It took her seconds—she had half walked, half fallen, to a bank by the side of the road—to realize that she was still alive, because in those seconds she thought fantastically that she had been killed, and if she looked back up the road, looked carefully, she would see her body lying there. Then she realized he had not tried to kill her and, more slowly, she understood that he had not even meant to kill her—that this strange, meaningless thing he had done was all he had planned to do. He had not even robbed her; she had picked up her purse when she left the car, without knowing she picked it up, and she held it now in her left hand. He had only meant to bring her a long ways from the train, and leave her, unhurt—free. Then, sitting on the dirt bank beside the road, she began to cry. It was meaningless to cry now, and now she was crying.
The train called El Capitan stopped at Kansas City at 6 A.M., on time. The stop, the movement in the car, awakened Ray Forrest from uneasy sleep. He looked at his watch, and realized where they were. It wouldn’t be so very long, now. They had gained a good deal of time on the Chief. Only two hours and a half ago, the train which was taking Jane home had stopped here; perhaps on this same track. The stop had aroused her a little, as this stop had aroused him. Perhaps she had pulled the blind aside a little and looked out at the platform. But, more likely, she had not even been aware of the stop, except drowsily. She had been safe in her room on the New York car; she had been asleep—slender, lovely, relaxed in the bed. Then the Chief had gone on, carrying her toward Chicago.
El Capitan went on at 6:10 A.M. He was pleased when the train started, on this last long leg to Chicago. He would sleep a little more, have breakfast, it would be almost time for them to be in Chicago. Then he would find out, somehow, where the New York Central car from Los Angeles was waiting to be incorporated in the Century, and he would get aboard and—find Jane. She would be surprised; he hoped, but really he was certain, she would be happy to see him. He would get some space on the Century and go on with her, and then he would be free from this odd, nagging worry about her.
It was strange, he thought, as the train clicked on between high sustaining walls, gaining speed, how persistent that nagging worry was. Nothing could happen to her between now and the afternoon, and then he would be with her.
Six
Barbara Bishop, R.N., came down the stairs from the third floor to the second, rustling crisply. She was short and plump and, within those limits, rather pretty. She thought about such matters infrequently, and when she did it was usually to wish she were three inches taller or fifteen pounds lighter or, of course, both. But she seldom remembered to wish these changes for very long, because she was generally well enough contented with things as they were. She almost always felt well, for example, and this was true even at seven o’clock in the morning. When she did not feel well, she always knew why, which was consoling. She liked being a nurse, because it meant doing things for people and people were nice. The niceness of people was one of the things which most contributed to her chronic feeling of well-being. Apparently, she thought when she bothered to analyze, she was more fortunate than most, because she always seemed to meet only nice people. This had been true as long as she could remember, which, starting from the age of six, was nineteen years. She was aware that not everyone had this good fortune. While she was going to school, taking her nursing course, working in the hospital, she had discovered that most people met other people who, for reasons seldom quite clear, were anything but nice. That had simply not been her experience.
Here, in old Mrs. Meredith’s house, there were many unusually nice people, starting with old Mrs. Meredith herself. Old Mrs. Meredith was a darling—so bright, so amusing, even at eighty; so philosophical and, basically, so undemanding. It was a pleasure—it was really, in a warming way, enjoyable—to do things for old Mrs. Meredith, and it was too bad that old Mrs. Meredith was going to die so soon. Nurse Bishop earnestly wished she weren’t, and not at all—or certainly not very much—because it would mean registering again and, probably, waiting around several days before she had another case. The real thing was that Nurse Bishop was very fond of old Mrs. Meredith, as, indeed, she was of almost everyone. She was even fond of Nurse Watts, who was a very nice person, when you got to know her.
