Somewhere in This House

by Rufus King

  “Would you mind telling me just what you know about it?”

  “I should be glad to.”

  “Where were you during that general period of the evening, Mr. Sturm?”

  “In the library, sir, reading.”

  “You heard Alice Tribeau come in?”

  “Yes. I heard the front door close at, I should judge, about half-past ten.”

  “Could you see the front door?”

  “My chair was in a corner made by the bend in the stairs. I could not see the front part of the house at all.”

  “But you feel certain it was Alice Tribeau who did come in?”

  “It could have been no one else.”

  “Did you hear her voice, or anything?”

  “No. I heard nothing but the opening and closing of the front door.”

  “Then you cannot definitely say it was Alice Tribeau, or, if it were she, that she came in alone?”

  “I could swear to neither of those things.”

  “Could you follow her movements?”

  “I did not attempt to.”

  “I do not mean physically, Mr. Sturm, but didn’t you notice her footsteps?”

  “Perhaps subconsciously. I retain the impression that she went at once in the direction of the kitchen.”

  “No further sounds reached you?”

  “None.”

  “Could you have heard the kitchen door close?”

  “I doubt it, sir. It is a quiet door and at quite a distance from where I was sitting. I heard nothing further.” Mr. Sturm paused briefly before adding, “It was about a quarter of an hour later that I found her.”

  Valcour successfully repressed a slight start. His manner remained casual. “Was she alone when you found her, Mr. Sturm?”

  “Yes. I had turned out the light in the library, a standing lamp near my reading chair. That made the entrance hall rather dark and I stumbled against Alice as I started to go upstairs.”

  “But didn’t you notice the sound of the shot?”

  “Not to my knowledge, sir.”

  “Was there a fire on the hearth of the entrance hall?”

  “Quite a fresh one. It had grown a little chill and I touched it off, I recall, perhaps five or ten minutes before Alice came in.”

  Valcour recalled the crackling, the sharp pops of the wood. That might have accounted, of course…

  “When you stumbled, Mr. Sturm—then what did you do?”

  “It’s rather confused. I remember turning on the lights. Alice’s face was toward me. Her eyes were closed, and I believe she had fainted. It did not occur to me that she had been shot until I knelt beside her and my hand came in contact with some blood on her dress. It seemed incomprehensible. Such things always do.”

  “Did you lift her?”

  “I called upstairs to my son. He came down and helped me. We carried Alice between us to the maid’s room.”

  “And during that time—Mrs. Sturm?”

  “Vera was in her room. I met her in the hallway coming out of it, just as I was going to mine. I requested her to telephone for Dr. Harlan, and she did so.”

  “Have you any idea of how it happened?”

  “None.”

  “Or of why it should have happened?”

  “None.”

  Valcour stood up. “Would you prefer notifying your son of Mrs. Sturm’s death,” he said, “or shall I?”

  Mr. Sturm remained quite impassive. He coughed once, his little hacking cough. “I regret that my son is intoxicated,” he said. “He is lying on his bed in a stupor.”

  “I see,” said Valcour thoughtfully.

  “Yes.” Mr. Sturm’s voice trailed off into stillness. “I was quite certain, Mr. Valcour, that you would see…”

  CHAPTER XXI

  Shadows were coming toward Alice Tribeau out of the corners of the room. They met above her and brooded heavily like a thick dark cloud. She couldn’t see the ceiling through them, and there was something there that it was essential for her to see. There was writing on the ceiling just as once, a long time ago, there had been some writing on a wall.

  In the center of the room was one shadow that did not float and join the others. It stood still and looked at her, and she was annoyed because she couldn’t stare back. She couldn’t stare because her eyes were closed, and it was more of a bother, rather than an impossibility, to open them.

  Alice Tribeau had a superstition about shadows; she felt that they did not rest upon things so much as they entered into them, not only sinking into the surface and texture of inanimate things, but into the nerves and being of persons as well. She thought the influence was mildly maleficent, and to safeguard against it she usually knocked wood. Knocking wood was a blanket panacea for most of her superstitions. Harry Beaudrez was always laughing at her for it. He had laughed about it tonight just before…

  That one shadow in the center of the room wasn’t stationary at all. It was moving directly toward her—very black—very big—and soon it would get between her and the lamp. It would cast a shadow of itself upon her and the effect would be mildly maleficent. There it was, doing it, and she could sense the dark feel of it drifting into her and chilling a little the comfortable warmth that made up the entire inside of her whenever she thought of Harry Beaudrez. His wrists, principally; his wrists fascinated her, and the back of his neck. He wasn’t handsome (certainly not a patch on the druggist’s assistant with his cowlick) but he was strong. He was the strongest and the toughest young man in the county. He had told her so. He told anybody so.

  Just the other day he had jumped over a wagon to amuse some school children. And he was always lifting things in contests—pieces of iron rail, two-three hundred pounds, with one hand, its wrist swelling a little…firm…fascinating.

  She ought to knock wood, really. It wasn’t safe to stay under a shadow and not knock wood, but she felt so incredibly lazy and preferred a mild dose of possible maleficence to any actual exertion. Anyway, the shadow was gone. It wasn’t even back in the center of the room again. It was gone entirely, and so were the ones that had dripped so heavily at her from the ceiling.

