Some faint ray of intelligence came to me.
“Do you mean it was this man the Thompson woman remembered she had seen going into your office?”
“She’s already identified him. The real letter carrier had been there earlier. He had seen Mrs. Hammond sitting in a chair, reading a magazine. But he had gone before the Thompson woman arrived. The one she saw was the one who—well, the one who killed Elinor.”
I think I knew before he told me. I know I felt sick.
“It was Fred, wasn’t it?”
“It was Fred Hammond. Yes.” He reached over and took my hand. “Tough luck, my dear,” he said. “I was worried about it. I tried to get her to go away, but you knew her. She wouldn’t do it. And then not long ago she wore a dress at a party with the scarlet letter ‘A’ on it, and I suppose that finished him.”
“It’s crazy,” I gasped. “He adored her.”
“He had an obsession about her. He loved her, yes. But he was afraid he might lose her. Was losing her. And he was wildly jealous of her.” He looked slightly embarrassed. “I think now he was particularly jealous of me.”
“But if he really loved her—”
“The line between love and hate is pretty fine. And it’s just possible too that he felt she was never really his until—well, until no one else could have her.”
“So he killed her!”
“He killed her,” he said slowly, “He knew that nobody notices the postman, so he walked into my office and—”
He got up and went to the window. I sat up dizzily in bed.
“But he was insane,” I said. “You can’t send him to the chair.”
“Nobody will send him to the chair,” he said somberly. “Just remember this, my dear. He’s better off where he is. Perhaps he has found his wife by this time. I think he hoped that.” He hesitated. “I was too late last night. I caught him just in time when he fired at you, but he put up a real battle. He got loose somehow and shot himself.”
He went on quietly. There was no question of Fred’s guilt, he said. Mrs. Thompson in the hospital had identified his photograph as that of the postman she had seen going into the office, and coming out shortly before she heard the nurse screaming. The bullet with which she had been shot had come from Fred’s gun. And Margaret—poor Margaret—had been suspicious of his sanity for a long time.
“She came to see me yesterday after she learned the Thompson woman had been shot. She wanted him committed to an institution, but she got hysterical when I mentioned the police. I suppose there wasn’t much of a case, anyhow. With Mrs. Thompson apparently dying and the uniform gone—”
“Gone? Gone how?”
“He’d burned it in the furnace. We found some charred buttons and things last night.”
I lay still, trying to think.
“Why did he try to kill Mrs. Thompson?” I asked. “What did she know?”
“She had not only remembered seeing a postman going in and out of my office just before Miss Comings screamed. She even described him. And Margaret went home and searched the house. She found the uniform in a trunk in the attic. She knew then.
“She collapsed, She couldn’t face Fred. She locked herself in her room, trying to think what to do. But she had told Fred she was going to see Mrs. Thompson that day, and she thinks perhaps he knew she had found the uniform. Something might have been disturbed. She doesn’t know, nor do I. All we do know is that he left this house that night, got out his car, and tried to kill the only witness against him. Except you, of course.”
“Except me!” I said.
“Except you,” he repeated drily. “I tried to warn you, you may remember! I came here and you threw me out.”
“But why me? He had always like me. Why should he try to kill me?”
“Because you wouldn’t leave things alone,” he said. “Because you were a danger from the minute you insisted Elinor had been murdered. And because you telephoned Margaret last night and asked her why she had visited Mrs. Thompson, and who had shot her.”
“You think he was listening in?”
“I know he was listening in. He wasn’t afraid of his sister. She would have died to protect him, and he knew it. But here you were, a child with a stick of dynamite, and you come out with a think like that! That was when Margaret sent me to warn you.”
I suppose I flushed.
“I’m sorry,” I said guiltily. “I’ve been a fool all along, of course.”
His one remaining eye twinkled.
“I wouldn’t go as far as that,” he said. “That stubbornness of yours really broke the case. Not,” he added, “that I like stubborn women. Gentle and mild is my motto.”
I had no difficulty in getting him back to the night before. He seemed to want to forget it. But he finally admitted that he had been watching the Hammond house all evening, and that when Fred came to our kitchen door he had been just outside. Fred however had seemed quiet. He drank his coffee and lit a cigarette. And then of course I had walked out to the street with him.
“Good God,” he said. “If ever I wanted to waylay anyone and beat her up—!”
However, it had looked all right at first. Fred had started down the street toward home, and he followed him behind the hedge. But just too late he lost him, and he knew he was on his way back. Fred had his revolver lifted to shoot me when he grabbed him.
Suddenly I found I was crying. It was all horrible. Elinor at the window, and Fred behind her. Mrs. Thompson, resting after a hard day’s work, and Fred shooting her. And I myself—
He got out a grimy handkerchief and dried my eyes.
“Stop it,” he said. “It’s all over now, and you’re a very plucky young woman, Louise Baring. Don’t spoil the record.”
He got up rather abruptly.
“I think you’ve had enough of murder and sudden death,” he said lightly. “What you need is quiet. I’m giving up your case, you know. There will be someone in soon to dress that head of yours.”
“Why can’t you do it?”
“I’m not that sort of doctor.”
I looked up at him. He was haggard and tight with strain. He was dirty, he needed a shave, and that awful eye of his was getting blacker by the minute. But he was big and strong and sane. A woman would be safe with him, I thought. Any woman. Although of course she could never tell him her dreams.
“I don’t see why you can’t look after me,” I said. “If I’m to look bald I’d prefer you to see it. After all you did it.”
He grinned. Then to my surprise he leaned down and kissed me lightly on the cheek.
“I’ve wanted to do that ever since you slammed that lipstick down in front of me,” he said. “And now for God’s sake will you stop being a detective and concentrate on growing some hair on the side of your head? Because I’m going to be right around for a considerable time.”
When I looked up mother was in the doorway, beaming.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944 by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Copyright © 1972 by Frederick R. Rinehart and Alan G. Rinehart.
Cover design by Kathleen Lynch
978-1-4804-3653-4
This 2013 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.mysteriouspress.com
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
FROM OPEN ROAD
MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
Otto Penzler, owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, founded the Mysterious Press in 1975. Penzler quickly became known for his outstanding selection of mystery, crime, and suspense books, both from his imprint and in his store. The imprint was devoted to printing the best books in these genres, using fine paper and top dust-jacket artists, as well as offering many limited, signed editions.
Now the Mysterious Press has gone digital, publishing ebooks through MysteriousPress.com.
MysteriousPress.com offers readers essential noir and suspense fiction, hard-boiled crime novels, and the latest thrillers from both debut authors and mystery masters. Discover classics and new voices, all from one legendary source.
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
FOLLOW US:
@emysteries and Facebook.com/MysteriousPressCom
MysteriousPress.com is one of a select group of publishing partners of Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Alibi for Isabel: And Other Stories Page 19