Somewhere in This House

by Rufus King

  “Mrs. Sturm stayed in the kitchen, didn’t she, when you left her to go upstairs?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the light was on in the kitchen?”

  “Why, yes. She had to see.”

  “But you said the lights were out when you were shot.”

  “There wasn’t any lights on in the dining room or sitting room. It was dark.”

  “Then the door between the kitchen and the dining room was closed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you close it yourself as you left the kitchen?”

  “No, I didn’t. She was right by the door and she held it open for me.”

  “Did you see her close the door?”

  “No, I didn’t. My back was turned, but I heard it close.”

  “Couldn’t you see anything in the dining room at all?”

  “Just a little. You know how it is in a room at night. Everything was dark, but some things were darker than others.”

  “How were you shot?”

  “I don’t know. My foot caught in that rug between the dining room and the sitting room and I tripped. I fell down on my knees and something hit me hard on the shoulder. That’s all I know.”

  But it wasn’t, Valcour felt certain, all she knew. Her eyes still clung to the doorway. Her limpness had given way to lethargy. Her head ached terrifically and her eyes felt hot and painful.

  Two pictures presented themselves to Valcour. For each there was the same background: a darkened room with Alice Tribeau tripped and fallen on her knees. To complete the first picture there was Vera shutting the dining-room door, not from the kitchen side, but from the dining-room side, and fastening in her eyes Alice Tribeau’s retreating back just as the light from the kitchen was blotted out; there was Vera with a gun in her hand, walking softly after Alice Tribeau, hearing her fall, shooting her; there was Vera groping in the darkness and lifting Alice Tribeau, carrying her through the living room into the palish murk of the entrance hall, and hearing the faint movements made by Mr. Sturm as he rose from his reading chair in the library beyond the alcove made by the stairs; there was Vera letting Alice Tribeau down to the floor by the foot of the stairs, running softly up those stairs and putting the gun somewhere in her room, then waiting to be told that Alice Tribeau was shot, that Alice Tribeau was dead.

  The second completing of the picture was vivid, too; Vera was out of it entirely. Vera was back in the kitchen with the door shut, eating a sandwich and swearing at the miscarriage of her plan to poison Mr. Sturm. It was Mr. Sturm who was standing quite still in the murk of the entrance hall, the gun in his hand trained toward the dark dining room that was lighted momentarily as Alice Tribeau came into it from the kitchen; Alice Tribeau in one of Vera’s dresses, in obscurity, in darkness…the same shooting, the carrying, the same mechanics, but with Vera startling him; with Mr. Sturm standing at a distance, a black figure melting into black, and watching Vera discover what he had thought was the body of Vera.

  “What is the first thing you remember after you tripped?” Valcour said.

  “I guess it was waking up here.” She shook her head impatiently. “I don’t remember anything much very well. Dr. Harlan and Mr. Will was here. Mr. Will said I had been shot at. That scared me so I guess I didn’t know anything for a while. Then I guess I heard someone say it was the same one—something about the same one doing the same thing to Mrs. Sturm as to me. It didn’t mean anything until I went into Mrs. Sturm’s room and saw her dead under a sheet on the bed. And even then it didn’t mean anything—anything I can say now. I know, but I can’t say it. This sounds crazy, because I don’t know. It scared me. I’ve been feeling terrible ever since seeing her under that sheet. I’ve been scared ever since and I want to get out of here.”

  Valcour spoke very, very gently. “Why?” he said.

  “Because I knew something that I don’t know now.” She tried to be quite lucid, quite clear. “My head hurts me so much.” She turned hazy screwed-up eyes directly on Valcour. “I’m scared of being shot at again.”

  “But why?”

  “For what I know.”

  Her emphasis on the “know” was very slight. Her eyes closed drowsily, not so much from lassitude as from nervous reaction. Valcour was very careful not to move at all. He watched the eyelids droop and raise, droop again, raise again, like water under uneven pressure in a tube, close, stay closed.

