“The man took it,” she said and closed her eyes again.
I called Phil in great excitement when I got home. He was cool enough, however.
“Of course she’d say there was a man,” he said. “What the hell did you expect?”
By the tenth day, with Fowler growing angrier and more impatient all the time at the delay, she was able to sit up in bed and even to eat a little. Her memory, too, was slowly coming back. That afternoon for the first time she inquired about the driver of the car.
“Was he dead?” she asked.
“I’m afraid he was, Judith.”
“Who was he? Do you know?”
And then all Phil’s theories and mine went into the discard. “He called himself Morrison,” I said, “but he was really Johnny Shannon.”
“Johnny!” she said. “Oh, not Johnny! I can’t bear it.”
Then she was crying, loudly, hysterically. The police officer ran in, the nurse came flying, and soon after an intern. I was too shocked to move. They had to push me aside, and later on in the hall I had to answer questions. What had I done? What had I said to her? The intern was particularly insistent.
“Now see here, Miss Maynard,” he said. “She didn’t go off like that for nothing. She’d been quiet all day. It’s on her record, the best day yet. Then all at once she goes off into a fit, and you were alone with her at the time.”
I lied. What else could I do?
“I don’t know what started her off,” I said. “Perhaps she just remembered something.”
“I wish to God she could,” he said fervently. “You didn’t by any chance tell her about the police?”
“Of course not. But she’s seeing things now. If she caught sight of that officer—”
“He says the door was closed when she began to yell.”
But after that I was limited to two hours a day with her, with the nurse always in the room. Now and then as she improved I think she wanted to talk to me. There was no chance, however.
Ridge Chandler came out to The Birches about that time. He had telephoned frequently, and her hospital room was filled with the flowers he sent and which she did not notice. He looked haggard, as I daresay we all did, and he seemed as bewildered as the rest of us.
“Hasn’t she talked at all?” he asked. “She must remember something.”
“She’s beginning to remember, Ridge. She’s had a concussion, of course. We do know a few things. She says a man took her jewel case.”
“It’s hardly news,” he said dryly. “We all know it was a holdup.”
It was September by that time. It was cool that day, and I had a fire in the living-room. He got up and stood in front of Mother’s picture, looking up at it.
“Handsome old girl,” he said. “Ever find out what she wanted the money for? The fifty thousand I mean.”
“Maybe to bribe Dawson. You remember him. He was our butler at the time.”
“Bribe him? Why?” He stared at me, but I went on recklessly.
“Because Judith was the alibi for a man accused of murder, Ridge. It won’t hurt you to know it now. Apparently she lied, for he was convicted. His name was Shannon, Johnny Shannon.”
“Good God!” he said. “The man who drove the car! Then she did kill him, after all!”
“That’s fantastic, Ridge. She had no gun.”
“No? Well, maybe not, although I wonder what became of the one your father used. The police returned it. And it might have been stored away somewhere.”
“I never saw it,” I said weakly. But I was remembering the night I found Judith in the attic. She had been looking for something, definitely not her wedding pictures. I sat gazing at him, but he merely shrugged.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, his voice irritable. “God knows I don’t want to drag my name in the mud. Shannon may have scared her. He had a right to, if she did what you say. I remember the case dimly, but how did you learn about it? You were only a child at the time. I suppose it was this policeman of yours. What’s his name? O’Brien, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said dully. “It was O’Brien.”
“It could be worse, of course,” he said “even if they prove the gun was your father’s. She would probably get a light sentence. She’s still a good-looking woman, and if necessary we can show she has not been normal for some time.”
“I think she is normal,” I said obstinately. “She’s been afraid, that’s all.”
He left me in a wretched state of mind. Judith might have found Father’s gun in the attic. It might have been there. Also her handbag was large. She could have carried it with her. But why shoot Shannon and risk her own life when the car went over the edge of the road?
I didn’t dare risk talking to her again. But she was improving rapidly, and one day I realized the armistice was over.
She was better. Her ankle was in a cast, and they were talking of getting her up into a wheelchair. I went home more cheerful than I had been for a long time. When the haze completely lifted she would be able to tell us what had happened, and clear herself. Because by that time I felt sure she was innocent. She had not known the cabdriver was Shannon, and why would she shoot an unknown man?
Then Fowler came to see me.
I was alone late that afternoon when he appeared. I had been getting Mother’s room ready for Judith when she was strong enough to be brought back to The Birches, so when I heard his voice I went down the stairs to find him in the lower hall with a heavy automatic in his hand.
“Know anything about this gun, Miss Maynard?” he said. “Recognize it, I mean.”
“No. What about it?” I asked stupidly.
“It’s the gun which killed Shannon,” he said. “It also killed your father years ago. I wonder how your sister got hold of it?”
Father’s gun! I sat down on one of the hall chairs, feeling faint. But I managed to speak.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it before. It wasn’t in the house. And she never killed anybody.”
