by Rufus King
Christine took it and said, “It’s dripping.”
“And what did you expect? My car slewed off the road on that Vaseline-surfaced goat’s path you call a driveway. It is now engagingly wedded to one pine tree and a Colorado blue spruce.”
“Were you hurt?”
“Miraculously not. And don’t try to cozen me with your crocodile sympathies, Christine.” Stuyvesant bowed to Alan. “Mr. Admont, good afternoon.”
Alan seized, and pumped, Stuyvesant’s hand.
“Give me your coat and hat, Mr. Swain. I’ll hang them in the kitchen near the range.”
“Thank you.” Stuyvesant handed them over. “You might first put them through the wringer.”
“Will you help yourself to scotch? Right over there.”
“I will.”
Alan left, and Stuyvesant went over to the cellaret. Christine said, “This is most unexpected and quite delightful, Stuyvesant.”
Stuyvesant mixed a drink and carried it over to the desk, where he sat down.
“Christine, I have worried about you consistently since leaving here last night.”
“But why? Surely the annuity is a defense against everything?”
“Even so, I could not help it. During the night I dreamed of Charley. I saw him as clearly as I see you now. He said: ‘Go to her, old man. She is in desperate danger.’”
“You must have been eating lobster.”
“Well, I had. Then it was almost an omen this morning when a further question came up concerning the transfer of this property to the annuity fund. I had another paper for you to sign and put everything else aside and came. I could almost feel Charley standing at my elbow and urging me to.”
“Dear Charley!”
“You never appreciated him.”
“I did, and I loved him.”
“Well, never mind.” Stuyvesant spread a paper out on the desk and took out his pen. “Sign here.”
Christine signed, and Stuyvesant put the paper back in his pocket.
“And where is your motley collection today, Christine?”
“They’re in their rooms changing their clothes. We were having a picnic. Stuyvesant, I’m worried about her.”
“About what her?”
“Lida.”
“Surely your portrait-painting cook hasn’t eaten her?”
“No, dear. It’s simply that she seems to have disappeared.”
“Christine, if such a trifle as a vanishing grandniece disturbs you, you must be slipping. Just what is this about Lida, anyhow?”
“I asked her to get me a fur, and it took so long—It’s perfectly possible that she did walk down the road to look for the Vanbuskirks’ car. Did you pass her along the road anywhere, Stuyvesant?”
“I passed no one. The girl, Christine, is a healthy outdoor creature. You will find that she is sheltering under a tree or in a cave from this typical Catskill cascade.”
Again there came a pounding on one of the french doors from outside on the terrace.
Stuyvesant said flatly: “There she is now.”
Christine opened the door, and Sergeant Asher, well wrapped in a glistening poncho, stepped in.
“I’ve been expecting this for years,” Stuyvesant said with a groan. “The police!”
CHAPTER XX
“Sergeant Asher?” Christine said.
“Sorry to trouble you again, Mrs. Admont.”
“For heaven’s sakes, come in.” Asher came in, and Christine shut the door. “This house is turning into an ark. That steaming gentleman with the highball is Stuyvesant Swain, my lawyer.”
“How do you do, Mr. Swain?” Asher said punctiliously.
“Better join me in a highball, Sergeant.”
“Not while on duty, thank you.” Asher turned to Christine. “I would like to see Miss Belder and ask her a few questions about a diamond clip.”
Cordelia started coming down the turret stairs. Stuyvesant groaned again. “I knew it,” he muttered. “Charley, how right you were!”
Christine said to Asher, after giving Stuyvesant a look, “This is some more of Mr. Jerbutt’s nonsense, I suppose? I can assure you that Miss Belder has never been in his shop. In fact she had never come to Belder Tor before yesterday.”
Cordelia hesitated at the foot of the stairs, listening. Asher was not impressed. He said: “Miss Belder had on her dresser the diamond clip which had been lifted from Mr. Jerbutt’s on the week previous to yesterday’s theft of the ring.”
“Nonsense. You have never been in my grandniece’s room. You were in Miss Banning’s.”
