Eight Faces at Three

by Craig Rice

  “I wish we knew,” Holly sighed.

  “I’m afraid we will know, when Malone gets back from his trip to St. Louis,” Helene said.

  “Afraid?” Holly repeated.

  “Holly, please try to think,” Helene said imploringly, with almost desperation in her voice, “why would your father have wanted to get back that agreement?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t you know anything about him?”

  “No, not anything. I just assumed somehow that he was dead. I don’t remember ever seeing him, never in my whole life.”

  “Holly, try to remember.”

  “Don’t bully her, Helene,” Jake said.

  “I’m trying to help her, you fool. She’s in danger, whether you realize it or not. Here, Holly, take a drink, a stiff one. I don’t care if Ma Fraser does disapprove.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  “Listen, Holly. Try to think. There was so much happening those last few days before the murder. You were all tired-out and nervous and upset. There was a lot worrying you.”

  “You talk just like John J. Malone,” Jake murmured.

  “Are you trying to make out that she lost her mind?” Dick said crossly.

  “Oh God, no. Nothing like that. But people have lapses. Holly, you might have forgotten. Maybe that’s what you can’t remember. Your father—”

  “I meet a father that I haven’t seen since I was a baby and talk with him, and it’s such a faint little triviality that it slips my mind,” said Holly indignantly.

  “I don’t mean that kind of forgetting. Nothing like it. Holly, he was in the house during those hours when you can’t remember what happened. We know that. And we know you can’t remember what happened then. We don’t even know where you were.”

  “It’s possible,” Holly said slowly.

  “Helene, what are you trying to do?” Dick said desperately.

  “Holly”—paying no attention to him—“Holly, when I saw you that night, when you were just getting into bed, there was something strange about you. I don’t know what it was, but I noticed it even then. You weren’t like yourself at all.”

  “I know it,” the red-haired girl answered. “I can remember that. I remember your being there, but terribly dimly. Everything is hazy and—oh, all mixed up.”

  “There. You see? The only thing you do know is that you were asleep all that time—or rather you think that you were asleep right there in bed. But we know you weren’t in bed. Where were you?”

  “I don’t know. That’s just it. I don’t know.”

  “Helene, let her alone,” Dick said.

  “Shut up, you. I’ve got to make her think. Holly, you were somewhere else. But where? Where were you? During that time you might have met and talked with your father. People’s minds do have lapses like that. You might have gone anywhere, done anything—”

  “I might,” said Holly very slowly, “I might have lured Glen and Parkins away from the house and murdered Aunt Alex.”

  “No,” said Jake Justus, “it didn’t happen that way.”

  “But Malone thinks it did!” Helene said desperately.

  They stared at her in blank amazement.

  “Don’t be a complete idiot,” said Jake but he could not make himself say it convincingly.

  “See. You think so too, but you won’t admit it.”

  “But why, Helene?” Holly asked, white-faced.

  “I’m sure of it. He knows that this murder is tied up with Holly in some manner, and right now, right this minute, he’s finding out how. It ties up somehow with you and your father, and that’s why he’s gone to St. Louis. Holly, don’t you remember, your father told us he was the motive for the murder.”

  “Why not Glen as much as Holly?” Jake asked.

  “It could be. But Holly is the one involved in this. Look—” She faced him suddenly, eyes blazing. “Parkins is mixed up in this. He knows about the man in the summerhouse. Nellie is mixed up in it. We know that she wrote to this guy before he came to Chicago. We don’t know why, but we know she did. This—this mystery—may concern Glen as much as Holly—”

  “Then why pick on Holly?” Dick asked. “Why not Glen?”

  “Because,” Helene said, “Aunt Alex was murdered while Glen and Nellie and Parkins were driving down to the Loop. Unless all three of them, and Maybelle Parkins, and the attendant at St. Luke’s Hospital are lying, they must have been. That leaves only two people on the scene—Holly and her father. That’s what Malone knows.”

