Episode of the Wandering Knife

by Rinehart, Mary Roberts;

  “Look, Mother,” I said, lowering my voice, “what have you done with it?”

  “I’ve hidden it,” she said craftily.

  “And how long will it stay hidden?” I inquired. “With servants all over the place, and as much privacy for us as canary birds.”

  Mother smirked. There is no other word for it.

  “It’s entirely safe,” she said. “It’s in the tank of the toilet in my bathroom.”

  “Look, Mother,” I said patiently, “you never read crime books. You never read any books, for that matter. But toilet tanks are the universal hiding places for all lethal weapons. If they ever search this house—”

  “Why on earth would they search this house?” she demanded indignantly. “Who do they think did it? We all have alibis. I sat beside that idiot of a Mayor for hours. Anyhow, who would come up here to my bathroom? If anyone needed …”

  I didn’t say anything. What was the use? I went into her bathroom and lifted the porcelain top of the tank. The knife was there, and it was Larry’s all right. I didn’t touch it. I just put the lid back on. I felt dizzy.

  “Nobody will find it there,” Mother said, “and tomorrow we will get rid of it.”

  I don’t remember saying anything. I had just seen Mother’s stockings. They were lying on the floor, and one of them was torn to ribbons. I picked it up. There was a little blood on it from the knife—not much, but enough to make me shiver.

  I knew right off that I had to do something about it. It looked simple enough, on the surface—just wash it out and let it go. But you have to remember the way we lived. It was almost five in the morning, and Mother’s early tea was brought in by Sarah at eight-thirty, no matter when she had gone to bed. I could see Sarah, whose life is entirely vicarious—meaning that our affairs are hers and hers are her own—picking up that torn wet stocking and holding it up.

  “Whoever washed this stocking, madam? And torn as it is, too!”

  I stood holding it and trying to think. There were no fires going, except in the furnaces in the cellar, and, anyway, Sarah knew every stitch of Mother’s wardrobe. “Surely, madam,” she’d say, “you couldn’t have lost it. You can’t lose a stocking.” I couldn’t fool her with one of mine, either. My feet are half again as big as Mother’s. So I did the only thing I could think of. I picked up a nail file from the toilet table and before Mother could open her mouth I had jerked down the covers and scratched her leg with it just above the knee.

  She let out a howl and grabbed her leg.

  “Are you crazy?” she yelped. “My own child! What on earth do you mean, attacking me like that?”

  There was a drop of blood, fortunately, and I wiped it with the stocking. These days of tests for typing blood and so on certainly make it difficult even for the innocent. Then I explained to Mother, and to my relief she listened.

  “All right,” she said. “Only how am I to tell Sarah I got that scratch?”

  I left her to work that out and went to my room across the hall. It was still dark, but I could see pinpricks of light through the grounds where the police were continuing their search for that wretched knife. I knew there was only one thing to do—go to them with it and tell the truth. After all nobody but a lunatic would leave the murder weapon—especially his own—where it would be certain to be found.

  But I knew too that Mother would never agree. I couldn’t even slip it out of her room, for she had locked the door behind me. Finally I went to bed, to lie in the dark and see Isabel lying dead at the foot of the stairs, and the King man on his knees examining the carpet. It was broad daylight when I finally dozed off.

  At noon Alma wakened me, looking apologetic.

  “I’m sorry, Judy,” she said. “But there’s a man downstairs to see your mother, and she won’t see him. I’m afraid he’s from the police.”

  I sat up in bed. In the strong light she looked devastated, and I remembered that she had really been closer to poor Isabel than any of us except Larry. She was older than Isabel, but from the time they first met they had been good friends.

  She sat down while I took a shower and got into some clothes, and when she tried to light a cigarette I saw she was shaking.

  “Emily Leland has sent for me,” she said. “I suppose it’s about the funeral. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Better go,” I told her. “You can’t do anything here, Alma.”

  “I’ve tried to see your mother. She won’t let me in.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. She’s had a dreadful shock. Where’s Larry?”

  “Downtown. And there are reporters swarming all over the place.” She rose and, going to my dressing table, surveyed herself in the glass. “I look like the devil,” she said. Then she turned. “Judy, what on earth are they looking for in the grounds? The police, I mean.”

  “They didn’t find the knife—if it was a knife.”

  She went white. She was a good-looking woman, tall and slim, but under her makeup she was ghastly.

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m afraid I’m going to be sick.”

  She rushed out of the room, leaving me uncertain whether to follow her or to leave her alone.

  In the end I left her alone. I dressed and went downstairs, to find the King man in the lower hall. He was watching the fish in the pool, and this time he had no camera. James was watching him, and he looked annoyed. He didn’t even say good morning.

  “So people do live like this, in this day and age,” he said.

  “Until they’re liquidated. What would you suggest?”

  He shrugged and grinned.

  “All right, sister,” he said. “Is there a spot anywhere to talk, or do I whisper here?”

  “We have a few odd corners,” I told him.

  Of course the house is outrageous, as I have said. The hall is circular, and is two stories high, with a gallery along the back of it. The big drawing room is the size of a ballroom, but thank heaven there are half a dozen other rooms where one can sit. I took Tony King to the library.

