“You’d better listen to the boy friend, Miss Anne. Maybe you went walking at a rather awkward time.” As I stared, she said very clearly, “Someone killed Mrs. Silver. Someone killed her before half-past five. Maybe you’d better go back inside before your loving relatives have a chance to start wondering who it might have been.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Ask yourself,” said Wanda Frawley.
I felt the world fall away beneath my feet, though in some far-off corner of my mind those cruel, malicious words echoed what subconsciously I must have known from the beginning. I was the stranger in the house, the alien from the West. And now with Aunt Amanda dead and murdered. . . . My mind refused to function further.
Glenn turned savagely on the maid. “Go downstairs at once.”
“You can’t order me around.”
“Go downstairs or leave this house. And get your husband out of bed. Sick or not, get him on deck. The police are coming. They’ll want coffee—we’ll all want lunch. God knows when, but we have to eat. Get moving!”
She decided not to argue, and went sullenly down the stairs.
“That girl is dangerous,” said Glenn, gazing after her. “I’m astonished Aunt Amanda ever hired her.” Then he looked at me and said uncertainly, “Anne, my dear, I’m sorry. So awfully sorry.” He took my hands. “Forget what she said.”
Possibly he was a shade too concerned and sympathetic. At any rate, with appalling suddenness, I remembered what certain of my relatives had not forgotten. I myself had occupied the soundproof room until the night before. I felt a little hysterical then, myself. “Do you think I killed Aunt Amanda? Do you think I left her lying all night in that room, and let someone else discover her this morning? Do you think . . .”
“Hush!” He placed a firm, strong hand across my mouth. “We can’t stand here talking rubbish. We’ve got to join the others. Pull yourself together, Anne.” He pushed me toward a window and opened it. “Take six deep breaths of air.”
The window overlooked the white and sweeping grounds cut by the high dividing fence where I had waited vainly through a dull and dismal afternoon. I gazed down at the fence, symbol of an ancient quarrel that lay like a shadow between me and a tall, blond man. I remembered how Dan Ayres had declared that Hieronomo House itself was evil and how soon afterwards murder had visited there. I felt a premonitory quiver of the nerves—the first dim stir of a different kind of fear. I plucked my cousin’s arm.
“Listen, Glenn. You can tell me something if you will. What caused the trouble between our family and the Ayres? What’s behind the feud? My father never talked about it.”
He looked at me quickly. “That’s queer. I was thinking of the Ayres myself. Dan Ayres particularly.”
“You—you were . . .”
“If he killed Aunt Amanda,” said Glenn with sudden, ugly vehemence, “it was because she and the rest of them drove him to it. They were always raking up the past, hounding him for what they claim his father did. Sometimes it used to make me sick. I’m not holding a brief for any murderer . . .”
I leaned against the window and put both hands upon the sill to support myself. Glenn’s words should not have shocked me so. It was logical that Aunt Amanda’s enemies should figure in any discussion of her murder. I was in no condition to face the fact. Nor was I willing to face a question that was knocking at my mind. Why had Dan Ayres broken his engagement with me? Where had he spent his afternoon?
“I’m not defending murder,” Glenn repeated, “but in the circumstances, if Dan Ayres . . .”
“Don’t keep saying that!” I cried. “I’m asking you what the circumstances are. What started the trouble in the first place?”
Something in my tone must have caught his ear. He gazed at me and frowned. He started to say something, and thought better of it and was silent. Again I asked an urgent question.
“What began the feud?”
“Money,” he replied, and again gave me a quick and searching look. “Don’t you know what happened to Great-grandfather’s fortune?”
I tried to marshal my scant store of knowledge. My father had not been one to dwell upon unpleasantness. I had always understood that John S. Hieronomo lost his money shortly before his death through a series of bad investments. I said so.
Glenn smiled wryly. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. The old man certainly made a bad investment in his friendships, or so the others say. Of course the money vanished long before my time. But the family has always been convinced that Stanley Ayres was responsible for everything that happened. He died before they could establish his connection in a complex and sordid mess, but except for his activities, we might all be rich today. Ayres worked with Great-grandfather in the bank, was his closest friend ...”
