The innocent Mrs Duff

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

  “Sit down, please, sir,” said Levy. “Perhaps one of the ladies would be kind enough to get you a drink.”

  But neither of the ladies responded.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to see Mrs. Duff for a few moments, please,” said Levy.

  “What?” Duff asked, frowning.

  “I realize it’s very late,” said Levy, “but I’ll have to see Mrs. Duff for a few moments.”

  “But—didn’t you see her?” asked Duff.

  The fog was rushing out, blanketing everything. He was stupefied.

  “You mean she’s here, downstairs?” Levy asked.

  “No,” Duff said. “Get me a drink, Miss Castle. Bring the bottle.”

  “May I ask one of you ladies to get Mrs. Duff?” asked Levy.

  “She’s not at home,” said Mrs. Albany.

  “Where is she, ma’am?”

  “We don’t know,” said Mrs. Albany. “We’re very much worried.”

  “I want a drink,” said Duff.

  “Mr. Duff,” said Levy, “I’m afraid you don’t realize the situation.”

  “Pull yourself together, Jacob!” said Mrs. Albany.

  “Your account of this evening’s actions is not satisfactory, Mr. Duff.”

  “Just how isn’t it?” Duff demanded.

  “We’ll want a better explanation as to why you went to that house at just that time, sir.”

  “I told you it was a personal matter.”

  “And why you reported a smell of gas.”

  “I told you I thought I did smell gas.”

  “And why you made no attempt to rescue this man you state you believed to be overcome by gas.”

  “I told you. I thought it was suicide, and I thought you people liked things to be left undisturbed.”

  “And why you went to a lot of trouble to rent a car.”

  “Good God! I’ve told you all this!”

  “Your account is not satisfactory, Mr. Duff.”

  “Why the hell isn’t it?”

  “I’ll have to ask you to come to the Horton County Station with me, sir.”

  “What d’you mean? D’you mean you think I did that? Walked into the house and strangled that fellow? You’re accusing me?”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, Mr. Duff. It’s simply that we want a better account of your movements that evening.”

  “You’ll never get it. I’ve told you everything, exactly as it happened.”

  “I’m afraid it isn’t good enough, Mr. Duff. I’ll have to ask you to come with me now—”

  “All right! All right!” shouted Duff. “I don’t care where I go. But I want a drink first.”

  “No, sir.”

  “You can’t tell me that, in my own house, I’m going—”

  “Jacob!” said Mrs. Albany.

  Nobody was showing him the least consideration or sympathy, nobody. He was sick; his hands were beginning to shake; the fog had come into his eyes. If I go with this fellow, he thought, they may lock me up overnight, even longer. And I won’t be able to get a drink. I feel—so damn queer…

  “We’ll get going now, Mr. Duff.”

  “No…” he said. “No. I’ll tell you who killed Ferris.”

  “Do you want to make a statement, sir?”

  “Yes. But I want a drink first.”

  Levy turned to Miss Castle.

  “You might get him one,” he said, in a low voice.

  “Bring the bottle,” said Duff.

  The doorbell rang, and they all turned their heads like a herd of deer.

  “I’ll go,” said Levy. “Don’t leave the room, please.”

  The moment he had gone. Duff moved toward the dining-room.

  “Jacob!” said Mrs. Albany. “Don’t—”

  He went on. He poured himself a drink and swallowed it, and refilled the glass with gin.

  “Jacob,” said Mrs. Albany, “you must keep a clear head. This is serious.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he said. “I had no more to do with that man’s death than you had.”

  He lit a cigarette, and then Levy came back, with a grey-haired policeman in uniform.

  “Sergeant Mack will take down your statement, Mr. Duff,” he said. “You wish to state that you know who killed Captain Ferris?”

  “I do,” said Duff. “It was my chauffeur, Nolan.”

  “Why do you think that, sir?”

  “I don’t think it. I know it. I saw him on his way out to my house.”

  “Where were you when you saw him, sir?”

  “Parked outside the station.”

  “Why were you there?”

  “Because I wanted to be.”

