The Man Who Died Twice

by The Man Who Died Twice (retail) (epub)

  Ward was not sure just when Mike Fabyan came in. The women were chattering about some party on the agenda and he had been talking to Morgan who, it seemed, had come down from Connecticut nearly fourteen years ago looking for, as he put it, a way to make a buck. Later he had sent for his wife, started a small nightclub, and had been here ever since, with time out every year or two for a summer trip to the States. He was obviously pleased about the compliments on his club, and then Ward glanced up and Fabyan was sitting near the other end of the bar next to a gray-haired man in a white coat.

  It happened even as Morgan continued to talk.

  To Ward it seemed almost in slow motion. One minute Fabyan and the man were leaning on the bar talking; the next the man pulled back and lashed out with a left jab.

  The punch, clumsily delivered and with little leverage, caught Fabyan on the cheek. Before he could do anything the man struck again but this time Fabyan jerked his chin back and came quickly to his feet. He made no attempt to retaliate and then, as the other stumbled erect, there was a lot of action and Morgan was between them, and the headwaiter, and Osborne was holding the older man.

  There was a lot of talk, none of it audible to Ward above the music of the orchestra. Morgan and Osborne began to walk the older man towards the entrance, still talking and gesturing as they moved. Fabyan felt his cheek, which was unmarked, and climbed back on his stool. Someone moved at Ward’s side and he saw it was Tenney.

  “Amazing,” he said in his English accent. “Positively amazing. You might say an example of history repeating itself.”

  “What was it all about? Have you any idea?”

  “I could hazard a guess.” Tenney glanced at the women, who were whispering among themselves. “The chap in the white coat is a Mr. Wyatt. He happens to have rather a pretty wife about twenty years younger than he is.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Oh, frightfully. And it seems there was this party the last time Mike’s schooner was in. Quite a show. Enormous, actually. Everybody on the island was there, including Mike. And somehow he managed to be absent with Mrs. Wyatt for the best part of an hour while the old boy sizzled. I imagine this is the first time he’s seen Mike since then.”

  “And where does the history come in?”

  “Oh, that? Well the same thing happened to Gordon Dunham at another party a while back. Identical situation, really; same climax. Took place around the time MacQuade had his stroke. A cocktail do with everyone coming up here afterwards for dinner, and Dunham drove Mrs. Wyatt and turned up an hour late. Car trouble, they said. Terribly sorry, of course. Apologies and all that sort of thing, and then later at the bar Wyatt and Dunham side by side, with Wyatt rather blotto by then. No warning, you understand. One minute everything seems in order, the next Dunham has had it.”

  Morgan came back shaking his head and grinning at Ward. “We arrange these things now and then for the customer’s benefit,” he said dryly. “Breaks the monotony.”

  “Does it happen often?”

  “Not often but when it does I can generally see it coming. You get around and you sense those things. It’s a pretty tight little island. There’s not enough for people to do. They get bored and drift into situations and work up a head of steam.” He shrugged expressively. “Finally something pops and there’s trouble.”

  “I was telling Jim about Gordon,” Tenney said.

  Morgan grinned. “Same thing,” he said. “It’s lucky more people don’t get hurt. This thing tonight is standard procedure.”

  Osborne had stopped to talk to Fabyan and now he came back to finish his drink. “Some day,” he said, “somebody’s going to take a poke at Wyatt.”

  “Well, don’t you do it, darling,” Barbara said. “You’re much too strong for poor Mr. Wyatt.”

  “So is Mike. If he had swung on him he might have killed him.”

  “Maybe Mike knows that,” Morgan said quietly.

  With that the conversation moved on to other subjects, but Ward, standing nearest Fabyan, continued to watch him idly. There was, somehow, a sort of reckless assurance in the way the big man sat at the bar. His size seemed to dominate the room and when he grinned from time to time as he spoke with the barman his teeth flashed in striking contrast to his darkly tanned skin.

