by Dianne Day
“I suppose I must tell you everything, since I’ve thrown myself on your mercy this way,” she began.
“Not necessarily. I’m curious, of course, but mainly I’m glad to see that you are all in one piece. You have escaped with your health, and your life, and considering how things have been going for some women lately …” I thought it best not to finish that sentence.
“It was … it is the oddest thing!” She paused, looking into the distance vaguely, with a tiny frown that creased the space between her brows in quite an attractive manner. I was perversely glad of Michael’s absence, for my friend’s hair flowed about her neck and shoulders and curled around her face in a way that I—with my dark, straight-as-a-stick locks—could not help but envy. Not to mention that she filled out my robe in a fashion I could never have done myself.
After an overlong pause, I prodded: “Odd?”
“Yes.” She sipped her tea. How maddening that she would not continue!
I poured more tea, counseling myself to be patient. Eventually Frances began to speak again, this time gathering momentum and continuing on in earnest.
“Perhaps he didn’t beat me because I stood up to him for the first time ever. I don’t know how I managed, really. No, I do know—I thought of Patrick, and what a team we make. Oh, but I should begin at the beginning!” She flushed in a manner most becoming.
“It might be helpful.”
“Of course. Well, this is what happened. You did persuade Patrick, Fremont, that we should not meet in my rooms anymore, for fear my husband would find out and misunderstand.”
I doubted there would be much misunderstanding, based on what I’d seen pass between Patrick and Frances, but I let that go by, and she continued.
“But I just couldn’t allow our work, my own training, to stop. You see, there’s a certain kind of momentum that builds up, it’s rather difficult to describe. But it depends on us being together. Without Patrick I feel less than whole. It’s as if the other half of myself is missing. You must know what I mean; you and your partner, Michael …?”
“We don’t have that kind of a relationship,” I said quickly. Yet in truth I did know what she meant. I knew that feeling of missing an important part of oneself, and it bothered me a good deal, as I did not know if it was a good or a bad thing. I said, truthfully but vaguely: “We are very independent, Michael and I.”
Frances leaned forward, as if the change in posture might help to win me over to her point of view. I was feeling a certain amount of resistance, and she may have sensed it.
She said, “Well, all right, then I’ll just say I didn’t want to be without Patrick, I wanted my training to go on, and so we met instead at his house. You know, the house on Octavia Street—it’s his now.”
“Um-hm.”
“I walked over, and as it is a long walk, I suppose my longer than usual absences were noted. I don’t know if Cora told Jeremy, or if he just came home unexpectedly one afternoon and found me not at home, or what. All I know is that he had me followed. Or so he said—I never saw anyone following me, of course, or I would have come straight to you and asked what I should do about it. You know these things, Fremont. I don’t.”
Some of the charm that worked on men she now turned on me. I felt it working, as I inclined my head in mute acknowledgment of her flattery.
She continued: “Jeremy assumed the worst—that I had done it, I mean. I couldn’t bear that, just couldn’t bear it, because that is not at all what Patrick Rule and I are about! And so”—her shapely chin rose—“I told Jeremy that he was entirely wrong, I was not doing anything sordid, rather I was developing a God-given talent in the hands of a master.”
A rather large promotion for Patrick Rule, I thought. Not so long ago he had characterized himself as Abigail Locke’s flunky. Which meant, didn’t it, that my friend Frances had given him the means for a promotion? And I wondered when, at what point, he might have begun to realize that this might happen.
“Jeremy laughed,” Frances said. “He said something horrible, obscene, about a—a talent for whoring. I couldn’t have that, you see”—her eyes flashed—“and I said so. I said a gentleman does not speak to a lady in such a manner, and he himself had made me into a lady, therefore I required that he apologize.”
“Good for you!” I exclaimed, truly proud of her. So proud that I forgot for a moment my dark train of thought, and where I had been going with it.
