“You must go. I can’t bear seeing you. It’s terrible to write that and to know that my moments of living are those moments when I can see you, expect you, hear you speak. Such a few moments out of all the years and years, so brief — all the rest such a dreadful waste.
“I’m growing hysterical; I must stop. I’ll put this in a pocket of your coat. You left it on the porch. I loathe myself for doing it in such a way. But I must make you understand, and I can’t say all this — not while you’re near me. Believe me, there isn’t a way out of it; not any way we can take.
“After all, we’ll forget. People do. That’s worse than anything. But it’s true. Janice.”
For a moment I stood there holding that sheet of paper under the light. Then deliberately I read it again.
It was without doubt a compromising letter; I was torn with disapproval and a kind of reluctant pity. After all, she had tried to be honest; it was a bit hysterical, but emotion is apt to sound like that. And it was sincere and direct and entirely lacked that theatrical quality of artificial romance with which women so often invest their letters, as if they were seeing themselves in some romantic rôle.
Somehow I assumed that the letter was meant for Allen, and I was feeling sorry for them all, Dave and Janice and Allen, caught in such a tragic mesh. But was it Allen? Could it have been Bayard Thatcher — Bayard, dead now, his harsh smile gone? He had had access to my instrument bag, not Allen. Bayard also she might conceivably have begged to go. Perhaps Dave had discovered it. He seemed to be a neurotic type: a man who would act first and reason afterward. But Dave and Allen had been fishing together all the afternoon. And I had seen Janice with Allen there at the foot of the stairs. No, the man she loved was Allen. But Janice herself — Janice herself had been in the house alone with Bayard for fully five minutes before the murder was discovered! Until that very moment I had forgotten it. Upon their return she and Adela had got out of the car together, but she had gone directly into the house, while Adela lingered among the flowers and talked to me. It could have been only five minutes at the longest, possibly less than that, but it does not take long to send a bullet speeding to its target. It was incredible — but who else was there?
There was a light knock on the door of the adjoining bedroom. I heard Adela speak and then scream. It was a sharp, sucking sound, that scream; like taffeta when it tears.
Then I was in the bedroom, too.
Adela was sitting upright in bed. Her eyes were blank and hard, and her mouth tight. You’d never have guessed she had just screamed.
Emmeline stood near the bed. In one hand she carried the brown wicker egg basket. There were still some eggs in it.
In her other hand she held a revolver.
“I found —” she said, and saw me and stopped.
CHAPTER VI
Afterwards it seemed strange to me and a little sad that the curious understanding which had existed probably for so many years between mistress and maid should have failed at that crucial moment. For Adela opened her lips and said in a hoarse kind of whisper:
“Take it away.”
And I’m sure Emmeline thought she asked where she’d found the revolver, for the woman said:
“It was in the egg basket, in the refrigerator. It’s Mr. Dave’s. There’s two shots out of it.” She held the revolver almost at arm’s length, looked at it reflectively, and added, “You ought to feel how cold it is, being in the icebox.”
Adela closed her eyes.
“Put it on the table, here,” she said. “That’s all, Emmeline.”
After the maid had stalked away again, bearing her basket of eggs, Adela lay there for a moment, marshaling her forces, and then opened her eyes and said wearily:
“It’s strange that Dave’s revolver should turn up in the egg basket. But it means nothing. Nothing. The revolver was likely in the coupé when Janice took it out this afternoon, and she dropped it into the egg basket, intending to take it into the house and put it away, and then she forgot about it. Yes, that’s what happened. You can see for yourself, Miss Keate, that it couldn’t have been the revolver with which —” a small spasm contorted her mouth as she said stiffly — “with which Bayard was shot. But I’m going to ask you to say nothing of this, please. Dr. Bouligny is a good man, and he means well, but he’s a bit stupid. He might think — Well, it’s best, I think, not to confuse things.”
“A ballistics expert would soon know whether that was the revolver that killed Bayard, if that’s what you mean,” I said crisply. The variety of experience which falls to a nurse’s lot has given me some slight acquaintance with crime. Besides, I read the newspapers.
