Turret Room

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Granny’s dainty claw fumbled with the tiny box she wore on her breast. “I never hear anything at night, Edie, for the simple reason that I cannot sleep upon my hearing aid. One of these days I’ll wake up and find I’ve been hit on the head by some madman … or whatever he did to poor Myra.”

  “They think,” Edie began to recapitulate, “there was some kind of struggle and she fell.…”

  But Granny had half risen from the sofa. She seemed to be staring across the room.

  “What?” gasped Edie. (What have I forgotten? What does she see? Does she know he is here?)

  But the old lady sank back. “Oh, mercy! I suppose it is a mercy, they left no X to mark the spot.” Myra had struck her head, the theory was, on the hard tile of the hearth.

  Edie began to think that the old lady might be enjoying herself. “Do you believe it was Harold Page?” she said, a trifle angrily.

  “Of course it was,” said Granny. “Oh, he has been such a nuisance! I could have told Wendy, in the beginning. She didn’t ask me. Well, I keep quiet, you know.”

  No, you don’t, thought Edie.

  “One may as well,” Granny ran on. “One might better. Wendy never listens. Few do. Few do.”

  “Granny, will you please listen to me for a minute?”

  But old Mrs. Whitman had no intention of listening very much. She was off. “There was Wendy,” she explained, “all of sixteen long years old but barely. And ‘everybody’ was getting married.”

  Oh surely, thought Edie, listening hard, that is sarcasm. A form of—what? Humor?

  “By ‘everybody,’” Granny continued, “we must un-demand, first, her father (to Myra, of course) and second, one girl in Wendy’s class who had eloped, which exploit was regarded with a certain enviable awe. So Wendy picked up this soldier. Of all things! Ted ought to have had it annulled right away. But Ted indulges Wendy scandalously, if you ask me. Which he does not. Since Genevieve died, he has had some notion that Wendy cannot be crossed. To him, it is like speaking ill of the dead.” Granny sighed. “I don’t suppose,” she said and her blue eyes wagged in their sockets, “that my son has ever been the most brilliant boy in the world. Not that it matters.”

  Edie opened her mouth but before she could speak, Granny smoothed at her skirt briskly and said, “We have plenty of money.”

  I never will understand her, thought Edie. “How can you be so sure that it was Harold Page?” she said, coldly.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, of course it was Harold Page. Wendy saw him.” Granny continued to brush her skirt.

  “Couldn’t Wendy ever be mistaken? Like any other human being?” said Edie, rather hotly. “Even so, she doesn’t say she saw him inside the house. The police didn’t find any fingerprints.”

  “Oh, Edie,” said Granny, not bothering to lift her eyelids, “don’t be so retarded. Nobody leaves fingerprints anymore. Passé. Passé.”

  And there it was again, the puzzle. Was the old lady being funny?

  “And obviously,” said Granny, “he was inside the house, because, if not, he couldn’t have done it.”

  Mrs. Beck, the housekeeper, from where she was standing, just within the dining room, could hear the voices in the big room. Neither voice was the one she always listened for. She smoothed her clean white silk uniform and stepped forward. It was time she made an appearance.

  She said, politely, “Do you need me, Mrs. Whitman? How is Miss Myra, ma’am?”

  The old lady turned her frosty head and spoke in the way she had that was always so cool, and a little bit nasty. “She’ll be all right—sooner or later and more or less, that is. May I have some iced tea, please, Mrs. Beck?”

  At least she always says “please,” Mrs. Beck thought, with satisfaction. “Yes, ma’am,” she said in the humble, but cool, way she had long ago adopted. “Miss Edith?”

  The cousin, or whatever she was, who was here for the fortnight, said, “No, thank you.” Then the girl’s gaze flicked toward the stairs. “Wait. Yes, I will, thank you.”

  Mrs. Beck looked toward the stairs, herself. “Is Miss Wendy here?” she cooed. She never could help that change in her voice.

  “No, no,” said the old lady. “What’s his name—Ronnie Mungo—came and fetched her at the hospital. Otherwise she wouldn’t have gone, I imagine.”

