Miss Plummer went to her room and closed the door. She wanted to die. Her own sister turning against her, refusing to look at her even, reminding her that she’d never married. That hurt. We’re drifting apart, she told herself; we’re not close the way we used to be. She won’t let me talk to her, she won’t help me to think.
She moved from side to side in the big bed, trying to find warmth and rest. The room was cold as it always was in the daytime. She reminded herself that fuel was expensive and had to be saved… It must be awful for poor people. For people who were turned out on the streets.
She sat up and rubbed her hands. They were numb. I’m getting the influenza, she told herself. That’s the root of my trouble. They say the influenza is weakening all over.
She stared at the sky outside the window, a dull, despairing sky, and her mind rambled on. It wasn’t the kind of sky you looked for so near to Christmas. A Christmas sky should be a nice dove grey with snowflakes coming down. I’ll be sick for Christmas, she whispered in an agony of pity. I won’t get out to see the decorations. All the pretty trees and all the lights, and I won’t see them. She wept softly, clinging to the fiction of illness until it filled her thoughts and left no room for intrusion. I’ve been sick for days and didn’t realise it, she persisted. It happens like that sometimes. Nervous, jumpy, bad dreams, no real flavour to food. That’s the influenza. I’ll be in bed for Christmas, and I won’t get out to see the sights. I’ll be all alone. I won’t see anybody or talk to anybody. I’ll be alone.
She drugged herself with words and pictures and finally slept, exhausted.
Miss Brady came home at four o’clock and went up to her room; Miss Small came an hour later with an armful of bundles which she stacked on the desk.
“Anything new?” she asked Kitty. The determined brightness of the last few days had left her voice and a note of exaltation had taken its place.
Kitty heard the new tone and wondered. All set up about something, she decided; had herself a good time while she was out, but search me how. Not Marshall-Gill. Marshall-Gill don’t send them home happy. “No, Miss Small,” she said. She rearranged the bundles and picked at the coloured wrappings. “Santa Claus, Miss Small?”
“Mrs Santa Claus, Kitty, and I love it!” Miss Small laughed. She removed her hat and coat and flung them on a chair. “Kitty, I’m going to break a rule and discuss one staff member with another. Have you noticed anything queer about Ethel lately?”
“Me?” Here we go, Kitty marvelled. She’s got something on Ethel. Ethel’s on her way out. “I don’t know what you mean, Miss Small.”
“Yes, you do. She’s been talking about Ruth Miller and Lillian, hasn’t she? I mean talking too much and in the wrong way.”
“No, Miss Small. Not any more than the others.”
“What others? Oh dear, I’ve been afraid of this.”
“Oh, everybody. You know how they go on. They’ll talk about anything, and this time they’re punch drunk. It’ll blow over.”
“I hope you’re right. I’m not too happy about it.”
“You should worry,” Kitty said easily. She patted the bundles. “Want me to take these up for you, Miss Small? Be glad to.”
“Yes, please. My coat and hat, too. Miss Brady’s room, not mine. And tell her I said no fair peeping.”
She watched while Kitty backed into the elevator and closed the door. “I don’t know Kitty as well as I should,” she said softly. “But it’s hardly worth while now.”
The afternoon dragged to its close, and Miss Small turned on the lights in the lounge. She returned to the desk and sat there in deep contentment, watching the street door and waiting for the hardy souls who had triumphed over last night’s pills and gone to work as usual. For these she had a bright smile ready and she gave it generously as they straggled in. She was happy for the first time in weeks.
Dear Monny, she thought. Dear, good Monny. She saw Monny raking Mrs Marshall-Gill with cold eyes, standing with her hands in her pockets, carefully insolent and mistress of the situation. “Miss Small and I are resigning,” Monny had said. “The Board will have a formal notice in a day or so.”
Mrs Marshall-Gill had bleated. Like a sheep. She hadn’t meant to criticise, she hadn’t meant to say what she did, she’d only thought that Miss Brady and Miss Small might have been a wee bit more careful.
