Somewhere in This House

by Rufus King

  “What’s that?” said Dr. Harlan.

  “A Chinese box. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Anything in it?”

  Valcour did not answer at once. He was looking intently at the lock. “It would be quite a box for keeping letters in, private letters. Then its color is provocative. Don’t you find that some colors are and some aren’t?”

  “I never thought of it.”

  “I feel there are colors that make you want to touch them, and others that you ignore completely. I’d never want to touch anything putty-colored, no matter how beautiful its shape, but I like to handle red. I suppose it subconsciously suggests warmth.” Valcour took a jeweler’s glass from his pocket and adjusted it. He stared through it at the barrel-shaped lock. “Yellow is touchable, too. It seems a friendly color with a certain amount of affection in it. Green, strangely, isn’t, except in its milder shades, and even then I’d rather admire than touch it. I take back what I said about finger prints, by the way. There are some excellent ones on this box—and look, the lock has been forced.”

  Dr. Harlan came nervously to his feet. “Why not open the box and see what’s inside?” he said.

  “I will. Apparently there is nothing inside, but you never can tell about these Chinese boxes.” Valcour delicately removed the lock, handling it as little as possible, and set it to one side. He opened the lid of the box. “You see?” he said.

  Dr. Harlan was very close. “It’s quite empty.”

  “The Chinese, Doctor, are curiously partial to secrets within secrets.” With a lead pencil Valcour compared the inner depth with the outer measurement of the box. The discrepancy was noticeably too great. He took a penknife from his pocket and opened a blade. “I think we’ve been luckier than the murderer,” he said.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  There would be some trick, of course, to open a secret compartment in the bottom of the box. Valcour did not care to take the time to discover it. He pried gently at the bottom of the box from the inside. He slit the cloth lining and came upon one of cardboard. He ran the sharp point of the knife around its edges. “In the words of more than one good melodrama,” he said, “we have found the fatal papers.”

  There were six letters, folded, and without envelopes. The envelopes were missing. Valcour took the letters out and flattened them, side by side, on the bureau. There was a message written on each, and the characters of the handwriting differed.

  “None of these letters is signed,” he said, “and none is addressed to Mrs. Sturm directly. Here is one that begins: ‘My Little Wonder Girl’ and is signed ‘Big Boy.’ Another starts: ‘Sugar Baby’ and ends ‘Your loving Sugar Daddy.’ Isn’t it awful what fools normally smart men will make of themselves when they think they’re in love? Here’s one that tries to smack a high spot. He calls her his ‘Star Child’ and signs himself ‘Your Eternal Lover.’ Words are potent and terrible things, Doctor. We never realize it so completely as when stuff like this is either printed in the newspapers or read out aloud in court. It’s no wonder that big business men will pay a fortune to get such letters back.” Valcour’s voice was reflective as he added, “Or will commit almost any crime to get them back.”

  Dr. Harlan stood away from the letters. He wasn’t facing either the bureau or Valcour at all. He was standing quite still and staring through the sheet at Vera. “What good are they if they aren’t signed?” he said.

  “Oh, all sorts of good, Doctor. I’m a dilettante in graphology, for one thing, and I can tell you pretty accurately the type of person who wrote each of these letters. The lack of a signature is inconsequential as they weren’t written on a typewriter. Just find the duplicate of any of the scripts and, unless forgery can be proved, you’ve got the man who wrote it.”

  “I don’t see what good they’ll do you. It’s evident that Will or Mr. Sturm knew about them and wanted to destroy them—didn’t want them found.”

  “Possibly. But they establish a pretty good motive, in any case.” Valcour smiled thoughtfully and gently stressed the “any.” He examined each letter intently, photographing the character of the script in his mind, picturing, as accurately as the science of graphology would permit, the physical traits of the writers, their temperaments, their probable avocations. “Here’s one that I’d commit murder for myself,” he said. “It’s the ‘Star Child’ one.” He started to read it aloud:

  “STAR CHILD: I cannot help loving you, no matter what you have done to others or to me. I keep looking at you whether my eyes are open or shut, whether you are there or not. It is you I see, no matter who or what I am looking at. Oh, my little Child of Stars, I must tell you that even when I look at my wife it is you I see. When I touch her it is you I am touching, when I kiss her it is your lips I am kissing. (I do not kiss her very much, darling, so do not be jealous!)