I was not to hear the story then. Glenn brought the conversation to an abrupt and sudden close, as his father walked out into the hall. Hoy was uneasy and displeased, and made small effort to hide it. His voice was sharp.
“We were wondering where you children were. Aunt Patience wants to speak to you, Anne, before we go downstairs.”
I may have been abnormally sensitive, but as we returned to the bedroom it seemed to me that in the short space we had been away, the complexion of the group, the room itself, had subtly altered. Someone had torn a sheet from the canopied bed and thrown it over Aunt? Amanda’s body. Someone else had drawn the draperies to shut out the brilliant sun. And, beneath the surface difference, lay a deeper, a more menacing change. As Glenn and I went in, his father deftly contrived to separate us so that for a moment I stood quite alone. I stood alone and faced my kin. No one needed to tell me that I had been the subject of discussion. I knew, just as I knew instinctively that Dan’s name had been talked over. But Dan wasn’t present; only I was there.
Great-uncle Richard and his wife studiously refrained from looking in my direction. Cousin Hoy clung tightly to his six-foot son. Great-aunt Patience came slowly forward. Her small eyes beneath the mop of garish hair were as careful as her words.
“We’ve been talking, Anne. Possibly it might be better to wait until Sheriff Glick arrives, but it seems well to be prepared.”
“Prepared,” I repeated stupidly.
She was very patient. “The inquiry into Amanda’s death is going to be hard on all of us. Any murder investigation is a—a dreadful thing. Sheriff Glick is a clever, discerning man. He is certain to ask many questions. Questions which we must answer. The Sheriff is bound to inquire about weapons in the house.”
I kept on waiting.
“Have you seen Father’s gun?” she asked.
“Great-grandfather’s gun?” I said then, faintly. “What—what about it?”
“It isn’t in the bureau. You must have seen it, dear. A silver-handled gun, rather large, with Father’s initials on the barrel.”
“I saw the gun. It was in the bolster the night I came.”
“It isn’t in the bolster now,” she said slowly. “Nor anywhere about the room.”
“No, it wouldn’t be,” I said, over the thumping of my heart. “Aunt Amanda took the gun away with her. That same night.”
Aunt Patience did not comment. Her expression didn’t alter. Behind me someone drew a long and hissing breath. Otherwise, the room was silent.
I looked around the circle of watching faces, and in stumbling phrases, I told exactly what had happened—how Aunt Amanda had worked her small deception, how she had said she would leave the weapon in the bureau, and instead had carried it away with her. My story sounded false, incredible, untrue. No one spoke. What was the importance of the gun? Why had I been questioned on the subject? My voice became shrill and unnatural in the quiet.
“Are you supposing that particular gun killed Aunt Amanda?”
“We have no way of knowing now.” Richard tried to conceal perturbation, but his acting was transparent always. “That’s up to the police. It’s a police matter really—all of this. But your aunt thought that a littl
e preliminary investigation wouldn’t be amiss. Personally, I don’t agree.”
He started toward the door.
“No, wait! Please, wait.” I was trembling. “Since the matter has come up, I want you—all of you—to bear me out. Why Aunt Amanda removed the gun, I cannot imagine. But I do know it wasn’t loaded.”
Again the silence. Then Lucy, glancing timorously at her husband, plucked up courage. “I don’t remember that the gun was ever loaded, Richard—even in your father’s day.”
“That’s quite true!” Richard’s dark face brightened. He turned to Patience. “Isn’t that your recollection, sister?”
“Indeed it is,” said Patience quickly, and it may have been imagination that made me believe she hesitated, and then carefully refrained from adding something else.
Hoy now took up the theme. He made a little speech. “We hardly thought of Grandfather’s gun as being a—a dangerous weapon. Grandfather was vain enough to own a silver-handled gun, but he wouldn’t keep it loaded. Always said he might lose his temper and shoot someone he really liked.”
