Time to Die

by Hilda Lawrence

  “Well?” prompted Miss Rayner. “What was behind that performance?”

  “Miss Sheffield’s idea of a joke.” He sat down. “I miss Pee Wee. Where is he?”

  Archie answered. “He’s being punished. He shaved himself this morning—with my razor.” He laughed heartily. “Great kid. I hate to see him grow up.”

  “It wasn’t the shaving so much,” Franny said with a hurt look. “But he talked back. To me. I can’t have that. . . . Cigarette, Mr. East?”

  “No, thanks.”

  The silence fell again and he gave them a long, lazy look. Time to break it up, he told himself; time to send them about their business, whatever it was. “Don’t hang around here because of me,” he said. “I haven’t anything up my sleeve or in my pocket, and I don’t know any more than I did yesterday.” Then he added, “I think I’ll go down to New York tonight.” There was no reaction. The faces turned to his were bland and incurious

  “So soon?” Franny said. “I thought you were staying two weeks? Poor Mr. Wilcox!”

  “Don’t underestimate poor Mr. Wilcox,” he said. “And I am staying two weeks. This is just a business trip. I’ll be back before you have time to miss me.”

  “You won’t find anything in New York,” Beacham said. “You’ll be wasting time and money.” He stirred restlessly. “Do you mind if I go along?”

  “I’m afraid that won’t do,” Mark said regretfully. “Perhaps later. I’ll see Wilcox before I leave and try to arrange it for you. He may clear the way for you when I come back.”

  “I wouldn’t mind a little fling myself,” Archie said. “How long you going to be gone?”

  “Not long. I can do what I have to do in a few hours. Back again Friday morning if I’m lucky.”

  Old Sutton leaned forward and placed a gnarled hand on Mark’s knee.

  “Now, now,” said George. “We don’t want to work ourselves up. What say we go inside for a little lie down?”

  “No!” The old man straightened up defiantly. “This is one of my good days and I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m saying, too.” He gave Mark an artful look. “Friday,” he said. “So you’re coming back on Friday. That will be seven days after she first disappeared. Are you planning a pretty bit of timing for us, Mr. East? I seem to recall,” he turned to Roberta, “I seem to recall something about that. Didn’t you tell me, my dear, that Mr. East is a seven-day man? That he always winds up a murder in seven days, by the clock?”

  Roberta flushed. “I don’t know. Maybe I did. I—somebody told me that!”

  “If you’re thinking about the Crestwood business last winter,” Mark said amiably, “you’re right. That took all of seven days, but there were complications.”

  “Heavens,” said Franny. “Is this one easy? How dreadful to think of it as easy! It seems terribly confused to me. Doesn’t it, Arch?”

  Archie made a sound in his throat. He took out a package of cigarettes, looked at it, and put it back in his pocket. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s confusing all right. Say, do you think you’re going to bring Cassie’s murderer back from New York?”

  “Not exactly,” Mark said. “I expect to—.” He stopped short. He’d lost them; they were no longer listening. Only a second before they had been watching him as people at a zoo watch the lion keeper unlock a cage, but now they were looking in another direction. Even old Sutton was half out of his chair, staring straight ahead.

  He turned in astonishment. They were looking at Joey. She was coming toward them, running, her face twisted with either rage or pain, her hands clenched.

  “Look!” She screamed and flung herself into Roberta’s arms. She thrust a handful of scorched and tattered rags in Roberta’s face. “Look! Who did that? I told you I was saving them! Who did that?”

  Roberta stared dumbly. Mark took a shred of cloth from the clenched fist. He’d seen it, or its counterpart, before, cut to ribbons and hidden in a bureau drawer.

  “My scraps! Somebody tried to burn them in the incinerator! I had them locked up! I was saving them!”

  “Hush!” Roberta shook her. “I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t do it. Hush!”

  Old Sutton sank back in his chair and covered his eyes with both hands. George moved closer.

  Miss Rayner turned to Mark. “That child is going to make herself sick. What is she talking about? Who burned her scraps? This is too absurd.”