  “Then—but—Malone is supposed to be helping me,” Holly said.

  Jake nodded thoughtfully. “He was. But we accidentally put him on the spot by getting you out of the jug. Holly. He doesn’t want to have it turn out this way. But he can’t help himself. He’s got to turn up a murderer—you or someone else—for Blake County, or be in the soup.”

  “Holly, listen,” Helene begged, “you—”

  She was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Fraser.

  “There’s the rye you ordered,” said the lady sternly, “and there’s the soda. And I suppose, your nerves being what they are, it’s all right, and I admit this poor girl has been under a terrible strain, but just the same—” She set the tray down with a bang. “And another thing, Jake Justus. I wish you’d warn her not to go out of the house at night. It isn’t safe. Someone’s likely to see her and recognize her. And anyway this neighborhood is no place for her to be walking alone.”

  Jake turned to Holly with a frown. “Have you been out of the house?”

  She nodded apologetically. “Only once. That was last night. I know that I shouldn’t. But I’d been cooped up so long, and I wanted some fresh air, and I wanted to walk a little. I wore a veil and I stayed away from people, and nobody could have seen or recognized me.”

  Jake sighed. “Well, don’t do it again. Where did you walk?”

  “In Lincoln Park.”

  Mrs. Fraser beamed at her. “It’s just that I don’t want to see you took back to that jail again, dearie. I’ve grown real fond of you these past few days.” She smiled at them all and went away.

  Helene was staring at Holly, a puzzled look on her face. “Holly, how long were you out walking—what time was it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know exactly. I went out about ten o’clock, I guess, and I was gone about two hours.”

  “Oh God, Holly!”

  “Why?”

  “I see,” said Jake. “Last night’s murder was committed between nine and twelve, or thereabouts.”

  Holly turned white. “And you think that I—”

  “Blake County will,” said Jake gloomily. “In fact, Blake County already does.”

  “Look,” Helene said, “we’ve got to get you away from here.”

  “What do you mean? Why?”

  “Before it’s too late. I’m afraid of what Malone is finding out. I’m afraid of what he has already found out. Holly, we’ll cut your hair and dye it, and do some things with make-up, and I’ll have Butch buy a good fast car and you can head for Mexico—” “Of all the mad schemes—” Dick said.

  “It isn’t mad. It’s the only thing to do. You don’t want her to spend the rest of her life in the jug, do you?”

  “We never could get away with it,” Holly said.

  “It’s worth trying. It’s worth taking the chance.”

  “You’re right,” Dick said after a while. “It’s worth anything, Holly, to have you safe.”

  “I’d hate to see Holly spending her life as a fugitive from justice,” Jake said thoughtfully. “I’d rather see her go through the worst of this and come out completely vindicated.”

  “But she wouldn’t be,” Helene said urgently.

  Dick had seized on the idea. “We’ll need money. The banks are closed. Where could we get that much cash at an hour like this?”

  “You forget,” Helene said, “I’m still carrying around the grand that we were going to give Holly’s father this morning.”

  �
��Then that settles it,” Dick said.

  Jake looked at him. “Does it? Where do you fit into this picture? Holly won’t be any nearer you in Mexico than she would be in jail.”

  “After things have quieted down a little, I could quietly slip away and join her there.”

  “But the band!” Jake howled.

  “The hell with the band. Do you think anything is more important than Holly?”

  They argued about it through dinner, through most of the evening. They beat Jake down to muttered instead of shouted “noes.”

  Helene tucked Dick’s bandage under his hat, darkened his eyebrows and what showed of his hair with her eyebrow pencil.

  “There. That ought to do it. Now—get Butch on the phone, from a corner drugstore. Have him meet you. Give him this—” she stuck the envelope of money in his hand, “and tell him to get the fastest small car he can find, and bring it here. And have him bring a bottle of hair dye. Any color but red.”