My comment did not please Adela. She looked coldly at me.
“Surely you don’t think a burglar would not only use Dave’s revolver, but would hide it in the egg basket in the kitchen refrigerator,” she said frigidly. “Besides, he wouldn’t have had time. If you’ll give me the medicine Dr. Bouligny ordered, I’ll go to sleep.”
And when I stood beside the bed a few moments later with the hypodermic needle ready in my hand, I glanced at the table. The revolver was gone; I knew she must have placed it in some drawer in the room, and I could certainly have found it — could find it later on, if I felt it my duty to bring the matter to the coroner’s attention.
She went to sleep almost immediately. I was adjusting the window preparatory to leaving her when Pansy scratched and whined at the door. I let her in; she waddled breathlessly over to the bed, gave Adela’s hand which lay on the edge an abstracted lick and retreated to a cushion in the corner. She was still nervous and watched me suspiciously and with not too flattering attention as I moved about the room.
It was with a touch of uneasiness that I entered the room next door, which I was to have, and snapped on the light. I remember I glanced rather quickly about, under the bed and into the old wardrobe and back of the screen, before I closed and locked the door. Yet I can’t say there was any definite thing that I feared. It was something impalpable; quite intangible. Murder as a word is only a word; but murder as an actuality, dragged into the calm circumference of one’s own living, is a violent and cyclonic experience.
The Thatchers were what we call nice people. They were temperate, self-controlled, proud. They did not lack courage, they scorned dishonesty, and their emotions were orderly. People of that sort do not breed murderers. But Bayard Thatcher had been murdered. Even that night, before I had time or inclination to try to arrive at any conclusion as to who had murdered him — even then, I felt instinctively that it was one of the Thatchers. Otherwise it would not, perhaps, have been so terrible and so profoundly exciting an experience. It is true it seemed entirely incredible to think that under that placid, calm, well ordered surface strange and turbulent and violent emotions were seething. Emotions which must have had their roots far, far beyond the somewhat paradoxical but rigidly ordered state of affairs we call civilization and which excludes murder.
Contrary to my expectations I fell at once into a heavy, dreamless sleep; I was, of course, desperately weary. The night — clear and moonlit — was, so far as I know, entirely peaceful. I do not believe there were, even, any tears for Bayard.
It was morning when I awoke with a start and a conviction that I had heard the continued barking of a dog somewhere near. It had ceased, however, by the time I was thoroughly awake, and I did not hear it again. It was a warm, placid summer morning, too warm even at that hour, but pleasant and quiet. The horror of the thing that had happened swept back into my consciousness with a kind of incredulous shock.
I hurried a little about dressing. My fears of the night seemed unreal as I unlocked and opened the door on a peaceful sunlit hall. Adela’s door was closed, and she did not respond to my knock, so I went quietly away; it would be a good thing to let her sleep as late as possible. Not a soul was about upstairs, though I met Florrie in the lower hall. Her green chambray was fresh and clean as always, but her cap was crooked, and she gave me a rather sullen good-m
orning. I stopped for a moment in the doorway, I remember, to glance out across the porch and the lovely sunny lawns. When I turned she had arrested herself in the very act of dusting a table and was looking fixedly over her shoulder at me. She dropped her eyes at once and began to wield the duster vigorously, and when I said, “A pleasant morning,” she muttered something unintelligible and turned into the library.
I walked on down the hall. As I reached the dining-room door something made me turn. The girl was standing half in, half out the library door watching me. She bobbed out of sight, but not before I had caught a strangely sullen look in her plain face. It vaguely disturbed me; it was as if she were accusing me of something.
Evelyn was sitting behind the tall silver coffee service. Apparently she had not gone home for the night, for she still wore the light summer gown, a flowered chiffon, which she had worn the previous afternoon. It looked gay and out of place, especially when Janice, who followed my entrance by a moment or two, appeared in a crisp white linen morning frock.
