Bring the Bride a Shroud

by Dolores Hitchens

  “And the ax?” said Stacey.

  “On the shelf above the mops, I think. At least, I remember seeing it there.”

  “You touched it?”

  For just a moment she stared at the detectives on the top stair. A fugitive something showed in her face: terror, wariness, caution—some emotion Mr. Pennyfeather was to try to analyze later.

  “I touched it,” she got out a little hoarsely.

  Taffy sprang up and began to scream. Her pale hair flew across a face in which mouth and eyes were screwed into a caricature of horror. “It’s a frame-up. It’s a frame-up!” She tried to run for the stairs.

  Stacey caught her with one bound and applied a hard brown hand where it did the most good. Taffy put her hands behind her and began to sob.

  “You quit that,” Stacey said. “You’re always gummin’ up things with that screech of yours. Now you let this relative of yours tell me about that ax. After she’s through”—he lifted his hand, and Taffy winced—“then you’re going to tell me all about that butcher knife.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I haven’t got a b-butcher knife!” wailed Taffy. “It’s a lie.”

  Mr. Jessop, who was wearing the green sweater but had covered his remarkable shorts with some gray trousers, stopped whittling to stare at her. “Hey. Wait a minute. Didn’t I say something last night about a knife?”

  “You sure did,” ground out Stacey.

  Jessop scratched his head. “Gee. I wonder what made me say a thing like that.”

  “What was she carrying?”

  “Something shiny. Not a knife. Gosh, I must have had a bun on.”

  “I had a flashlight. I wanted to peek into the empty rooms and see if Tick was hiding in one of them. We didn’t find him downstairs.”

  Stacey looked at her in impatience. “What’s all this?”

  Mr. Jessop and Taffy and Mrs. Blight poured their versions of the fall down the stairs and Tick’s escape in the dark at Stacey. Stacey squinted an eye fiercely in an attempt to follow the sense of the story. “Wait a minute,” he boomed forth suddenly. “You mean you came up here especially to see this Mr. Burrell?”

  “Y—yes,” said Taffy, a little uncertainly.

  “He was her fiancé,” shrilled Mrs. Blight. “The skunk!”

  “And he pushed her downstairs?” queried Stacey.

  “The brute!”

  Stacey turned his squint toward the official-looking men at the top of the stairs. “Attempted murder earlier in the evening,” he said with slow emphasis.

  One of the strange men nodded.

  “Nonsense,” cried Mr. Pennyfeather. “It wasn’t attempted murder at all. They’re lying!” He glared at Mrs. Blight, who didn’t glare back because she was obviously thinking furiously. “You can’t stick Mr. Burrell in jail and keep him there on the word of these people.” This, he thought, should accelerate Mrs. Blight’s train of thought—providing she was thinking what he thought she was: that if Tick were taken away for a murderer she and Taffy would be left twiddling their thumbs.

  “No,” said Mrs. Blight slowly, “I guess it wasn’t a real attempt to kill my ward. Miss Whittemore and Mr. Burrell were arguing at the top of the stairs and she—she just lost her footing. That’s all.”

  “Make up your mind!” roared Stacey, angry at having lost such a lead.

  “She’s told you the truth,” said Mr. Pennyfeather pointedly. “The girl slipped downstairs, perhaps in an effort to gain Mr. Burrell’s sympathy.” He sighed. Women all seemed to know so well what Tick’s weak point was. Mrs. Andler with her cut wrist, Glee with her bandages, Taffy leaping down into the lobby—it was a regular parade of cripples. “You were asking Mrs. Blight about touching that ax,” he reminded Stacey.

  Stacey grunted. “Yeah. Now, Mrs. B., go on with your story about the bathroom.”

  “My name is Blight, not Mrs. B.,” she corrected acidly. “As I said, I touched the ax handle.”

  “Why?” said Stacey.

  She looked him in the eye. “I don’t know. Perhaps I had a premonition about the crime. There’d been so much ill feeling displayed, you see, between the murdered woman and—a certain person.” She looked deliberately at Glee.

  “Threats, maybe?” urged Stacey, following her glance.

  “Well … You’d have to know the history of the affair to understand what I mean. You see, Mr. Burrell—”

  Glee Hazzard swung on her. “Shut up. I’ll discuss my affairs myself.” She turned to Stacey. “What this old bat is trying to say is that I used to be engaged to Tick Burrell and that his aunt broke up our engagement. I didn’t like Mrs. Andler. I loathed her.” She said this clearly and quickly. She was breathing hard, and a pink color had come into her face.

  Stacey looked slowly around the room. He was angry and he was on guard. “Anybody else here engaged to Mr. Burrell?” he burst out.

  Mr. Pennyfeather inched forward on the piano stool. “I see,” he began, “that it is time some clarification was made for your benefit, sir. Mr. Burrell is not at present engaged to either of these young ladies. He’s going to marry a member of the Women’s Army Corps, a young woman whom you know, Miss Caroline Pond.”