Nurse Watts, who was in her fifties and beginning to notice it, looked at her watch, saw it was five minutes of seven, and got up from her chair. One foot was asleep, and she stamped it gently to restore circulation. She looked at the bed and saw that the patient was still asleep, very quietly asleep. A layman might have been almost frightened by looking at old Susan lying there, because she was so very frail and still. It hardly seemed possible that she was alive; life seemed too rude a thing, somehow too large a thing, still to find space in so fragile a body. But Nurse Watts did not think of this, because she knew perfectly well that Susan Meredith was still alive and because, in any event, she took an entirely detached view of such matters. For so long a time as Susan Meredith remained alive, she would receive from Nurse Watts care which was completely efficient and entirely scrupulous. That was a tribute which Nurse Watts paid to Nurse Watts, not to a case. Nurse Watts felt prickles in the sleeping foot, waited a moment, and went to the door. One thing you could say about BeeBee, she was punctual.
“Good morning,” Nurse Bishop said, with an odd implication of meaning precisely that. She was not surprised that she had arrived outside the door precisely at the moment Nurse Watts opened it. That was not a coincidence; that was almost inevitable. “How are we doing?”
“We aren’t doing very well,” Nurse Watts said, as she came out and closed the door behind her. “Nausea again.” She looked at Nurse Bishop, somewhat morosely. “You know, BeeBee,” she said, “it’s practically unethical to look the way you do at this hour. Do you like to get up?”
“Why—” Barbara Bishop said. “I—”
“Never mind,” Nurse Watts said. “I don’t suppose it matters. The patient was quite uncomfortable for a while. She’s dropped off, now. She hasn’t had any breakfast. I doubt if she’ll want any very soon. She had a degree plus after.”
“The poor old thing,” BeeBee said. “I’m so sorry.”
Nurse Watts did not answer this, feeling no answer called for.
“Anyway,” Nurse Watts said, “it’s all on the chart.” She started off. “By the way,” she said, “I’m going into town this afternoon. I’ll be back in time.”
“Oh,” Barbara said, “don’t worry about it.”
Nurse Watts departed, leaving behind a sound which indicated that she would worry about it. Barbara went into the room, looked at old Susan and thought, “the poor old dear,” and then took the chart over by the window and examined it. Watts had initialed out; she initialed in. Then, because there was nothing else to do at the moment, she stood at the window and looked out, pulling the draw curtains a little apart. The good-looking Mr. Lockwood came out, crossed the lawn and went into the garage. There was a rasping sound in the garage and the Lockwoods’ car came out, coughing its morning cough. Instinctively, Barbara glanced toward the bed to see if the sounds had awakened the patient. Apparently they had not.
There was nothing else to see outside, except the beginning of a nice day. It was too early for any of the others—for the older Mr. Lockwood, for Mr. Meredith, and certainly for that nice, dopey kid. Possibly, of course, neither the older Mr. Lockwood nor Mr. Meredith had stayed over night, although in the last few days most of the family had been around much more than they had a few weeks ago. This was natural; it could hardly be much longer, now, even if the strain of this upset didn’t hurry matters. It was too bad; it was really too bad. Barbara frowned momentarily. It was a little odd that these upsets had come on so suddenly, and were now so numerous. The old dear had seemed to have, for her age, such a good digestion. Almost everything had seemed to agree with her. She wondered what the doctor thought of it. Well, if the doctor wanted her to know, he would mention it when he called in the afternoon.
She look
ed at the bed again, saw that the button of the call bell was within easy reach, and went down to the kitchen. The cook said, “Good morning, miss” and “How is Mrs. Meredith this morning?” Barbara said that Mrs. Meredith was very comfortable, but that she was sleeping and not yet ready for breakfast. Then Barbara took her own tray and carried it back to the room. She had finished the last of her coffee when there was a gentle knock on the door.
Nurse Bishop went to the door, smiled at Alice Meredith, and went out into the hall, pulling the door almost closed after her.
“She’s asleep,” the nurse said, in a whisper.
“Dear Susan,” Alice Meredith said. “Did she have a comfortable night, nurse?”
“Oh yes,” Barbara said, playing her part unhesitatingly in the ancient conspiracy. “She’s quite comfortable, Mrs. Meredith.”
