The Balcony

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  IX

  THE THANKSGIVING DINNER which was to have reunited the Hieronomos remains in my memory as the most distressing meal I have ever eaten. While the police took charge of the upper floor, while strange men wandered in and out, we sat down to that dismal feast.

  No one had thought to give Wanda any special orders, and the girl lacked either the wit or the inclination to alter Amanda’s own arrangements. My great-aunt was with us everywhere we looked. Amanda Silver had gathered the bittersweet that trailed the damask cloth; with her own hands she had washed the special company china, filled the bowl with nuts and apples in the center of the rosewood table; she had supervised the baking of the pies that lined the Sheraton sideboard—the pumpkin pie that Hoy and Richard liked, the mince pie spiced with brandy that had been her father’s favorite. Amanda's handiwork, her minute regard for family traditions, was everywhere. Amanda herself had planned to lay an extra plate for her long-dead father—which in itself would have been bad enough. But Wanda— whether from lack of imagination or sheer stupidity—had laid two extra plates. One for John S. Hieronomo, and one for his murdered daughter.

  I think I saw them first. But it was Patience who seated herself and, with a calm that deceived no one present, rang the bell. When Amos shuffled in, Patience sent away the plates and extra silver. The Negro wore a starched white coat that Amanda had remembered to buy the week before, and looked anything but festive. A few minutes later he returned with a Crown Derby platter from which rose, in holiday splendor, the mammoth turkey my great-aunt and I had chosen. This was deposited at Richard’s place.

  “I wanted to carve in the kitchen,” explained the Negro apologetically, “but—but Mrs. Silver had figured you’d take your father’s place. And Wanda thought ...”

  “Damn that girl,” said Glenn beneath his breath.

  “Bring the bird to me,” Hoy said quickly. He was as pale as Richard, and showed definite relief when the other grimly shook his head.

  “I’ve taken my father’s place before, and can again.”

  Richard picked up the carving knife. So he must have looked, the great, gaunt man, on another Thanksgiving Day twenty-five years before. For Richard had sat at the head of his father’s brood on that bleak day of his father’s death. The Hieronomos prided themselves on Spartan blood.

  Glenn pushed back his chair.

  “What’s the use of going through with such a farce? Let’s have coffee and sandwiches sent to the drawing room. No one’s hungry anyway!”

  “Sit down, son.” Hoy’s mild voice was unexpectedly firm. “In your great-grandfather’s house we behave as he would have liked. No Hieronomo has ever lacked in courage. Amanda would want us to go on as usual.”

  I didn’t doubt that he spoke the truth. It struck me, however, that Cousin Hoy’s definition of courage was not my own, that it belonged, like Great-uncle Richard and his valiant carving knife, to a vanished era where tragedy was hidden behind lace curtains and was seldom talked about. That kind of courage in a modern day seemed as absurd and false as was Great-aunt Amanda’s laying of that extra plate. Sometimes the gulf between generations can yawn wide and deep. Glenn and I, uncomfortable and wretched and so much younger than the others at the table, sat in silent misery and let them guide the polite and empty conversation.

  Great-grandfather Hieronomo’s name came up eventually. Our elders began to talk about that other Thanksgiving Day as though time had softened and made more palatable than the dreadful present that day of ancient tragedy.

  “We—we were waiting dinner,” Richard somberly recalled, “when we received news of the accident. We—don’t you remember, Hoy?—simply thought they had been delayed at the station.”

  “They?” I chimed in, eager to discuss any subject except one. “Do you mean Amos and Great-grandfather? Amos drove the carriage, didn’t he?”

  Both men gave me a strange look. Something unspoken quivered in the air. Then Richard passed another plate. Presently Glenn, who had the chair next to mine, leaned toward me.

  “Surely, Anne, you remember why Great-grandfather went to meet the train that caused the horses to bolt.”

  I looked at him blankly. “I always supposed Greatgrandfather took the carriage to meet some—some expected guest. And that Amos lost control of the horses just as the train came in.”

  I had quite forgotten the Negro’s presence, until I saw the veined black hands that held before me a silver serving dish. The hands were shaking.

  “I killed my master—that’s the truth of it, Miss Anne.”

