Death, My Darling Daughters

by Jonathan Stagge

  “There aren’t many facts, and they’re not particularly bloody, Dr. Stahl.” I turned to Vic. “About this new Hilton Endowment. I don’t have to ask you if you knew about it, because you told me you did this afternoon. There’s one thing I do want to know, though. Did Dr. Hilton come out with his plans this afternoon for the first time, or had there been any talk of the endowment earlier?”

  Vic was scowling at his hands. “There’d been some talk of it earlier—when he was sick in Boston, matter of fact. But the family jumped on him, and he gave it up for a while.”

  “And you realized at the time,” I said, “that if the Hilton Endowment did come into being, your chances of being appointed chief chemist were slight?”

  He glanced up at me under the thick black lashes. “I wasn’t sure, but I was pretty sure. Hilton and I hadn’t been exactly in love with each other for quite a while. I had a hunch the whole thing was thought up as a snide way of giving me the brush-off.”

  Dr. Stahl, who had been watching us with the keen eyes and twitching nose of a rat studying a trap, said suddenly: “Vy you ask thees, Dr. Vestlake?”

  I returned her stare. “Because the person who killed Dr. Hilton and Nanny here also made an attempt to kill Dr. Hilton when he was sick in Boston. I wanted to be sure that Vic could have had the same motive for killing Dr. Hilton in Boston as he potentially had here at Kenmore.”

  “Motive!” echoed Dr. Stahl.

  “The motive of wanting Dr. Hilton dead before he founded the endowment and liquidated Vic’s whole association with the research on the new esters.”

  Vic was watching me now with more curiosity than concern. But Lisl Stahl’s eyes flashed. She spun to Vic and gripped his arm with a protectiveness and an anxiety that I had never seen her show for any other human being.

  “You see, Veek? Already you are an eediot. Already he makes the trap and you fall—blumph! You fool. Vy don’t you be careful? Vy don’t you say never before thees afternoon you hear from thees endowment?”

  Vic freed his arm impatiently. “Why shouldn’t I tell him the truth? I didn’t kill Hilton. I haven’t any reason for lying.”

  “Ach.” Dr. Stahl shook her head vehemently. “So thees is America, I suppose you say. America! Oh, the justice, the democracy, the Abraham Lincoln! All is so vonderful in America that never the innocent suffer from vat they haf not done. Eediot talk. I know. Verever you are in the vorld, in America, in the Indian China, anyvere, always ees the same. You are innocent, you are a fool. Pouff, eet come to you in the neck. To be safe, you must be innocent and alvays smart. Smart!”

  Once again the black gaze, distinctly hostile now, moved back to me. “Okay. You say Veek has motive for veeshing to keel Dr. Heelton. Correct?”

  “I say he has a possible motive.”

  “Okay. Vat ees eet, thees motive? I say. Dr. Heelton ees a beetch; he jump into Veek’s discoveries; slowly piece by piece he push Veek out; slowly, slowly, all the credit he take for heemself; and then in the end he founds thees endowment—thees endowment vich vill put Veek way out in the coldness. Right? So Veek, he ees mad; he keel Dr. Heelton before the endowment ees begun. That ees eet? That ees the motive?” She leaned across the table until her nose seemed to be quivering only the fraction of an inch from my face. “That ees vat you say?”

  “That’s more or less what I say might be so,” I returned.

  “Okay.” Dr. Stahl’s finger waggled passionately close to her own nose and mine. “But with motive also has to come the means, yes? I read the detective stories, I know. Okay, the means. You say that the poleesh eet ees poisoned with some of my poisons. That ees right. I hear you say. Okay. Then the means of the murder is the means to get the poison from my laboratory. Right? Oh, oh, thees ees vere you are made the fool, Dr. Vestlake, because never, never has Veek been in my laboratory.” She swung round to Vic triumphantly. “Ees not thees true? The other day ven they all from the Lanchester house come to lunch and they see around my laboratory, Veek stay in the house; he ees bored with my rats; he does not come. Ees that not right, Veek?”

  Vic looked at her with a faint smile and then at me. “After Lisl’s attorney-for-the-defense act, I guess you won’t believe it even if I say it. But it happens to be true. I haven’t ever been in Lisl’s laboratory. Needless to say, I haven’t ever stolen any of her poisons, either.”

