Time to Die

by Hilda Lawrence

  “Shot!” Beulah glowed. “Where?”

  “She was walking along by the cemetery wall, and an arrow got her in the leg. Roberta Beacham found her in the Sunday school room after everyone had gone home. The doctor says she’s all right now. Upset a bit, naturally.”

  “Naturally. An old woman takes a walk on holy ground and gets an arrow in the leg, when all her heart was set on was a bit of shrapnel. . . . In heaven’s name, did you say arrow?”

  They listened enthralled while he told about the archery set and the flood of nickels and dimes it had poured into a canvas bag now hanging from a nail in the back of Pansy Wilcox’s jelly closet.

  “Same as gambling,” Beulah said. “Go on.”

  “The set was a gift of Beacham’s to last year’s Sunday school picnic, and it owned to a bloody history even before last night. I understand three children had already felt its sting. Then last night a child called Maisie Briggs—”

  “Not Maisie!” Bessy was horrified. “She’s just had the whooping cough, which spoiled her dreadfully, and now if she’s been shot too!”

  “A small nip in the arm. Her mother did her best to squeeze it into a big one, but with all her efforts it continued to look like a mosquito bite. A few people got pretty nasty about it. . . . Nick Sutton did it.”

  Beulah beamed. “So impetuous. Did he shoot Miss Rayner too?”

  “He says no. Pee Wee Peck and Floyd say no too. If you want me to go on with this I’ll have to have more of that lemon juice. And a sandwich. I didn’t have much breakfast.”

  Beulah immediately took charge. Bessy was sent to the kitchen to make sandwiches of toast and grilled ham, a time-consuming job and one that she invariably did badly. She didn’t want to go. She went.

  “She always burns the toast and has to do it all over,” Beulah said briskly. She refilled Mark’s glass from a pitcher. “Talk fast. Later on I’ll tell her all I think she should know. Now—”

  “Nick bought six arrows. He hit his mark with the first two and got our Maisie with the third. He dropped the other three and ran to pick up Maisie, who was making the most of the situation. Pee Wee and Floyd tell me this. They were standing beside Nick, who is regarded by them as something of a wonder. Of course everybody got scrambled up immediately, and the light wasn’t any too good to begin with. I didn’t see it happen. I was under a tree with Perley.”

  “Tck, tck,” grieved Beulah.

  “Thank you. Well, when Perley and I fought our way through the mob everybody tried to hand Nick over to the law. Funny how easy it is to turn a nice crowd into a rabble. They pushed and shouted and shoved him around. . . . I’d like to know who started that demonstration.”

  “I don’t think anybody deliberately started it,” Beulah said. She gave him a pious look. “It’s the war. When I see my delphiniums out there and think of all the dreadful things that are happening—.” She broke off and swatted a mild-mannered bee with her palm leaf fan. “Now why did I do that?” she asked regretfully. “I like bees. But there, you see what I mean? We simply sock the thing nearest to us because we know somebody’s getting socked somewhere else.” She covered the bee with a leaf.

  Mark looked down the bright little garden to the meadows beyond. “Do you think somebody shot Miss Rayner because the woes of la petite Maisie gave him the idea?” He sounded half asleep.

  “Why not? She’s very sharp with the servants at the hotel and doesn’t tip at all. . . . See here, aren’t you forgetting the real trouble? What about Miss Cassidy, poor thing?”

  “I know, I know. That fine woman, that good woman, beloved by all. Skip Miss Cassidy for the moment and return to Miss Rayner. How old would you say she is?”

  “About sixty-five. But what’s her age got to do with this?”

  “I’m just wondering why anybody wanted to wing an old woman in the leg. Unsporting, pointless, and no fun. Also there weren’t any hotel servants at the supper, so it wasn’t a tipless revenge. . . . Now listen Beulah. Here’s the setup. Dusk. Paper lanterns. Crowds of people milling about. The only decent light’s a flare by the target board. Everybody happy, and the coal rolling in. Nick shoots his third arrow and gets Maisie. Instantly a howl goes up. He says somebody pushed his arm. It could be. In the excitement that follows one of the three remaining arrows disappears. Pee Wee and Floyd look for it but can’t find it. Some time later, nobody knows exactly when, the missing arrow turns up in Miss Rayner, boomerang style. That is to say, she heard it, felt it, but didn’t see it. She thinks it had a string on it.”