  “Nonsense, Amos!” Great-uncle Richard stopped carving and sent me a most unpleasant glance. He turned to Amos, who was a picture of abject wretchedness. “You’d better go into the kitchen. Unless you can stop your snivelling. Grief is idle, Amos. Courage feeds the soul. You have nothing to regret. All that a brave man could do” —Richard began instinctively to act— “you did to save your doomed master. And more, too, my unhappy friend. Almost did you lay down your own life in your brave and unfaltering attempt.”

  He used the carving knife as though to confer an accolade.

  “I should have died along with him,” said the Negro. Amos’ emotion, at any rate, was honest. “I owed everything to John Hieronomo who helped to bring my wretched people up from slavery.”

  Weeping, Amos retired. The scene hardly served to lighten the occasion. Some time elapsed before, under the cover of general talk, I dared open my mouth again.

  “What was it, Glenn, you were saying about the carriage going to the station?”

  “Quietly,” said Glenn, and glanced anxiously along the table. “We don’t want to start Aunt Patience rattling the family skeletons. The truth is, Great-grandfather went to the station to meet Daisy Witherspoon, and bring her to the house.”

  Daisy Witherspoon? The name plucked a chord of memory, but a full moment passed before I placed it. Daisy Witherspoon was the young girl who had won John S. Hieronomo’s heart, and whom at seventy-two, he had planned to take as wife.

  “Didn’t she live in Mount Hope?”

  “Long enough,” Glenn said, and grinned a little, “to catch Great-grandfather. She taught music here. But she was a New Yorker, really. She’d gone there to buy her trousseau, and was coming back. They—she and John S.—were getting married that afternoon.”

  I had forgotten the detail, if I ever knew it. The tragedy had occurred so long ago, and Dad had rarely mentioned it. I felt a vague stir of pity for a young girl whom I would never see but who had suffered bitter trouble. “It must have been dreadful,” I said inanely. “Dreadful, indeed! The house was decorated for the wedding, the guests and minister were waiting, the children and grandchildren . . .”

  “I meant dreadful for Daisy Witherspoon.”

  “Oh, her!” Glenn gave an odd little laugh. “I guess Daisy bore up all right. She actually saw the accident, saw her fiance killed before her eyes—she was standing in the train aisle with that fancy trousseau—but Daisy kept her emotions perfectly in control. She didn’t come to Hieronomo House at all, then or ever. Amos—and he’d been badly injured himself—tried to persuade the lady to wait until the family could arrive. No soap. She sat herself in the station until the next train came, and away she went.”

  “She—she didn’t love him,” I said stupidly, and felt an illusion crash. From childhood on, I had believed in that May and December romance. It had somehow proved to me the vital and enduring magnetism of John S. Hieronomo.

  “The evidence goes to show,” Glenn said wryly, “that she loved the old man’s money. At any rate, and you should listen to the family, Daisy got away with nearly everything—was smart enough to wipe out Great-grandfather in advance of marriage. Wake up, Anne. Surely you’ve heard that’s where the vanished fortune vanished to. Nearly a half of a million went into the lady’s pretty, unscrupulous little hands during an engagement of six months. I gather she worked fast. She drove a handsome bargain and then, because accident intervened, she didn’t need to c
arry out her part of it. She got the money without the husband.”

  I hadn’t known. But I realized at once that I had the answer to tiny incidents which had puzzled me for years —my own Dad’s evasiveness when he had discussed the once great fortune, the way he had skirted the topic of Daisy Witherspoon, only saying that she was young and musical and pretty. A sudden question—a question in which I had a sharp personal interest—struck me.

  “In that event, just where do the—the Ayres fit in?” Glenn and I had been talking very quietly, but all at once I became aware that Patience was listening. Again Glenn glanced anxiously along the horrid, festive board.

  “I told you,” he said in a low voice, “it was an ugly, complicated mess. Patience and Amanda and Richard, too—when they discovered they were broke—had to find a scapegoat. Daisy got away, so they turned on Stanley Ayres. He worked with Great-grandfather in the bank, he was aware that the assets were rapidly disappearing and he didn’t notify the family. Worse, from their viewpoint—Stanley Ayres brought Daisy to Mount Hope.” “How—how do you mean?”

  “She was teaching music in New York—unsuccessfully—and he suggested she come to Mount Hope. He’d gone to school with her, I think. Anyhow, he and his wife took her into their home, got her pupils. Stanley Ayres introduced Daisy to John S. Hieronomo.”

  “That doesn’t sound exactly criminal.”