“The room you took me into had silver toilet articles initialed L.B. and not C.B., and there was some correspondence on the bureau addressed to Miss Lida Belder.”
“Christine,” Stuyvesant said severely, “poor Charley must be spinning in his grave.”
“Stuyvesant, you be still.”
Asher went on doggedly: “Mrs. Admont, you practically established Miss Banning’s guilt by deliberately steering me away from her fingerprints. The diamond clip ties Miss Belder in with the job. I took the clip to Jerbutt’s for a definite identification.”
Cordelia came into the room and went up to Asher. “Oh dear,” she said, “I cannot let you implicate Miss Belder, Sergeant. I am the woman you want.”
Stuyvesant announced: “Well, now, this is getting up to form, Christine.”
“Oh, do keep quiet, Stuyvesant—and you too, Cordelia.”
“No, Christine,” Cordelia said, “I won’t. I was in Mr. Jerbutt’s shop, and I did pick up the diamond clip and the ring. I remember it perfectly now. Sergeant, I gave the clip last night to dear Lida as a little wedding gift.” She held her dimpled hands out to Asher. “Put them on.”
“Put what on, ma’am?”
“The handcuffs.”
“What for? Mr. Jerbutt hasn’t decided to swear out any warrant. He feels now, he says, that maybe Mrs. Admont can clear things up.” Asher gave Stuyvesant a pointed look. “I don’t need any glasses to see through that, of course.”
“No,” Stuyvesant agreed, “it has the old familiar sound.”
Asher said to Christine: “I had to come out here and get a statement before closing my report.”
“I am delighted that Mr. Jerbutt has come to his senses. Miss Banning is sometimes a little vague. Aren’t you, dear?”
“I’m afraid I am,” Cordelia said placidly.
“Sergeant Asher, I shall drive in and see Mr. Jerbutt. If necessary, I shall even open an account.”
“I wouldn’t use a car during this cloudburst, Mrs. Admont. The road down to the Notch is like grease.”
“I shan’t. I’ll drive in in the morning.”
“Well, then, everything is cleared up.”
“Good-by, Sergeant Asher, and thank you.”
“Good-by. Good-by, Miss Banning, and Mr. Swain.” Asher left them, and Cordelia said to Stuyvesant how nice it was to see him again. Stuyvesant received this with a cold thank you and grew colder still as he saw Godfrey and Hugo come down the turret stairs.
“Good!” Godfrey cried on spotting Stuyvesant. “You have changed your mind. I knew that you could not resist.”
“I have not changed my mind,” Stuyvesant said between his teeth, “and I will not, Mr. Lance, be embalmed for posterity in puce.”
“Christine,” Godfrey implored, “persuade him.”
“Don’t bother me for a minute, Godfrey.”
Christine frowned. It was queer, she thought, that even Sergeant Asher hadn’t seen Lida on his way to Belder Tor. She noted absently that Alan had come back from the kitchen and was of two minds about sending him out into the downpour to search. Her eyes were speculative on the freezer door. She walked over and put her hand tentatively on the knob. She tried it and found it locked. “Christine!” Hugo said sharply. “What are you doing?” Not only he but also Godfrey and Cordelia and Alan were stricken into immobility with the sickening feeling that fate was at last about to catch up with them
.
“Well, really, Hugo! The possibility struck me that the door might have closed on her.”
Stuyvesant felt a genuine alarm.
“On Lida, Christine?”
“Yes. But it’s locked, and you can’t lock it from the inside.”
Hugo’s voice in the tense stillness was strained: “Why would Miss Belder go there?”
“I asked her to get me my beaver jacket.”
“Oh dear!” Cordelia moaned.
“I gave her the key to the freezer.”
Cordelia wailed more earnestly still: “Oh, the poor child!” and collapsed onto the lounge in a faint.
Alan took it hardest of all. This, then, was the end. Like lightning the gall of his tragic future tore through his tottering brain: that cool, efficient young snip had undoubtedly opened the freezer door and found the body. No wonder they couldn’t find Lida. She was of a certainty hotfooting it for the police, and only moments remained before all would be exposed. He was dully aware of Hugo’s feeble efforts at staving catastrophe off.
