The Dead Can Tell

by Helen Reilly

  The quickness of his pursuit had cut off her retreat. She tried to hide. The Inspector saw a fold of her skirt beyond the swelling bulk of a small auxiliary boiler. He said softly, “Don’t move, Miss Dodd, stay just where you are,” and walked slowly forward.

  Mary Dodd talked. After a while they tried to stop her. It couldn’t be done. A statement was taken from her in the inner office on the third floor of the Tenth Precinct on West Twentieth Street to which she had been brought directly from the apartment house on Sixty-fourth Street. She attempted no resistance. A single long stare during that first moment of exposure was all. It was a moment in which the soul of the woman seemed to blaze up and be consumed. Afterward she accompanied them without protest, almost with indifference, moving easily and obediently, the shell of a tall, dignified, well-dressed woman going somewhere on an errand that was neither pleasant nor the reverse.

  Before he left the Sixty-fourth Street apartment McKee made a swift trip to the penthouse. Cristie Lansing was alive and the probability was that she was going to continue to live. But she was very ill and in a state of shock. Fernandez was looking after her. Steven Hazard knelt on the other side of the bed. Elsewhere in the penthouse were detectives, photographing, recording, examining, for what was to come later.

  Back at the Homicide Squad, McKee, Kent, Todhunter and District Attorney Dwyer listened to Mary Dodd’s story.

  A bland, almost childlike, expression was on the face she turned to the group of men. Except for her eyes, which were burning and yet dull. They weren’t fastened on any one person in the room but on other things, dreadful things beyond its confines. Dwyer was not a sensitive man, but even he was appalled at the sudden flood of invective which poured steadily from the well-cut lips at stated intervals in that long and remarkably coherent narrative.

  Mary Dodd had been in love with Steven Hazard for a long time before Sara’s death. She had thought in those days that Steven was turning to her. She knew he hated Sara. Then Steven decided to go to South America and Sara decided to go with him. She wouldn’t be able to see Steven any more, couldn’t be with him. She couldn’t bear that. On the night of Margot St. Vrain’s party she heard the news. She made up her mind to kill Sara there and then. Then she could go to South America with Steven. She would go anywhere Steven wanted to go. She didn’t know about Cristie Lansing at that time, didn’t know Steven cared for her.

  As McKee listened, he began to realize the thing he had felt all along without being able to isolate or spot—Mary Dodd’s absorption, her terrific concentration. It was bent on one object, gratification, a gratification that had been repeatedly denied her. What had really happened was that the love she had borne her dead fiancé had been transferred in part to her father, and on her father’s death, to Steven Hazard.

  Steven Hazard had become the be-all and end-all of her existence. He was very fond of her. This fondness she had translated into passion. She knew Steven Hazard hated Sara.

  Once he had told her that he was going to South America and that Sara was going with him, and in telling, had shown his frustration and despair, Sara Hazard was doomed. Unfortunately, Steven had refrained, during that brief moment at Margot St. Vrain’s party, from telling Mary Dodd why he was so overwhelmed.

  She, poor creature, had thought it was simply hatred for Sara and a desire for a different life that might include her...The rest was self-evident. The dignified woman kept on talking.

  She waited outside the penthouse, saw Sara’s encounter with Pat, saw Euen Firth take Sara home. She followed the cream-colored roadster to Franklin Place. When she was within a block of the Hazard apartment, she thought she saw Sara coming toward her. It wasn’t Sara. It was the maid, Eva Prentice, wearing Sara’s clothes.

  She, Mary, continued on her way. When she was half a block from the apartment house door Sara came out and turned the corner and got into the Hazard car parked at the curb near the top of the hill. She got into the car with Sara. She said she was worried about Steven, asked Sara to drive her home.

  Sara wasn’t suspicious. Her black velvet bag with the gun in it was on the seat between them. Mary Dodd managed to get the gun out without Sara’s seeing her. She knew Sara was carrying it around with her. She distracted Sara’s attention, made her turn, and hit her with the butt of the automatic. Sara fell forward over the wheel.