  Mark explained, carefully and lightly. Apparently the story was new to Miss Rayner, the Suttons, and George. They found it amusing, but agreed that the result could be annoying. All except old man Sutton. He put a trembling hand on Joey’s shoulder, but she shrank back and began to cry again, hopelessly.

  Beacham turned to Roberta. “This is getting beyond me. Did you put that stuff out to be collected with the trash? You knew she wanted it. . . . For God’s sake, Joey, shut up!”

  “I didn’t,” Roberta said evenly. “I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. She was probably making doll clothes and left it lying about. Ask the maid who does our place. She probably found it on the floor and threw it out.”

  Franny patted Joey’s hand. “That’s right, isn’t it, honey? You see it was only an accident. That’s what happened, isn’t it?”

  “No,” Joey said, but there was uncertainty in her voice. “I don’t make doll clothes. But—”

  “Go on, honey. But what?”

  “Well I did give some pieces to Pee Wee. He wanted them to show to the boys in his school. But I didn’t give him much. We—we were saving the rest to make a little quilt for Cassie’s dog.”

  “Josephine.” Miss Rayner took the situation firmly in hand. “Perhaps your quilting pieces are still where you put them, all safe and sound. These may be the ones you gave young Archie. Why don’t you look?”

  Joey was off like a shot.

  Miss Rayner looked at Franny. “Very odd,” she said. “The whole affair is very odd.”

  Franny picked up a strip of singed blue cotton and examined it with distaste. “I remember these shorts. Cute. You know I really think these are the pieces Pee Wee had. I don’t dare tell Joey but I do believe I threw them in the waste basket myself. It didn’t occur to me that anybody’d actually want the rags. I thought it was just some of Pee Wee’s foolishness. Don’t give me away to Joey, for heaven’s sake.” Her eyes beseeched Roberta. “She’ll hate me, poor child.”

  Mark had gathered the remaining scraps into a neat bundle. “Give,” he said to Franny. “Joey is part and parcel of a crime wave and all of this stuff rates high. Remember your own childhood. I’ll see that she gets it back.”

  Franny dropped the bedraggled scrap into his hand with a pretty grimace. “All this fuss about a lot of horrid old rags. Serve you both right if you catch a germ.”

  Miss Rayner stood up and shook out her skirts. “I said I was going to drive and I shall,” she said. “Will you join me, Nicholas?”

  Nick looked at his grandfather. The old man’s hands were gripping his chair and his eyes were closed. George shook his head.

  “Not today,” Nick said. “I think I’ll go in.” He stalked off, holding himself erect, as if squared shoulders could conceal a dragging foot.

  “Roberta?” Miss Rayner sounded plaintive.

  “No thanks.” She ran across the lawn after Nick, not in a straight line, but weaving. She looked as if she didn’t know where she was going.

  Joey came out of the cottage with a beaming face. “All there,” she announced. “In my secret hiding place.” She leaned against Miss Rayner. “Thank you for reminding me to look. I guess Pee Wee and I lost some, and what I found is it. I feel better now.”

  “I’ve got the others, Joey,” Mark said. “I’ll keep them for you.”

  Her smile grew. “There’s fire burns on them, and tomato stains. If I wanted to I could tell the kids at school that it was blood.” She saw Mark looking at her. “But I don’t want to,” she added.

  “Drive, Josephine?” Miss Rayner asked desperately. “We m
ight pick poor Mr. Kirby out of a ditch and bring him home. You owe him that much.”

  Joey’s eyes brightened. “Maybe his leg’s broke,” she said.

  “Or his neck,” Miss Rayner said primly. Hand in hand they went over to the lot where the fat bay dozed between the shafts. Joey obligingly accommodated her pace to Miss Rayner’s; instead of skipping, she treaded air vertically. Even from the rear they suggested the better type of ambulance chaser.

  Archie took out his cigarettes again and stared at them as if he’d never seen them before. “Funny,” he said.

  “What is?” Mark asked.

  “I don’t know.” He lit a cigarette and drew a deep breath.

  “It’s the heat,” Franny said. “It makes you nervous. I’ve never known such an August. I really don’t know why we stay. Why do we, Arch? We were going home soon anyway, so why don’t we go now?”

  Archie didn’t answer at once. Then, “Hey,” he said in a low voice. He was staring at old Sutton. “Hey, you George!”

