With One Stone

by Frances Lockridge

  Forniss sat down.

  “Only,” he said, “now that he does think of it he thinks it’s sort of funny. On account of, a few days before, the Chronicle had had an ad in the other papers plugging Parsons. ‘Distinguished commentator; molder of public opinion.’ That sort of thing, my friend says. And all at once—no more distinguished commentator. Says he’ll ask around, if we like. I told him we would.”

  “The paper never explained? Didn’t regret to announce?”

  “Nope. My friend’s pretty sure about that. Here today and gone tomorrow.”

  “The TV shows?”

  “Pretty much hung together, apparently. No column, no panel.”

  “And probably,” Heimrich said, “no lecture tours either. Could be he stepped out of line somehow. Your friend think that, Charley?”

  “Just plain doesn’t know. Says he never read the s.o.b., so how would he? Liberal type, my friend is.” Forniss lighted a cigarette. “And,” he said, “where does it get us?”

  “Now Charley,” Heimrich said. “The smallest addition to human knowledge. To put it another way, I haven’t the least idea. I—”

  Harold, the barman, came out of the taproom. He said there was a call for the sergeant.

  “If they’ve already picked him up,” Heimrich said, “we’ll send in for him tonight. If they haven’t, tell them to let it ride until morning.” And yawned.

  He’d slept—when was it he had slept? Oh yes—a couple of hours at the barracks; the hours between five and, say, seven. Even policemen—

  Forniss came back, and again came shaking his head.

  “No soap,” he said. “Not at his room. Anyway, doesn’t answer the bell. Not at Dolan’s place. And they mention that the Village is a haystack and he’s a fairly small needle. So I told them morning would do, like you said.”

  Heimrich felt some relief, and felt it with little guilt. Forniss would be at the barracks if anything turned up. Heimrich went to his room, which seemed extraordinarily empty. He was, momentarily, tempted to make another telephone call—make it to a motel in Port Royal, Virginia. Just to hear—

  Which was ridiculous. She was fine; nothing was going to happen to his girl. He went to bed. Almost at once, he went to sleep.

  XIII

  It would be Norman, Dinah thought when the knocking awakened her—Norman come to tell her that what was none of the business of the others was her business because it was his. To tell her that he had met Ann that afternoon for reasons which did not matter, did not touch them; to tell her that what had once been between him and Ann was long over; was a long-dead fire; that the meeting Thursday afternoon had been about—that it did not matter at all what it had been about.

  Dinah said, “Yes?” and at the same moment, without waiting for an answer, swung herself out of bed, reached for a robe on a near-by chair, began to pull the robe around her. She hurried; there seemed a desperate need to hurry. And, while she slipped arms into the sleeves of the robe she tried, at the same time, knowing it futile, to smooth her short hair with hurrying hands.

  But then she heard the door, to which her back was turned as she stood in front of a long mirror, begin to open and there was no longer any reason to hurry—no reason to smooth hair with anxious hands. He would not open her bedroom door until—

  She turned. Mary had partly opened the door. She opened it fully and came into the room, leaving the door partly open behind her. She, too, had pulled a robe on; she had not taken time to smooth her hair. Her sister’s eyes seemed, to Dinah, to be very wide open, very startled.

  “You’re all right?” Mary asked. She spoke rapidly, excitement in her voice.

  “All right?” Dinah repeated. “Why—of course, Mary. Why–?”

  “You didn’t hear it?” Mary said, and spoke still so rapidly that the words jumbled. Dinah shook her head. “Somebody screamed,” Mary said. “A—it sounded like a man. Surely you heard?”

  “No,” Dinah said. “In the rear of the house?”

  “I don’t—” Mary said, in the same tone and then stopped and drew a deep breath.

  “I suppose you wouldn’t,” Mary said. “With your door closed and—being on this side.”

  Mary’s bedroom was the only one on the front of the house—the only one occupied. Now. Her father’s corner room—there was nobody in it now.

  “Somebody screamed?” Dinah said. “And—Mary. Where’s Russ?”

