or persons unknown," Dorothy thought his pomp had been overplayed. Johnny West detailed two detectives to remain inside the house, and left with the coroner, to report in at the station, and to secure a copy of the missing newspaper.
Dorothy had come to depend on him and now while he was gone she felt a little lost and afraid, something vague and awful gnawing inside her. She walked quietly about the house, very pale, and saying little. She noticed at four o'clock that a fresh wind was rushing in across the Sound, and the first noisy clatter of leaves, fluttering furiously against the branches of trees, startled her, and then doors began to slam shut in the draft, and papers rose from the tables to sail across the room; when she again went to the window the trees were leaning away from the wind, a sail boat was floundering far out in the harbor, its mainsheet shivering in a rumpled clump about the mast; and clouds were rolling in from the east, like great black funeral chariots. The first few drops of rain spit against the glass pane, and the wind picked up more force and speed. She saw a policeman outside turn his collar up about his cheeks; he hunched his shoulders and moved backward toward the shelter of the house, his clothes wildly rippling and blowing against his body. Dorothy sat on the window sill. The rain vanished for a moment, though the clouds rolled closer. The butler was rushing about closing the windows that were still open, and securing the doors against the storm. Dorothy did not move from where she was sitting, so that she was still here when the rain burst upon the countryside in a dull, thumping haze of tarnished nickel. The water swept from the roof into tin drains tapping rapidly, and the window became drenched, blurring vision.
She remained in her position, fascinated and chilled, and she could hear the wind above the rain's pounding rhythm. Once there was the flash of lightning, but the blurring murk of rain erased it, and after that it was just rain, pounding, beating, rolling out of the skies. The high shrill whistle calling the Mamaroneck volunteer firemen rose above it once, but, too, was drowned into silence.
Mrs. O'Malley appeared, her eyes red from crying, and said: "Supper's ready."
When she came to the table, Clifton was saying: "But you could get money to back my play, couldn't you? I mean, since Mrs. Davis thought it was good enough to put on—"
Sam Tulley said: "I don't know." He took a mouthful of food. "I could try, of course."
Dorothy sat down in a chair Mike Wiggam drew up for her. Wiggam sat down, wiping his mouth with a napkin. "Tulley's credit went to pot with him," he said. "He couldn't get another crying dime behind him if he had a new 'What Price Glory'."
" 'What Price Glory'," said Clifton, "nuts." He nodded at Dorothy, then glanced to the end of the table at Betty. "Mrs. Smyth—" he raised his voice, "ah, Mrs. Smyth. If Tulley would produce my play, do you think you might be interested in making—"
"She's going to give her money to charity," Wiggam reminded him.
"Will you shut up?" Clifton snapped.
Grant said: "Please don't talk to my wife about money, old man. You rather put my back up. Things are strained enough."
"Is she going to come back to you?" Clifton asked, a hopeful light dawning in his eyes.
"Please," Dorothy pleaded. "You're—"
"All right, all right," Clifton said. "Try and transact a little legitimate business and that's what you get. Here I am so close to a backer and a producer I could reach out and sock both of them and what do I get but a song and dance with a funeral dirge melody. It's just a matter of time before the cops grab the guy that's behind this and—"
"What makes you think they'll get him at all?" Grant asked quickly.
"They usually do."
"Not always," Wiggam said. "According to statistics there are—"
"Don't be morbid," Sam Tulley interrupted. "Are you trying to tell us we're going to spend our lives out here waiting for Mr. West to make an arrest?"
"I don't think so," said a voice. Dorothy looked up to see Johnny West come into the room. He shrugged off a wet slicker, and let it drop to the floor. "If a newspaper is so important a girl is murdered over it—well, it's going to turn up the mystery in sweet order."
"Did you get it?" Dorothy asked.
"No. Went to every store in Mamaroneck, Larchmont and New Rochelle. Last Thursday is a long time ago to those people. But I sent a man to the Journal office in New York. He'll be back in an hour."
Wiggam said: "What makes you think the paper is going to make a happy ending for you?"
Johnny sat down, but when Mrs. O'Malley came in he shook his head. "I've eaten. Thanks." He looked back at Wiggam. "Because the killer had no idea we'd know that Frances was carrying a paper when she was killed. He didn't think there was any possible way we could find that out. He undoubtedly told himself later that even if we did discover she was carrying a paper we wouldn't know which one it was. But as it's turned out—"
"It was Dorothy that turned up that angle and told you the name of the paper, wasn't it?" Clifton said.
"Yes."