That didn’t sound quite as Hoy had intended it to sound. He smiled feebly. No one else smiled, and I saw Glenn tread upon his father’s foot. Great-aunt Patience and Great-uncle looked at one another—the dissimilar brother and sister, she so short and fat, he so tall and so fantastically lean in his rusty black with the spotted, flowing Windsor tie—and a message seemed to pass between them.
Patience walked across the room and joined her brother. They stood for an instant in a distant corner, their backs to the rest of us. It seemed that they had hardly time enough to exchange a dozen words but they evidently decided on some plan of action. For Richard turned around and said, “Shall we go downstairs?” and took Lucy’s arm and guided her from the room. Cousin Hoy went out with Glenn.
I tried to follow Glenn but Great-aunt Patience was too quick for me. She stepped into my path, and I had a moment alone with her. She was somewhat breathless, but she got to her point at once.
“Anne, my dear, about Father’s gun. Richard and I have talked it over. We both believe it’s quite unnecessary for you to tell your story to the Sheriff. It would be better if you didn’t mention the gun. Between us, we will handle everything.”
“But if—if I’m asked . . .”
“It isn’t likely you’ll be asked about the gun,” she said definitely. “I think that we can safely risk it. You only entered the house two days ago. Believe me, Anne, it would be most unwise of you to volunteer that story.” Then she led me firmly down the stairs.
Aunt Patience had evidently been tacitly chosen as the spokesman for the silent group gathered in the drawing room. No one of the others ventured the least suspicion of the youngest member of the family, but I could feel suspicion in their very quiet. As I sat there in the drawing room, looking from face to face, I would have almost welcomed a definite accusation. I wanted to rise to my feet and scream at them: “Go on—say it. Say what you are thinking! Let me enter my defense.”
Of course, I didn’t. Aunt Patience had selected the chair that was next to mine. Again it was she who came the closest to any kind of open statement. In her concerned and careful way, she took up another matter entirely.
“Anne, my dear,” said she, “there’s something else that’s been puzzling me. I have no desire to trouble you. It’s the Sheriff’s attitude, what he will think, that is important. I—as it happens—I glanced out on the balcony upstairs . . .” She hesitated. “I thought you told me last night you had seen Amanda’s footprints in the snow out there.”
“Her footprints were there last night,” I said.
“There are no footprints now,” said she. “Nor is there any snow.”
That was the way she put it. She didn’t suggest that, for some inscrutable reason of my own I had lied, just as I had lied about the gun. It wasn’t necessary. I tried to speak and found no words. Glenn turned a dull and unbecoming red. He got suddenly to his feet.
“If we’re to conduct an investigation among ourselves, let’s call in the missing witness. Let’s get that maid in here. Don’t forget that Wanda Frawley was in Greatgrandfather’s room some minutes before the rest of us, equipped with a mop and broom at that. Supposing the footprints to be important—damned if I can see they are—my guess is Wanda can explain how they vanished from the balcony. Come on, Anne. Let’s go find out.” The kitchen, a large and sunny room warmed by an old-fashioned stove, was in a different world. The smell of roasting turkey drifted from the oven. Simmering cranberries and sweet potatoes released their own delicious odors; spread along the window sill was a row of pies baked the day before. Amos limped across the room to feed kindling into the stove. He was attempting valiantly to be efficient, to do his duty as his mistress would have liked—but his lined black face was the color of clay, and his veined hands shook.
Across the room Wanda was seated at a table, listlessly chopping apples for a salad. I disliked the maid and distrusted her, but for one strange instant I almost forgot that Aunt Amanda lay dead upstairs. I almost pitied Wanda. She looked so bored and listless, she took so little pleasure in her task or, I thought suddenly, in anything. And she was young and very pretty.
She heard us coming, and instantly assumed her usual sullen look. Glenn’s tone wasn’t harsh.
“We want you in the drawing room.”
“Want away,” said Wanda. “I’ve got my hands full as it is. Just remember, please, that Amos and I between us have the kitchen on our hands.”
Glenn said evenly, “The food can wait. This is more important. Where’s Eliot, by the way?”