  She could see what the writing was: it was a single word that danced about upon the ceiling’s cream-colored plaster: “Vera.” Why should she see Vera’s name written on the ceiling?

  Alice Tribeau felt a little scared, the way she did in dreams. She wished she would wake up. Certain things about this dream were silly and wrong; going to bed with her new green dress on, for instance. Vera would be sore about it if she found it out. Alice Tribeau was vaguely sore about it herself. And this kaleidoscope of faces drifting singly and in pairs before her: Dr. Harlan (quite a lot of his face) and some strange man. They had been talking together—nightmarish, disturbing sort of talk. Will’s face—Vera’s—Mr. Sturm’s.

  The shadows rushed back at her when she thought of Mr. Sturm, covered her, sank deeply into her, chilling the last hot coal of comfort fanned by Harry. It was too cold for love to live in the icy place the shadows made of her. Nothing lived in such an icy, hollow place except fear. What was it Dr. Harlan and that strange man had said?

  She opened her eyes definitely. It was her room all right, and she was alone. But she was dressed. And her shoulder hurt her. If the green dress still being on her were a fact, a tangible fact hanging over from her dream, mightn’t some of the other things have been facts, not dreams at all?

  She grew terribly confused and stumbled out of bed. She met no one in the dim, dark hall.

  The atmosphere of that hall had always frightened her. At present it terrorized her and she started to run. She went, as one of its deeper shadows, down the hall’s length and opened the door into Vera’s room. Dr. Harlan was lifting a sheet, and under that sheet…

  Somebody said something to her.

  She screamed.

 
CHAPTER XXII

  “My dear child!” Valcour was genuinely concerned. “What a pity—this further shock!”

  He placed an arm protectingly about Alice Tribeau’s shoulder and led her immediately out of Vera’s room, back through the terrifying hall and into the maid’s room, where he insisted upon her lying down again upon the bed. He had once seen a little white dog that had been struck by a motor. The dog had lain limply on the road with, at various intervals, the slightest tremble. Only the eyes had been bright and actively moving—too bright, and puzzled—uncomprehending—like Alice Tribeau’s eyes and Alice Tribeau’s body. Her lips showed blotchy remainders of geranium and were whitish where the cosmetic had been rubbed off. Her forehead, beneath damp ringlets of brown hair, was moist.

  Dr. Harlan had followed them and was standing in the doorway. His own forehead was moist, and he was considerably unnerved. And just behind him, more dimly seen, was the patrician face of Mr. Sturm.

  “I really ought to give her an injection,” Dr. Harlan was saying.

  A “no” came with difficulty from Alice Tribeau’s lips, and her body went in for one of those extraordinary faint tremors that were all the more impressive because of their slightness.

  Valcour stared sharply at her with deliberately searching eyes. His manner became brisk, wholesome, and friendly.

  “Suppose you leave Miss Tribeau and me alone for a little while, Doctor,” he said. “I’ll sit here and try to talk her to sleep. You’ve no idea of the number of people I’ve successfully talked off to sleep. You’d never suspect it, but I’m really very soothing.”

  Dr. Harlan managed a faint smile. “You must do nothing to alarm her further.”

  “Why, there is nothing to be alarmed about, Doctor; nothing at all.”

  Dr. Harlan turned and started away. As for the white and patrician features of Mr. Sturm, they had already gone.

  Valcour pulled a chair up quite close to the bed and sat down. He took out a package of cigarettes.

  “Will smoking bother you?” he said.

  The question surprised her and tugged gently at her scattered interests. It was very novel to be bothered about, as to whether anything annoyed her or not, by an expensively dressed gentleman.

  “No, it won’t,” she said.

  Valcour lighted a cigarette.

  “Whereabouts was this dance held which you went to tonight?” he said.

  “Down to the Corners.”

  “You got there early, didn’t you?”

  “After the dishes.”

  “After eight-thirty, say?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Valcour smiled amiably. “I’ve always wanted to attend the dances up here,” he said. “Sometime I shall. I am very fond of dancing, and once won a prize for being the world’s worst dancer. Which orchestra was playing?”

  “Harry Daylo’s.”

  “Good?”

  “Swell.”

  “Who’s he got playing traps for him now—that dark-haired chap?”

  “I guess you mean Buster Detton?”

  “Yes. He’s very clever. I heard him at the school commencement.”

  “He’s swell.”

  “Who took you?”

  “Harry Beaudrez. We’re going together.”

  “Really! Well, well, is it too early to offer best wishes?”

  She was feeling better. That tight sense of impending dread had loosened a bit of its grip. Somewhere, way back in her head, was a lifted sheet, and under it…she only flicked the picture with a mental glance and clung desperately to these soothing commonplaces. “Well, maybe not,” she said.

  “Then permit me to.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I shouldn’t wonder but that like all young engaged couples, you two have your quarrels.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “But they’re never very serious.”

  “They’re fun.”

  “The making-up part afterwards?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was the quarrel you had tonight a real good one?”

