by Rufus King
She looked back up the curving stairs. Mr. Sturm was standing at the head of them. His fingers tapered whitely on the velvet railing as he started quietly walking down the stairs.
Her tongue was welded, and the sight of him shot through her like a pain. When he stepped she stepped—backward into the living room, its doorway shutting out the sight of him, itself a dim rectangle in the darkness. She could not turn and run. Backward she kept on going with her eyes unwinking, staring at the empty rectangle that was suddenly occupied in outline by Mr. Sturm.
“My dear child, let me take you back upstairs to your room.” His voice was gentle, carrying softly in ribbon-like steel. “If there is anything you want in the kitchen let me get it for you.” The knob of the kitchen door was cupped behind her in her hand. She turned it ever so gently and the door swung inward into the cold, lardlike smell of the kitchen.
“Your place is in bed, child.”
He was coming at her through the archway, never hurrying his deliberate steps or the calm monotony of his voice—just a slender blotch against blackness coming at her step by step.
She almost stumbled down the step into the kitchen and her hand shook as she closed the door and fumbled for a key. Her fingers slid across the smooth, empty metal of the lock. The key was on the other side of the door. The key was always kept on the other side of the door so that the kitchen could be locked off from the house at night. She must have light. Her fingers fluttered gently about a switch and found the strength to turn it. Her fur coat was across a chair where she had thrown it. It hung about her shoulders like a warm and heavy anchor. She brushed a hair impatiently from in front of an eye so that nothing would interfere with her staring at the dining-room door. Its knob was turning. It was opening, and there, preceded by a hacking cough, was Mr. Sturm. His expressionless eyes rested impassively upon her warm fur coat.
“What madness have you in your head, child?”
He stepped down onto the kitchen floor. The movement released a word that had been imprisoned in her mouth.
“Blood.”
He hesitated in his gentle advance.
“Blood?”
She nodded. “Blood.”
“Where, my dear?”
“In a pitcher of water.” It wasn’t her voice at all. No sound of it belonged to her. Her mouth was an empty box, and sounds just came out of it of their own accord. An edge of the kitchen table checked her retreat. She began to sidle along the edge of the table. She had to reach the shed door. She had to open it and leap out behind the merciful curtains of snow that were further obscuring the already impenetrable night.
“Then is some blood in a pitcher of water?”
“No. There’s water.”
“Then where is the blood, my dear?”
If her lower lip wouldn’t tremble so she could keep it shut and stop those words from coming out of her mouth. They were for Harry, those words, if God let her live until he could take her in his arms.
“Tell me where the blood is, child.”
She never could make it. Mr. Sturm was sidling along the table edge, too. The table’s other edge. And he would reach the shed door before her.
It was sort of hopeless, and she began to cry a little.
“I can’t tell you about the blood, Mr. Sturm, sir.”
“No, no, of course not, dear child. Let me take that coat off for you and make you a quieting drink. I shall make you a pot of tea.”
If she could hurry just a little more, but it was so difficult to walk backward. The table edge slid away from her like a dock. The latch of the shed door was cold iron in her fingers, and the feel of Mr. Sturm’s fingers was like ice as they slid between the fur collar and her neck. They started tugging gently at her coat, and his face was pale above her like a visiting moon. His cheek was smooth chill marble as she pushed it violently with the palm of her hand.
“My dear child!”
The shed was a black iced vault tenanted with exploring winds. Its sliding door was rocklike with banked snow, and a nail split as her fingers wrenched against it. Snow drifted in to fill the widening crack. Somebody was screaming and lunging desperately through knee-deep snow. She hadn’t waited until she got to Harry’s door, after all. She was lunging desperately and screaming, screaming, screaming through the knee-deep snow…
CHAPTER XXIX
Will was sitting on a chair in the bathroom. His forehead was resting upon the cold white porcelain edge of the basin. He felt immeasurably better. He was weak and shaky, but the abominable sick feeling was gone. His head still ached, but it was a sharp, clean pain and he could see things quite clearly through it. Vera was dead. That much he had saved in his memory. Vera was not only dead, but somebody had killed her. He was sincerely astonished at his total lack of feeling about the whole business. His life with Vera, their contacts, had been based on nothing but the most momentary sort of passion. Marriage, for them, had been utterly free from bonds either of intellect, mutual interests, or of the heart. It wasn’t his wife who was dead. It was a woman who was dead.