  Beulah wrinkled her long nose. “I never heard of such a thing.”

  “Anyway it’s missing, vanished. And she has an arrow wound all right. The doctor says so. He measured it with one of the five I salvaged. Well, after that everybody went home or somewhere. At one o’clock Roberta and Nick came back to the Mountain House, full of moonlight and lemon sodas, and found Miss Cassidy’s bed empty. And they called Perley, immediately.”

  “Umm,” said Beulah.

  “Yes. Perley and I talked to everybody. Nobody knew a thing. Miss Cassidy was last seen at the target, shortly before the Maisie business. Joey says she saw her standing near Nick, but Joey had vinegar on her breath and was keeping out of the way. She didn’t speak to Miss Cassidy, and she’s too excited now to remember exactly where Miss Cassidy stood. . . . What have we got now, Beulah?”

  “One child pinked in the arm and one old woman in the leg. One youngish woman and one arrow missing.”

  “Is that tragedy or comedy?”

  “Which does it feel like, Mark? Never mind about how it looks. How does it feel?”

  “Odd. Take these incidents singly and they don’t mean much. The good Cassidy may be pulling an act to frighten Beacham to his knees, and the Rayner arrow may be some oaf’s idea of a practical joke. Think so?”

  “I hate to say it, but I’m afraid it is a joke. I mean the arrow. Some of these boys ought to be in a reform school. But I don’t know about Miss Cassidy. She isn’t the runaway type.”

  “I’d like to see that paragon! And I’d like to know, just for fun, who was playing with the sixth arrow. It’s a pre-war toy with a beautiful head. I’d like to know where it is now.”

  “You’ll find it after all this has died down, tacked to the wall of some wretched little boy’s bedroom. With a notch in it for Miss Rayner. Why don’t you worry about poor Miss Cassidy?”

  “She’s Perley’s job,” he said. “And don’t call her poor Miss Cassidy. I suspect she’s very clever, going-to-be-rich-some-day Miss Cassidy. . . . Here comes my food.”

  Bessy had turned out two sandwiches after four tries, but she reminded them that the failures would do nicely for the birds. Mark ate steadily and gratefully.

  “Spend the day with us,” Bessy urged. “We can have a lovely time. And I’ll call up some dear friends who are expecting brandy on the noon train.”

  He leaned over and patted the scarred cheek. “No thanks. I’ve got a message for Amos, and then I’m going back to Pansy’s and change my clothes. After that I think I’ll pay a visit to the Mountain House.”

  They let him go, but they followed him to the gate and watched him all the way down the lane.

  Amos Partridge, stationmaster, postmaster, and the law of Crestwood gave him hard boiled eggs and beer. He downed them with a prayer while he relayed Perley’s message. They might need Amos, Perley had said, if nothing turned up by nightfall. Just for the looks of the thing. Just to please Beacham. It would make Beacham feel good if Amos came over to the Mountain House with a couple of husky men and beat the bushes. Did he have an understudy who could cope with the evening train?

  Amos said he had. He’d rented the Lacey cottage to a lovely lady, wife of a colonel. She had a reliable son who liked trains. Only fifteen years old but one of those Groton boys, and you know what they can do.

  Amos asked no questions. In fact, he was disturbingly incurious.

  “You seem to know all about our little trouble,” Mark sa
id. “Who told you?”

  “Bittner. Got it from one of his drivers. They never miss a thing.”

  “Do you know Miss Cassidy?”

  “Kind of,” said Amos. “I’ll know her if I see her again.” He shut his mouth with a snap, and Mark knew the Cassidy subject was closed. At least temporarily.

  He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to get back to Bear River. What about a train or a bus? Or do I hitch a ride?”

  Amos considered. “There’s the Roving Folly, Number Four. She’s a small job, but she’s all right. She roves around all day for the benefit of tired berry pickers and city hikers that peter out. She went by half an hour ago to look for a pedigree dog that got lost. She’ll be back soon. I heard dogs up the line.”

