The Tightrope Walker

by Dorothy Gilman

  "How did Mrs. Meerloo feel about John Tuttle?" asked Joe.

  "Oh, very pleased," said Mrs. Morneau primly. "He turned out so well, you know. Very bright. She always hated waste."

  "And may we ask your own personal impression of him?"

  Her face stiffened. "You'd do better asking someone else, for I thought he took too many liberties and told Miss Hannah so myself. But she'd only shake her head over me and remind me I went to church regularly every Sunday. Stigma—that was the word she used. Because he was an orphanage boy."

  Mrs. Morneau had not liked John Tuttle. Jealousy, I wondered? The resentment of a native over a local boy being given special status? I remembered to scribble a few doodles to look professional, and then I cleared my throat and began again. "What we're looking for just now, Mrs. Morneau—we've pretty much sketched in all the facts and reached her death—"

  "Oh, tragic that was," Mrs. Morneau interrupted fiercely. "So young to go. Not to you two young people, of course, but people around here live to their seventies and eighties and sometimes into their nineties and I can tell you, forty is young to die, as you'll find out soon enough."

  "Yes, I'm sure of that, Mrs. Morneau," I told her. "And we're delighted to have found you, you're going to be an invaluable source of material for us, and I'm sure you won't mind our consulting you from time to time—"

  "Oh, any time at all," Mrs. Morneau said eagerly; this was obviously what she wanted to hear.

  "But for the moment we hoped—and we wondered if you could help us here—we'd like to talk with the people who were with her during the three weeks before her tragic accident."

  "Oh," said Mrs. Morneau.

  "Interviews," pointed out Joe, "with the last people who saw her."

  "Oh," repeated Mrs. Morneau, and suddenly the expressions that had enlivened her placid face were called back inside of her like children at dusk; shutters closed and I could hear them snap. She folded her hands in her lap, her lips thinned and she said, "Well, I don't know about that."

  "There was this man, a house guest, Mr. Hubert Holton—"

  She nodded. "It comes back to me how excited Jay was about meeting that man. Nora, too."

  "Nora?" I said quickly. "Nora met him before that summer?"

  She made a vague gesture with her hands. "Visiting Jay at his college, you know. Dances, homecoming weekends. Not often but sometimes."

  I met Joe's startled glance and looked quickly away before Mrs. Morneau noticed. "Do you know where we can reach Mr. Holton?" I asked. "And John Tuttle was there that July, too."

  She said warily, "They were there, yes. So they said. And Miss Nora."

  "We've already spoken with Miss Nora."

  That surprised her. "Oh?" she said, and gave me a furtive glance. "You've been to the hospital?"

  "Yes." I shook my head. "It's very sad, isn't it?"

  "I can only say," announced Mrs. Morneau, disapproval bringing her back to life, "that it's a blessing Miss Hannah never knew, although they do say the dead can see us sometimes, don't they? But then Miss Nora was always frail—frail inside, not like Miss Hannah who could stand up to life, for she'd had her share of tragedies, I can tell you. After she inherited her aunt's money Miss Nora had a beautiful house built near the water—half glass I heard it was, which cost a pretty penny. But bewildered she looked when I saw her six months later, and a year later she looked frightened. Of being alone I think it was, and I should have known then, for she wasn't too steady on her feet. Drinking too much, you see. Frail she was," Mrs. Morneau repeated with the pride of one who had survived. "Always frail."

  Mrs. Morneau's confidences seemed to come in spasms. I said firmly, "We've tried to find John Tuttle in the telephone book—"

  Mrs. Morneau stared at me in astonishment and then she threw back her head and laughed. "Him? You won't find any John Tuttle in the phone book, miss. Changed his name he did. Changed a lot of things, including his name."

  "To what?" I asked, trying not to sound eager.

  But Mrs. Morneau's face darkened again; she looked from me to Joe and then back again. "You'd go to him and say Jane Morneau told you where to find him, I expect." Her voice had become harder now; I wondered if she'd become suspicious of us at this turn of the conversation. "That wouldn't do," she said. "That wouldn't do at all." she looked at her watch, a very neat, plain gold band on her plump wrist. "I think we really have to continue this another time," she said, "for I've work to do now. I've spoken enough." She rose to her feet, and stood over us, massive and implacable.