  Presently the headwaiter came and Ward heard him say something about a telephone. Fabyan slid off the stool and strode towards the entrance foyer. After that Ward glanced over from time to time to see if he had returned, and when, a half hour later, they were ready to go, he decided Fabyan was not coming back.

  7

  THE trip home was fun because Ward drove, and he and Alma had some laughs over his experiments with a right-hand drive and a left-hand shift. Once High-point was reached, however, the anticlimax set in, for Ward at least, because Melvin Tenney had followed in his rattletrap, and after they had entered the house it was he who disappeared with Alma to find the makings for drinks. When they returned presently, Tenney took over the duties of master of ceremonies.

  “Let’s see now,” he said. “For you, my dear, a weak whisky and soda, right?”

  “Right,” said Alma.

  “And what’s yours, old boy?”

  “The same,” Ward said. “Standard strength.”

  Tenney prepared the drinks with a flourish and high good humor. To Ward it seemed that he took a special delight in handling the bottle and glasses, and he watched glumly, noticing again the white suit with the frayed cuffs, the same bow tie, the shirt with its collar which had been obviously turned. He was perhaps too critical of the thin stooped shoulders, the bespectacled eyes, the unruly blond hair. He found himself resenting the other’s proprietary air, particularly as it extended to Alma, even though he knew his attitude was unjustified. For he knew that it was he, not Tenney, who was the odd man in the three-is-a-crowd adage.

  Tenney, it seemed, had come to stay, and Len Osborne’s arrival after having taken Barbara Connant home changed matters not at all. Osborne made a drink, put away half of it, and joined the conversation for about ten minutes. Then he yawned and stood up.

  “I’ll take this up with me, I guess,” he said and went off up the stairs, glass in hand.

  After that Ward’s mood deteriorated by the minute. He was behaving like a sulky child and he knew it; the trouble was he couldn’t stop. He even felt a growing annoyance at Alma because she seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself and did nothing to discourage Tenney’s almost continuous chatter. Finally, when the Englishman put aside his pipe and stepped up to fix another drink, Ward could stand it no longer.

  He rose and put his glass down. He stifled a deliberate yawn and said it was time for him to be going to bed. He fashioned a smile for Alma when she said:

  “But it’s still early.”

  “It’s nearly twelve.”

  “Is it?” Tenney glanced at his strapwatch. “So it is,” he said and went right on fixing the drink. “Sure you won’t have another? … Well, nightie night,” he said when Ward hesitated. “See you tomorrow, I imagine.”

  Ward said good night. He thanked Alma for a wonderful trip and was rewarded with her nice smile. Then he went on up to his room and closed the door.

  He undressed slowly but when he was in his pajamas he did not get into bed; instead he lit another cigarette and pulled the chair over to the open casement window and stared out into the night. Gradually as he went over the events of the day his sense of humor returned and he was able to view the scene downstairs with some amusement.

  “Old cousin Jim,” he said half aloud and now he knew he could no longer postpone that telephone call to New York. “Tomorrow morning,” he said. “For sure.”

  He was still sitting there, still busy with his thoughts, when he thought he heard a car drive off. He did not know what time it was and did not bother to look, but presently he realized he was sitting up listening for some sound of footsteps.

  There were four large bedrooms on the floor, all of them facing the front and shelter
ed side. As one came up the stairs Osborne’s room was on the immediate left, Alma’s on the right. His own was at the end next to Osborne’s, and he wondered now if he would be able to hear Alma even if she came up. Suddenly the restlessness was upon him again. He began to pace the room, wanting now the drink he had refused, wondering if Alma might still be sitting downstairs alone. In any case the drink would be a good excuse and now the thought had so entrenched itself as to be irresistible.

  He got out of his pajamas in a hurry. Slipping on slacks and a sport shirt in the darkness, he found his loafers and let himself quietly out of the room. A dim nightlight on the lower landing of the stairs was sufficient to outline the hall as he went along it, and then he started down towards the lone floor lamp which had been left burning the night before.