“Dear Susan,” Alice Meredith said again. “None of that dreadful nausea?”
“Not since I came on,” Barbara said. “She’s very comfortable.”
“That’s so encouraging, isn’t it?” Alice Meredith said. “So dreadful, that nausea. So uncomfortable, isn’t it? But I suppose we have to expect so many things, don’t we, nurse?”
Nurse Bishop said something like “umm.”
“Dear nurse,” Alice Meredith said. “We all feel you are so devoted to her—so—so personally devoted. We prize that so much, nurse. Dear Frederick is so touched, you know. And I’m sure dear Susan feels it, too.”
“I’m very fond of Mrs. Meredith,” Barbara said. “She’s always so nice, isn’t she?”
“So dear,” Alice said. “So sweet—so patient. So sad to see her like this. So uncomfortable and—suspicious. We must be so gentle with her, nurse. Mustn’t we?”
“Umm,” Nurse Bishop said, with discretion. So there was something in that. Nurse Watts had shaken her head the day before, had said, “she’s beginning to think somebody’s poisoning her,” as if that were another, and to be expected, milestone. Often it was, of course. Still—“Umm,” Nurse Bishop said. “I’d better get back to the patient, Mrs. Meredith.”
Back in the room, the nurse went to the bed and looked down at old Susan, who had not moved. Well, if they got taken that way it was too bad, but sometimes they did. Even the nicest of them. There had been old Mrs. Sayworth, the case before this. No, the case before that. She had been really bad, but it was mostly about religion. She thought God had deserted her. “Cast out,” she kept saying. “Cast out.” She was saying it when she died. She had been very unhappy when she died, apparently. But she had already been irrational, apparently for months, when Barbara went on the case, so she had never been as nice as Barbara was sure she was, really. With Mrs. Meredith it was different. Until just the last few days she had been as rational as anyone. And now this talk of poisoning! Of course, it was understandable. The stomach upsets gave a point of departure. Still, it was sad, and it must make the family quite unhappy, particularly because most people did not really understand about such things. And all the family was so devoted, so evidently devoted.
“Really, nurse,” the old woman said, and her voice was as frail as her body, but there was room in it for life. “Really, my dear, do I look so terrible as all that?”
Barbara realized that, while she had continued to look down at her patient, she had not really seen her, had not noticed the eyes open. Such nice eyes, the nurse thought. So alive.
“Good morning,” she said. “How are we feeling today? Would we like a little breakfast?”
Susan Meredith did not want breakfast, but by lunch time she thought she could eat a little. She ate, and appeared to enjoy, a chicken croquet, served with a sauce which Barbara, eating sociably with her patient, thought quite extraordinarily good. Although, she thought, it certainly does hide the taste of chicken.
Frederick Meredith did not go to his office that day. He was at the house in the afternoon when Dr. Hardy called, and talked with the doctor afterward. After lunch, the doctor told him his step-mother had been violently ill again, vomiting what she had eaten, and when he expressed his concern—his anxiety to know what this recurrent sickness meant—the physician seemed uncertain. He was puzzled, Meredith thought, and hesitated to admit it. She was, on his instructions, receiving only the simplest food. A similar diet had been agreeing with her for weeks. He spread his hands. It was, clearly, not anything he had expected, or could precisely diagnose. He had ordered a restricted diet; they could hope for the best. He waited.
“Probably you know,” Meredith said. “Probably she’s told you. She thinks she’s being poisoned. I hope you realize—”
The doctor stopped him with a gesture.
“She’s frightened,” he said. “Reasonably. She reacts—well, excessively. Defensively—explaining it to herself. A mild delusion. Many old people have them. And this one is understandable, because it isn’t any delusion that she’s sick, and uncomfortable. You know your son went to the police?”
Meredith seemed half amused, half annoyed. He knew; he was sorry if the doctor had been put to trouble. He was sorry, for that matter, the police had been put to trouble.
