From Anne to Judith was only a step. She said she was neither a child nor a lunatic, and in spite of Phil I began to believe her. Nevertheless, I was determined to see Doctor Townsend. Somewhere there was a key to what he termed the privacy of the human mind, and I hoped he had found one for Judith.
He had not, however, although he seemed pleased to see me.
“I’m glad you came,” he said. “I read the papers, and this death must be a real shock to your sister. How is she taking it?”
I told him: her fainting at the pool, her impulse to escape, her fever and inability to attend the inquest. He listened attentively. He had her file in front of him, as though he had been going through it, but he shook his head when I finished.
“All pretty bad for her,” he said. “I don’t know how long she can carry on. As you know, she’s been coming back to me, but I’ve not really been able to help her. As I told you before, she doesn’t cooperate. When you were here you told me of the jewel episode and of her leaving her husband. Also that she had fainted on the train platform at Reno and seemed to be terrified. Have you anything to add to that?”
“Only that she’s still terrified. I’m quite sure she thinks someone intends to murder her.”
He took that in his stride. I daresay it was nothing new to him. But he asked me to give him her early history, and I told him what I knew: how she had been spoiled as a child by Mother, had been taken to Arizona for several months, and been married the fall after her return. I said, too, that I did not think she had been in love with Ridge, but apparently they got along well enough. Only she liked to go out and he didn’t, and in the end they were merely living in the same apartment.
He nodded, as though he already knew much of it. When I had finished he went back to what I had told him before, about the night she came home and Ridge found her with her jewels, as though she were appraising them.
“Rather a startling thing, of course,” he said. “Has he ever said what he thought of it?”
“He wondered if she was being blackmailed. He went into that later after she left him. Apparently there was no reason for it. She still has the jewels, or so she says. And she had never had a lover, or anything of the sort.”
“I see. Also he probably knows that as a rule blackmailers don’t murder, or even make the attempt.” And he added, rather dryly, “Why should they?”
He knew her side, of course, about the divorce and Reno. She had been willing to talk about it, but apparently she had told him she left because Ridgely had another woman. Trust Judith to say that, and perhaps even make herself believe it.
“I don’t know whether Mr. Chandler had an extramarital arrangement or not,” he said delicately, to spare my virginal sensitivity. “It’s possible, of course. He and his wife had not lived together for a long time. You don’t think this dead woman—”
“Was his mistress? I don’t think so, Doctor. She wasn’t young, or even beautiful. She looked and dressed like—well, like a housewife.”
He abandoned Kate Henry then, if that is who she was, and took me back to Reno again. “You say you saw nothing to induce that fainting attack. But she must have seen something, Miss Maynard.”
“I can’t imagine what it was. I searched the train after it happened and there wasn’t a large crowd at the station. Just porters and a chauffeur or two and a few taxis. Taxis!” I said excitedly. “That’s queer, Doctor. She won’t use a taxicab. She walks or takes a bus. Does that mean anything?”
“Possibly. It seems carrying things rather far. It may be an idée fixe. We get a good many of those here. It is carried to extremes sometimes. I had a young man here yesterday, perfectly sane in other respects, who believes he is an adopted son. He is not, according to his mother. I have seen his birth certificate.”
“Listen, Doctor,” I said urgently. “I know all that. It happens, of course. Only you can’t measure Judith by the usual yardstick. She sleeps in a locked room, with the windows over the porch nailed shut. She won’t go onto the grounds if she can avoid it. When she does it’s at night, in a long black cape. She looks spooky. And I still don’t know why she came to The Birches. She would be better off in a good hotel.”
“Perhaps The Birches means sanctuary to her, Miss Maynard. She must have been happy there as a girl. She’s not entirely normal, of course, but The Birches is easy to explain. It’s like”—he decided to disregard my virgin status—“it’s like going back to the mother womb.”
“Well, the mother womb in this case is having a lot of birth pains,” I said. “Judith fainted when she saw the body. That could happen to anybody. But the real reason it worries her is because she thinks this woman was mistaken for her.”
“That’s curious,” he said. “Why would she think that?”
“They were the same build in a way, they were nearly of an age, and they both had blond hair. The other woman’s was bleached, I understand, but on a dark night—well, it’s possible, I suppose.”
He sat thinking for a few minutes, his head on his chest. When he looked up his expression was grave.
“Of course, it’s possible she’s really in danger,” he said. “We both know she is a psychiatric case, or we believe she is. But we must not let that close our eyes to other things.” And when I nodded he went on. “I’d better talk to you rather frankly. I can say this. Usually after this lapse of time I can read a patient’s mind pretty well. I’m only a listening-post, you know. They talk. I ask questions and listen to the answers. With Mrs. Chandler it’s different. I can go so far. Then, as I told you before, there’s a wall, and I can’t either break it down or get over it. You can’t remember anything in her past that would cause—well, let’s say a shock, a psychic shock.”
“No,” I told him. “She’s had an unusually easy life until now. She’s had plenty of money, she’s had the looks of the family, and for years she had a good husband. I can’t think of anything.”
He smiled.
