The Cases of Susan Dare

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  A figure, black in the shadow, was moving with infinite stealth over the sill.

  “From the porch, of course,” thought one part of Susan’s mind. “There are stairs somewhere; there must be.” And then she realized coldly what a dangerous thing she had undertaken to do.

  But it was done, and there she was in Felicia’s place. And she must get one clear glimpse of that figure’s face.

  It was so dark in the shadows by the window. Susan realized she must close her eyes and did so, feigning sleep and listening with taut nerves.

  A rustle and a pause.

  It was more than flesh and blood could bear. Surely that figure was far enough away from the window by this time so that it could not escape before Susan had a look at its face.

  She moved, and there was still silence. She flung one arm outward lazily and sat up as if sleepily and opened her eyes.

  “Is that you, Mrs. Denisty?” she asked drowsily.

  And looked at the figure and directly into a revolver.

  There was to be no pretense then. Susan’s vague plan of talk, of excuses on both sides, collapsed.

  “If you shoot,” she said in a clear low voice that miraculously did not tremble, “the whole house will be here before you can escape.”

  “I know that.” The reply was equally low and clear. “But you know too much, my dear.”

  The last thing Susan remembered before that pandemonium of struggle began was the revolver being placed quite deliberately upon the green satin eiderdown. Then all knowledge was lost, and she was fighting—fighting for balance, fighting for breath, fighting against blackness, against faintness, against death. If she could get the revolver—but she could not. She could not even gasp for breath, for there were iron hands upon her throat. She twisted and thrust and got free and had a great gasp of air and tried to scream, and then hands were there again, choking the scream.

  She kept on pulling at those hands—pulling at something—pulling—but it was easy to drop into that encircling blackness—easy to become part of it—part of it …

  Somewhere, somehow, in some curious, dim nether world very much time had passed. And someone was insisting that she return, forcing her to come back, making her open her eyes and listen and leave that dizzy place of blackness.

  “She’s opened her eyes,” cried a voice with a curious break in it. Susan stirred, became curious, opened her eyes again, saw a confused circle of faces bending over her, remembered, and screamed:

  “Let me go … let me go …”

  “It’s all right—it’s all right, Susan. Look at me. See, I’m Jim. You are all right. Look at me.”

  She opened her eyes again and knew that Jim was there, and Lieutenant Mohrn and a great many other people. And she knew she was being wrapped in the eiderdown, and that Lieutenant Mohrn and Jim made a sort of a chair with their arms and carried her out of the room and down the stairs. And then all at once she was in Jim’s car, warm and snug.

  “I’ll get the story from her when she’s better,” said Jim shortly to Lieutenant Mohrn, who stood at the side of the car. Susan, in a very luxury of tears, was crying her heart out.

  Jim let her cry and drove very swiftly. His profile looked remarkably grim. He said nothing even when they reached Susan’s house, beyond ordering Huldah to fix some hot milk.

  The story of the Easter image ended, as, for Susan, it had begun, in her own small library with a fire blazing cheerfully and the dog at her feet.

  “What happened?” she said abruptly.

  “Don’t talk.”

  “But I must talk.”

  He looked at her.

  “All right,” he said. “But don’t talk too much. We got in at the window. Saw the open window on the upper porch and heard—sounds. Got there just in time.” He looked back at the fire and was suddenly very grim again.

  “Where is—she?” whispered Susan.

  “Where she belongs. Look here, if you must talk, Sue, how did you know it was that woman? She confessed; had to. She had the gun, you know. The one that killed the butler.”

  “It couldn’t be anyone else,” Susan said slowly. “But there wasn’t any evidence.”

  “Huh?” said Jim, in a startled manner.

  “I mean,” said Susan hurriedly, “there was only my own feeling, the things I saw and heard and felt about the people involved. It was all intangible, you see, until I put the things I knew on paper—chronologically, as they revealed themselves. Then all at once there was a tangible answer. But there weren’t ever any direct material clues. Except the gun, there at the last. And the attack upon Felicia.”

