by Q. Patrick
“In case you are under a misapprehension, Lieutenant, it was purely my idea to have the car gone over. I suggested it to my wife. And it was I who arranged to have it taken away.”
“And just when was it taken away?” asked Trant. ~
I sat there, twisting my fingers together, wishing I were dead.
“As I remember,” said Penelope Hudnutt quietly, “it was sometime last Thursday.”
“The day after the murder,” murmured Trant without altering the tone of his voice at all.
XIX
My memory fuses the minutes that followed into a vague background for the figure of Lieutenant Trant, tall and lithe in the center of the room, his right hand gleaming in the near darkness as he scribbled in his notebook. He took the address of the New York garage where Penelope’s car had been sent. Quietly, almost apologetically, he reminded them that he had no official connection with the case any longer. He suggested Robert and Marcia should go to the courthouse to make official statements.
But I wasn’t fooled by his tone. As I sat, dejected and forgotten in a corner, I was miserably conscious of the destructive part I had been playing in the affair.
Lieutenant Trant had moved to the door when I started really listening again to what he was saying. “Yes, Mrs. Hudnutt, of course I appreciate how unfortunate this is for the college. I only hope the police will be able to clear it up quickly. Meanwhile, I suppose you’ll try and keep things going as normally as possible?”
Penelope was very much the Dean of Women now. “The President is anxious for us to do our utmost, Lieutenant. Certain members of the Board of Trustees wanted to cancel the Senior Ball tomorrow, but the President has managed to persuade them that it is far better for the college to hold it as usual. I agree with him.” Lieutenant Trant drove me to Pigot. He stood a moment by the running board, watching me very intently. “I’ve given up expecting much moral co-operation from you, Lee Lovering,” he said with a slow smile. “But here’s something I’d like you to think about. Should your galyak fur coat turn up at Wentworth, remember that the last special delivery letter may still be in the pocket. Also remember that the person who wrote it is probably the murderer of Grace Hough.”
That’s all he said. He drove away.
Suddenly I felt an overwhelming desire to be with Jerry, to cling to the one person who could keep me steady. And, after dinner, I met him, limping across the campus with Elaine’s boy friend, Nick Dodd. He didn’t use the crutch any more.
He stopped when he saw me. Nick said: “It’s swell of you to help us out, Jerry. So long,” and went on.
“I’ve been trying to find you, Lee.” Jerry was gazing at me, his jaw very set. “Steve’s left Wentworth. He went this afternoon in a hurry. Do you know why?”
I couldn’t bear to tell him the truth, that Steve had disappeared because he had become so hopelessly involved in Grace’s murder. I said: “I think his mother’s sick.”
For a moment I saw relief in his eyes. Then they clouded over. “You’ve been to New York, haven’t you, Lee, and they’ve counted out the naval officer. Dean Appel told me.” He gave a short, grating laugh. “Dean Appel keeps me so very much up to date on what’s going on. Ever since there’s been a chance of my getting that insurance money, I’ve been his favorite student—a potentially rich client for his father.”
Of all the things Grace’s death had done to us, it hurt me most to see the harsh bitterness it had given Jerry. Abruptly he said: “They’re giving the damn dance tomorrow.”
“I know.”
“Prexy talked to me this afternoon. He’s very anxious for me to go. Put on a front for the sake of the college. I can’t dance, of course, not with this bum leg. But I’ve just promised I’d help Nick Dodd with the lighting, the way I did last year.” He added hesitantly: “You were going with Steve, weren’t you?”
“I was,” I said softly. “But I guess I won’t now. I don’t particularly feel like dancing. You’re—Norma was going with you, wasn’t she?”
Once again he gave that hard little laugh. “That’s all over and done with. Norma’s not interested in going to a dance with a partner who doesn’t dance.” He was gazing straight at me. Suddenly he was the shy gangling little boy who in the old days at home had pleaded to borrow my tin soldiers—and later had wrested them from me by brute force. “Lee, will you do me a big favor? Will you come with me?”
