“No!” cried David. “No!”
“She’s dead,” said Jessica.
Susan said as crisply as she could: “Why don’t you call a doctor?”
Jessica’s silk rustled, and she turned to give Susan a long cold look. “There’s no need to call a doctor. Obviously she’s dead.”
“The police, then,” said Susan softly. “Obviously, too—she’s been murdered.”
“The police,” cried Jessica scornfully. “Turn over my own cousin—my own nephew—to the police. Never.”
“I’ll call them,” Susan said crisply, and whirled and left them with their dead.
On the silent stairway her knees began to shake again. So this was what the house had been waiting for. Murder! And this was why Caroline had been afraid. What, then, had she known? Where was the revolver that had shot Marie? There was nothing of the kind to be seen in the room.
The air was hot—the house terribly still—and she, Susan Dare, was hunting for a telephone—calling a number—talking quite sensibly on the whole—and all the time it was entirely automatic action on her part. It was automatic, even when she called and found Jim Byrne.
“I’m here,” she said. “At the Wrays’ Marie has been murdered—”
“My God!” said Jim and slammed up the receiver.
The house was so hot. Susan sat down weakly on the bottom step and huddled against the newel post and felt extremely ill. If she were really a detective, of course, she would go straight upstairs and wring admissions out of them while they were shaken and confused and before they’d had time to arrange their several defenses. But she wasn’t a detective, and she had no wish to be, and all she wanted just then was to escape. Something moved in the shadows under the stairs—moved. Susan flung her hands to her throat to choke back a scream, and the little monkey whirled out, peered at her worriedly, then darted up the window curtain and sat nonchalantly on the heavy wooden rod.
Her coat and hat were upstairs. She couldn’t go out into the cold and fog without them—and Jim Byrne was on the way. If she could hold out till he got there—
David was coming down the stairs.
“She says it’s all right to call the police,” he said in a tight voice.
“I’ve called them.”
He looked down at her and suddenly sat on the bottom step beside her.
“It’s been hell,” he said quite simply. “But I didn’t think of—murder.” He stared at nothing, and Susan could not bear the look of horror on his young face.
“I understand,” she said, wishing she did understand.
“I didn’t,” he said. “Until—just lately. I knew—oh, since I was a child I’ve known I must—”
“Must what?” said Susan gravely.
He flushed quickly and was white again.
“Oh, it’s a beastly thing to say. I was the only—child, you know. And I grew up knowing that I dared have no—no favorite—you see? If there’d been more of us—or if the aunts had married and had their own children—but I didn’t understand how—how violent—” the word stopped in his throat, and he coughed and went on—“how strongly they felt—”
“Who?”
“Why, Aunt Jessica, of course. And Aunt Marie. And Aunt Caroline.”
“Too many aunts,” said Susan dryly. “What was it they were violent about?”
“The house. And each other. And—and other things. Oh, I’ve always known, but it was all—hidden, you know. The surface was—all right.”
Susan groped through the fog. The surface was all right, he’d said. But the fog parted for a rather sickening instant and gave her an ugly glimpse of an abyss below.
“Why was Caroline afraid?” said Susan.
“Caroline?” he said, staring at her. “Afraid!” His blue eyes were brilliant with anxiety and excitement. “See here,” he said, “if you think it was Caroline who killed Marie, it wasn’t. She couldn’t. She’d never have dared. I m-mean—” he was stammering in his excitement—“I mean, Caroline wouldn’t hurt a fly. And Caroline wouldn’t have opposed Marie about anything. Marie—you don’t know what Marie was like.”
“Exactly what happened in the upstairs hall?”
“You mean—when the shot—”
“Yes.”
“Why, I—I was in my room—no, not quite—I was nearly at the door. And I heard the shot. And it’s queer, but I believe—I believe I knew right away that it was a revolver shot. It was as if I had expected—” he checked himself. “But I hadn’t expected—I—” he stopped; dug his fists desperately into his pockets and was suddenly firm and controlled—“but I hadn’t actually expected it, you understand.”
