Death of a Doll

by Hilda Lawrence

  The small, square court was dark, and it smelled as if it were also clean. He stood with his back to the next-door fence and smoked a cigarette. Hope House, viewed from the rear, had a pleasing, dormitory aspect. Its walls formed a three-sided square and were spotted with lighted windows. Court rooms were cheaper than front rooms and clearly drew a less inhibited clientele. Most of the windows were open. Odds and ends of laundry hung from makeshift lines, drying handkerchiefs plastered several panes, and a burst of laughter, happily raucous, came from the second floor. The second floor was lively.

  Mark looked up to the seventh. Only one lighted window there, on the right-hand wall… So she left the party in her rag-doll dress, went to her own room, raised the window, and jumped. Did she hesitate at first, looking down at the windows of her friends? Those windows would have been dark and silent because her friends were dancing downstairs. They were dancing, they were having a party, and they hadn’t wanted her to come. They said she was ill, but they hadn’t worried. They hadn’t missed her. Wasn’t there one girl, even one, to notice that she’d gone? One girl would have been enough, even though she reached the seventh floor too late. She could have shortened that long wait in the rain.

  Mark ground out his cigarette. I don’t get it, he told himself. It doesn’t add up. Suicide, yes, in spite of Roberta. That could happen and too often does. But something else had to happen before that, something that at least one person would know about. Every woman who lives in a place like Hope House has one special friend who shares her life; who won’t go in to dinner until she comes, who worries if she is late, who is protective, jealous, and acutely conscious of her presence in any part of a room. And of her absence. No, it didn’t add up.

  Wait, he told himself. She’d only lived there a day or two, perhaps she had no real friends. But he ruled that out at once. Roberta had mentioned other girls from Blackman’s.

  He left the courtyard and walked east. Maybe he’d check on the friend angle tomorrow. But only to satisfy Roberta. He hailed a cab at the corner and rode uptown. He was out of sight when Beulah turned into the Hope House block from the other end.

  Beulah walked with an affected limp because, she told herself, people with infirmities always look honest. She moved heavily, but her heart was as light as a feather. She thought she would have made a good general.

  Lifting a bottle of port from an unlocked closet had been child’s play. Putting Bessy to bed with the bottle had been easier still. That was an old routine that played itself. The Suttons’ front door had been a momentary problem because the Suttons had locked it when they went out, but in no time at all she’d located a keyboard. Hanging beside the hall telephone, asking for trouble. Somebody ought to tell the insurance people, but not right away.

  She had found the library where four policemen had told her it would be, and the young man in charge of the newspaper files had courteously declined her tip. At that point she’d reached a psychic peak and Hope House had sent out waves. Whoppers. Cold.

  She’d told herself that it was early, that Bessy was safe, that she had four hundred dollars pinned in the crown of her hat in case of trouble. And she’d walked in what she thought was the right direction for Hope House. It wasn’t, but it was interesting. So many other women walked alone. Three blocks from Hope House she’d begun to limp.

  The grey-haired woman at the desk gave her a look of combined sympathy and surprise.

  “Good evening,” Beulah said. “What a lovely place. Are you in charge of rooms?”

  “Well, no, I’m not, but I’m afraid we haven’t—”

  “My name is Pond,” Beulah said quickly. “Miss Pond. I have a niece, a very sweet girl, who’s looking for a room in this neighbourhood, and we both wondered if you—”

  “I’m very sorry, Miss Pond, but—”

  “What is your name, my dear? I’m a tired old woman and I like to know peoples’ names.”

  “I’m Miss Plummer.” Miss Plummer laid aside the square of tulle she was working on. “I’m very sorry, Miss Pond, but we haven’t a single bed available.” She remembered Miss Brady’s warning about inquiries. There’d been too many, and Miss Brady thought it was curiosity. “Find out who sent them,” she’d instructed. “Ten to one they’re sob sisters.” This one didn’t look like a sob sister. And she was lame, too.

  “Won’t you take a chair, Miss Pond? I’m very sorry, but it’s like I said. We’re full up. But would you mind telling me how you heard about us?”

