April went to bed early because she was tired but she woke at eleven when she heard someone in the room.
“Lillian?”
“Sure,” Lillian said. “Sorry, baby, but I thought I was being quiet.”
“You didn’t make any noise. I guess I’ve been restless… Lillian, are the lights on?”
There was a pause before Lillian answered. “Sure. I wish you’d stop talking about lights. What difference do they make? Sure they’re on. Put your hand on the bulb if you don’t believe me.”
April had heard the soft click, but she didn’t say so. “You’re, cross tonight,” she said mildly. “Of course I believe you, Lillian, and I won’t speak of them again… I guess you’re tired. I’m tired, too. It was awful in the store today, I didn’t have a minute to myself. The boss had my lunch sent over from the Greek’s, roast lamb, and he paid for it himself. And he brought me home, too.”
“He’s all right. You stick with him.”
“I’m going to. He says I can always stay. His other girl used to rob the till… Are you reading, Lillian?”
“No.”
“I heard paper, that’s why I asked. That’s all. I’m just talking.”
“I’m not reading now. I was, but I’ve finished.”
“I’m glad you’re home, Lillian. When you aren’t here, I always wait for you. I like to lie here and wait for you to come down the hall. I don’t care when you’re late, because I always know you’ll come sometime.”
“Okay… What did you do tonight? Have fun?”
“No. I haven’t seen anybody. I went out in the hall and tried a few doors, but nobody answered. And there wasn’t anybody in the lobby when I came in. Only Miss Plummer, and she said her head ached. She didn’t feel like talking.”
“It’s a quiet night. I noticed it myself.”
April’s face followed the other girl from closet door to window. “You aren’t undressing, Lillian. It’s late. You ought to come to bed.”
“Oh, it’s not as late as all that. I think I’ll go down to see Plummer.”
“Why?”
“Oh, business. Maybe I can talk her into making me some Christmas presents. Sachet bags, stuff like that. She can run them up in an hour or so.”
“That’ll be nice. She can use the extra money, too. I heard Mrs Fister say she makes less every year. It’s her eyes. I’m sorry for people like that.”
“Me too. I’m heartbroken about Plummer! What kind of sachet do you like, baby?”
“Carnation.”
“You’ve got it… Listen. I’m leaving you now, but you’re not to stay awake. It’s very nice to know that somebody’s waiting for you, but I don’t want to think of you lying there by yourself, listening to the clock. This time I may be a little late, so you go to sleep. Hear me? I mean it. And I’m turning off the lights so nobody’ll bother you.”
April slid down beneath the covers. “All right,” she said. “I’m asleep already.” She heard Lillian’s laugh and counted the footsteps that crossed to the door. She heard the door open and close. There was another sound, too, the same sound she had noticed before. The faint rustle of paper. She decided that Lillian was taking Miss Plummer a sachet pattern.
She was warm and happy in the endless dark, thinking how nice Lillian and Miss Plummer would look bending over the pattern in the lamplight, choosing pretty colours and designs.
At midnight Mrs Cashman discovered that her icebox held cheese but no ale. She trotted into the hall, took her things from the hat rack, and whistled for Brother.
“Walkie-palkie,” she said when he waddled to her side. But when she opened the front door, she instantly fell back. The wind had died down and a quiet, devastating cold had taken its place. She hesitated between the hall and the warm kitchen, arguing silently. Maybe I don’t need ale, she told herself; on a night like this maybe I need hot cocoa. Hot cocoa, she repeated. Hot cocoa—what am I talking about? In God’s good name, I haven’t touched the stuff since I was fourteen, and it made me sick even then. I need ale.
She changed her hat for a knitted shawl and told Brother to stay where he was. “You don’t need to go,” she reminded him. “You went at nine and don’t say you didn’t because I know better. And if I take you now we’ll have to go the long way on account of your nerves and it’s too cold. Shut up, I always come back, don’t I?”
She walked briskly up the street, which was the short way, and rounded the corner. The front of Hope House was dark, as it should be, and farther on the lights of the delicatessen glowed. “Sam’s,” they spelled in warm, red letters. Good old Sam. Been there almost as long as she had.
