Perdita was staring in fascination at the sweater and skirt. She padded to the mirror and, gathering up the drab spaniel ears of her hair, piled them on top of her head. Suddenly she turned to her sister and clutched her sleeve. Her eyes were naked with a passionate longing.
“Rosalind. Please, let me put them on. Just once.Only for a few moments. Oh, please.”
Rosalind turned from the mirror. She did not seem to notice her sister. She was lost in some tinsel dream in which, probably, a headwaiter was bowing her to a reserved table at the Stork Club.
She put a hand on her hip like a Hollywood glamor girl and started to progress across the carpet. Perdita ran after her.
“Oh, Rosalind, please let me put them on. Just once.”
The door opened then. Mrs. Lanchester, her gardening scissors still in her hand, moved into the room.
“Dr. Westlake, I thought you might get lost. I—”
She stopped then, for she had seen Rosalind. I had already caught glimpses of the granite behind Mrs. Lanchester’s porcelain charm. But I had never before seen her stripped of all pretended sweetness. She seemed taller, gaunter, and her eyes were blue steel.
“Rosalind, where did you get those”—she paused—“those garments?”
The color had ebbed from Perdita’s cheeks, but Rosalind stared back at her mother steadily. “Janie gave me them, Mother.”
“Take them off. Remove that stuff from your face. Now.”
Rosalind stood her ground. “But, Mother—”
“Now.”
Although I had known that the girls were intimidated by their mother, it was uncomfortable actually to witness a scene that belonged on Wimpole Street in the days of the Moulton-Barretts rather than in a “vulgar” twentieth-century America. I started for the door.
Rosalind’s voice, high and rasping, checked me. “Dr. Westlake, don’t go.”
I turned.
A flush born of sudden rebellion had flooded Rosalind’s cheeks. Holding her head high, she said:
“Why can’t I wear these clothes if Janie gave them to me? What’s wrong with it?”
“I do not choose to discuss this any further, Rosalind.”
“I choose to discuss it.”
“Rosalind!”
“Rosalind!” Rosalind flung the word back. “Whenever I want to know why you do anything, that’s all I get. Rosalind! As if I was an idiot child. Why shouldn’t I want to look my best? Why shouldn’t I wear pretty things? Other girls do. Why won’t you let us be like other girls?”
“It is of no moment to me what other girls may or may not do,” said Mrs. Lanchester. “You are not shopgirls or common typewriters. You are Benjamin Hilton’s granddaughters, and as long as I have the control of you, I shall see to it that you act as such.”
She turned to me, her flowing Edwardian purple enhancing her willowy beauty. “This is most embarrassing, Dr. Westlake. But since Rosalind insisted upon your staying, and since I seem unable to influence my daughters’ behavior, you must hold them, not me, responsible for the unpleasantness.” She paused. “If you still wish to talk to my brother, you will find his office next door.”
She moved past me, opened the door, and walked out of the room.
Perdita stared after her, the difficult green eyes alight with hatred. In a bitterly exact imitation of her mother, she said:
“‘You are not shopgirls or common typewriters. You are Benjamin Hilton’s granddaughters.’” She spun round to her sister. “Rosalind, you were wonderful. Simply wonderful.”
Rosalind, her brief moment of defiance spent, was trembling now. With a sigh she moved to the dressing table, drooped into the chair, and started to wipe the lipstick from her mouth.
Suddenly she twisted round to me. “Why does she do it, Dr. Westlake? Tell me. Why?”
“Because she’s a bully,” broke in Perdita explosively. “Because she enjoys it.”
“Yes, yes,” Rosalind nodded. “That’s it. She enjoys making us suffer. She’s a sadist.” She stared at me, repeating that favorite Proustian word. “She’s a sadist, isn’t she, Dr. Westlake?”
In her refined, saccharine way, Mrs. Lanchester probably was a sadist, although I did not want to embroil myself in Freudian profundities with the dear girls. I patted Rosalind’s arm.