  A paper rustled in Jim’s hand.

  “Are those my notes?” asked Susan interestedly.

  “Yes—Lieutenant Mohrn wanted you to explain them—”

  “Very well,” she said. “But it’s rather like a—a—”

  “Problem in algebra,” suggested Jim, smiling.

  “No,” said Susan hastily. She had never been happy with algebraic terms. “It was more like a—a patchwork quilt. Just small unrelated scraps, you know, and a great many of them. And then you put them together in the only way they’ll all fit, and there you have a pattern.”

  Jim read:

  “ ‘Noise in night that must have been crash of Venetian glass and someone brushed my door; thus person breaking glass probably one of household.’ What on earth is that?”

  “Part of the campaign against Felicia,” said Susan. “It was evident from the first that there was a deliberate and very cruel campaign in progress against Felicia. The glass broken, her flowers dying always (William had said, she told me, something about acid in the water), her kitten, the knitting—it was all part of the plot. Go on.”

  “ ‘Why is Felicia the focus of attack?’ Obviously someone wanted her either to do something that she had to be forced to do, or wanted her out of the way entirely.”

  “Both,” said Susan and shivered.

  “ ‘Gladstone has a roving eye.’ ”

  “Kisses maids,” said Susan. “Kisses anything feminine in a uniform.”

  “Did he—” said Jim, threatening.

  “Slightly,” said Susan, and added hurriedly: “The whole thing, though, was centered about the Easter devil.”

  “The what!” said Jim.

  She told him, then, the whole story.

  “So you see,” she said finally. “It seemed to me that this was the situation. Mrs. Denisty ruled the household, controlled the purse strings, and was against divorce. Someone was deliberately playing on Felicia’s nerves by threatening her with the Easter devil and by contriving all sorts of subtle ways of persecution. In this campaign the murder of the butler began to look like nothing more than an incident, for evidently the campaign was continuing. Then, when I found that the bridge had been tampered with (you can see for yourself tomorrow)—there’s a place where it is quite evident; the nails holding the planks there in the middle have been taken out and then replaced. It would have been a very bad fall, for it’s just over the deepest point of the ravine—and I realized that owing to the French lessons Felicia would have been the first to cross the bridge in the morning, was, in fact, the only one in the household who crossed it daily and at a regular time. I knew thus that the campaign against Felicia had already reached its climax once, and yet had been, for some reason, interrupted.”

  “Then you think William was murdered because he saw too much?”

  “And because he would have told. And his necessary murder, of course, delayed the plot against Felicia. Delayed it until the murderer realized that it could be used as a tool.”

  “Tool?”

  “A reason for what was to appear to be Felicia’s suicide.”

  Jim looked at the paper and read: “‘Dorothy inquires about William; Dorothy seems sincere only when she talks of Mother Denisty ruling the house. Why? Dorothy hints that Mother Denisty knows something of William’s murder. Why? Is this smoke screen or sheer hatred of Mrs. Denisty? Dorothy nerv
ous and quick-spoken until I lead her to spot where William was killed; is then poised and calm. Dorothy hints at Felicia becoming suicide. Why?’ ”

  “Exactly,” said Susan. “Why, if not because she’s keenly interested in the police inquiry—because she resents Mrs. Denisty’s influence, and thus in some way Mrs. Denisty must have opposed Dorothy’s own purposes—because she knows too much of the murder herself to permit herself to be anything but extremely guarded and careful in speech and manner when the subject is brought up. When you add up everything, there’s just one answer. Just one pattern in which everything fits. And the knitting brought Dorothy directly into it again; that is, none of the family could have pulled out the knitting, the image didn’t do it, I felt sure Felicia hadn’t, and that left only Dorothy who was free to come and go in the house. But Gladstone pretended publicly that he wasn’t afraid of the image, and told Felicia privately that he was afraid of it. Believed in its power for evil. You see, Gladstone had to make an issue of something. So he chose the Easter image. It was at the same time a point of disagreement between him and Felicia and a medium through which to work upon Felicia—it’s nothing but a painted piece of wood—but I don’t like it myself,” said Susan. “He couldn’t have chosen a better tool. But it was Dorothy who murdered and was ready to murder again.”

