Compartment K

by Helen Reilly

  Rose said quickly, “Did anyone see you go into Davidson’s compartment—or see you come out of it?"

  “I don't know—" Daniel frowned. “I don’t think so, I don't recall running into anyone."

  “Where is Davidson's compartment?"

  Daniel pushed a thumb over his shoulder. “Next door."

  Rose gave an exclamation. She thought of her dream and the car she was riding in. Was the blowout in her dream the explosion of a bullet? Could it have been? . . . There was something else. Before that, before she dozed off, very soon after Nils went, she had heard voices in the next compartment, a man’s and a woman’s, and had decided idly in her own mind that the compartment ahead was occupied by a man and a wife. A woman . . . Go into that later. Daniel hadn't seen anyone when he went in or came out of Davidson's compartment, but he wasn’t in a state to notice. Someone might have seen him. It was a chance they would have to take. . . .

  It was then that they both got the shock. Daniel had on a fawn colored gabardine jacket and brown slacks. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. On the under side of his sleeve, between the elbow and the cuff, there was a long dark stain.

  The stain was blood, Davidson’s blood. It had left smears on the body of the coat. Daniel twisted his arm, stared at the telltale stain, and then at Rose.

  “There, you see? There’s no way out of this. I'm for it." He was listless, almost uninterested. There was no fight left in him. He was ready to give up. Rose wouldn't have it.

  “No," she said angrily, “no. Let me think."

  Candy and her mother had adjoining compartments at the far end of the car. Daniel had a roomette in the car ahead. The number was K. Rose told him what she intended to do.

  Daniel sat and looked at her. It was a long look. His blue eyes were darkly brilliant. “Rose," he said and stopped. He put a hand across his eyes, took it away. He wouldn't hear of what she proposed. “You can't. It’s impossible. I won’t let you. No. No."

  She refused to listen. “I can and I will—at least I can try."

  Before he could stop her she was out of the compartment and in the corridor. Luck was with her. The first rush for the dining car was over. A porter busy in his cubicle with the door open didn't look round, a woman on the swaying platform between the two cars, had her back turned gazing out at the storm; she made the journey to and from Daniel’s room without meeting anyone face to face. When she went past Davidson’s compartment on the return journey his door was closed. There was no excitement, no outcry, no collection of people. His body hadn’t yet been discovered. Back in her own compartment with the door locked, she drew a fresh jacket of Daniel’s from under the loose coat she had thrown on, shook it out.

  “Take off that jacket you’ve got on and give it to me. I’m going to wash the stains out. Put this one on."

  Daniel was an automaton, removed, remote, thinking of something else. He obeyed mechanically. While he emptied his pockets, Rose ran water in the basin. She picked up the stained jacket and immersed the sleeve and the right side. It would be a clumsy job. The jacket was bulky and stiffened here and there with lining, padding. Pink water sloshed. She rinsed, squeezed, rinsed again, gave Daniel directions. He spread her pliafilm rain cape on the floor,, knelt, put the wet jacket on it and rolled it up in folds of the plia-film. Rose gave him a key from her pocketbook. “Put it in the big suitcase. I’ll rinse out the basin.”

  She ran fresh water, said over her shoulder, “Be careful when you step out into the corridor. You haven’t seen me, didn’t come here. It you're asked later you’ve been in your roomette asleep—” She half turned, and froze.

  There was a brisk rap on the door. Someone spoke her name.

  It was Nils.

  THREE

  The click-clack of the rails; the rush of the wind, a retreating roll of thunder. Nils was just outside the door. Could he have heard the water running? If so he would know she wasn't asleep. No suspicion must be aroused. . . . She would have to answer. Daniel was standing up. The suitcase was closed and locked. She motioned him into the corner beyond the basin well out of view, went over to the door and said through it, “That you, Nils? Half a second.”

  She pulled off her cardigan, opened the wardrobe door, snatched out a negligee and dragged it on. Holding folds of silk together at her throat she unlocked the door, blocked it with her body, and opened it a couple of inches.

  Nils was there, waiting impatiently. “How about that drink now?” he demanded. “My tongue's hanging out.”

