“Elliott stayed in Crockford some days,” Jack said at length. “Maybe he made previous arrangements in the event of an—an emergency.”
“Maybe,” said Standish noncommittally.
With that he rose and suggested that we descend upon Annabelle. It was a sparkling day. The Sound was a bland deceptive blue, and motes of sunshine twinkled on the water. Summer cottages were opening. We saw workmen hanging awnings and gardeners planting tulip bulbs. Forsythia bushes bravely bloomed.
We drove along the beach where Jack and I had seen Franklyn Elliott walking. The beach was deserted, but it promised life. You could picture striped umbrellas, and boys and girls in bathing suits, and children digging in the sand. Two enthusiastic youths in a motor boat to wed a life raft from the shore. They shouted advice at each other.
The Bayne garden looked cheerless and unkempt. Unraked leaves skittered in the sharp breeze, and Silas had never appeared to clip the privet hedges. A policeman lurked at the gates. He was not in uniform. He wore his hat pulled down and his coat collar up, and he was about as inconspicuous as a cigar-store Indian.
We mounted the steps of the stone house, rang the bell. The same dull-eyed Velva whom I remembered from my previous visit showed us into the spacious living room where Annabelle and I had lunched, discussed Jane Coatesnash and traded questions and evasions. It was as neglected as the gardens. Flowers wilted in the bakelite bowls; newspapers littered the Sheraton table and collapsed upon the floor; dust gathered on the trig little typewriter.
Velva said her mistress was lying down, and went off to call her. Presently Annabelle came in. She wore a rumpled negligee; she looked white and tired, and I knew from her eyes that she had been crying. She smiled wanly and then saw Standish. The smile faded.
“Oh! I see! This is an official visit.”
I said quickly, “We’ve brought your purse. You left it at the house.”
She thanked me, and drifted to a chair. No one spoke. Standish, who had expected I would lead the interview, sent me a reproachful look. The awkward silence lengthened. Annabelle opened her purse. She looked up.
“My cigarette case is not here,” she said curtly.
“Your cigarette case?”
“A small gold case—initialed. I’m sure I had it in the purse. I always carry it.”
I daresay I looked confused. “If it isn’t there, then it must be at the house. I will send it down tomorrow.”
“So you opened the purse!” She glanced scornfully around the circle of faces. “I might have known you wouldn’t pass up such a chance.” Her tone became brittle and defiant. “I would like the case back. It happens to mean a lot to me. Frank gave it to me.”
Standish leaned forward. “We found his car this morning.”
Incredibly, hope leaped into her eyes. It died as Standish told the story. She linked her hands about her knees. She said in a small, gray voice, “I had hoped you would find him, too.”
“Then why don’t you help us?”
“I assure you I cannot.”
“You have not been in communication with him since his flight from the Lodge?”
“I haven’t had a word from him since he left the Lodge,” she replied, emphasizing the word. Her face sketched brief contempt. “As you are well aware. Every piece of mail which enters this house is examined before I see it; my telephone wire is tapped so you can keep up with what I’m ordering for lunch; and as for Frank’s coming here in person—” she gestured toward the lawns “—certainly your myrmidon at the gates would seize and arrest him.”
Standish persisted. “You do not know his whereabouts?”
“God knows, I wish I did.”
“You insist he did not murder Elkins?”
“I do.”
“Can you give us any other reason for his disappearance? Do you know of any other reason?”
“I can guess another reason.” She stood up in a frenzy of nerves, despair and—I thought—incertitude. Her trailing gown swished from one end of the long room to the other. She paused at the window and faced us. One white ringless hand grasped the monkscloth draperies. “I don’t know why I should defend Franklyn Elliott to you, but I will. He came here three weeks ago—not in his own interests—but in the interests of Mrs. Coatesnash, his client and my—my friend. As he saw it, she was in for some pretty important trouble. He hoped to protect her from accusations he imagined might be made—in the investigation of his partner’s murder.”