  “And then?” Dick said.

  “Well, then get in touch with Glen. We can trust him. Between you, you and Glen ought to be able to keep Hyme Mendel and the Blake County police involved in enough of a wild-goose chase out in Maple Park to give Holly more than an even chance.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Dick promised.

  “Oh Dick,” Holly wailed, “I won’t see you now till God knows when!”

  “It won’t be long,” Dick said. “It won’t be long. And we have a whole lifetime.”

  They said good-by unhappily.

  “Helene, I can’t do this,” Holly said, after he had gone.

  “Don’t be a sap. Do you want to spend the rest of your life having Dick coming to see you on visiting days? Sewing buttons on denim overalls? Perhaps being paroled after twenty years or so—half a lifetime off for good behavior—”

  “Helene, please!”

  “—Or wouldn’t you rather say good-by to Dick like this, for a little while, than to tell him good-by the night before they electrocute you—”

  “Damn you, shut up!” Jake said.

  “It’s all right,” Holly said dully, “I’ll do it.”

  “Good girl.”

  They finished the bottle of rye to celebrate Holly’s decision. At last Helene borrowed scissors from Mrs. Fraser, wrapped a towel around Holly’s shoulders and prepared to cut off the blazing glory of red hair.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Probably the hair dye,” Helene said, and called, “Come in.”

  It was not the hair dye. It was John J. Malone, very pale, very tired, and extremely untidy.

  They stared at him. Helene dropped the scissors.

  “How did you get here so fast?” Jake asked stupidly, for want of anything better to say.

  “Flew,” said Malone laconically. “Found out just what I wanted to know. Didn’t need to find it out, either, after I realized what I did about Holly’s voice.”

  “What about Holly’s voice?” Helene asked.

  “About its being imitated over the phone. It took me a long time to get it through my head, but finally I realized there was only one person who could have imitated Holly over the telephone.”

  “Who?”

  “Holly herself,” Malone said very calmly.

  “Look here,” Jake began furiously.

  Malone ignored him. He regarded Holly thoughtfully. “I know just what you have in mind, but you’ll have to get it out of your mind.”

  “What do you mean?” Helene asked.

  He ignored her too. “Holly Dayton—I promised Hyme Mendel that I’d deliver you to him at your home, in just an hour from now. We’d better get going. The roads are bad between here and Maple Park.”

  Chapter 31

  “Look here,” said Jake, jumping up. “Look here, damn you. You can’t do this, Malone.”

  Malone regarded him coldly and silently.

  Helene’s eyes were blue fire. “And I thought we could trust you.”

  “Apparently you were mistaken,” Malone said. His voice sounded very tired.

  “You’re not taking her anywhere,” Jake said. “You’re not taking her to one damned place.”

  Malone slipped one hand ominously in his coat pocket. “Don’t try to stop me, Jake. I’d hate to have trouble with you.”

  “You’re going to have trouble if you try to get away with this. You can’t do it. By God,” he said bitterly. “I never thought I’d see my own lawyer pull a gun on me.”

  Malone turned to Holly.

  “Are you ready?”

  She regarded him for a moment, her eyes expressionless, her face very white.

  “Yes, I am. I’m putting myself in your hands.”

  “Good.” He turned to Jake and Helene. “You might do as much.”

  “How can we?” Helene asked. “How can we, after this?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “All right then. Mrs. Dayton, we’d better be on our way.”

  “I’m quite ready to go.”

  Jake remembered how she had used those same words, that morning in the Inglehart library.

  “Holly!” Helene said desperately.

  “It’s all right, Helene.”

  She had said that, too. The whole thing seemed to be repeating itself, incredibly and horribly, with Malone in the place of Andy Ahearn.

  “But Holly, you can’t give up like this,” Helene begged.

  “It’s the only thing I can do, now,” Holly said. She took a coat from the closet and put it on.

