There is No Return

by Anita Blackmon

  Ella shrugged her shoulders. “Even if you and Chet Keith have had your heads together for the last hour, I doubt if you can pull it off.”

  “Pull what off? Our heads?” I demanded.

  “You know very well,” said Ella, wrinkling her brows, “that you and that newspaper chap are determined to get Sheila Kelly out of this thing.”

  I tried to read her face, but Ella can be inscrutable if she likes.

  “Mr Keith is interested, like myself, solely in seeing that justice is served,” I remarked in my most dignified tones.

  “Oh yeah?” retorted Ella with her deplorable tendency to pick up current slang.

  I could not think of a suitably crushing retort, so I contented myself with compressing my lips and studying the menu. To my relief Ella seemed satisfied to let it go at that. Because of the lateness of the hour we had the dining room practically to ourselves. Only Allan Atwood was at the Canby table, picking listlessly at the food before him, absorbed, as was evident at a glance, in thoughts of his own, painful thoughts to judge by the darkness of his expression.

  I was not aware that I was watching him until Ella caught me at it. “He’s maladjusted and awkward and self-conscious,” she said, “thanks to Thomas Canby and his daughter Gloria. I understand they made Allan’s life miserable for years, but do you think a fellow who can’t walk across the floor without barking his shin against a chair could jerk a light cord out and cut a man’s throat in the dark and get back to his place in less than a minute without mishap?”

  “I have not accused Allan Atwood of murder,” I protested, although I fancy I looked guilty.

  “It’s perfectly apparent,” remarked Ella in scathing accents, “that you and that reporter are willing to pin the guilt on anybody if it will clear Sheila Kelly.”

  “Don’t be absurd!” I protested. “I told you we want only to see justice done.”

  “You even tried to make out that poor little Judy Oliver was an accomplice,” said Ella indignantly. “As if Patrick isn’t the most transparent person in the world!”

  “He did bring the professor here.”

  “And look how quickly he admitted it when pressed,” Ella pointed out.

  “I don’t believe Patrick is a murderer,” I admitted.

  “I should hope not!” cried Ella. “Nor Judy either! Have you any conception how much courage it required for her to confess in front of Jeff Wayne that she is in love with him, after the pains he has taken to deny that he cares for her?”

  “He cares for her all right,” I muttered.

  “Certainly he does,” snapped Ella, “but he’ll never admit it so long as Sheila Kelly is at large.”

  At this point I lost my temper. “While we are on the subject,” I said, “I might remind you, Mrs Trotter, that your own attitude is not in the strictest sense impartial.”

  “What do you mean by that crack?” demanded Ella with more asperity than elegance.

  “You are perfectly willing to shove the guilt off upon Sheila Kelly, aren’t you? Anything, in fact, so long as it does not involve your pets in the Canby family.”

  I should have known Ella better than to arouse her antagonism. I suffered a qualm the minute I did it, but it was too late.

  “I do like Judy Oliver and that young scamp Patrick,” said Ella.

  “I like Allan, too, if he is a hobbledehoy. I even have a sneaking admiration for Lila Atwood, although she lets Hogan Brewster hang around for no good reason. So what, Adelaide?”

  There was a challenge in her eyes which made me definitely uneasy. “So nothing,” I grumbled, “except I claim the same privilege. I like the Kelly girl. At least I feel desperately sorry for her and I do not believe she is a killer.”

  Ella gave me a very odd look. “Has it occurred to you, Adelaide, that those two might be pulling the wool over your eyes?”

  “What two?”

  “Chet Keith and Sheila Kelly,” she explained. “They knew each other before. I thought the first time I saw them there was something between them. I think so still. Isn’t it a trifle peculiar that he happened on the scene at this precise time?”

  “What, if anything, are you driving at?”

  “Big metropolitan newspapers don’t usually send their ace men to obscure places like this before a murder breaks.”

  “I was given to understand,” I announced with hauteur, “that his city editor received a tip, something to do with Thomas Canby, who, I infer, did not have to get himself murdered to be news.”