  Mary Dodd turned the ignition key and started the motor. She released the brake, put the car in high, let in the clutch and stepped out on the running board. As the car got under way she advanced the throttle and jumped.

  The car went down the hill and into the river. Mary Dodd said she watched it go from a dark alley between two buildings on the side street. She saw Cristie Lansing run by the mouth of the alley. After a few minutes she herself went home.

  She killed the maid Eva Prentice on September 11th. Mary Dodd described the second killing in the same dreadful detail. The day after Sara’s death, the day that the story of the car crash was in the papers, Eva Prentice called her up. Eva demanded money. Mary Dodd knew that the maid suspected her because of their encounter on the street just before Sara went into the river. She paid Eva a thousand dollars on account. The maid was a thief herself and was hiding out in the Twenty-first Street room.

  Mary went there several times. It was during the third visit that she killed Eva. She knew she would never have any freedom while Eva was alive, that Eva might tell Steven and Steven wouldn’t marry her. Eva might also tell the police and she might be electrocuted.

  Eva had demanded ten thousand dollars from her. Mary Dodd went to the room on Twenty-first Street at seven o’clock on the night of the 11th of September. She told Eva that she hadn’t that much money, but that she expected it during the evening. She said that the maid could go back with her to her house and wait for it, if she wanted to. Eva agreed to this.

  She went behind the screen in the corner of the room on Twenty-first Street to wash her face and put on her make-up. Mary followed her, hit her over the head with a heavy brass paper weight that had belonged to her father and that she had brought with her as a weapon, if one should be necessary.

  The maid fell forward against the wall. Mary pushed her head down into the water in the wash basin. Eva Prentice struggled but Mary held her under until she stopped struggling. Then she wiped her face, dried her hair and put her hat on.

  Her own car was waiting in front of the door. She realized the danger, but she had to take a chance. She put her arm around Eva, put Eva’s arm around her own shoulder. The hall was empty. She managed to get the maid out into the areaway and up the three steps. A man stopped on the pavement and said, “Need help, lady?” Mary said, “No, thanks,” her friend had had a little too much to drink but that she could manage. The man walked on.

  Mary got Eva into her car. She drove up to Kokino. She knew the place well. She had thought and thought of some way in which to hide the maid’s body so that it would never again be found. She and Sara and Steven had swum in the cove beside the point many times. Steven had shown them the rock fissures at the side of the deep pool.

  When she got to Kokino she took off her clothes. The water wasn’t cold. She put a rope around Eva’s body, got her down, shoved her deep into a crevice, slipped off the rope, smoothed away all traces on the bank above, redressed herself and returned to New York.

  No one suspected anything. Sara’s body was recovered and identified and buried. She saw Steven on and off during those days. Steven said nothing, but she was content to wait. And then one evening she went to Margot St. Vrain’s with him to hear a new song and she discovered that Steven was in love with Cristie Lansing. She opened the door of a room and found them alone together with their arms around each other.

  At that point another stream of dreadful quiet obscenity poured from Mary Dodd’s lips. It went on for a long while. When they brought her to a halt, she answered questions monotonously, like a person in a hypnotic trance.

  She was the writer of the anonymous note that had tu
rned up on McKee’s desk on the day following his return from Rio. There was no doubt of her motive. She made it quite clear. She hated Steven Hazard as much as she had formerly loved him, hated Cristie Lansing with an even deeper hatred, wanted to keep them apart, wanted to see one or both of them suffer the death penalty for the murder she had committed.

  At that time she still had the gun with which she had knocked Sara out. She knew its possession was a menace to her. She told the Inspector the truth—that Sara had stolen it—in order to pave the way for her next step—which was to implicate Steven and also Cristie. She wrote to Steve, signing Eva Prentice’s name, and demanded a thousand dollars for her silence about Cristie’s having been on the scene the night Sara was killed. She told Steven to send it to general delivery.