  “Why do you think he was on the way to your house, Mr. Duff?”

  Duff took a swallow of gin.

  “Because we’d arranged it,” he said.

  “What was this arrangement, Mr. Duff?”

  “I’m afraid it’s necessary, Mr. Duff.”

  It is necessary, Duff thought. I have no intention of being locked up in a cell.

  “I had reason to think that Captain Ferris was going to use my house for—a rendezvous,” he said.

  “A rendezvous with whom, Mr. Duff?”

  “I’m not going to answer that.”

  “What was your arrangement with Nolan.’’

  I wish I could get drunk, thought Duff. So that I couldn’t speak at all.

  “Nolan was to go there first,” he said, “and see if what I thought was correct. If it was not, he was to drive back and meet me on the road. If I didn’t meet him, I was going on to the house myself.”

  “What did you expect to find when you reached the house, Mr. Duff?”

  ‘“Nothing. I simply wanted to see—what was going on there.”

  “Mr Duff,” said Levy, “had you arranged with Nolan that he was to turn on the gas?” Duff glared at him.

  “Damn it, no!” he cried.

  “How did Captain Ferris enter your house, Mr. Duff?”

  “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be hard.”

  “You went to the house, expecting to find Captain Ferris. What reason do you suggest for his going there?”

  Duff turned his head from one side to the other, as if looking for a way out. These questions goaded him intolerably, and they were beginning to frighten him no.

  “Mr. Duff, have you any evidence that Noland actually went to your house?”

  “I told you I saw him on his way there.”

  “You stated that you saw him drive past you. Have you any evidence that he actually went to your house.’’

  “Damn it, he must have! Somebody certainly went there. What’s the sense of all this quibbling? You’re not a lawyer.”

  “Well yes, I am a lawyer,” said Levy.

  “Mean to say you’re not a policeman?”

  “I’m a member of the police force, yes, sir. You state that you had reason to believe Captain Ferris had a rendezvous in your house. With a woman, Mr. Duff?”

  This was getting bad, very bad.

  “I simply wanted to—make sure,” said Duff. “I’d heard rumors…”

  “What woman did you expect to find there, sir?”

  “I refuse to answer,” said Duff.

  There was a moment’s silence; then Levy went to the open doorway.

  “Mrs. Duff,” he said, “will you step in, please?”

  So she was here. And how long had she been here, and how much had she heard? How much had he said? He could not remember. She came in from the hall, shocking to Duff as a ghost. She was pale, her black hair a little untidy; she was wearing; a black cardigan much too large for her; she looked like a waif. She kept her brilliant dark-blue eyes fixed upon Levy’s face, and looked at no one else.

  He took a paper out of his pocket.

  “Mrs. Duff,” he said, “this letter was found on Captain Ferris. Will you look at it, please?”

  She took it from him and glanced at it and then raised her eyes to his face again.

  “H
ave you ever seen that letter before, Mrs. Duff?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I wrote it.”

  “You wrote this letter asking Captain Ferris to meet you at that house?”

  “Yes,” she said, again.

  I wish to God I could get drunk, Duff thought.

  “Did you go to the house to meet Captain Ferris, Mrs. Duff?” Levy asked.

  “Well, no…” she said, “I didn’t.”

  Nolan never called her, Duff thought. Never meant to.

  “Why didn’t you go, Mrs. Duff?” asked Levy.

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “We’ve been stranded on a little island, ever since three o’clock this afternoon.”

  “Who was with you, Mrs. Duff?”

  “My husband’s little boy, and Mr. Vermilyea and his mother and father.”

  “Quite a family party,” said Duff, loudly.

  He did not quite know why he said that, or what bitter resentment and envy stirred in his mind.

  “Had you intended to meet Captain Ferris, Mrs. Duff?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I wrote him that letter.”

  “Mrs. Duff, have you ever had reason to believe that your husband was jealous of Captain Ferris?”

  “No,” she said, “I’m sure he wasn’t.”

  Her voice was low and pretty, but with little inflection; not in her tone or in her face was she ever able to express whatever emotion she might be feeling. And heaven knew she was not eloquent. Yet Duff understood her now.