Monny had been wonderful. How were they to know Ruth Miller was suicidal? she’d demanded. How were they to know Lillian Harris had vertigo or was cockeyed? Did the Board expect them to read the girls’ minds and lock them in with a few moral words?
Mrs Marshall-Gill had babbled something about references. That had been priceless. Monny had laughed and laughed. “We don’t need references,” she’d said. “We don’t need jobs. But if we did, I’d fight you in the courts and make you look like a fool.”
Miss Small had chuckled. It had been too marvellous; she’d sent Monny home by herself and gone shopping alone. She’d wanted to be alone, among strangers, free to plan and think about the happy time ahead. And by great good luck she’d found a perfect present for Monny, not a Woolworth present, either… She looked at the clock. Quarter of six. She could push time ahead, even now, make the happy days come sooner.
“Kitty? Do you suppose the kitchen is ready to serve dinner?”
“Yes, Miss Small. They’ve sent it up. Fifteen minutes to go.”
“Ring the bells, will you? Let’s get them in and out early tonight.”
“But Miss Small! They’ll think something’s happened! They’ll think—”
“Ring them anyway. It’ll break up the whispering.”
Kitty stood before the panel and pressed the bells one by one. Those on the second floor were shrill, the others echoed faintly down the stairs. One by one they echoed, steadily growing fainter as Kitty’s fingers climbed to the top of the panel.
Two girls came out of the lounge with startled faces, met Miss Small’s assuring nod, and went into the dining room. The elevator began to hum. Miss Small relaxed and turned to the desk calendar.
The resignation was set for January first. She flipped the pages; there weren’t many; there were so few that she wanted to laugh aloud. Monny had said the time would fly, and it was doing that now. She could hurry time with her own hands. Monny’s right about me, too, she admitted. I really am a kid at heart… January first, less than two weeks away. Then a couple of days in a hotel, resting up, getting their hair done, last-minute shopping. Then the great day itself. Whistles blowing, the wind ruffling the Hudson, the gulls, the flags, a band playing.
“Good evening, Miss Small,” a man’s voice said. “May I see Miss Brady?”
She jumped. A tall man with warm brown eyes stood before her. She thought, Why that’s—
“Don’t you remember me, Miss Small? My name is East.”
So, Miss Small said to herself. She left the enclosure with a firm step. “Come this way, please.” In the empty lounge she indicated a chair. “If you’ll wait, Mr East, I’ll try to find Miss Brady.”
Out in the lobby she commandeered the elevator with a relentless finger on the bell. He watched her through the glass doors. She was tapping her foot and smiling at nothing, and he made a bet with himself. She would not find Miss Brady. She would return, full of pretty apologies, and tell him to come back the next day. He lost. Ten minutes later she followed Miss Brady into the room.
“I thought we’d seen the last of you,” Miss Brady said gaily. “Find your doctor?”
“No.” His voice matched hers. “But I hear you nearly lost another girl.”
“I suppose you mean Lillian Harris. I’d like to know where you picked that up.”
“From a new client. I’ve been retained by Mrs Marshall-Gill.”
Miss Brady was astonished. “Well I’ll be! Mind telling me how you got to her?”
“Not at all. She got to me, this afternoon, via Mrs Sutton.”
Miss Brady looked as if she were counting up to ten the long way.
“All right,” she said. “What do you want?”
“I want to interview some of your people. Not about Harris, about Ruth Miller. The Miller ghost is walking again, but I suppose you know that.”
“Because of Lillian Harris?”