“Your mother was a great beauty,” I said. “Most great beauties have a hell of a time when their daughters grow up and start to compete. Maybe your mother’s smart enough to postpone the evil day as long as possible.”
“You mean she’s jealous?” Rosalind sounded completely incredulous. “Jealous of us?”
“Maybe she doesn’t realize it. Maybe she’s fooled herself into thinking she has your interests at heart.”
“Our interests at heart!” Perdita laughed.
Rosalind’s face crumpled. “When I think I’ve got eleven more years of this. Oh God, eleven years.” Her face brightened. “But one day I will be thirty. You should see me when I’m thirty, Dr. Westlake. I’m going to be the Whore of Babylon.”
She dabbed at her mascaraed eyes with a piece of tissue. Then she looked back at me, her lips quivering. “But I’ll be old. When I’m thirty, I’ll be old and it’ll be too late.”
She threw herself down, glamor sweater and skirt and all, on the bed and hid her face in the pillows.
“Oh God,” she said. “Oh God, oh God, oh God…”
XII
I left the girls, crossed the passage to Dr. Hilton’s office, and knocked. His voice called: “Come in.” I opened the door to find the professor of medicine in the process of tidying papers on a large desk. Lying on a chair at his side was a black case, presumably containing his flute.
Dr. Hilton was in an unsocial mood. I could tell that from the displeased stiffening of his shoulders as he turned and in the complete absence of cordiality with which he said: “Oh, it’s you, Dr. Westlake.” To discourage me before I had time to open my mouth, he added: “I am just going off to the music room to practice. It is my regular habit to practice at this time.”
That was not a promising beginning. I said: “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s something I have to tell you.” I corrected that to: “Something Inspector Cobb feels you should know.”
His light eyes, like the eyes of some irritable bird, flickered. “I should know?”
“About Nanny.” I paused. “Yesterday you called me a sensation seeker for suggesting the possibility that Nanny had been murdered.”
“Well?”
“Both Inspector Cobb and I,” I said, “are certain now that she was.”
“Murdered?”
“Murdered.”
Extreme exasperation showed in his face. It was obvious that what I said had merely intensified his former impression of me as a meddlesome and dangerous crank. He parted his lips to speak, but I forestalled him by saying:
“You must please believe me, Dr. Hilton. We have definite evidence that Nanny was murdered because she knew one attempt had been made on your life and because she knew that the same person was going to try again.”
It is unlikely that any remark with such shock value had ever been addressed to Dr. Hilton before. I was prepared for an indignant outburst, but instead an expression of acute uneasiness transformed his chilly features.
I was puzzled and slightly thrown off balance. Since he said nothing, I added:
“Perhaps you’ll let me tell you all we know, let me tell you why we think the danger for you is very real.”
His long fingers fluttered over the leather handle of the flute case. Then his other hand made a vague gesture which seemed to imply he was prepared to listen. He sat down on a wooden chair and kept his gaze on my face.
As undramatically as I could, I presented my case to him. Gradually, as I spoke, I could see him fighting with and gaining final victory over the strange uneasiness that had attacked him. Slowly, feature by feature, as it were, his face reassumed its cold composure. I felt that he had been mortally afraid I was going to sa
y something I hadn’t said and that his relief at my not saying it was so great that he had been able to take what I actually had to offer in his stride.
When I had finished, he looked at me with a smile which was too polite to be a sneer but which was distinctly antagonistic.
“Really, Dr. Westlake, this is most extraordinary. I do not know what I am expected to say.”
This was the Dr. Hilton I was used to, and I found it hard not to be angry. “You could tell me, for example, whether you know of anyone who might want to kill you.”
“That is quite absurd,” said Dr. Hilton promptly. “I presume you refer to someone in the household. Mine is not a family of thugs and criminals. It is inconceivable that anyone could have done or planned so outlandish a thing.”
“Since the outlandish thing has been done and planned,” I said, “there’s got to be someone who’s been doing and planning it.” Hoping to jolt him as I had jolted him before, I suggested: “What about this conference? You’ve said yourself that fortunes and reputations are potentially to be made or not made. Is it possible that someone might benefit if you were—out of the picture?”