Frances’s eyes flashed, and she had a slight smile on her lips. “He didn’t apologize. Well, I never thought he would. But he didn’t strike me either, though he raised his arm. I forced myself not to cower. After a minute he looked pretty silly standing there with his arm in the air and a face like the wrath of God. Or so I thought. Then he put his arm down, stuck his hands in his pockets, and got very, very quiet, which turned out to be in a strange way even more terrible.”
“I can imagine.”
“Can you? I was … I really wondered if he would kill me then. If he would suddenly let go of that iron control that kept his voice so low and his hands in his pockets, and come at me in a rush and strangle me. He didn’t, obviously, since I am here. What he did was, he said sure as he had made me he could break me. That I had betrayed his trust and no longer deserved to be his wife, no longer deserved to be fed, clothed, and sheltered by him. He ordered me to take off all my clothes, and I did, without protest. Then he ordered me to leave the house, naked as the day I was born. With that, I did argue. But he was like—like a big dog herding sheep, relentless, and I was the lamb. All I could do was move in the direction he drove me, toward the front door, and out … out into the dark and the cold. I couldn’t even get that slicker from the side room because the door was locked and I didn’t have my keys. I don’t have … anything.”
“That’s not true, you know,” I said softly. “You have yourself, your life, your hopes, your talent, your abilities. And you have quite a lot of luck on your side, I think.”
“L-l-luck?” Struggling to control herself, she daintily touched her nose with the heel of her hand.
“You made it here, naked, without being arrested.” I smiled.
“That is so.” She tried to return the smile, but instead, tears filled Frances’s eyes. She didn’t let them fall. She blinked them back, tossed her head, held out her cup, and asked brightly: “Is there more tea?”
———
I put Frances in Michael’s bedroom, because it was the only other bed in the house. I gave her my spare key to his side of our dwelling, which meant unfortunately that I had none, and so could not go checking on her in the middle of the night if I should happen to become anxious. I could call her on the telephone, though, from the office downstairs. Michael, of course, had a phone number separate from the business. He kept it unlisted, but I knew the number by heart.
I was much troubled by what had happened to Frances, and for a reason so very odd that I felt rather guilty: For her to be simply turned out, even naked, did not make sense. Did not fit my notions (which I had been so intent on reinforcing of late) of who Jeremy McFadden was and what he had done—would do—to keep the exclusive affections and attentions of his lovely but quirky wife.
In the process of getting myself ready for bed I pondered: Why would McFadden have gone to the trouble of murdering the two mediums, or even just the first, Abigail Locke, yet then toss Frances out at the first real hint of infidelity? He wouldn’t … would he? And yet, how could he not be the murderer when he was already guilty of physically abusing his wife? Were France’s bruises not the proof, which I had seen with my own eyes, of the lengths to which the man would go to keep her all for himself? From physical abuse to murdering one’s rivals—the rivals for her time and attention in this case being not lovers but the mediums—seemed like an orderly progression to me. Or it had until now, when he had broken the pattern.
I had reached the stage of brushing out, then braiding, my long hair before sleep. I was sitting on the side of the bed, my side, wis
hing Michael were here to brush my hair the way he loved to do—the way I loved him to do—when suddenly there came back to me the thought about Patrick Rule that I had pushed away days earlier: What if Patrick had had some sort of squabble with Abigail Locke that no one knew about? What if he had, that night he’d helped me put the entranced Frances into the Maxwell, seen possibilities in Frances McFadden, and had decided to bide his time, to lay his plans carefully, maybe rid himself of Mrs. Locke and then …
“Oh, surely not!” I muttered, brushing with renewed vigor. I hung my head down, flipped the hair over, and brushed it from underneath, which is supposed to be very good for circulation of the blood in the scalp, and stimulating to new hair growth. Perhaps it would stimulate new growth in my brain as well. I had so hoped to have this case wrapped up before Father’s visit … but now that was only a day off. It wasn’t going to happen. And how could I pay proper attention to both Frances and Father?
