The Black-Headed Pins

by Constance Little

  He considered it and said slowly, "Then Rhynda could have played that gong. When she came in to me, she said she was frightened, that she had been to the bathroom and had lost her nerve in the dark hall on her way back. I turned on the light and talked to her for a bit, and then I opened my door so that the light would shine out into the hall and escorted her back to her room. I went straight back to bed and to sleep, and woke up again when hell started to pop."

  "When she came back to her room I was missing," I said thoughtfully, "so I suppose she came out again, and that's when she called over the banister to me. Probably she heard some noise downstairs.

  Anyway, there seems to be about twenty minutes of her time that wants accounting for."

  "She could have been in the bathroom for twenty minutes before you came out, and in my room when you went downstairs."

  "It sounds like the four Marx brothers," I said doubtfully.

  We were silent for a while, and then I asked him about the black-headed pins. "You forgot to put them in your list of clues, didn't you?"

  "No, I didn't forget them, but I don't know how to explain them." He stood up. "I think I have the rest, though. I'm pretty sure I know who is responsible for all this. I'm going to find Joe now, but I want you to sit there and think it all over, I want to know if you come to the same conclusion that I did."

  He left the room and I raised my stiff body from the flowerpots and went and lay down on the bed. "Maybe I can make Joe jealous," I thought and giggled sleepily. At the end of five minutes, I was nearly asleep, and then the door opened suddenly and Rhynda walked in.

  She looked at me venomously—and she held in her hand a small, bright kitchen knife.

  CHAPTER 27

  I started up nervously and exclaimed, "My God, Rhynda! What are you doing with that knife?"

  "What are you doing in here?" she countered angrily. "Damn it, didn't I warn you away from Richard? Are you trying to make a fool of yourself?"

  "I don't have to try," I said, with my eyes on the knife. "I was born to it. But I'm not going to fight with you over Richard. To hell with him, you can have him on a plate, and I'll stick parsley in his ears. I wouldn't want a man who can't make his own choice."

  She said, "Damn you," softly and almost fretfully, and glanced absentmindedly at the knife in her hand. Then she widened her eyes and looked straight at me. "He has made his choice, and it's I. He made it some months ago."

  I remembered the brief expression of black anger on John's face when Rhynda had been carrying on with Richard on Christmas Eve, and after a moment I said slowly, "Are you trying to tell me—"

  'You know very well what I'm telling you. That pig, Rosalie, meant what she said at the seance, only I don't know how she found out about it."

  Suddenly I didn't want to pursue it any further. I asked impersonally, "What are you doing with the knife?"

  She seemed to relax. "I was cold downstairs, so I put on my tweed jacket—it was hanging in the hall closet down there. I put my hands in the pockets and found this thing."

  "What are you going to do with it?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know. Throw it out of the window, I guess."

  "Give it to me," I said, "and go on back to bed."

  She handed it over, and I walked with her to her room and helped her into bed. As she stretched out, she seemed suddenly to lose all her vitality, and she looked deathly tired. She made no further sound or movement, but I knew that she was crying quietly.

  It was half past five, and after a moment's thought I threw off my bathrobe and dressed quickly. When I had finished, I switched off the light and left the room.

  Mrs. Ballinger and Rosalie were still on duty in Berg's room. The door was half open, and I could hear them talking together in low tones. I lingered outside for a while and did a bit of eavesdropping, but they were merely discussing ways and means of cutting down the expense of the table without actually resorting to bread and water. I passed on quietly and heard Amy and Donald talking in Amy's room. I felt no inclination to listen in there so continued on downstairs.

  Doris had gone back to bed and Richard seemed to be engaged in a thorough search of the entire lower floor. Joe and two of his deputies were outside. Dr. O'Beirne had gone.

  "What are you looking for?" I asked Richard.

  "Haven't you been able to figure it out?"

  I shook my bead and showed him the knife. "This isn't what you're looking for, is it?"

