The Case of the Weird Sisters

by Charlotte Armstrong

  "No, no. It's Gertrude, really. Gertrude blames me, you know. Shell always blame me, and she's cold. Maud's not . . . well, you can get along with Maud. She's happy-go-lucky. She doesn't care if you know she doesn't care. So you don't mind so much. Isabel stays away because she's always got some worry of her own. It's Gertrude who t-terrifies me now."

  Duff said, calmly, "We are getting into the realm of emotion, and very helpfully so; but have we come to the end of our other set of facts? Let's be sure. Does anything occur to any of you?"

  "No. But what occurs to you?" Fred said boldly.

  "Only this," Duff said. "These tremendous hot-air pipes that run through the walls magnify sound, don't they? Turning the dampers is not a perfectly silent operation. They were turned while Mr. Whitlock was asleep, and Alice was asleep. And while Fred was in the hall, rather far from any register. Unless any of you heard such a sound."

  "There was the storm," Alice said. "It was so noisy."

  "Yet you heard the little queer cough?"

  "I know," she admitted, "but it came in a kind of lull, and it was near."

  "It makes me wonder," said Duff, "whether the person who turned those dampers used the storm for cover. Synchronized sounds. Waited for a blast."

  "Maybe," said Fred.

  "Then was it Maud?"

  "The deaf can feel a storm," Innes said.

  "I believe you are right. But would the deaf expect the noise of a damper turning?"

  "How could it be Gertrude?" said Fred. "How could she read those labels on the pipes? How could she find all those dampers? I don't think she could."

  Duff shrugged. "And Isabel?"

  "Isabel . . ."

  "Couldn't have washed the greasy.stain we know must have been acquired, from her own one arm."

  "She could have taken off a stained sleeve, though.''

  "We must find out whether she did."

  "It would be her sleeve," insisted Fred, "because, look, how could she roll up her sleeve? You try it."

  "She could slip out of it," Alice said, shaking one shoulder so that her dress fell low.

  Innes said, "I don't follow."

  "I do," said Fred. "The others could have washed their bare arms, so their clean sleeves wouldn't mean anything. Is that your point, Mr. Duff?"

  "Of course that's the point," said Alice, "isn't it?"

  "Ah, but wait," Duff said. "Would Gertrude know her arm or sleeve was dirty?"

  "Hm."

  "She wouldn't," said Alice, "unless she could feel grease on her bare skin. She certainly doesn't know about the spots on her vest. Oh, Innes, this is too bad."

  "Well, they're a rum bunch," said Fred gloomily.

  "Never miad that," said Innes tensely. "Now what, Mr. Duff? What's next?"

  "May Fred run me down to the doctor's office?" Duff said. "And perhaps elsewhere? I shall return after lunch and give myself that pleasure of calling on your sisters. Alice, my dear, I shall want you to help me then."

  "Good," said Innes.

  "Meanwhile . . ."

  "I shall sign a new will," Innes said, "in about fifteen minutes. After that, I think I shall be able to relax."

  "I truly hope so," said MacDougal Duff gendy.

  When they were alone, Alice tidied Innes's bedside table. She emptied his ash tray, brushed off crumbs. He watched her happily.

  But Alice was not happy. She had realized for the first time what he was about to do and what it meant to her. Yesterday, she had thought only that it meant Killeen was coming. But now Killeen was here, and that meeting had happened. She began to see that if Innes made a will now, in her favor, she was committed to this engagement as she had not felt committed before. In a peculiar way, she.felt it would bind her. And she knew that here and now the last decision must be made and the step taken or not taken. If she let him do as he planned she was bound, as her mere promise did not bind her. And Alice was unhappy.

  She saw that the bitterness that had made her cynical about the whole thing was now less strong. Somehow, the excitements she had been through had weakened it. Or maybe it was just that time had passed. She was beginning to recover, not from the blow to her heart, but from the blow to her own balance. Being Innes's fiancee was not much fun in itself. Being Innes's wife wouldn't be much fun, either. A million dollars, prestige, and as much security as a million would buy in the suffering, changing world was worth a good deal. She was sensible of that. Her brain told her so still. But we do not hve by brain alone, she thought, wistfully paraphrasing the old line.

