Death, My Darling Daughters

by Jonathan Stagge

She turned her pale, steady eyes on me. “Dr. Westlake, I don’t believe in that accident. I think Nanny was murdered.”

  My chief concern at that moment was to look more surprised than I felt. I knew Rosalind’s devious mind. If this was a subtle trap to trick me into making an admission, I did not want to fall into it.

  I said lightly: “A murder in the Hilton house. That’d be quite a change from lawn tennis and the viola, wouldn’t it?”

  She shook her head passionately. “Oh, I knew you’d think I was making it up for the excitement. That isn’t it. I swear. I think it was murder because—because of something I heard.”

  “You heard?” I queried, alert.

  “Yesterday morning. Oh, you must listen. Yesterday morning I’d been practicing a miserable Frank Bridge thing up here, and I got so bored and disgusted that I gave up and went downstairs. And, as I was passing Nanny’s door, I heard her voice. Dr. Westlake, please, please, believe what I’m going to tell you.”

  “Okay. I’ll believe you.”

  A mud wasp, trailing its undercarriage, circled around Rosalind’s nose, but she was so absorbed that she did not reach for the spray gun. “It was just before lunch, just before we all went over to Dr. Stahl’s. We’d all of us trooped up to pay our social visit to Nanny. That’s why I was surprised that someone was with her. And then her voice, it was so—so different.”

  “Different?”

  “You knew Nanny. She was always scolding and nagging and being the crusty old retainer. But that never really fooled any of us. You could always tell that underneath she was really being mawkish and sentimental about her puir wee bairns. But yesterday it was real. The anger, I mean. The outrage. It was so real, so different that it frightened me.”

  She had pulled her legs up onto the davenport and was squatting on them.

  “Okay,” I said. “What did she say?”

  “I went to the door. I”—she flushed slightly—“I listened at the keyhole. I suppose that’s awful, but it’s just one of the nasty things I do. And this is what she said.” In her perfect imitation of the old woman, which sounded eerie now that she was dead, Rosalind recited: “‘They loo’ at ye and see your fair open face. But cou’ they loo’ in your heart, they’d see a murderer’s heart, they’d indee’ see a lost soul. And I’m telling you noo wha’ I’ll do. If ye try it agin, I’ll go to the police. And if it’s me ye kill, I’ll come back to haunt ye and taunt ye from beyond the grave. I swear that, I say. I’ll be haunting ye till the day o’ doom.’”

  Rosalind leaned forward. Her young breasts brushed against my shoulder. “And the voice, Dr. Westlake. I can’t describe it. It was frightening and frightened too, as if she was trying not to show she was afraid of the person who was with her.” Her eyes stared at me, shining. “I didn’t hear any more. The stairs creaked, and I knew someone was coming up. I didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping. Mother always punishes me. So I slipped back up here. When I came down again, everything was quiet in Nanny’s room. That’s all. That’s the end of it.”

  Trying to conceal my curiosity, I asked: “And you haven’t any idea who this person with a fair open face and a murderous heart was?”

  “No. Whoever it was never said a word.”

  “And you don’t know who was coming up the stairs?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t wait to see.”

  Realizing just how cautious I had to be, I said: “This may be important or it may not. Think back. Are you sure that’s all you heard?”

  “Practically all. I just heard a few words as I was creeping up to the door. But they didn’t make sense.”

  “What were they?”

  “Gibberish. It was one word, mostly. Repeated over and over. Arragh, it sounded like. Like a Scottish town or village or something. Arragh.”

  Rosalind looked pale and peaky. She clutched my arm again fiercely. “But you do see what I mean? She talked about murder and a murderer, and then a few hours later she was dead because she didn’t wipe the polish off her teapot. Oh, you can laugh. You can say I made it all up. But I’m frightened. I haven’t dared tell a soul, not even Perdita. I wanted you to know because—because you might be able to tell me what to do.”

  What Rosalind had told me fitted perfectly, of course, into my partially reconstructed pattern of the crime. Nanny had threatened to expose some would-be murderer to the police just before the household went to Dr. Stahl’s—just before the murderer either did or didn’t steal some of the toxicologist’s compound. Here was a hint, at least, of a motive.

