Death and the Maiden

by Q. Patrick

  For one lightning moment Norma’s eyes narrowed and I detected a gleam of genuine fear. But it went as quickly as it came, giving way to that bored languorous stare of hers.

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Lee,” she said at length. “Even Grace, who had me tabbed as the fiend incarnate, wouldn’t have had the nerve to come right out and accuse me of murder.” One negligent finger flicked ash onto the carpet. “You at least are specific. All Grace could ever bring against me was the fact that I could get men and she couldn’t.

  “I’m frightfully sorry to disappoint you, Lee.” She was still smiling with dangerous sweetness. “But I didn’t murder Grace Hough. Although I’m not hypocritical enough to pretend she isn’t better off dead, I am sorry for Jerry, of course. But I’m mostly sorry for him for having such a poisonous little beast of a sister. Grace wrote that letter about me just because she was spiteful and jealous.” She shrugged indifferently. “You can’t blame me for tearing it up—and others like it.”

  “Nice if the police heard your gentle comments about Grace. Sounds like the missing motive,” I said.

  Norma got up from the bed and started straightening imaginary creases from the gilded housecoat. “The police won’t hear me being vitriolic about Grace unless you pass the news on to your little detective buddy.” She looked up, the cigarette dangling from her lips. “Of course this is all too divine for you, darling. Now Grace has poisoned Jerry’s mind against me, all you have to do is to sit smugly back and wait till he returns to his languishing boyhood’s love.”

  The smile suddenly drained from her eyes, leaving them hard as agate. “Well, listen to me, Lee Lovering. If you get Jerry Hough, it will be over my dead body.”

  I said, “Don’t make it too attractive, darling.”

  But I was talking to an empty room. Norma had gone.

  XI

  That foolish spat with Norma marked a very definite change in my point of view. Not only did it decide me to put up a fight for Jerry; it also made me conscious of exactly how far I was becoming involved emotionally in the tragedy of my roommate’s death. I knew too much now not to have to try to learn the complete truth.

  It was the realization of this that made me decide to follow my earlier hunch and go to see Marcia Parrish. I felt I knew enough against her to force her into telling me the truth.

  It was fairly late when I slipped out of Pigot and started across the dark campus to the row of little faculty houses behind the library. My fellow students must have retired to their dormitories, for I passed no one as I turned down the side drive and moved up the path to the wisteria-covered cottage where Marcia lived alone.

  She came to the door almost immediately when I knocked.

  “You, Lee!” From the guarded surprise in her voice I had the impression that she had been expecting someone else.

  I followed her into the living room which was bathed in the warm glow from two shaded reading lamps. Marcia didn’t ask me to sit down; she didn’t even say anything. We just stood there looking at each other.

  Finally I said: “You know a lot more about Grace’s death than you told me, don’t you?”

  Marcia was watching me, her eyes suddenly cold. “Why should you think that?”

  “Oh, I’m not just being inquisitive,” I said wearily. “It’s just that I’ve got to know. You said we should stand by each other. If we are going to hold things back from the police, we mustn’t get our wires crossed. You see, I know quite a bit I haven’t told you. For example, I know you left the college last night in your car.”

  “So you know that?” Her voice was very quiet. For a moment she seemed to be struggling with indecision. Then she said: “I suppose you’re right. I suppose I was very foolish to tell you only half the truth.”

  She took my hand. I could feel a slight throbbing in her cool fingers. “But you’ve got to understand one thing, Lee. Whatever we’re doing, it’s for the good of the college, to prevent a meaningless scandal and to—to preserve our own happiness.” She withdrew her hand and dropped into a chair. I sat down, too. When she spoke again, her tone was dry, unemotional. “Robert and I are keeping it back from the police that Grace telephoned the Hudnutt house last night—long after she’d left the theater.”

  That didn’t come with as much of a shock as it might have done. I knew from Steve that Grace had phoned someone.