“How did you say Vera was killed?” he said.
Valcour answered him. He was standing, with Dr. Harlan, quite close to Will’s chair. “Mrs. Sturm was stabbed.”
Will did not lift his forehead from the cold comfort of the porcelain. “Why couldn’t it have been suicide?”
“There wasn’t any weapon found near her.”
“Oh.”
“There is no question about that, Mr. Sturm. Your wife was murdered.”
Will thought this over for a moment. “Did he escape?” he said.
“The murderer?”
“Yes.”
Valcour said very seriously, “We do not know.”
“Have you looked through the house?”
Dr. Harlan broke in with impulsive impatience. “What was the use?”
“The use?” Will sat back in the chair and stared at him. “What do you mean by that, Fred?”
Valcour stepped in swiftly. “Nothing, Mr. Sturm. A pair of snowshoes are missing from the kitchen, and one of the north windows showed signs of having been opened.”
“Then he did get away.”
“Who, Mr. Sturm?”
Will shifted his stare to Valcour. “Whoever killed Vera, of course,” he said.
“Where do you keep your gun?” Valcour said.
Will’s expression did not change. “What’s a gun got to do with it? You just told me Vera was stabbed.”
“You have a gun, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What make?”
“It’s a Colt automatic .25. What about it?”
“Where is it, Mr. Sturm?”
“In the drawer of the smoking stand.”
“What smoking stand?”
“The one in my room. Why?”
“Did anyone else in the house know that you kept it there?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. Look here, what’s this got to do with Vera?”
“I don’t know. You see, it’s the gun that was fired at Alice Tribeau.”
Will stared steadily at Valcour. “Well?”
“Have you a permit for it?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you had the gun?”
“Years—several years. I don’t know; five or six, maybe. I didn’t shoot it, if that’s what you’re driving at. I—”
Will stopped abruptly and stared at the bathroom door. The bathroom door was opening. Mr. Sturm was standing there and looking at them.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “something serious has occurred.”
Valcour felt a sinking feeling of tenseness. “Well, Mr. Sturm?”
“Alice has lost her reason. I saw her at the foot of the stairs and she did not answer me when I called down to her. I followed her down. Her move
ments were suggestive of a somnambulist’s.” Mr. Sturm was speaking, for him, with extraordinary rapidity. His voice was a little frayed, like a delicately constructed machine that is being driven too fast. “She walked backward, staring at me. Her eyes were positively staring. I cannot describe it—her look. I was worried about shocking her by either speaking or acting suddenly. I have heard that such a course is extremely dangerous to the nervous system. You agree with me, Doctor?”
“Yes.” Dr. Harlan was sharp and impatient. His own eyes as he stared at Mr. Sturm were avid for further information.
“She retreated into the kitchen, gentlemen, and shut the door. When I opened it she had turned on the light and had put on her fur coat. It still seemed most unwise to shock her either by speaking or by using force. I tried to prevent her from leaving the kitchen—her intention was patently to go out by the shed door—but she confused me momentarily by shoving her hand against my face. The force was enough to throw me off my balance, and I barely prevented myself from falling. When I did follow her into the shed its door was open and she had gone. I caught a view of her forcing a path through the drifts and giving curiously muffled screams. It is exceedingly serious, gentlemen. One of you must find her at once and bring her back.”
“She must have gone crazy,” Will said.
“Her words made me think so. She spoke incoherently about blood, about blood in connection with a pitcher of water, and about having to inform Harry Beaudrez of the fact.”
