Diagnosis

by Rufus King

  Hangaway seemed suddenly to lose interest in them. He was thinking: Now what does that black ape want?

  “I’ve telephoned for the police, ma’am.”

  “Sheffield—go—go—”

  He stood uncertainly in the hall doorway, with a great sense of dignity all touching him, with his vague eyes staring from their distant past into a far more distant future, out of that black and old, serene face.

  “So you have phoned for the police.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Hangaway.”

  Hangaway went to a window and looked out upon the dark, snow-laced sky, on the white silence of the ground, into the whole deathlike hush of the shrouded night. There was no hurry. Even if the police had been able to make it with dog teams they could no more put a finger on him than they could on an elemental force. Still it was irritating. These bothersome little people all harassing him.

  “You—Sheffield—come over here.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “No, come right over. Come real close.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I guess you’re pretty pleased with yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir.”

  “I don’t mean about the police.”

  “No sir.”

  “I mean about coining in here like this.” Hangaway’s voice slipped into a sneering purr. “To offer your protection to the ladies.”

  Hangaway thoughtfully considered Sheffield’s old face for quite a while. It seemed all lighted up, strangely, through its blackness. A dumb and patient glow. Hangaway sank his fist with plenty of satisfaction into the face.

  He left the room.

  * * * *

  The chair was a recipe too: tilted at an angle and its top wedged under the knob of the door. A Chippendale guardian between them and Mr. Hangaway until after a battle through the snows, the police would arrive.

  Lily pressed a cold cloth on Sheffield’s face, which was a dark oval on her lap, and thought: That’s a foolish notion and I guess I must be crazy. I wanted him out of here more than anything on earth. But I’ve got to be honest. I felt that way about him, in terror about him, only up to the moment when I didn’t know what he had come here for. When I thought he was simply driven by a drug-crazed lust for attack and violence. Then he started in on Detroit. That was the time when it really got bad. You could always push a thing a little way back into your mind as long as you really didn’t know. While actual words still hadn’t been spoken like a plain No or Yes.

  Or before you had been faced with a positive lie.

  “Darling—a cold one, please.”

  Nan took the towel.

  “Yes, Mother.”

  The lie was such an inescapable light. Nan had known Parne. It shone its bitter illuminating gleam on all the rest. Nan had shot Parne, because certainly Mr. Hangaway had not. You could pin a good deal on addicts, but there was a limit.

  There could be no sane or insane reason for Hangaway to have come to the house in the morning, to have returned for his obscure purpose tonight (with its inclusive assault on the law) if he had killed Parne. Because he would have gotten what he wanted at the time of the murder. What he wanted and what Parne had wanted.

  What Nan still had?

  “Thank you, darling.”

  “Mother.”

  “Darling?”

  “Oh, why don’t they hurry? Why don’t they get here?”

  “They will, dear. The roads. The drifts, I imagine.”

  The photograph loomed impressively in Lily’s sickened thoughts: the Endermann & Endermann’s Detroit branch cabinet portrait of Nan, with her hair on the top of her head, with a younger look of the summer-in-Cleveland period of two years ago. It was important, the picture. It had to be. Otherwise Mr. Parne wouldn’t have carried it, buried it beneath the things in his Gladstone. And otherwise (what else could you think?) Mr. Parne might not have been killed. Sheffield made faint sounds and opened his eyes.

  “I’se sorry, ma’am.”

  “I’ll never be able to repay you, Sheffield.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  He made great efforts and stood up, swaying a little and resting palsied fingers on a chair.

  “Does it hurt much, Sheffield?”

  “No ma’am. It don’t hurt me now, not at all.”

  Lily’s fingers clenched.

  “I could kill that man with pleasure.”

  She caught Nan’s swift, odd glance, and then Nan went back into the bathroom with the cold wet towel.

  Sheffield wandered toward the hall door.

  “With your permission, ma’am? I is worried about Delilah.”