  They talked about nothing while they waited because Amos maneuvered the conversation, and in ten minutes the Roving Folly drew up with two dogs aboard, unpedigreed and unashamed.

  Back in Bear River, Mark entered the empty house and went up to the little room Pansy had given him. It was the only extra room she had; it was under the eaves and stifling. The single window was closed against the dust, and a large fly beat hopelessly against the cheap screen.

  He took off his shoes and socks because the strip of matting on the floor looked cool; it was like the top of a working stove. He opened the window, released the fly, and went downstairs to the bathroom. Pansy had put out her best towels, covered with painstaking monograms and bright pink flowers, but someone, probably Floyd, had left the bath mat in a twisted wet heap. The soap was shriveling in a cracked saucer. There were two more flies.

  He condemned himself for noticing these things and blamed his bad manners on the heat. He knew that Perley’s salary was small and that he also helped Pansy’s people, who had farmed determinedly for fifty years without learning anything. He also knew that Floyd’s education hung like a shadow over Perley’s shoulder and snatched the extra nickels and dimes whenever they made a rare appearance. There was no money for plumbing elegance. Having finished calling himself names, he filled the tub and moaned when he saw that the water was rusty.

  He thought of his own apartment in New York, with the Venetian blinds drawn, of clean white rugs and clean walls, of the prodigal shower and the sunken tub, of the fat, fresh cake of good soap. He watched the rusty water run down his arm and thought of a restaurant in a Village backyard where he could have salmon mayonnaise under a tree of heaven, and a tall bottle in a bucket of ice.

  “God help me,” he groaned, “and send me appendicitis.”

  He felt no better when he was shaved and dressed, and no cleaner. He tried telling himself that he’d never run out on a case in his life, and then he remembered that it wasn’t his case. It was Perley’s. He’d only be running out on a vacation. Wonderful. But how could he do it, quickly, decently, and still look Perley in the eye? There was only one way. If he could deliver the evanescent Miss Cassidy, little white birds and sapphire ring intact, then he could bow out with friends and reputation unsullied, to say nothing of his own morale.

  That was it. He’d give himself until Monday morning. If she was still missing then, he’d stay. If he found her, he’d go. And if he found her playing house in a nearby cave and she said—“Where am I?”—, she’d remember the location for the rest of her life. The prospect cheered him to the point of song.

  He went down to the kitchen and made his own contribution to the family blackboard. He wrote, “GONE UP TO THE HOTEL. TAKING THE CAR. BACK FOR SUPPER.” Then he went out to the garage and tried not to notice that its cheap paint was cracking and peeling in the sun.

  It was three o’clock. The Mountain House guests had wisely retired for siestas. The page who offered to park the car told him that much. “Everybody goes to bed after lunch,” he said. “They don’t get up till four o’clock, and then they stay up past midnight. They’re rich. Who do you want? I don’t mind banging on a couple of doors.”

  Mark said he wanted one of the cottages and that he could find it himself. He didn’t like the way the boy had instantly classed him with those who couldn’t afford to sleep in the daytime.

  The door to the Beacham cottage stood open. He stepped into the wide living room and called softly. There was no answer. He went out again and looked over at the Pecks’. Archie Peck was sleeping in the porch swing, lying on his fat stomach, his face buried in a pillow. In another hour, according to the page, Archie would wake up by himself and stay up till past midnight. He walked over and twitched Archie’s pillow, and the schedule collapsed.

  “Hey!” Archie bellowed. “Oh—Mr. East.” He sat up and smiled foolishly.

  Mark smiled back. “Sorry I had to do that, but I want your permission to break and enter the Beacham cottage. Nobody seems to be home there.”

  “Mike took the girls for a swim on the other side of the mountain. They were going crazy sitting around. No news?”

  “No. All right if I go in?”

  “Sure. But I’ll go with you if you don’t mind. What do you want over there anyway?”

  “I thought I’d have a look at Miss Cassidy’s things. It’s customary. Letters, bankbooks, and so on. We always do that and we don’t talk about it afterward. We don’t swipe things either. Glad to have you come along.”

  The screen door opened and Franny Peck came out, completely and exquisitely dressed for the afternoon. Another schedule broken, and for no apparent reason. She wore pale blue and flaunted dimples on every exposed surface.