  I said quietly: “She called from the service station outside Wentworth, didn’t she? That’s one of the things I know.”

  Marcia’s lashes flickered. That was the only indication of surprise she showed. “I’ll tell you the whole thing, Lee, the whole damn thing. After the theater, Harold Appel, Penelope, Robert and I all drove back together. Harold Appel left us at the college. I went home with the Hudnutts. Penelope hadn’t been feeling well and went straight to bed.” She paused, adding wryly: “As confidences are bound to be going by the board tonight, I may as well tell you she’s going to have a baby. At her age women are apt to have a rough time and that’s one reason why Robert wants her kept out of this beastly business as much as possible.”

  I suppose my face must have registered the surprise I felt because Marcia gave an ironical laugh.

  “Poor Penny, she’s so anxious none of the students should know until it’s all respectably over. She feels in some obscure, British way that it isn’t quite proper for a Dean of Women to have a baby.”

  The laughter drained out of her voice. “It makes it all far worse for Robert, too. Last night after Penny had gone to bed, I stayed downstairs with him for hours trying to calm him down. All he could think of was Grace and the scene she’d thrown at the theater. And then, on top of it all, the phone rang and Grace was on the wire.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She was perfectly normal. She apologized for the things she’d said at the theater. Said she must have been crazy. She told Robert her friend had left her at the service station. She wanted Robert to drive her back to Wentworth.”

  Rather shakily I said: “And he refused?”

  “No. After all, when any girl student gets stranded she’s supposed to call the Dean of Women. Penelope was asleep. Grace couldn’t be left there. Robert told her someone would go right away to pick her up.”

  I knew then, of course, that something was terribly wrong. Grace had made Steve drive her away from the service station to the quarry. Why on earth would she have done that if Robert Hudnutt had already consented to drive her back to college?

  Marcia was saying: “I tried to make Robert let me go instead. But he wouldn’t. He didn’t want Grace to know I had been there at the house with him at that time of night. He thought if she found out—” She broke off, a faint flush staining her cheeks.

  The sequence was gradually clarifying itself in my mind. “And he did go. That was just before the letter for the Dean of Women was delivered.”

  Marcia drew in her breath sharply.

  “I know the person who delivered that letter,” I explained. “I can’t say who it is. But he told me everything. He saw you and Dr. Hudnutt there and …”

  “And heard what we said, I suppose,” added Marcia with a thin, humorless laugh. “That’s really rather funny. You don’t realize until something terrible like murder comes into your life how easy it is to misinterpret everything one sees and hears. I can explain what Robert said to me and what I said to Robert, Lee. But it’s more important for you to know what Robert did. He did drive to that service station; he did look for Grace. But she wasn’t there. The place was locked up. There was no sign of her.”

  I said: “And you—what did you do?”

  “I did practically the same thing.” Marcia rubbed a hand wearily across her smooth white forehead. “Just after Robert had gone, your friend delivered Grace’s letter. I heard it drop into the box. I looked at the envelope and I knew right away it was Grace’s writing. I had the feeling it would be something Penelope shouldn’t see. I didn’t trust Grace Hough—not one inch. I kept the letter, Lee. I di
dn’t give it to Penelope.”

  That, of course, allayed my suspicions against the Dean of Women, which had been growing ever since Steve had told me about that letter.

  “I took it for granted Grace had delivered the letter herself,” Marcia was saying. “And it made me think the call from the service station must have been a hoax. I decided to find out whether Grace had come back or not.”

  I understood then. “So you were the person who crept into my room last night?”

  “Then you did see me? I hoped not to waken you.” There was a sharp hiss as Marcia struck a match and held it to a cigarette. “When I saw Grace’s bed was empty, I realized someone else must have delivered the letter. I was worried then, worried for Robert. I thought the best thing to do was to follow him in my car. I did. I drove to the service station. Of course, there was no sign of Grace.”