Sam said he had just about given her up. “I figured on dropping by your place,” he said. “I figured you was running low, and when you didn’t come around I thought you had a stroke. How many?”
“Three large, I got my carryall. What do you know, Sam?”
“Nothing. You?”
“The same. No news is good news, as the saying goes.”
“And keep smiling,” Sam added. “Sardines?”
“Why not? Six. Brother can eat a box by himself. Seen Kloppel lately?”
“No. He don’t come in here. That woman does. She’s a close buyer. It don’t surprise me he’s thin. Pickle?”
“Dill. Maybe I’ll have him over tonight. He’s an owl, like me. Nobody’s business when we go to bed or how. Jewish rye, Sam, and that’ll be all.”
Out in the street she cradled the shopping bag in both arms, like a baby, and walked slowly. She was thinking of her kitchen, of Kloppel, of her red checked tablecloth and the good food in the bag. When she came to the gate that opened on the Hope House court, she stopped. She told herself it was a funny thing to do. She’d avoided the gate ever since the night of Brother’s discovery.
There was no one on the street and she thought quickly. It wouldn’t hurt anybody if she stepped inside the court for a little minute. It wouldn’t hurt and it would be something to tell Kloppel. A topic of conversation. The gate opened on oiled hinges and she entered.
One, two, three windows lighted. Second floor, fourth floor, and seventh. Seventh was the floor the girl jumped from. She counted the windows from the end, because Kloppel and the internes had told her which one it was. No, that one was dark. The blind girl lived there, so of course it was dark. Such a terrible affliction. She closed her eyes for an instant, to see what it felt like, and opened them in a panic. I’m addled, she told herself.
She counted the seventh-floor windows again, and laughed as heartily as she dared. I sure am addled, she repeated. That seventh-floor light’s in a bathroom, and who should know better than me who saw the plumbing go up like a piano; late bather, using all the hot water and wasting electricity. Fun, fun, fun, if you don’t have to pay the bill… As she turned to go, the light went out. She was as pleased as if she’d turned it off herself.
Later, when Dr Kloppel stood at the stove warming his ale, and Brother sat in his own little chair eating his sardines, she told him about her visit to the courtyard.
Dr Kloppel grunted and came back to the table. “Keep your voice down.” He nodded to the stout wall that separated the Cashman kitchen from his own. “She doesn’t know I’m here. I mean she thinks I am, but she can’t prove it. I left quietly… You keep away from that place. I don’t like it any more. I’m thinking of resigning.”
“It should have happened years ago. Fifty cents here, fifty cents there, and having to hold their hands, too. Did somebody insult you?”
“If I read your mind correctly, it would be a compliment. No… By the way, did a young fellow come to see you about that suicide?”
“He did. I sent him over to talk to Jewel. He’s what I call a nice young man. Broke my heart the way he talked. Going to all that trouble for somebody else’s girl.”
“That what he told you?”
“After all these years of living side by side, you’re not going to call me a liar, I hope?”
“No, no. I c
ouldn’t make him out, that’s all I meant. What’s this?”
“Sardines. Take a couple. Well, I made him out fine. He’s a Christian.”
“I’m not going to argue religion… Did you happen to see the Times this morning?”
“I told you to take a couple, they’re little fellows. No, I take the News. Why?”
“Somebody’s advertising for the doctor who treated Ruth Miller. Not me, because I never did and everybody knows that. I don’t mind saying I’m worried.”
“If you’re worried that means you’re hiding something from me, and if you’re hiding something from me you’ll live to regret it. If Cashman were alive he’d tell you the same. What is it?”
“That young man, he said his name was Mark East. The ad in the Times was signed M. E. I remember he asked me about an autopsy. They didn’t do one, not my fault and none of my business, that’s for the police department. But no medical man likes to have an autopsy rammed down his throat.”
“Nasty things, contents of the stomach, I never saw one and hope I never will. There goes my telephone, I bet that woman knows you’re here.”
“Tell her I’m not.”