  Ella leaned a little forward. “Suppose Sheila Kelly sent that tip, Adelaide, if such a tip was ever sent. Suppose the whole thing is a frame-up between her and Chet Keith to secure the Canby fortune. Suppose” — there was a note in her voice which made me sit up very straight — “suppose they are just using you, Adelaide, to put the scheme over.”

  It was feasible, I could not deny it. Certainly without my cooperation Chet Keith would never have been able to handle the coroner and the sheriff as they had been handled.

  “How do you know they aren’t taking advantage of your being a sentimental goose?” demanded Ella.

  “The idea!” I gasped indignantly. “I’ve been called an old battle-ax. I don’t deny the allegation, but I vigorously rebel at being referred to as either sentimental or a goose.”

  “Bushwa!” exclaimed Ella, whatever that may mean. “You’ve always been a sucker for the underdog, Adelaide. That girl has only to roll her eyes at you and look abused to have you leap into the fray like a flea-bitten old war horse.”

  “The idea!” I said again, very feebly, with a paralyzing conviction that Ella had hit the nail on the head, my head.

  “It might be different if everybody was on her side,” continued Ella sarcastically, “but you know perfectly well, Adelaide, that you are fundamentally unable to resist an opportunity to be contrary.”

  “I have a mind of my own, if that’s being contrary,” I said tartly.

  Ella was not impressed. “Use it then,” she snapped and added with a frown, “For all you know, Adelaide, that girl brought Chet Keith down here to help her murder Canby.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “Naturally they had to get rid of the professor afterward.”

  “Why naturally?” I demanded, feeling slightly dizzy.

  “He knew enough hypnotism to tumble to the Gloria manifestations.”

  “Tumble to them?”

  “At first they scared him silly, just as they did me,” she was honest enough to admit. “Then he began to put two and two together and he got an answer that satisfied him.”

  “You think so?”

  “He wasn’t frightened this morning. He looked like a cat that had located a bird’s nest.”

  “I concede the point.”

  “He had figured it all out,” said Ella. “I’m convinced of it.”

  “Consequently he had to die,” I remarked with what I intended for irony.

  “It was that or cut him in on part of the Canby fortune,” said Ella, “so Sheila Kelly or Chet Keith — I give you your choice — killed him.”

  I drew a long breath. “I have just recalled that Chet Keith could not have killed the professor, Ella. It cannot possibly have been done except during the time the deputy Butch was in my room.”

  “Nobody disputes that.”

  I felt a great deal better. “I can take a solemn oath that Butch and Chet Keith entered my room at the same moment and, while I cannot swear to who all came in and out during the confusion of the next few minutes, I do know that Chet Keith never left the room again until we all streamed out together into the hall after Butch gave the alarm about the professor.”

  “Then,” said Ella with so much conviction my heart sank, “the girl killed him.”

  “It was brought out at the investigation this afternoon that she could not have got out of her room,” I faltered.

  Ella gave me a long look. “Chet Keith brought it out,” she snapped, “just as all along he has been confusing t
he issue where Sheila Kelly is concerned.”

  My guilty knowledge was not the most comforting companion and I realized that my voice was by no means as confident as I could have wished. However, I attempted to carry the battle into Ella’s own camp.

  “I thought you believed the girl was actuated by Gloria Canby’s dead hand,” I stammered.

  I was disconcerted to have Ella bestow upon me a pitying glance. “You are hard put to it, Adelaide, if you have to take refuge in that argument,” she said.

  “I take it you have abandoned the idea?”

  Ella sniffed. “An idea at which, until this moment, you have seen fit to scoff, if not sneer, Adelaide.”

  “I never have believed that the dead can return,” I said stiffly.

  “I-I don’t believe so yet.”

  Ella nodded her head. “It’s been too pointed,” she said, “or too theatrical if you like, the way dead cats have been found lying around, and amber-coloured hair pins such as Gloria Canby used to wear.” She frowned. “I can’t quite see a phantom taking care to leave such obvious clues to itself, can you, Adelaide?”

  “I can’t see a phantom at all,” I confessed ruefully.