  Then he became aware of Dr. Harlan standing in the shadows beyond the opened door. Dr. Harlan was beckoning to him. He went quietly into the hall.

  “I’ve been standing out here and listening,” Dr. Harlan said. “I was afraid to disturb you if I came in. It might have upset Alice and you wouldn’t have found out the things you wanted to know.”

  “Do you think she’ll rest now for a while, Doctor?”

  They had moved along the hallway and both their voices were very low.

  “Yes. She’s pretty well exhausted.” Dr. Harlan stopped by the stair well and said, “Do you honestly think that Vera shot her?”

  “To be perfectly frank with you, I don’t know. I believe it’s logical that she should have. The thing that bothers me is that blank spot in Alice Tribeau’s memory. I think it has something to do with the person who shot her and (here is where my theory collapses) with the person who killed Mrs. Sturm. Do you think her loss of memory on that point is genuine?”

  “Oh, yes. I shan’t go in for medical terms, but the shock of seeing Vera’s body could have done it. I feel as you do, that she really knows—if not the absolute identity—at least the sex of the person who shot her. If it was a man, you see…”

  Dr. Harlan shrugged and divided his stare equally between the door to Will’s room and to Mr. Sturm’s. “The point is, she feels pretty positive he’s the man who killed Vera, too, and I think it’s driving her crazy with fright. She can’t recall any impression of the business in clear detail. Certain brain cells are temporarily paralyzed; the ones she would use to remember that particular incident with. The paralysis may wear off suddenly, or it may take some time. It may never wear off. That incident may always remain a blank, except as a vague picture of something frightful, and the conviction that she knows who her attacker was but can’t name him.” Dr. Harlan’s voice went into the thinnest whisper. “If she should name him, of course, we’d know definitely who killed Vera.”

  Valcour’s face was inscrutable. “Our work is just beginning, Doctor,” he said. “We have questioned the people and now, if you will forgive the setness of the statement, we must question the scene of the crime.”

  Dr. Harlan looked a little blank. “You mean clues?” he said.

  “I prefer to think of them as evidence. A case cannot be presented to the grand jury on theory alone. Come with me, please. I shall want you as a witness.”

  They started moving along the hall.

  “How do you mean a ‘witness’?”

  “A corroborative witness, Doctor.” They started to descend the curving stairs. “I am looking beyond the moment when it will be possible to accuse the murderer. I am looking toward the time when he will stand accused before the court, and I shall have to make statements from the witness box concerning the evidence. You can see that my single testimony might be considered as fallible, but with another witness (yourself) to corroborate what I may say…”

  Dr. Harlan stopped as they reached the foot of the stairs. “I suppose I ought to realize all these things,” he said, “but it’s my first case. I’ve never been mixed up with a homicide before. Things like that don’t happen much up here. It’s been drownings, mostly, and hunting accidents. There are all sorts of things to be taken into consideration, aren’t there?”

  Valcour switched on a floor lamp, and Dr. Harlan moved closer to its comforting pool of light.

  “Yes, Doctor, all sorts of things. The very type of man we’re dealing with is perhaps
our greatest stumbling block.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, he’s certainly above the average intelligence level of the criminal class, and probably realizes the pitiable fallacy of the ancient axiom that murder will out. Any normal reader of newspaper statistics knows that nowadays murder rarely outs, that the machinery of modern justice is so complex that crime has a habit of dying in a shroud of mystery from inanition. I don’t imagine, Doctor, that one out of a hundred cases is brought to trial without the prosecutor’s having first obtained a confession (which is usually a true confession, no matter how fervently it may later be repudiated) or else without some accomplice’s having turned state’s evidence. And I have a feeling that the man we’re after will never confess, that we’ll have to prove our case against him to the hilt. Just step over here and take a look at this window, Doctor.”

  They went to the window that had been broken.

  “It’s smashed.”