  It was worth a good deal to be Alice Brennan and the hell with it.

  As she patted Innes's pillow, her mind raced to a decision. She would not feel right until she had put herself right. At the very least, Innes must know why she had promised to marry him. If he knew that clearly and believed it and still wanted her, well and good. She would still be Alice Brennan and could stand by herself. But he must know. It wasn't a question of the morals involved or the ethics or whatever the word was. It was a question of being comfortable. She was uncomfortable in that lie. Very uncomfortable. In fact, it was unbearable. She couldn't help that, whatever the moral was. Maybe she was, if not sweet and good, at least dumb but honest. Well, if she was, then that's what she was. Damn it, thought Alice.

  She stood below the footboard and met Innes's eyes. She said, "You mustn't sign that will, Innes."

  "Don't be silly," he said.

  "I told you I was marrying you for your money. Innes, I meant that."

  "I don't understand," he said. "I'm making a new will because I want you to have that . . ."

  "But you mustn't until ... I mean, unless you realize just why . . ." Alice began to flounder. "I never said I was in love with you, and, Innes, I'm not."

  His face changed. Pink lines grew, and the flush spread. "But you . . ." He stopped.

  "I know. I let you assume that," she said unhappily. "And I'm sorry. I shouldn't have. I wanted you to propose, Innes. And I wanted to marry you."

  "Don't you still?" he said thickly.

  "For your money," she said.

  Innes looked stupid.

  "I'm not sweet and good. I'm selfish as a cat," she cried. He looked at her. "So we'U call it off, shall we?" she added hghdy and turned away.

  "What's happened?" he said. "Who is it?"

  "Who?"

  "Yes, who? You did care for me, Alice. You can't tell me . .. Why, you . . . you've been . . ."

  Alice shrugged. Then she said, more softly, "Innes, I don't dislike you. I like you quite well. It's only that I can't let you sign that will still thinking what isn't true."

  Innes said, "I don't understand you."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Are you breaking our engagement?"

  "You're to do that."

  "But, Alice . . ."

  "Oh, do it," she cried, "and get it over!"

  She couldn't leave. Someone had to be with him. He was in danger. She turned her back. She wished she'd waited to speak until Fred was available. Someone knocked on the door.

  She opened it for Art KiUeen.

  Fred pulled the car up at the dcxitor's dcx)r, shoved his cap back on his head, and setded as if to wait.

  "Want to come in?"

  "Do I?" Fred jumped. "Say, thanks. Listen, Td bust sitting out here. You've got me going, Mr. Duff. I want to know, myself."

  "Curiosity is useful for us detectives," Duff said. "It makes us nibble away at impossible problems. We shall now poke around in the attic, as it were, of Dr. Follett's memory. Something might turn up, eh?"

  "Come on," said Fred.

  The doctor was in and waiting for them. He seemed to have recovered a normal reticence, and he hid behind a bland show of pohte welcoming small talk. Duff oudasted these prehminaries by being perfectly reticent himself. The doctor was forced to say, at last, "Well, Mr. Duff, I wonder what I can do for you?"

  "I think," said. Duff, "you can tell me about the Whitlocks. Innes Whitlock has asked me to do what I can to find
out whether or not his bad luck has been entirely accidental." The doctor looked uncomfortable. "And the present roots in the past," said Duff.

  "I don't know what I can tell you. I haven't been in that house for twenty-five years, until the day before yesterday. I suppose you already know why not?"

  "I understand that your marriage offended Miss Maud."

  '!It did. Yes, it did. But that was years ago, sir, and surely it can't have a thing to do with what's going on up there now."

  "I don't suppose it has," Duff said. "But still, I'd like to hear your version of it."

  "She thought I was courting her. Maybe I was. Although I thought not. I mean to say, my calls there may have made it seem that I was more interested in her than I actually was. I don't know. I don't know."

  "Tell me," said Duff, "do they use the phrase 'going with' m Ogaunee?"

  "Oh, yes, yes. Yes, they do."

  "And if a young man is 'going with' a girl, it means he's serious?"

  "It. . . yes, it does. But the Whidock giris . . ."

  "Go on."