  “You didn’t want your husband to know of this proposed meeting with Captain Ferris, Mrs. Duff?”

  “He wouldn’t have minded,” she said. “It was just a sort of business thing.”

  “Mrs. Duff, have you any information about Captain Ferris’s death?”

  She was silent for a moment.

  “I hate to say it…” she began. “But I guess I have to. Nolan just hated him.”

  “Why?”

  “He knocked Nolan down once, in front of me. Could I say what I think happened?”

  “I’d be very glad to hear it.”

  “Nolan had a terribly mean streak in him,” she said, in her always inadequate words. “I think he told my husband there was something wrong going on in the shack. I think he went there and killed Captain Ferris, and I think he fixed it so that my husband would come along later, and get all the blame.”

  “Is this the case, Mr. Duff?”

  Very well! Duff said to himself. She’s got me out of this very neatly. By lying about the letter. Very well, I didn’t ask her to lie for me. And I don’t want her to.

  “Is this the case, Mr. Duff?”

  “Yes,” he said. “More or less.”

  “What did Nolan tell you to expect to find in the house?”

  “Ferris and a woman. Some woman.”

  “Was there any arrangement for Nolan to turn on the gas?”

  “No! I told you before. No!”

  “If you had found Captain Ferris there with a woman, what did you intend to do?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t have any plans. I simply wanted to see…”

  “When you saw Captain Ferris on the floor, what did you think had happened?”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t care.”

  “Did it occur to you at that time that Nolan might have killed him?”

  “No, it didn’t,” said Duff. “For one thing, I didn’t know he was dead.”

  And for another thing, it had never once come into his head that Nolan might double-cross him. Never. He could see now how. smoothly Nolan had arranged matters, with everything devised to point straight at Duff, the jealous husband. The tale about turning on the gas, about giving the capsules… All he had wanted was, to get Ferris there alone, and he had made Duff do that for him.

  I believed everything. Duff thought. I did everything—to ruin myself. That letter… The police would have traced it to me, with no trouble at all. Written on my typewriter. I was a cat’s paw. A dupe. Such a fool…

  “The point I don’t understand, Mr. Duff,” said Levy, “is your reporting this strong smell of gas.”

  Duff was as quick as any goaded animal to notice the change in his tormentor. Levy was different. Not ominous now. I’m out of it, he thought.

  He had gone willingly, even eagerly, into a situation that might well have been fatal to him. If he was out of it now, it was only by Reggie’s sufferance. If she had not acknowledged that letter, if she had not spoken of Nolan’s hatred for Ferris… She must know the truth, know what he had meant and had tried to do to her, and still she had saved him. And that made his freedom almost worthless to him.

  “About the gas, Mr. Duff?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t explain that,” Duff said. “Unless it was some sort of hallucination. I’d had that attack—heart-attack, y’know. I wasn’t feeling at all well.”

  Somewhere in the house somebody screamed, or squealed, like a terrified horse.

  “Oh…!” cried Miss Castle, with her hand at her heart again.

  Chapter 22

  “But who was it?” asked Mrs. Albany. “There’s no one here…”

  She’got no answer. Levy had left the room; they sat there, Mrs. Albany and Miss Castle and Duff and the grey-haired Sergeant Mack; only Reggie in the big black cardigan, was standing. There were no more screams, no sounds at all.

  “Where’s Jay?” asked Duff, looking straight at the wall before him.

  “Mrs. Vermilyea put him to bed at their house,” Reggie answered. “He was sort of overtired. He just loved the whole thing. I mean, we made a sort of adventure out of it.”

  There were footsteps coming down the stairs now; again like a herd of deer they all turned their heads toward the door. Mary came in, and after her came Lieutenant Levy. With that bag.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Mary, weeping.

  “Wait!” said Levy.

  He opened the bag and brought out the jacket, sodden and crumpled.

  “Is this yours, Mr. Duff?” he asked.

  “No,” said Duff, mechanically. It was no use; he knew that.