  What she was doing, what she would have to do, the danger of it, came fully home to Rose then, for the first time. Dissimulation, outright lies, acting a part, afraid every moment of being challenged, unmasked. . . . The wrong accent, the slightest show of nervousness would do it. She smiled up at Nils, stifled a yawn.

  “Hold your horses. Don’t rush me. I’m just dressing. I won’t be long. Go on back to the lounge car and I’ll join you. You’re disgustingly energetic. I’m still half asleep.”

  Was his glance, his bright observant glance, over-intent? That was the sort of thing you didn't ask. That way you betrayed yourself, because you were afraid. Nils wasn't suspicious. His impatience was normal. “Don’t keep me waiting, wench. I’m not only thirsty, I’m hungry. I could eat an ox.”

  Rose said, “Give me five minutes," and closed the door.

  And then she had trouble with Daniel. He had come out of his dark absorption, was conscious of her, worried about her. He prowled the narrow floor space, his hands jammed into his pockets, rumpling the fresh jacket, pulling it out of shape, and bumping into things.

  “It won’t work, Rose, it simply won’t work. You’ll get into a mess. I should never have come here. It was madness. It was just that you were—near and that instinctively I—” He broke off with a hopeless gesture, looked away from her and went on doggedly, “I’m not going to have you mixed up in this.” She had to restrain him almost physically before she could make him listen to reason.

  “I’m in it now. I was from the moment I went and got your coat. Straighten your tie.”

  What a tyrant habit was, what grooves it laid down for you so that you found yourself gliding along them, both in body and mind. The mind was the worst. Once she would have straightened his tie for him. She dropped the hand she had half raised.

  Daniel stood obstinately still, staring at her. There was a flush on his face, high up on the narrow cheek bones. Everything had been said between them that needed to be said, too much perhaps; Rose went to the door, opened it a crack. There was no one in sight. She pulled it wider. “Go now ... go on.”

  "Rose—”

  She stamped her foot. “Hurry up!”

  Daniel gave her a last long look, and went. Rose closed the door, locked it, and threw off her negligee.

  Davidson's dead body would be discovered sooner or later. The longer discovery was retarded the better. The interim was not a breathing spell. It was filled with the tension of waiting and keeping up a front, with damask cloths and flowers and soft lights and stewards carrying laden trays, with people laughing and talking against the backdrop of the storm which rode with the speeding train into darkness. Two drinks with Nils in the lounge car, a third in the dining car. Rose watched a Frenchwoman with whom she had already exchanged nods and smiles choose an economical dinner with the greatest aplomb and get excellent service. Across the aisle two large ladies wearing browning corsages applied themselves to vegetable plates with bright determination.

  The flowers on their table, Nils’s and hers, were velvety red gladiolas, redder than blood. China and glass rang. Candy and her mother and Daniel were at another table farther along, Candy in brown, a lovely little brown suit and a small faun hat, wearing green gloves that she pulled off and carefully smoothed out. The lemon gloves she had worn that afternoon would have looked better. For once her taste was at fault. Daniel’s back was to Rose. Me looked all right from the back. The Harry Beldings came in late, Gertrude Be
lding in a blue dress that was a size too small for her bulges. The army officer who had been in the lounge car earlier in the day knew the Fonts and Loretta. He paused at their table.

  Steak, salad, Nils opposite lounging and at ease. He was interested in the Beldings. He asked her questions about them. She said that they had been with Elizabeth for years, since well before Humph' rey Questing’s death. Gertrude Belding used to do typing for Humphrey when he needed something in a hurry. “I remember her as blond and thin and pretty, although you wouldn’t guess it now. Harry Belding also did something for Humphrey, I forget what. They fell in love, they were both young, and Elizabeth gave them a wedding and kept them on after Humphrey died, Gertrude as a secretary and housekeeper and Harry to take care of things generally.”

  “Belding’s a combination major-domo, courier, estate agent and expert accountant?” Nils asked.

  “That’s about it.”

  It was by no means a soft berth. There was a lot of property to manage. Rose agreed that Elizabeth probably paid the Beldings a good round sum. She was very generous, but they were useful to her. and she could afford it.

  They had almost finished dinner when the train jolted to a sudden stop.