  Rising, I said, "You won't tell us where to find John Tuttle?"

  She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Miss—Jones, is it? I can't help you."

  Joe, rising too, said with a smile, "Surely then you can tell us how to locate Mr. Holton?"

  She shook her head even more firmly. "Any questions about Miss Hannah I'll be glad to answer but that's all I can say. Anything else—ask Miss Nora," she said almost maliciously.

  "I see," I said, following her helplessly to the door. "We can appreciate your reticence, of course, but you must know—that is, if only—"

  "We've come a long way to interview John Tuttle as well as you," Joe put in sternly.

  We were at the door now. She held her tightly corseted figure so straight that I feared for a moment that she might snap in two. She said in a harsh voice, looking straight at me and ignoring Joe, "There's no bringing Miss Hannah back, miss. Or Danny Lipton who had his throat cut on Christmas Eve that same year, or Miss Nora either, who's as good as gone. The dead are dead. It's the living—" Her voice broke and she added flatly, "I don't want anyone thinking I gossip, miss, it would be best if you send any questions by letter and not come here again."

  With this she closed the door in our faces.

  Joe took my arm but I shook my head. "Listen," I whispered, because from the other side of the door came small retching sounds; I realized that Mrs. Morneau was crying, or trying not to but unable to suppress her hard angry sobs. Just as abruptly the sounds stopped and footsteps fled down the hall.

  We walked slowly and thoughtfully down the walk to the van and climbed inside. As Joe started the engine I said, "Joe, we frightened Mrs. Morneau."

  He nodded. "Badly."

  I looked back at the trim white bungalow with its yellow shutters and picket fence; I thought I saw her face at the window and I waved reassuringly, but as the van moved down the street the face vanished. "She suspects the truth then, Joe? Or guesses?"

  Joe said, "I think she was trying to explain herself at the very end. We hadn't mentioned Daniel Lipton but she pointed out that he's dead and Nora's as good as dead."

  "So obviously John Tuttle is the threat," I said, drawing a deep breath. "She didn't say that he's dead."

  "It's a nice little house," Joe pointed out. "Mortgage-free, I should imagine. Thirty-five thousand went a lot further in 1965 than it does now. She probably bought her house for ten or twelve thousand, invested the rest, and is living very well in her frugal way. If John Tuttle is the one who wrote that last will of Hannah's he saw to it that Mrs. Morneau didn't get cheated, which was certainly shrewd of him. He cut out Greenacres and the orphanage and everything else, but he didn't cut out Mrs. Morneau and I'm sure she got the point. It was a subtle form of pay-off. She's safe as long as she doesn't rock the boat."

  "But you're implying that she knew from the beginning!" I said.

  Joe shook his head. "No, I'm not. All I'm saying is that she knows a good many things about the people involved in this that she doesn't want to tell us, details we've not learned yet, and I think over the years these have crept up on her, she noticed discrepancies and reached certain conclusions she's tried to repress. I don't believe she consciously admits there was murder, or even could have been. She just feels frightened and edgy about it all. But damn it, we didn't get much from her, Amelia."

  "Yes, we did," I protested. "We learned that John Tuttle has changed his name and that Mrs. Morneau is frightened."
/>   "But we don't know to what name he changed it. Or why Robin never appealed that Probate Court verdict."

  "Ah, you noticed that too?" I said, pleased. "That leaves three questions dangling: who is Tuttle now, where is Holton, and why there was no appeal."

  "Amelia, am I heading in the right direction for the airport?"

  I picked up the map, glanced at it and nodded. "At the next intersection keep straight; it's about nine miles farther. Joe, I have the court records to return to Garwin Mason before I leave tomorrow, and I'm sure he could tell us about John Tuttle. If," I added cheekily, "I can solicit your permission for one more inquiry?"

  "Don't push me, Amelia," he said crossly. "Go to Mason but if he doesn't want to tell you, put it in the hands of that detective across the street from me in Trafton."

  "Zebroski?" I said, remembering his garish sign.

