A Key to Death

by Frances

  “You have trouble with patients not doing what you tell them?” Bill Weigand asked.

  “What doctor doesn’t?” Arn said. “You didn’t come here to ask me that?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Bill said, “I did. In a way. About one patient—man named Schaeffer. He didn’t follow your instructions, did he?”

  Dr. Arn looked at Weigand for some seconds, and looked through shrewd eyes.

  “Apparently he didn’t,” Arn said, finally.

  “You’d have expected him to?”

  “I never expect much,” Arn said. “If they do half what I tell them—” He smiled, faintly. “I won’t say I don’t make allowance for that,” he said.

  “Specifically,” Bill said, “about Schaeffer. What did you expect from him?”

  “Good sense,” Arn said. “I never bet on it. But—he seemed a sensible man. A man who, when he knew where he stood, would adjust himself to it. Apparently he wasn’t.”

  “Perhaps,” Bill said, and stood up. “Perhaps he didn’t really know where he stood, doctor. Thanks.”

  “That’s all?”

  “For now,” Bill said.

  He went, and Mullins went after him. In the car, they pulled out from the curb, skidding momentarily. At the next even-numbered street they turned east. The windshield wipers swished against the snow; the heater and defroster motors hummed steadily. Weigand let the traffic set his pace.

  The footfalls came nearer; the man—the sound was surely of a man’s heavier shoes—seemed to be coming toward the door under the staircase in the living room. But then the sounds altered, became those of a man climbing stairs. Heels clicked, twice, against the metalled bindings of the stair treads. Pam North looked at Nan, and Nan’s head went back with the sound as if, through the wall, she could see the intruder mounting.

  Pam looked at Phoebe James, and found Phoebe looking at her. The gaze seemed measuring, as if Phoebe were making up—or seeking to make up—her mind about something of importance. Yet Pam was not sure that she was, except incidentally, the object of this considering gaze It was possible, she thought, that Phoebe saw nothing outside her own mind.

  “Who?” Pam said, in a whisper, and Phoebe shook her head slowly. “Perhaps we could—” Pam said, and looked at the door.

  “No,” Phoebe said. “They’d hear us. We would get half across the room. We—”

  “A back way?” Pam asked, still in a whisper, and Phoebe looked at Nan. But Nan did not seem to hear. She sat with her head back, still looking upward—although the sound of the man’s climbing had ceased.

  “Into the garden,” Phoebe said. “Then through the garage. But—”

  She did not finish; she only listened. The man was coming back down the staircase against the living room wall. He reached the foot of the stairs.

  Then the man spoke. He spoke Nan’s name; spoke it loudly in the big, echoing room beyond the doors. I’ve heard that voice, Pam thought, and at the same instant, Phoebe James said, excitedly, “It’s Reg, Nan. Don’t you hear—it’s just Reg.”

  There was relief in her voice and, only on hearing it, did Pam realize they had sat, each alone, but still in a community of fear.

  “Just Reg,” Phoebe repeated.

  Nan looked at the door, now. She looked, and waited, and her slender shoulders rose, as with a deep breath.

  “Yes,” she said, slowly. “I hear it is.”

  But it was Phoebe James who, after waiting a moment, called out—called, “Reg. We’re in here. In the library.”

  There was the sound of a door opening then, and of quick steps.

  XI

  Wednesday, 5:20 P.M. to 6:05 P.M.

  Reginald Webb was tall in the doorway of the little library, looking at three women, at first without speaking. He was tall and immaculate; the thinnest edge of a white handkerchief meticulously marked the breast pocket of a gray suit; the well considered knot of a gray and maroon tie nestled between the spreading, not overly-long, collar points of a white shirt. (If only Jerry would go to so much trouble, Pam thought, the irrelevant flickering across her mind.) Only Reginald Webb’s face was in disorder.

  He looked from one to the other, and looked, seemingly, in bitter anger. His brows were drawn together; there was a deep line between them. His mouth was a hard line across his face. His gaze ended on Nan Schaeffer, and held there.

  “What the hell have you been doing to yourself?” he demanded of her, and his voice was harsh.

  “I?” she said. “To myself, Reg?”