  The scream of metal, the hiss of steam; the brakes were violently applied. Rose was flung forward. A tray crashed deafeningly. Voices, exclamations, Nils rescued the vase of flowers, raised the shade higher, and they both peered out at the lighted shaft of a control tower, and a man running across the tracks into the tower. Against the retreating roll of thunder the rain was louder. It fell with a steady hiss that was soft, menacing. The man who had gone into die control tower came out, ran back and jumped on board and the train started up. The small man in the gray suit got up and left the diner. Rose settled back in her chair. It w7as nothing, just routine. She’d have to get a better hold on her nerves. Nils was speaking to her.

  “What?” she said.

  ‘'Coffee? There are still people waiting, let’s have it in the lounge car.”

  To get to the lounge car they would have to go past Davidson’s compartment. Daniel had been graphic . . . She flinched inwardly at die thought of the dead man sitting there alone, his empty eyes open, pushed back her chair. W7hen they went past it the door of Davidson’s compartment, Compartment K was closed. Nothing had happened yet. She walked on without a sideways glance.

  Behind the door of Compartment K three men stood in a huddle in the middle of the floor and looked at Davidson’s body. They were the senior conductor, the car porter and Todhunter. It was a Frenchwoman, a Madame Flavelle, who had discovered the body, on her way back from the dining car to her roomette. The porter, Williams, exclaimed, “She gives a shriek and I come running. Seems like when we got round the curve at Big Hollow she fell against the door and it popped open and there he was.”

  The conductor had already talked to Madame Flavelle. She had only been in America a month or so, had been staying with a married daughter in Trois-Rivieres. She was traveling for pleasure. The English she produced wras rudimentary. The conductor’s French was Canadian, hers the mother tongue, so that there were large gaps. Madame Flavelle didn’t know Davidson from Adam, but said there were people on the train who did. A mother and a daughter, “tres joli.” There wras a husband too, and people named Belding.

  The porter corroborated this. The conductor said, “All right, Williams, you can go. But stick around and keep an eye open and don’t answer any questions. You don’t know anything.”

  The porter wrent gladly, there wras a good deal of blood, and Todhunter continued with his examination of the body. Davidson had been dead, he flexed a well cared for hand, for at least an hour, perhaps a couple of hours. He had been shot, probably through the heart. They would have to wait for the post mortem on that. Me couldn’t have killed himself, there were no powder burns. The weapon, a small French double action automatic, had been tossed under the seat. The bullet was on the floor where it had fallen with the roll of the train. The body had evidently shitted more than once, but figuring the general area of lividity and the angle of entrance and exit wounds, Davidson had been shot while he was sitting down, or half rising, slightly stooped forward. Beside the body, on the same seat, there was a camera case with an attached shoulder strap. The case was empty.

  The camera was nowhere in the compartment. It wasn't in the dead man’s bag of expensive leather that had seen considerable service. Two of the three suits the bag held bore the label of a well known New York tailor, one a Bond Street label. In Davidson’s wallet, which he carried in his breast pocket, there was $86 in cash and $310 in Travelers checks. His destination was Calgary. In spite of his appearance and clothes, the impression he gave of being a wealthy man, Davidson had traveled light as far as cash was concerned; there was no checkbook. The only other item in the wallet was a sheet of note paper from one of New York's fashionable hotels with figures scribbled on it in pencil, A sum in addition, $200 plus $100, which made $300. Below that $50 had been added, bringing the total to $350.

  The missing camera interested Todhunter. Davidson might have left it somewhere on the train, in the lounge or dining car, or in someone’s compartment. There were other possibilities. . . .

  The Canadian police had been notified from the control tower as soon as the Frenchwoman, Madame Flavelle, gave the alarm. Some official would come aboard at Moose Jaw, less than an hour ahead. Until then the conductor, Tim Harris, was in command, the captain of the ship. He took charge of the gun and the bullet.

  Before they left Montreal, Harris knew who Todhunter was, who the Beldings were, and why Todhunter was on board. As the little New York detective replaced the dead man’s wallet with exquisite care Harris said, “Do you think those people you’re tailing, the Beldings, might be mixed up in this? Belding knew Davidson, and they both came from New York.”