  The drawing-room was quite empty. He looked carefully about to be sure when he remembered how Kate Royce had called to him the previous night. The bottles and glasses were all there on the coffee-table, and it was only when he stepped close that he realized he did not actually want a drink. Then he saw that someone had left a tin of cigarettes and he took two while he felt to make sure he had his lighter.

  The door to the court stood open and he stepped out. Moving to one side, away from the lighted area, he noticed a yellow glow coming from the windows of MacQuade’s room; then before he could wonder about this he thought he heard someone moving diagonally ahead in the darkness.

  He stood still, his back against the building. Sure now about the sound, he waited, peering across the court. A moment later something moved in the blackness, took shape, a figure clad in white and coming his way.

  “I say.” Melvin Tenney’s voice hailed him softly. “Is that you, Jim?”

  Ward stood away from the wall. He exhaled in an audible grunt and let Tenney come to him, aware that in that first moment he had been startled.

  “Glad you’re up,” Tenney said. “Had a foul bit of luck.… Ran out of petrol down the road. No chance of getting any at this hour, you know.”

  Ward was conscious of a strange quality in the man’s voice, a cadence of jerkiness or tension. He edged over to the rectangle of light that spilled from the door and when it was reflected on Tenney he thought the fellow looked oddly pale.

  “That’s tough,” he said.

  “Isn’t it?” Tenney wet his lips and his glance flicked away. He shrugged his round shoulders and his laugh had a dry forced quality that might have been embarrassment. “I hoped I’d find someone up. Thought I might borrow a car until morning.”

  “Suppose no one had been up?”

  “Why, in that case”—he rubbed the back of his hand—“I’d have walked it, I suppose. Could hardly take a car without permission, could I?”

  Ward considered going to MacQuade’s room to see if he was awake. He was at the point of suggesting that Tenney do the same thing and then realized it might be better not to. He had an idea this was not the first time Tenney had been forced to borrow, so he said:

  “I’ll tell you what. They’re not my cars. But if you think it’s all right go ahead and take one and I’ll explain things in the morning. That is if they’re not locked.”

  “Oh, I know where the keys are.” Tenney spoke with quick relief and stepped inside. Opening a drawer in a highboy near the door, he examined three sets of keys. “I’ll take Alma’s,” he said. “I know it will be all right with her.”

  Ward followed him out to the garage and helped with the doors. He watched Tenney back out and waved him on. When he had closed the doors again the tail light was just making the turn up at the end of the driveway.

  He stood a moment in the darkness, lighting a cigarette and wondering what made a man like Tenney tick; then he noticed again the faint glow coming from MacQuade’s room and walked slowly towards it. Here the door was closed but when he saw that the curtains were only partly drawn on the two windows, he glanced in at the first one. The light source was a single table lamp and he leaned in between the curtains surreptitously until he discovered MacQuade asleep on the couch.

  Just what prompted Ward’s next move he was never sure, even later. It was the result of no conscious thought on his part or the awareness that he was making any particular decision. More likely it was simply an impulse prompted by the idea that a person could sleep better in darkness. Now, not wanting to wake the man by trying the door, he sat on the window sill, pivoted on his buttocks and swung his drawn-up feet inside.

  The silken cover had been spread over the sleeping man and the bony, slack-skinned face was turned towards the wall and in shadow. One of the three matching pillows that went with the couch had fallen from the chair and Ward picked it up. A cupboard door beneath the bookcases stood open, revealing the door of a safe, and he closed this before he tiptoed over to the lamp, his attention concentrated on his effort to be absolutely quiet. With his hand on the lamp switch he stood a moment to orient himself and get a direct line on the window; then, with a final glance to make sure he had not roused MacQuade, he flipped the switch and tiptoed back.