  “It depends,” remarked an icy voice, “on the point of view.” Patience leaned across her plate, too aroused by far to observe the damage to her frock. “What Glenn, in his charity, neglected to explain is this: My father was the victim of a deliberate plot! Stanley Ayres deliberately brought that young, self-seeking, scheming girl to Mount Hope so she could make an advantageous marriage. He brought her here so she could meet and rob— yes, rob!—my poor, misguided father. And I’ll believe to my dying day that she paid off Stanley Ayres in cash.”

  Richard, who evidently preferred his own theatrics to the fury of his sister, made a futile attempt to stop the torrent.

  “We couldn’t sue,” continued Patience, bitter and oblivious, “or go to law or recover any of the money from either of the precious pair. Daisy fled the jurisdiction, took herself as far as Europe, and Ayres died. But do you wonder that we hate the Ayres, and that they hate us whom they have wronged? Stanley Ayres pauperized the family, and now his son . . .”

  “See here, Patience—” Richard pushed back his chair. “You’ve heard of Hamlet’s mother, and of her excessive protests. I believe you should take thought before you make any more accusations with no supporting evidence behind them. Glick’s no fool. He might start wondering why you’re so set on doing his work for him. Let him produce some evidence and do your talking then. Otherwise”—Richard hesitated—“Glick might begin to wonder, mightn’t he, about the purity of your motives?”

  Beneath her garish hair, Patience looked startled, a little pale, as though such a contingency had not occurred to her. Then she set her lips, and began to mop the gravy from her frock. I made up my mind to keep still—and in the future to watch carefully my unfortunate tendency to open topics that ended in family scenes. But now I knew what I had wanted to know—the origin of the Ayres-Hieronomo feud. Where the rights lay, whether Stanley Ayres actually had conspired with Daisy Witherspoon to defraud my great-grandfather and, in consequence, his heirs, somehow didn’t at the moment interest me.

  A few minutes later, Sheriff Glick walked into the dining room. The silence that had followed the previous debate was suddenly intensified. Patience abruptly abandoned the repair work on her frock. Lucy stretched out a fluttering little hand to Richard. Hoy straightened in his chair. Glenn laid down his fork.

  Glick seemed totally unaware of the general uneasiness, although I feel sure that in his quick glance around the board he missed none of the half-tasted dishes. He strolled slowly forward.

  “I’ve got some news,” he said, and possibly he didn’t intend to turn his clear gray eyes on me. “Mrs. Silver was killed with her father’s gun. We haven’t found the weapon, but I believe . . .”

  “You believe!” Richard saw and seized a legitimate opportunity to defend the family interests. “Believing isn’t good enough, let me tell you, sir! Nor is guessing and surmising. You can’t make such a claim until you have the gun—an unloaded gun, by the way . . .”

  The Sheriff looked a little bored. “Your sister was killed with that gun,” he repeated. “I dare say her murderer was bright enough to load it. The bullet which we have just recovered from your sister’s body is a forty-one. As you yourself pointed out, a forty-one is an antique and unusual calibre. I can’t admit the possibility of a glaring coincidence that would introduce into this house a second forty-one. I’ll prove my case when we find the gun. And we’ll find the gun,” said he.

  “You have my permission,” said Patience faintly, “to search the house.”

  He did smile at that. “I’m afraid we’ve searched the house already, Miss Hieronomo. My guess is”—and he blandly glanced at Richard—“that we’ll find it somewhere on the grounds. Buried in the snow, perhaps. My men are searching now. But, in the meantime, there’s something I’d like to ask . . .”

  The question that he asked was general, but again his eyes were fixed on me.

  “Can anyone explain why on two occasions yesterday Mrs. Silver tried to reach Dan Ayres? She twice telephoned the village bank. She was very anxious to speak with that young man. I’m curious about her reason.”

  X

  THE QUESTION WAS MEANT FOR ME. It was I whom Sheriff Glick expected to provide the answer. In the confused space that followed his calm, clear announcement, in the few minutes before the family began talking and exclaiming, I realized fully that he had hoped to trap me into some involuntary revelation. I felt sure of it. His eyes had never left me.

  In their own confusion, in their efforts to evaluate a piece of information which apparently astounded every one of them, the Hieronomos completely overlooked the point that seemed so obvious to me—and for that I was grateful. During their noisy babble I had a chance to pull myself together. The Sheriff must have been disappointed, although he hid it well. I hardly think he guessed what was the truth—that I made no sense whatever of his information. I couldn’t even theorize about it.