  “Word of mouth,” said Beulah, sagging into a chair. “I heard about you somewhere and looked you up in the telephone book. So cosy, so homelike, and an elevator, too.”

  The elevator had arrived with two girls who crossed the lobby and entered the lounge. She saw them take her measure, and there was nothing friendly in their sidelong looks. They were young girls, but their eyes were oddly apprehensive. She watched the lounge door close quietly and firmly as if it were shutting something out, or in.

  She felt a warning chill, unpleasant but corroborating. The Hope House waves were coming fast, and she bobbed to the surface and rode them in. I was right to come here, she told herself; there’s something going on. I’m an old woman, outwardly inoffensive, and asking for a room for a niece, and those children are afraid of me. She rambled on vaguely to Miss Plummer, who looked as if she might be a fool, while her eyes nailed the elevator girl to the door of the car and took her apart.

  “My niece is a quiet girl who likes a refined atmosphere,” she said. “No excitement, no strain, no emotional upsets.” That girl is listening, she noted with satisfaction, and I’m purposely keeping my voice down. Not ordinary listening, either, not just killing time. Now she’s coming over to look in the mailbox. “My niece hasn’t been happy,” she confided in a hoarse whisper. “I’m afraid it’s a man. Do you have much of that here?”

  Miss Plummer was startled by her own reaction and didn’t reply at once. A man! That was the answer to the Miller business, a man. A man of course. That was the natural explanation, it was the only one that made sense. The phone call, late at night. Plain as the nose on your face. She’d try to find the number, she’d get in touch with the boy and tell him what had happened. But what a pity, what a waste. If the dear girl had only confided in her.

  She fingered the locket at her throat and smiled at Miss Pond. “I guess we all have that trouble when we’re young,” she said. She wondered if Miss Pond’s niece was a hope-chest case, a dozen of everything, all monogrammed. That kind of thing ought to bring out the best in people, it ought to make for kindness and consideration for others, none of this window jumping. She wished desperately for a vacant bed or even a folding cot.

  “Let me think,” Miss Plummer begged. “I certainly do wish—let me think.”

  Beulah nodded graciously. Miss Plummer’s preoccupation was timely, because in addition to the girl behind the mailbox she had spotted another girl behind the switchboard. She smiled at the switchboard girl.

  “Good evening,” she said. “What interesting things you must hear.”

  The girl said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her tone shocked Miss Plummer back into the conversation.

  “Careful, Kitty,” Miss Plummer warned. “Miss Pond meant that kindly. I don’t know what’s getting into you girls, acting as if everybody was a—Jewel, is that you?”

  Good, Beulah said to herself. She’s caught her. Jewel, Kitty, silly.

  “The mail was delivered at six o’clock as usual, Jewel,” Miss Plummer said. She waited until Jewel returned to her stand by the elevator. “I apologise, Miss Pond. We’ve had some bad days here, and the girls are not themselves. None of us are. Now, I haven’t even got a cot, let alone a bed, but I’m so interested in your niece, I can’t help feeling I’d enjoy knowing her. You really ought to come back and see Miss Brady or Miss Small, they’re the Heads. You can see them from eleven to twelve on Mondays, or by appointment. I don’t say anything will come of it, but you might try. We’ve tur
ned dozens away in the past weeks, not needing a bed any more than you and I, plain curiosity. Miss Brady and Miss Small have had to make a rule against talking to strangers for that very reason. Not that I consider you a stranger, Miss Pond. I know a lady when I see one.”

  “Thank you,” Beulah said. “I feel the same way, Miss Plummer. But I don’t think I understand—”

  “It’s on account of the—you know.” Miss Plummer lowered her voice. “I guess you didn’t see it in the papers?”

  “What?” breathed Beulah.

  “Suicide.”

  “Why?” Instantly she regretted that single, sharp word. Miss Plummer had winced as if she’d been struck.

  Not so fast, she told herself. Try again. Her next words were vague and sugared.

  “I mean why in such a homelike place? I mean how sad for all of you. Was it one of your girls?”

  “Yes,” Miss Plummer whispered. “She was poorly. Best let it go at that.”