  “What are you doing here?” he said, as if he had not heard her answer. “Don’t you know—” But then he broke off. “You’re hurt,” he said, and now in a different voice. “How’d you get hurt?”

  “One of them hit me,” she said. “With the barrel of a revolver. I—” She put her hand up to the bruise. “After they brought me here last night,” she said.

  “They?”

  “Two men,” she said. “The ones—they must have been the ones who stopped you. Threatened you. They were looking for something. I walked in on them. The man with the tight mouth.”

  “All right,” he said. “All right. Let’s get out of here. This is—” He broke off again. “Get a doctor to look at you,” he said. “Have you called the police?”

  “I—” she said, and looked at Phoebe James, at Pam North. “I called them. I don’t—I guess they didn’t get it right.”

  “She called me, Reg,” Phoebe James said. “We—Mrs. North was there. We found her tied up.”

  He looked at Phoebe James, then, and his eyes narrowed. It seemed to Pam that, unspoken, some thought—some understanding—passed between them. But she thought, from Webb’s face, that it was the understanding of enmity.

  “Tied up?” he said.

  “Yes,” Phoebe said. “But she got a hand loose to dial the telephone. I untied the rest. Mrs. North got a knife but—”

  “All right,” Webb said again. “We’ll have to get you out of here, Nan. It’s no good your being here.” He took a step toward her. But she drew back.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “All right now.”

  “They found Mary’s body,” he said. “They’re looking for a man—or a boy. A kid in a loose coat. Or—they say they are.”

  “Mary?” Phoebe James said. “Mary Burton?”

  He nodded, very briefly.

  “Mary too,” Phoebe said. “But—why Mary?” She looked at Webb, shifted her gaze to Nan. “Why Mary?” she repeated, and it seemed to Pam that this was unexpected to her, and surprising—as finding Nan tied on the floor, as hearing Webb calling from the big room, had not been.

  “I don’t know,” Nan said. “How could I? I was here. They wouldn’t let me go.” She paused. “Wait!” she said. “The man driving their car—the boy, really. And—they said something about a ferry? Did I tell you that?”

  She asked of Phoebe, of Pam North.

  “You told us that,” Phoebe James said. “You remember she did, Mrs. North? Mrs. Burton lived on Staten Island, you know.”

  Pam was not sure she had known; she was not sure of anything—except that the three of them were somehow together, and she alone; except that, in the momentary silence, sleety snow beat against the tall, curtained window of the small room.

  “She said something about a ferry,” Pam said. “I remember that. But—”

  “When was she killed?” Nan asked, and spoke hurriedly.

  “Yes,” Webb said. “That’s important, isn’t it? Sometime this morning—an hour or so after midnight.”

  “That’s where he went, then,” Nan said. “The boy who was driving the car. But—why? As Phoebe says—why?”

  Webb merely looked at her. He shook his head slowly.

  “She must have known something, mustn’t she?” Phoebe James said. “Wouldn’t you think that, Mrs. North? Something about—about Forbes’s death?”

  (She keeps drawing me into it, Pam thought. As if—as if to be sure I’m listening? To get me to—to
what? To commit myself to something?)

  Pam nodded. She reached for the telephone.

  “No,” Webb said. The word rasped. “We don’t want the police yet, Mrs. North. We’re not ready yet. Are we?” He looked at Nan. “Are we?” he repeated.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “What do you mean, Reg?”

  “Oh—” he said. “We want to get you to a doctor. Have him look you over—see if you’re all right. Before you have to—go over all this with the police. Tell them about the men who tied you up.” He turned to Pam. “That’s reasonable, isn’t it?” he said. “It’s better that way.”

  Again Pam North felt that she was, for some purpose she did not understand, being drawn in as—but as what? Then she thought, I’m supposed to remember this—all of this.

  “She seems all right,” Pam said. “It’s—it’s just a bad bump and—”

  But she stopped at a sudden thought: Why, it is really just a bad bump! The kind you get if you walk into a door in the dark. The kind you put cold water on, and get a headache from and—

  “No,” Webb said. “She needs a doctor.”