“Good-morning, Miss Keate,” said Evelyn as I entered. “No one else is down yet, but we may as well tell Emmeline to serve our breakfast. There’s no need to wait. Hilary and I stayed here last night, you know.” Matter-of-fact, calm, practical. You would never have dreamed from Evelyn’s manner that anything at all unusual had happened. Her gold hair was smooth and neat, her shoulders erect, her dark blue eyes steady and cool, and only the dark pockets around them showed that it had been, as it must have been, a night of anxiety. Her poise compelled my admiration, although I think it was not due so much to courage as it was to a certain lack of temperament; a faculty for seeing only the practical, material aspects of a problem. She would never harass herself with doubts or regrets or fears. She concerned herself only with expediency.
Her brown hand was very steady as it touched the bell, and her voice clear as she asked Emmeline to serve breakfast. She was pouring my coffee when Janice entered.
“Oh, my dear, I didn’t expect you down so early. Here, sit here in this place. I didn’t mean to usurp your place behind the coffee.”
“No, no, don’t move.” Janice sat wearily in her customary place. “Good-morning, Miss Keate. Isn’t Adela coming down to breakfast, Evelyn?”
“She seems to be sleeping late,” replied Evelyn, handing me my cup. “It’s just as well. She looked bad last night. Adela’s not as young as we are.”
“Thanks.” Janice took her own cup, drank some of the coffee, and began to look a little less drained of life. Except for its look of terrible burned-out fatigue, her face was rather cold and rigid and as immaculate of feeling as her white frock. I could detect nothing of the passion that had written itself into her letter; of the extremely sentient and aware look that had lit her face with so spent and tragic a beauty only the night before, when she’d left Allen standing there in the hall looking as if his heart and his every hope went with her up those stairs. She was not beautiful that morning; I think she was controlling her every thought.
“Did you sleep?” asked Evelyn.
“No,” said Janice briefly. “Where’s Hilary?”
“He went home to shave and get fresh clothes. He ought to be back in a few moments. Allen is coming with him. I thought we might as well have breakfast here together. Dr. Bouligny said he would stop in to tell us about the inquest — when it’s to be, and all. Dave is sleeping late, too.”
“Yes.”
Rapid footsteps along the hall preluded Hilary’s appearance at the door. He was, as usual, immaculate; his thin hair carefully brushed so as to make the most of what there was, his tie neatly knotted, his light suit looking as if it had just come from the tailor’s, his face freshly shaved and powdered. But the night had not been kind to him; his eyes were puffy and red from lack of sleep, and there were heavy pouches under them; his whole face seemed to have sagged and lost its pinkness, and his hands were not steady as he pulled out a chair and picked up his napkin and took the cup of coffee Evelyn handed him.
“Good-morning, Janice. Miss Keate. There’s some mail on the hall table for you, Evelyn. Thank you. No cream.”
“Where’s Allen?” asked Evelyn.
“He’s coming. Rode over with me. He stopped to speak to Strove.”
“Strove? So early!”
Hilary nodded rather grimly.
“He was on the lawn — looking below the library windows. I don’t know what he expects to find. Footprints, perhaps. Here’s Allen, now. I’ll take another cup of coffee, Evelyn.”
Allen showed the effects of the last twenty-four hours less than any of us. But even he looked taut and weary, as if he hadn’t slept. He sat in the chair next to Evelyn and refrained from looking at Janice after he’d included us all in a quiet good-morning.
“What’d Strove have to say?” asked Hilary.
Allen shrugged.
“Nothing. But what do you think he had? A magnifying glass.”
Hilary laughed shortly.
“He won’t get very far with that. It’s a damn good thing you and Dave were fishing together all yesterday afternoon, Allen. Can you think of anyone who saw you? It would help clinch matters. Dan and I aren’t going to have too easy a time over this inquest.”
There was a rather tight look about Allen’s mouth. But he added sugar to his grapefruit with a steady hand — nice hands, he had, lean and firm with long sensitive fingers — and said at once:
“I don’t just think of anyone. And after all, Hilary, no one will dare come out and say things openly.”
“They’ll say plenty afterward. We’ve got to be mighty careful about the inquest.”