  George, who had been watching Joey and Miss Rayner, turned quickly and bent over his charge. “Now we got ’em again,” he said resignedly. “What do you suppose started that?” He patted the old man’s shoulder. “Now, now,” he said.

  Old man Sutton was crying. He had covered his face with thin, mottled hands, and the easy tears of age trickled through his fingers. His head moved from side to side in a despairing plea. “No, no,” he begged. “I don’t want to see, I don’t want to see. Oh Lord, be merciful.”

  “Now you come along inside,” George soothed. “Nobody has to see nothing they don’t want to. It’s a free country. . . . Gimme a hand, Mr. East.”

  They got the old man to his feet. Beacham and Franny turned their eyes away.

  “Don’t look, Arch,” Franny murmured. “Don’t look at him, Arch. He’s awful.”

  “You want the wheel chair, pal?” asked George. “Or are you gonna strut right past them pussies on the porch like a big shot? Come on, pal, show ’em you can take it.”

  The old man clung to George’s arm, weeping silently. “I’m too old,” he sobbed. “I can’t do anything. There isn’t anything I can do.”

  “You don’t have to do nothing, pal. You just come along with George.” He took his own handkerchief, as Nick had done, and wiped away the tears.

  Mark tried to remember what Buster Spangler had said about George’s background. Club? That was it. He’d worked in an athletic club, but the steam room was too much for his lungs. That explained the pal talk. He could see George slapping fat bare backs and urging unco-operative drunks to relax, pal. And now the strong, freckled hands were guiding a sick old man, gently and firmly. He felt a warm affection for George.

  “Nick?” George was saying. “Why you know where Nick is. He went inside with the pretty girl.” He put his arm around the old man’s waist. “We’ll go in too, and have a little snifter. Lotsa ice, lotsa you-know-what. Come on, give us a smile. . . . There, that’s better.” He sent Mark a triumphant look that said he could handle them, he could. They started across the grass, an ill-assorted pair. The old man broke into a shambling run, body forward, neck outthrust, eyes turned frantically to the sky. Mercifully, they passed out of sight.

  Beacham frowned. “What brought that on, I wonder?” he said to Mark. “He was sane enough to take a crack at you a few minutes ago.”

  Mark reached over and took one of Archie’s cigarettes. “I don’t know. Does he worry much about Nick?”

  “No more than you’d expect. Nick’s all he has. . . . He ought to be in a nursing home.”

  Franny shook her head in pity. “Awful, simply awful. What was he looking for, craning his neck like that? You’d think he was watching bombs.”

  Mark looked long at the cloudless sky; the others, watching him, did the same. A few birds wheeled in the blue, but they were small ones.

  “He was looking for scavengers,” he said. “I think he was rolling time back.”

  Archie mopped his face. “Whew!” he said. “I feel as if I’d been through something. Am I nuts, or is everything kind of funny around here this morning?”

  “You’re not nuts.” Mark said.

  Franny moved over to the arm of Archie’s chair. “It’s Joey. I’m getting a little tired of all the fuss Joey’s making about those clothes. I think she’s getting too much attention, and that’s so bad for her. And you needn’t look at me like that, Mike. I told Cassie she was making a mistake, dressing Joey like that. She went too far, she really did. It isn’t—ladylike.”

  “It suits me,” Beacham said shortly.

  “You men! You let that child twist you around her fingers. Look at Mr. East. You’d think he had diamonds or something, the way he hangs on to those rags!”

  “I’m a sad case of arrested development,” Mark said. “How well do you know the Suttons, Mrs. Peck?”

  “Not at all well. Just hello, and things like that. Just Nick.”

  “You live in the same house in New York, don’t you?”

  Franny looked blank. Archie tweaked her ear and gave Mark a broad grin. “New York! They die in the walls like rats, and you don’t know they’re there until the cops come. How many people do you know in your own building, East?”

  “All right, I don’t know any. But I wondered if the Suttons came here at your suggestion?”

  Franny answered eagerly. “I couldn’t say, really I couldn’t. I may have said something about this place to Nick. I used to talk to him in the elevators. But I didn’t know Mr. Sutton at all. Did I, Arch?”

