by P. N. Elrod
Barrett shrugged. “It’s a long road back to the city.”
“But he did not take her to New York, he drove her to Port Jefferson.”
“Port—”
“Why would anyone want to go to Port Jefferson?”
“To use the ferry to—” He broke off, his brows coming together.
“Would Maureen have had any reason to go to Bridgeport?” Escott asked, putting a very slight emphasis on her name.
“I don’t know.” He wasn’t sure, though, and we both picked up on it.
“We saw you earlier tonight,” I said. “You were going to the funeral parlor, weren’t you?”
He all but grabbed at the change of subject. “Yes, when I read about your—your trouble. I thought you might need help.”
“Did anyone spot you?”
He looked slightly embarrassed. “I’m afraid they did.”
That explained why Escott had been picked up so fast.
“I got away and thought it best to come back here to wait for you.”
“So you could be neat about things and take care of Escott, too?”
As a shock tactic it didn’t work very well. He was surprised, but not in the way I’d expected. He gaped as though I was mentally deficient and looked to Escott for an answer.
“Jack believes you tried to kill him last night,” he explained quietly.
Any breath in Barrett had seeped out and he struggled to replace it to speak, only he couldn’t speak. His face was eloquent. Unless he was a better actor than Escott, he was an innocent man. Innocent of my attempted murder, at least.
“No,” he finally whispered. “Why ever should I want to kill you?”
Escott didn’t answer directly. “Banks was the intended victim, Jack only arrived at the wrong time and was attacked in order to shut him up. He might have seen or heard something that would have identified the killer.”
“Why do you think it was me?” he asked, honestly puzzled. “Is it because of Maureen? Because we were once lovers?”
I hated him for being right. I hated the thought of Maureen in his arms, holding to him, responding to his touch—however long ago it had been. I hated that when she’d been in trouble she’d gone to him for help and not to me. I realized with shame that I could hate her for that as well.
Escott shifted uneasily and I looked away from them until the emotions cooled off. Given a chance, they lose their terrible intensity, but until then I’m not safe to be around.
“The paper said it was a robbery.” Barrett was speaking to Escott. “You obviously don’t think so. Why?”
“There’s too much coincidence involved for my peace of mind. The day after we spoke with him, the man was murdered. I believe the killer found out about our investigation into Maureen’s disappearance. That person did not want anyone looking too closely into things and cut off a source of information. This, of course, presupposes that Maureen is dead.”
The only sound was Escott’s heartbeat and the soft tick of his watch. Barrett was utterly still. Eventually he looked at me, hoping I’d deny Escott’s words. I’d lived with the possibility for so long on the edge of thought that I felt nothing. Barrett had never once considered it and was having to deal with the idea as one solid blow.
He shook his head slightly, barely moving. “You think she’s dead?”
I looked past him out the window, not wanting to see a mirror of my own old fears on his face.
“Why do you think that? Where’s your proof?”
Escott stepped in and answered for me. “Jack has no other proof than his knowledge of Maureen and her feelings for him.”
“But she was terrified of Gaylen, of facing her.”
“If Maureen were still alive, she’d have returned to him despite Gaylen’s possible interference.” He switched back to me. “She loved you, Jack, she would have returned to you.”
I nodded my thanks to him for that piece of comfort.
“Then who killed her?” asked Barrett. “If she has been killed.”
“You could have.”
Barrett wasn’t threatened by the accusation. “Why should I?”
“To maintain your position in the Francher household?” he suggested. “Maureen could have upset that for you, especially if she ever suspected you of setting the fire that killed Violet Francher.”
I felt the wave of pure shock roll from Barrett and flood the room.
“Easy, Charles . . .” I said.
Escott stared at the deceptively simple quilt pattern on the bed, using it as insulation between his mind and Barrett’s feelings.
Barrett said clearly and slowly, “The fire was an accident.”
“And a very convenient one for you, was it not?”
He was up and across the room faster than thought. All I could do was stand and take a step toward them, knowing that I’d be too late to prevent anything. At the most I might just be able to pry his fingers from Escott’s broken neck, and I wasn’t sure of doing even that much in my condition.
But Barrett stopped and did nothing more than stand over him. Unmoved, Escott continued to study the quilt, and Barrett’s fists trembled for want of action.
“It probably was an accident,” Escott continued, “and if not, then it was someone else who arranged it, not you. You have other means by which you may deal with such awkward problems. We know that. It would have been child’s play for you to have influenced Violet Francher into accepting you. Why did you not do so?”
The answer was slow in coming, Barrett was still dealing with his emotions. “Emily asked me not to, and after my experience with Gaylen it seemed best to allow things to run their natural course.”
“Did you know about the psychiatrists being brought in?”
“Yes, and if it came to it, I was more than ready to influence them. How did you come to know all of this?”
“Servants’ hall gossip can be most enlightening.”
Barrett snarled something obscene and returned to stand behind the chair, resting his hands on its tall back. I withdrew to the trunk. If he’d wanted to kill, he’d have done it by now.