  Todhunter shrugged noncommittally. “Might. But anyone on the train, in the Pullman section, could have come in here, shot him, and walked out again. The racket the train was making, the noise of the thunder, could have covered the shot. You might talk to the Beldings, casual-like, and get a statement. I’d prefer to lay low as long as I can. I could be with you just as a man who knows stenography you happened to pick up.’’

  Harris was agreeable. The compartment was sealed by the simple expedient of pasting strips of adhesive tape across the door. There might be fingerprints, other leads, that would have to wait for the experts. The porter, Williams, was on hand to prevent any unauthorized entry.

  The two men found Mrs. Belding alone in a bedroom at the far end of the car. Her husband was in the dining car with the Fonts. Mrs. Belding looked nervous, apprehensive, when they entered the bedroom. She came to her feet with a jump, dropping the magazine open on her lap and a lighted cigarette. She retrieved both objects fumblingly. Her skin was blotched with unbecoming patches of color. If she hadn't expected them, she had expected something. Her nervousness became horror when she was told. Todhunter couldn't determine whether she was already aware of Davidson's death or not. Her first words were startling.

  “I knew it,” she exclaimed. “I knew it. I knew something was going to happen . . . The storm, my head ached—and the ace of spades kept turning up all day . . She waved at a pack of cards on the window sill. “Mr. Davidson was Elizabeth Questing's cousin.

  I don't know what Elizabeth's going to say, I just don't know—"

  She burst into tears.

  Harris was kind, and soothing. Mr. Davidson had been one of the Belding party— “no, not ours, Mrs. Questing’s. We just follow out orders." Yes. Well, if Mrs. Belding would tell them—

  Gertrude Belding took off rimless glasses and wiped her eyes. She replaced the glasses shakily. The last time she had seen Davidson was between five and six that evening in the lounge car. He had been with Mrs. Pilgrim and Mrs. Font, he had also talked to a Miss Rose O’Hara, another cousin of Elizabeth's. As far as Mrs. Belding knew, Miss O'Hara and Mr. Davidson had never met before. Miss O’Hara l
eft the lounge car first, and then Mrs. Pilgrim and her daughter and then Davidson. Mrs. Belding didn’t know who could have killed Davidson, couldn't imagine any reason why he should have been killed. He was such a nice man. Everybody liked him, everybody except—

  The woman caught a fold of lip in her teeth, looked more frightened, denied she was holding anything back, and finally gave.

  Earlier that day Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Font had quarreled about Mr. Davidson. Mrs. Font’s compartment was next door. No, Mrs. Font didn’t share it with her husband, she and her mother had adjoining compartments. Mr. Font had only decided to come along at the last moment and a roomette in the next car was the best Harry had been able to do for him.

  The first indication Mrs. Belding had of the quarrel between the Fonts was when Mrs. Font said sharply, “Daniel, don’t. You’re hurting me.” Mr. Font said, “Get this straight, Candy. Keep away from Davidson. You’re making yourself, and me, conspicuous, and I want it to stop, now. It’s going to stop, whether you like it or not. Try and get that through your head."

  Mrs. Font was very angry. She said if he could have women friends, she could have friends of her own, too. Then she accused him about Rose O’Hara. She said, “You’re in love writh that girl. You always have been. You never left off.”

  Todhunter didn’t like the interjection of Rose O’Hara’s name. Daniel Font had formerly been engaged to her, had broken the engagement to marry his present wife. Mrs. Belding said so. It looked as though somebody was going to get hurt.

  Gertrude Belding was still nervous. Her nervousness increased when her husband entered the compartment. The news of Davidson’s death was already public property, it had seeped through the train. Harry Belding was polite, co-operative, and shocked, except for his eyes. They were handsome eyes, very light in his olive skinned face, and keen, and observant. They were never still, kept moving restlessly. He answered questions succinctly. Elizabeth—Mrs. Questing—didn’t expect Mr. Davidson at Amethyst Lake where the rest of the party were to be her guests. Belding had been surprised to see him on board. Davidson had intended to fly in from Calgary. It was quicker than going in by train to Field. He hadn’t planned to stay long, said he was going on to the Coast.