“But Miss Belder couldn’t be in the freezer, Christine,” Hugo was saying.
“Not with the door locked,” Godfrey boomed. “Christine, you said so yourself.”
“Christine,” Stuyvesant said stuffily, “if you don’t mind my mentioning it, Miss Banning seems to have fainted.”
“Well, I don’t see why she should. Get the bottle of smelling salts, Alan.”
“Where is it?”
“In the medicine chest in my bathroom.”
Hugo went over to the lounge and looked professionally at Cordelia. “Bring a glass of water too, Alan.”
“Your servant, sirrah—and madam.” Alan floated through his shattered dreams toward the door to Christine’s suite. He knew that no longer was anything of any use, and this irretrievable collapse of his golden future hurled him into the ultimate depths and—oh, bitterest pill of all!—it had hinged on a whim: Christine had wanted a fur coat. He hated her at that moment as he had never hated anyone on earth. With his hammiest irony he repeated his triumphal cry of the morning before: “The world is mine!” flung open Christine’s door, and left the room.
Stuyvesant looked after Alan in bewilderment.
“Who does he think he is?” he asked Christine. “Booth?”
“Usually.”
“Is Cordelia all right, Hugo?” Godfrey asked. “Certainly. It’s nothing. She is coming around by herself.”
“Water,” Cordelia murmured weakly. “Water—”
Then she added, less weakly, “Or something—”
“Alan is getting you some,” Hugo said.
There was a moment’s hush, then breaking it they heard the sound of Alan’s voice coming from Christine’s suite in a shriek of outraged pain. There was a wailing quality about it which swelled to a sobbing scream then tapered off to the whimper of a child, and the room was still again.
CHAPTER XXI
They stood like dummies, completely spellbound by Alan’s scream, their eyes fastened on the opened door to Christine’s suite. It began to filter through to them that, simultaneously with the scream, the lights had sunk down, wavered, and were now at a low dim. Godfrey was the first to become fully conscious of this.
“What is happening to the lights?” he asked. Stuyvesant suggested caustically that a more pertinent question might be what was happening to Mr. Admont.
“There’s a short circuit,” Hugo said. “Some extra load. Come with me, Godfrey.”
Godfrey followed Hugo into Christine’s suite.
“They go down like this during an electrocution,” Cordelia announced placidly. “While the juice is on.”
“Oh, really, Cordelia!” Christine snapped, and followed Godfrey and Hugo.
“Didn’t somebody scream, Mr. Swain?” Cordelia asked.
“Yes, Mr. Admont screamed. A natural pitch, I might presume, for his voice. He had gone into Christine’s bathroom to get you some smelling salts and a glass of water.” The lights jumped up suddenly to full.
“Just,” Cordelia said, sitting up, “like an electrocution.”
“The wiring is dangerous in most of these old houses.”
“Yes, I remember that dear Margaret Lepstoad almost died from a shock she got from her curling iron. She lived in Mystic, Connecticut.”
Christine rejoined them. She was obviously badly shaken. She went directly to the cellaret and picked up a bottle of scotch. Her hand was trembling so that she couldn’t pour it.
“Pour this for me, please, Stuyvesant.”
Stuyvesant poured the scotch.
“What did he yell for, Christine?”
“Alan has been killed.”
Cordelia was sincerely horrified.
“Oh no!”
“Was it a short circuit?” Stuyvesant asked.
“Yes. His hand was glued to the bathroom tap. Hugo took bath towels and pulled him away.” Christine downed the scotch. “There was some break in the heater cord, and a live wire was touching the water pipe.”
“At the present moment,” Stuyvesant said pompously, “the exact statistics do not occur to me, but the death rate from accidents in households each year is terrific.” A shocking thought suddenly occurred to him. “Christine, it was your bathroom. It might have happened to you.”
“Do you suppose I haven’t thought of that?”