  “Yes, Doctor. Please observe the way the pieces of broken glass lie on the floor. In your opinion how was the window broken?”

  “Why—I should say from the outside.”

  “That’s right. It couldn’t have been broken in any other way. You will be able, now, to swear to the fact.” Valcour eyed the still falling snow. Its curtains streamed unbrokenly through the sullen night. “It would be useless to open the window and have you look for traces outside. Much snow has fallen since it was broken. Your testimony will be of value simply that the pane was smashed from the outside. Our next point is under the arch in the dining room.”

  Valcour switched on lamps as they proceeded and radiance advanced before them. He stopped under the archway and indicated the dull spot on the floor’s polish.

  “Do you mind kneeling, Doctor? The wax—wouldn’t you say?—has been recently wiped with a damp cloth, here where it is dull. Please observe these minute flecks. They are dried blood, and I have several samples of them in an envelope. It is my contention that this is the spot where Alice Tribeau fell when she was shot.”

  Dr. Harlan stood up and straightened his trouser legs. “There’s been a lot of lying going on here tonight,” he said.

  They went into the kitchen.

  “From now on,” Valcour said, “we are mutual explorers. Let us see what we can find.”

  Valcour turned switches and the kitchen was bright with light. He looked at once to the blackened beams and a curious smile settled on his lips. “See anything, Doctor?” he said.

  Dr. Harlan stared up, too. “Why, no—nothing unusual.”

  “How about the snowshoes?”

  “Why, they’re there.”

  “Yes, but how many pairs?”

  “Say, that’s right. There were two pairs and now there’s only one. Why—” Dr. Harlan was visibly excited about this. “It could mean anything—substantiate the presence of some stranger who had escaped—”

  “Just so, Doctor. Let us see if we can find how this stranger was supposed to have escaped.”

  “But I don’t understand. It’s unreasonable.”

  “Most. Here we are. Just come over here and take a look.”

  Dr. Harlan joined him before a northern window, where the drifts were lighter than they were on the southern side.

  “Clever, isn’t it?” said Valcour.

  “I don’t see anything. The window’s closed.”

  “And that is what’s clever. A man of lesser intelligence would have left the window standing open.”

  “Standing? Why should you say it had been open?”

  “There’s moisture along the sill here where the snow drifted in while he was, presumably, making his escape. As for tracks…” Valcour shrugged. “Blanket upon blanket of snow has fallen since he might be presumed to have made tracks. I told you the man was smart.”

  “But I still don’t see what’s so smart about it.”

  “Why, he’s got us now so that under clever examination, under oath, we can be forced to state that definite indications existed tending to prove that a man escaped from this house.”

  “That’s right. We couldn’t prove a man didn’t.”

  “No,” said Valcour. “Unless we find the snowshoes.”

  Dr. Harlan stared at him queerly. “Are we going to look for them now?” he said.

  “No, Doctor.” Valcour turned out lights and they left the kitchen. “We’ll simply put them down on our list. It is Mrs. Sturm’s room that we’re immediately interested in.”

  They went along, their footsteps alone breaking the hush of the house and echoing with the hollowness of a dreary drum wherever they crossed bare wood. They went in silence up the curving stairs, and first along the dim, dark hall to the maid’s room. They assured themselves that Alice Tribeau was resting quietly. They went back to Vera’s room, they went inside, and Valcour closed the door.

  Neither could ignore the smooth-drawn sheet. They stared at it frankly, and Dr. Harlan seemed to be gripped by it as if it possessed some power that was unpleasantly hypnotic.

  “Let’s get on with this, Valcour,” he said.

  Valcour glanced at his watch. “It is after four o’clock,” he said. “About three hours to daylight, I should say.”

  “Are you going to look for finger prints, and stuff like that?”

  “I don’t think so, Doctor. There are probably dozens of prints here belonging to people who live in this house. Finding them wouldn’t prove anything. Many normal reasons could be advanced for their being there. As for finding the finger prints of any stranger, I’m not going to waste my time.”