  “So.” Dr. Stahl spun round to me again. Her point being won, all her animosity was gone, and she eyed me almost with friendliness. “You see how seemple eet ees ven you are smart? Now me,” she added abruptly, “maybe you theenk I too keel Dr. Heelton, yes?”

  It was clear that Lisl believed in attack as the best defense. Since she was determined to run the interview her way, I did not discourage her.

  She continued: “Okay. Do I like Dr. Heelton? Do I?” She shook her head. “To me he steenk. Already you know. Already I tell. Okay. So you say maybe I keel heem. I have the poison. I take care of heem ven he ees seeck in Boston. Any day, any moment, I take the poison. I—pouff, into Dr. Heelton the poison goes and he dies. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “But”—here she gave me one of her flashing smiles—“ah, ees not so easy. Because Nanny ees keeled, yes? Someone creep into Nanny’s room ven she ees seeck. Someone put the poison on her teapot, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Once again Dr. Stahl was building up to a gigantic climax. Once again she leaned forward across Mrs. Lanchester’s dining-room table until our noses were almost contiguous. “But how do I put the poleesh in Nanny’s teapot? How? Ven never that day I come to her room. Ask anyone. Nanny, she hate me. Nanny never ask me to come ven she ees seeck. Never even to the Lanchester house do I come that day ven Nanny ees keeled.”

  She threw herself back in her chair and watched me.

  “Also. Vat ees done ees done, yes? I prove that Veek do not keel. I prove that I do not keel. Ees enough.” She put her hand on Vic’s arm. “Now that ees all? Over ees the interview, yes?”

  In spite of her passionate loquacity, I was somewhat disappointed in Dr. Stahl. She had presumably satisfied herself that she had been smart enough to convince me of her own innocence and Vic’s. But she had overlooked the most obvious facts. That Vic had not joined the party of inspection in the laboratory was probably true. But it meant next to nothing, since the laboratory was left unlocked and Vic or anyone else at any time could have slipped into it and stolen poison without being observed from Dr. Stahl’s house. It was also true that Nanny had not liked Dr. Stahl and almost certainly had not asked the Austrian to visit her sickbed. But, once again, the habits of the Lanchesters were notoriously casual, and the house was large. While Nanny was asleep and the rest of us were on our way to the picnic, Dr. Stahl could easily have stolen up to Nanny’s room and poisoned the teapot.

  Lisl had risen. Her hand was still protectively on Vic’s arm. Her eyes were still eagerly fixed on my face.

  “Okay? Ees over now? Ve go?”

  There was no good reason why the interview should not be over. I had already learned that everyone, with the exception of the Kenton-Oakeses, could have wished Dr. Hilton dead and could have killed him. If anything, that was too much rather than too little information. I rose. Vic jumped up with obvious relief, and the three of us crossed the dark hall into the living room.

  It seemed as if I had been away from it for hours, and yet the Hiltons were grouped almost as they had originally been grouped. Rosalind and Perdita were still crouched together on the floor. Mrs. Lanchester had resumed possession of the stately ottoman. The Kenton-Oakeses shared a davenport, while Janie, still, it seemed, in a daze of shock from her husband’s death, huddled on the window seat.

  When we entered, Rosalind scrambled up from the floor and, with a defiant glance at her mother, came right up to me. She put her hand on my sleeve.

  “Dr. Westlake, tell us. Oh, please, tell us. Mother won’t say a word, and we’ve got to know. Has anything been discovered? Did the inspector—?�
�

  “Rosalind!” Emily Lanchester, fluid as ever, was back to being the domineering mother. She frowned severely on her daughter. “I told you not to ask questions. This is not a matter for children.”

  “But, Mother—”

  “That will be enough, Rosalind.”

  Rosalind’s lower lip was trembling. As she turned away from me, Vic snapped: “For God’s sake, Mrs. Lanchester, when are you going to stop calling Rosalind and Perdita children? And what about Janie? Is she a child? She’s entitled to know what’s going on. Everyone’s entitled to know. Okay. There’s nothing very complicated. Sure, Dr. Hilton was murdered and Nanny was murdered. You all know that. There’s only one thing more to know right now, and that is that any of us might have murdered him.”

  “Murdered him!”