“Then he suspected her from the first?”
“He knew she was not guilty. It was impossible.”
“Then why did Mrs. Coatesnash kill herself?”
“I couldn’t say.” The harassed and desperate expression deepened on her face. “I can say this. Frank had a second reason for coming to Crockford. He wanted, indeed he was determined, to discover who had murdered Hiram Darnley. The lead he was following—and I assure you he had a lead—was one which he could not divulge for reasons which I cannot go into now. He suspected Silas. And that is why he went to the Lodge. I was with him at the Tally-ho Inn earlier that very afternoon. Before I left, he told me that he was going to telephone Silas and make an appointment at the Lodge.” She shot a feverish glance at me. “That is the conversation you overheard and misinterpreted so dreadfully. I do not know what happened after Frank reached the Lodge. I can guess. I believe Frank found Silas dead and, from the body, the room, or perhaps from something else, made deductions which he thought would carry him to the person who murdered Darnley and then murdered Silas to cover up the crime.”
It might have been merely the defense of a loyal, frightened woman. But her air of desperate sincerity moved me. She so obviously believed in Elliott’s innocence that I myself was shaken. What lead could the missing man be following which would necessitate flight, concealment of his information from police officials? Annabelle knew something more. Why wouldn’t she speak it out?
Standish was provoked and skeptical. “You suggest Elliott is in pursuit of the murderer now?”
“I do.”
Standish said ironically, “He has been missing forty-eight hours. How long a time would you say should elapse before he reports progress?”
She burst into tears. It was amazing coming from her. Also it was pitiful. She turned her back and fought for control. Again she faced us. “You must excuse me. I have been troubled and unstrung.” Her eyes were now quite dry and remarkably steady. “Forty-eight hours isn’t a test. If and when Franklyn Elliott has been missing a week—and there is still no word—I will tell you the little I know. You may then decide what to do. Now, please, will you leave?”
Under the circumstances there was nothing else to do. The interview had distressed and unsettled me. I had been much more certain in my opinions before I entered the house than when I left it. Standish, too, seemed disturbed.
“Women,” he growled, “always upset a case. And a woman in love is pure poison. It’s foolish to put any stock in Annabelle Bayne. After all she is engaged to marry Elliott.”
“Engaged!”
“She is indeed,” he said soberly. “So her defense of the man means nothing. But damned if I can understand what she’s so close-mouthed about. She has a theory of her own. Why should she stipulate a week before she’s ready to talk?”
He lapsed into moody silence. Then suddenly he said, “Hark-way tells me she tried to persuade you two to move out of the cottage.”
“She invited us to stay a while with her.”
“Jack believes,” I said, “that something is hidden in the cottage. Something that Elliott wanted and couldn’t find. He’s been hunting for it. He hasn’t found it. Maybe Annabelle knows what it is. It wouldn’t hurt to ask her.”
“It wouldn’t help. She refuses to admit that Elliott broke into the place.” Again the police chief was silent. He roused from his thoughts. “It occurs to me that
you might like someone out there at night. My force is pretty small, but Harkway could probably shift his things from his boarding house. He mentioned it this morning.”
“Thanks, but it isn’t necessary,” said Jack, before I could leap at the offer. He grinned. “Personally I anticipate no trouble, but if there’s trouble I’ll be prepared to take care of it.”
I sent him a questioning glance. Standish looked curious, but Jack volunteered no information. Shortly afterward we separated. Standish went back to the station, and we started home. Jack stopped the car at the village electrical shop.
I watched him through the plate-glass windows. He talked earnestly to the town’s electrician. Shortly he returned to the car with a large, bulky bundle which he conspicuously failed to explain. We arrived at the cottage and I started sorting the groceries. I kept my eye on Jack. He hunted up a hammer and a box of staples, took the package and retired to the bedroom. I heard pounding.