  “Mrs. Duff, do you recognize this garment?”

  “No,” Reggie said. “Oh, well, yes. I guess I do. It’s an old coat of my husband’s I threw away months ago.”

  “Mrs. Albany…?”

  “I don’t care to examine it,” she said, her head averted.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” said Mary, tears raining down her face. “I couldn’t sleep till we heard about Master Jay, and I thought I’d unpack for Mr. Duff. And when I opened the bag, a kind of a lizard or a little snake thing ran out, and I let out a yell. I didn’t mean—”

  “Wait!” said Levy.

  He brought out the riding-crop.

  “Whose property is this?” he asked.

  “It’s mine,” said Reggie.

  “Mrs. Duff, there’s a small metal plate in the handle, with initials other than yours’”

  “Someone gave it to me,” said Reggie.

  “The initials are P.I.K, the initials of the man whose body we found under the pier this morning. Why were you carrying this in your bag Mr. Duff, with an outfit of clothes, all of them wet?”

  Dufft did not answer.

  “Mr. Duff, when did you last see Paul?”

  “I never saw him.”

  “Mrs. Duff,” said Levy, “did you see Paul while you were at Driftwood Beach?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Reggie answered.

  “I’ll have to have an explanation for the contents of this bad, Mr. Duff.”

  I knew that bag would finish me, Duff thought. I’ve known a lot of things—for a long time. Maybe he had not known them in his mind, but he had felt them. He had been walking through a thick fog along a strange road, but he had known, or felt, where it would end. This was that end.

  “Duff,” said Levy, “Paul was stunned by blows on the head with some instrument and thrown into the water unconscious.”

&nb
sp; Duff, he said. Not sir. Not Mister Duff. Never Mister Duff, never again.

  “He wasn’t thrown in,” said Duff. “I dragged him in. I thought he was dead.”

  Miss Castle made some choking little sound, but he did not look at her.

  “Mr. Paul fell down,” said Reggie. “Jake thought—we thought he was dead. We thought—“

  “No,” said Duff “I did it. I hit him twice, I think. Later on I dragged him into the sea. I wanted to get rid of him.”

  “Jacob!,” said Mrs. Albany

  That was a direful voice, the voice of his conscience, rejecting him, abandoning him.

  “Mr. Duff,” said Levy, “it’s my duty to tell you—”

  “I know! I know!” said Duff, impatiently. “I’ll finish my drink and then I’ll come along.”

  He drained the glass and set it down; he rose, and confronting him was his image in a long mirror. This was Jacob Duff, with a cut and bleeding mouth, dark stains under his eyes, a sagging weariness in his face.

  “Jake…” said Reggie. She touched his hand, but he drew away. “Jake, I can swear—I can go in court and swear you had too much to drink that night. You weren’t responsible.”

  “No, thanks,” he said. “I was responsible. Thank you, Reggie, for all you’ve done. You’ve been very kind.”

  He looked down at her, and their eyes met. He was sure that what he saw in her pale desperate face was love, but not the kind of love he had ever wanted. Her love was almost illimitable, almost impersonal; it embraced God knew how many people. He didn’t want that. He turned to look at Miss Castle, and she was nothing to him now. His last look was for Mrs. Albany, the most important figure in his life, and she was an old woman now. There was nothing left at all. He never wanted to see Jay again. Mister Jacob Duff had gone, forever.

  “Jake,” said Reggie, “we’ll do everything—”

  “Please don’t,” he said, with a quick frown. “It doesn’t matter.

  And really there’s nothing to wait for. Really, he thought, I’m sick and tired of everything.

  “I’d like to go up to my room,” he said.

  “Sergeant Mack will go with you,” said Levy.

  Then I’ll have to make another plan, Duff thought. I’ll have to be quick about it, too. I’ve had too much to drink tonight, and pretty soon it will begin.

  He knew all about that. Pretty soon, very soon, he would begin to grow sleepy. They would ask him questions at the police station, and he would not be able to answer; he would not be able to keep awake. Then they would put him into a cell, to sleep it off. That’s what they called it.