  “Sort of.”

  “It was about someone, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re always about someone.”

  “Always the same person?”

  “Oh, no, sir.”

  “And tonight’s was about—?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t say.”

  “Well, you don’t have to. You see I’m something of a fortune teller. In fact, you’d be astonished at the things I can do with tea leaves. The quarrel was about Mrs. Sturm, wasn’t it? But of course Harry Beaudrez was only teasing.”

  “He was just being hateful, and didn’t mean anything.”

  Valcour flicked his line a little closer toward center. “He was saying, wasn’t he, how much better Mrs. Sturm looked in her own clothes than you did?”

  “How did you know?” she said, and wondered whether he had been serious about the tea leaves and not kidding, whether he really could…“You wasn’t there.”

  He smiled amiably and said, “I warned you I was occult. Of course you didn’t let him get away with anything like that?”

  “I’ll say I didn’t. I asked him why he didn’t play around with her, then, instead of me. Can you imagine it?”

  Valcour continued to smile. “And what did he say?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t tell.”

  “Of course you can. We know he was only fooling.”

  “Sure he was only fooling. He’d be crazy if he wasn’t.”

  “He said?”

  “He said he had.”

  Valcour said nothing for almost a full minute. He stared at Alice Tribeau, but he wasn’t seeing Alice Tribeau; he was seeing Vera snatching at passion clandestinely, Vera and the young man who owned a dairy farm, who jumped, in his strength, over wagons to amuse the children.

  “Tell me,” he said gently, “did young Beaudrez start home with you when you left?”

  “No, he didn’t. I slipped out and left him to look for me. He’d feel foolish when he couldn’t find me.”

  “Of course; the joke would then be on him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When you got back to the house here, did you go right into the kitchen?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s a lucky thing you did, isn’t it?”

  A little cunning suffused the fright in her eyes.

  “Lucky?”

  “Yes; it’s a lucky thing you stopped Mrs. Sturm from using the wrong bottle.”

  “I didn’t say anything about a bottle.”

  “I know you didn’t. But I know all about it. Mrs. Sturm told me all about it herself—about her fixing Mr. Sturm’s tonic and having accidentally got hold of the wrong bottle.”

  “I didn’t say it.”

  “And the bottle she had accidentally got hold of contained poison.”

  “I didn’t say it. She told you.”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve admitted it was she who told me.” Valcour was very soothing. “No one could question your loyalty to her a bit. Did she promise you money to keep quiet about it?”

  “She’s given me money now and then.”

  “I see; when you’d receive letters that were meant for her but were addressed to you?” Valcour knew from repeated observation that the mechanics of any intrigue were as stabilized and as easy to reel off as a roll on a pianola.

  “She’d give me fifty cents apiece for them.”

  “Well, when you stopped her from using the wrong bottle, didn’t she promise you anything if you’d say nothing about it?”

  Her eyes grew frightened and he barely heard her say, “Five hundred dollars.”

  His own eyes were a little stern as he said, “I see.”

  “It made me think, because she offered me so much,
that maybe…”

  He echoed her “maybe” and said, “What did she do with the bottle that had poison in it?”

  “She cleaned up the pieces.”

  “It was smashed?”

  “Yes. It fell right out of her fingers when I came into the kitchen. I guess I startled her. It fell right out of her fingers into the sink and broke.” Her voice was vague again, low again. “I saw the label and knew it was poison from the picture of the skull on it.”

  “You liked Mrs. Sturm a lot, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, a whole lot.”

  “Well, it’s a nasty thing to say, but I think that your having seen her like that with the bottle was why she shot you.”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Alice’s body went limp again.

  “She—Mrs. Sturm—she shot me?”

  “Didn’t she?”

  “I don’t know—but she couldn’t have.”

  “Didn’t you see anything—the gun, some movement—that must have warned you it was going to happen?”

  The little tremors started in once more.

  “How could I?” she said.

  Valcour’s voice continued gentle. “Why couldn’t you?”

  “The lights were out.”

  She offered the explanation as if it cleared up the whole, to her, tiresome affair, as if it absolved her from any further participation in it at all. Valcour detected the flavor of the subject’s tiresomeness in her manner and decided that it had become so simply because of some matter that had superseded it immeasurably in her interests.

  One didn’t get offered five hundred dollars, one didn’t get shot at in the dark, and then grow bored with the business within a few hours, unless the strength of some newer emotion relegated the incident to a place of comparative negligence. He imagined her revolving the Vera idea abstractedly and quite loosely in her mind: the idea of Vera’s having fired the shot at her. But it didn’t terrify her, he felt, because she absolutely refused to believe it. It was something else that terrified her, something that she seemed strangely unable to grasp—a detail, some fact, some word that was eluding her.

  Alice Tribeau turned her eyes restlessly toward the doorway. She was indifferent to everything except one thing, and her mind beat about that single thing as a moth beats against a bright and scorching light, a light so bright that it blinded rather than aided her to see. She knew what that thing was, but she didn’t. She ought to know what it was, it was clear enough, but it wasn’t clear enough, and she didn’t. The expensively dressed gentleman was speaking again.