  “If you say you didn’t, you didn’t. I guess Roberta talked the place up, eh Mike? Nick and Roberta used to go to the same parties, you know, nice little parties with a bunch of chaperons. Say,” his voice rose, “are you trying to make something out of this?”

  “Not a thing. The old man worries me, that’s all. I thought that if you were friends you might persuade him to try a sanitarium. George and Nick mean well, but—”

  Franny gave him a look of horror. “Oh no, I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to anybody. He makes me sort of sick, I can’t even bear to look at him, but I wouldn’t ever—I wouldn’t—. Archie, why don’t we go home? Why don’t we?”

  Archie patted her hand. “We’ll go when I get ready,” he said calmly. “I like it here.”

  Mark got up briskly and turned to Beacham. “I’m going to pack. It won’t take me five minutes. Will you drive me down to Bear River? I want to talk to Wilcox before I go.”

  “What’s the rush? What about lunch? And you can’t get a train now. Not until early evening.”

  “I’ll pick up some food somewhere, and I’ve got some odds and ends to clear up before I go. I think I’ll ask Wilcox to release Miss Cassidy’s body. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but why? You won’t let me leave, and I can’t bury her here.”

  “I’ll fix it so that you can take her to New York when I get back. Maybe the Pecks can go along with you. Make a nice little party of it.” He strode off, whistling.

  Franny looked at Beacham. “Mike, what’s he going to do in New York? You ought to make him tell you. You’re paying him, aren’t you? Well, you ought to make him tell you.”

  Beacham shrugged. “I can’t,” he said. He went over to the lot without another word and backed his car out. In less than ten minutes Mark joined him and they drove off.

  “Can I talk to Wilcox?” Beacham asked.

  “No. I’ll do that. He’ll make all the preliminary arrangements and notify you. Nothing for you to do but sit tight.”

  After a pause Beacham said, “Are you on to something?”

  “I think so.”

  “But why New York? I don’t want to make you sore, East, but I think you’re off the track. I can’t—tie it in.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she had no life there, outside of my own family. She lived with us for nearly nine years, and we always knew where she was and what she was doing. Don’t go,
East.” He looked frightened. “Suppose something happens here while you’re away?”

  “I’m taking care of that. You want Miss Cassidy’s murderer caught, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course! But I think this trip is a waste of time.”

  “Do you? I don’t.”

  “Then why won’t you tell me what you’re doing? It’ll be safe with me. I’m paying you to investigate, and that ought to prove I mean business.”

  “No. But I’ll tell you this, and it isn’t much. I think she was killed by someone she knew—or by someone who knew her.” He let this sink in. “Someone who knew her,” he repeated. “Someone who walked up to her in the dark and said, ‘Hello, Miss Cassidy.’ Or maybe it was, ‘Hello, Mary.’”

  Beacham was silent. “That could be anybody,” he said finally.

  “Yes, it could. But why did it happen when it did? She’d been coming up here every summer for five years and she got along all right with the regulars, the staff, and the townspeople. This year she came on June first, with the same people she came with before. Then why, late in August, does someone decide she must die? Why August, instead of June or July? A newcomer? It looks like that, doesn’t it? A recent arrival at the hotel or a visitor in town. But I don’t believe it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Wilcox and I have checked all the new ones. And a more harmless lot I never saw. Thrifty souls who pinch pennies all winter to pay for a few days at a summer resort; boys and girls who work in the cities, coming back for a week or two to sponge off relatives. Most of them never heard of her and none of them remember seeing her. And Miss Cassidy wasn’t the type to invite murder from a stranger. She didn’t attract attention or give people ideas. I’ve asked questions until I’m hoarse and all I get is that she was ‘a good creature.’ That’s been the invariable answer. Nobody says she was pretty, or clever, or fun. All of the usual post-mortems are missing. Nobody says she was nice to old people, or had lovely eyes, or quotes her opinion on anything.”

  “What do you think, then?”

  “I think that all at once she was dangerous to somebody. All at once. There’s nothing here to show me why. Her routine hadn’t varied, she’d had no unusual mail. So—a little light on the past is indicated. Hence—New York.”