  He examined it carefully, while I told him about it, and said at last, "It's not what I'm after, but it makes me more sure than ever that the thing I want is around here, somewhere."

  "Can't you tell me what it is?" I asked impatiently.

  "Please, Leigh, sit down somewhere and put your head to work. I want you to come to the same conclusion as mine, but I want you to come to it independently. Then I'll know that we must be right."

  I curled up in an arm chair and fished out a cigarette, and after fifteen minutes of quiet, I realized disgustedly that I had used the time to consider whether or not Rhynda's inferences about herself and Richard had any foundation in fact. I tried to forget it and to concentrate on Richard's list of clues, but my mind returned obstinately to Richard and to an unhappy conviction that she was telling the truth. I realized that I was getting nowhere, and shrugging the thing away from me impatiently, I stood up abruptly.

  It was getting light by now, and I went to the hall and got a coat from the closet. I slipped out the front door and went down the path to the spot where I had found Berg. I stared indifferently at the frozen ground and spared a glance at the two semicircular heelmarks in the garden bed, where he must have landed. On the path, where his head had been, there were two drops of blood.

  I sighed, hunched my coat around my neck, and started gloomily back to the house. I had gone perhaps three steps when a shaft of brilliant light seemed to strike into my consciousness. I flew up the porch steps and through the door and began a casual search in the small music room.

  After a minute or two, a voice said behind me, "No use looking here—I went through it thoroughly a little while ago."

  I turned and faced Richard, my eyes wide and strained.

  "Joe's been through here, too," he added.

  I sat down. "Then the best thing to do is to sit and think out where it is."

  "Right."

  He sat down near me and offered me a cigarette. After a while I said, "I don't know why the black-headed pins puzzle you. I think they mean the same thing as the telephone being used as a weapon."

  "I did think of that," he admitted. "But you remember the one you found outside, where John had fallen? You found it a day or so later, and yet it was quite bright and shiny, so that I think it had not been there until the day you found it."

  I said, "Yes, but I believe the one found in the bathroom closet was not an accident."

  He nodded. "Right you are. But come on, Smithy, we've wallowed in it long enough, for the time being. Let's get some breakfast. I'll make you a pfannkuchen."

  I said, "Well, er—bacon and eggs are always nice."

  "So are my pfannkuchens," he replied with dignity.

  I resigned myself. "All right. I suppose you've been dying to make one. I'll be the victim."

  "You won't regret it."

  "I doubt it," I said gloomily and went on upstairs, because I'd forgotten to put on any lipstick.

  I looked in on Berg and found Mrs. Ballinger and Rosalie busily engaged in changing the dressing on his head. The wound was exposed—an ugly gash, straight and very long—and I shuddered and backed out hastily. Mrs. Ballinger hissed after me that I need not come in again. I was not wanted.

  By the time I got downstairs again, it occurred to me to wonder why they were changing the dressing on the wound so soon after the doctor had attended to it. It seemed to me, too, that Mrs. Ballinger had veered around a bit. A short time ago she had been proposing Berg to me as a possible future husband and now she was practically throwing me out of
his sickroom.

  In the kitchen, Richard was busy with a frying pan which contained something that looked like a bit of old mattress. When I appeared, he halved it and scooped it out into two plates.

  "Coffee's nearly ready," he said cheerfully.

  "Then put those bits of rubber tire in the oven until it is ready. A good cook always brings everything to a finish at once. Anyway, we'll need the coffee to wash that muck down with."

  "You'll eat those words, Smithy, after you've tasted it."

  "It'll be easier than eating the pfannkuchen," I said. "Listen, why do you suppose Mrs. Ballinger and Rosalie Hannahs are changing Berg's dressing already when the doctor fixed him up only a little while ago?"

  He had just put the two plates in the oven, and he turned around and looked at me in astonishment. "They're changing Berg's bandage?"

  I nodded. "I walked in on them while they were doing it."

  "Take care of the coffee," he said. "I'm going up."

  He went off in a hurry, and a moment after Joe lounged in. He glanced at the table, yawned, and said, "Eatin' again?"