  “Hello, Mr. East,” she said. “How nice of you to come.” With those few words she managed to suggest a rendezvous, carefully contrived by both of them.

  For one long moment he fought panic. Could all this be for him? He backed away hastily and nearly lost his footing.

  “Hello,” he said coldly. Then he saw that he needn’t have worried. In that time she had transferred her attention to her nails and her husband. It was nice to know that little Franny couldn’t stay with any emotion longer than a minute, grief and love included.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said to Archie. “Isn’t everything terrible? I keep hearing things and I’m scared to death.” She ruffled her curls. “Is Mike back?”

  “No. East says nobody home.”

  “That’s funny. I thought I heard somebody on their porch a while ago. I must have dreamed it. I knew they meant to stay all day, but when I heard somebody on the porch I thought they’d come back.”

  “You didn’t hear anybody,” Archie said. “You dreamed it all right.”

  She put a soft hand on Mark’s arm. “You look hot. Why don’t you let me mix you a nice drink?”

  He declined. He told her what he planned to do and saw her eyes widen thoughtfully. She looked as if she’d like nothing better than a few minutes alone with Miss Cassidy’s private papers. Archie also read his wife correctly.

  “You stay here, baby,” he said. “Have a tall one waiting for me when I get back. I’m just going along with East for the looks of the thing.”

  The Beacham cottage was a bungalow. Archie led the way through the living room to the bedrooms. They opened on a long hall, and the doors were all closed.

  “Why do people close doors in this weather!” he said. “There’s nothing to steal in these places.” He opened the second door from the end. “Here. This is Cassie’s. She and Joey have it together.”

  They went into a room hung with chintz and furnished with wicker and maple. Archie looked doubtfully at the larger of two chests. “I guess that one’s Cassie’s. The other one looks like Joey’s size.” He opened two closets. “Yep, this one’s Cassie’s too. Go right ahead and don’t mind me. I’ll sit.” He did, and turned on an electric fan.

  Mark went to work. He saw at once that he was dealing with a woman who had nothing to hide, or a great deal. The only letters were two from Beacham, without envelopes and undated, and beginning “Dear Cass.” One of them complained about the caretaker in the town house and asked her to do something about it. The other told her when to exp
ect him. There were no bankbooks, no picture postcards from friends who were having a wonderful time elsewhere; no bits of broken jewelry or tangled skeins of baby ribbon.

  There was a laundry list in the handkerchief drawer, written in a neat, characterless script that was almost like printing. If he hadn’t already known it he would have guessed that she had been a nurse. It was the kind of writing you see on charts, hanging from the foot of hospital beds.

  He handled the underclothing carefully, conscious of Archie Peck’s good-natured leer. He’ll try to tell me a story in a minute, he said to himself, and I’ll stop him because I’ve heard it. The white slips were simple, but surprisingly fine, with monograms that Pansy would have disdained: M.C.

  “Is her name Mary?” he asked.

  “Sure is. Did you detect that or was it on a letter?”

  He grinned and didn’t answer. A tray of bottles and jars caught and held his attention; creams, hand lotion, rouge, eye shadow. Eye shadow, still sealed and never used. An unopened bottle of perfume, labeled MY SIN. He slipped this into a drawer because he didn’t want Archie Peck to see it. It said too much or too little, and he began to worry about his first theory. He knew that women sometimes bought expensive perfume to cheer themselves up, and that often they didn’t use it; they kept it, and looked at it, like something hoarded for a rainy day. It was part of a private world that was almost always a happy one. Mary Cassidy was beginning to emerge and take form, and she was upsetting his calculations.

  He went back to the lingerie drawer and shamelessly hunted out the nightgowns. There were six plain white ones, matching the tailored slips, but under these he found six others. They were carefully folded in tissue paper and they were what he called fancy. He heard Archie snort with appreciation.

  “You could knock me down with a feather,” Archie said. “Wait till I tell Franny!”

  “You’ll tell her nothing,” Mark said. “There’s nothing funny about this.”

  “Sorry.” Archie looked foolish. “But I didn’t know Cassie was like that.”