“What was Emily’s reaction to her mother’s death?” asked Escott.
“What do you think?”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know how to answer.”
“Was it normal grief?”
“What’s normal? I don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
Barrett appealed to me. “How do you put up with him?”
“I usually tell him what he wants.”
He shrugged. “For what it’s worth, Emily took it very hard. She all but fell apart on us. Why do you ask?”
“Because she could have killed her mother,” said Escott.
Barrett smiled, “No, that’s impossible.”
“You are very certain.”
“I am absolutely certain, I was with her that whole night.”
“But not during the day.”
“No, but—”
“She could have rigged it all during the day, delaying things.”
“No.” He shook his head decisively. “No, she couldn’t have done anything like that. You’re completely wrong there. The fire started because of an old lamp wire shorting out.”
Escott nodded, encouraging him to go on.
“Emily knows nothing about mechanical things. She’s always had servants to do everything for her. She only has the vaguest idea of how to change a light bulb. Last year I tried to teach her how to drive and she was utterly hopeless at it. Besides, she’s too gentle of heart. She could never kill anyone, nor even think of it.”
Escott tilted his head to one side, looking directly at him. “Besides, it was an accident, as you said.”
He scowled, knowing that Escott was patronizing him. “Why do you insist it wasn’t?”
“Because it brings sense to what followed after: Maureen’s disappearance and why she disappeared.”
Things tumbled and lurched
inside me that had nothing to do with my injured head. “Charles . . .”
He looked at me.
“No more,” I said. “Leave it as is.”
“You won’t, by God,” said Barrett. “You’ll be telling me, and the sooner the better.” His voice was low, but he meant every word and would tear it out of Escott if he thought it necessary.
Escott lifted a hand. “I can only tell you what I’ve been able to deduce from the inadequate data I have at present.”
I waved him down. “No, Charles. What’s the point? What’s the good of it? Maureen’s dead, this won’t bring her back.”
“I know.” He was surprised, but not offended at my attitude. “Maureen, Banks, and nearly you—who’s next? That is the good of it. That’s the purpose and point, the one that I have to justify it all for myself—to stop her from killing again.”
“Stop who?” Barrett demanded.
Escott started to speak, but his words could mean his own death, so I interrupted. “He’s not talking about Emily, but Laura.”
Her name echoed silently on his lips. The color had gone out of his already pale face, leaving him a cold, bloodless statue until he began to shake his head again. “No. You’re both wrong again. You’re too inept to find Maureen, so you invent nonsense to excuse your lack.”
“Was Laura home last night?”
He stared me up and down, then sense and disbelief took over, and he smiled. “You’re wrong, laddie. What you’re thinking is impossible.”
“It is not,” said Escott. “Very sadly, it is not.”
Barrett’s finger found a seam in the wood of the chair back where two different grain patterns met. He ran the edge of one nail along the join, unaware of the nervous movement. “Right, I’ve nearly had my fill of this. Come and finish your terrible tale.”
“It is terrible,” Escott agreed. “And I am sorry to bring this upon you.”
“Get on with it.”
“I will speculate that in 1931 a fourteen-year-old girl returned to her adopted home for her school holiday and found herself in the middle of a very tense emotional situation between yourself, Emily, and Violet. Laura did meet you for the first time that spring, Mr. Barrett?”
He nodded.
“Did she like you?”
“Yes, but you know how schoolgirls are.”
“Schoolgirls grow up to be women. A person’s age does not invalidate the depth or sincerity of their feelings—you can certainly understand that from your own experience. You may not have been interested in her then, but she was interested in you. Is that correct?”
“She may have had an infatuation, puppy love—”
“And Violet was trying to send you away.” Escott held up his hand to stem any comment. “We’ll pass over the subject of the fire. Whether or not it was an accident, it happened and removed any threat to your remaining on the estate. From Laura’s point of view, there was the secondary advantage that she no longer had to return to school. She was needed at home to help care for her grieving cousin.
“It was probably the best summer she’d ever known . . . and then one night another woman came into the house—a former lover, and a woman you were still very attached to in ways that Laura could only understand by instinct. You invited Maureen to stay as long as she liked.”
“You’re saying Laura was jealous of Maureen, but not of Emily? The girl wasn’t deaf or blind, she knew we were sharing a bed.”
“Emily was also much older looking than you. To Laura’s young eyes she was no competition at all, but Maureen was young, beautiful and well acquainted with you. Laura must have eavesdropped on some of your conversations together, enough to see her as another threat.”
“And for that you think she killed Maureen? Is that the whole miserable story?”
“The most important part, yes. Was Laura then aware of your nature?”
“She knew only that I was allergic to sunlight. Some people are so and are not vampires—”
“But what might she have heard if she’d been eavesdropping on you and Maureen?”
Barrett shut up. His face pinched in thought, he paced the room up and back, then sat in the chair. “Go on.”