His eyes were sharply aware again. “You can hardly be accusing my brother-in-law of trying to murder me. I presume this is some tactful way of referring to my assistant.”
“That’s one idea.”
He flushed suddenly and unexpectedly. “It is a very theatrical one.”
“Why is it theatrical? Young Roberts was the one who was originally responsible for the discovery of these esters. I happen to know that he feels very strongly—”
His flush deepened. “So you have been listening to the peevish chatter of my assistant behind my back.”
“Really, Dr. Hilton, this isn’t the time to discuss what I have or have not been doing. I’m not asking these questions for fun. Someone’s planning to murder you, and I want you to answer one simple question. Do you think it could possibly be Vic?”
“No,” said Dr. Hilton.
“You don’t like each other,” I persisted. “There’s a tension between you no one can miss. Tell me that one thing at least. Why don’t you like Vic Roberts?”
“I fail to see,” said Dr. Hilton maddeningly, “why it is any of your business.”
With rapidly disintegrating patience, I said: “Everything’s my business now. You must realize I am a representative of the police.”
Dr. Hilton put down his flute case with a long-suffering sigh. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“What you have against Vic Roberts.”
“Very well.” His lips tightened. “If you must know, I do not approve of his attitude toward women.”
“Any woman in particular?” I asked that quickly.
He shot me a glance almost of hate. “Since you will undoubtedly put some unpleasant construction upon my silence, I might as well tell you the whole story. You have already made fantastically more of this than is warranted. It is merely that my daughter and my niece worked for a few weeks at the Arkwright in the laboratory with Dr. Roberts. Suffice it to say that I did not like what I saw going on and that I took steps to have the girls removed from an unwholesome influence. I find Dr. Roberts to be a young man with no principles whatsoever, and if his presence had not been essential at my conference with Dr. Kenton-Oakes I would certainly never have brought him here to my house.”
From the very glibness with which that came out I was certain that it was, at best, only a fraction of the truth.
“And that’s all?” I asked.
“Certainly that is all.” Dr. Hilton rose with his flute case. “I have answered your question now. I do not think my assistant is trying to murder me, and I know of no one else who would have a reason for wanting to do so. I have nothing more to add. Let us leave the matter at that.”
Exasperated beyond endurance, I said: “You want to leave the matter at that when someone’s planning to murder you?”
A distinctly sardonic gleam showed in his eyes. “Perhaps I have not shown sufficient gratitude for your warning, Doctor. Excuse me.”
“Which means you don’t take it seriously?”
“So far as I can see, your colorful theory is founded upon three points.” He was talking now like a professor destroying some abstract theory presented by a student. “One is the package of arrowroot discovered in Nanny’s possession. One is your surprise that the English silver polish should contain so large a percentage of cyanide. The third is a statement of my sister Belle that she drank a cup of tea with Nanny some hours after the teapot was polished. Now, the package of arrowroot is real enough, but since there was never any ground glass in the arrowroot I ate, there is no reason to believe the glass was put in it for that purpose. As for my sister Belle, her word is notoriously undependable and her memory like a sieve. As for the silver polish, until the formula is obtained from England and proven to call for a smaller percentage of cyanide than that found by the police analyst, I see no serious cause for alarm. No cause for alarm.”
I stared helplessly. “Which is a polite way of calling me a foolish alarmist?”
Dr. Hilton’s smile was almost affable. “Come, Doctor, do not put words into my mouth.” He tucked the flute case under his arm. “Let me, however, say one word in conclusion. I no longer think of you as a thrillmonger. I think you sincerely believe all you have told me. But I have let the district attorney know how I feel about the whole deplorable affair, and I see nothing in what you have said to make me change my attitude.” He started toward the door. “And now—since in spite of your forebodings I expect to remain alive for some time—I really must get to my flute practice.”