  ''They ought not," said the doctor, ''to have been so simple-minded."

  "You mean you wouldn't have expected the village convention to hold in their case?"

  "I wouldn't. And I didn't. You see, they were different."

  'Tell me what they were like."

  The doctor frowned. "I don't know how to tell you. They were important here. Their father was an important man. So a young doctor, wanting to get along, naturally went to call there. You see, they were traveled. They seemed elegant and . . . well . . . cosmopolitan. You can see how I missed supposing that frequent calls would mean that I was committing myself."

  "Yes, I see," said Duff. "You called on Miss Maud?"

  "I called at the house," the doctor said. "Somehow or other, I usually saw Maud. I came to know her better than the others. Of course, Isabel was just a bit young for me. A restless nervous youngster, flying in and out."

  "And Gertrude?"

  "Oh, Gertrude was the most elegant of the three. The least . . . er . . . approachable. I really don't know what used to become of Gertrude."

  "She withdrew, perhaps?"

  "Yes, she did, rather."

  "It's so often the girls," said Duff, "who decide which sister's property the man is." The doctor looked a little startled. "Miss Maud was attractive?"

  The doctor winced. "She was a little less . . . er . .. formidable. Of course one didn't, in those days, think whether the Whitlock girls were attractive or not. They were a kind of social institution. Their house was like court. I wonder if you understand. We used to have rather formal, rather stiff, good times up there. The young men were always awed and being above themselves." The doctor's eyes twinkled behind his spectacles. "Oh, my, how we used to throw in our French phrases. And polish our shoes."

  Duff said, "They had prestige. Can you imagine them without it?"

  "No," said the doctor, "I can't." He brooded a moment. "The attraction was purely their position, although Stephen," he added thoughtfully, "was jolly."

  "And the mother?"

  "A little bit queer. A moody woman. A lonely woman. By nature, I mean."

  "I see. Is Gertrude totally blind?"

  The doctor, surprised, took off his spectacles, glanced aslant their surfaces, and put them back. It was a way he had of countering the unexpected

  "Oh, yes," he said finally.

  "How did that happen?"

  "Her horse ran away with her and threw her from the buggy. Injured her head. Years ago. It was quite tragic. Young Innes was supposed to have been at fault. Everyone felt almost as sorry for him as they did for Gertrude. I know of few events that stirred the village more. Oh, yes, she's blind. What"—the doctor cleared his throat—"makes you ask?"

  "Could her sight have returned, if perhaps only partially, in all this time?"

  "I don't know. I didn't. . . wasn't capable of attending her. Stephen had specialists from Chicago. Big men. Three or four of them. But surely, if she's not blind, Mr. Duff, she herself would know it"

  "Yes."

  "But . . ." The doctor stared.

  "Tell me, how did Gertrude react to her tragedy?"

  "Oh, very nobly. Very nobly. She said she would be no burden. She learned to guide herself around the house. She has always been much admired for the way she took it"

  "Ah, yes," said Duff. "She has been vain about that?"

  The doctor took his glasses off again. "I suppose you are right," he said, and his voice lost its company manners. It was flat with plain speaking.

  "A handicap," mused Duff, "can be a rather wonderful thing. It can dissipate all feelings of inferiority. Handicapped people have a beautiful excuse for failing. That's why so many of them are such great successes. It's not strange how often they go ahead and do the very thing one would say they couldn't do. Why do you suppose a one-armed man will study the piano? I've even heard of a lone-legged dancer. It's because they have no fear of failure. If they fan, everyone will understand. So they don't fail. That's the blessing of a handicap."

  "But, of course, it doesn't always improve the character or, by removing fear, let loose the energies. Sometimes tiiere is no original energy. Rather often, I'm afraid, the handicapped person is no saint, either. It depends entirely upon the elements of the character he has to start with. People with sour souls grow more sour. Weak people get lisfless. Or lazy. Sometimes there is vanity. Gertrude seems to have grown vain. That's why she might not care to reveal it if she could now see a Uttle."

  "That's a horrible idea," said the doctor distastefully.

  But Fred said, "You're darned tooting right, Mr. Duff If Gertrude could see just a little, she'd never let on I'd bet on that."