Clifton looked at Wiggam and nodded his head toward West. "He's recruited her. Somebody's got to dope out police logic, and he's trying to get her to take a permanent job sweeping his floors and doing his thinking."
Johnny flushed and looked at Dorothy.
Sam Tulley, who had his coffee in front
of him, bit the end off his cigar. "I think that's sweet," he said. "Romance under trying circumstances such as these, ah—" he launched off into a patter so trite it stood on the crutches of age: '"Like I always say, love will find a way. There is nothing bigger and finer than love. Love lends one courage." He lighted the cigar, and looked up at Mrs. O'Malley, who was clearing away the dishes. "Could you get me some mustard? My weary feet have a tired ache and I want to wash them."
Tulley could not understand why Clifton and Wiggam laughed, and he took his cigar out of his mouth and stared at them. Dorothy pushed back her chair and left the table. West was white.
* * *
Dorothy was in the study when Johnny West came in. She had taken a book from the shelf and was touching the dust with the tips of her fingers, but her hands trembled. She knew it was Johnny without turning and she waited until he was behind her.
"Maybe it is silly," she said. She looked down at the book in her hands.
His voice was husky. "Do you really think that?"
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know what to think. I want to come to you because you are protection—a haven. But maybe it was meant that whatever battles I have, I should fight them alone. I'm not like every other girl. There's circus blood in me. A fever that was given to me by Mother that makes me want to go, go, go like a dynamo. Then there's the quiet of my father that makes me want a home and babies and peace and quiet. The simple life. Away from the city, tramping streets, and worrying. Too, there's the memory of the man I almost killed. Of running away, coming to New York and pledging myself to the theater." She replaced the book and turned around. "I don't know." She looked up at him.
He touched her elbows. "Then there's love which every woman must some day have. You forgot that."
Tears sprang into her eyes, the quiet sanity of him reassuring her. "Did I, darling? Did I forget? It was stupid of me, wasn't it?"
"Awfully stupid," he said.
She took his wrists and put his arms around her. "Hold me," she said. "Hold me tight, Johnny, so I'll know that it's you. So I'll know it's reality—flesh and blood. Not just an illusion, a symbol of something that should be!"
In a moment, he said: "Then you've decided?"
"Yes," she answered. "Oh, yes, I have."
"You won't change your mind? You won't let that bitter-tongued maniac change you?"
"Not ever, Johnny," she said. "It's you I want."
"Me?"
"Yes. Actuality, not fantasy. Long, quiet days and the things that are good and true, not false glamour and bitter success."
"I'm glad," he said.
She heard sound and looked up suddenly to see one of the uniformed policemen at the door. He took off his hat. "Yes?" said West.
"There's someone on the front porch asking to come in, sir," he said.
"Who is it?"
"A man and a woman and a cop from Michigan."
"From Michigan?"
The policeman nodded. "They want to see Miss Noel. There's a warrant and extradition papers. Shall I let them in, sir?"
Johnny West turned and looked at Dorothy. "That must be—"
Her hand was at her throat. "Yes," she whispered, and sank into a chair. Her heart pounded like a rubber hammer against her side.
CHAPTER TWELVE
For a moment there was silence and Dorothy could hear the incessant pounding of rain; she could hear water dribbling down the window panes, and faintly, watching this, she could see lights flickering through the heavy gray downfall which was becoming darker with the close of the long day. She felt as though she were being inexorably wrapped in the cold rain of night and that once it enclosed her there would be no escape: the suffering horror of this house, the turmoil of a new love that frightened her, and now Sherry and her godfather at the door, with them a policeman from Michigan. A detective ready to take her out, away from this, and into miserable months of trial and argument; harsh criticism that would lash at her from every side, and if in the end there was any daylight, she failed to see it now. She saw only the night, cold and wet, and she felt it folding slowly around her.
Johnny was saying: "I'll go out and talk to them." Then: "Wait here, Dorothy."
He was gone, and she sat there, numb and lifeless, her legs folded under her, her hands in her lap. The hair that touched her shoulders and was curled at the ends, was like soft mahogany, contrasting only with the bright darkness of her eyes. She sat there thinking of all the things in her life, and how short and fleeting they were, a million tomorrows reaching out before her, ten thousand yesterdays behind. Songs she had liked, plays that had thrilled her, poems she had learned by heart. Friends she had known and who were gone now. Michigan, with summer hours in a hammock, and in the autumns walking to school and kicking at leaves; light-hearted laughter, and the mock seriousness of algebra exams; the burning light of the theater, her first part: clapping hands... clapping... clapping.