  “Of course,” Phoebe said, “More than a bump, Mrs. North. She was knocked out. Don’t you remember? She was unconscious for—for a long time.”

  She looked at Pam intently.

  “Whatever it looks like,” she said. “Whatever it looks like to you.”

  Webb moved impatiently, again toward Nan Schaeffer. “Come on,” he said. “Get a coat. You’ve got a coat here?”

  “I—” she said, and looked around the room. “I must—”

  “It’s in the closet across the hall,” Pam North said. “I saw it when I was looking for the knife. It’s hanging up in the closet.” She paused. “On a hanger,” she said. “They—they must have hung it up for you, Mrs. Schaeffer. Instead of just—”

  “All right,” Webb said. “I’ll get it.”

  He turned quickly, was through the door. Now it was Nan Schaeffer who looked at Pam with an odd intensity.

  “Why do you make—” she began, and then stopped as Webb came back into the room, carrying the mink coat, holding it out toward her. She stood and looked at the coat, and then slowly began to shake her head.

  “Come on,” he said, and spoke roughly. “We haven’t got forever.”

  She shook her head again.

  “One of them said, ‘Where’d you put it? After he gave it to you?’” she said. “I just remember that. Did they mean you, Reg? That you had given me something? The list they talked about?”

  He lowered the coat. It touched the floor. He noticed this, or seemed to. He lifted it so that it was free of the carpet.

  “I don’t know what ‘they’ meant,” he said, and he emphasized, faintly, the word “they.” “I didn’t give you anything.”

  “No,” Nan said. “But they thought you had. They must have meant you. Why would they think that, Reg? What would—”

  “You didn’t tell us this before,” Phoebe said. “Did she, Mrs. North? Only now.”

  “I just remembered it. I said that.”

  “Yes,” Webb said. “They heard you say that, Nan. You’d better come—better let me take you to a doctor.”

  “To a doctor?” she said. “Is that it? Are you sure that’s it, Reg?” She drew back. “No,” she said. “I—I think I’d rather wait. I don’t need a doctor. I’m—you weren’t mixed up with them, were you, Reg? In something Forbes found out about and—” She stopped. She drew back still farther. “I guess not,” she said. “I guess not.”

  He looked at her. Then he looked at Phoebe James, and then at Pam, and his gaze seemed to measure all of them.

  “No,” he said, “You don’t need a doctor, Nan. You’re doing fine.” He faced her, seemed to seek to force her to meet his gaze. But she did not. “Yes,” he said. “You’re doing fine, Nan. I might have known you would.”

  “Well,” Phoebe James said, “were you mixed up with them, Reg? These people Nan talks about? The ones she says were looking for a list? Some kind of a list?”

  “You’re doing fine too,” Webb told her.

  “I’m going to find out who killed Forbes,” she said. “Don’t you want to find out? Or—don’t you need to, Reg?”

  “And Mary Burton,” Nan Schaeffer said, and spoke quickly. “Did you send—”

  Webb laughed suddenly. His laughter was as harsh as his voice had been. Pam felt he was laughing at himself. His laughter died as suddenly as it had begun, and then they heard someone knocking on the distant street door, the sound echoing in the big living room on which the door opened. For a moment no one spoke, and in the silence the distant knocking seemed very close.

  “Your friends are back, Nan,” Webb said. “Very noisy friends.”

  And then all three of them looked at Nan Schaeffer, and saw her eyes narrowed, her whole expression one of extreme concentration. She was—she was, Pam thought, like a cat, eyes narrowed in speculation, wondering from which direction danger threatens, wondering in which direction it is safe to leap.

  “No,” Phoebe said. “Not her friends. Because—they’ve got your key, haven’t they, Nan? It must be the police—the police finally. It—”

  The knocking was more peremptory.

  “Well,” Phoebe said, “are we waiting for them to go away? Is that what we’re waiting for?”

  Still, for an instant, no one moved. Then Pam North moved; moved around Reginald Webb, who did not try to stop her; moved along the short corridor to the living room and, in it, moved more quickly still, until near the door she was almost running. She pulled at the heavy door, got it open, and snow came blowing in and Pam said, “Oh. It took you long enough,” to Bill Weigand and Sergeant Mullins.