  I was still wary of letting Rosalind know my own suspicions and anxious about what she might do. If she blurted this out right now, she would cause a storm in the Lanchester house which would sweep into the D.A.’s office and destroy our plans for a secret investigation.

  Rosalind was watching me intently under her lashes. I said: “You told me to believe you. Okay. I believe you. But what does it add up to really? You knew Nanny much better than I did. Wasn’t she given to making wild statements all the time?”

  “Yes. Of course. But this was different.”

  “All right. I’ll take your word for that.” I lit two cigarettes and handed her one which she grabbed for greedily. “If Nanny was murdered, then that means someone in this house, probably someone in your own family, murdered her. Who would want to? You with your keyhole ear ought to know.”

  Rosalind flushed. Incredible as it sounds, I don’t think she had thought of it that way. Now that I had brought her lurid theorizing down to the hard reality of accusing one of her own, she seemed shocked and frightened.

  “Oh no, no,” she said. “I mean—why should any of us want to kill Nanny?”

  “I didn’t bring it up. You did.” I watched her fixedly. “I’ve heard a couple of rumors, for example, about your uncle’s recent attack of ptomaine. Didn’t Nanny accuse someone of trying to poison him?”

  I had forgotten the strict censorship which kept the dear girls from hearing what was common knowledge among the grownups. Rosalind stared at me in positive horror.

  “Poison Uncle?”

  “Hadn’t you heard anything about that?”

  “No, no. It’s crazy. Absolutely crazy. Who would want to poison Uncle?”

  “I don’t know. But you should.” Taking a leap in the dark, I said: “How about Vic Roberts? Nanny hated him for some reason. He doesn’t get on with your uncle, does he? Maybe there’s something—”

  “Vic!” she repeated wildly. “Vic!”

  “Why not?”

  I saw then just how pitifully fake Rosalind’s pose of cynical worldliness was. Her lips were trembling.

  “I don’t know what you mean. How could you say that? Vic—Vic’s Uncle George’s assistant. He couldn’t—”

  “Remember about life?” I asked dryly. “So polite and elegant on the surface, so filthy and vicious underneath?”

  Rosalind Lanchester, unpredictable as ever, threw herself back against the dusty old davenport then and started to sob. The change came so quickly that I was not ready for it. But the sight of her so intimidated by the demon which she herself had unleashed was touching. She had wanted a thrill, and now that she had it she couldn’t take it. I bent toward her and put my hand on her narrow shoulders.

  “You’re beginning to see, aren’t you? There’s more to life than reading about it in Proust and spraying mud wasps. If you start a thing, you’ve got to go through with it. If you talk about murder, you have to talk about it in terms of Janie, Vic, your mother, all of you, any of you.”

  Still sobbing, she twisted around and leaned her head against my shoulder. “It’s all my fault. I started this, and now you’re beginning to think things about Vic, about—about everyone. I’m always that way. There must be something the matter with me. I’m so mean and hateful and beastly—”

  “Hush.” I stroked her hair as if she were a little child. “You’re not beastly. You’re charming and clever and you inflame men.”

  “Oh, I don�
�t. I don’t.” Her whole body was shaking. “I know I’m ugly. I can’t fool myself. I’m ugly and beastly. And I lie. Everything I say is a dirty, rotten lie.”

  Guardedly I asked: “You mean you made up this story about what you heard in Nanny’s room?”

  “No, no. Of course I didn’t. But I had to be dirty-minded about it and stir it all up into something like murder—just for the thrill. And now everyone—they’ll all be accused of murder by the police and I’ll be responsible.”

  Her voice got lost in the sobs again. I put my arm around her, trying to steady her shivering young body.

  “Don’t make yourself unhappy,” I said. “If there is trouble, it won’t be you who’s responsible. I promise you that.”

  She nestled closer against my shoulder, and after a moment the burst of weeping subsided as quickly as it had started.

  We were still sitting there, virtually in each other’s arms, when footsteps creaked on the stairway leading up to the attic.

  Like a flash Rosalind jumped up and made a grab for her viola.

  “If it’s Mother,” she whispered tensely, “you’re listening to me practice.”