  “Of course,” Beulah agreed softly. Then something happened, and she smoothed her coat with a nonchalance she didn’t feel. The quiet lobby suddenly filled with the sound of running, invisible feet. Someone had been standing on the dim stairway, listening. Someone was running up the uncarpeted stairs, out of sight, leaving a trail of clattering, diminishing sound. The lobby itself seemed darker than before; she thought she could see it darken, but she told herself that couldn’t be. I’m a fool, she decided, I’m working myself up. It’s only ten-thirty and this is a big city and I’ve got four hundred dollars in the crown of my hat. She tried to sound casual.

  “Do I imagine it’s darker in here?” she asked. “Aren’t some of the lights—”

  The girl at the switchboard answered. “I turned them off. We always do at this time.” Kitty. Her name was Kitty. She left her chair and came to stand beside Miss Plummer. Miss Plummer took up her embroidery and Kitty watched.

  Beulah stood up and looked over her shoulder. The elevator girl had stepped back into the cage and her hand was on the lever. She was watching Miss Plummer, too.

  “I don’t suppose I could go upstairs to see the rooms?” Beulah asked. “I’d like to tell my niece about them. Just in case, you know.”

  Miss Plummer raised her eyes with a look that begged for an end to the conversation. Beulah met the look and gambled. She said, “Poor Ruth.”

  She heard the elevator door close and heard the whine of machinery in motion. She saw and heard Miss Plummer’s scissors drop to the floor. She felt, rather than heard, a long sigh. She thought it came from behind her, but she didn’t turn. It could have been her own.

  “Why are you frightened, Miss Plummer?” she asked.

  “I’m not,” Miss Plummer said. Her mouth was stiff. “What in the world would I be frightened about?”

  “I don’t know. But when I mentioned my niece’s name you looked as if I had hurt you.”

  A faint colour returned to Miss Plummer’s face. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “We have no rooms, Miss Pond, not for anybody. I’m sorry. And I’ll have to ask you to excuse me. I must get on with my work.”

  Beulah reached across the desk for Miss Plummer’s resisting hand. “I’ll keep in touch with you in one way or another,” she said. She remembered to limp when she went to the door and let herself out.

  The street was filled with a bitter wind heavy with ocean salt. It cut through her clothes and made her want to walk faster than she dared. It gave her some comfort to blame her haste on the wind. She chose the same direction as Mark, but her thoughts were not along the same lines. She had no unselfish plans for soothing Roberta. She wanted, very simply, to be where she wasn’t, and at once. Anywhere would do.

  There’s something wrong with that place, she told herself. I could feel people thinking one thing and saying another. And those two girls, looking at me like that when I’d hardly opened my mouth. Miss Plummer’s face when I said Ruth—

  She looked behind her, but the shabby, well-lit street, the small shops, and the hurrying pedestrians were so openly commonplace that she laughed boldly. But when she saw a cab half a block away, she forgot her limp and ran.

  Miss Plummer folded her work and sat with her hands in her lap. She asked herself miserably if she’d said anything out of place. Anything against Miss Brady’s instructions… Ruth. Poor Ruth. It could be a coincidence, except for one thing. Elderly ladies with moleskin coats and what appeared to be real diamonds didn’t come to places like Hope House to find rooms for nieces. They found small apartments near Columbia University or near one of the big churches. Pond. Miss Pond.

  “Kitty?” Miss Plummer said quietly. “What did you make of that lady who was here?”

  There was no answer, and she looked over her shoulder. Gone, gone off without so much as by your leave. Slipped away like the rest of them, like Jewel and the girls in the lounge and whoever that was on the stairs. Gone up to lights and company and leaving her alone.

  She tried to remember if there’d ever been any Ponds on the Board. It could be that the Board was investigating. Somebody on the Board or related to the Board, somebody that wasn’t known; talking to people like herself that weren’t important, talking to the girls one by one, asking little questions about things. Maybe they’d decide to close the House. Mismanagement, carelessness. That was what Miss Brady and Miss Small were afraid of. You could tell.