Mrs Cashman opened the kitchen door and went into the hall. The phone was on the wall. “Hello,” she howled. “What do you want?” After a pause she said, “Sure he’s here, sure.”
Dr Kloppel joined her, sandwich in hand.
Mrs Cashman clung to the phone. “You don’t tell me! I don’t believe it. Sure he’s coming, right away.” She hung up.
“You could have lied,” Dr Kloppel said.
“I could not. Right off the bat she hollered murder. Put me at a disadvantage. Hope House wants you. I think I’ll go, too.”
“No you won’t. Do you think I want to be talked about?”
“You’re going to be anyway, and not because of me. Don’t you want to know what happened? It’s terrible.”
“Mrs Cashman, if you’re withholding—”
“Don’t look at me like that, you didn’t give me time. They found a girl in a bathroom with her head bashed in. Kloppel, don’t you shove me!”
7
Miss Libby’s call came a few minutes after nine. Roberta knew that Bessy and Beulah were still asleep, and that was the only good thing about the cold, dark morning. She turned to Nick who was only half awake himself. “This is the end of a rope, if you know what I mean,” she said.
“No, but I’m a good listener.”
“Then listen while I call that girl at Mark’s house.” She dialled the bedroom phone. “I can’t tell this twice. Just snuggle in your pillows like somebody waiting to win the last battle while somebody else does the preliminary fighting… Hello, Miss Henning, please.”
Her mouth was trembling and Nick sat up hastily.
“Hello. This is Roberta Sutton. I want Mr East’s address, telephone number, and anything else you’ve got. Rope’s end.”
There was a pause while she jotted numbers on a pad. Then—“Anybody call you?... Yes, she called me, too, that’s what’s the matter with me. Don’t give that number to anybody else, Miss Henning. Thanks.”
She disconnected, and dialled long distance. Nick watched.
“Better make it person to person,” he advised.
“I am. Don’t talk to me. And listen hard. I’m closing in.”
Mark was as calm as Nick. “Take it easy,” he said. “Nobody’s going to cut you off. Go ahead.” He let her talk without interruption.
She babbled. It was Miss Libby, Miss Libby at Blackman’s. She was raving mad because the Smith kids had come to work in hysterics and had to be sent home. Moke and Poke. The Smith kids. There’d been an accident at Hope House and they were hysterical and Miss Libby didn’t like it and thought somebody ought to look into it.
“And you’ve got to, Mark,” Roberta said. “It sounds awful. Last night somewhere around one o’clock a girl went into the bathroom to get a drink. The blind girl, the one who roomed with Ruth Miller. Of course she didn’t turn on the light because she never did that. She didn’t need it. She went straight to a basin beside the window and got a drink and that was when her foot touched something soft. She thought it was laundry, a bag of laundry that somebody had left, but when she tried to pick it up her hand got wet and sticky. She knew it wasn’t water. She was blind, but she knew that. So she screamed. And because it was dark in there nobody knew where she was. They heard her screaming, but they couldn’t see her. Not at all. It must have been awful. And when they did find her, she was sitting on the floor with the girl’s head in her lap. She was saying the girl’s name and running her hand over the girl’s face, because that’s how she could tell who it was. I hate it!”
“Where’s Nick?” Mark asked.
“Right here, the lug,” Roberta said. “Well, so they got the doctor, and he fixed up the girl’s face and head, or whatever it was, and she’s alive but only just. Miss Libby says everybody in the place is terrified. They traced the blood on the floor, at least the doctor did, and they think she fell in the shower and tried to reach the window for air, or the door, and got mixed up. Concussion. Miss Libby says it looks on the up-and-up, but she’s afraid Moke and Poke don’t agree. They didn’t want to go home, but she made them. Now you say something. Are you coming back here or not?”
“I’m coming right away,” Mark said. “By plane. Is that all you know?”
“That’s enough, isn’t it? That poor blind girl!”
“Don’t go into that again. I got it the first time. Listen, Roberta. Take Bessy and Beulah to a matinee and have dinner in one of those places with two loud bands. Tell them nothing and keep them occupied. I’ll get in touch with you when I can. And by the way, what’s the girl’s name? Not the blind one, the other.”