  Her expertness at deceit was remarkable. In that one second she had managed to put on a perfect show of composure. As she drew the bow across the strings, she looked intent, demure as if she had been struggling with Brahms for a virtuous half hour.

  The pretense, however, was unnecessary, for the person who emerged at the end of the attic behind the trunks and the chamber pots was not Mrs. Lanchester. It was Vic.

  As usual, Uncle George’s young assistant seemed in a stormy mood. His face was stained a smoldering red, which made the eyes behind his thick lashes even more vivid than usual. From his arrogant swagger I sensed that something had humiliated him and that his vanity was reasserting itself in an exaggeration of his virility. He moved past the piles of Hilton junk toward Rosalind.

  “Thank God you’re here, baby,” he growled. “I’d have gone berserk if I couldn’t have let off steam. That sacred-cow uncle of yours. I wish to God he’d stuffed himself full of cyanide instead of Nanny.”

  It was only as he spoke that I realized that the davenport on which I was seated was hidden from him by a pile of packing cases. And before I had time to announce my presence, the damage was done.

  He had taken Rosalind, viola and all, in his arms and was kissing her with lazy, sensual intimacy on the mouth.

  Full on the mouth….

  X

  The thing that surprised me most about that surprising kiss was that Rosalind did nothing to discourage Vic. Although she knew I was there, she clung to him, her fingers pressing against the hard muscle of his shoulders, her lips shameless against his.

  I coughed, of course, and a most embarrassed cough it was. But when I emerged from my unwitting hiding place, neither of the two young people seemed embarrassed. With a third lightning change in so many minutes, Rosalind had become dangerously gay. Her hand sliding down Vic’s arm, she glanced at me over her shoulder from shining blue eyes.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Dr. Westlake. I wish it was true, but I’m afraid this is just another of my shams. I made Vic promise to kiss me whenever we met alone, on the theory that he doesn’t mind kissing anyone and I find it wonderful for my morale.”

  From any other girl, that explanation for the scene I had just witnessed would have sounded preposterous. From Rosalind, with her frustrations and her perverse desire to play with dynamite, it sounded almost plausible.

  But only—almost. For this attic interview had taught me at least one thing. It had taught me that Rosalind Lanchester was about as simple for the average mind to fathom as the Theory of Relativity.

  “Hi, Dr. Westlake.” Vic’s eyes were still smoldering, but he flashed white teeth in a grin. “What about a second opinion on my therapy for Rosalind? Personally I’m all for it.” His brown hand moved over the girl’s flimsy frock, following the line of her spine downward. “Mrs. Lanchester brings up her daughters on the New England theory that a viola makes a good substitute for sex. That’s not for Rosalind. She’s New England, all right—but not cold New England, hot New England. She needs a safety valve or she’s going to explode and make a nasty mess all over the Hilton escutcheon. Aren’t you, baby?”

  He bent and kissed her on the mouth. He grinned at me again. “This is definitely preventive medicine, Doctor.”

  Remembering Dr. Stahl’s devastatingly frank confirmation of the rumors about Vic’s sex habits, I did not know whether to be amused or shocked.

  “You’d have a hard time getting Dr. Hilton back of your theory,” I said.

  At the mention of Hilton’s name Vic’s face darkened again and a vein pulsed angrily in his strong, bronzed throat. “Him,” he said.

  “Who cares about Uncle George? Who cares about Mother? Who cares about anything?” Rosalind gazed up at Vic adoringly. “Why are you mad? Tell me. What’s Uncle George been doing this time?”

  Vic kicked savagely at the base of one of the up-ended trunks. “Give me a knife and I’d slit his throat. Give me a gun and—”

  “No, Vic, tell me.”

  “Do I have to tell you? Figure it out for yourself. Here I am. The conference is still going on.”

  “You mean—you don’t mean he threw you out?”

  “It got too confidential.” He snorted. “Too confidential for me! I only discovered the esters. The Hilton esters. That’s how he talks about them now. The goddam Hilton esters. Valuable clinical work done by Dr. Roberts. That’s what I’m going to be, baby. A footnote.”