  It short-cut; the short cut was obvious. Russ Parsons must be—must not be there. Mary would not have come in fear—it seemed clear that she had come in fear—to her younger sister if her husband had been in their room with her.

  “Russ?” Mary repeated, as if the question were strange. But then she said, “Of course. You didn’t know. Russ went to town—to New York. He got a telephone call after dinner. Somebody he has to see in the morning—very early in the morning. So he decided to drive back tonight—”

  She dismissed what she was saying with a quick gesture.

  “We’ve got—” she began, and again spoke above her usual pitch. But then she stopped again, because now both of them could hear the telephone ringing downstairs; the foyer telephone.

  “I cut the bell off on mine,” Dinah said, and reached for the extension which had not rung; reached for it, lifted the receiver, and said, “Yes? Hello.” And was aware that her voice, now, was higher than normal, and that she spoke the word “Yes” with lips and breath only. But then she said, “Yes,” more normally and, “She’s here, Russ,” and held the receiver out to her sister.

  “Russ,” Mary said. “Where are you?”

  “Why,” he said, “at the apartment. I left my brief case and I wondered if you come in tomorrow—” He stopped. “You’re in Dinah’s room?” he said. “Is—nothing’s happened, has it?”

  He seemed, then, to speak more loudly and Dinah, standing several feet away, could hear his words.

  “Somebody screamed,” Mary said. “Shouted. I think down by—by the pool. I—perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps it was something else. A—a bird. But there was—” She paused again and took a deep breath again. “Maybe I just imagined it,” she said. “Perhaps it was just part of a dream. Now I hear your voice—”

  “Dinah didn’t hear it?”

  “No. But it—if there was anything—was in the rear. Down by—but I said that.”

  When Russel Parsons spoke again his voice was more quiet, and Dinah could no longer hear the words; could hear only a murmur.

  “Oh,” Mary said, after he had spoken for some seconds, “we won’t. Probably it wasn’t anything but—we’ll be careful.” She listened again. “Of course I will, dear,” she said. “I’ll get Norm or Simpkins—Norm, I think—to have a look, but it won’t be anything. You mustn’t worry and—”

  She listened again.

  “There’s no need for that,” she said. “I’ve worried you. You’ve got to see this V.I.P. the first thing in the morning and—”

  She was interrupted.

  “I know you do, dear. I just got jumpy about nothing. But we’ll do what you say. And I’ll bring the brief case in tomorrow and—”

  She was interrupted again. And then laughed—almost laughed, and said that was not at all a nice thing to say about a brief case. And said good night, and put the receiver back.

  “He talked about coming up,” she said. “I said—but you heard me. And that it might be a good idea to have Norm or Simpkins have a look. And that there are some night birds which make strange cries—”

  “Come on. We’ll get Norm,” Dinah said.

  It was Dinah who led the way. It seemed to her that the anxiety, sense of urgency, which had been lessened in her sister’s mind by Russ’s soothing, reasonable words, had been transmitted to her own. She almost ran down the central corridor toward the rear of the house. Behind her, Mary said, “Now I’ve got you all worked up. It really isn’t—” But Mary stopped speaking, because by then Dinah had reached a door and was knocking on it—saying “Norm? Wake up,
Norm?”

  She was unanswered, and then she realized that the door was not entirely closed. She knocked again, more loudly, and called Norman Curtis’s name again, and then pushed open the door and called again.

  There was no sound in the dim room. She reached for the light switch beside the door and knocked the tumbler up and a light went on by the bed—by the empty bed, which did not seem to have been slept in. It was a small room; an empty room.

  “He’s gone!” Mary said, and said what was obvious in a tone of strained surprise. “He must have—must have heard it too. Gone to—”

  Somebody had screamed. A man had screamed. Some body had been hurt and screamed at the hurt. Somebody—Russ is in New York. What—what man?

  The thought screamed in Dinah’s mind.

  She turned from the room, jostling her sister, passing her sister. She ran down the hall toward the back stairs and Mary said, “Dinah! Wait. We mustn’t—we’ll find Simpkins—”

  The words pursued, did not overtake, the running girl. Mary hesitated a moment, went after her sister.

