Hide in the Dark

by Frances Noyes Hart

  “I know as well as you do that you have it this minute—you took it when you were bending over that chair. You can do anything with your hands—look at the things you could do with those cards, and it was just a flimsy rag of chiffon—”

  The red-headed young man, abruptly pale, but with the smile slightly deepened, said agreeably:

  “Ah, yes—the cards, to be sure. A very palpable hit, my dear! Well, Dart, I’ll appeal to you, as an unprejudiced bystander and a police-court habitué. As you can see, the talented young magician has nothing up his sleeves. Now if you’ll complete the search in order to convince this doubting little Thomas? I’ll keep my hands in the approved position while you run through the pockets. It’s quite a large one, isn’t it, Lindy? Larger than a man’s, shouldn’t you say?”

  “Almost twice as large.”

  Dart, running his hands expertly through the coat pockets, said expressionlessly: “There’s blood on that right shirt sleeve, Kit.”

  “Oh, I don’t doubt it. Anything else?”

  “Yes. There’s a revolver in this right hip pocket.”

  He extended it flat on his palm, glittering and ominous, and Kit flashed it a smile of recognition.

  “And a revolver, of course. Go easy with it, will you? It’s loaded; I ought to have warned you.”

  “Are you in the habit of carrying a revolver?”

  “My dear fellow, it’s practically the only habit I’ve got! You never can tell when you’re going to run into one of those earnest lads nowadays whose sole avocation is to shoot not wisely but too well. It’s a pleasure to be right there to greet them.… I brought it down here because I thought it might be handy for target practice. Would you like to take charge of it for the time being?”

  “Thanks,” commented Gavin drily. “I’m not your custodian yet, you know. To be quite candid, I’m not entirely clear that I ever will be. Your comments on Lindy’s dramatic abilities don’t entirely clear up her part in the murder, as far as I’m concerned. Here’s the revolver.”

  “Stout fellow! Oh, I’ll give you more than dramatic criticism before I’m through, I promise.” He pocketed the revolver carelessly, and inquired, still smiling, “All through? You didn’t come across the handkerchief by any chance, did you?”

  “No.” Gavin sat down slowly, his eyes still on the rope twisted tight about Lindy’s slim hands. “Is it your contention that Lindy’s conversation with King about the cards was invented out of the whole cloth, too?”

  “Oh, Lord, no; I think that it was probably fairly accurate reporting. You see, I’d had one myself with him about five minutes before on precisely the same lines. It was quite animated about the time that young Ray over there tried to barge in.” He flashed the reassurance of his smile, careless and friendly, in the direction of the small countenance, heavy-lidded with forbidden sleep. “You see, when I went up from the card table I wasn’t really particularly keen about ministering to Doug out of the iodine bottle. I’d missed those cards from the table. When I told Lindy to look up, because there wasn’t any blood, I suddenly remembered that Doug had shaken some from his finger onto the upper one, and I reached over to slip it in my pocket, because I knew that Lindy was upset already, and that even that much blood would upset her more.… And then I saw that it wasn’t there—that none of that hand of mine was there—and it didn’t take me the proverbial split second to realize exactly what had happened. Doug’s cut finger and his dropping the handkerchief on the hand after he’d pulled it over to him, and his bolting off to his room—all part and parcel of some elaborate dodge that he’d fixed up and was undoubtedly putting through nicely upstairs with no one to bother him at all. All of a sudden I felt a burning desire to know just what particular type of hell he was raising up there … and I’m afraid I didn’t stop on the way to get any iodine. I didn’t stop to knock, either. The only thing I did stop to do was to turn the key in the lock and put it in my pocket after I’d closed the door. I had a dim suspicion that Doug mightn’t be as anxious for an uninterrupted conversation as I was.”

  The fire leapt suddenly into a little fountain of flame, and Kit’s hair flamed back—his eyes, flamed too, dark with a grimly amused reminiscence.

  “Doug was standing over by the dressing table, with the cards face down in front of him; he was busy as a bee with that black pearl stick pin of his, picking out nice little designs on the centre of each of ’em. He didn’t even bother about stopping when he saw who it was that was invading his privacy!”