  “The build-up has been too elaborate,” complained Ella, “precisely as if somebody with a rather lurid taste in fiction had set out to lay the horror on with a trowel. The bats, for instance, and that horrible laugh which Sheila Kelly gets off in the person of Gloria Canby, and the way she has changed her hair-dress and her makeup this past week to increase her resemblance to the dead girl.”

  I shifted uneasily in my chair. “Are you now trying to make out that Sheila Kelly has deliberately cultivated her resemblance to Gloria Canby?”

  “A police reporter and a former fan dancer in a night club might be expected to go in for lurid effects, mightn’t they, Adelaide?”

  “I have no idea,” I said tartly.

  Nevertheless, as Ella had pointed out, the build-up had been elaborate. Whoever had framed Sheila Kelly had taken the greatest pains with details. I did not doubt, although she could not remember it, that she had been told to dress her hair differently and there had been something extremely theatrical both in her gestures and her choice of words when she was impersonating Gloria Canby, exactly as if she had been rehearsed by somebody with a strong leaning toward the melodramatic.

  “I wouldn’t worry so,” Ella continued with a sigh, “if I weren’t obliquely responsible for your being here, albeit against my will.”

  I felt decidedly nettled, an effect which Ella and I often have upon each other. “I can look after myself,” I said haughtily. “I always have.”

  “So thought the professor,” Ella reminded me. “He thought, no doubt, that he had stumbled upon a little private mint, but look at the shape he’s in now.”

  “Are you trying to frighten me, Ella?”

  “No, I’m merely warning you, the way Chet Keith warned or threatened Professor Matthews this morning, that it isn’t conducive to longevity to share secrets with a murderer.”

  Now had I had nothing on my conscience, I should unquestionably have demanded what secret Ella suspected me of harbouring and I dare say she read volumes into the fact that I did nothing of the kind. The truth is I did not dare have it out with Ella. It is very unlike me to let a challenge slide, but that is what I did, dropping my napkin petulantly upon the table and getting to my feet with the bald announcement that I had gone through the motion of dining and I hoped she was satisfied.

  “No,” snapped Ella, “I’m not satisfied, but knowing you, I realize I have done all I could.”

  I did not for one minute believe that she was referring to the fact that, like Allan Atwood, I had merely toyed with my food; nevertheless I again evaded the issue by pretending to think so.

  “You can lead a horse to water, Ella, but not even you can make him drink,” I said, realizing from Ella’s expression that I had succeeded merely in being trite.

  When we came into the lounge we found Fannie Parrish once more besieging Captain French about the latest report from the bridge. “The highway department insists that everything will be in good order by morning,” he said in a tired voice.

  “Goodness knows, I hope so,” murmured Miss Maurine Smith.

  “They’ve nearly run me ragged today with telephone calls. The press, you know,” she confided to me. “I think every newspaper in the country has either sent a correspondent to Carrolton or called up. I don’t know what I should have done,” she smiled coyly, “if Mr Keith hadn’t told me to refer all the reporters to him. Naturally, being in the newspaper game himself, he is the one to give out information, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, naturally,” I said dryly and could not resist a triumphant glance at Ella. “I understand that Mr Canby has always been what’s called big news.”

  Ella merely tossed her head. It lacked only a few minutes of nine, the hour which had been set for resuming the interrupted hearing in the parlour. Everybody involved was more or less standing around waiting for the signal to file into the room, including Sheriff Latham, who was over by the window conversing with Coroner Timmons, neither of them looking very well pleased with themselves.

  There was no sign of Chet Keith. I wondered where he had disappeared to. I even went to the door and glanced out. The rain had stopped but the wind was still high and the sky overcast with scudding black clouds.

  “Looking for your alter ego, Miss Adams?” inquired Hogan Brewster with his usual flippant smile. He was just behind me, quite close to Lila Atwood, and as I turned with a frown I met her eyes.

  “Hogan loves innuendo, Miss Adams,” she said lightly. “I think he was trying to imply that you have a crush on the fascinating Mr Keith.”