When my curiosity became unbearable some five minutes later, I casually entered the bedroom. Affixed to the wall beside the bed was a small new electric bell. Dropping from the bell to the floor was a long ribbon of wire. Jack was busily leading this wire along the baseboard, securing it with staples. He looked up at me and grinned.
“I really expected you sooner.”
“What is that thing?”
“It’s a burglar alarm. Next time—if there is a next time—anyone breaks into the cellar I’ll know it.” Jack’s grin vanished to leave an expression almost terrifyingly serious. “There’s been too much talking in this case. Lola. Talk always means leaks. I want this—this trap of mine kept strictly between us two. Then there’ll be no leaks. Particularly,” he said, “I don’t want Annabelle Bayne to find out.”
I agreed with him. Many times since I have wondered whether the coming events would have been changed in their course if I hadn’t been so scrupulously careful not to mention our burglar alarm.
Jack carried his operations on into the cellar, and summoned me to hold a flashlight. Moving along in the semi-gloom he awkwardly nailed the length of wire to the overhead beams. He cut it off at the cellar door. I have no clear comprehension of electrical appliances, but I realized that the small oval copper plate which Jack fastened over the raw ends of the wire must be the contact. A tiny, loosely joined copper crossbar was then screwed to the door frame in such a position that the parallel arm of the cross tilted to touch the copper plate when it met resistance. The opening of the door, of course, would furnish the resistance.
Slicing into the main stem of the wire, Jack grafted on an offshoot and carried it to the cellar window, where he arranged a second electrical device. We were now, in his opinion, adequately protected against unannounced and unwelcome visitors. With a contented sigh he turned to me. “Let’s try it out. You run up to the bedroom while I go outside and shove up the window and open the door. It should work.”
It did work. Hardly had I taken my position before the entire cottage exploded into sound. High, shrill, ear-splitting—like the scream of a locomotive in the night. Jack came rushing up. “My God, that would wake the dead.” An hour’s tinkering and a dozen tests eventually reduced the bell to a volume sufficient to wake us and insufficient to alarm a possible intruder.
Jack firmly twisted the final screw. “Not bad—if I do say so myself. From now on, Lola, I sleep at my post like a fireman.” He then produced and examined the gun which Harkway had lent to him. He smiled grimly. He has had experience on clay-pigeon ranges at Coney Island and fancies himself as quite a shot. He slipped the gun and flashlight beneath his pillow.
Our protection failed signally to improve my slumbers that night. Half a dozen times, certain that the bell was ringing and that hordes of intruders were congregated in the cellar, I started bolt upright only to sink back with the realization that I had been dreaming. It was a dark moonless night, very quiet. Not a leaf stirred outside, not a blade of grass.
Reuben was curled on an old coat near the bed. Occasionally in the darkness I would hear him whimper. Once he frightened me badly by leaping to the bed and attempting to crawl beneath the covers. I suppose that must have been his habit with Silas.
The slow hours wore away. I dreamed and roused and dreamed again. In the morning I looked thirty. “Tonight we leave a light burning,” I announced at breakfast.
“And spoil everything?”
“You slept like a log. I didn’t close my eyes.”
“You’ll sleep tonight.”
I daresay no one can maintain a state of consistent terror. On the second night after the installation of our burglar alarm I retired at ten o’clock and didn’t wake until eight a.m.
I was relieved and inclined to be a little caustic at Jack’s expense. I know that he was disappointed. He had felt so sure that another attempt would be made to enter the cellar. Curiously enough it was at this point, and with the conclusion of our tragedies so close at hand, that he declared his belief that the mystery would never be solved.
“That suits me,” I said. “I’m fed up with gumshoe work. I’m sick of the country and of theories and of policemen bobbing in and out of my life. I want to go back to New York.” Jack said slowly, “I know how you feel. You’ve been a good sport, Lola. And it won’t be long now. We’re leaving soon.”
“How soon?” I demanded suspiciously.
“Next week if you want to. I saw Standish this morning when I went down for the papers. He said we could get out of Crockford on Monday. Regardless of whether Elliott turns up.”