“Oh, botheration!” I said, somewhat too loudly, as I sat up and tossed my head, hard, so that the hair obediently fell back into place. Sleek as you please. No tumbling curls for Fremont Jones, alas.
God help me, I was in a quandary. For even as I fell asleep I found myself wondering if Frances and Patrick had known each other all along, if they had set this whole thing up just so that he could murder Mrs. Locke and end up with my friend. With a sinking feeling so profound it was almost as if the pit of my stomach had nailed me to the bed, I wondered: And what if they killed Ingrid Swann, too, just so that when Patrick and Frances started out their tandem enterprise, there would be less competition?
But I could not think about it for long, because I was very tired, and I fell asleep still wondering.
———
I do not sleepwalk. Absolutely do not, never have, never will walk in my sleep. So how in the world was it that I found myself outside my bedroom before I was truly awake? Or was I dreaming?
I have heard that the urge for self-preservation is very deep, and perhaps that was what had propelled me from my bed and into the corridor in my nightgown, where I stood trembling, coming awake to the rapid beating of my own heart. Coming awake quickly, too, for all in the same instant I remembered rolling out of bed and slithering out into the hall, along with the sounds that had caused me to do it.
If I got through this, I realized not much later, I would owe my survival to Michael twice over, although he was not even physically present: First, because he had given me the silk nightgown I was wearing—and this gown was not some pale bit of fluff, but rather oriental in style with a high neck, long sleeves, and side buttons, and most important of all it was dark in color, garnet red. Second, because I’d been sleeping alone, missing Michael, I had been curled around his two pillows as if they were him … and had left those two pillows like a lump under the bedclothes when I rolled out of bed.
Therefore, as the sound of stealthy footsteps came inexorably up the stairs, I faded farther and farther back along the hallway, keeping to the shadowy side of the wall. There was very little light anyhow, as the night outside had apparently clouded over and we were missing one of the two streetlamps. Quickly I undid my braid, shook my head, and let the hair fall over to obscure my white face. I might have gone down the back stairs and out of the house, and perhaps I should have—for I had no weapon, the gun being in the drawer of the bedside table, and my walking stick with its trusty hidden blade standing in its customary place in the corner of the bedroom. But I did not go so far as the back stairs. I wanted to see who had invaded my house.
A large person but light on his feet. A man, surely; dressed in dark, conventional clothes, including gloves; he seemed to have no face at all. An illusion, of course. He must be wearing a mask. There was no way on earth even to begin to guess at his identity. I held my breath, my mind a catalog that ran like lightning through every way conceivable—and some inconceivable—to surprise him into taking off that mask while not physically endangering myself.
It was hopeless. There was no way, and without a weapon there was nothing whatever I could do. If I’d had Michael’s keys, if I’d kept them instead of giving them to Frances, I might go over to the other side of the house and lock myself in.
Frances! Yes! Big as he was, that masked figure (which had just now entered my bedroom) was not Jeremy McFadden, but that meant nothing. McFadden had many people in his employ. And what if he had assumed she would logically come to me, or indeed if he had had someone already in place to follow her here, with instructions to wait until the house was dark and quiet, then go in and do the deed. What if I had dismissed my earlier suspicions of McFadden entirely too easily?
I shuddered, as from within the bedroom came a muffled, whompish kind of sound, followed by an equally muffled exclamation, and then some ferocious slashing. I surmised what my intruder had done in Michael’s pillows. Later examination of the bed’s carnage—or I suppose one should say rather “featherage”—proved me correct in this surmise. But at the moment the time had clearly come to flee, and so I did, down the back stairs, which was the logical way to go.
All the way down, my mind continued to run rapidly through the various possibilities—there had to be, must be, a way to catch this dastardly fellow, take him into custody, and force him to Tell All. But there was not, for without a weapon I was helpless. I could not hope to overpower someone so much bigger than I.
When I reached the first floor I hesitated, listening hard, and bristling with questions: Why had I never taken the time to learn jujitsu, like my friend Meiling Li? Might I have time to call the police from the office? Even if I did, could they possibly get here in time to get this intruder?