  “So you find him fascinating also, do you, Lila?” asked Hogan Brewster, grinning at Allan Atwood. “But then, Lila always has had a weakness for dashing, debonair gents, eh, Allan?”

  I thought for a moment that Allan was going to strike the other man, and although I have never considered myself a blood-thirsty person I recall wishing he would. It seemed to me that no self-respecting husband under the circumstances could ignore that particular insult. It was so painfully apparent that, while Hogan Brewster was both dashing and debonair, Allan Atwood was neither. I even thought that Lila Atwood stared at her husband eagerly, but if so he disappointed us both.

  “I have never bothered a lot about my wife’s taste in men, Brewster,” he said and turned away, managing, as he went, to trip over the umbrella which Fannie Parrish had brought downstairs with her with the statement that if there were any more murders she for one intended to walk to town.

  Hogan Brewster grinned at me. “ ’Sfunny how old Allan always puts his foot in it every time he opens his mouth.”

  I glanced at Lila Atwood. She was trying to smile, but her lips were not steady.

  “Everybody can’t have your well-known facility, darling,” she murmured, and this time she made no effort to move away from the carefully manicured hand which he placed upon her arm.

  I do not as a rule have any patience with the married flirt, male or female, but I remember thinking to myself that if ever a man asked for such treatment it was Allan Atwood. I had supposed all along, Lila being such an exceptionally beautiful woman, that poor fumbling Allan Atwood was hopelessly in love with her. Now for the first time I wondered if everybody was mistaken in assuming that this was the typical triangle of the unattractive husband and the too attractive other man. Thomas Canby had arranged his nephew’s marriage, that much was certain, but it did not absolutely follow that Allan Atwood had lost his heart to his wife. From all appearances the reverse was true. He acted as if he hated her. He had said as much, according to Fannie Parrish. With a queer feeling I realized that if actions meant anything Lila Atwood was far more in love with her husband than he gave any signs of being with her.

  “All set for the next encounter, Miss Adams?” murmured a voice behind me.

  I turned sharply. “Where have
you been?” I demanded.

  Chet Keith grinned. “Oh, here, there and yonder,” he said airily.

  Sheriff Latham at that moment looked around with a frown. “Nine o’clock,” he announced, referring to a huge gold watch attached by a braided leather fob to his belt.

  Everybody began moving toward the parlour door which Mart Butler was unlocking. I realized I had only a moment but I intended to make the best of it. Ella had succeeded in thoroughly unsettling me. I suppose the glance I fixed upon Chet Keith must have been severe; at any rate he made a squirming movement with his shoulders.

  “That tip to your city editor,” I said, “was it Sheila Kelly who sent it?”

  I took him by complete surprise. “How on earth did you –” He paused, bit his lip and stared at me.

  “So it was from her?” I asked with a sinking feeling in my heart.

  He grinned wryly. “Pretty neat about setting traps, aren’t you?” he inquired. “All right, it was from her. Otherwise, I don’t suppose I’d have utilized my week’s vacation to run it down.”

  “Week’s vacation?”

  “Yes, Miss Adams, I’m here on my own time, not the paper’s.”

  My heart must have been as low as my shoelaces by this time. “What sort of tip was it?”

  “Anonymous, that’s why the city editor tossed it into the wastebasket.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?” I muttered and frowned. “And the tip was anonymous?”

  “Yes, but it was from Sheila. I might not have recognized her writing if she hadn’t mentioned a spiritualist angle. When she did, it was the giveaway. You see,” he flushed, “I tried to look her up three months ago and discovered that she had gone on the road with a fake psychic, namely Professor Thaddeus Matthews.”

  “So you recognized her writing, just like that.”

  He met my eyes without a tremor. “Just like that.”

  “Why should she have tipped off the editor of a Chicago paper that something was up down here?” I asked sharply.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I got the idea that the poor kid was frightened. I flattered myself that in spite of the poor opinion which she has of me in affairs of the heart she had some faith in my ability as a friend in need. Perhaps I am more quixotic than I believed possible until I met Sheila Kelly.”