  “The dirty swine!” Joel’s expressive countenance was transfixed in outraged comprehension. “You mean he fixed those damn things up himself?”

  “Did you think they were my handiwork, old boy? I’m flattered. No, Mr. King was entirely responsible for the decorations; and very neat they were, too.… I was all wrong about his not wanting to talk; he wanted to talk quite a lot. He had any amount to say about the past, the present, and the future, and he wasn’t exactly encouraging about my part in any of them.… He told me precisely what he was going to do with me, and the cards, and the newspapers—and about the time that he got around to the papers I was fed up to the eyebrows, and I didn’t want to hear anything more from Mr. King for a long, long time. I stopped listening and made a grab for the cards, and Doug stopped talking and made a grab for me; and by the time Ray rattled the door knob we’d managed to upset the room no end, and I was having a first-rate time kneeling on Mr. King’s chest and kneading nine tenths of the breath out of him. It wasn’t until I heard Ray at the door that I realized that I was making an everlasting fool of myself! Getting the cards wouldn’t do me any good; he’d simply tell you all that I’d stolen them from him, and then I’d be rather worse off than if I let them alone.… So I left him to get his breath back while I borrowed his brushes and straightened out a bit and came on down to this room to decide what the next move should be.… I saw the knife lying over there on the table as I came in—and the tub of water off beyond it—and there was my solution, ready-made. Nothing more to bother about at all; I slipped it in my pocket while I was talking to Joel, and came on over to the fire.… The real start of Lindy’s fairy tale was when she said that she found it there fifteen minutes later.”

  Lindy whispered, with a soft violence that shook her from head to foot:

  “Gavin, don’t believe him, Gavin, I swear to you—I swear—that he’s lying. Don’t believe him.”

  “Lindy, weren’t you ever taught that good children don’t interrupt? After that, Dart, I followed out pretty much the procedure that you evolved and Lindy plagiarized, except that I used the priest’s stairs; Hanna saw me at the foot and dashed back because she realized that it wasn’t Gavin, and she still thought that she might have time to stop him. In the meantime, I’d got the door open, and crossed the chapel into this room. I only stopped to roll up my sleeves, because I remembered what you said about the blood if you tried the jugular, and how you said to do it. I came up from behind and put one hand over his mouth and turned his head away … It didn’t take as long as it takes me to tell you. I washed my hands off in the tub before I threw the knife in, and rolled my sleeves down again, that’s when I got this stuff on my cuff. I was just starting for the hall when—”

  “It was from the violets. You got it from my violets—”

  “Gavin, what are we going to do with her? That poor little mind going around like a mouse in a trap—don’t you know that even the cleverest little mouse of all never gets out, Lindy? It just wears itself out; and you look so tired already, poor mouse! … I’ll cut it short; every one of you children ought to have been in bed hours ago…. Someone came into the room just as I was getting out of it—Joel, I imagine. I waited a bit, and then slid across the hall into the library. Jill’s scream didn’t upset me as much as it did some of the rest of you; I knew what she was screaming about, you see. I was the first one at the lights.”

  “And the cards under the record?”

  “Oh, the same process, reversed. It was a
God-sent opportunity to get rid of them. I crossed the hall while Lindy was counting—if I hadn’t caught my cuff in that infernal thing, it would have worked beautifully. Even as it was, I beat you to the door by a good second, didn’t I?” The smile flashed shamelessly. “I’m moderately light on my feet—Nature’s favoured me that way, and I’ve helped the old girl out by making cork soles part of my standard equipment. In my rather animated career, I’ve found that it’s an excellent idea to walk just a little softer than the other fellow. Half a dozen times tonight I’ve prayed to be an Indian.”

  Lindy, her dark eyes fixed on the red head blazing far above her like a beacon, said, slowly and clearly:

  “Gavin, he came back to save me. He came back because he was afraid that I’d get caught with the cards.”

  The red-headed young man took a step toward her and dropped two hands lightly on her shoulders. She did not flinch beneath that imperious touch, but suddenly the small pale face looked smaller and paler, and the deep fringed eyes were immense.