  That’s pretty fierce isn’t it, Doctor?”

  “Do you have to go on reading it, Valcour?”

  Valcour shrugged. “Naturally it’s distasteful, but in our official capacity there is no such thing as the sanctity of privacy. The writer seems to turn an eye to business from here on.” He continued to read:

  ‘I am enclosing the hundred dollars you asked me for in a single bill. They joked me at the bank when I asked for it, because I wanted it new and clean and I could not tell them I was going to send it up to a little Star who lives in heaven. Try and make it last for a while, dear (it is only two weeks since I sent you the fifty you needed for that hat bill), as I am pretty low financially just now, but not in happiness. No, I am high in happiness, darling.

  As I said, it is signed ‘Your Eternal Lover,’ and there are two solid lines of crosses. Take a look at these letters and see if any of the handwriting is familiar to you.”

  Valcour moved away from the bureau and Dr. Harlan took his place. Valcour went over to the hearth and crouched down. He touched the gun. Its metal was quite cool and he picked it up. Warmth from the smoldering embers, where he had stirred them up with the poker, counteracted agreeably the slight chill of the room. He enjoyed the heat for a moment, and then he stood up and took the gun over near a lamp. He broke it gingerly and found, as he had expected, that the bullet had been removed from its chamber and the rest from the clip in its stock. He wondered where the missing bullets were and decided that their whereabouts was inconsequential. They might have been dropped down a drain, or thrown out of a window and scattered into the snow where they would sink deep and lie buried until weeks later there might be a thaw.

  He looked toward Dr. Harlan, who was staring down at the letters. There was one thing that puzzled Valcour: the fact that there was a missing letter. Somewhere there was another letter. When he was quite alone, when Dr. Harlan wouldn’t be here, when no one would be here to observe… He rejoined Dr. Harlan at the bureau and placed the gun on its top.

  “Well, Doctor, our evidence is rounding into shape. Could you identify any of the writing?”

  “No,” said Dr. Harlan. “I wish we could destroy them.”

  Valcour gathered them up and put them into his pocket.

  “Perhaps we can,” he said. “I’m no more anxious to give publicity to this sort of stuff than any decent man. Unfortunately we are not men. We are machines. These are precisely the sort of unhappy situations we should have realized, but failed to when we took our jobs. It may turn out that these letters need never be offered in evidence. If things should turn out that way, Doctor, we will destroy them together and say nothing about them at all.”

  “Are you going to turn them over to the district attorney?”

  Valcour stared at him quite thoughtfully. “It may not be even necessary to turn them over to the district attorney,” he said.

  “I’m not chicken-hearted, but I have a feeling about these things. Every man has. You have yourself—any man that’s decent. Have you ever been blackmailed, Valcour?”

  “No.”
<
br />   “I’ve been.”

  “Doctors frequently are. Your case isn’t unusual by any means.”

  “That never makes any difference. I can’t begin to tell you what it feels like, when a letter or something comes with threats in it. I don’t care how brave a man is, that sort of thing will make him afraid, really afraid, Valcour. It’s like the pit of your stomach dropping out of you.”

  Valcour advanced carefully. “If there is ever anything I can do to help you, Doctor, along that line… A firm stand, you know, generally squashes a thing like that at once. The penalty for blackmail is justly severe, and the courts are pretty inexorable about handing it out. They’re decent, too, about publicity—hushing it up as much as they can.”

  “No, no, thank you, Valcour.” Dr. Harlan brushed the offer aside almost impatiently. “It’s all over with—settled—it won’t happen again. It’s the poor devils who wrote those letters to Vera I’m thinking about.” His eyes were bitter as they rested on the sheet. “Slut!”