  It had been twenty-five years since Amanda Silver had spoken to the widow of Stanley Ayres. So far as anyone knew, she had never exchanged a word with Dan Ayres, the son. Therefore it became incredible that she should pick up a telephone and make an effort to reach him. Yet Aunt Amanda had done just that. On the day of her death she had twice telephoned the village bank, and asked for Dan.

  The Sheriff stood beside the table and told us what he had learned from the Mount Hope bank. Aunt Amanda’s calls had been placed between twelve o’clock and one, an hour when Dan was at lunch. A certain Miss Smead, in charge while Dan was absent and well acquainted with village gossip, had the satisfaction of receiving both the calls. She had thought Mrs. Silver seemed “agitated,” she had offered to accept a message, but Mrs. Silver had spoken rather vaguely of a “personal matter” and asked when Dan would return. The disappointed Miss Smead had suggested sadly that Mrs. Silver call after one o’clock, when Dan would return and she herself would go out to lunch. “I’ll try then,” Aunt Amanda had said, and rung off. At this point Miss Smead’s information ended.

  “And so does mine,” admitted Sheriff Glick. “Unless some one of you can help me out?”

  No one offered.

  “What does Ayres say?” demanded Richard. “How does he explain? Surely you’ve talked to him!”

  “I have indeed,” replied the Sheriff. “He says he received no such call. Says he’s never spoken to Amanda Silver in his life, and is unable to explain why she suddenly took it in her head to talk to him. He was most emphatic on the point.”

  “I know my sister,” said Patience then. “If Amanda told this Miss Smead she was going to call again, that’s what she did. She called again, and
she talked to Dan Ayres. What Amanda planned she carried through.”

  Glick said dryly, “That may be difficult to prove, Miss Hieronomo. Ayres was alone in the bank from one o’clock until two. If he held a conversation with Mrs. Silver no one overheard it. The girls at the exchange were so swamped with holiday calls—every housewife in town trying to reach her grocer—that they weren’t able to do their usual listening in. What interests me, of course, is the reason for the call. What inspired Mrs. Silver? Why, at noon on the day of her death, did she try to reach, of all people, Dan Ayres?”

  “What interests me,” said Patience grimly, “is where Dan Ayres spent yesterday afternoon. Did you find that out?”

  “He was walking,” said the Sheriff blandly, “or so he tells me. He reached home from the bank shortly after three o’clock and decided to take a stroll. Had the same idea apparently as your niece and nephew here.”

  That silenced Patience.

  I was still slightly dazed when the Sheriff turned to leave the dining room. My morale was not improved when he paused and requested that I follow him. Glenn wanted to accompany us, and muttered something about “a person’s legal rights,” but he sat down again when the Sheriff said:

  “I’d like to ask Miss Hieronomo a few questions privately, but I’ve no objections if she feels she needs outside assistance.”

  A few minutes later we were in Great-grandfather’s room, and Sheriff Glick was pulling out a chair for me. Aunt Amanda’s body had been removed, but a brownish stain remained upon the carpeted platform. I quickly glanced away, and then saw flung in a careless heap upon the floor a crumpled riding coat. I turned a little pale. The Sheriff looked actually upset, as he picked up the coat and laid it out of sight.

  “I didn’t bring you here, Miss Hieronomo, to harrow you unnecessarily. Unfortunately, for various reasons, this seemed the proper place to have our talk.” He spoke to me in the concerned and kindly fashion that he would have used with his own daughter, and did not deceive me in the least. He sat down and faced me. “It seems to me that you and I together might advance the inquiry into your great-aunt’s death. It’s always difficult to conduct any satisfactory investigation in the presence of a group especially when—if you will forgive me—the group is composed of people like the Hieronomos. They are,” he said musingly, “and have always been a strange lot. Take as an instance the reunion business. Most of us wouldn’t choose to hold a wake over the passing of a house, but evidently Amanda Silver did; and the rest of you apparently desired to come, Hoy and his son from Boston, Richard and his wife from New York, Miss Patience from Baltimore, and you all the way from the Middle West. Wisconsin, isn’t it? By the way”—and he smiled winningly— “this is beside the point I’m getting at, but what is the family receiving for the house?”