  “How cruel—how thoughtless of me. We’ll all go, Sheffield.”

  “I’se done left her when I grew uneasy and suspected that I heared the sounds.”

  “Nan, darling, we’ll stay close together, the three of us.”

  “No ma’am. You jest put the chair back under the knob when I is gone.”

  Lily reflected that it was extraordinary, honestly, what profound fright gripped her at the thought of being alone with Nan. Unreasonable, unnatural and sheer, but there it was.

  “I feel certain that Mr. Hangaway will have left the house, Sheffield.”

  “I does feel that way also, ma’am.”

  “Come, Nan.” Lily removed the chair. “We’ll go.”

  She led them along the lighted hall. It was inimical in spite of its lights, peopled in its air and deep hush with brooding, angry wraiths whipped from dark fastnesses of the brain. Lily walked swiftly, feeling Nan and Sheffield close behind her, up the stairs, and opened a door into a room where a bed lamp cast long shadows.

  “Delilah—are you all right?”

  Delilah looked queer, sitting up on the bed, clutching a bright pink nightgown tight about her withered body.

  “I feel a touch of the misery, madam.”

  “Did Mr. Hangaway come in here?”

  Delilah’s eyes, in spite of their sharp intent, managed to look vague.

  “I did not know the gentleman was here, madam.”

  Lily felt an obscure uneasiness about the immediate moment. She studied Delilah’s blank, reserved face and could read nothing, any more than she’d ever been able to. She said, “We feel reasonably certain that he has left the house. The police will be here shortly.” (You simply didn’t use such phrases.) “Is there something wrong, Delilah? Are you certain that you feel all right?”

  “Yes, madam. ’ Her eyes were veiled again, staring a long way off at nothing. “If madam will excuse me for not getting up?”

  “Of course, Delilah. I’m telephoning Doctor Starr. I believe it’s quite safe to leave you.” (Was it? Was it?) “We must see what we can do for the patrolman. We don’t know how badly he may have been hurt.”

  “Yes, madam.”

  The nagging doubt increased.

  “Just the same—I think after we leave I’d bolt the door.”

  “I will, madam.”

  The queer procession recurred through the night-filled, silent house, with Lily silently leading, leading two mutes. The front door stood ajar, letting in soft vagrant flakes of snow on the chill night air. Young Suffolk lay sprawled on his face on the floor. A tire tool was beside him. There was some blood. His breathing was heavy and painful. You could hear it with extraordinary clarity through the hush.

  Lily said with intuitive correctness, “I think it’s serious and we’d better not move him. Close the door, Sheffield. Cover him with blankets. Keep him warm.” Lily went to a telephone in the cloakroom. She dialed Starr’s number, and he answered directly.

  “This is Lily Elser, Doctor.”

  His voice was immediately awake, greatly concerned.

  “Yes, Mrs. Elser.”

  “Mr. Suffolk, the policeman on guard here, h
as been struck on the head by Mr. Hangaway. I don’t like his breathing.”

  “Are you safe? Is Miss Elser safe?”

  “Yes. He’s gone. We found the front door ajar. The police are on the way.”

  “I’ll start at once. I’ll arrange for an ambulance and have them get things ready at the hospital. It sounds like concussion.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. Is there anything we can do right now?”

  “Nothing. Don’t move him. Keep him warm.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  There was a small couch in the cloakroom, a brief affair, smugly elegant in striped satin. Lily lay down on it. She lost consciousness as her head touched it.

  * * * *

  Dr. Starr and Mr. Heffernan were both there.

  Dr. Starr was sitting beside the bed. Mr. Heffernan was standing at one of the windows with his back to it, looking across a shadowed space of room straight at her. Lily saw small sympathy in his look and for a moment thought it odd.

  “How is Nan, Doctor?”

  “Fine, Mrs. Elser. I’d say she was tough as a brick if it made any sense, but it doesn’t. How about you?”

  “I’m afraid I fainted.”

  “You did. You’ve been up here for a couple of hours.”