  "I'm terribly afraid," said Dr. Follett sadly, "that it's quite possible."

  "When did Miss Isabel lose her arm?"

  "Oh, that was not so long ago. When Stephen was killed. In 1925. He and his youngest girl had gone off to Marquette for some reason or other. Coming back they hit a boulder almost head on. He must have been half asleep or he felt suddenly faint. It was a dreadful smash The car turned over and he was crushed. So was Isabel's arm. She was terribly shocked, an invalid for months afterward."

  ''She used to go off alone with her father?"

  "No, not especially. I don't know how she happened to be the only daughter along."

  "Stephen was a drinking man?"

  "No, not especially, either. But he had been very ill just before that trip. Seriously ill. We thought he wasn't as strong as he believed himself to be, and that's why it happened."

  "His illness?"

  "I didn't attend him. Intestinal, I think."

  "He drove himself? They were alone?"

  "Oh, yes, yes. In those days Stephen was an enthusiastic motorist."

  "Miss Isabel has an artificial arm. Do you know anything about that?"

  "Yes, I do know. I know the make. It's an old one. They do much better now."

  "How much use is it to her?"

  "None," said Dr. Follett. "It's for looks. Her arm is gone from the shoulder."

  "You know that of your own knowledge?"

  "Yes, I do."

  Duff leaned back and looked dreamy. His long bones were folded in a low chair, and his laiees came high. "Tell me, what difference did the father's death make to the Whitlock household?"

  "A tremendous difference. He was the life of it. He held Susan Innes Whitlock and the boy there. When he died, they left. After that the three sisters became more and more isolated. It was Stephen who brought people into that house."

  "Any financial difference?"

  "Why, not much." The doctor looked surprised. "They were well off. Isabel had every care. Specialists and nurses, just as Gertrude had. There was no difference."

  "But the girls had control Was Stephen generous with them while he lived?"

  "Oh, very. They had everything. He took them abroad. I know they had allowances."

  "Was he str
ict about the allowances or were they unlimited, in effect?"

  "I don't know. I remember the girls talked as if he were strict. We always thought it was a way of boasting."

  "It may have been," said Duff. "Yes, Now tell me, when did Maud lose her hearing?"

  "Gradually, I believe," the doctor said. "But that was long after I stopped going there, after my marriage."

  "After her father's death?"

  "I believe so. I'm sure it was gradual."

  "No accident or sudden disease?"

  "No. Just a gradual loss. I never attended her, of course."

  "Then you can't tell me," said Duff, "whether she is totally deaf or simply more or less hard of hearing?"

  "I can't," said the doctor.

  "Has her voice changed?"

  "No."

  "It hasn't? I was under the impression that a deaf person's voice came to be a monotone. Because he can't hear himself."

  "Her voice is pretty darned monotonous," Fred said. "She croaks."

  "Yes, I know," said the doctor impatiently, "but Maud has a . . . er . . . defect. Trouble there, her vocal cords. Her voice has always been rather harsh and deep and monotonous, too."

  "How very interesting," murmured Dxiff. "It's a real disability, is it?"

  "Oh, yes. I used to try to help her."

  "I see," said Duff. "I see."

  "Does it run in the family?" asked Fred suddenly.

  "Eh?"

  "Because Isabel's voice is funny, too."

  "Oh, yes, Isabel. A result of her nervous shock. So they say. A slight paralysis there."

  "I thought so," said Fred. "She whines, kind of."

  "Is there anything the matter with Gertrude's voice?" demanded Duff. He looked alert. He didn't move, but there was a gluiting eagerness in his eye.

  "Guess not," said Fred.

  "Rather a pleasant voice, in fact," the doctor said with relief, as if it were good to be able to speak admiringly of a Whidock. "Very pleasant. She used to sing a little. I don't suppose she sings any more."

  "Never heard her sing out," said Fred, "but her voice is O.K."

  Duff bowed his head in thought. He was limp in the chair, and his hands, resting palms down on either chair arm, grasped nothing and did not twitch. Concentration surrounded him like a cloud. He was gone from the doctor's sitting room. He was absent, and it was important not to bring him back. Fred and the doctor felt that. They dared not disturb him. His thinking was a presence in the room and kept them silent.