  I didn't bother to answer. I redivided the pfannkuchen into three and got out another cup and saucer. Joe sat down at the table and began absentmindedly to pick his teeth.

  "Wait till after the pfannkuchen," I said. "You'll get much better results."

  He ignored me, and after a while Richard came back. I poured the coffee, and we sat down.

  "What did they say?" I asked, glancing at Richard.

  "They said the doctor had done a punk job, and Rosalie claimed she knew how to do it better. I threw out my chest and gave them hell."

  "What did they do?"

  "Threw me out," he said equably. "I believe one of them even heaved a magazine after me."

  "What's all this?"Joe asked, with his mouth full.

  Richard started to explain, and while he was in the middle of it, an idea came to me.

  "Hey!" I shouted. "I've thought of another place to look. I don't know why it would be there, but it just might."

  "It's a rank excuse to leave your pfannkuchen," Richard said coldly.

  "You said it!" I murmured. "Joe, lend me a toothpick, will you?"

  Joe passed one over, and I said hastily, "Never mind—it's out."

  I led them to the front door, and they followed me out and down the path. I went on to where the shrubbery ended at the driveway, circled around, and came back to the spot where Berg had been found, only now we were on the other side of the shrubbery, and it was so thick that we could not see through.

  It was there, a white cloth runner from a side table in the dining room, caught on the heavy leaves of a rhododendron bush and soaked with blood.

  CHAPTER 28

  Richard said, "The missing blood. And we find it on a cloth."

  Joe picked the cloth up gingerly, and we all started slowly back to the house. As we neared the front door, he said suddenly, "That gong—who in hell rang it?"

  "Berg, of course," Richard replied promptly. "He wanted to attract someone's attention."

  Joe frowned. "I thought we decided it happened right by the window, nowheres near the gong."

  Richard murmured, "I doubt it," and I broke in with a point of my own.

  "Anybody who could move John's body from the bed to a chair and carry Freda's body from her room to mine could also drag Berg along to the window and topple him out."

  "Yeah, but why didn't he yell, instead of playin' the gong?" Joe objected.

  Before we could reply, he went on heavily. "Unless it happened like this. He was smacked near the gong and was layin' on the floor under it. He was nearly out, but he seen the thing reachin' almost to the floor, the way it does, with the stick hangin' at the side, low down. So he banged on it, but the noise brought the murderer back in a hurry, and he was dragged to the front room and thrown out the window for his pains."

  "Would there have been time for all that?" Richard asked me.

  "I think so," I said doubtfully. "But when you're scared and don't know what to do next, you lose all sense of time."

  We were standing in the front hall by this time, and Joe suddenly lost interest in us. "Well, I'm goin' off to wind this thing up," he said briskly and disappeared up the stairs, two at a time.

  "Don't get caught in the coils," I trilled and got no answer.

  "He's always finding you messing around in the coils when he tries to wind up," Richard said severely.

  "Don't you worry about Joe and me," I replied airily. "We understand each other. And someday, we're going out together and really eat."

  "Not if Joe sees you first. I'm willing to bet you won't see his heels for dust when this case is over. But stop the idle chatter, Smithy. We have work to do. And the first thing on the list is a cozy little get-together with Rhynda."

  "Rhynda?" I repeated coldly.

  "She knows something—or everything. She's behaving oddly. Hasn't she suggested to you that she and I were something more than acquaintances?"

  I laughed shortly. "There was no suggestion about it. She damn well told me."

  "Flagrant falsehood," he declared earnestly.

  "What kind?" I asked interestedly.

  "Listen, Smithy. I met Rhynda exactly twice before the Christmas Eve binge, and both times she was accompanied by John and I was in the company of Berg. I'm not quite clear about it, but I believe we had the weather up for discussion and went into every angle of it."

  I was vaguely conscious that, quite against my will, my face had wreathed itself in smiles, and I murmured inadequately, "Is that so?"