“Probably. It’s got to stop, you know. Mrs Marshall-Gill says so and I agree. It’s a bad business. Now listen for a minute while I tell my side. There’s been a strong difference of opinion about Ruth Miller ever since the beginning. That’s how I got into this. And getting into it meant talking to people, to Miss Libby, who knew Ruth at Blackman’s, to Dr Kloppel, to a couple of kids who’d better be nameless. They all contradicted each other. It was a nice challenge and I got interested in spite of myself,” he told them briefly, watching their faces. “So you see it all boils down to one thing, which can mean everything or nothing. Your team insists that Ruth Miller wasn’t much of a person—to put it mildly, a misfit. If you’re right, her suicide is tenable. The other team, that’s Mrs Sutton and one or two others, says she was sound and straight. If they’re right, her suicide needs looking into. Now there’s only one way to pick the winner, and that’s a reconstruction job. We rebuild the girl from the fragments we have, make a timetable of her life here, talk to the people who talked to her, make her live again so we can see her as she really was. I’ve already begun that with Miss Libby, and one nice thing has turned up. The girl was hired without references. That mortifies Miss Libby, but I’m glad it happened. It’s a small thing, but it may have big roots. She also told Miss Libby she had never worked before. Miss Libby says that was a lie. Miss Libby is sure that Ruth Miller had not only worked before but that she had worked in a store. She was too good, too quick, for a greenhorn.”
Miss Brady answered his smile with a broad grin of her own. “You’re making out a case against your own team,” she said. “I’ll say this for you, you’re honest. Or maybe you’re softening me up. Well, we might as well get it over. When do you want to start?”
“Now, if I may. I leave the arrangement to you, but I want to see people individually and alone.”
“That means you want me and Miss Small out of the way.”
“Right. Better for everybody.”
“Then I know one thing, this room is out. I can’t have girls weeping and wailing in public.”
“Girls don’t weep and wail for me.”
“They will for Ruth Miller, whether they knew her or not. We’ll go to my room.”
Miss Small flinched. No, she told herself savagely, no, not there. She gave Miss Brady a long, significant look and was rewarded. Monny’s eyes said that she understood. They said it was their room now, intimate and sweet, filled with the little things that belonged to them and no one else; the Christmas packages, the box of candy with the half-eaten bonbons they hadn’t liked, the travel folders, the Baedeker that made them laugh every time they read it. It was not a room for inquisitive strangers and hysterical girls.
“I think we’ll use Miss Small’s room,” Miss Brady said. “It’s in better order; I admit I live like a pig. And the girls are more at home in Miss Small’s. That’s where they go when they want to pour out their hearts. Have you any ideas about precedence, alphabetical order and so on, or will you take them as they come?”
“I don’t want the whole lot, at least not now. With two days’ residence behind her, Ruth Miller couldn’t have been pals with more than half a dozen, could she?”
“I don’t know. I hardly saw her myself.” Miss Brady turned to Miss Small. “Who were the girls she talked to?”
“This is amazing,” Miss Small said. “It’s the first thing I thought of.”
“The first thing you thought of when?” He was beginning to appreciate Miss Small.
“When we found her. I was looking for a reason, I wanted to satisfy myself. I knew we’d be asked questions, and it seemed wise to uncover as much as possible about what had gone before. We—we were scared stiff. It’s a great responsibility, the care of so many, but Miss Brady will tell you I wasn’t surprised.”
Miss Brady nodded. “The girl had something on her mind, Miss Small saw it at once.”
“Tell me,” Mark said. “All of it. Don’t try to sell me on anything, just give me your impression.”
Miss Small described Ruth’s arrival. “She was all right at first, I can swear to that. I’m used to sizing girls up. But then, suddenly, she changed, right under my eyes. She was terrified, all at once. I thought—”
“What?” he asked.
“It was so sudden,” she repeated. “I thought she must have seen someone. That was the only explanation, someone who knew something about her, perhaps. Well, that was none of my business, and I didn’t think too much of it then. But after what happened, I made a list of the people who were in the lobby. It was the only thing I could think of to do,” she finished lamely. “I’m not pointing a suspicious finger, Mr East, I simply didn’t know what else to do.”
“That was very clever,” he said. “Those are the people I want. Are they available?”
“Yes. You came at the right time, dinner, you know.”
“Good. Tell me more about that night.”