“You understand, Miss Keate,” said Evelyn hurriedly. “We are a bit worried about the unpleasant comment this affair may cause.”
If her intention was to warn Hilary that there was an outsider present, she succeeded. He gave me an annoyed look and said nothing further. The conversation lapsed until Dr. Bouligny arrived a few minutes later. Dr. Bouligny, too, looked haggard and took the coffee Evelyn offered him with eagerness.
“My housekeeper can’t make coffee,” he complained. “I wish Emmeline would show her how. Adela still asleep?”
The inquest was to be that morning, it developed, and Dr. Bouligny thought it would be wise to arrange for the funeral the following day.
“Better get it over and forgotten as soon as possible,” he said bluntly, and Hilary agreed.
“Will you get the telegrams off this morning, Evelyn?”
“How about the boys, Hilary?” said Evelyn slowly. There was an anxious note in her voice. I felt sure she did not want the boys to come home for the funeral.
“I — don’t know,” replied Hilary. “I — what do you think, Evelyn?”
“Well — I don’t know that there’s any need for their coming. They knew Bayard, of course. But they are such children. There’s really no need for them to come. And it would interrupt their work at camp. The swimming competition takes place in a few days.” It was not like Evelyn to seek excuses.
Allen gave her a quick look and said:
“I shouldn’t consider sending for them. Wire them what’s happened, for they’ll see something, likely, in the papers. At any rate, they’ll have to know sooner or later, and it won’t do to let them wonder why they were not told of it. But tell them not to come. They won’t want to, anyway. And by the time they do come home —” He checked himself with a glance at me. But Evelyn, always literal, finished.
“By the time they do come home, the whole thing will have blown over. I think Allen is right, Hilary. Do you?”
“Yes,” agreed Hilary in a relieved way. “That’s exactly right. I leave it to you, Evelyn. Now, then, Dan, if you have finished your coffee — I’ve got a thousand things to see to this morning. Suppose you go to the office with me. I’ll ride in your car. They’ll need mine here, likely. Did you say the inquest is at ten? It’s nine now. Allen, you bring the girls, will you? And Dave, of course. And how about Emmeline and the nurse
, Dan? Had they better come too?”
“Why, yes,” said Dr. Bouligny. “You don’t mind, do you, Miss Keate?”
“Oh, not at all,” I said promptly. A little too promptly, perhaps, for I caught Allen smiling at his plate.
“I will probably have only a few questions to ask you, if any,” added Dr. Bouligny. “Since the cause of death is so — er — clear, we’ll make the inquest as brief as possible. Tell Adela, Evelyn, not to be alarmed or nervous.”
“Don’t worry about Adela,” said Hilary. “She’ll be cooler than any of us. You can always count on Adela.”
“At ten,” repeated Janice thoughtfully. “That doesn’t give us much time. I’d better get the grocery order off. You and Hilary and Allen will eat here today, won’t you, Evelyn? We’ll want to be together in case —” She did not finish the sentence and rose.
Hilary turned at the door.
“I may not see you again before the inquest,” he said. “But I’ll meet you there at the courthouse. I’ll go now with Dan, and we’ll fix up the — the line of inquiry. Just answer what you are asked. Don’t —” he warned, his eyes on Janice — “volunteer anything. Be careful what you say.”
“If you mean that for me, Hilary,” said Janice — she spoke gravely and not at all sharply as her words might imply — “you can trust me. I’ll not let you down. In public, anyhow.”
“There, there, now, Janice,” said Hilary fussily. “I didn’t mean that, at all. I only meant not to tell anything that might — that is, not to make any indiscreet — not to —”
“You’re making things worse, Hilary,” said Allen coolly. “Do go along. We’ll be all right. Come on out in the garden, Janice. It will do you good. You too, Evelyn,” he added as a polite afterthought. But Janice would not. She had, she said, to see to the grocery order.
“Heaven only knows what’s in the refrigerator for lunch,” she said. “Emmeline has her own notions, and I’ve got to be sure you’ll have something to eat.”
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