  The words came sharply from the door. We all turned. Helena Hilton had entered. Until then I had forgotten Dr. Hilton’s daughter. Her blond face still swollen and flushed from private weeping in her own room, Helena stood completely motionless on the threshold. With her remarkable fair hair, her fine features, and the heavy beauty of her body, she should have been impressive. But, as always with Helena, the effect was somehow false.

  She turned to Vic.

  “It’s no good pretending. I heard you say Daddy was murdered. And I’d guessed it anyway. I guessed it when I saw the inspector and those men from my window—saw them go up to the barn and then drive away again.”

  In the uncomfortable silence that followed, she turned to me.

  “That’s right, isn’t it, Dr. Westlake? Daddy was murdered?”

  I said: “I’m afraid it is right, Helena.”

  “And you’ve been left by the inspector to find out who did it, haven’t you?” She laughed suddenly, an unexpected, rasping laugh. “All along I’ve suspected you were in with the police. I’ve suspected that Nanny was murdered and that you were here as a spy.”

  “Hardly a—” I began.

  “Oh, I don’t mind. Why should I mind? Of course the police have to spy.” Helena was trembling now. It was disturbing to see her standing there very straight and yet trembling. With unsteady violence, she added: “You’re going to be grateful to me, Dr. Westlake. I’m going to save you a lot of trouble. You see, I know. I know who it was that murdered Daddy.”

  “Helena!” Mrs. Lanchester’s voice, at its most formidably “dear girl,” rose above the concerted chatter. Helena paid no attention.

  She turned so that she was staring straight at Janie, curled in the window seat. As she looked at her stepmother, her eyes narrowed and the lines of her mouth were distorted with disgust and hatred.

  “She killed him,” she said slowly and deliberately. “There, sitting by the window, she killed Daddy.”

  A gasp of shock sounded, but Janie herself neither moved nor spoke. She seemed to have no strength left. She just sat hunching her shoulders as if she were cold.

  “She only married Daddy for his money, our money.” Helena’s voice was triumphantly clear. “She never loved him. We all know that. She never fooled us. What was she before she married him? Just a cheap little woman in a Florida Hotel. And what was she after she married him? She was rich; she had a place in society; a house of her own; everything. Oh yes, she had everything she wanted after she married him. What did it matter to her that Daddy was so much older, that her married life was short on romance? There were ways of taking care of that. Oh yes, as Mrs. George Hilton, she had everything she’d ever dreamed of having.”

  “Helena—”

  The girl spun round to me, a glow, ugly with excitement, in her eyes. “But all that was going to end, Dr. Westlake. Yesterday something happened that none of you know, and after it happened there was to be no more Mrs. George Hilton for Janie. Yesterday Daddy found out something he should have known weeks ago. Yesterday Daddy decided to divorce her!”

  With a lightning change of mood, characteristic of all the Hiltons, she threw up her hands, big and roughened from riding, to cover her face. When she spoke again, her words came muffled with sobs.

  “It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t told Daddy, he’d never have known. And if he’d never known, she’d never have killed him. Oh, why didn’t I realize? Why didn’t I realize?”

  The sobs rose. She stood there, big and stooped, hiding her face. If ever there was a moment for Mrs. Lanchester to exercise her tyrannical authority, this was it. And yet she did absolutely nothing. She merely sat watching her niece, her eyes shining almost as if she were titillated by Helena’s naked hysteria.

  It was Vic who took charge. His hand protectively on Janie’s arm, he glared at Helena from black, smoldering eyes.

  “I guess we’ve had enough of you, Helena. Either apologize to Janie or get the hell out of this room.”

  “Apologize!” The word rekindled the flame of Helena’s violence. She dropped her hands from her tear-stained face, watching Vic in a white passion. “You dare to tell me to apologize. You! As if you didn’t know, you above everyone, that it’s all true. You know I told Daddy. I warned you I was going to.”

  Once again she spun round to me. “Shall I tell you why Daddy was going to divorce Janie? Surely, you’ve guessed. Surely—knowing Janie—you’ve all guessed by now. Oh, I suspected it for weeks. But I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t ever be sure. When Janie used to go off to spend the week end in New York with her sister, I suspected. Of course I suspected. But I wasn’t sure until the last week end, when I followed her. I followed her to the South Station. And I saw then. I saw Vic waiting for her at the station. I saw them meet; saw him put his arms around her and kiss her. I saw them get into the train together and ride off. Her sister! Visiting her sister in New York!”