“Well, that’s as may be,” he said. “You have to do a little guessing in this case. I’ll guess, for instance, that the telephone call about the ship was arranged to impress you. I’ll guess she knew this ex-convict Shannon a lot better than you realize. And I’ll guess a bit more. She didn’t expect to go off the road in that car. She had him stop it before she killed him, but the motor was running, so maybe his foot kicked the gas and she had no time to get out.”
“You’re making her a monster,” I said wildly. “She isn’t. She has her faults, but to think she would scheme like that, pack her bags, kiss me good-by, and go out to murder a man—it’s crazy.
“Maybe that’s the answer,” he said laconically. “She’ll cop a plea of temporary insanity, or her lawyers will. But it won’t do her any good.”
He left me in a state of collapse, and when Phil came home that night I gave one look at his tired, haggard face and decided not to tell him about Father’s gun. Maybe I was wrong, but he was sure to learn it sooner or later. He was entitled to one peaceful evening, if you could call it that.
When O’Brien called me later he said nothing to cheer me.
“I’m afraid things don’t look too good,” he said. “Who would think a damn-fool reporter in New York would bring Shannon in? Or that they would check back to your father’s gun?”
But the thing was almost over, he said. Judith had not killed Johnny Shannon, and he hoped to prove it.
“I still don’t see why anybody wanted to kill him,” I said stubbornly. “Why kill him? If he’d killed her I could understand it.”
“Leave the worrying to me. I can take it. And I’ll say this much,” he went on. “Several people are responsible for his death. Only one of them killed him, but more than one conscience must have kept its owner awake at night for a good many years.”
He did not explain what he meant. He had really called he said to tell me that Fowler intended to interrogate Judith the next day, and I was to insist on being prese
nt.
“Just go there early and stay,” he said. “I’ll be there, if I have to break a window. After all, Shannon was in my jurisdiction. He was a New York resident.”
Then for a few seconds he ceased being a police officer and became a man. “I’m missing you, darling, but this is my job. Someday soon it will be over, and you’ll be my own sweet girl again.”
Unfortunately I was not feeling sweet.
“Of course,” I said. “In the intervals between cases, you mean. You’ll come home to the little woman, put your gun away, and after food, a bath, and a shave you’ll look around to see if she’s where you left her a week or so before.”
“And what could be more wonderful, mavourneen?” He chuckled. “Just promise me you will be there.”
“I’m just damn fool enough to promise I will be, with a steak ready for the broiler and your slippers ready for your feet.”
The mention of the steak was unfortunate. Flaherty’s wife had one ready the night he was killed, and he remembered it. The laughter went out of his voice.
“I’ll come home to you, my darling,” he said gravely. “That’s as near a promise as I can make.”
Chapter 31
THE NURSE HAD DONE her best for Judith when I got there the next morning, had brushed her still lovely hair until it shone, and put a little color on her cheeks and lips. They only heightened her alarming pallor, but I did not say anything.
Fowler had said he would be there at eleven o’clock. He came promptly, but he was not alone. He had brought the detective who found the gun, and almost on his heels came the district attorney for the county. Fowler looked displeased when he saw me, and even more so when O’Brien walked in. He did not care either for the presence of Doctor Christy, who sat by Judith’s bed. But it was definitely Fowler’s show.
He began urbanely enough.
“I don’t want to distress you, Mrs. Chandler,” he said. “But I think it’s time we had a talk.”
Judith did not move, but she looked at him.
“What do you want?” she asked, slowly and painfully. “I don’t remember very much.”
“Well, you remember getting into the car at The Birches, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You were going abroad? On the Queen Mary?”
She made an effort.
“Yes,” she said. “I got a message they had space for me.”
He let that go.
“I see,” he said. “So you called a cab. That’s right, isn’t it?”
She frowned in an attempt to remember.
“No. They said they were sending one for me. Whoever it was said a car was on the way. It was picking up another passenger later.”
“Would it interest you to know,” he said, still smoothly, “that no such message was ever sent?”
She looked puzzled.
“I don’t understand. I got it. My sister Lois knows it. She was there.”
The district attorney stirred in his chair.
“I think we’d better get on with it, Chief,” he said. “She’s not very strong. We know the car picked her up. We know it was a stolen car. Let’s take all this for granted.”
Fowler scowled.
“I’d like to carry this on,” he said. “The car was there, that’s the important thing. Now, Mrs. Chandler, you got into the car, and drove on a mile or two. What happened then?”
“It stopped. The driver said he was to pick up the other passenger there and take him to the ship. I said there wasn’t much room, with all my bags, but anyhow we waited. Then a man came along the road. He stopped beside the rear door where I sat and jerked it open. I”—she looked about to faint—“I saw he was wearing something black over his face, and I guess I screamed. That was when he shot the driver. He tried to shoot me. Perhaps he thought he had for I fainted just after that. The last thing I remember is his throwing the gun at me. It struck me on the head.”
A wave of shock must have gone through everyone there. Even Fowler looked surprised. Then he smiled.
“I see. So that’s how you got the gun?”
“The gun?” She was thinking hard trying to remember. “But I didn’t get it. It was in my hand when I came to.”
Nobody believed her. There was sheer incredulity on every face in the room, including my own. Except O’Brien’s. He was watching her intently. Fowler smiled.