  They said good-by to Mrs. Fraser and went into the backyard. At the entrance to the alley there was a patch of mud and melted snow. After a glance at it, Jake swung Helene into the waiting car, then Holly. As he lifted Holly, she gave a sudden moan.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “There’s a bruise there, under my arm—” She stopped suddenly. “A bruise—Malone!”

  “What is it?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to remember. That’s the thing I kept forgetting.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “In my dream. Remember? I was being hanged, and the rope kept slipping under my arms instead of around my neck. Remember?”

  “Yes,” said Malone.

  “Then I woke up and felt so ill and strange and my flesh really was sore. I remember thinking it was strange a dream could be as real as that.”

  “And there’s a mark there?”

  Malone stared at her. “By God, that’s it!”

  “It’s-what?”

  “The one thing—the one more thing—I needed to know. Get in that car now and don’t ask questions.”

  They drove to Maple Park in silence.

  On the way, watching Helene, Jake began wondering again. Helene. In spite of everything. Oh damn it, why did he have to believe what he did?

  Anyway, she couldn’t have committed the second murder. She was asleep in the Brand garage and he was watching her. No, by God, he wasn’t watching her all the time. He had gone to sleep, after he had seen the little dude go into the summerhouse. And Butch had been asleep. She could have slipped away without waking either of them, and slipped back again.

  Would she tell the truth at the last minute and keep Malone from making this mistake?

  And if she didn’t, what would he do? Keep his mouth shut, and let them take Holly away to the jail again?

  Would he ever be able to forget her?

  The Inglehart house was a blaze of light. There were lights upstairs and downstairs; one shone brightly on the ugly old verandas. There was only one car in the driveway.

  “Hyme Mendel promised not to bring too big an audience,” Malone said. There was a curious, dreamlike quality about it all.

  Glen met them at the door, his face white and set. “Helene, I couldn’t help this. I tried—”

  She paid little attention. “It’s all right.”

  And there was Dick, very pale below his bandages.

  “I did my best,” he began unhappily.

 
“Forget it,” Jake said.

  Hyme Mendel, Jasper Fleck, and Andy Ahearn were waiting for them in the library.

  “All set to make the pinch, eh?” said Malone with a little laugh.

  Jake shuddered.

  Hyme Mendel glared at them. “This is thoroughly illegal, Malone.” Jake noticed a bruise on his jaw, inexpertly coated with pinkish powder. It was the one cheerful spot in the whole proceedings.

  Jake looked around. For the first time they were all together Holly, Dick, Helene, Glen, the Parkinses, even Maybelle. Malone sat down in the midst of the silent group; slowly and deliberately lit a cigar.

  “I shall prove,” he began in his best courtroom manner, “who murdered Miss Alexandria Inglehart in a room of this house four nights ago, and murdered a Mr. Lewis Miller in the summerhouse of the Inglehart estate last night, and I shall prove it in a manner that will leave no reasonable doubt in the minds of these gentlemen of the law, and even in the pigheaded mind of Jake Justus.” He paused and cleared his throat.

  “Miss Alexandria Inglehart was stabbed to death sometime during the night. The time has been set roughly between the hours of eleven and four.”

  Hyme Mendel looked up in sudden surprise.

  Malone told him what they had discovered about the clocks.

  “Now who would have thought of that,” said Jasper Fleck admiringly.

  Mendel glared at him.

  “Mrs. Dayton, you were in bed at approximately ten o’clock?”

  “Yes.” It was only a breath.

  “You can confirm that. Miss Brand?”

  “I can,” said Helene smoothly.

  Malone nodded. “Mrs. Dalton, you remember nothing of what happened after you went to sleep until you woke, sometime in the night, and found yourself in your own bed?”

  “Nothing. Except what I dreamed.” Jake could see how tightly she was clutching Dick’s hand.

  “We’ll come to the dream later,” said Malone. He turned to Glen. “When you received the telephone call from your sister, you were in bed?”

  “I was.”