  Miss Brady had spoken very plainly at the House meeting right after. It was easy to see she was upset. Ruth Miller was an unfortunate type, she’d said, and as little or nothing was known about her she mustn’t be judged or talked about. Ruth Miller had brought trouble and worry, but what was done was done and best forgotten. Something like that she’d said. And then there was the sign Miss Small put on the Bulletin Board.

  STAFF AND RESIDENTS:

  Talk to no one,

  reporters, business associates, friends.

  Hope House has always had a splendid

  reputation and it’s up to us to keep it so.

  This is Our Home.

  Poor Ruth. Miss Plummer got up heavily and went to the switchboard. She looked vainly for the slip with the Chicago number. She turned over other slips, went back in the records, shook out the blotter. It wasn’t there. Thrown out, she decided. Kitty wouldn’t keep it because it wasn’t a completed call. Kitty couldn’t be expected to know it meant anything. And it was old, too, over a month old.

  In April’s room, April was doing the thing she enjoyed most. She was giving a party. She had boiled water on an electric plate and was pouring powdered coffee into cups, spooning out sugar, and cutting a bakery cake. The coffee table was stainless and crumbless. Her guests were Lillian Harris and Dot Mainwaring.

  “I asked Moke and Poke,” April said, “but they had a date. Lillian, have we got enough light?”

  Lillian said all the lights were on. She was stretched out on her own bed, watching the other guest. “How long have you lived here, Mainwaring?”

  “Two years. And I wish you’d call me Dot. All my friends do.”

  “Is Mainwaring your real name?”

  “It is. And exactly what are you trying to insinuate, please?”

  “Not a thing.” Lillian took the coffee April offered. “I think I’ll move out of the place soon.”

  April gave a little cry. “No, Lillian, no!”

  “Oh, I won’t go for a while, baby. Not until I can get you another roommate like Miller.”

  “Well, really!” Dot was horrified. “Of all the tactless remarks! April’s trying to forget, we all are!”

  Lillian yawned. “Didn’t anybody ever die here before, naturally or unnaturally? I’m asking, I want to know.”

  “Nobody,” April said in a small voice. “We never had any trouble before. But a girl had pneumonia once and nearly died.”

  Dot’s thin face flushed with importance, and she put a warning finger to her lips. That would tell Lillian Harris that April didn’t know everything, and it would also tell her that strange things had h
appened before… Lillian Harris didn’t know about the others. That was because she didn’t care to mix with people and hadn’t been around very long, either. She’d tell her later, when April went to brush her teeth. It might do Miss Lillian Harris some good to know that God was in Hope House caring for His own and smiting the wicked. Maybe the wicked didn’t always die, but they felt His Hand. Lillian Harris looked like a week-ender with that red hair and the way her clothes fitted.

  Dot crumbled cake into her saucer with tense fingers. There’d never been any open talk about Lillian Harris, but it was odd the way she never had any callers, not even other girls. And when she went out, even on rainy days, she dressed as if she expected to meet somebody. It would be awful if Lillian Harris threw her life away… Lillian Harris smiled at April as if April could see, and talked nonsense. She always talked nonsense, and when she smiled she looked as if she had a secret or was making fun of good people. There was only one kind of secret people like Lillian had, and it couldn’t be kept forever. Somebody ought to tell her about the others, how they’d been found out and asked to move away from this wonderful Home. And how they’d never been heard of again. One day you saw them in the dining room, laughing too loud, and the next day they were gone, swallowed up by the city streets. And you couldn’t help but wonder when you read about an unidentified girl down at the morgue. Sometimes you wanted to go down there yourself, to look, but you never did. Death was terrible even when it was right.

  Dot looked at the long, exciting body on the bed. If Lillian Harris would only tell her things, she might be able to help her. If she’d be frank and not hold anything back, it would be good for her.

  Lillian turned over and smiled at Dot. “You ought to know about this,” she said. “What did they do with her clothes?”

  Dot looked disappointed. “Do with whose clothes?”

  “I know,” April said. “She means Ruth. Miss Brady came in here and took them away. They were in a suitcase, all packed. Miss Brady told me afterward.”