  The envelope was already lying on McKee’s desk. Mary Dodd explained that she had never tried to collect it. She didn’t want the money. She still had the gun. She had slipped it into her pocket on the night she killed Sara, afraid to leave it in the car with her fingerprints on it. She had no time then to wipe them off. She had kept the gun for fear that if she simply threw it away it might be traced to her. She decided to get rid of the weapon by placing it in Steven’s hands under incriminating circumstances. She had sent him a second letter telling him to go to Eva’s room on Twenty-first Street, telling him exactly where the gun was. At the same time she sent a note to Cristie Lansing so that Cristie would be there when Steven arrived. She knew Steven was being followed, felt sure that the police would find them both there with the gun.

  It didn’t work out precisely as she had planned it.

  A little frown etched itself on her smooth white forehead. She went on talking.

  The night that McKee played the record of the talk between Sara and Cliff, the germ for resuscitating Sara came to her. She was aware that records had been made of the voices of various guests at Margot St. Vrain’s party. Sara was among the people who had been recorded.

  She decided that if she could only make Steven believe that Sara was alive, if she could make him believe that it was the maid, Eva Prentice, whose body he had identified and that Cristie Lansing had killed Eva in mistake for Sara, everything would be quite easy and simple.

  Earlier, much earlier, on the night she saw Cristie in Steven’s arms, she had decided to kill Cristie when she got round to it. That was the night on which she slipped a spare key from Margot St. Vrain’s ring. When she returned to the living room, she saw Margot’s key-ring lying on a table. Cristie worked in the penthouse alone during the day. The key offered access to her if she, Mary, should need it.

  When she decided to try to impersonate Sara by reproducing her voice, the first thing she had to do was get hold of the record. She knew that Margot was away. She entered the penthouse secretly, late at night. She found the record in the cabinet. She had to take several others to make sure she had the right one. While she was in the living room, Cristie Lansing woke up and called out. She managed to get away undetected.

  The next day she bought a machine that would play the record with Sara’s voice on it. She practiced for hours, whenever she got the chance. She knew that if the plan was to succeed it would have to be well done. There were other voices besides Sara’s on the record. She had to find the spot where Sara began and ended, had to learn to manipulate the lever so as to cut it off at the proper moment. It was very difficult but she finally got it right.

  She knew that there was something going on between Steven and Cristie Lansing, knew they were planning something and that she had to act quickly. She was familiar with Steven’s routine. The weekend stretched ahead. She called him after lunch on that Saturday at his club.

  Steven answered. She switched on the record. She played the best bit of Sara, the only bit that fitted her purpose. “Hello, Steven. Having a good time, darling?” Sara always called people darling when she wanted to be particularly nasty. As soon as the word “darling” was finished, Mary Dodd said she had switched off the lever and had placed a handkerchief over the mouthpiece. She dropped her voice and gave the rest of her message in a whisper as though there was someone near her and she couldn’t talk very loud.

  The trick worked. Steven believed that it was Sara on the other end of the phone, that Sara wasn’t dead. He agreed to do as he was told. She was very pleased for a while and then worried again.

  She was afraid that in spite of the warning Steven and Cristie might get together. She didn’t want them to match stories. It was she who had sent the telegram to Steven at Kokino, the telegram telling him to be out on the point that night and to bring a thousand dollars with him. He went. She pretended to go to bed and slipped out a side door of the farmhouse. When she got out on the point, she saw Steven dimly, silhouetted against the waters of the lake. She didn’t go anywhere near him, had no intention of doing so. What she meant to do was to establish herself as Sara by throwing Sara’s gold compact, which she had taken from among her things when she was packing them, into the bushes near Steven. After that she meant to slip away without being seen.

  The fictitious interruption she had planned became real. Just as she was about to call to Steven she collided with somebody on the edge of the bank fifty feet from where Steven stood. The person, whoever it was, let out a cry and started to grapple with her.

  She, Mary, had shoved. The person toppled and dislodged a boulder. Whoever the intruder was, she screamed and fell. The dislodged stone rolled down the bank and fell into the lake with a loud splash. Mary had run quickly back toward the house. When she was half way along the path she heard someone running toward her. She faced about and pretended to be making for the point. The man coming toward her was a detective. He took her back to the farmhouse with him.