  The epithet grated and Valcour frowned distastefully. The dead, to him, were the dead. The utter finality of their experience must automatically wipe the slate clean. Not that anything mattered to them anymore. Nothing any more mattered to Vera. Words were immaterial; there had to be a consciousness to receive them before they became effective.

  “Vera! Vera!” The voice was a little high, a little thin and complaining. It drifted to them through the closed door, from the dim and silent stretches of the hall. “Vera! Vera!”

  CHAPTER XXVII

  Dr. Harlan looked sharply at Valcour.

  “That’s Will,” he said. “He doesn’t know.”

  Valcour remained noncommittal. “So it would seem.”

  “We ought to go outside and break it to him. We shouldn’t let him come in here like this.”

  “Vera!” Will’s voice was stronger. It came from immediately outside the door. “Who’s that talking in your room? Who’s there with you, Vera?”

  Valcour caught Dr. Harlan’s arm. “Do not move, please. Stand quite still.”

  Will opened the door.

  “What are you two doing in my wife’s room?” Sickening fumes from the liquor that had lain on his stomach during his past hour of stupor clawed at the top of Will’s head and pressed viciously against the backs of his eyeballs in what he believed was a deliberate attempt to force them out of their sockets. The rims of his eyelids were hot, grating files, and surges of heat raced across the surface of his skin, to alternate with cold, drenching prickles.

  “Where’s Vera?”

  “Sit down, Mr. Sturm.” Valcour went over to Will and tried to lead him to a chair.

  Will braced himself obstinately and failed to recognize his very good friend. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Valcour, Mr. Sturm. Sit down here, please.”

  The chair felt impermanently solid. Will sat scrupulously upright in it. He was nervous about this curious top-heaviness that had happened to his body. If he leaned just the least little bit to one side he was sure that he would fall over sideways. Breathing was a nauseating torture and his mouth was an oven set upon baking his tongue. He became dimly aware of the novel outline offered by the sheet. Some fool had covered up something on Vera’s bed with a sheet. It looked as if it might be a body under the sheet.

  “Where’s Vera?”

  Valcour said quite softly, “She is dead, Mr. Sturm.”

  So that was it. Vera was dead and that was her body which was under the sheet. He wished he was dead. Golly, what a hangover. He hoped he wasn’t going to be sick. It would never do to get sick before strangers. Hold on—Fred Harlan wasn’t a stranger. It was this other fellow—telling him that Vera was dead.

  “Please don’t be so utterly stupid,” he said.

  Dr. Harlan went over and shook him. “Snap out of it,” he said.

  Will was belligerent. “Keep your hands off me!” He tried to get up from the chair, but his body was solid lead and his hands dribbled off the seat as he thrust against it. Fumes blinded his eyes completely. They cleared to a painful haze and the sheet began to take form again. “Why is Vera dead?”

  “She is dead, Mr. Sturm, because somebody killed her.”

  “Oh.” Here was something to digest. Not only was Vera dead but somebody had killed her. Her body was under that sheet. Bromo Seltzer might help some. There was some in the bathroom, but the bathroom was several miles off. So Vera hadn’t killed his father. Someone had killed Vera. “Where’s my father?”

  “He is in his room, Mr. Sturm.”

  “Does he know about this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” If his father knew about it there was probably some truth in it. He made another effort to rise and this time got halfway up before falling back again. He couldn’t think of anything for a moment except that he was terribly sick. His stomach felt sick. His head felt sick. His lungs felt sick. Vera was dead. His father knew about it. Her body was under that sheet. “When did she die?”

  “About an hour ago, Mr. Sturm.”

  “Oh.” When would that be? When would an hour ago be? That ought to be simple to figure out. Now, less one hour, made an hour ago. Thank heavens he had his wits about him. He couldn’t figure unless he had his wits about him. “What did she die of, did you say?”