  She stared down at the dim roses of the carpet. “I drove straight back to the Hudnutts’ house. The garage door was open and I saw Robert’s car was there again. I didn’t want to run the risk of waking Penelope by going into the house and I was pretty tired. I went home to bed. But I talked to Robert this morning. That’s when he told me that he hadn’t found Grace either.”

  We sat there in that quiet room, looking at each other. She must have guessed what I was thinking, for she took my arm quickly and said: “You know where Grace went from the service station, don’t you?”

  “I do.” My voice sounded absurdly unlike itself. “She had a date with someone somewhere else. She was driven there to the quarry—the quarry where she met Dr. Hudnutt yesterday afternoon.”

  “The quarry!” For one second Marcia’s eyes were completely off their guard and I detected the same blind panic I had seen in those of Robert Hudnutt earlier in the day. “Whom was she going to meet at the quarry?”

  “I don’t know. I only wish I did.” Then I added hesitantly: “But there’s that letter Grace wrote to the Dean. Are you going to show it to Lieutenant Trant?”

  Marcia’s face went suddenly grim. “I most certainly am not.”

  “Then you read it?”

  “I read it. And I shall be thankful as long as I live that I did. It wasn’t just malicious; it was more than that; it was diabolically cruel. Last night when I read it and realized what Grace Hough had tried to do, I think I could have willingly murdered her myself.”

  Marcia rose. Very deliberately she crossed to a desk and brought out a letter.

  “I didn’t destroy it and I want you to read it. Perhaps you’ll begin to understand why I don’t have a great deal of sympathy with Grace Hough.”

  She gave me the letter. With uncertain fingers I pulled out a single sheet of notepaper.

  DEAN HUDNUTT:

  It must be interesting to be married to a man who has been having an illicit affair with your great friend, Marcia Parrish—to a man who not only destroys women’s souls, but their bodies, too. If, by any chance, you are in ignorance of his delightful capabilities, ask him exactly who it was who stayed at the Wheeler Sanitarium with him as his “sister.” Then read the California Examiner for March 3rd, 1936, pages 3 and 6. Then ask him exactly what happened at the quarry.

  Your sincere well-wisher,

  GRACE HOUGH

  I stared blankly at the note and then at Marcia.

  “But what does it mean?” I gasped. “Why on earth should Grace…?”

  “Exactly. Why on earth should Grace do a thing like that to us? I don’t know. I haven’t the slightest idea. But she did.” Marcia’s voice was thick with disgust. “You’d better hear what she knew about Robert and what it was she tried, so kindly, to pass along to Penelope. It happened out in California when he was teaching there. His first job. He killed a girl in a car accident, one of his own students. She was a neurotic, emotional creature who imagined she was in love with him and one night she got him to drive her home from a college dance. Robert had taken one or two drinks during the evening, but the girl was very drunk. When he wouldn’t take her to a night club or somewhere she wanted to go, she made a grab for the wheel. There was a collision and she was killed—rather horribly mutilated. It was only by a miracle that Robert wasn’t killed too. That was when he got the scar on his temple. You say a friend of yours overheard us talking together last night. I guess he heard Robert say something about his hands being stained with blood. That’s what he was referring to.”

  Marcia threw back her head. “Robert was arrested for drunken driving. They acquitted him, but he had to leave the college. You can imagine how a sensitive person would react to such scandal.”

  As I listened, I felt a wild, burning anger against Grace.

  “I’m the only person Robert ever told, Lee. I was madly in love with him from the minute he came to Wentworth. I admit it. I forced him to love me; forced him to depend on me. We got engaged more for propriety than because we intended to get married. I wanted to, but he wouldn’t. Although he didn’t know it, he wasn’t really in love with me. He just clung to me as something he needed, just as he needed the liquor and the sleeping drugs which he’d been taking more and more to help him forget. He got to a stage when he’d developed a drug addiction. He was in a hopeless state. I persuaded him to go to Dr. Wheeler’s sanitarium.”