  “Delilah? Sheffield? That poor young policeman?”

  “The misery, a bad bruise and a slight concussion. It was an outrage to get me out of bed.”

  Lily smiled back, feeling restless through her weakness and at a disadvantage lying down like this. She sat up and went into immediate attack against the look in Heffernan’s steady eyes.

  “Have you caught him, Mr. Heffernan?”

  He stayed by the window, just straightening a little into a stance of more rigorous formality, with stiff shoulders and with stiffness in his voice: entirely a different man.

  “Not yet, Mrs. Elser. We know he must still be in the vicinity. Nothing is moving. The roads going out of town are completely blocked.”

  Starr touched Lily’s pulse, smiled at her reassuringly.

  “Is it wise to talk? Are you sure it wouldn’t be better just to rest?”

  “But I feel splendid, Doctor.”

  “Very well. Mr. Heffernan is somewhat anxious. He has an impression that you can tell him a few things. Don’t let him tire you out. Quote me if you feel he is doing so. Just look at him frigidly and say, ‘Doctor’s orders.’”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “I will join you in my living room in a moment, Mr. Heffernan.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Elser.”

  He bowed slightly, stiffly, and went into the adjoining room, closing the bedroom door. Lily took off the wrapper and slipped into a tea gown, got into stockings, slippers, made swift slight repairs to her hair. The mirror showed her the marks which had been left on her cheek by Hangaway’s teeth. She saw that Dr. Starr must have disinfected them, and he had given them a coating of newskin.

  I’m afraid I fainted. You did. You’ve been up here for a couple of hours.

  Just what, during those two hours, had Nan said? How much had she told? How solidly by now was District Attorney Heffernan entrenched in Detroit? Lily’s own special problem never occurred to her, except in its possible repercussions on Nan. Had the child held to her grimly desperate refusal to speak? It was the premise upon which Lily felt it safer to act.

  She went into the living room and found him still standing, stiffly formal. There was no shred of concern in his manner for her, for the appalling experience which she had just been through. He was a portrait of himself, brushed woodenly on canvas by a third-rate hack.

  “Will you smoke, Mr. Heffernan?”

  She held out a cloisonné box.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Elser.”

  He lighted her cigarette and waited for her to sit down, then permitted himself to be fitted.

  “I’m curious to know how Mr. Hangaway escaped from the hospital, Mr. Heffernan.”

  “It simply never occurred to them that he would. Or that he wanted to.” Heffernan took two polite puffs and then crushed out the cigarette. “Nor did it occur to anybody that he would come back here.”

  “I rather wish that it had.”

  At long last and reluctantly it dragged out of him.

  “We’re sorry about that, Mrs. Elser.”

  “Have you ever read about typhoon? Either that book of Conrad’s or that one by Hughes about Jamaica?”

  “I’ve read Conrad’s, yes, Mrs. Elser.”

  “The strongest impression they gave me was that a relatively brief stretch of time could seem so never-ending. Both books dealt with a question of hours, and yet the feeling was one of an eternity while the storm approached to its height, there was the central lull and the storm went away.”

  “You mean that Mr. Parne was killed only yesterday morning, and still?”

  “I mean exactly that. The part that terrified me most in both of those books, Mr. Heffernan, was the lull.”

  “Yes, there is something frightening in feeling that you’ve got to face the same thing through again.”

  “Quite frightening.”

  “Just why do you feel that way now, Mrs. Elser?”

  “Perhaps because I’ve had no sleep.”

  “Only that?”

  Lily said with helpless sharpness, “Just how far do you think that nerves can stretch, Mr. Heffernan?”

  “I’m terribly sorry.” At the moment he meant it. But the moment was brief, and he was all stiff again. “I’m sorry about this, having to ask you things when I know that you need rest. It’s my job. I’m one of the people who are being paid to find out why Parne was killed and by whom.”