Cordelia stood up and went over to her.
“Christine dear, I’m so sorry.”
“About Alan?”
“For your loss.”
Stuyvesant became stuffily formal.
“My sympathies too, Christine.” Then he added, unable to control it: “Although I don’t mind saying I think you’re damn well out of it.”
“Mr. Swain!” Cordelia was gently reproachful. “I shall go and help Godfrey and Hugo. There must be pennies on his eyes.”
Cordelia went into Christine’s suite, and Stuyvesant said sternly: “The authorities should be notified at once, and the body must not be moved until they get here.”
“Oh, don’t be so technical, Stuyvesant!”
“Technical! Christine, fate and fate alone brought me back here this afternoon. I shall protect you in spite of yourself. Charley would wish me to.”
He followed Cordelia into Christine’s suite. Christine put down her empty whisky glass and, going to a terrace window, looked out at the pelting rain.
The Dove came down the turret stairs and into the room. He had put Belle’s handbag into his brief case, and he spotted the motionless Christine just as Christine spotted him.
Confusion piled on confusion for the Dove. He felt caught like a leaf in a strong and variable wind. This sudden and face-to-face meeting with his principal thoroughly annoyed him.
Christine herself felt somewhat strange as she took in more accurately this wisp, this gray-haired wraith who was standing still now and facing her. After all, even for Back Bay—“Surely,” she said, gathering about her some shreds of her social wits, “then you did get here. But where are Mrs. Vanbuskirk and Barry, and Lida?”
The Dove moved gently toward her, and there was a subtle menace in his steps which, subconsciously, Christine felt. He gave her a long look and then glanced reflectively over his shoulder toward the freezer door. He thought, with exasperated finality: I’ll choke her now and add her to the collection.
Christine felt herself being swept further out to sea by the man’s silence and gentle advance. She fought against the unusual sense of alarm and said to this hopelessly un-Bostonian incompetent: “It—it is Mr. Vanbuskirk, are you not?” She held out a welcoming hand and added: “How do you do?”
The Dove ignored it. He said: “Where are the others?” Christine started to ice.
“They are in my rooms. There has been an accident. My husband has just been killed.”
The Dove stopped dead in his gentle, menacing tracks. His thin shoulders registered one resigned shrug and he gave what easily could have been taken for a low, sepulchral lau
gh.
“You find it amusing?” Christine said coldly.
The Dove smiled sadly.
He said: “I am thinking of the futility of the best-laid plans—of rats and men.”
He went swiftly over to the spinet desk. He took hold of the telephone and yanked its cord free from the baseboard. Christine observed him with swiftly mounting outrage.
“Will you be good enough to tell me just what you think you are doing?” she managed to ask.
“My services here,” the Dove said gently, “are of no further use.”
Christine was standing before the terrace door, blocking it, as the Dove drifted politely toward her.
“I insist,” she said, “upon an explanation for this extraordinary conduct!”
The Dove had reached her by now. He took her by the elbows and, with curious strength, moved her aside from the door. Outrage flamed into fire. Christine’s sheltered if hectic existence had never included any experience even remotely connected with being manhandled. Dear Charles, it is true, had once thrown a book, but the book had missed her, and these bony fingers now so impertinently gripping her drove her into fury.
“Mr. Vanbuskirk,” she said bitingly, “I have had enough. There is a limit. Even during these mad and equivocal days a hostess can be stretched too far.”
The Dove, too, had had enough.
“I am not,” he said between clenched teeth, “Mr. Vanbuskirk.”
“Then—who?”
“I am a man who inadvertently has done you, madam, an inestimable service.”
The Dove sifted out onto the terrace, quietly closing the rain-streaked french door.
CHAPTER XXII
Stuyvesant came in and, after a negligent glance at Christine, who seemed to be transfixed before a terrace window, went directly over to the telephone.
“They paid no attention to me whatsoever,” he said. “I shudder at what will be the medical examiner’s reaction.” He jiggled the phone again. “What’s the matter with this thing?”
“I think,” Christine announced, “that I am going mad.”