  "Yes. And then turn it over to the police."

  That sounded reasonable, we were nearing the end, anyway. "Why are you suddenly cross?" I asked.

  "Because if it weren't for the van I'd kidnap you and take you back with me on the plane."

  "There's only one seat available," I reminded him.

  "I don't like leaving you."

  I didn't particularly like being left but I thought it would be a good chance to gain a sense of perspective. I mean, in the space of four and a half days a great deal had happened to me, and I could see that some stabilization might be therapeutic. Was I, for instance, still me? Could I still function alone, or was my confidence going to collapse as soon as Joe left? I remembered that originally I had planned to take this trip alone, which seemed inconceivable to me now.

  The airport was a far cry from La Guardia. We bumped over a dirt road to a parking lot surrounding a wooden building, parked the van, and walked into a room with long wooden benches and a tiny counter. Out by the hangar in the back a few small planes sat like swollen birds. A bearded young man dozed in one corner, his feet on his dufflebag. While Joe paid for his ticket I read the same ubiquitous political posters:

  VOTE FOR SILAS WHITNEY! VOTE FOR ANGUS TUTTLE!

  But I was spared any photographs this time. A noisy family of six arrived, followed by a well-dressed businessman with an attaché case. The businessman wore huge round spectacles and appeared singularly out of place. As if aware of this he was careful not to look at anyone. In the interests of seeing Garwin Mason before he left his office I kissed Joe good-by as soon as he'd bought his ticket, and resolutely walked out without looking back. I shed a few tears as I drove away, watching myself like a hawk for any more dubious forms of grief. "Forty-eight hours, Amelia," I reminded myself. "You'll be back in Trafton in forty-eight hours and it's no big deal, right?"

  Wrong. I was going to have to keep very busy.

  It was at this moment, driving down the highway and still brooding over Joe's departure, that one of those crazy thunderbolts interrupted my thoughts to prove how industriously the subconscious works over puzzles long after they've been put aside. I mean, I know quite a lot about the subconscious because once therapy started opening me up, it was amazing the dreams that surfaced to explain what had happened to me and how I'd really felt about things; it was like a little box that had recorded everything I'd forgotten or couldn't understand. Now there slipped into my mind four small words from Hannah's letter that I'd never really noticed.

  Hannah had written, "I will hide this somewhere in a different place and perhaps someday someone will find it."

  In a different place.

  Different from what place?

  I'd read the letter dozens of times, and so had Joe, and I'd skimmed over the phrase assuming she'd meant the hurdy-gurdy was a "different" kind of place in which to conceal a note, as indeed it was. Now I found myself looking at these four words from a new angle, as if I were inside of the mind that wrote them, and from this angle it seemed a very curious phrase to use unless Hannah had already hidden something else. I saw it as four words written without awareness or intention, a trick of Hannah's thought processes that insisted on accuracy. It suddenly meant to me "I will not hide it in the same place."

  I put my foot down on the gas pedal and roared into the parking area of the Golden Kingfisher Motel, raced into unit 18, and fumbled through my papers for a copy of Hannah's note. The words were waiting for me, I hadn't imagined them: my subconscious had known they were there all along. I stood with the note in my hand and thought about this carefully. I was remembering the length of time that Hannah had been locked in that room, long enough to acquaint her very well with all its corners and to learn its hiding places. What might she have wanted to conceal from the "faceless ones" as soon as she realized that she was a prisoner?

  Garwin Mason had stated firmly that Hannah's second book had been completed. Because it had never been found I had leaped to the conclusion that Hannah's murderers must have destroyed the manuscript. Could she possibly have been carrying In the Land of the Golden Warriors with her when she entered the box room, and hidden it there?

  It all depended, of course, on just how she'd been lured there in the first place, which was something I'd not thought about before. Considering it now, however, I couldn't conceive of John Tuttle enticing her there because she would have known, then, that he was involved. It seemed to me quite logical to suppose that she'd gone there of her own volition: to get something out of a trunk, perhaps? Was it where she did some of her writing, or did she use the room for what Mrs. Morneau called her "thinking" and her meditating? The latter seemed to hold the more potential: the room was too hot for working but it was dim and quiet, far removed from the distracting sounds in the house. It would have been a very good place for meditating.