“He’s too sick to be out of bed.” The maid gave a startled cry as Glenn started across the kitchen toward the door into the adjoining servants’ quarters. “You leave my husband be!”
For answer, Glenn opened the door.
The room beyond, with the curtains drawn and with the windows further muffled by blankets pinned to the sills, was so dark that it was difficult to make out the bed. 68
In the bed. huddled beneath other blankets, an ice bag on his head, lay Eliot Frawley. He moaned faintly at the opening door.
“Please, please. I can't bear the light.”
Glenn said briskly, 'Tin afraid you’ll have to dress at once. Sheriff Glick will be here soon. He'll want to talk to you."
Eliot, by nature and training, was inclined to quail before authority. But Wanda sprang to his rescue. If Glick desired to see her husband. Glick could seek him in the bedroom. Eliot knew nothing about the murder; he had been stretched on his bed of pain since early the previous afternoon, and, furthermore, could prove it.
“Ask Amos.” she said.
It then developed that Amos had spent the afternoon and early evening with Eliot. had sat beside the invalid's bed, had fetched and carried ice. There was no doubting the sincerity of the Negro, crushed as he was with grief. Glenn had to shut the door.
Wanda smiled triumphantly. '‘Now, wise guy. you can run along and let me do my work."
I could see my champion’s quick temper rise, and l hurriedly sought to inject a conciliatory note. “Wanda, please, we need your help. Last night I saw footprints in the snow on the balcony. The prints of riding boots. They’re gone this morning."
“What's that to me?" she said sullenly.
“Didn’t you sweep the balcony?"
“No, I didn’t,” she said at once. “I was nowhere near the balcony. I had only started to clean the room when I saw . . .” She went white with recollection.
“But, Wanda, someone swept the balcony!"
“It wasn’t me," she repeated.
I stared at her. bewildered. If Wanda hadn't swept the balcony, who had? The destruction of Amanda’s footprints seemed entirely pointless. If Wanda spoke the truth—and I was inclined to think she had—someone must have entered the room after I had vacated it, and in the darkness of the night swept the balcony of snow, quietly closed the window and departed. Why? Except as they supported my
own veracity, the existence of the vanished footprints had proved nothing except that Aunt Amanda had stepped out upon the balcony. Or was there some deeper meaning in the mystifying little episode? I could think of none.
“I know nothing about the footprints,” said Wanda stubbornly. “But if you and the boy friend have finished badgering me, I’d like to talk a while myself. There are some things I do know.”
“Well?”
She spoke quite deliberately. “I know you changed your room last night, Miss Hieronomo. Quite sudden, wasn’t it? Sudden, and lucky too! If you’d stayed where you belonged, you’d have found Mrs. Silver’s body when you went to bed! Seems kind of funny, doesn’t it, your deciding to move somewhere else?”
Beside me, I could feel Glenn stiffen. I didn’t look at him. His voice was very quiet.
“I believe you’ve forgotten something, Wanda—your own part in this. We might have searched the house last night for Aunt Amanda, just as we most certainly would have notified the authorities, if you hadn’t been so positive you heard her leave the place.”
“Evidently,” said Wanda indifferently, “I was mistaken. I never said I saw Mrs. Silver, but I did think I heard her come down the stairs and go out. Well, I was wrong. But someone went through that side door at a quarter of five yesterday afternoon. Probably it was you, Miss Hieronomo.”
I knew that I had left the house some minutes earlier, but I saw no point in saying so again. And Glenn must have seen the futility of compelling Wanda to join us in the drawing room, for he took my arm and guided me from the kitchen. Not until we were in the dusky passageway beyond, did he speak. Then he said in a low, fierce voice:
“Listen, Anne. You’re not to worry. Let Wanda talk. She’s nothing in herself. I know the family. They won’t talk.”
“But, Glenn . . .”
“They won’t talk,” he repeated and froze the protest on my lips. “Just you keep quiet. That’s all you’ve got to do. Don’t tell the Sheriff any more than is absolutely necessary. Let the family handle everything. The family will stick behind you.”
The Balcony Page 6