“Lillian Harris.”
“Room alone or with someone?”
“I don’t know. What difference does that make?”
“Probably none. Hang up, I’m on my way.”
She dropped the receiver and Nick replaced it for her.
“Do you remember the last time you were up to your neck in somebody else’s trouble?” he asked.
“You know I remember. Two summers ago. We fell in love as a side line.”
“Then let me remind you that the situation is unchanged… Robbie, keep out of this. You have a family now.”
“We could go in and tickle him if Miss Bassingworthy would let us,” she said wistfully. He arranged it with Miss Bassingworthy.
Too many Hope House girls stayed home that day. They drifted up- and downstairs and in and out of each other’s rooms, collected in lounge and lobby, and looked over their shoulders when they were alone. Miss Plummer, again pressed into day service, abandoned her embroidery and stood guard at the desk. Miss Brady issued the usual orders. There were to be no interviews.
“I’m counting on you, Ethel,” Miss Brady said. “People have been falling in bathrooms for years. I’ve said that until I’m hoarse, and now I’m handing it on to you. We’ve got to keep out of the papers. Mrs Marshall-Gill says she is ravaged. Of all the—well, never mind. Just break up any group that starts whispering and be firm. No callers allowed, I don’t care who they say they are or what they look like.”
“Is Lillian—”
“She’s all right. Unconscious, but nothing to worry about. Mrs Fister’s up there, and she’s entirely capable.”
Miss Plummer looked distressed. “I know my sister is a wonderful nurse, and she likes doing for sick people, but I can’t help feeling that a hospital—”
“Why?”
“Well, I can’t help feeling that having her in the House will keep reminding the girls—”
Miss Brady looked through Miss Plummer before she answered. “You’re tired, Ethel, and I’m sorry. Try thinking of something else.”
Miss Plummer tried, but it was no use. “April,” she blurted. “Poor little April in the same room!”
“It’s what April wants. She likes to feel useful, and she is.”
Miss Brady’s voice was wearing thin. “Now carry on like a good girl. Miss Small and I are lunching with Mrs Marshall-Gill. Got to. And for heaven’s sake, smile!”
Miss Brady ran the elevator up to the eighth floor herself. Jewel was sleeping off a double dose of sedative. In the middle of the night’s upheaval, Dr Kloppel had gone from room to room looking for rolling eyes and closing them with capsules. Miss Plummer had kept out of his way. She was afraid of pills that put people to sleep. Sometimes they slept too well, and couldn’t hear. Now, groggy with weariness and her own thoughts, she struggled with desk and switchboard and tried not to weep.
Mrs Cashman called at noon. She presented a bunch of frozen chrysanthemums, bought for ten cents from a street vendor who wanted to go home where it was warm. The flowers were for the invalid, she said.
“The Harris girl,” she told Miss Plummer. “That’s the name Kloppel gave me. I can’t say that I really know her, but a knock on the head is an introduction. My compliments, and tell her I say she’s a lucky one.”
Miss Plummer smiled, according to instructions. She didn’t care for Mrs Cashman. Her sister said Mrs Cashman was common. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean by lucky,” she said.
“Lives in the same room as the other one, doesn’t she? And the other one’s dead. Very coincidental, as I said to Kloppel, but he drowned me out. You want to know something?” Mrs Cashman lowered her voice by ducking her head. “I think I saw it happen. Or nearly saw it happen. I’m trying to figure it out but it don’t make sense. She wouldn’t take a shower in the dark, would she?”
Miss Plummer folded her hands on the desk. She’d been waiting for someone to say that. “Oh I don’t know,” she said. “Young girls are funny… What do you mean about—seeing it happen?”
“That bathroom light. I was walking by the courtyard along around midnight and I saw it. It was on. And I saw it go out. Now from what I could wring out of Kloppel, that was about the time she hurt herself. Along around midnight, he can tell. And he figures she laid there about an hour before they found her.”
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