I gave a cry of joy. “Why not now? I’d love to pack and go in tomorrow.”
“Try to contain yourself until Monday.”
It was a gray, misty, sunless day calculated to increase my restlessness. The idea of New York took hold of me so that I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I made biscuits for lunch and left out the baking powder. I didn’t get my dusting done, and the carpetsweeper sat in the living room until nearly two o’clock. I did straighten the papers in my office, but any mental work was out of the question.
In the early afternoon I heard Dr. Rand’s ancient car passing on the road, and recognized at once the distinctive engine noises—a weird combination of a hiss and a chortle. I ran to the window and rapped on the pane. The physician alighted and came in.
“You young folks look too healthy to need my services.”
I gleefully imparted our news. “We’re going back to town next week. Jack just got word this morning. On Monday we’ll be free as the air.”
“Lola!” Jack looked annoyed. “I was asked not to mention our going.”
The physician smiled. “I’m tight-mouthed as a clam. Why the secrecy anyhow? I wonder.”
Jack shrugged. “I suppose it’s a matter of pride. Once we leave, the whole village knows the investigation has blown sky-high. Until then we’re the only ones who know that Standish is completely stymied.”
“Don’t deceive yourself,” Dr. Rand said sharply. “Standish is slow and maybe a little stupid, but my guess is he’s got something up his sleeve. I’ve thought so for some time.” He yawned. “I’m not in his confidence any more. He’s still miffed at me for holding back the Jane Coatesnash story—he called me an antisocial menace, said I was morally responsible for the Paris suicide. I daresay he’s partially right, but it’s a burden I’m glad to carry. Standish seems to feel that Mrs. Coatesnash would be better off coming home in chains, standing trial, facing imprisonment and maybe worse—better off that way than lying peacefully dead. I can’t say I agree.”
Pleading a long list of patients, the physician soon departed. Our boredom closed down again. We started a laggard game of double canfield. At four o’clock we had a surprise.
Annabelle Bayne made a call at the cottage.
She was dressed in black, that dead, dusty black which looks like mourning. She didn’t wear a trace of rouge, and her white face with
its pronounced lines and angles was stark as a primitive. I had neglected to send down her cigarette case, and she brusquely announced that she had come for it. I was too surprised that she had been permitted to come to be very tactful. I simply gaped at her.
“I can see,” said Annabelle, “you’re wondering how I broke out of prison. You Storms have transparent faces.”
“Please—”
“The police force is probably in a dither now.” She gave a mirthless little laugh. “At least I cost the county a little gas. I was followed from homeland it took me sixty miles to outwit a thick-skulled constable who had a faster car than mine. Now are you feeling easier?”
I said nothing. Jack said nothing. Annabelle sank to the lounge. “You can phone and report me if you like. I’ve had my fun.”
She didn’t look as though she were having fun. She stared hard into the fire and I knew it was to conceal the tears in her eyes. She was as remote, as rude, as deliberately mysterious as ever, but I pitied her. She turned.
“Well, where’s my cigarette case? I mustn’t neglect to remember my excuse for calling.”
“It’s in the bedroom.”
She rose and started there. It was Annabelle’s habit always to make herself at home wherever she happened to be. Jack managed to stop her at the door. Sharp as her eyes were, she had not, I am certain, glimpsed our makeshift burglar alarm. Jack brought out the cigarette case.
“Why did you come?”
She glanced from him to me. “I meant to tell you how much I hated you, but now I’m here I’m softening.” Her lips twisted. “Some day you will learn the harm your meddling’s done. Some day very soon.”
Her manner invited no questioning; it was impossible to enter a defense to an accusation so oblique. She was referring somehow to Franklyn Elliott, but I couldn’t say I hoped their affairs would straighten out when I felt quite sure they never would. Outside, a light breeze suddenly became a stiff wind. A shutter banged against the window. Jack started the radio.
The Classic Mystery Novel Page 24