  “Then Gladstone—”

  “Gladstone wanted a divorce, but wanted to drive Felicia to ask for it herself, owing to his mother’s feeling about divorce. Dorothy had to be in the conspiracy, for she was strongly and directly concerned. But there was this difference: Gladstone (who must have thought he had hit on an exceedingly ingenious plan) only wanted to induce Felicia to leave him. But Dorothy had other plans. It wasn’t fear that Felicia saw in her eyes: it was hate. I knew that when she talked to me of Felicia’s possible suicide. There was the strangest impression that she was paving the way, so to speak; it was then that I realized Felicia’s danger. Yet I had no proof. It was, as I said, altogether intangible. Nothing definite. Except, of course, the bridge. If I’d had only one real, material clue I shouldn’t have worried so. The footsteps on the bridge, though, were a help, because then I had a link between Dorothy and Gladstone, and I hadn’t had that—except intangibly—up till then. But I also realized then that he must have told Dorothy the things Felicia had said to me, that Dorothy would realize that it was dangerous to permit Felicia to talk and that Dorothy would probably act at once. Would carry out the plan that had once been interrupted.”

  “But you were not sure of this. You had no proof.”

  “Proof?” said Susan. “Why, no, there was no proof. And no evidence. But I would not have dared deny the evidence of my—intangibles.”

  Jim grinned rather apologetically at her. “After all,” he said, “there’s plenty of proof now. They think Dorothy intended to kill Felicia and leave the gun with Felicia’s fingerprints on it, thus indicating suicide and also that Felicia had shot the butler herself—hence her possession of the gun, hence also the suicide. Remorse. Of course, there were a hundred ways for Dorothy to have secured the gun.”

  He paused and looked thoughtfully and soberly into the fire.

  “Intangibles,” he said presently. “But not so darned intangible after all. But all the same, young woman, you are going to get the worst scolding you ever had in all your life. The chance you took—” He stopped abruptly and looked away from Susan, and Susan smoothed back her hair.

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “But I’ve got to go back there.”

  “Go back!” cried Jim Byrne explosively. “There?”

  “Yes, I forgot to burn the Easter image,” said Susan Dare.

  The dog grunted and stretched. The fire was warm, the house at peace, the woman at home where she ought to be, and she hadn’t seen the scratch on his nose after all.

  THE CLARET STICK

  SUSAN DARE ROSE FROM the stage and brushed dust from her skirt. Death in its primary form is never pleasant, and this death was particularly ugly. She felt a queer desire to move the man at her feet so that his battered head no longer hung over into the footlights.

  She felt ill and terribly shaken. No wonder that Adelaide Cholster was uttering one hysterical sob after another.

  Adelaide Cholster. Susan’s eyes went thoughtfully to the small group huddled at the other side of the stage. Adelaide was the faded little blonde—sister, was it?—of the murdered man.

  The brown-faced woman in the dark knitted suit, who was so terribly controlled, was his wife, then. Jane they had called her. Jane Cholster.

  Susan looked again at the man sprawled upon the stage. He was a large man, heavy but well proportioned. He was blond and probably older than his sister and wife. Of course, the heavy make-up on his mouth and chin was a little confusing.

  Susan forced herself to look at his face again. His face was unpowdered, and his eyes had not been touched; his mouth, however, was strongly outlined in soft crimson, and a small beard made of crêpe hair had been fastened to his chin. He had been, then, ready for rehearsal when he was murdered. The blow that had killed him had to be one of enormous power.

  “Killed by blunt instrument,” thought Susan and looked around the stage. It was set simply for an exterior, a balcony scene, with two long French windows opening at either side upon the balcony of which the footlights defined the limits.

  There were a table and two chairs near one of the windows, but neither table nor chairs were heavy enough to deal the blow that had crushed out that hearty, strong life.