“You—you really mean that, Jerry?”
There was the slanting smile on his mouth again. “If you say no I’m going to break into Pigot and drag you over there by your hair.”
I said very softly: “I’ll come.”
Lights had winked on now in all the academic buildings around us. We seemed caught up in a little patch of darkness of our own. He took my hands in his rough, warm fingers. We didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say.
I was going to the Senior Ball with Jerry!
Next morning the whole atmosphere of the campus had changed. The students weren’t talking about Grace any more; they were making plans for the dance. Norma and Elaine were swept away on this new wave of frivolity. In the afternoon they set off together in their maroon sedan to pick up new gowns in New York.
It’s strange how you can forget things that are so completely unforgettable. As the day wore on toward evening the little problems of the ball crowded everything else back into the recesses of my mind. At the last minute I found my black taffeta had to be fixed. I took it to Wentworth’s one and only dressmaker. By the time she had it right it was past seven.
When I hurried back to the campus, the gym was already sparkling with lights. The air was sweet with lilac and the small, unobtrusive scent of narcissi. I could hear the orchestra tuning up, and students were moving together across the quiet lawns, the girls’ dresses gay patches of color under the drooping shade trees.
It was all so horribly as if nothing had happened.
And then I saw Norma. She was coming away from Pigot, her hand slipped through the husky, black-coated arm of the Captain of Football. I don’t think I had ever seen her so beautiful. She was streamlined to the last inch in a daring gown of golden lamé.
She saw me and smiled. It was a strange smile, excited and malicious.
“You’re in for a pleasant surprise, darling. Don’t let it overwhelm you too much. And, by the way, give my love to Jerry.”
Her white hand, with its gold-lacquered nails, clutched more tightly to the Captain’s arm and they strolled away toward the Gym.
I hadn’t any idea what she meant. I didn’t bother much about it, either. I just hurried to my room, took a quick shower and slipped into the full-skirted black taffeta. At the mirror I pinned on the spray of camellias.
I crossed to the closet for my jade evening wrap. I pulled open the door, glanced inside and took a sudden, involuntary step backward. What I saw in that closet was utterly incredible.
My entire attention was fixed on the center of the closet where, smooth and sleek as on that ghastly night when I had lent it to Grace Hough, hung my cream galyak fur coat.
I was still in a daze while I tugged it off its hanger and laid it out on the bed. As I stared at it and my eyes registered little stray facts, that it was clean and dry and exactly as it had always been, I could think only one thing. Grace wore this on the night she was killed.
Suddenly I remembered Lieutenant Trant and his warning. He had hinted the coat would turn up, he had said: “Don’t forget that last special delivery letter may still be in the pocket.”
My fingers shaking, I started a feverish search of the coat. The right hand pocket, the left, the inside pocket. Everywhere. But—I might have guessed it.
The letter wasn’t there.
“So you have found it, Lee.”
I spun round. The door had opened and Elaine was there, in lamé like her sister but of shimmering silver.
She came right up to me, gripping my arm tensely. “It was Norma. She found it. When we came home from New Yo
rk with the dresses she opened up the luggage place at the back of the car. And there it was, stuffed in with the tools.”
“But the letter,” I said urgently. “Was there a letter in the pocket?”
“There was. My dear, that’s the appalling part of it. The special delivery letter Grace got that night.” Elaine flourished her arm dramatically. “We both saw it at once, poking out of the pocket I made a grab at it, but Norma got it first. And she positively refused to let me see it.”
“But what’s she done with it? Has she taken it to the police?”
“My dear, it’s absolutely fantastic. I said at once it ought to be taken to the police. She turned on me like a panther. She said how could we possibly take it to the police before we read it. For all we know it might involve us. And anyway they would think it frightfully suspicious, the coat being in our car.”
“But, Elaine darling, tell me—did she read it?”