  Vic took a step toward her, but she went on passionately: “Oh, when I knew for certain, I still didn’t tell Daddy. I don’t know why. He was sick. I suppose I wanted to protect him. I suppose I wanted to protect Vic too, because I’ve always known what Vic was. He’s weak as a baby. Any woman—any woman can have him. I knew that, and I thought it was a shame to get him into trouble. I thought… oh, what does it matter what I thought? Because yesterday I was sensible at last. Yesterday I realized that he was rotten—just as rotten as Janie. I realized Daddy had to know the truth and get rid of these people. So I told him. I went to him and told him. It hurt him, of course. It was terrible for him. A cheap little woman and a cheap little man doing that to him. But he knew there was only one thing to do, and he was going to do it. He was going to divorce her and let the world know it was Vic with whom she’d been an—an adulteress.”

  That heavy biblical word echoed around the room. Vic sprung to her, gripped her arms and shook her fiercely.

  “You rat,” he said. “You dirty little sneaking rat.”

  Helena wrenched herself away. “Me? What about Janie? What about you? Yes, what about you?” Her eyes suddenly darkened as if some new, terrible thought had come. “Yes, of course. Maybe you helped her kill Daddy. Maybe that was how it happened. Maybe—”

  “Helena!”

  “Why not? You knew exactly what was going to happen to you. Daddy was going to break you. That’s what he wanted more than anything in the world. He was going to name you co-respondent; he was going to do everything in his power to get you fired from Arkwright; he was going to ruin your career.”

  While the two of them stood, glaring at each other, Mrs. Lanchester rose, suddenly and belatedly. The lilac dress flowing around her hourglass figure, she moved to Vic. That strange, perverse glint was still in her eyes.

  “Dr. Roberts, you have got to tell me—is all this that Helena has said true?”

  “True?” snorted Vic, still staring at Helena. “You should know your niece by now, Mrs. Lanchester. If you don’t, it’s about time you did. For months, ever since she worked in the Arkwright lab with me, she’s been hanging around me like a frustrated heifer. I’ve had no time for her. Why should I have time for her? And it’s eaten into her and filled her up with je
alousy. And now she’s pouring out all this filth about Janie just to get even with me.”

  Helena had turned deathly pale. “Vic—!”

  “You asked for the truth, Mrs. Lanchester,” cut in Vic. “Okay. There it is for you. The truth.”

  That, if possible, was an uglier moment than any of the ugly moments that had gone before. Her nostrils crinkling distastefully at this utterly unHiltonian situation, Mrs. Lanchester turned from Vic to the window seat.

  “Janie,” she said in a clipped, steady voice, “I wish to hear what you have to say. Is this true? Have you been spending week ends with Dr. Roberts in New York? Did Helena tell George? Was he going to divorce you? Remember, Janie, I want the truth.”

  But Mrs. Lanchester did not hear the truth or anything else from her sister-in-law.

  For Janie Hilton had toppled off the window seat and was tumbled on the worn rose carpet in a dead faint.

  XVII

  In the confusion that followed Janie’s fainting fit, I slipped away. I had learned more than enough to take to Cobb. The Hilton family, for all Mrs. Lanchester’s dictatorial efforts to keep its thoughts high and its living plain, had turned out to be just as frail and “vulgar” as any other group of human beings. That was obvious now. The facade was already cracked and crumbling. There was no need to stand around and watch its final collapse.

  As I started the drive to Grovestown I gathered stray facts from my memory. I thought of Janie’s confusion when first Rosalind had mentioned Vic in my presence, and her even greater confusion when Dawn had suggested that she take a lover. I thought of the violent scene, now so easily explainable, that I had half overheard between Vic and Helena. I thought also of the impression I had had that Dr. Hilton was only telling me part of the reason for his bitter dislike of Vic.

  In spite of Vic’s denials, it seemed certain to me that the relationship between him, Janie, Dr. Hilton, and Helena had been much as Helena had described it. Almost certainly, too, it had been Helena’s revelation of the affair between Vic and Janie which had decided Dr. Hilton once and for all to go through with his endowment plan. I saw now that the endowment, which would have cut Janie out of benefiting from Hilton’s will and taken the first major step toward stymie-ing Vic’s career, had probably been the product of cuckold’s spite as much as of a desire for glory.