  What else could she have possibly concealed earlier, before she hid her letter in the hurdy-gurdy?

  The contrary part of me pointed out that she might have wanted to hide an extremely valuable diamond ring that she wore on her finger. Or an heirloom pin.

  "No," I said, shaking my head, "I know Hannah now and she wouldn't have considered jewelry important enough to hide. With all her money she chose privacy and simplicity, I doubt that she even wore jewelry."

  "Well, she certainly wouldn't go around carrying a manuscript with her," retorted that perverse self.

  "Why not?" I asked. "It's a large house," she might have carried it the way some women carry around their knitting, or she might have been planning to work on it as soon as she left the box room."

  "And have hidden it where?" asked that other me.

  "Exactly," I said out loud, and felt the first lift of excitement. There was the bureau, for one thing, which I'd given only a cursory inspection. I was sure it was the same bureau, never removed, for who would want to refurbish a box room? There was also the filthy old mattress, so full of craters and hills that it must have lain there for years; and there was the floor. I hadn't looked for any loose floor boards, it hadn't even occurred to me until now.

  The possibilities were fragile but my hopes were rising; I had convinced myself now that Hannah had hidden the sequel in the box room. It might no longer be there but I knew with absolute certainty that I couldn't leave for Trafton in the morning without looking for it. Even the remotest possibility of finding an unpublished Gruble manuscript—the missing sequel to The Maze in the Heart of the Castle—left me shaken. If it was there—poor Joe, I thought, to miss such a triumph!

  I glanced at my watch. It was nearly four o'clock and I'd promised Joe that I'd leave early tomorrow. I didn't think I'd be able to find Bob Tuttle in his real estate office at this hour and, even if I did, I wondered how I could possibly explain my interest in taking apart the box room. I sat down on the bed and thought about this problem, and of course there was only one solution, which I accepted very calmly.

  11

  I drove first to a hardware store and purchased what I needed, and then I headed for Carleton, conscientiously remaining inside the speed limit to please Joe. I passed Simon Pritchett's General Store,
veered right at the intersection on to Tuttle Road

  , and turned into the driveway of Hannah's house. I drove the car across the grass and around to the rear, out of sight, and cut the engine. Climbing out, I grasped the flashlight and the tool kit I'd bought, and prepared to burgle Hannah's house.

  Morally I felt relatively sanguine about committing this illegal act, for the crusading spirit was high in me and I thought that if pressed hard I could always buy the house, although all I wanted from it was a manuscript. But I soon discovered certain practical drawbacks to the tidy professional job I'd planned. For one thing the wind was rising in that insistent and menacing way that suggests a brewing thunderstorm, and the back door, which I'd considered removing by unscrewing its hinges, was over-sized and built for the ages. Expediency won: after studying the situation I simply broke one of the small panes of glass in the door and reached inside to unbolt the lock. I told myself that, if I recovered a sequel to Hannah's book, Bob Tuttle might forgive my larceny but just in case he didn't see things my way I would place ten dollars in an envelope and mail it to him in the morning.

  Once inside the house the cold hit me like a fist, a flat damp cold that had been building for eight months and needed more than a few warm days to dispel. I was surprised at the difference that companions had made on my earlier visit. For instance, as I left the kitchen and passed the door to the cellar, I could feel prickles run up and down my spine as if four murderers walked behind me, and at any moment I might hear Hannah's scream. The house was not at all quiet, either; every board that I put a foot on sent out a small groan of protest in the cold, and the wind outside wrapped itself around the exterior and made whispery moaning sounds. I hurried up the staircase to the second floor and here I found it so dark that I had to turn on my flashlight: I didn't like this, either. Only one thought kept me going: Hannah's manuscript In the Land of the Golden Warriors, and what Joe would say if I found it after all these years. It would certainly be a smashing denouement to our trip north. I could picture his explosion—"Amelia, you promised !"—and then his quick, marvelous smile, a hug, a kiss and about three minutes of intense questioning during which I would be given a few hints as to how wonderful I was, how intelligent, and how clever.