  “What are you going to look for, then?”

  “I’d like to find out what it was that the murderer was after.”

  Dr. Harlan went as far away from the bed as he could. He settled nervously on the edge of the chaise longue. He averted his eyes from the sheet, for beneath it were Vera’s eyes, those glass eyes of Vera’s, the lids of which his fingers had closed. “Pretty tall order, isn’t it?” he said.

  Valcour was staring at the dead ashes in the fireplace. “Pretty tall,” he said. “Do you know anything about ashes, Doctor?”

  “Ashes?”

  “The different appearances between wood and coal and paper ashes?”

  “No. Why?”

  “If you’ll look at the hearth you’ll see that some papers have been burned in it; not the paper which was used to start the kindling, but papers which were burned after the fire had about gone out. They may have been what the man was after. He may have found them and have destroyed them at once. And perhaps they were only papers which Mrs. Sturm was destroying herself. We must remember that she had intended to leave in the morning.” He added carefully, “Burnt papers suggest material for blackmail, of course.”

  “Vera was being blackmailed?”

  Valcour looked evenly at Dr. Harlan for a moment. He wondered how much it would be wise to say. “No,” he said, “I imagine that Mrs. Sturm was doing the blackmailing.”

  “But it’s confusing.”

  “All theoretical reasoning is confusing.”

  “She wouldn’t have been blackmailing either (we might just as well speak plainly) Will or Mr. Sturm.”

  “I don’t think she was.”

  “Then why should either of them destroy what you claim may have been proofs of blackmail, if the proofs were not dangerous to them?”

  “Any number of reasons. We can’t be specific as yet, but Caesar had certain ideas about his wife. Why not about his son’s wife, too, if he had a son. I don’t remember. Do you?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Dr. Harlan irritably.

  “Few people have outside the fifth grade, or whatever grade it is that indulges in Caesar.”

  “I don’t see what you’re driving at unless you mean that Will or his father would destroy them to avoid publicity if the le
tters were found after her death—would want her to appear in as good a light as possible.”

  “Well, wouldn’t they?”

  “I guess they would.”

  Valcour took a poker and poked among the hot ashes. The poker struck something solid and he began to push the ashes away.

  “I want you to see this,” he said. “Come over here, will you, please?”

  Dr. Harlan went over and crouched down beside Valcour.

  “What have you found?”

  “I think,” said Valcour, “it’s the gun.”

  It was the gun: a little automatic, a Colt, caliber .25. Valcour hooked the poker into the trigger guard, lifted it, and placed the gun gently onto a clean part of the hearthstone.

  “I hope the rest of the bullets were taken out,” he said. “They must have been, or they would have exploded before now. We’ll let it lie there until it cools off. It was a pretty shrewd type of mind that thought of that as a temporary hiding place, Doctor.”

  Dr. Harlan stared almost angrily at the gun.

  “What on earth do you suppose made him hide it here for?” he said. He stood up, went back to the chaise longue, and sat stiffly on it again. “I’m getting old, Valcour. I can’t stand these all-night rackets anymore.”

  “Old?” Valcour smiled. “You’re about thirty-five or -six, aren’t you?”

  “That’s got nothing to do with it.” There was no echoing smile. His eyes gave up the effort of trying not to stare at the smooth-drawn sheet. It was such a novel and terrible mask for Vera, a mask that simplified tremendously so many things. “I wish you’d get on and finish up in here.”

  Valcour straightened up and stood looking around. His eyes came to rest on the bureau. He walked over and stared curiously at the little vermilion-lacquered Chinese box standing there. Its barrel-shaped lock fascinated him. As with most things of Oriental manufacture, it presented to the Occidental mind a faint air of mystery, of secrecy. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and, holding it between his finger tips and the box, lifted the box and shook it gently. It was quite light and apparently empty. Nothing rattled.