“He didn’t consult his mother,” Meredith said. “Or me. Probably that goes without saying. I suppose it’s the sort of over dramatic thing you have to expect from—well, overdramatic kids.” He shook his head, slowly, regretfully. He said that Arthur sometimes seemed very young for his age. He said he did not suppose the police took him very seriously.
“They asked me,” Dr. Hardy said. “Of course I told them there was nothing to it. There isn’t. There are—well, what we call natural causes. We’ll have to find them. And—this other.”
“Childishness,” Meredith said. “Senility?”
The last, Dr. Hardy said, went too far. An old woman, with little to think about but how she felt, feeling badly—it was not senility if she imagined things.
“But borderline,” Meredith said.
The doctor shrugged at that, and went.
Meredith went up to his step-mother’s room; he told Nurse Bishop that he would sit there for an hour or so if she wanted to get a breath of air.
“She’s a nice little thing,” his step-mother said. “Oh, Freddy, I’ve been feeling so sick.”
“I know,” Meredith said. “I know, mother. The doctor told me.”
“He doesn’t know what it is,” old Susan said, and she looked at her step-son anxiously. “I know he doesn’t. Freddy—somebody’s poisoning me!”
Meredith shook his head.
“No mother,” he said. “You mustn’t. You’re imagining things.” He stopped then, and for a moment sat looking into her eyes. What sharp, wise eyes she has, still, he thought. “But I know how strange it must seem, mother,” he said. “Sometimes I—” He did not finish the sentence. When old Susan continued to look at him, obviously waiting, he merely shook his head, slowly. His face was without expression.
Grace Lockwood came out from the house a little after three o’clock and walked across the lawn to the shaded chair in which Alice Meredith liked to spend her afternoons. Alice put down her book and looked up and said, “Dear Grace” and waited. Grace looked so tired, Alice thought; so much older than she should. Dear Elliott—so young-looking.
“Susan was sick again this afternoon,” Grace said. “I—I could hear her retching.”
“Dear Susan,” Alice said. “So old. I’m so afraid, dear—”
“Mrs. Severance says somebody used her meat grinder,” Grace said. “Used it last night, apparently, and merely ran water through it afterward. It wasn’t enough, apparently. There were food particles left.”
“How odd,” Alice said. “So strange, isn’t it? In the night?”
“That’s what she thinks.”
“Dear Mrs. Severance,” Alice said. “So forgetful, don’t you think? I do hope—” She did not say what she hoped.
“Particles of shrimp, she thought,” Grace said. “She cleaned the grinder.”
“Dear Mrs. Severance,” Alice
Meredith said. “So—so careless, I’m afraid.”
“I had her throw out the rest of the curry,” Grace said. She looked down at Alice Meredith. “Don’t you agree?” she said.
Alice looked up at her.
“Dear Grace,” she said. “So thoughtful of you. Sea food keeps so badly, doesn’t it?”
Grace continued to look down at her.
“Jane will be here tomorrow, won’t she?” Grace said. “Around noon, do you think?”
“Dear Jane,” Alice said. “Such a long trip, isn’t it? Tomorrow, I think—if nothing delays her.” She smiled at Grace. “Dear Susan will be so pleased, won’t she?” Alice said “Don’t you think Susan will be pleased, Grace? Pleased and surprised?”
Grace Lockwood stood for a moment looking down at the older woman. Then, without saying anything, she turned and walked back to the house. Alice looked after her. Alice’s face held its light, quick smile.
John Lockwood said, “All right” to his secretary and then, into the telephone, “Yes, Frederick?” Then he said, “Wait a minute” and, to his secretary, “Thank you, Miss Roy.” Miss Roy went out of Lockwood’s big corner office into her own, smaller office. “Yes, Frederick?” Lockwood repeated.
“I’m up at the house,” Frederick Meredith said.
“Yes?” There was a moment’s pause. “How’s Susan?”
“I’m a little worried,” Meredith said. “She was sick again. She’s in a very nervous condition.”
“The doctor?”
There was another little pause.
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