  He stared at me for a moment of silence, and then he asked abruptly, "Were you thinking of your lunch when your face lit up like that?"

  "No," I said, scowling heavily, "I just found a nickel in my pocket."

  "If you'll stop fooling around for five minutes, perhaps we can get somewhere. About Rhynda. She has no need to chase after men, and I don't think she cares particularly for me, so that the whole thing needs explaining. Come on, we'll go and find her."

  I trotted after him, but I was firmly convinced that if he thought he could get Rhynda's story merely by asking for it, he was sadly mistaken. We looked upstairs first, but Rhynda was not there, and we finally tracked her down in the dining room, having breakfast with Amy and Donald Tait.

  Richard jerked out two chairs, seated me and then himself, and poured two cups of coffee. He handed me one, and I looked at it with loathing. It seemed to me that I had been drinking coffee pretty steadily since dinner the night before. Richard glanced a me and muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "Drink it up, damn you."

  Rhynda gave us a long lazy stare and then flicked her eyes at Donald Tait for an instant. "If either of you men ever wants to come unstuck from the woman who is always hanging around your neck, do come to me for advice. I'm sure I can show you a way out of your difficulty."

  Amy started to shout immediately but had not got any farther than, "What do you mean, Rhynda Ballinger—" when Donald nudged her and whispered something to her that shut her up. She subsided into sullen, angry silence.

  "I don't mind sharing," I said brightly. "If Amy is willing, we can split the two of them three ways."

  Amy spat some inaudible remarks into Donald's ear, and Rhynda said in a bored voice, "Sporting of you."

  I added pleasantly, "Either one of you can have Mr. Jones on his cooking days, all day. And you won't have to cook a thing. In fact, I insist upon it."

  "You snake," Richard murmured.

  Amy pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. Donald got up more slowly, and she took a firm hold on his arm. "You silly fools!" she said, and marched him out of the room.

  Rhynda smiled faintly and turned to me. "You don't want that coffee, Leigh, you make a face every time you sip at it. Suppose you vanish and let me talk to Richard for a while, whether it's one of his cooking days or not."

  "Why, certainly," I said promptly.

  I got up, went out of the door,
and closed it carefully behind me. Then I walked straight to the kitchen and on to the butler's pantry. The swinging door that opened into the dining room was closed, and I murmured, "The honor of the Smiths ," and laid my ear to the crack.

  Doris called after me, "Did you take my vegetable knife? I can't find it high or low, and there's never two of anything in this place."

  I glanced back at her and put my finger to my lips, and she dropped her voice to a subdued grumbling. I put my ear back in place.

  "But, Rhynda," Richard was saying, "you must have had a reason for trying to queer me with Leigh."

  "Well, of course," she said lightly. "Naturally I had a reason."

  "What was it?"

  "Oh, I simply took a fancy to you. And you can't deny that you showed me some attention on Christmas Eve."

  "I can't swallow that. You're not the sort to reach out after a man whose interest is obviously somewhere else. Aside from anything else, you don't have to. You can attract hordes of men without the slightest effort. Besides, you went to some lengths. Do you mind telling me just how far you did go?"

  There was a short silence, and then Rhynda said, "Why? Didn't she tell you?"

  "No, but you couldn't miss it. I knew immediately. It's quite clear that I'm in bad. Be a sport, Rhynda, and clear me."

  I heard her giggle, and she said in a high, prim voice, "All the statements that I made about Richard Jones and myself are false."

  "Say it a bit louder," he urged, "so that Leigh can hear."

  I felt my face grow hot, and Rhynda said sharply, "What do you mean?"

  Richard called amiably, "Why don't you come in here, Nosey, and be comfortable."

  I went in then, resumed my chair, and took out a cigarette in an effort to be nonchalant.

  Rhynda's eyes flashed, and she turned on Richard angrily. "Did you deliberately place her outside that door to listen?"

  "Of course not. But I knew she'd be listening in somewhere. The Smith blood will tell."

  "All I heard was the last of it," I said to Rhynda pacifically.