  She caught up with her, for a moment, in the kitchen. Dinah yanked a drawer open, slammed it back and opened another. She found flashlights in the other.

  “Wait,” Mary said. “I promised Russ—”

  Dinah heard words without meaning, and ran toward the kitchen door. A man had cried out—cried out in pain. Had screamed. And—what other man than Norm?

  She ran across the terrace beyond the kitchen door, ran almost soundlessly in soft slippers. She could hear Mary coming behind her.

  She ran across grass to the path which led down to the pool and only when she reached it remembered the flashlight she had sought so anxiously. She switched it on. Almost at once, another light came on behind her. Mary had got a flash too. They would—

  For two hundred feet the path ran level through the lawn. Then, between ornamental bushes, it dipped down toward the pool and the bath house beside it.

  There was no sound while the two ran, with the beams of flashlights jumping ahead of them, until they had crossed the level area. Then, from below, a man shouted. The shout was wordless, but there was anger in the voice. The voice was any man’s voice.

  Dinah ran first down the path, sending the flashlight beam ahead of her. There was a curve in the path. Around the curve the shaft of light pinned them—pinned two men struggling on the verge of the swimming pool.

  They struggled silently for a moment after Dinah saw them—saw them and, involuntarily, checked her running feet. One of the men was much larger than the other—one of the men was a bulky man.

  Then the bulky man said, loudly, as if he talked to someone far off, “Drop it, mister. I said—”

  There was the sound of something striking the tile pavement which surrounded the pool. It was the sharp clatter a stone might make, and then a lesser sound, as if the stone had bounced and struck again.

  Dinah went on, went more slowly down the path. She held the light on the two men and, only then, did they seem conscious of it. They stopped struggling, then.

  The burly man was Jason Sarles. She had known that for seconds, now. The other man—

  Sarles turned the slighter man so that the light fell on his face.

  “Got him,” Sarles said, loudly. “Got him this time.”

  Norman Curtis did not say anything at all. He looked toward the flashlight as if its beam blinded him.

  “Couldn’t get away with it twice,” Sarles said, still loudly, with satisfaction in his heavy voice, and began to push Norman Curtis ahead of him up the path. Curtis did not seem, now, to be making any resistance. He’s not really being pushed, Dinah thought, dully, as if it were important that he was not being forced to walk up the path. As if, now, anything was important—anything in the world….

  Sarles had not been right—at any rate, not entirely right. Dinah and Mary knew that as they waited in the living room for it to start over again.

  The first police had come within a surprisingly short time after Mary had telephoned—the first uniformed troopers. Two of them had been in the first car and one of them had stayed in the living room, watching, while the other went down the path with a powerful flashlight beam showing the way.

  He had returned within minutes and said, to the other trooper, “As a doornail,” and then had gone to stand at the other end of the living room, near the double doors to the dining room.

  It was a little man with a beard who was dead as a doornail. He lay, a small huddle with blood around it, in the deep end of the swimming pool—there was a little dirty water in the pool’s end, and the blood stained it. The blood was from a battered head. The blood had matted the brown hair.

  “Just like Mrs. Bedlow,” Sarles said. “Hit the same—”

  “All right,” the trooper in the foyer said. “Save it, mister. Save it for the captain.” He looked around at the others—at Dinah and Mary, at Norman Curtis. Curtis had said only one word since they had come into the house. That word “No” and he said it to Dinah and shook his head slowly and then repeated it. “No.”

  It seemed to come from a long way off to Dinah’s mind. It came as if from the other side of a glass partition. It was as if, almost as if, she saw lips move but heard no sound.

  “Matter of fact,” the trooper in the foyer said, “that goes for all of you.”

  So they sat, saying nothing, waiting. They heard other cars arrive, stop outside, but no one else came into the room for almost an hour.

  Then the two solid men—Captain Heimrich and Sergeant Forniss—came into the room.