  She admitted quite calmly that she was pleased with her work on Halloween night. Her only fear, and it was soon allayed, was that the police would find Eva Prentice’s body. It wasn’t until yesterday, Friday, that she learned the truth, that Eva’s body had been discovered and brought up by Steven.

  She still wasn’t particularly frightened. She felt sure that neither Sara’s body nor the maid’s was in any condition to be identified. Dwyer, Kent and Tod-hunter took a quick glance at the Inspector. The Scotsman said nothing. His face was drawn, sad. He kept on watching Mary Dodd. She continued to recount events in that toneless flowing voice.

  That afternoon she had become really frightened for the first time. Cristie Lansing had shown signs of remembering something, something important, in the meeting at Pat Somers’.

  Mary Dodd knew her carefully built security was threatened. She couldn’t let that girl get away with it. She had to take steps. It was her dog Winkie who showed her the way. Winkie was paralyzed and had to be put out of his misery. She had to kill Winkie herself in the middle of the preceding summer, with chloroform. There was still a lot of chloroform in the bottle.

  As soon as Cristie Lansing left Pat’s she telephoned to the penthouse. She wanted to get Cristie alone there. Margot St. Vrain was going back to her office, but she had to get rid of Margot’s maid. She told the girl that she was delivering a message for Miss St. Vrain and that Miss St. Vrain wanted the maid to meet her at Grand Central right away with an overnight bag at the Information Booth.

  She went home and got the record and the chloroform. It took her only a few minutes. She went to the penthouse. At that point Mary Dodd’s voice began to fail, not from fatigue, not from strain and not from remorse; fury choked it, fury at the defeat of her last desperate gesture, the details of which they knew.

  Horror thickened within the walls of the room as the black current poured out. Todhunter shrank in his chair. Dwyer and McKee said nothing. There was nothing to say. Kent went on busily recording.

  XXV

  The field commander was very kind. When McKee arrived at La Guardia Airport he found that the office had been swept and garnished and was at his disposal. McKee stood at one of the windows and watched landing planes beyond the long esplanade taxiing up
and disgorging passengers in the November afternoon sunlight.

  A week had passed since the wind-up of the Hazard-Prentice case. Dwyer had asked for and had obtained two first-degree indictments against Mary Elizabeth Dodd of East Seventy-third Street, New York City, for the murders of Sara Hazard and Eva Prentice.

  The door opened and the couple for whom he was waiting came in. The girl who had been Cristie Lansing turned a quiet face toward the Scotsman. Her hand was on Steven Hazard’s elbow. Hazard looked tired but there was peace in his face too, peace and the foreshadowing of happiness. He and Cristie Lansing had been married that morning. They were taking a plane south.

  There were no attendants, no bridesmaids, no other guests at that impromptu farewell party with the exception of Pat Somers who followed them into the room. Behind him two uniformed waiters pushed in service tables.

  Pat was beaming. His benevolent glance included the Scotsman. He directed the waiters, fussed over the food, the wine, uncorked the Pol Roget himself.

  “You can’t beat this,” he said, settling back expansively in the inadequate chair, “and by God, McKee, when it comes right down to it, you can’t beat you either.”

  The Scotsman bowed his thanks. Cristie and Steven raised their glasses. For a moment Cristie’s eyes were full of tears. She winked them out of existence. Laughter, then, and talk and more champagne. They had to get down to it in the end. It was Pat and Steven who put those final questions.

  Pat began it. He said soberly, “Steven, old man, I want to apologize for the crack Cliff took at you that day in the Commissioner’s office when he told the Inspector here to ask you about the gun Sara had stolen from Mary Dodd’s. Cliff just lost his head.”

  Steven waved the incident away. McKee said drily, “Your brother wasn’t the only one, Pat. It so often happens that way. Look at Margot St. Vrain. It was Margot St. Vrain who collided with Mary Dodd in the darkness of the point up there in Kokino on Halloween. Margot was on her way to meet you, Pat, when she ran into Mary Dodd. It was Margot who screamed that night. She and Euen Firth and Johnny were all in the vicinity of the point and they all tried to cover up.