  “Somebody killed her with a knife, Mr. Sturm.”

  “Why?”

  “We do not know.”

  “Nonsense! People don’t do that sort of thing indiscriminately.” The word was a triumph, and Vera was dead. What a triumph that was. No, no—mustn’t be unsporting. Certain things one didn’t do. Things Sturms never do. Never. Never were unsporting about the dead. Who was dead? Oh, yes, Vera. His stomach was a sewer. Pack of liars, all of them. Vera was a liar. She was the worst liar of the lot. She’d even lie about being dead. This time he made it. He was out of the chair—some swift and unsteady steps—the sheet ripped roughly back.

  Valcour caught him and dragged him away from the bed. Will started to vomit. Dr. Harlan caught his other arm, and he and Valcour hurried him from the room. Will’s voice rang in a frenzy through the shocked hall: “Vera! Vera! Vera!”

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  “Vera! Vera! Vera!”

  Shadows again were coming toward Alice Tribeau out of the corners of the room, meeting above her, and brooding heavily like a thick, dark cloud. If she opened her eyes she wouldn’t see anything, because everything was murk. Her head felt delightfully light and clear. There was some pressure that had been released inside of it, and everything was happily light and clear—very lucid—and her thoughts ran smoothly along unobstructed channels with the rippling ease of a machine that had been repaired and set in motion again.

  “Vera!”

  It was a pleasure to exercise her thoughts with ease. They played with the dinner there had been that night (rabbit stew with vegetables and a sprig of bay leaf, the onions just a mite burned where they had stuck at the bottom of the casserole, celery, rhubarb tarts, and coffee), then dressing in jade, the dance, and Harry—his arms like fluid metal catching her hard against the wall of his chest; dancing, dancing, dancing; Daylo fiddling, leading, smiling; heat drenching the dance hall and Harry smelling warm and earthy and pushing his stub nose into her hair so it rested against her scalp; breathing harder, pressing her tightly, dancing, dancing, dancing (music and laughter), swinging her right off her feet and waltzing her, holding her, clear around the room, and people applauding and Martha Heminway looking sick because it was Alice he was dancing, dancing, dancing…poison in a bottle in the sink and Vera turning brittle eyes, and the brittle sound of breaking glass…

  “Vera! Vera!”

  It wouldn’t do to stop and puzzle over why somebody was shouting for Vera. The little lost links must be fitted into the smoothly gathering chain—how easily they were coming back and slipping into th
eir appointed places. The dining room was dark when Vera shut the kitchen door behind her, and in the darkness and the stillness, distantly sifting through the archway, sifting through the darkness, gently ruffling up the stillness, came a little cough—very dry. Just before the bullet struck her, it had come: Mr. Sturm’s gently hacking little cough. The chain snapped taut with strengthened links. Her eyes were open and she was out of bed. And in the hallway someone was shouting at the top of his lungs for Vera, who was dead, and—a link strained fragilely, precariously—who, yes, who had been killed by the same person that had shot her. No, that wasn’t it—yes, it was, it must be. A voice had told her so.

  But that wasn’t everything. There was something else. She had to get out of here quickly and run to Harry with her desperate knowledge, and nothing but Harry’s strong arms would quiet her and make her safe. Where was her coat? Down in the kitchen. Her galoshes were there, too. A quarter of a mile it was to Harry’s farm along a drifted road. She wouldn’t scream until she was right outside his door, and then she’d pound with her fists against it and scream and scream…She started on exaggerated tiptoe from the room.

  There was nobody in the hall, and whoever had been shouting for Vera had stopped it. Her slippers were weighted with nightmare. She reached the door of the bathroom and heard the sound of retching behind it. Her fingers touched and slid along the velvet-covered railing of the stair well. Her slippers sank into the deep pile of the stair treads, lowering her gently into a sea of darkness. She felt herself being immersed in darkness, and when she reached the bottom of the stairs it would close in over her head. Boards of the lower floor clicked beneath her heels… “Where are you going, child?”