“Then when you heard the shot you turned, I suppose, and looked.”
“Yes. Yes, I think so. Anyway, there was Caroline in the hall, too. I think she was screaming. We were both running. I thought of Marie—I don’t know why. But Caroline clutched at me and held me. She didn’t want me to go into Marie’s room. She was terrified. And then I think you were there and Jessica. Were you?”
“Yes. And there was no one else in the hall? No one came from Marie’s room?”
His face was perplexed, terribly puzzled.
“Nobody.”
“Except—Caroline?”
“But I tell you it couldn’t have been Caroline.”
The doorbell began to ring—shrill sharp peals that stabbed the shadows and the thickness of the house.
“It’s the police,” thought Susan, catching her breath sharply. The boy beside her had straightened and was staring at the wide old door that must be opened.
Behind them on the padded stairway something rustled. “It’s the police,” said Jessica harshly. “Let them in.”
Susan had not realized that there would be so many of them. Or that they would do so much. Or that an inquiry could last so long. She had not realized either how amazingly thorough they were with their photographs and their fingerprinting and their practised and rapid and incredibly searching investigation. She was a little shocked and more than a little awed, sheerly from witnessing at first hand and with her own eyes what police actually did when there was murder.
Yet her own interview with Lieutenant Mohrn was not difficult. He was brisk, youthful, kind, and Jim Byrne was there to explain her presence. She had been very thankful to see Jim Byrne, who arrived on the heels of the police.
“Tell the police everything you know,” he had said.
“But I don’t know anything.”
And it was Lieutenant Mohrn who, oddly enough, brought Susan into the very center and hub of the whole affair.
But that was later—much later. After endless inquiry, endless search, endless repetitions, endless conferences. Endless waiting in the gloomy dining room with portraits of dead and vanished Wrays staring fixedly down upon policemen. Upon Susan. Upon servants whose alibis had, Jim had informed her, been immediately and completely established.
It was close to one o’clock when Jim came to her again.
“See here,” he said. “You look like a ghost. Have you had anything to eat?”
“No,” said Susan.
A moment later she was in the kitchen, accepting provender that Jim Byrne brought from the icebox.
“You do manage to get things done,” she said. “I thought newspaper men wouldn’t even be permitted in the house.”
“Oh, the police are all right—they’ll give a statement to all of us—treat us right, you know. More cake? And don’t forget I’m in on this case. Have you found out yet what Caroline was afraid of?”
“No. I’ve not had a chance to talk to her. Jim, who did it?”
He smiled mirthlessly.
“You’re asking me! They’ve established, mainly, three things: the servants are clear; there was no one in the house besides Jessica and David and Caroline.”
“And me,” said Susan with a small shudder. “And—Marie.”
“And you,” agreed Jim imperturbably. “And Marie. Third, they can’t find
the gun. Jessica and you alibi each other. That leaves David and Caroline. Well—which of them did it? And why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But, Jim, I’m frightened.”
“Frightened! With the house full of police? Why?”
“I don’t know,” said Susan again. “It’s nothing I can explain. It’s just—a queer kind of menace. Somewhere—somehow—in this house. It’s like Marie—only Marie is dead and this is alive. Horribly alive.” Susan knew she was incoherent and that Jim was staring at her worriedly, and suddenly the swinging door behind her opened, and Susan’s heart leaped to her throat before the policeman spoke.
“The lieutenant wants you both, please,” he said.
As they passed through the hall, the clock struck a single note that vibrated long afterward. It had been, then, eight hours and more since she had entered that wide door and been met by Jessica.
Lights were on everywhere now, and there were policemen, and the old-fashioned sliding doors between the hall and the drawing room had been closed, and they shut in the sound of voices.
“In there,” said the policeman and drew back one of the doors.