  “You turn up in the damnedest places,” Bill said, and came into the room with Mullins behind him, and they brushed snow from overcoats. Bill stopped brushing and looked beyond Pam and said, without emphasis, “So this is where you all got to.” Pam turned. Nan and Phoebe had come into the room and stood under the stairs, and Webb stood, looking very tall in shadows, behind them. They came further into the room.

  Nan Schaeffer broke from the others and almost ran across the room. She clutched the mink coat in her arms, and did not seem conscious that she held it.

  “Thank God,” she said. “Oh, thank God! I thought nobody would ever come.”

  “Now lady,” Sergeant Mullins said, “just take it easy. You’re all right now.”

  “They brought me here,” she said. “Right from the hotel. All night and today and they tied me up and—”

  “By they,” Webb said, and he too—he and Phoebe James—came further into the room. “By they she means two men, one with a small, tight mouth. The men I told you about, captain. She thinks—she says, anyway—that I’m mixed up with them.” He paused momentarily. “I told her about them at dinner last night.”

  “Did you?” Bill Weigand said. “Right, Mr. Webb. That’s quite a bruise you’ve got there, Mrs. Schaeffer. One of the men hit you?”

  “With a revolver,” Nan said. “He—”

  But she stopped, because Bill Weigand did not appear to be listening. Instead, he was looking around the big room with tall windows on two sides, with the iron staircase angling up a third wall. It occurred to Pam, preposterously, that Bill might have been inspecting with a view to purchase. What he said seemed to bear out this preposterous supposition.

  “The bedrooms,” Bill Weigand said. “They’re up there, Mrs. Schaeffer?”

  “What?” she said. “The—what did you say?”

  “The bedrooms,” Bill said again. “Open off the balcony. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Why,” she said. “Yes. But—”

  “A long climb up,” Bill said. “And—a long way down.”

  “You—” Nan Schaeffer said. “Why do you say that? Bring it all—bring it all back?”

  “Mrs. Schaeffer’s husband fell on the stairs,” Bill said, and now he spoke to Pam North. �
�Fell all the way down. Stumbled at the top and fell. He’d started down to—what did you say he’d started down to do, Mrs. Schaeffer?”

  “I didn’t know,” she said, and was staring at Bill Weigand. “How could I have known? Sometimes he went down to get something to eat—a glass of milk. When he couldn’t sleep.”

  “Yes,” Bill said. “I remember now. That was in the report. These men, Mrs. Schaeffer. Why did they bring you here?”

  “They were looking for something,” she said. “A—a list of some sort.”

  “And you thought Mr. Webb was—what did you say?—mixed up with them?”

  “I—I didn’t know,” she said. “They were all so strange—Reg, Phoebe, Mrs. North, even. And—” She laid the coat on a chair. “I’m not myself. I’m—I feel all mixed up.” She touched the bruise on her temple. “It hurts again,” she said. “I don’t know what I said.”

  But Pamela North did not believe her and then, with a sudden kind of completeness, realized that that was what had been wrong—been wrong for a long time. She had not believed any of it—not the two men, not the blow on the temple, not the—

  “Bill!” Pam said. “Listen. She—”

  “In a minute, Pam,” Bill said. “In just a minute.”

  “No,” Pam said. “Please listen. It’s just the kind you put cold water on, really. And, a call from a dial telephone can’t really be traced in—oh, for a long time. But everybody doesn’t know that. And the coat—look at the coat, Bill!”

  And then, as if her words compelled them, they all looked at the mink coat, very glossy, very beautiful, on a chair—laid, most carefully, in a most orderly fashion, over the back of the chair. It seemed to anticipate a caress.

  Pam was expectant. She looked at Bill.

  “But,” she said, “it’s all very clear. As clear as anything.”

  “I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Nan Schaeffer said. She looked around at the others.

  “Don’t you, my dear?” Phoebe James said. She spoke softly, and yet she spoke with hatred. “Don’t you? Oh—I think you do, Nan.” She moved a step closer to Bill Weigand. “That was why?” she said, and she pointed at the staircase.