  “Naturally, and as a matter of fact I don’t feel awfully tired. I suppose after you’ve had no sleep for more than—”

  Red flowed slowly up across her checks, and Heffernan said patiently, “For more than how many hours, Mrs. Elser?”

  “It’s again the typhoon. Actually I’ve only been up since eight yesterday morning, but there you are—I feel aged enough to be a stand-in for Methuselah.”

  He refused to be amused.

  “You have already told me that you heard no sound during the night before last. Was that because you slept without waking?”

  “Yes. Mr. Parne said good night to my daughter and to me about eleven, and Delilah woke me at eight.”

  “I would like to go back to Mr. Parne’s arrival here in the house.”

  “Yes?”

  “You see, Mrs. Elser, we have had to give up the thought that Hangaway had anything to do with Parne’s death.”

  “You could find no connections between them?”

  “No, it isn’t that. That angle may still be there. It’s an alibi. I believe you know that filling station about a mile or so north of here.”

  “Yes—Oke’s.”

  “Oke?”

  “That’s what I call the boy who runs it.”

  “Well, he read about Hangaway in the evening papers. They carried a good description of Hangaway, also one of those press snapshots. The boy came and saw me around ten o’clock, after he got off. He said Hangaway had stopped over at the filling station from four in the morning until about half-past seven, when he left for here. Hangaway drank a lot of black coffee and went to sleep in the station.”

  “Simply no tradition is safe nowadays.”

  “I know it. He asked the boy quite a lot of questions, Mrs. Elser. He asked him how to get to this house.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. When he found out that the boy sometimes serviced your car Hangaway also asked him if your daughter was home, Mrs. Elser.”

  “That is odder—it is more absurd still.”

  “Yes, it would seem so, but he did. The boy said he didn’t seem to act as if he knew your daughter
but just was interested as to whether she was home or not. The boy told Hangaway he hadn’t seen her and that as far as he knew she was still in Detroit.”

  “I am positive that Nan knows nothing about him.”

  “Yes, Miss Elser has told us that she doesn’t. Either about Hangaway or Parne. It’s quite puzzling. I understand that Parne got here about four o’clock in the afternoon.”

  “Yes.”

  He said suddenly, miserably, with the years and all his stiffness dropping away and leaving him naked in his teens, “Can’t you see how I hate all this? Questioning you, shaking out all the whole damned bag of tricks in my job? I’ve always admired you, Mrs. Elser, and I guess that’s stronger than merely liking a person. There’s something very right and fine about you, and I can say the same thing about your daughter. Will you be honest with me? Will you make things easier for me by being so?”

  She felt better, happier and then infinitely worse. Lily wanted to tell him everything, not only every act but every feeling and thought and fear that she had endured during the past wretched hours. She wanted to do so not so much because it would make her feel better but because she thought it would make him feel better. To repay him for this abrupt letting down of the bars and this friendly show on his part of wanting to do her a kindness.

  Reason checked the flood of; words welling up in Lily, and she thought: I’m a selfish fool. I can’t say a thing without endangering the child I love. Just a couple of words of truth and I might as well never have given her birth, never have fought and struggled through those early tormenting years, never have shaped my course with her as the star to set it by.

  She said coldly, “If you will tell me a little more clearly just what you want to know, Mr. Heffernan. I am sure you will understand my being somewhat confused.”

  It was a blow in the face in a way, and he felt it like that, a dash of icy water which made him grow implacable, whereas before he had just felt officially hard.

  “I want to know the moves you made concerning Parne’s room after he got here, Mrs. Elser.”

  “Moves? But I still don’t understand. Delilah arranged the rooms, and Sheffield showed Mr. Parne to his.”

  “Then we are to understand that you yourself were never in Parne’s room?” Lily thought swiftly: He’s all business now. I’ve both antagonized and hurt him. I left fingerprints in the room beyond the ones on the doorknobs—perhaps on Mr. Parne’s luggage when I found Nan’s picture. I wiped the gun, the doorknobs, but not the luggage.