  Mrs. Beck said nothing. Let the old lady be aware that Wendy didn’t care for Myra. Anyone could know that.

  “He carried her off to the country club for lunch. Why not? With plenty of lemon.”

  Mrs. Beck made the submissive duck of her head that she had long ago adopted. Go make the iced tea, then. Mrs. Beck had some powdered tea. Good enough, with water from the tap. She went through the long dining room and turned the corner to the kitchen.

  Mrs. Beck was fifty years old. She was tall and there wasn’t much flesh on her big bones. She had been in this house a long time. It was her kingdom. She had come when the first Mrs. Theodore Whitman was still alive, Miss Genevieve, who had died before the year was out. After that, it hadn’t taken long to shake the house into the pattern that Mrs. Beck desired. She and the old lady had an unwritten compact. The old lady got whatever she wanted, and Mrs. Beck ran the house. When Miss Myra had come along, Mrs. Beck had been leery of her, for a while, and taken protective measures. But it had turned out that Miss Myra, the second wife, the one whose age fell between the old lady and little Wendy, had known better than to try to interfere in any way. She had never tried to run the house. She had never tried to run anybody. She had kept herself to herself and minded her own business—until last night.

  Mrs. Beck knew how Myra was. She had called the hospital, herself, and inquired. Myra was in a coma. Mrs. Beck turned on the water with a twist of her strong wrist to let it run cold.

  In the big room Edie was saying, “Granny, when I was eighteen you wouldn’t let me have a date with Ronnie Mungo.”

  She hadn’t meant to say that, but it was an old sore point, and now that Edie was grown and out from under authority she could discuss it, couldn’t she? She could find out for sure. The old lady’s face, however, showed no concern, no ruffling, not even the memory.

  “I wouldn’t?” she said placidly. “Why was that, I wonder? Well, Wendy will marry him, I suppose—or so she said on Sunday. Now that she’s legally free. And they will go and travel about and be gay with their money, which will suit them very well.”

  She doesn’t care, thought Edie. She simply does not care. “Tell me this,” Edie said, wishing she could take hold of the narrow, elegant shoulders and shake—hard, “Why on earth would Harold Page get into this house and fight with Myra?”

  “Myra,” said Granny, with a thoughtful air, “can be very annoying, in her quiet little way …”

  Edie was tired of trying to guess whether this was in fun or not. “Would you answer me?”

  “For pity’s sake,” said Granny, “what is Harold Page to you, child? Or he to Hecuba? A madman needn’t have a reason.”

  “It’s pretty passé to say ‘madman,’ Granny.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Mad? Just mad?” If this is a quarrel, thought Edie, then let’s have it.

  “But of course he is,” said the old lady carelessly. “He must be mad to do such a thing. Myra may be annoying at times, but one shouldn’t knock her on the head. One can always manage to be more annoying, or something of the sort. That is, if one is sane.”

  Edie strangled incredulous laughter. “He did it because he is mad? He must be mad because he did it?” she asked.

  “Well?”

  “But that’s circular!” Edie threw out her hands. Maybe Granny was simply rather stupid. Maybe that was the answer to the riddle of Granny.

  The old lady was as slippery as water. She said tartly, “Nothing of the sort. Or, if so, what about it? It happens to be what happened and what usually does.”

  Edie swallowed.

  “Still …” said Granny, “I wish her mouth had not been open.” Her own old
lips came tight together and seemed to knead each other.

  Chapter Three

  EDITH THOMPSON was an orphan. She had come here, badly shaken by the sudden death of both her parents, when she had just turned seventeen years old. She had been given board and room, here. She had gone to high school in this town. Wendy was not at public school, but attended Miss Somebody-or-other’s. Public school, however, was good enough for Edith Thompson.

  She had not made many friends in high school. Girls who lived as frugally as she had lived were shy of the Whitman ménage. Girls who lived as the Whitmans lived were few and not very friendly. Boys were much the same. In this house, Edie had been a poor relation, taken in physically but in no other way. Her cousin Wendy had been eleven, and twelve, and never her companion. On the contrary! Edie had been miserable and lonely. But after she had won through the period of lonely mourning, her native energy had seethed. She would get away. She would get away.