  Heimrich stopped in the opening between the foyer and the living room and looked from one to the other.

  “I take it your husband isn’t here, Mrs. Parsons?” he said, which seemed to Dinah’s dulled mind an odd place to begin. But it wasn’t, of course. He would want all of them; would take them out again, one at a time, and ask questions over and over—questions which had no meaning now. Nothing had any meaning now; there wasn’t any meaning left anywhere.

  “He must be driving up,” Mary said. “He called earlier and—it was before we—we knew. But I told him—”

  She repeated, briefly, what she had told Russel Parsons, and that she had said there was no reason from him to come, that everything was all right. She had thought he agreed. But, when she telephoned again, after she had called the police—called to tell him that everything wasn’t all right—the telephone in their apartment in town had rung unanswered.

  “He might just have gone out—oh, to get the morning papers,” she said. “Only—I think he must have got worried and decided to drive up.”

  Heimrich said he saw; he said that that was very probably the way it was. He came on into the room and looked again at the big gardener, who wore a skivvy shirt and dungarees and battered tennis shoes on bare feet; at Norman Curtis, who sat in a chair a little way from the others, and wore slacks and a polo shirt and looked across the room at a wall, as if the wall were not there; at the slender dark girl in a dark yellow robe and at the older sister-dark, too; not quite so slender—in a woolen housecoat of deep red.

  Heimrich sat down so that he could, by turning his head a little, look at each of them.

  “Well, Mr. Sarles,” Heimrich said, “they tell me you caught him. Suppose you tell me—”

  He stopped and looked toward the front door, watched it open. A trooper stood in the door and somebody behind him.

  “By all means,” Heimrich said, “have Mr. Parsons come in.”

  Russ Parsons came in. He went at once to his wife and pulled her up into his arms and held her, and patted her back gently—and looked over her head at Norman Curtis.

  “Sit down, Mr. Parsons,” Heimrich said. “This is probably going to take a little time. Have to get it all in order, naturally. Now, Mr. Sarles?”

  “Red-handed,” Sarles said, with satisfaction in his heavy voice. “While he was standing there looking down at the poor guy he’d killed. All smashed up, the little g
uy was. You’d think—”

  “I saw Mr. Lynch’s body,” Heimrich said. “If you don’t mind starting at the beginning, Mr. Sarles?”

  “Caught him cold,” Sarles said. “Had this chunk of rock in his hand, even. What he hit the poor little guy with. Leaning down, looking down to see if the poor little guy was dead. You could tell he was, with his head all twisted over. And he tried to run and—”

  “Now Mr. Sarles,” Heimrich said, and closed his eyes. “Now Mr. Sarles. From the beginning, won’t you? How did you happen to be there? Let’s start with that.”

  Just to hear himself talk, Dinah thought, and there was a dull exasperation in her mind. It was as if her mind found small irritations to distract from the essential hurt, the essential pain. He’ll go over and over and over, as he did before. Through all the motions. As if it mattered. As if anything—

  So, Forniss thought, it’s going to be one of those—everybody at once and get them talking. Although why the hell, when it’s obvious as it is. Caught red-handed—by God, for once that statement probably was right. It takes more than a little running water, more than (say) dabbing with a handkerchief, to get blood off a hand. There’d be blood on Curtis’s hand. A hundred to one there would. He used the stone, and there was blood enough on the stone.

  There had been something—well, call it evasive, fluid—about all of it. When things were that way, the captain’s method—a boxer’s method; a cat’s method—worked. Forniss had seen it work. But this time— It was open and shut this time. So why—

  “What do you mean, how did I happen to be there?” Sarles said, and there was a change in his tone. Not so—call it proud of himself. Sarles worked on the place and—

  Only, didn’t sleep on it. Hell, Forniss thought, I found that out myself. He’s got a place down the road; two or three miles down the road. Come to think of it—and trust the captain to think of it—it was sort of funny Sarles happened to be on hand at just the right moment.

  Funny but, certainly, convenient—convenient for them, inconvenient for Norman Curtis. Forniss looked at Curtis.