The footsteps, which were the only sounds this fellow made, other than stabbing and slashing, came to the top of the back stairs and started down. I held my place there at the bottom, not at all sure what I would do.
23
———
A Paterfamilias in the Midst of Everything
The back stairs ascend from—and therefore descend to—an enclosed area off the kitchen that the previous owner of the house had used as a pantry. To one side is the back door, and to the other, the door into the kitchen. I noted now that the back door stood ajar, though I was certain I had locked it earlier, at the end of the workday, as was my habit.
I assumed the intruder had gained entry that way—in spite of Michael’s installation of the new, heavy bolts on all outside doors. A swift glance at the door to the kitchen confirmed that it was still shut, as I had left it; or perhaps this intruder was a neat sort of person who had closed the door behind himself on entering the house proper, while leaving the outer door ajar for a quick getaway. For he had gone through the house; with my own eyes I had seen him come up the main stairs.
I did not so much decide what to do as just wait until the moment came when I knew, and then I did it. The intruder was descending the stairs slowly, carefully, probably on the lookout for whomever he had thought he’d find in my bed—i.e., myself or Frances McFadden. (I still hadn’t a clue which one of us he was after, but Frances did seem the more likely.) There was no place for me to hide except beneath the stairs themselves, so that was what I did. I tried not to breathe at all, which of course was impossible, and so I took only the shallowest sips of air. The footsteps sounded directly over my head, then passed as it were down my shoulder, and all the while I listened with every bit of accuracy I could wring from my normally keen hearing. Would he leave the house by that open back door, or would he go through the kitchen, to search further?
Suddenly it was absolutely clear to me what had to happen: He must be made to leave the house, in a way that would convince him returning, or proceeding to the other side, would be a poor idea indeed. I had but one weapon: the element of surprise.
And I used it. When I heard his footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs, I filled my lungs, and as those steps paused, the way we all do in moments of deciding where to go next, I burst out from my hiding place screaming at th
e top of my voice. My hair streamed down in front of my eyes, I could scarcely see what I was doing. I must have looked like a Fury as I charged at the intruder full tilt with my arms braced out stiff in front of me, screaming all the while. I knocked him off balance, jerked the door open with one hand, and while he was still off balance, with all my strength I kicked him through, slammed the door after him, flipped the bolt, and realized first that I had ripped my nightgown up one side with that forceful kick, and second, that the intruder must have picked the lock or had some sort of master key, because the lock was intact, bolt and all. I should have to take Michael or Wish Stephenson to task about that, because hadn’t they both said the new locks were virtually foolproof?
After a moment of euphoria, I knew I was not necessarily safe yet. Protecting myself came first. I went upstairs and got the gun I so hated to use, the Marlin that looks and sounds like a small rifle. I levered a cartridge into the chamber, making the distinctive ratcheting that fell like music upon my ears. Perhaps guns are not so bad when one truly has need of them. Then I snatched up both the leather pouch containing additional cartridges and my walking stick for good measure.
This time I went down by the main stairs, half expecting to see, silhouetted against the etched glass of the front door, a man’s dark shape—the shape of an intruder, perhaps a murderer, identity as yet unknown.
Yet he was not there. I telephoned Frances, and it was only then I realized, with a sudden, sickening sinking of my stomach: He could have gone to the other side of the house first! What if she did not answer? How could I bear it? The telephone rang, and rang, and rang.…
At last, after a delay interminable and intolerable, when I was about to give up and had begun to mentally prepare myself for the worst, I heard a click … and then Frances’s sleepy voice said, “Oh, hello? Did you ring?” She sounded so vague, she might have been making inquiry of the instrument itself.
All my protective instincts, which for some reason she could always evoke, came rushing to the fore and I heard myself lie to her: “Frances, it’s Fremont. I’m sorry to wake you, but I’ve had a bad dream, a nightmare, and now I’m afraid to be alone.”