  At eighteen, then, she had quietly enrolled herself in a college, far away, back East, and paid her first semester’s tuition from her own small hoard. And bought her ticket. When the time came, she had quietly packed her clothing and gone. It was true that old Mrs. Whitman had then given her a check which rebuilt the little emergency fund, but Edie had worked and scrounged the first year, won a scholarship the next year, and after that it had been easier. When she took her first full-time job, she had sent the money back, with a letter that tried to say how valuable the security had been to her. She’d had a letter in reply that had said almost nothing.

  Edie had prepared herself for social work because that had been her parents’ field, and she had been taught to think that it was important and fulfilling. She had now served her apprenticeship and was going into a “better” job. Sometimes Edie suspected that she’d been kicked upstairs. She didn’t have her father’s patience, but a temper of her own. It was hard for her to resign herself to things-as-they-are. Edie tended to try to push things, and people, around to change, to progress, to do something about something. Well, the new job paid more and there would at least be more of a kind of responsibility. Whether it was the right kind for her, Edie did not yet know.

  There was a two weeks’ interval of leisure, however, and she had written.

  Edie wasn’t sure just why. The Whitmans were her only relatives. That served for a surface reason. But there is such a thing as wishing to knit up the several threads of your past, especially in a period of transition. She had wanted to come again, on a different basis. She had wanted to see, with older eyes, the scenes of her youth. To taste, with a more mellow palate, that which had been once so bitter. She had written and Granny had answered “Do come,” and added, “if you like,” seasoning cordiality with a touch of indifference.

  When Edie had arrived, late on Sunday last, it was just as if she had never gone away at all, or at least as if she had not been doing anything in the meantime. The Whitmans made no effort to entertain her. They seemed to assume that they were taking her in, giving her board and room because she was poor and she needed these, just as they had before.

  They did not ask about her work. When she told them what it was, Granny had said, “Edie, you do remind me of your mother. Going around the world, doing good. A nosy busybodying and presumptuous kind of career that never attracted anyone else in the family. I can’t imagine why it ever attracted her.”

  She fell in love with my father, Edie had answered, but not aloud. She felt that Granny could not imagine that.

  Edie took note of what had happened here in the meantime. Genevieve gone; Myra, instead. But Myra had made no effort to form an independent judgment of Edith Thompson. Courteous and aloof, she treated Edie like a poor relation. Myra was a small-boned, sleek little person, not as young as she used to be but much younger than her husband. She moved quietly from one social engagement to another and spent the Whitman money with shrewd good taste. One day, Edie guessed, when Granny was gone, Myra would enter into her kingdom.

  Wendy—to whom so much seemed to have happened in the meantime, marriage, childbirth, divorce, and now an engagement to marry again—Wendy was still in no way a companion. She went in and out. She went by. She scarcely seemed to notice her cousin Edie. Of course, she was only just nineteen years old and naturally intent upon her own affairs. Wendy was going to marry Ronnie Mungo.

  And that was that.

  After the first day, Edie had shrugged her shoulders and sallied forth to sample the climate and observe the customs of the natives in southern California. She had prowled the bright little town, gone to the bright beach, ferreted out a concert to which she had gone, alone, on Wednesday night. And come back into the middle of the commotion, just as the ambulance was pulling away.

  She had tried to be steady and helpful. But Wendy, up in her room, did not need her. She had Mrs. Beck. Granny refused to budge from the center of things. Nobody could put her to bed, with assorted comforts. Edie had tried to help with breakfast this morning, but Mrs. Beck was there in the kitchen and not in need of her.

  When the Whitmans had gone off to the hospital, late this morning, Edie had stayed behind. She did not belong to this household. She did not need them, either, and she was fully resolved not to stay the whole two weeks, where she had no place.

  But now she had made herself a place, indeed—right in the middle. She had hidden Harold Page in the turret room and she had promised to do something to help him. She had better get on with it. But how?

  There was no reasoning with Granny.

  Edie had seen three cars turn in at the gates. She knew that there were people around and about. Even so, she was startled when the front door burst open and three men marched in.