“In this weather—in her condition—”
Dr. Harlan was already starting for the door. “I’ll go. Stay here, Valcour. There’s no use in both of us plunging about. She can’t go far. People don’t get far in storms like this. They go in circles.”
His voice came trailing back up to them as his feet almost stumbled in their haste down the curving stairs.
Valcour had started for the door, too, but Mr. Sturm checked him.
“Dr. Harlan is quite correct, sir. There is no necessity for both of you to go. Alice cannot have gone far—a stone’s throw at most. If they do not return within five or ten minutes then I should suggest that both you and my son join in the hunt.”
Mr. Sturm did not look at Valcour. He looked at Will.
“If you should require the services of my son you will find him in his room,” he said. “I shall be in there with him.”
It was a definite combining of assertion and command. Valcour went into the dim, quiet hall and waited at its farther end until Mr. Sturm, followed by Will, came out. They were swallowed up by Will’s doorway, and the door with a faint click closed.
Valcour felt nervous and as fidgety as a cat. He did not go downstairs. He went swiftly, softly across the hallway and into the room belonging to Mr. Sturm. Every movement was rapid, and so silent that the hush of the brooding house was unchanged. He opened a cupboard door and explored, with fingers pressing gently among hanging clothes, its contents. His eyes carefully studied the bed. He stooped and looked beneath it into emptiness. He lifted the covering spread and ran his hand between the box spring and the mattress. His fingertips touched wood and tight-stretched gut…the missing snowshoes. He withdrew his hand and smoothed the spread.
He took one swift glance around the room. It passed—hesitated—returned. He went to the desk. On it was a prescription blank, and beside the blank stood an empty bottle. He picked up the prescription blank and studied it. The drugs, the symbols, were jargon, but the directions for taking the medicine were written plainly and at some length. It was signed by Dr. Harlan. It would be Mr. Sturm’s medicine. He placed the prescription blank in his pocket. He took one final look around. Nothing was disarranged. He went out into the hall a rather shaken and extremely puzzled man.
He looked at his wrist watch: two minutes since Dr. Harlan had gone after Alice Tribeau. The door to Vera’s room was open, and light from the lamps flooded it softly. Probably at no later time would there be such a fortuitous opportunity…He went inside and, standing in the center of the room, stared around. The walls were without interest except for one etching, hanging crookedly…and in a house devoid of vibration…He went to the etching and lifted it from its hook. The slit in the frame’s paper backing was immediately apparent. He extracted the folded letter, read enough of it to identify it, and placed it carefully in a wallet in his pocket. The plain envelope that had been hidden with the letter was sealed. He tore open its flap, removed a sheet of paper, and read the message scrawled on it. He placed it in his pocket, and his eyes were more worried still. He looked at his wrist watch. Three and a half minutes had passed since Dr. Harlan had gone in search of Alice Tribeau.
He noticed on the floor, at a distance from the door, a metal object in gilt filigree. It appeared to be a doorstop, but its location, its distance from the door, seemed incompatible with its use. Valcour picked it up. He examined it curiously. There was a little piece of knotted thread tied to one of its decorative knobs. He took a penknife from his pocket and cut off the piece of thread.
He tested it. The thread was very strong. He put it in the envelope that already held the bits of paper from the poison label and the flecks of floor wax from underneath the arch downstairs. He looked at his wrist watch. Four minutes had passed since Dr. Harlan had gone in search of Alice Tribeau.
Valcour went outside and walked swiftly, softly down the dim and silent hall. It displeased him to realize that he was beginning to feel a little afraid. He went into the maid’s room and opened the cupboard door. A laundry bag was hanging on it. He took the bag from its hook and dumped out its contents. There was, among soiled linen, a hand towel. One end of it was still a trifle damp, and suffusing it with red were stains of blood. Standing on a small table beside the bed there was a pitcher. The water in it was quite clear. Valcour had stopped beginning to feel a little afraid. His sense of positive dread left him sick.
“What a fool I’ve been!” he said. “What a dangerous fool I have been!”