“She apparently learned enough from the two of you to figure things out easily enough. If there is anything like a decent library in that house she’d be able to pick up some basic data about your condition and your special weaknesses. She would know how to take advantage of them.”
“But she was a child.”
“And very intelligent? Precocious, perhaps?” Escott’s voice dropped to a gentle, toneless murmur. “Sometime during the day she murdered Maureen.”
“She did not! Maureen left the next night. Mayfair saw—”
“Mayfair and Banks only saw a woman wearing a hat and a veil; a hat to cover her blond hair and a veil to conceal her face. A woman was seen arriving on the estate and a woman must be seen to leave. There was no reason for Maureen to want to go to Bridgeport. Can you think of one for Laura?”
“Her boarding school was in Connecticut,” he whispered.
“The route would then have been a familiar one to her and a logical one for her to choose because of its familiarity.”
“How would she get back?” I asked him.
“She must have hired another cab in Port Jefferson. We only failed to find it.”
“And what happened to her trunk?”
“I don’t know. We shall have to ask her.”
Barrett had been staring at the floor and looked up after he noticed the silence. “What?”
“I said we shall have to ask her.”
It took a while to sink in and he was shaking his head slowly but decisively. “No. You’re not going anywhere near her. You’re both going to leave us all alone.”
“And if we leave you alone, what will you do?”
But he wasn’t ready to consider that. “No, you just get out of here and leave us.”
“She’s murdered two people, Barrett, possibly three.”
“She has not. You’ve no proof for any of this. Only speculation, and what good is that?”
“Where was Laura last night?” I asked.
“At home in her room,” he said too quickly, then realized it.
“What time? Was she in her room at seven-thirty or taking a swim? Was she out shopping or visiting a friend or just taking a drive in a hurricane? Or just maybe she was swinging a club at the back of Banks’s head. There was a lot of blood . . . did she get it all off? Did the storm wash it away before she got home? Was her hair dry by the time you went up to her? Was she even in the mood for your company? Or maybe she was all excited and needed you to help work it off—”
The shock had come back to his face, then it swiftly evolved into white-hot fury. He was in front of me in one step, hauled me up, and knocked a fist square into my face before I could vanish. The room swung sharply to one side and a wall slammed me hard all over; or the floor, or both. I didn’t care. Maureen was dead and I didn’t care about anything at all.
9
“FINE,” I snapped, and wondered what the question had been.
“Yes,” said Escott. “Now hold still.”
He was kneeling over me, undoing my collar button. Only an instant ago he’d been sitting across the room. Not even Barrett could move that fast.
The ceiling, which seemed very far away because I was flat out on the floor, twisted every time I blinked. I shut my eyes hard against the effect.
“This is getting to be a very bad habit with you,” he chided. “Are you the sort who goes in for self-punishment, or are you just naturally stupid?”
There was no reason to answer that one. “Where’s Barrett?”
“Halfway home by now. You provoked him into a fine temper by that last display.” He punched at my tender forehead with a dripping washcloth.
“Ow!”
“Serves you right. I was going to talk with him and get him to see reason, but you’ve effectively canceled that gam
bit.”
“So buy me a hair shirt.”
He dropped the cloth smack onto my face and got up in disgust. I rolled to my left side, using my arm for a pillow. That damned hammer and anvil were at it again, and some thick, viscous liquid was sloshing messily around between my ears—probably what was left of my brain.
“What time is it?”
“After two.”
Not late at all; five whole hours to sit around, stare at the walls, and wish I’d stayed in Chicago. Maybe I’d conk out regardless if I crawled into my trunk earlier than usual. Suppressing a moan, I eventually sat up, putting my back to the wall. It really wasn’t as bad as my initial awakening in the morgue. I’d had worse hangovers when I’d been alive. Mentally I did want a drink, something 150 proof and painless till morning. I toyed with the idea of finding some animal, getting it stinking drunk, and then with all that booze in its bloodstream . . .
Someone rapped on our door.
Escott glanced at me. “Can you disappear for a moment?”
Why not? It was easy enough. No movement was required and therefore no real concentration; I was there one second and gone the next. The body with all its hurts was gone, gone, gone. Too bad I couldn’t do the same for the mind and its memories. It was tempting to stay this way forever; floating, formless, and insulated from the countless ills caused by living, simple living.
The rap came again, and Escott answered. His visitor sounded diffident but official. “. . . heard a crash and asked us to check on things.”
The neighbors had complained to the manager about the noise. At two in the morning, you could hardly blame them.
“. . . frightfully sorry, my own clumsy fault. I tripped rather badly.”
“You’re not hurt?”
“It’s really nothing, bang on the shin. More din than damage.”
“We just wanted to be certain . . .” And the man apologized for the intrusion and expressed sympathy for my tragic death, and had the police found out anything?
“They said to expect some new developments anytime now.”
Which was a diplomatic way of describing my body being absent from the funeral parlor. Tomorrow’s paper would make interesting reading unless Chief Curtis decided to keep it all quiet out of sheer embarrassment.