“What do we mean by a good husband?” he inquired. “A good provider, who stays home and is at least technically faithful?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had one.”
“As to Mr. Chandler, I don’t know him. There was certainly incompatibility, and he may be a hard man to live with. It’s not unusual for me to have a woman here and after a time discover it is the husband who should be my patient. Do you think Mr. Chandler would talk to me?”
“Not on this couch of yours! He may come. He’ll sit where I am, offer you a dollar cigar, and ask if you think Judith ought to be committed.”
He grinned.
“I may try to see him,” he said. “I like a good cigar. Now I’m afraid I’ll have to let you go. I have rather a heavy day. But I suggest you think over what I have said. This danger may be real.”
I was out on the hot street before I realized I hadn’t asked him about Judith’s idea of going abroad. But there was one thing he had said which I found thought-provoking. That was the idea that sometime, somewhere, she had had a psychic shock, and the inference that after years of normal living whatever it was had caught up to her.
Anne might know, I thought, so I found a telephone pay booth and called her up. Her voice was not too amiable. She had got in from Boston that morning, and the apartment was a mess. She wanted to know if I would keep Bill a little longer, and was he actually suspected of drowning the woman.
“No,” I said, “but he’s enjoying it. Of course he can stay. We’re glad to have him. He has a sort of heavy date there with a girl called Janey. She doesn’t seem to have any other name.”
“They never do,” Anne said resignedly. “Any more deaths? And how’s Judith?”
“Not so well. Look, Anne, may I have a bite of lunch with you today? I’m in town.”
“If you’ll take potluck,” she said. “Can’t you wait until I’ve got my breath?”
“No,” I told her firmly. “I want to talk to you, and it’s important.”
She agreed unwillingly, and I fou
nd her in the kitchen, savagely attacking a pile of dirty dishes. She had the harassed air I always associated with her. She had been a pretty girl, and in a way she was still a handsome woman. But Martin Harrison had been a disappointment. The crash had practically ruined him, and I could faintly remember those days when their house on Seventy-ninth Street had been sold, and they had come to stay with us. There was a night, I believe, when Anne found him with a gun and had to take it from him by force.
Things gradually improved, of course, in the building line, but he was never an ambitious man, and for years she had had to struggle. It had left its mark on her, and I always suspected her of being jealous of Judith’s prosperity.
That morning she eyed me grimly after she admitted me.
“Don’t tell me I look like the wrath of God,” she said. “I know it. You look like the devil yourself. Judith wearing you down?”
“We have had some trouble, such as a murder.”
“A murder! I thought it was an accident.”
“The police seem to have discovered something,” I said vaguely. “I’d rather not talk about it. We don’t even know who she is—or was.”
She sat down heavily and kicked off her shoes.
“My feet are killing me,” she said. “I suppose my poor Bill had the shock of his life when he found her.”
“He’s had the time of his life ever since! He was the star performer at the inquest yesterday, or don’t you read the papers?”
“I’ve had a fat chance to see a newspaper this morning.”
I asked about Martha, who was coming home before long, and in due time I suggested lunch. She shrugged.
“There’s practically nothing in the place,” she said. “I can fix some scrambled eggs, I suppose, and there is a hambone. It looks as though Martin’s been living on ham. I saw it in the refrigerator. It doesn’t look too moldy.”
As a result I made a ham omelet, and over the kitchen table I had a better look at Anne. Washed and with her hair brushed she looked more like her old self. But as usual she was curious about Judith.
“How are the psychiatric treatments going?” she inquired. “Are they helping her any?”
“I don’t think the doctor is satisfied. I saw him this morning. Anne, did Judith take Father’s death very hard?”
“I don’t think I noticed. Why?”
“The doctor thinks she’s had a shock sometime or other.”
“You have to remember how things were at that time.” She poured herself another cup of coffee. “Martin and I were completely broke. He’d been in the market, too. I had to ask Mother for money even to take a bus! I think she resented it. After all, I had married and she had every reason to think I was off her hands. Then we landed back on her like a pair of parasites! It was sickening. No wonder she got out from under.”
“Then it wasn’t because of Judith’s health they went to Arizona?”
“Listen to me,” Anne said. “She’s my own sister, and in some ways I’m fond of her. But Judith never had a sick day in her life.”
“But it took money, Anne. Where did it come from?”
“I always thought Ridge Chandler financed them. I know he and Mother had some long conferences at that time. He’d gone completely overboard about Judith, poor devil. I meant to ask you something, Lois. What about Doctor Townsend? Has she fallen for him?”
“I don’t know. She said something once that sounded like it.”
She shrugged, and began picking up the dishes.
“They often get that idea, don’t they?” she said vaguely. “I gather that’s part of the treatment. Don’t worry about it, Lois. She’ll get over it.”
“You don’t have to live with her,” I retorted. “Look, Anne, you remember her as a kid, and I don’t. Was she in any trouble?”
She laughed.
“She didn’t have a baby when Mother took her west if that’s what you mean. She was too busy taking care of her pretty little self. She’s never had one since, either. I think Ridge has always resented that. The Chandler women always had them, to carry on the name.”