“She read it all right. Dashed back here and read it in our room. She locked the door so’s I couldn’t get in, too, until she was good and ready. When she did let me in, she’d hidden the letter, of course.”
“And she told you about it—what was in it, who wrote it?”
Elaine’s eyebrows tilted upward. “Can you imagine her telling me? She was standing there by the mirror in that grisly gold lamé of hers. There was a sort of gloating smile on her face and I knew she’d found out who wrote the letter and, for some reason, it just delighted her. I said again that she had to take the thing to the police. And she laughed a typical Norma laugh and said she might let them see it later on. But there was something she was going to do first. She was going to have a swell time, she said—talking to the person who had written the letter!”
I stared in amazement. “But, Elaine, that’s mad: Lieutenant Trant says the person who wrote it is probably the person who …” “I know. That’s what I said. But you know how Norma loves playing with dynamite. She’s taken the letter with her to the dance, in her purse. She says she’s going to talk to the person concerned; heaven knows what she’s going to say or do. I dashed over to the gym to Nick and Jerry. I told them. Jerry says somehow I’ve got to let Lieutenant Trant know.”
For a moment we stood there in the middle of my room staring at each other. I’d never seen Elaine that way with her eyes so very bright and that blank anxious look.
“Lee, you’ve got to call Lieutenant Trant.”
I suppose part of me did realize then how I was facing the most crucial of all the crucial moments of those terrible days.
If I called Lieutenant Trant and if any of the people who meant so much to me at Wentworth had written that letter, then the police would have damaging evidence against them. If I didn’t call the police, then there was Norma—what sort of a mess would she get herself into?
But I never really hesitated. I knew I had to get in touch with Lieutenant Trant. I hurried out into the passage to the telephone. I got through to New York and Centre Street. At last I heard Lieutenant Trant. I blurted out everything to him about the coat coming back, the letter and Norma’s insane decision.
For one second Lieutenant Trant did not answer. Then his voice came, sharp and taut as a whip.
“Listen to me, Lee Lovering, I mean this more than I’ve ever meant anything in my life. Get around to that dance, keep an eye on Norma Sayler and for heaven’s sake stop her doing anything—suicidal. Meanwhile, I’ll get in touch with the local police.”
“And you?” I faltered. “What are you going to do?”
“I was coming to Wentworth anyway. Now I’ll just come—that much more quickly.”
XX
As soon as Elaine knew that Lieutenant Trant was coming, she shook off her anxiety and resumed her normal exuberance. I felt immensely relieved too.
And yet, as we hurried together across the dark spring campus, the vague fluttering of uneasiness persisted. The dance music throbbing from the gym, the evening star pale and silver over the library, the faint echoing of laughter … it was all too gay. Wentworth had no right to be gay.
And somehow, I felt, it wasn’t going to get away with it.
We were quite late for the dance. Already the couples, boys very black and white and spruce, girls looking far more sophisticated than they were, had drifted out into the campus to be alone, fading until they were nothing but two burning cigarette ends in the dark.
Elaine said: “Darling, even if the heavens are falling, Nick’s done marvels with the lights.”
And she was right. Usually when one went to the gym to tie oneself into knots on the parallel bars, it had a sort of gaunt draughtiness. That night it was completely transformed. Dim blue and crimson lights around the walls gave a hazy, exotic glow. Only the high gallery which ran the whole length of the building was brightly lit—a warm amber.
We found Jerry and Nick Dodd. They came toward us, skirting the polished floor and the dancers. Jerry was still limping.
Elaine grabbed Nick’s arm enthusiastically and they swirled away into the kaleidoscope of dancers. Jerry and I walked back into the soft blue light under the gallery.
“Lee, did you get Trant?” he asked anxiously.
“Yes, he’s coming. He’ll be here in an hour or so.”
“Thank heaven. He did—did think the letter was important?”
“He thinks it’s terribly important. He thinks it was probably written by the person who murdered Grace.”