  “Now,” I said, when I had closed the door. “What do the police want with me? Isn’t it enough they have my brother?”

  “I don’t belong to the police.”

  “You did last night.”

  He gave me a curious look.

  “I just happened to be with the Inspector when the word came.”

  “You took pictures, didn’t you?”

  “The official photographer wasn’t around. And I take pretty good pictures.”

  He offered me a cigarette and took one himself. I sat down. He didn’t. He took a turn or two around the room before he spoke again. When he did I almost fell out of my chair.

  “Look here,” he said, “what have you done with it?”

  “With what?”

  “The knife.” He was impatient. “That trick of your mother’s didn’t fool me any. She had sat for hours on the stairs and never blinked an eye. Then she gets into a good chair and faints, just when things were getting hot.”

  I pulled myself together as well as I could.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about. If you don’t belong to the police you have no right to be here at all.”

  “Don’t be a little fool,” he said rudely. “You’re on the spot, and your mother too. I examined that stair carpet. How long do you think it will be before they begin to wonder about your mother sitting there for all that time? If she has the knife do the right thing and turn it in. The truth never hurt anybody.”

  I knew that too. I knew perfectly well that the thing to do was to go upstairs, choke Mother into insensibility, get the knife and give it to the police. I looked at Tony King, who apparently had been up all night and certainly needed a shave, and knew that he was right. But I never had a chance to answer him.

  The door opened, and Donald Scott came in, looking immaculate and well-tailored and with just the right degree of sympathy on his handsome face.

  I saw the King man give him a long hard look.


  “My poor girl!” Don said, holding out both hands. “I came as soon as I could.”

  Maybe I was just excited. Maybe I thought Tony King could stand seeing that not everybody thought I was a little fool, and conniving at murder at that. I remember screeching, “Darling!” and throwing myself into Don’s arms, and the King man grinning as he more or less oozed out. And then, to my own astonishment, I was crying.

  And not just crying. Practically shrieking. I suppose I had been more shocked by Isabel’s death than I knew—that, and Mother sitting up in her bed keeping a watch on that wretched tank in her bathroom, and Larry downtown being interrogated, and the men in the grounds outside. As far as Don was concerned the dam had burst all over him, and he didn’t like it any too well. He held me off until the flood was over. Then he patted me on the back and gave me his handkerchief. After which he took it back and carefully dried the lapel of his coat.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Judy,” he said. “Maybe I’d better come back later.”

  But I wasn’t letting him go. Not until I knew why he was there, and not when I hadn’t seen him for weeks. I suppose it happens sometimes that a bad case of calf love carries over even when people are old enough to know better. Anyhow it had been that way with me. But the very way he had wiped his coat when I had cried all over it should have taught me something. It didn’t, of course.

  I sat down and grinned feebly at him.

  “It’s all over,” I said. “I suppose I had to burst on somebody, and it happened to be you. But the idea of anybody’s thinking Larry did it!”

  “Who thinks that?” he asked, eyeing me.

  “They have him downtown.”

  “They have a lot of people,” he said. “See here, Judy, are you afraid he did it, after all? Is that why you are scared?”

  “I’m not scared, damn it,” I said, shaking all over again. “He adored her. Ask Mother. No, don’t ask Mother,” I added hastily. “She’s in no shape to be questioned. But it’s true. They were really happy. You can ask the servants. You can ask …”

  I suppose I would have babbled on indefinitely if I had not suddenly noticed his face. He looked shocked, like a man who had had a blow. I knew why, too. Six or seven years ago, when he was only a struggling young lawyer, he had been crazy about Isabel. I was at boarding school when I heard it, and I cried all night.

  I looked at him that morning and felt as sick as he looked.

  “I’m trying to help Larry,” he said. “If it comes to that. Probably it won’t.” He walked over to the window and stood looking out. I remember the sun on his hair, and wanting just once to touch it. But when he turned I realized he didn’t really see me. He had been seeing Isabel instead, lying dead at the top of the stairs in her house. He lit a cigarette and sat down. His face was under control again.

  “I want to ask you something, Judy,” he said. “Did you see the chain they found under her?”

  “Yes. That man who just went out showed it to me last night. Why, Don?”

  “Did she—did you ever see it before?”

  “Never. But then she had a lot of things I never saw.”

  He drew a long breath.

  “Look, Judy,” he said. “I’ve got to tell you something, although God knows …” He stopped. “I gave her that chain, years ago,” he said. “I saw it this morning at Headquarters. I had no idea she still had it.”

  I suppose I gasped, for he looked angry.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “I didn’t kill her. Everything between us was over long ago. But I’d given her a ring, and she wasn’t allowed to wear it. The chain was to hang it on.”

  I managed to breathe again.

  “Have you told them about it?” I asked.

  “Not yet. What good would it do? But look, Judy, what about the thing that was strung on it. What is it? You’re a woman. Haven’t you any idea?”

  I shook my head.

  “Nobody wears things like that nowadays, Don.”

  “It must have meant something.”

  “Yes,” I said dully. “It must have meant something. I don’t know what.”