“Then what or who is she afraid of? Because she’s good and scared now,” I said. “Phil thinks it’s all in her mind, but she insists someone is threatening to kill her.”
“I’ve felt like that myself sometimes.”
“It isn’t funny,” I said indignantly. “I’ve wondered, that woman in the pool. Do you think she came to The Birches to see Judith? She fainted, you know, when she saw the body. And Phil’s clubs were in the hall at The Birches.”
“What about Phil’s golf clubs?”
“They say a weapon of that sort was probably used. Not necessarily a club. Something like it.”
Anne laughed.
“So you’re suggesting that our dear sister took one of Phil’s golf clubs and brained her! You know that’s funny, if nothing else is. Judith, who wouldn’t break a fingernail to raise a window, marching down to the pool in the dead of night, with a club over her shoulder and murder in her heart! Don’t be fantastic, Lois.”
I dried the dishes for her, and we let Judith alone for a while. Anne, however, was thoughtful.
“I saw Ridgely the other day,” she said. “The poor old boy looks dreadful. He’s aged ten years. Why did she leave him, Lois? Has she ever said anything?”
“It’s not Ridge she’s afraid of. I’m sure of that. She thinks the woman who was killed was mistaken for her. Anyhow, why would he do such a thing?”
“It would save alimony,” she said curtly. “But he’s as puzzled as we are. He has an idea she was being blackmailed and I suppose you know he put a private investigator on the case. But it was no soap. He says she always landed in her own bed.”
“She would,” I said. “I imagine it takes a generous sort of woman to get into that kind of mess.”
She laughed at that, and we finished cleaning up before I left. Anne was still in the kitchen mopping the linoleum when I was ready to go, and I realized she had already practically forgotten Judith and even myself.
“Well, thanks for the lunch,” I said. “I’d better be going. I have to catch the train and get home.”
She looked as though she had just remembered I was still there.
“Glad to have you,” she said absently. “And if Helga decides she can’t take Judith, send her to me, will you?”
“Judith?”
“No, for heaven’s sake! Helga.”
I glanced around the apartment on my way out. It looked small to have raised two children in, and the furniture showed abuse. Phil and I sent her some of Mother’s stuff after her death when we closed off part of The Birches. It had helped but now it looked shabby and neglected. Seeing the place I could understand her resentment of Judith, who had had everything and apparently thrown it away.
Chapter 13
AS I PASSED THE cottage on my way home, I saw that O’Brien was back. His car was outside, looking dusty—usually he kept it very clean—and the girls were clucking contentedly. I did not stop. I merely stepped on the gas and sailed by, my head high with sheer fury.
It did not help my morale to see a town policeman and a state trooper near the pool. Each of them had a rake, and they were combing the grass and even crawling under the shrubbery. So the case was not closed, and this was verified when Jennie said Fowler had been there that afternoon.
“He took Mr. Phil’s golf clubs when he left,” she said. “He asked Mrs. Chandler if he could, so I guess it’s all right. He said he’d bring them back tomorrow.”
“Then he saw Mrs. Chandler?”
“Oh, yes. He was here a long time.”
Phil was not yet home, and Jennie said Bill was meeting his train with the Ark. I felt practically dazed as I went upstairs. Judith’s door was shut, so I did not speak to her. I went on to take a bath and change, but what I call my brain was past all reasonable thinking. The case was not closed. It had only moved from the swimming pool to the house itself.
Rather to my surprise
Judith came down to dinner that night. She looked better, and she even took a cocktail.
“I hope it was all right to give the police your golf clubs, Phil,” she said. “But I can’t imagine why they wanted them, can you?”
“Very definitely,” Phil said. “The idea is to give me free room and board for a time, and maybe a meal I can select before they shave my head. Or do they shave heads? I can’t seem to remember.”
She fixed him with those curiously tilted eyes of hers and looked puzzled.
“Do you mean those clubs are important?”
“Important! Do you know what they cost? Oh, well, maybe we’ll have an atom bomb in time. One can always hope!”
Bill choked over his drink, and I sat down because my legs were shaking.
“Fowler was really nice,” she went on. “He asked a lot of questions, and one of them was funny, Phil. He seemed to think you’d know the woman in the pool. He didn’t use the word ‘mistress’ but that’s what he meant. I said I was sure you hadn’t had one. Your morals—”
“Not morals. Money, my dear. Such ladies are expensive.”
“But he was really very pleasant. He said I was not to worry about anything. Just leave it to him.”
Phil looked at me and winked.
“It’s not limited to birds,” he said. “A little salt on anything male and it’s all over.”
Judith looked blank, but as just then Jennie opened the living-room door, yelled “Dinner,” and slammed it shut again, the discussion ended.
I ate very little that night, as did Phil. Not only was he worried about the clubs. I found myself watching Judith and wondered what Doctor Townsend meant by a psychic shock. So far as I knew, her life had been one grand sweet song until a few months ago. And if leaving Ridgely and going to Reno was a shock she had certainly recovered fast; playing roulette and the slot machines and shooting craps, always with her entourage of men trailing her. She called them her boys, and they loved it.
The Swimming Pool Page 12