CHAPTER XXX
Valcour knocked on Will’s door and opened it without waiting for any response. They were sitting there (father and son) in two chairs placed so that they faced each other exactly. It was most ritualistic. Their heads turned automatically toward the opened door.
“You must come with me at once,” Valcour spoke directly to Will. “Do not question me. Come quickly.”
Will was out of his chair and had joined Valcour in the hall. They were starting down the stairs.
“Is your coat down here?”
“Yes,” said Will. “Aren’t you a little too apprehensive? Fred hasn’t been gone more than four or five minutes, you know.”
“We must get to him at once.”
Valcour was lifting his heavy fur coat about him, struggling into it as he hurried.
“Aren’t you going to put on your galoshes?”
“No, no! Be quick, please, Mr. Sturm.”
They were through the dining room, the kitchen, and before the still open shed door through which, into their faces, drifted snow-laden winds of the black, bitter night. Valcour flashed his electric torch and shallow cups were seen that had so recently been deep tracks.
“As quickly as you can—follow me, Mr. Sturm.”
He lunged up to his knees in the dry, sifting drifts, snow sifting up his trouser legs, chilling and numbing the flesh with needle-pointed ice. Shallower and shallower were the cups as the protecting wing of the house was passed and the boisterous strength of the wind made fog of the snow. “Hello!” he called. “Harlan—hello!” Wind gathered his voice and crammed it back against his teeth. His cheeks seemed solidifying with pain.
There were no cups. Nothing. A lazy, singing shifting of smooth-surfaced drifts, fat, driving flakes flattening against cheeks and blinding, speckling eyelashes with melting fire. Nothing. The thin, strong shaft of the torch cutting incisively through bewilderment. “Harlan—hello!”
The
wind, immeasurably brusque and superior, smothered the call like a quilt. Valcour, plunging hip-high into a deeper drift, lost his footing. The torch flew in an arc from his hand, its beam shone in a crazy dance, plunged into feathers…
“Mr. Sturm!”
The noisy, stinging dark brought back no sound.
“Mr. Sturm—where are you?”
Ice was already caking on his brows and lashes. A ribbon of fire lay circled beneath his chin where snow drove in under his collar. Go in circles—that was it. People went in circles and ended up at the spot where they’d started. And if they didn’t go in circles they stood still or fell down. Then, pretty soon, they froze, and it wasn’t very long before they were dead.
He extricated himself from the drift and forced a passage to the right. It was possible to get some sort of direction from the wind. He had been facing it when Will and he had started out. It burned, now, upon his left cheek. To return to the house meant plunging before it.
Will couldn’t have fallen—how very like Hamlet, he thought, the finale might be, a plenitude of corpses shriven in snow; Mr. Sturm alone left as a thin and disturbing chorus to chant strange obsequies—Will must have got on the track of something, gone off on a tangent. But why hadn’t he called? Perhaps he had called. The wind—this pitiless, snow-bulleted wind!
Then he found Dr. Harlan. He found him, that is, by plunging with ice-blinded eyes into him. They clung roughly to each other.
“You, Valcour?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
Their loud voices were whispers.
“You find her, Valcour?”
“No, did you?”
“No. Like a fool I brought no light.”
“Mine’s lost.” Valcour added in a shout, “And Will’s lost.”
“Will? He out here, too?”
“Yes.”
“We ought to separate. You go that way.”
“No, Doctor.”
“What?”
“I’m going to stay with you.”
“That’s foolish.” Dr. Harlan’s voice was an angry shout. “Waste of time—valuable time.” Dr. Harlan turned and lunged off. Valcour went after him, struggling to keep the broad back in view, to keep pace with the doctor’s greater vigor and strength. The wind was in the back of them. They would be going toward the house. He wondered whether Dr. Harlan knew they were going toward the house. The doctor turned his head and waved a hand angrily to one side. Valcour ignored the suggestion and stumbled heavily on through iced white quicksands. The gap between them widened.