  He had a whiskey and soda before he left, and he began to look almost human. He even took the time to say that I looked like the wrath of God.

  “Why don’t you go to bed and get some rest?” he said.

  “I would,” I told him, “only Mother had the idea first.” For the first time that day he smiled, and I smiled back at him. I suppose he was just a nice blond young man who had pulled himself up by his bootstraps, but I had cherished him for a long time, and the smile simply broke me up.

  “Poor Judy,” he said. “It’s just too damned bad, isn’t it?”

  For one idiotic moment I thought he meant to kiss me. He didn’t, of course, and with the slam of his car door I had a queer feeling that he was going out of my life for good. Or that he had never been in it.

  IV

  Alma and I ate a silent lunch together, or pretended to. One of the tragedies of an establishment like ours is that there is always food. It comes and goes, whether it is wanted or not, and we go through the forms of eating it or pushing it away. Alma was in black, ready for the Lelands. She looked better, but she didn’t eat.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with your mother,” she said before she left. “She won’t even allow me in her room. It isn’t like her.”

  “She was fond of Isabel.”

  “That’s no reason,” she said tartly. “Somebody has to run this house. It doesn’t run itself.”

  I watched her go. She was not really handsome, but she was always smartly dressed. Isabel had always given her clothes she was tired of or which didn’t suit her, and she did miracles with them. She must have been thirty-five—we never did know her exact age—and Larry always maintained she still had the first dollar she ever earned. But we couldn’t have done without her, and she knew it.

  After she left I wandered up to see Mother. She was sitting in bed, surrounded by pillows, and I could see that she was still keeping an eye on the tank in her bathroom. Sarah was there, putting iodine on her leg, and looking disapproving and slightly suspicious.

  “That’s enough,” Mother snapped. “Now get out of here and call the doctor. And I don’t want to wait all day for him.”

  I waited until Sarah had gone. Then I went over and sat down on the bed.

  “Why the doctor?” I asked. “That’s only a scratch.”

  She gave me a cold look.

  “Because I’m in a state of collapse,” she said morosely. “I’m in a state of collapse until I can take my eyes off that sickening tank. That ought to keep the police out, too.”

  I advised her to remove some of her makeup if she meant to impress the doctor, and I told her it was silly to keep Alma out of the room.

  “If you want her to suspect you, you’re doing all right,” I said. “And I’ll tell you this. A man named King was here this morning. He suspects you of having the knife. In fact he’s damned sure you have it.”

  “I do wish you wouldn’t swear, Judy,” she said. “What does he know anyhow? How could he know anything?”

  “He examined the stair carpet last night. I don’t think he has told the police yet. He wants you to go to them yourself.”

  But she was completely and utterly stubborn. She was saving Larry. All they needed for a case against him was that wretched knife, and she would guard it with her life. “I could talk myself black in the face,” she said. “The police would never get it.”

  Then she looked pleading.

  “Be a good girl, Judy,” she said, “and get rid of it for me. I’m cross-eyed from watching it It can’t stay here.”

  “It will as far as I’m concerned,” I said bitterly. “Don’t bring me into it. And don’t go pathetic on me, Mother. Here you are, all nicely tucked up in bed, while I have to tell all the lies, and maybe get arrested in the end.”

  “Of course you won’t be arrested. Don’t be silly, Judy,” she said absently. �
��I’ve thought it all out. You can take it tonight and bury it in the grounds. Someplace where the gardeners aren’t working,” she added vaguely.

  “And where would that be?”

  “Good heavens! With all this ground! You can look around this afternoon and pick a place. Then tonight, when everyone else is in bed—”

  “Little Judy will be in bed, too, Mother darling,” I said firmly.

  But of course she knew she had me. I’m fond of her, and when she tried to light a cigarette she was trembling so she almost set the bed on fire.

  “All right,” I told her. “Just remember when I’m arrested that my fingerprints will be all over it.”

  “You could wear gloves,” she said hopefully.

  I laughed.

  “I’d like to try explaining why I’m wearing gloves in the rose garden at two A.M.”

  When I went downstairs there was a young woman waiting to see me. Patrick had put her in the red room, where he places visitors he is uncertain about. He said in a whisper that she had been crying, and he was right. She had not only been crying. She was still crying. She was a pretty young woman, rather nicely dressed, and she looked as if she had not slept for a week.

  She stopped weeping when she saw me, however. In fact, she looked at me as if I were something to step on.

  “You’re Miss Shepard?” she asked.

  I said I was, and waited. She was standing, and she remained standing.

  “I want to know what they’ve done with Jim,” she said. “I don’t care what they say. They’ve got him locked up somewhere. As if he would kill anybody! Or even know about it! He’s the kindest man I ever knew. As for your sister-in-law, he didn’t even know her. He may have seen her driving about, but that’s all.”

  “Who on earth is Jim?” I said puzzled.

  “Jim Barnes.”

  “Barnes!” I said incredulously. “Do you mean he hasn’t been home?”

  “Oh, he came home all right,” she said. “They took him away around half-past three this morning, and he came back before five. But he didn’t sleep. He didn’t even come up to bed. He looked like death. Then at six they came for him again. He hasn’t been back since.