  “Lindy, get this straight, will you? It’s fairly important. I’ve stood here listening to this preposterous lunacy of yours for a long, long time—for too long a time, by far. I’ve tried to laugh it off, because that seemed the easiest thing to do, but I haven’t felt much like laughing. You’re such a little thing to be so brave—standing up there in your pearls and ruffles, swearing to blood and murder and revenge as cheerfully as any gunman.… Now you’ve had your turn—this is mine. I’ve only got one thing more to say. If you tell this fairy tale once more as long as you live, I’ll take this revolver here and blow my brains out. And if you keep perfectly quiet from now on I’ll put up the best fight that I can for my life—I’ll do my level best to hire lawyers, and bribe juries, and kidnap judges—because for some unfathomable reason my life seems valuable to you—valuable enough to make you risk your own.… Is it a bargain?”

  “It’s—blackmail, isn’t it?”

  “I believe you’ve put your finger on it again. Blackmail it is; we understand each other perfectly. So there’s nothing left to do but to say good-night, is there? Because it’s long past bedtime, and from now on, Lindy, I have an idea somehow that we’re not going to be allowed to see a great deal of each other. I don’t believe that confessed murderers can be left to rove about at will, even by amateur custodians.” She moved, and his arms were suddenly about her, his cheek against the dark sweetness of her hair. “Darling, I wish I had a prettier place to give you to say good-night than this room full of people and bad dreams…. I wish I had that silver beach with a star to wish on for you—or a garden with violets under the leaves … violets with no blood on them at all. But since this is the best that I can do, may I kiss you good-night, Lindy?”

  She said “Yes,” and lifted to him a face swept clear of everything but a submission.

  He said:

  “Good-night, little Lindy.… Sweet dreams,” and turned away, leaving her standing unstirring with that lifted face, as though already she had found those dreams.

  “That’s all then, isn’t it, Dart? Though I can give you one entirely tangible bit of evidence, if you’d like it. You thought that the wind had damaged the wires, didn’t you? Well—it wasn’t the wind. The wires were cut. They were cut about five minutes before Hanna tried to reach your house. And even Lindy isn’t resourceful enough to tell us where they’re cut, are you, Lindy?”

  She spoke again from that distant dream: “No.”

  “No. But I can tell you, because I cut them. Just at the head of the stairs, near the telephone attached to the wall. I thought that it might be a pious scheme to keep well out of touch with the police; I cut out a foot or so of wire so that splicing it would be more of a job, in case it was discovered. Any of you any good at that kind of thing?”

  There was swift murmur of dissent.

  “Well, fortunately for the lot of you, I’m a little better than good; I did a bit of line work abroad, before I went in for despatch riding. There isn’t much point in barring the police from now on, and I’ll give you a hand with it. Suppose we get along now, and see what we can do with it. Dart, do you see any particular reason why any of the girls should stick it out any longer? Get that child of yours tucked in, Joel!”

  Chatty, her lips tremulous but her voice valiant, said clearly, from across the room:

  “Good-night, Kit darling.”

  And Trudi’s deep, charming voice, huskier than usual, said slowly:

  “You’re the best of us, Kit. Get some sleep yourself, why don’t you?”

  Gavin Dart said:

  “I’ll join you at the telephone in a minute or so, Baird—just as soon as I get Hanna to her room. I’m inclined to agree with you that the sooner we get in touch with the police the better for all of us, under the circumstances.”

  Sherry said thickly from the doorway:

  “A darned sight better.” He caught at the door frame and added unhappily, “I swear to God I think it’s all a rotten dream.”

  “No dream, old boy. Still, it’s rather decent of you to think so.” The red-headed young man paused abruptly in the doorway, cast a swift glance after the last couple vanishing up the dark stairs, a swifter one at the empty room, and lifted his voice.

  “Think there’re any pliers up there, Joel?”

  “No—the tools are all in that closet to the right of the fireplace.”

  “Right you are; I’ll bring ’em along.”