  Inevitably I thought of Dr. Stahl’s similar tirade against Dr. Hilton.

  Rosalind was staring in outrage. “Vic, he can’t—!”

  “Like hell he can’t. And that’s only the half of it. Wait till you hear the rest. So far the government’s been financing the research, but once this actual compound’s on the market, the government’s through. You know that. But that one compound’s only just the beginning. A whole new field for research has been opened up.”

  Rosalind broke in suddenly: “Vic, that institute Uncle George was talking about founding. Is that it?”

  “Sure, that’s it.” Vic laughed, a deep, full-blooded laugh that was about as amiable as a lion’s roar. “Official announcement this morning. The Hilton Endowment for the exclusive study of these compounds and their potentialities. It’ll sew up all the research on them, and there’ll be a terrific chemist’s job at the head of it, one of the most terrific in the country.”

  “And it’s going to be you, Vic.” Rosalind clenched her hands. “It’s simply got to be you.”

  “It’s simply got not to be me, baby. Uncle George and I had a cozy chat. I was a good man; I’d done good work; but he was going to need an older man, a man of a different temperament.”

  “But he can’t do that.” Rosalind was blazing with indignation now. “You were the one who made it all possible. Oh, Vic, it’s just because he hates you, because he’s jealous.”

  Vic shrugged his big shoulders. “What’s the difference? He’s the boss, the guy with the money and the influence.”

  “I’ll go to him, Vic. I’ll make him see.”

  “You?” He leaned forward and patted her shoulder. “You, baby? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “But I will. I—” Rosalind broke off and stiffened at the sound of footsteps below. She spun round, her finger on her lips.

  “Quick,” she whispered. “Behind the trunks. Hide. It may be Mother.”

  Instantly, as if he was as well trained as Rosalind in the strategy of deceit, Vic ducked out of sight behind a tall trunk. I followed him, feeling absurdly like a naughty schoolboy.

  The footsteps climbed the stairs, and Rosalind called: “It’s all right. Come out. It’s only Perdita.”

  Vic and I emerged from behind the trunk. Perdita was standing with her sister. Rosalind laughed excitedly.

  “Look at my haul, Perdita. Two men—Mother’s Dr. Westlake and the
wicked, wicked Vic who turns women into swine.”

  Behind the heavy frame of hair, Perdita’s eyes, green and busy with their own thoughts, moved from me to Vic.

  “Hello,” I said.

  Vic stared awkwardly. “Hello.”

  Perdita kept her strange, dreamy gaze on Vic. Suddenly, in a voice half shy, half impulsive, she said: “What’s happened, Vic? You look as if something had happened.”

  “Just wait till you hear,” said Rosalind. “After all that wonderful work he did—”

  “He isn’t fired? Vic, Uncle hasn’t fired you!”

  “Just about as bad,” said Rosalind.

  Indignation and devotion as fervent as her sister’s were blazing now in Perdita’s eyes. “Tell me, Vic. Tell me what it is.”

  Vic crossed to the old davenport and dropped down on it. The two sisters curled up on the dusty floor at his feet like two worshiping dogs.

  “It’s this way…” Vic began and launched once again into the story of his unjust treatment at Dr. Hilton’s hands.

  Perdita and Rosalind hung on his every word. The mud wasps zoomed back and forth overhead. But nobody noticed them.

  Nobody noticed, either, when I left.

  As I escaped from the Lanchesters’ house into the Kenmore sunshine, my thoughts remained for a while in the attic. Unless Vic had hopelessly distorted the facts, Dr. Hilton did indeed seem to be acting toward him in a manner that was as malicious as it was unethical. Even so, I reflected, if I had been Vic I would have kept my hurt feelings to myself and would not have run for sympathy to the girls.

  But that was a barren reflection. For I, very definitely, was not Victor Roberts.

  On the way home I put Vic and his admirers out of my mind and began to sort the tangle of information I had received into some sort of relevant pattern. One fact seemed more important to me than all the others. If Rosalind could be trusted, there was a definite motive now for someone’s having wanted to murder Nanny. The morning of her death Nanny had threatened someone—threatened to expose that person to the police for something he or she either had done or intended to do.