It was entirely silent in the heavily furnished room. Lights were on in the chandelier above and it was eerily, dreadfully bright. The streaks showed in the faded brown velvet curtains at the windows, and the wavery lines in the mantelpiece mirror, and the worn spots in the old Turkish rug. And every gray shadow on Jessica’s face was darker, and the fine, sharp lines around Caroline’s mouth and her haunted eyes showed terribly clear, and there were two bright scarlet spots in David’s cheeks. Lieutenant Mohrn had lost his look of youth and freshness and looked the weary, graying forty that he was. A detective in plain clothes was sitting on the small of his back in one of the slippery plush chairs.
The door slid together again behind them, and still no one spoke, although Jessica turned to look at them. And, oddly, Susan had a feeling that everything in that household had changed. Yet Jessica had not actually changed; her eyes met Susan’s with exactly the same cold, remote command. Then what was it that was different?
Caroline—Susan’s eyes went to the thin bent figure, huddled tragically on the edge of her chair. Her fine hair was in wisps about her face; her mouth tremulous.
Why, of course! It was not a change. It was merely that both Jessica and Caroline had become somehow intensified. They were both etched more sharply. The shadows were deeper, the lines blacker.
Lieutenant Mohrn turned to Caroline. “This is the young woman you refer to, isn’t it, Miss Caroline?”
Caroline’s eyes fluttered to Susan, avoided Jessica, and returned fascinated to Lieutenant Mohrn. “Yes—yes.”
David whirled from the window and crossed to stand directly above Caroline.
“Look here, Aunt Caroline, you realize, that whatever you tell Miss Dare, she’ll be bound to tell the police? It’s just the same thing—you know that, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes, David. That’s what—he—said.”
Lieutenant Mohrn cleared his throat abruptly and a bit uncomfortably.
“She understands that, Wray. I don’t know why she won’t tell me. But she won’t. And she says she will talk to Miss Dare.”
“Caroline,” said Jessica, “is a fool.” She moved rigidly to look at Caroline, who refused to meet her eyes, and said: “You’ll find Caroline’s got nothing to tell.”
Caroline’s eyes went wildly to the floor, to the curtains, to David, and both her hands fluttered to her trembling mouth.
“I’d rather talk to her,” she said.
“Caroline,” said Jessica, “you are behaving irrationally. You have been like this for days. You brought this—this Susan Dare into the house. You lied to me about her—told me it was a daughter of a school friend. I might have known you had no such intimate friend!” She shot a dark look at Susan and swept back to Caroline. “Now you’ve told the police that you were afraid and that you telephoned to a perfect stranger—”
“Jim Byrne,” fluttered Caroline. “His father and my father—”
“That means nothing,” said Jessica harshly. “Don’t interrupt me. And then this young woman comes into our house. Why? Answer me, Caroline. Why?”
“I—was afraid—”
“Of what?”
“I—I—” Caroline stood, motioning frantically with her hands—“I’ll tell. I’ll tell Miss Dare. She’ll know what to do.”
“This is the situation, Miss Dare,” said Lieutenant Mohrn patiently. “Miss Caroline has admitted that she was alarmed about something and why you are here. She has also admitted that there was an urgent and pressing problem that was causing dissension in the household. But she’s—very tired, as you see—a little nervous, perhaps. And she says she is willing to tell, but that she prefers talking to you.” He smiled wearily. “At any rate (it’s asking a great deal of you), but will you hear what she has to tell? It’s—a whim, of course.” There was something friendly and kind in the look he gave Caroline. “But we’ll humor her. And she understands—”
“I understand,” said Caroline with a flash of decision. “But I don’t want—anyone but Susan Dare.”
“Nonsense, Caroline,” said Jessica, “I have a right to hear. So has David.”
Caroline’s eyes, glancing this way and that to avoid Jessica, actually met Jessica’s gaze, and she succumbed at once.
“Yes, Jessica,” she said obediently.
“All right, then. Now, we are going outside, Miss Caroline. You can say anything you want to say. And remember we are here only to help.” Lieutenant Mohrn paused at the sliding door, and Susan saw a look flash between him and Jim Byrne. She also saw Jim Byrne’s hand go to his pocket and the brief little nod he gave the lieutenant.
“Do you mind if I stay in the room but out of earshot, Miss Jessica?” Jim asked.
“No,” Jessica agreed grudgingly.
“We’ll be just outside,” said Lieutenant Mohrn, speaking to Jim. Something in his voice added: “Ready for any kind of trouble.” She saw, too, the look in Jim’s eyes as he glanced at her and then back to the lieutenant, and all at once she understood the meaning of that look and the meaning of his gesture toward his pocket. He had a revolver there, then. And the lieutenant was promising protection. But that meant that they were going to leave her alone with the Wrays. Alone with three people, one of whom was a murderer.
But she was not entirely alone. Jim Byrne was there, in the far corner, his eyes wary and alert and his smile unperturbed.
“Very well now, Caroline,” said Jessica. “Let’s hear your precious story.”
“It’s about the house,” began Caroline, looking at Susan as if she dared not permit her glance to swerve. “The police dragged it out of me—”
Jessica laughed harshly and interrupted.
“So that’s your important evidence. I can tell it with less foolishness. It is simply that we have had an offer of a considerable sum of money for the purchase of this house. We happen to hold this house—all four of us—with equal interest. Thus it is necessary for us to agree before we can sell or otherwise dispose of the property. That’s really all there is to it. Caroline and David wanted to sell. I didn’t care.”
“But Marie didn’t want to sell,” cried Caroline. “And Marie was stronger than any of us.”
“Miss Caroline,” said Susan softly. “Why were you afraid?”
For a dreadful second or two there was utter silence.
Then, as dreadfully, Caroline collapsed into her chair again and put her hands over her mouth and moaned.
But Jessica was ready to speak.
“She had nothing to be afraid of. She’s merely nervous—very nervous. I know, Caroline, what you have been doing with every cent of money you could get your silly hands upon. But I intended to do nothing about it.”
Caroline had given up her effort to avoid Jessica. She was staring at her like a terrified, panting bird.
“You—know—” she gasped in a thin
, high voice.
“Of course, I know. You are completely transparent, Caroline. I know that you were gambling away your inheritance—or at least what you could touch—”
“Gambling!” cried David. “What do you mean?”
“Stocks,” said Jessica harshly. “Speculative stocks. It got her like a fever. Caroline has always been susceptible. So you have no money at all left, Caroline? Is that why you were so anxious to sell the house? You surely haven’t been fool enough to buy on margin.”
Caroline’s distraught hands confessed what her trembling lips could not speak.
David was suddenly standing beside her, his hand on her thin shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Aunt Carrie,” he said. “It’ll be all right. You’ve got enough in trust to take care of you.”
Over Caroline’s head he looked at Jessica. The look or the tenderness in his voice when he spoke to Caroline seemed to infuriate Jessica, and she arose amid a rustling of silk and stood there tall and rigid, facing him.
“Why don’t you offer to take care of her yourself, David?” she said gratingly.
David was white, and his eyes brilliant with pain, but he replied steadily: “You know why, Aunt Jessica. And you know why she gambled, too. We were both trying to make enough money to get away. To get away from this house. To get away from—” He stopped.
“From what, David?” said Jessica.
“From Marie,” said David desperately. “And from you.”
Jessica did not move. Her face did not change. There was only a queer luminous flash in her eyes. After a horribly long moment she said:
“I loved you far better than Marie loved you, David. You feared her. I intended to give you money when you came to me. You had to come to me. You would have begged me for help—me, Jessica! Why did you or Caroline kill Marie? Was it because she refused to sell the house? I know why she refused. She pretended that it was sentiment; that she, the adopted daughter, was more a Wray than any of us. But it wasn’t that, really. She hated us. And we wanted to sell. That is, you and Caroline wanted to sell for your own selfish interests. I—it made no difference to me.”
Caroline sobbed and cried jerkily:
The Cases of Susan Dare Page 5