  He crossed the room on the light, sure feet that had carried him through dark places, and just short of the closet he stopped and wheeled, one hand on the chapel door, the other closed fast over something else—something dark and glittering. Joel Hardy stood staring at him incredulously from the doorway, his young face drawn and old—and then in one headlong bound he was at his side, catching frantically at his arm.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Kit—Kit, drop it, will you? We’ll get you out of this, I swear. No jury in the world would convict you for killing that filthy swine—”

  “Not for murdering a man who threatened to expose me as a card sharp?” He did not move, but something else moved, darkly, across the mockery of his face. “Boy, they’ll hang me higher than Haman!”

  “Oh, God!” The despairing face contorted in a frenzy of rebellion. “Then why couldn’t you keep your mouth shut? You know damn well what she’d do to a jury, with that lovely little soft voice and those eyelashes—all she’d have to do is sit there looking like an angel made out of velvet and moonlight telling them how that hound tried to railroad her into marrying him, and in ten minutes they’d every last one of them be howling like banshees and wishing to God they’d been there to carve his heart out themselves!”

  “Joel, I’ve half an idea that you’re exactly right. And that’s undoubtedly why you’d stick Ray up there if you were in my boots, and let her bargain for her life with a dozen butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers rather than risk your own precious skin by suggesting that you knew considerably more about the murder than she did, I suppose?”

  “Ray? I’d see them in hell before they touched a hair of her—” He halted, staring wildly at the grimly amused countenance a handbreadth away. “Oh … Lindy, of course—sure, I get you. You can’t let her pull this sacrifice stuff for you; I can’t make my head work any more, but I can see that. Anyway, they’d none of them believe a word she said—a little, soft scrap like that… though I’ll swear she had me going for a minute, at that. That’ll show you how much sense I’ve got left!”

  “You weren’t the only one,” said Kit drily. “She had everyone else in the room going, though you’ll hardly catch them admitting it now. She’s rather an amazing child … Keep an eye on her for a bit, will you Joel? This is going to hit her fairly hard.”

  “Kit, listen—juries these days don’t hang anyone—anyway, not if you’ve got a good lawyer, and we’ll get you the best lawyer that ever stood a jury on its head. All they’ll do to you is shut you up for a while.”

  “Thir
ty or forty years, say?” The old smile flashed, but in the startling whiteness of the face the eyes were black. “Forty years to find out whether the filthy hole that’s my local habitation is two or three paces long? … Thanks all the same, but I can think of pleasanter ways out.… This way, for instance.” He shifted the little shining thing in his hand, and the fingers on his arm clamped down frantically. “Going to help me, Joel?”

  The haggard young race glared back at him desperately. “What do you want me to do—kill you?”

  “No. I want you to hold this chapel door for about ten seconds. They’ll all be piling back the second they hear a shot, and I don’t want Lindy to run into me—here. She’s had enough. Only Larry’s taken every damn key in the place, and I can’t lock it. Joel, I’ve never asked a favour of anyone else alive.”

  Joel dropped his hand abruptly, and turned his face away.

  “All right—go ahead. I’d a damn sight rather you shot me.”

  “You’ll live to tell your grandchildren that one worthless devil blessed the day that you were born. Look here, would you—no, no, never mind—someone’s coming. Give me ten seconds.”

  Lindy stood poised for a second, staring past the outstretched barrier of Joel’s arms at the closing door. She flashed toward it on the wings of terror itself.

  “Where was he going? What was that thing he had in his … Let me by! Let me by! Kit!”

  “Lindy, don’t. Lindy, they’d hang him!—he said so, himself.… Don’t—don’t, dear.”

  “Kit!” Above that frantic pounding, that frantic voice, rose other voices, drowned beneath its frenzy. “Kit, open that door! God, don’t let him … don’t let him.… Kit, it’s Lindy—wait—wait—it’s Lindy, Kit! Don’t—don’t—”

  It cracked through the terrified clamour, clean, sharp, effortless, stilling it as abruptly as the trump of doom. And for a long moment, in that absolute hush, it seemed as though the sharp messenger of silence and death had sped home to more than one target—it seemed as though it might well have hit Lindy, clinging to the handle, her knees sagging beneath her—Joel, his face turned to the cool panel, his shoulders heaving—Gavin, halted short in his tracks, halfway across the room. It was Gavin who spoke first, moving quickly, his voice chilled steel: