Episode of the Wandering Knife

by Rinehart, Mary Roberts;

  He left her soon after, a sadly perplexed and dejected young man, and Hilda turned back to the house. She was as bewildered as he was, and she was still debating the situation when she approached the house. In her rubber heels she walked lightly, and the street lamps left a small oasis of darkness at the foot of the walk. She roused suddenly to see two people there, a man and a girl, and to realize the girl was Tony. She was confident they had not noticed her, and she turned sharply and crossed the street, stopping in the shadows to watch.

  She could not hear much that they were saying. The street was wide and their voices low. That there was an argument of some sort going on was evident, however, for once Tony tried to break away and the man caught her by the arm and raised his voice.

  “Maybe you’d like me to report it,” he said. “It would make a nice story, wouldn’t it?”

  “You wouldn’t. You don’t dare to.” Tony’s voice was raised too.

  “Oh, wouldn’t I? Wait and see.”

  Hilda heard no more. A moment later Tony had rushed back to the house. Hilda thought she was crying. But her own eyes had turned to the window of Alice’s room upstairs. Someone, probably Aggie, had been standing there.

  VII

  The scene had roused Hilda’s quick curiosity, and as the man started down the street she trailed him at a safe distance. At the end of two or three blocks he stopped, evidently waiting for a bus. The street however was dark. He was only a vague rather sinister figure as he stood there, and as the bus rumbled along she decided to follow him. He paid no attention to her. He got on first, throwing away a cigarette as he did so and swinging on easily. Even then she could only get a general impression of him, a man of probably forty, in a shabby blue suit and a well-worn brown hat.

  If he had noticed her he gave no indication of it. He seemed to be absorbed in thought, and Hilda decided to find out his destination. But he stayed on the bus almost to the end of the line and she began to worry about her patient. Then abruptly he got up. Two or three other passengers alighted also, and Hilda was the last to leave. He was some distance ahead of her when, drawing her blue cape around her, she set out to follow him.

  He stopped once to light a cigarette, and so far as she could tell he was still unaware of her. She was in a part of town she did not know, but he seemed at home in it. The streets were empty, the buildings dark and forbidding, and his own figure not so distinct. She began to feel uncomfortable. Then she lost him altogether, in front of one of a row of small dilapidated houses. So far as she could tell they had no numbers, and she began counting from the end of the block. She had lost him at either six or seven, and she went on past, making a mental note of the location.

  Which was the last mental note she made of anything for some time.

  When she came to she found herself lying on the pavement of a narrow dirty alley between two houses, with her purse gone and her head aching wildly. It was a number of minutes before she could get to her feet, and then it was to find herself retching violently and her legs almost unable to hold her.

  There was no sign of her assailant. The street was empty and quiet when she staggered to it, and she sat down on a doorstep and tried to reconsider her situation. She was miles from the Rowland house or from her own apartment, she had no money, and what was even worse she had fallen for what was the cheapest and most obvious of tricks.

  It was some time before she could think coherently. Evidently he had known who she was all along. Probably, Tony had seen her and told him when he tried to hold her.

  “My aunt’s nurse is watching you across the street. Let me go or I’ll call her.”

  It had been easy enough after that, she thought sourly. Her uniform, her hatless head, and the long wait for the bus. When she had followed him …

  She felt better after a few minutes. Her head still ached but her legs would at least obey her. She managed with several stops to reach a drugstore, and the man behind the counter looked startled when she more or less stumbled through the door.

  “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’ve been knocked down and robbed. May I use the telephone? I have no money.”

  “Sure.” he said. “Don’t bother with the booth. Use this.” He put the instrument out on the counter and she sat down gratefully. It was a moment or two before she felt able to use it, however, and she looked up to see him putting a glass in front of her.

  “Aromatic ammonia,” he said. “It may help.”

  She drank it and before long was able to call Fuller at his apartment.

  “It’s Hilda,” she said. “I’m at …” The man supplied the address and she gave it. “I’ve had a little trouble. Been knocked out and robbed. Can you send for me?”

  “I’ll come myself. What the hell are you doing out there?”

  “It’s a long story,” she said, and hung up abruptly.

  When at last he arrived she had lost the aromatic ammonia and diverse other things in the gutter outside, and the man from the drugstore was standing on the pavement beside her, offering paper tissues in lieu of handkerchiefs. He looked surprised when he saw the police car with its uniformed driver.

  “Lady’s in poor shape,” he said when he saw the Inspector. “Guess you’d better take her to a hospital.”

  “I’m all right,” Hilda said disgustedly. “Just a plain damned fool, that’s all. Do I get in the car or do I stand here all night?” Fuller smiled. Hilda was herself again, he realized. She might look like the wrath of God—as indeed she did—but she was practically normal. He made no fuss over her as she got into the back of the car. He simply followed her, rolled up the glass to cut off the men in front, and lit a cigarette.

  “Talk when you’re ready,” he said cheerfully. “That bump may ache but it won’t kill you.”

  “I wish you had it You wouldn’t be so happy.”

  “All right. When one of my best operatives lets herself be lured to this part of town and is knocked out, either she isn’t smart or she had a good reason. Which is it?”

  “He fooled me. He didn’t pay any attention to me. I ought to know better, at my age.”

  Fuller eyed her.

  “Very clear. Very lucid,” he said. “Maybe we’d better go to a hospital after all.”

  “I’m going back to my case,” she said firmly. “It all started there. He was talking to Tony Rowland on the street. That’s why I followed him.”

  She told her story as briefly as she could, describing the man and the method by which he had disposed of her. Especially however she related Tony’s crying, her attempt to escape, the man’s threat to report something or other, and the likelihood that he had then been told who and where she was, and that she might overhear.

  “He put on a good act,” she said. “But then everybody’s doing it in the house. Tony Or someone else burns a surgical dressing at night in the kitchen stove. Today her wedding dress is missing. It cost a fortune, and it’s gone. She uses the Encyclopedia Britannica for a doorstop, and this afternoon she saw Johnny Hayes’s mother and sent her back to her hotel in hysterics.”

  “Good God,” Fuller said. “Are you sure you’re all right? It sounds like delirium.”

  “It’s all true,” Hilda said, trying to lean her head back against the car cushion and deciding against it.

  “And after all that you still think the girl is normal?”

  “I’m not sure I’m normal myself.”

  She was determined to go back to her case, and it was useless to argue with her. Fuller tried it, only to meet with stubborn silence. Finally he turned on the top light and surveyed her. Some of her color had come back, although her face was dirty, her short gray hair standing in every direction and her white uniform smeared. But her eyes were cold and hard and very Hilda-ish at her most obstinate.

  “All right,” he said resignedly. “If you can take it I can. It’s your head and your headache.”

  Before he left her however he got a description of her assailant and was thoughtful for some time, trying to
assort the various items. The surgical dressing he did not bother about. “If she shot her mother and doesn’t want it known that’s their affair.” But the wedding dress puzzled him.

  “Would she burn it?” he suggested. “After all it couldn’t have been a pleasant thing to have around.”

  “The furnace isn’t going. She may have sold it.”

  “I see. You think this man was after money?”

  “He was after mine,” she said drily. “He got my mother’s watch too. That’s all I care about.”

  He got a description of the watch, in case it was sold or pawned. Then he sat back and looked at her again.

  “Now see here,” he said. “What we want to know is why the girl shot at her mother, if she did. Why they had the car accident, and if there may be another one. That’s why you’re there. You must have some idea by this time.”

  “Ideas!” she said bitterly. “I’m filled with them. One thing I’d like to know is why Tony is consulting Volume Thirteen of the Encyclopedia Britannica.”

  He eyed her with annoyance.

  “See here,” he said, almost violently, “if you’ve got any theory on this case I want it. It’s no time to hold out on me.”

  But Hilda merely shook her head, a gesture which proved disastrous, and remained silent.

  VIII

  It was one in the morning before they reached the house, and some time later before Aggie in a dressing gown opened the front door an inch or two and gazed with terrified eyes at the two of them. Hilda was urbanely calm.

  “Sorry to bother you,” she said. “I was knocked down and my bag taken. This gentleman found me and kindly brought me home. Is everything all right?”

  Aggie had found her tongue.

  “I’ve been scared to death about you,” she said. “Yes, they’re all asleep. Maybe I’d better stay with Miss Alice tonight.”

  “I’m perfectly all right,” said Hilda, staggering slightly. “Go to bed, Aggie, and don’t worry.” She turned to Fuller formally. “And thank you very much. You’ve been most kind.”

  The Inspector took the hint, mumbled something and departed, while Hilda sat down on a chair in the hall and watched the walls rotate and finally settle back to where they belonged. Aggie was still looking startled.

  “Who did it?” she asked. “I declare, the amount of crime since this war makes a body wonder. Did you see him?”

  “I caught a glimpse of him,” Hilda said cautiously. “A man about forty and very well dressed. He had a dark skin. That’s all I saw.”

  Aggie stared at her.

  “Him?” she said. “Why should he be knocking you down?”

  “You know who he is?”

  But Aggie pursed her lips.

  “No, miss,” she said stolidly. “I thought for a minute it was somebody I’d seen around. But it couldn’t be.”

  If she knew more she was’ not talking, and with her help a dirty and exasperated Hilda climbed the stairs. Alice had taken her sleeping tablet and was quiet, and Aggie followed Hilda into her room.

  “I put the book in your bureau,” she said, with the air of a conspirator. “She never noticed the change. She was out for a while and when she came in she looked queer. I feel kind of worried about her.”

  Hilda sat down dizzily on the edge of the bed.

  “I haven’t told Miss Alice about the dresses,” Aggie said, still cautiously. “I’ve been everywhere. They’re not in the house. I’ll take my Bible oath on it.”

  Hilda got up and began to take off her filthy uniform. She was not listening to Aggie’s account of the wedding dress. She was back in the car, talking to Fuller and he was saying it sounded like delirium. So it did, but it had a definite beginning, if not yet an end.

  “Try to think back, Aggie,” she said. “How were things here before Miss Tony broke her engagement?”

  “Just the way they’d always been, miss. Except for the excitement, packages coming and clothes and all that. The florist in to see about the flowers for the reception, and the caterer about what they were to eat.”

  “How about Miss Tony?”

  “She was singing all over the place. Very happy she was, miss, and that crazy about the lieutenant it would make you want to cry.”

  “When did that stop?”

  Aggie thought.

  “Well, about ten days before the wedding. I remember Stella saying her breakfast tray hadn’t been touched. The next day I saw her coming downstairs, looking sort of sicklike. She went into the library and stayed there a couple of hours. I guess she’d used the telephone, for when she came up she went to her Aunt Alice’s door and said there wouldn’t be any wedding at all.”

  “How did they take it? Her mother and Miss Alice?”

  “They acted like they thought she was out of her mind. But she wouldn’t budge an inch. Her mother about had a fit. She hasn’t really been the same since.”

  “What reason did she give?”

  “I don’t know as she gave any, miss,”

  “And how long after that did Tony walk in her sleep?”

  “On her wedding night,” Aggie said impressively. “Can you blame the poor child, miss? She’d been queer all day. She did her room and her mother’s. Then she locked herself in and I never saw her until that night, when I heard the shots.”

  “Just what did you see then?”

  “Stella and I both heard the shots. We didn’t wait to put anything on. We ran to the stairs, and down below Miss Alice was bending over Tony on the floor, just inside her mother’s door. Mrs. Rowland was screaming in her bed. When I got there she was trying to get out of it.”

  “What happened to her afterward?”

  “Mrs. Rowland? Well, she looked kind of faint and I made her get back. She was shaking all over.”

  “You didn’t think a bullet had struck her?”

  Aggie started.

  “You mean she was shot!” she said incredulously. “And said nothing about it? Not her, Miss Adams. She’d have raised the roof.”

  “There was no blood about?”

  “Not that I saw. I wasn’t there but a minute.”

  “Then why does she wear a bandage on one arm?”

  Aggie looked relieved.

  “Oh, that,” she said. “She has neuritis. It’s been worse the last few weeks. That’s why she’s in bed so much.”

  “How about the lights that night, Aggie? You say you saw Tony on the floor. Was the hall light on?”

  “It always is. Miss Alice is the nervous sort.”

  “And Mrs. Rowland’s room? Was that light on too?”

  Aggie hesitated.

  “Well, now I come to think of it it wasn’t. I could see well enough though, with the door open. I didn’t turn it on until later, after we’d got Miss Tony to bed and kind of settled.”

  She went up to bed after that, and Hilda washed and took another look at her patient. Alice however was still comfortably asleep. Hilda went back to her room and took the heavy volume Aggie had left from her bureau drawer. It was Volume XIII, Jere to Libe, and she put it on her bed and examined it If there were any markers in it she could not see them, and no part of it appeared to have been used more than any other. Finally she picked it up and shook it. A small piece of blank paper fell out, and she was annoyed at her carelessness. She should have gone through it page by page, she reflected, and in a very bad humor and with a worse headache put herself to bed on Alice’s couch.

  She had not yet gone to sleep when Tony came carefully into the room. She stood in the doorway as if she was uncertain for a minute or so. Then she came directly to Hilda and stood looking down at her. She had been so quiet that had Hilda not been awake she could not have heard her. She was not walking in her sleep, however, and she seemed relieved when she saw Hilda was awake.

  “I wonder if I may have a sleeping tablet,” she whispered. “Mother’s are all gone, and I’ve been awake for hours.”

  In the half-light from the hall she looked young and rather pathetic.
Evidently she did not know what had happened. She was shaking however and Hilda reached out and caught her wrist. Her pulse was fast and irregular. On impulse she drew her out into the hall and closed the door.

  “What’s wrong, Tony?” she said. “There is something, isn’t there? I’m a nurse. I’m used to all sorts of things. Maybe I can help you.”

  Tony gave her a thin smile.

  “That’s kind of you,” she said. “There isn’t anything really.” Then, as if she had just thought of it: “When I’m nervous I sometimes walk in my sleep. I don’t want to tonight. That’s all.”

  “If you’re worried about your mother …”

  “What about my mother?” Her voice had changed, was sharp and challenging.

  “I saw the bandage on her arm, you know. I don’t want to worry you, but if she’s had an injury—”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Tony asked coldly.

  Hilda lost patience at last.

  “Don’t be a little idiot,” she said sharply. “I’m saying that if your mother has been shot in the arm it ought to be properly cared for.”

  Tony gasped.

  “Who told you that? About the shooting?” she demanded.

  “My dear child, it’s not a secret, is it?” Hilda said practically. “People do queer things in their sleep. I had a patient once who almost choked her own baby to death. She thought she was choking a burglar.”

  Some of the suspicion died in Tony’s face, but she looked ready to collapse.

  “I see,” she said. “The doctor and the servants. Especially Aggie. And Aunt Alice, of course. But I didn’t shoot my mother, Miss Adams. You can ask her yourself.”

  Hilda was certain Nina would deny it with her last breath, no matter what the fact. She said nothing, however. She brought the tablet and Tony swallowed it with a sip of water and handed back the glass.

  “That man I was talking to tonight,” she said. “He’s the brother of a maid we had in Honolulu. He’s out of work, he says. But there are plenty of jobs. I don’t want Mother to be bothered about him.”

  Hilda nodded. She was not to mention this man, evidently. And she had been right. Tony had seen her across the street, had probably used her as a threat too. But she could have no idea of what had happened since, or that the police were after him, that Fuller had inaugurated a citywide search for him.