“That’s quite a statement,” he said. “You fainted, the car crashed down the hill, after turning over at least a couple of times. And you wake up holding the gun! What happened then?”
“I must have been out a good while,” she said. “I could see the car below me. Not the driver. Just the car. I think it was some time before I tried to climb the hill. My foot was very painful, but I couldn’t stay there with that man around. That’s really all I remember.”
“Not quite,” Fowler said. “You knew where you were, didn’t you? You didn’t go toward the town. You turned toward The Birches. No woman in a stupor did that, Mrs. Chandler. And you carried the gun with you.”
“Are you saying I walked back home? With an ankle like this?”
“You did, unless someone took you there. Perhaps you’ll claim this highwayman of yours did it! That’s where you were found anyhow. In the old stable at The Birches. The gun was there, too, the gun that killed Johnny Shannon.”
I watched her, but the name did not startle her as it had before, although she went very pale.
“I never shot anybody,” she said swiftly. “Not in all my life.”
“But you knew Shannon?”
“A long time ago I knew a Johnny Shannon. He was a student at Columbia. He came a few times to the swimming pool at The Birches.”
“Did you know he was driving the car that night?”
“No. Not until—” She stopped. She had made a misstep, and she knew it.
“Now we’re getting places,” Fowler said with considerable satisfaction. “Suppose you tell us why he stopped the car where he did. There were no houses near. Shannon wasn’t picking up a passenger. This masked man wasn’t a thief after your jewel case, either. Matter of fact, isn’t it possible there was no such man?”
I think she gave up then. She lay back on her pillows with her eyes closed and the nurse held some aromatic ammonia under her nose. Doctor Christy spoke for the first time.
“I’m warning you, Fowler. This is no time or place for accusations. I said she could tell her story. That’s all.”
“If her story’s a bundle of lies, I didn’t promise to accept it.”
Then O’Brien spoke.
“Suppose you let me tell it for her,” he said. “I knew Johnny Shannon. I knew him off and on for twenty years. I knew he’d been trying ever since he left the pen to get a statement from Mrs. Chandler which would clear him of the murder which sent him up the river.”
Fowler eyed him with acute dislike.
“I don’t see where you come in on this,” he said. “I’m supposed to be doing the questioning.”
“Right, but I’m not asking questions. I’m telling you what Mrs. Chandler will have to tell, sooner or later. She knew Johnny Shannon never killed the Preston girl, and she knew it because she was in his room the night it happened. She was with him, in his room in Morningside Heights, from eleven o’clock to four in the morning. The Preston girl was killed at or about midnight.”
There was a dead silence. No one in the room moved.
“She was pretty young at the time. Even then I think she might have come forward and cleared him, but her mother terrified her into keeping quiet. I’m only going to ask her one or two questions, Fowler. The rest is up to you.” He glanced at Judith. “You heard me, Mrs. Chandler. That’s the fact, isn’t it? And when Johnny Shannon got you in the car it was in the hope you could be induced to clear him?”
She nodded weakly.
“I thought he would be acquitted at the trial,” she said. “But Mother took me to Arizona, and when I learned he had gone up for life I was in be
d for weeks, sick.”
“You didn’t invent this masked man, did you?”
“No. He was there. We were to wait for him. He was to be a notary, or something like that. He was to take down what I said, and I was to sign it. Johnny told me after he stopped the car. I didn’t know who he was until then.”
“There was no real message about the ship. You know that now, don’t you?”
“I think Johnny learned somehow that I hoped to sail. I realize now it must have been his voice over the telephone.”
“And the rest is as you’ve told it?”
“About the man? Yes.”
O’Brien grinned and looked at Fowler.
“Your witness, Chief,” he said.
Fowler was sulky. It was a moment or two before he leaned forward in his chair and spoke to Judith.
“Isn’t it a fact, Mrs. Chandler,” he said, “that as soon as you learned Shannon was released, you went around in terror of your life? You lived behind locked doors for fear he would kill you?” Corny, I thought bitterly. But Fowler went on. “And isn’t it a fact that when you learned his identity in the car that night you shot him before, as you thought, he would shoot you?”
O’Brien got up.
“This isn’t a trial before a jury, Fowler,” he said. “Mrs. Chandler will not answer that question while I’m here, or until she has a lawyer to defend her.”
Fowler looked ugly.
“All right,” he said. “She’ll get a lawyer. She’ll probably get a dozen of them. She married a Chandler, didn’t she? But maybe you forget we’ve had two murders.” He looked at Judith. “Did you know the woman who was knocked out and then drowned in your swimming pool not long ago?”
Judith closed her eyes, and the spots of rouge on her face stood out sickeningly. But her voice was clear.
“No. She was a complete stranger to me.”
“Yet someone at The Birches took a golf club down there that night. You know that, don’t you?”
“That doesn’t necessarily follow,” O’Brien said. “A good many people had access to those clubs. You did yourself, probably. So did I.”
Fowler was seething with fury by that time. He got up and jammed on his hat.
The Swimming Pool Page 29