“There isn’t much. She came in, a little awkward and ill at ease, but the new ones are always like that. That or flippant. Then while we were talking, her manner changed. She was terrified, I’m sure some of the others noticed it, too. And—I think this is very odd—she went out again almost at once. I didn’t see her again until the next day at tea, and then only for a few minutes.”
“Who were the people in the lobby who might have noticed?”
“Oh, yes. I keep forgetting. That’s the important part. Kitty at the switchboard, Jewel at the elevator, Dot Mainwaring, Lillian Harris—they were all near the desk. Of course there were others going in and out of the dining room, but I felt she had seen someone quite close. Her eyes, you know, they weren’t too good.”
“Fine. Now the tea.”
“I don’t think that means much. She’d already been—peculiar—and the tea was only a continuation. I don’t remember much about the tea myself. I was pretty busy.” Miss Small smiled wryly. “Mrs Marshall-Gill.”
He understood and said so with a look. “I can probably get other names from the girls you mentioned,” he said. “What about the staff, domestics and so on?”
“I was the only one she saw when she came. At least—”
“Plummer?” Miss Brady suggested.
“I can’t possibly answer that,” Miss Small confessed. “There were people in the rear of the lobby, of course, but my back was turned… Mr East, are you convinced that this is not what it seems?”
“You’re not too sure yourself, are you?”
Miss Brady intervened crisply. “I’ll take that one. The miserable girl killed herself. She was caught in a net of her own devising. And when you find out what it was, if you ever do find out, it will be the usual thing, and you know what I mean. I blame myself in some ways. I could kick myself for taking her in.”
“Were you responsible for that?”
“Yes. She came to see me. She looked hangdog and the Smiths begged and I had an extra bed.”
“Very neat,” Mark said.
“What is?”
“The way you’ve proved it wasn’t you Ruth Miller feared. Because she talked to you and came back for more.”
Miss Brady coloured.
“Now what about those interviews?” he went on.
Miss Small rose quickly. “I’ll see to that. Miss Brady, will you—”
Miss Brady also rose. “Come with me, Mr East. I’ll get you settled.”
They crossed the lobby to the elevator through a silent crowd that parted before them.
“I’m only co-operating because I want to leave a clean slate behind me,” Miss Brady said. “But before I leave I’m going to write something nasty on it.”
“Leave?”
“Resigning. Both of us. Fed up.” When they reached the fifth floor, she prec
eded him down the hall, shouting “Man coming, man coming!”
In the near distance a group of bathrobed figures broke up in confusion and scampered out of sight. Not too fast, either; looking backward over their shoulders. He liked that.
Miss Brady explained. “Those are the gay dogs with dinner dates. Swapping perfume and nail polish. This way.”
He followed like a small boy, walking softly. The hall floor was concrete and immaculate, and the bedroom doors had neat brass numbers. He could smell hot, soapy water and furniture polish; he thought he could even smell some of the swapped perfume. It was a pleasant place, half school, half home. He understood why Ruth Miller had called herself privileged.
On the other side of a fire door, Miss Brady stopped. “This is Miss Small’s,” she said. “Go in and wait. Would you like coffee?”
“No, thanks.” Trying to be nice, he thought. Knows she’s in a bad spot. When she left, he made a shameless tour of the two rooms, telling himself that a woman’s bric-a-brac said more than words, and chairs and tables could be garrulous. Little Miss Small emerged. No natural taste, he decided, but a good eye for copying. Given enough time, more money, and the right example, the arty desk with the bad veneer and the fake pearl inlay would fall into the lap of the Salvation Army. Bought it in the first place because she thought it looked opulent.
One lampshade in the bedroom was covered with bluebirds, meticulously feathered, and the bedspread was machine-made lace over bright blue silk. He remembered that another flock of bluebirds, in coloured glass, had nested on the lapel of Miss Small’s well-cut suit. Shoddy background, he told himself, but fairly quick to catch on. When she realises that her friend is expensively unadorned, she’ll chuck the fancywork, too. In another two years she’ll have a fool proof accent and say damn like a lady.
Death of a Doll Page 16