  Cousin Ted came first. He was in his fifties, a dapper man of middle height, with a torso too bulky for the rest of him. He seemed to dwindle toward the floor and his very small feet. Dark-rimmed glasses rode on his smooth pink face and his hair, still dark, was like a cap that he wore pushed well back from his high rounded forehead. He was in a state of dramatic excitement, as if this were his kingdom and he were in command.

  He rushed to the foot of the stairs and made an ushering sweep of his arm. “Start up there, please. My daughter’s room and one other.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the second man.

  Edie was on her feet, her heart in her throat. The second man was a perfect stranger, stocky in a blue suit, obedient to Cousin Ted. He put his wide black shoes on the treads. Edie’s feet in their black slippers whirled her to the newel post. “What is he doing, Cousin Ted?” Edie sagged, inside, as the blue back simply crossed the balcony above and went on up.

  “He is closing and fastening all the shutters on this house,” said Cousin Ted, giving her a fierce and hostile glance.

  “Mercy!” said Granny. “Isn’t that going to be rather dismal, Ted?”

  “Oh, Mother …” Cousin Ted had a way of saying this, on the puff of a sigh, whenever his mother deflated him.

  “Good afternoon, Charles,” piped Granny.

  The third man had come in less precipitously than the others. He stood beside the big window with his hands in his pockets, looking at nothing. He was a heavy man with a strong-featured face and cold blue eyes. He made a perfunctory murmur of names. “Mrs. Whitman. Miss Edith.”

  “Mr. Tyler,” said Edie. She had met him last night.

  She was thinking of Harold Page. If they were to burst in on him now, with no warning to either side. No! Edie rounded the newel-post and began to slip up the stairs herself. “Cousin Ted,” she said, “there are no shutters on the turret room.”

  “I am very well aware of that, Edie, since this happens to be the house where I was born.” Cousin Ted was testy.

  Charles Tyler had stepped close to the glass and was looking out and upward to the right. Edie was not sure that she wasn’t going to faint, poised there on the fourth step, because if Harold Page, for any reason, happened to be standing in the window on that side … But Tyler said, without much inter
est, “Tree looks like a way to get in, all right.”

  “I know that, too,” snapped Cousin Ted. “That’s why one of the guards is going to watch that tree.”

  “Guards?” gasped Edie. “Do you mean—policemen?”

  “No, no,” said Cousin Ted, who, in the role of the forceful man, was managing to be extremely cross. “I’ve hired professionals who will do as I say. One for each corner, at the back of the house. The solarium is vulnerable. So is the kitchen and the cellar door. But nobody will break in here a second time.”

  This proclamation rang on the air. Cousin Ted pulled in his chin and, for a moment, looked fat and satisfied.

  Edie said, “But I thought … Nobody broke in. You didn’t think so last night, sir?” She was speaking to Charles Tyler, who was the Chief of Police in this town.

  He tilted his face to look at her. “Myra may have let him in. After all, she knew him.”

  “She should have known better,” chirped Granny. “I wouldn’t have let him in.”

  “Don’t be alarmed,” Tyler said to her with a kind of professional comforting, “I have prowl cars in the whole area. They’ll find him.”

  Cousin Ted seemed to take offense. “And how a prowl car is going to find an escaped madman who is more likely to be hiding in the shrubbery than walking along the street …”

  Tyler’s cold eye brushed over him. “We know our business.”

  Mrs. Beck came in with a tray upon which she carried two tall glasses with lemon slices perched upon their rims. There was a hospitable shuffle and murmur, below, to which Edie paid no attention, because she could see the man in the blue suit, the guard or whoever he was, starting down. She herself had reached the balcony and now she put her back against the door to the turret room. If necessary, she would say, “Don’t come in here. I have something to tell you, first.” But what would she say, next?

  Cousin Ted called out, “Conrad? You didn’t forget the window at the end of the hall?”

  “No, sir,” the man called downward. “We can have pretty tight security, I’d say, Mr. Whitman.” He was descending. “Where now?” He paused just one step above where Edie stood. He had his hand on the banister and his coat fell open.