“That’s what I thought. That’s what I told Norma.” Jerry’s mouth went very grim. “She’s crazy, Lee. I don’t know what we ought to do.”
“Then you’ve talked to Norma, Jerry? Here, at the dance?”
“I’ve talked to her all right,” he said fiercely. “I cut in on her just now. She didn’t like it very much, but I made her go out with me—out there into the formal garden. I told her she darn well had to give that letter up to the police. When she tried to get funny about it, I told her she was not only being idiotic, but she was acting fairly low, too.” He looked down at his clenched hands. “After all, Grace was my sister.”
“Wouldn’t she listen to you?” I asked.
“Of course she wouldn’t listen. She told me in so many words to mind my own business.” He gave a rather savage laugh. “I can see what she’s driving at. She knows who wrote that letter to Grace all right and she seems to be getting a big kick out of it—just as if it gave her a hold over someone she wants to hurt.”
With a sudden twinge of alarm I thought of that scene between Norma and Penelope in Commons after Norma had posed for the newspaper photograph. If Elaine’s description had been accurate, Penelope had humiliated Norma in public then. I knew Norma would never be able to forgive that. Could that be the explanation?
Rather shakily I said: “Where’s Norma now?”
“I don’t know. She said she couldn’t talk to me any more because she had a date out there in the formal garden.” Jerry looked at me, his eyes suddenly questioning. “I left her there. Just as I was coming back to the gym I saw someone go up to her, talk to her. It was Dr. Hudnutt.”
Robert Hudnutt with Norma in the formal garden! I could feel the vague alarm in me sliding over into panic. I started searching tensely with my eyes through the thronged, softly lit dancers, searching for Norma’s gleaming gold dress and her gleaming gold hair. I caught a glimpse of silver flashing past. That was Elaine. And then the tall, erect figure in black velvet. Yes, it was Penelope Hudnutt, very white and expressionless.
For the first moment I couldn’t see her partner. Then they turned, and I saw him, saw the tall, slightly stooped figure with the remote, ascetic face. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least Robert was back again out of the formal garden.
But where was Norma?
I turned back to Jerry. “We’ve got to find her,” I said impulsively. “Somehow we’ve got to get that letter away from her.”
“I’ve done my best.” He shrugged. “You see what you can do.”
“Yes, I will. I must.�
�
I left him, hurrying along the side of the dance floor. The exit to the formal garden was right at the back of the orchestra. It seemed horribly far away, and suddenly I had the crazy notion that speed was all-important.
I ran to the little door which led out into the dark shrubbery. I hurried down the path. Ahead I could hear the gentle gurgle of the fountain, see the soft glow of light from the baby spot Nick had put up there, filtering through the branches of rhododendrons. The path curved to the right. Suddenly I was free of the bushes, and the formal garden stretched in front of me, bathed in false moonlight from the concealed spot.
Norma Sayler was there. She was sitting on the stone bench where I had sat with Steve Carteris on the evening following Grace’s death.
She was talking to someone—someone who stood looking down at her from behind the bench. That second figure was half hidden from me by the trailing arms of the forsythia. Then a stirring of wind moved the branches and I recognized her at once—recognized that dress of pure white satin, the dark hair, the slender arms.
The person who was talking so intently with Norma Sayler was Marcia Parrish.
I was screened from them by the bushes so that they could not see me. I was sure of that. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, for their voices were drowned by the spattering of the fountain spray as it dropped down on to the lily pads. And there—between me and those two—crouched like a malignant eavesdropper, was the little German manikin.
I stood there a moment looking at them, uncertain whether to approach them. Just as I had decided to go away, a movement from Norma set my pulses quickening. Her fingers had pushed back the clasp of her gold evening purse and I saw her bring out an envelope.
Marcia leaned nearer. I saw Norma lifting the letter as if to give it to her. I thought I detected the slight movement of Marcia’s hand.
And then, suddenly, I wasn’t looking at them any more, for I had heard a faint crackling of twigs from the bushes at my left.