  She looked again at the small group across the stage. Adelaide was sobbing now in the arms of the slim, dark young man—the one who had called himself Clare Dickenson and whom the others called Dickie.

  Jane Cholster was lighting a cigarette, and her brown face, outlined clearly in the small light that the other man was holding for her, looked set. Her full-lipped, strong mouth, however, puffed steadily, her topaz eyes reflected a gleam from the light; Susan realized suddenly that she was an extremely attractive woman, although the charm lay in something aside from beauty. She glanced at the sobbing Adelaide and turned again to the man next her. “How much longer do you think it will be, Tom? Surely, they’ve had time to find the murderer. He must be somewhere in the theater.”

  Tom (he had given his name to the constable as Tom Remy, Susan remembered) shrugged and lit a cigarette for himself. “No telling,” he said.

  Beyond the footlights was a brightly lighted cavern that contained rows and rows of empty seats. Away at the back stood a man on guard—a townsman hastily deputized by the undeniably flustered constable. Below the stage now and then could be heard a rumble of heavy voices, or the bang of a door, or footsteps. They were searching the dressing rooms, the furnace and storage rooms, then.

  The Little Theater movement, thought Susan rather dryly, must have been very successful to permit the use of so large a theater—large, at least, for the size of the town. And ambitious! She remembered the placards she had seen in the crowded little drugstore where she and Jim had stopped for directions to reach the theater—large handsomely printed placards announcing the Little Theater’s newest production which was to be Private Lives and which was to open the following night for a three-night run.

  Well, it wouldn’t open.

  The Cholsters—the murdered man, Jane Cholster, the sister—were all of them exactly the type to go in strongly and rather cleverly for amateur theatricals. They were quite evidently people of means, of leisure, and probably an intelligent understanding of the arts, including the art of playmaking.

  The man they called Dickie was the director. He would be, then, professional: a man of experience as an actor and a director, paid probably a generous sum by the members of the Little Theater group. He had a thin dark face; clever dark eyes, and an air of quick authoritative efficiency.

  Tom Remy, who stood quietly smoking, was a little more difficult to orient. He was tall, stooped, grayish around the temples, and so far had said practically nothin
g.

  All of the faces except the director’s showed signs of make-up, though Jane Cholster had wiped her face thoroughly with her handkerchief. Adelaide lifted her head and sobbed, and Jane Cholster said rather sharply: “Stop that, Adelaide.”

  “Why don’t they get a doctor?” sobbed Adelaide.

  “There’s no use getting a doctor now,” said Tom Remy quietly. “The constable is doing everything he can.”

  “They’re trying to get the murderer before he has a chance to escape,” said Dickie quickly and in an efficient manner. “He must be somewhere in the building. The only possible way of escape would have been by the front door, and he didn’t go that way.”

  Adelaide turned a small puffy face, on which heavy make-up was grotesquely streaked with tears, toward the other side of the stage and saw Susan. “Who’s that?” she said.

  Jane’s topaz eyes gave Susan a cool glance.

  “She came in with the reporter.”

  “Reporter!” cried Adelaide. “What reporter?”

  “The reporter from the Record. He was in Kittiwake for a story about something or other—spring floods probably, nothing else has happened here—and heard about the murder.”

  Dickie turned quickly to Tom Remy.

  “Oh, is he the fellow that came in with the constable?” His quick clever eyes darted to meet Susan’s. “Are you a reporter, too?”

  “No. My name is Dare.” She looked at Jane. “May I do anything to help you?”

  “Nothing, thank you,” said Jane. She glanced at the others and said, as if not wholly conscious of them or of Susan: “Miss Cholster. Mr. Remy. Mr. Dickenson.”

  Something banged heavily below, and Adelaide cried: “What are they doing?” There were footsteps on the stairway off toward their right, resounding heavily and rousing dull murmurs that were echoes.

  “I wonder if they’ve found anybody,” said Tom Remy. And then the three men were in the wings and approaching the stage again, the constable, red and puffing a bit, in the lead, an assistant (also, Susan suspected, hastily deputized) following him, and Jim Byrne bringing up the rear.