  “Dr. Wheeler!”T echoed. “You mean the Houghs’ friend whom Grace used to stay with?”

  “Yes. He’s one of the best neurologists in the country. He’s got a country sanitarium where the patients live in cottages like a club. As soon as he saw Robert, he knew he’d have to keep him there at least a month. I didn’t dare let Robert stay all that time alone. I called myself Mrs. Hudnutt and went to live with him as his wife.” She paused. “One day when we were there, we ran into Grace. It was just after her father’s death. She’d had a sort of nervous breakdown and was recovering from it there.”

  I thought of the overheard conversation Steve had passed on to me. Marcia had said: “I’m as much involved as you.” I was beginning to see just how true that was.

  “It was rather embarrassing—” the shadow of a smile flickered for a moment over her lips—“to be caught living in sin by one of your own students. I knew there would be awkward questions so I did something I shall regret to my dying day. I told Grace about Robert, told her why we were both at the sanitarium, about the car accident and its aftermath. It was the worst error of judgment I’ve ever made.”

  Marcia made no move to take the letter back from me. “You know everything now, Lee. You know exactly what sort of a woman Wentworth has for the head of its English department. You know what a frightfully strong motive both Robert and I had for murdering Grace Hough. You see what Trant is bound to think if ever he reads that letter and knows we were both out in our cars just about the time the murder must have been committed.” She paused and when she spoke again her voice was like ice. “I told you this afternoon that both our lives are in your hands. I tell you now that we are both innocent of murder. If you want to take that letter to the police—I can do nothing to stop you.”

  It’s strange that never for the slightest second was I in doubt as to what I was going to do. With fingers that shook slightly, I picked up a box of matches, struck a match and held the flame to the edge of the letter.

  It crinkled, blackened. I let the ashes drop to the floor, then I stamped them into the carpet with my heel.

  XII

  I left Marcia’s house in a daze. It was not until I was back in my own room, trying to think, that I remembered what was probably one of the most vital facts in the whole case. Marcia had been out last night in her car, and Robert had been out in his. But was there anyone in Wentworth who knew what I knew—that Penelope’s yellow sedan, too, had dashed headlong through the rainy darkness during those crucial moments before the murder was committed?

  I tortured myself with thinking of this, wondering whether I should have told Marcia and, if I had told her, whether she would have been able to offer an explanation.

  Grace had been moving thro
ugh a drama as logically and relentlessly worked out as Phèdre. I was certain of that. But to me it was a drama of utter inconsistencies, a series of mysterious and contradictory scenes with no basic motivation. And at least one of the central characters was still a meaningless shadow. I had seen Grace’s red-haired naval officer; I had spoken to him. But apart from those brief moments at the Cambridge Theater he had never once broken into the realms of reality.

  Had he written those innumerable special delivery letters to Grace? Where had she met him? Where had he and Grace spent those hours between the end of the play and their arrival at the service station? Why had he gone off and left Grace there? Had he been planning to meet her again later at the quarry?

  Endless questions with no answers to them…. They followed me remorselessly into a troubled sleep.

  I did not wake up until one o’clock next day. Afterward I learnt that I owed the blessing of my prolonged oblivion to Elaine Sayler, who had played Angel with a Flaming Sword in keeping the curious from my room.

  She was hovering over my bed when I opened my eyes.

  “Darling, you’re not to move. Penelope’s orders. The whole world has gone completely mad and I’ve been battling with press photographers who are simply dying to snap The Room Where The Murdered Girl Dressed For Her Last Party.

  “Now, I’m going to get you some breakfast with my own fairy fingers. Just relax and enjoy yourself with these.” She threw a sheaf of newspapers on the bed, exclaiming as she turned to whirl out of the room, “You don’t mind being locked in, do you?”

  I picked up the top paper. Somehow it came as a shock to see Grace staring at me from the front page. It was a prettified, posed portrait which had been taken four years ago at the time of her coming out.