The sound faded from her ears, and she was here in the room, sitting in the chair, waiting. She saw Johnny when he came in. She was looking at the carpet and she saw his feet and the bottoms of his trousers. She was almost afraid to look. When she did she saw that his face was very strained.
"They're gone," he said.
Gone, he said, and the palms of her hands were covered with sweat, and she was glad... smiling, and he was flopping down in a chair, throwing his legs over the upholstered arm of it. He was lighting a cigarette. Gone, he said.
"But they'll be back," he said.
"Be back?"
"Yes. We'll have to settle it some way, of course. The cop's papers aren't in order as they stand. And this Myers is ridiculous to press the charge when he can't possibly gain anything but complete hatred for himself if it hits a court. You'll beat it easy. You could even press a counter charge. You could if you hadn't run away. He's saying it was intended murder. He's got quite a tune. Sour as hell. He's a crank, of course."
"He's probably trying to scare me," she said.
He looked at his fingernails. "I don't know. I wondered about that. Remember what he looks like? Well, he's dumpy and bald-headed now, soaked to the skin in this rain and madder than a wet hen. This blonde dame kept trying to shut him up. She'd say: 'Now, Hank... Now, Hank...' and he'd look at her kind of funny, as though he didn't quite know what to make of her. Who is she?"
"Sherry Moore. My best friend. She met him when he came to my apartment looking for me."
"Oh. Well, she's trying hard. But she isn't doing much with him. It's you the guy wants to see."
"What's he going to do now?"
"Stay in Mamaroneck till you can get out of here. We haven't any hotels, though. He'll probably have to sleep in an auto camp."
Dorothy said slowly: "I hate him."
West pinched his cigarette out in an ash tray. He lifted his right eyebrow. "You've got something there."
The policeman appeared at the door again. He had a wet newspaper in his hand. "Last Thursday's Journal," he announced. "Somebody gave it to me and said you wanted it."
Johnny bolted from the chair. "Give it to me. and round up everybody. Into the living-room. We're going to have a little session. I think we're going to begin to get places."
He unfolded the paper on the table at once and began reading it. Dorothy saw that in this excitement he had completely forgotten her, and because she knew he'd resent her trying to help him, she got up and left the room. The policeman moved ahead of her, instructing each person he saw to go into the living-room. Dorothy was thirsty and moved toward the kitchen to get a drink. But when she arrived in the servants' hall she saw Grant and Betty and drew to a halt. The tall Englishman was bending over his wife, almost shouting so that she would hear every word.
"Ducky, it isn't this beastly chauffeur you love. All he's after is your money. Can't you see that? He doesn't love you at all. He pokes fun at you in a voice so low you can't hear him. You've humiliated me, but it isn't that that hurts. It's seeing you make such a bloody ass of yourself. R
oy is—oh, dash it all—so obvious. Everyone can see it except you."
Dorothy was touched that Grant tried to reason with Betty in such childlike simplicity. He knew her, she decided, better than anyone, because it was this kind of talk that she would most easily understand. Yet, in her stupidity, she was not entirely stupid, and she was looking past him. He must have caught her en route somewhere because the way he held her shoulder indicated he had stopped her while she was in motion, and that if he lifted his hand she would go on. Her face was emotionless. She seemed to listen only through suffering tolerance.
"Betty, old girl," he pleaded. "Look at me."
She did. Her face was cold. "You didn't tell me about your father dying," she said. "You deceived me about that."
"I didn't want to upset you!"
"No," she said, "you didn't want me to know that you were poor. For a month I've missed money from my purse and I didn't know where it went."
"I only took enough for cigarettes," he said, defensively.
"But it was your method. The money doesn't matter. You were underhanded about it, Grant."
"Damn it all," he said. "I haven't been a fool, though. That's what you are. You've got to come to your senses. This Roy—"
The back door slammed, and Roy presently appeared in the opposite end of the hall from Dorothy. Neither Betty nor Grant saw him. He stood and watched them for a moment. There was both contempt and rage on his sleek face. He moved forward now, rapidly. Dorothy caught her breath, and watched. Roy shoved Grant back.
"Stay away from her."
Grant Smyth, his whole skinny body trembling, reached out and hit Roy across the mouth with his fist. Roy stepped back and stood there, breathing hard. Dorothy thought: he's treading soft ground now and he knows his part. He knows if he doesn't hit Grant back he has Betty's sympathy. The moment flashed past. Betty bit her lip and slapped Grant across his cheek. Grant's mouth gaped open. He put his finger tips to his cheek. Betty moved off, in Dorothy's direction, so that Roy and Grant stood facing one another. Dorothy turned and fled. She came into the living-room.