I watched his back as he progressed with exaggerated dignity toward the door. And suddenly I saw the reason for Dr. Hilton’s incredibly unrealistic attitude. It was based on vanity and vanity alone. Dr. Hilton was as colossally vain about his own inviolable importance as was his sister Emily of her charm and her family traditions. He knew he was Dr. George Hilton, and he knew that nobody in the world could possibly have the temerity to murder—Dr. George Hilton.
Before he reached the door, it was thrown open and Helena flounced in, bursting healthily out of a white cotton frock. Her long lashes batted ambiguously at the sight of me, but she went straight to her father and clung with excessive affection to his arm.
“Oh, Daddy dearest, Aunt Emily wants us all up at the music room to start fixing supper.” She glanced down at his flute case and started to scold him in a voice sticky with whimsy. “Look, you’ve missed your practice again. That’s the second time. You haven’t practiced a bit since we’ve been here. You are a naughty boy.”
At the picnic I had noticed that Dr. Hilton could be as arch with his daughter as she was with him. But that evening he disengaged himself from her hand irritably. As her face fell in pouting disappointment at his lack of warmth, he murmured:
“Yes, Helena, I have missed my practice, but Dr. Westlake”—here he shot me a distinctly dirty look over his shoulder—“had something to discuss with me, something which seemed important to him.”
He passed through the door, with Helena, her bounciness deflated, after him.
I followed.
It had been one of the least satisfactory interviews of my career.
XIII
I followed Dr. Hilton and Helena down the worn carpeting of the stairway. Dr. Hilton’s refusal to take my warning seriously left me with a sense of frustration. Although my conviction that Nanny had been murdered was as strong as ever, I was unable to alter the fact that in one respect Dr. Hilton’s skepticism had been justified. My theory depended for almost all its evidence on Belle Kenton-Oakes’s casual remark about the cup of tea she had drunk with Nanny. If, as Dr. Hilton suggested, her word was undependable and she had made up the whole episode purely to score off Emily, my chances for putting a little backbone into the D.A. were doomed to failure. Obviously, before committing myself any further, I would have to get Mrs. Kenton-Oakes to confirm her story.
<
br /> I felt suddenly exasperated and unsure of myself.
We reached the hall to find Dawn and Janie Hilton on their knees playing with a self-consciously cute Hamish. When they saw us, my daughter and Dr. Hilton’s wife scrambled to their feet. Janie’s pretty face was flushed and shining, as if playing with my Scottie had been the pleasantest thing that had happened to her since her arrival at the Lanchesters’. She gave Helena a conciliatory smile and clutched her husband’s sleeve.
“Oh, George, it’s such a darling doggie. Couldn’t we have one? I’ve always wanted a little dog of my own.”
Dr. Hilton and Helena moved the fraction of an inch closer to each other as if in instinctive Hiltonian league against an interloper. Dr. Hilton’s stare was almost as chilly as Helena’s, and I found myself liking him even less for it. He had married Janie and dragged her into this dismal, hostile atmosphere. He could at least be nice to her. But he wasn’t even polite. With a muttered remark about dogs being a nuisance in town, he slipped his arm ostentatiously around his daughter’s waist and passed out of the front door.
Janie looked after them with undisguised forlornness and then gave me a wistful smile.
“I adore Scotties, Dr. Westlake. In Boston it would be so wonderful to have something to keep me company. I’m alone so much of the time.” She sighed. “But I don’t think George will want one.”
She looped her arm through Dawn’s then, and the three of us, with Hamish, followed after Dr. Hilton and Helena.
As we moved through the salmon-and-white phlox beds outside the house, Janie looked up at me from big, shortsighted eyes.
“Oh, I got into the most tewwible twouble with Mrs. Lanchester just now, Dr. Westlake. I gave Wosalind an old sweater and skirt, and Mrs. Lanchester was fuwious. She said I was a cowwupting influence and all sorts of awful things. I don’t weally understand what she meant. It was just a little old sweater, and Wosalind always looks so dowdy I thought it would be nice for her.” The eyes were earnest. “Do you think it was awful of me, Dr. Westlake?”
I had a vivid mental picture of that interview with Mrs. Lanchester. “No,” I said, meaning it. “I think it was kind and generous of you.”
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