  Outside once more he went through the drawing-room to the veranda and walked unthinkingly along it towards the Royce cottage. The restlessness was still prodding him and, with no immediate desire for sleep, he eased down in a canvas chair just around the corner and made himself comfortable.…

  At first Alma Simmons thought she was dreaming. It was the lazy sort of dream, a dream within a dream wherein one knows he is dreaming and is able therefore to discount the things that are happening to the other person which is himself. There was nothing particularly alarming about the dream, which in itself was vague and formless and had to do with some nameless friend who had come into her room and was trying to wake her.

  She tried to struggle against this awakening and it was not until her conscious mind began to function that she realized she was already awake and staring open-eyed through the darkness of her room. The knowledge came to her with a sense of shock and with it there came some hazy recollection of a vague, remembered sound. Because she could not decide whether she had actually heard this or not she lay still, breath held as she listened, an unaccountable sense of tension beginning to work on her as she waited for a repetition of the sound.

  Somewhere in the distance she could hear a truck laboring on a hill. She turned her head on the pillow and the glowing hands of the bedside clock told her it was 1.40. That pulled her thoughts back to the drink she had downstairs and her mind quickly reconstructed a timetable. She had said good-bye to Melvin about twelve thirty, perhaps a few minutes later. She had come up to find MacQuade’s notebook on the vanity and she had put it in the drawer so no powder would spill on it. She had undressed quickly and, as far as she knew, had fallen asleep almost immediately.

  She listened again, still wondering why she had awaked, no longer aware of the truck but listening instead to some intuitive whisper which tightened the tension around her heart. Then she heard it: some reflection of a sound, unidentifiable and quickly gone—until it came again. Then she knew that it came not from outside but from within the room: a soft shuffling sound that broke at irregular intervals the surrounding silence.

  Her first thought was to call out but her throat was tight and suddenly she was afraid to move. She told herself it was silly, this sense of sudden panic. She forced herself to keep her eyes open. She could see the paler rectangle of the casement window which led to the balcony but the rest of the room was black and formless until, from the corner of her eye, a shadow moved.

  Even when she was sure some inner compulsion prevented her from screaming. Her brain told her quite definitely that if anyone was in the room it was Kate. Kate came sometimes late to look in on her and talk a moment if she was awake, and it would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it, if she screamed her head off at Kate? And suppose it was her imagination after all? That would be even worse, waking up the house at this hour.

  She talked to herself like this. She might have believed it if instinct had been less strong
. And so she waited, listening, the premonition of peril closing in now, her body rigid and cold all over. She moved her head ever so slightly and now the shadowed form was closer, between bed and bureau, a huge form it seemed now, but still shapeless.

  She realized she was holding her breath and let it out through her mouth so there would be no sound. She heard the faint click of some article on her bureau and then another. Then, although the shadow seemed not to have moved, she knew it was closer because there was a soft slow sound of breathing, like her own but in a different rhythm.

  With a tremendous effort she put down her mounting terror. She told herself she could stand it no longer. She had to know. She forced herself to turn her head and found the figure looming almost above her.

  “Kate,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Is that you——”

  She said that much. She heard a startled gasp, sensed a whirl of movement beside her. She tried to raise herself but her muscles froze and she stared in horrible fascination as a hand swooped down.

  She opened her mouth to scream, jerking her head aside at the last instant. She felt the wrench at the pillow. She thought she cried out. She seemed to hear, as from a great distance, the sound of her voice. Then something fell across her face to choke her off, and the pressure came upon her throat and nose with suffocating suddenness, and she could no longer breathe.

  8

  DUNCAN WARD awoke with a start. He sat up so suddenly the canvas chair almost collapsed under him. He scrambled to his feet at once, nerves jumpy with the suddenness of his awakening, and hearing now the banging of a casement window above him.

  The step on the balcony overhead that came almost simultaneously meant nothing to him in the next second or two because it took him that long to gather his wits. All he knew at that moment was that he had fallen asleep in his chair—for how long he was not sure—and that the sound which had awakened him had been a cry. A woman’s cry, he thought, though it had no quality or distinction for him now.