  “Carrie?” sputtered Stacey. “But good night, she’s—”

  “And it may be—indeed, I think it highly probable–that the occasion of this coming marriage was what drew these people here. I believe that Mrs. Andler, having got wind somehow of Mr. Burrell’s intentions, came with the idea of keeping him from marrying Miss Pond. Miss Hazzard, whom you may recall as being very pitifully bandaged, must have come with a hope of rousing some old flame. A flame, I might add, which I know was once very genuine. As for Miss Whittemore and her companion, I believe their plan was to work some sort of plot which would have put Mr. Burrell in such difficulties that he would have been forced into a new engagement–perhaps an immediate marriage.”

  Mrs. Blight sputtered an unintelligible protest.

  “Surely, sir,” went on Mr. Pennyfeather, “you see the logical answer to the question of Mrs. Andler’s murderer. The murderer is one of these people who wanted Mr. Burrell either for themselves or for someone in their control.”

  Mr. Jessop had stopped whittling.

  Stacey rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. “What’s this Burrell fellow got that the rest of us haven’t got?” he boomed.

  “Approximately,” said Mr. Pennyfeather, “five million dollars.”

  “Oh.” It was like the air going out of a punctured balloon.

  “Five million dollars which his aunt had controlled for him,” Mr. Pennyfeather concluded, “and which Tick will now have all to himself.” He was watching all of them. He saw Taffy’s fluttering hands, Glee’s nervous frown, Mr. Jessop’s poised knife like an exclamation point in steel. Miss Comfort’s mouth gaped, showing her big teeth. Mrs. Blight was polishing her glasses as though her life depended on it.

  He wondered what Caroline might be doing in that empty room. She had her ear to the door, no doubt. Was she happy, surprised, angry?

  Mr. Johns said: “If I’d had any idea a mess like this was brewing, I’d of thrown them out. Yes, I would of.”

  “Shut up,” said Stacey. To Mr. Pennyfeather: “Thanks, Mr. P. You’ve cleared up a lot of things with your little talk. I think I see a little way into the brush now. It’s queer,” he added, looking over the group, “what some people will do for money.”

  “That may be putting it harshly,” said Mr. Pennyfeather. “One or both of the young ladies may be genuinely fond of Tick.”

  Glee threw him a fleeting look of gratitude and went back to lighting a new cigarette.

  “I think your idea of having each person relate what happened yesterday evening was a very good one,” he concluded.

  Stacey collected his wits and began to walk up and down the lobby. “Hm-m-m. Yeah. We heard Miss Whittemore and Mrs. B. Let’s see.” He paused to study the register. “Mrs. Andler came in next. Then you, Jessop.” He pointed a fin
ger at Caroline’s uncle Joe.

  Jessop said quickly: “The lobby was empty when I came in. I put my name down and went on up to my usual. Had thought a little about trying to get Lou to let me in the house. That’s why I’d checked out.”

  “Lou wouldn’t let you in?” A grim ghost of a smile played around Stacey’s mouth.

  “I didn’t ask her. In the end, I just went off and had another drink.” He looked hangdog, a little weary.

  “I wonder,” said Mr. Pennyfeather apologetically, “if I might ask Mr. Jessop a question?”

  “Go right ahead,” said Stacey.

  “Had you ever heard of Tick’s aunt before last night?”

  Jessop shut his knife with a snap. “Nope. How should I?”

  “Did you know that your niece was engaged?”

  Jessop shrugged. “Sure. She’s been engaged before. So what?”

  Mr. Pennyfeather wasn’t sure that Jessop was telling the truth; the hangdog reluctance might be hiding something else. “The name Martha Andler wouldn’t have meant anything to you, then?”

  Jessop shook his head. If he felt the gaze of Stacey and Mr. Pennyfeather, the curious stares of the others, he gave no sign. “Nope. Not a thing.”

  Mr. Pennyfeather sighed. To Stacey: “That’s all. Thank you.”

  “Good point, too,” said Stacey. “Course, knowing old Joe here so long, I might be inclined to leave him out. Well—to get along. This ledger says you came in next, Miss Hazzard.”

  Glee exhaled smoke nervously. “I came in with Miss Comfort. I waited in the lobby while she went up to see which rooms were open. When she came down we registered and went upstairs.”

  “You were together, I guess, mostly?” queried Stacey.

  “Well … You understand that I had pretended, in hiring Miss Comfort, that I needed the services of a professional nurse.” She gave Miss Comfort a glance of apology. “So of course when we came upstairs she ran a great many errands for me that kept her out of the room.”

  “But she was with you every few minutes?”

  “That’s right.”

  Mr. Pennyfeather coughed gently; drew Stacey’s eye. “I was wondering about Mr. Jessop’s story of being run out of the bathroom.”

  “I didn’t run him out,” said Miss Comfort indignantly. “I merely rapped and when he put an eye at the door I asked if the bath were empty.”

  “The way you said it,” put in Jessop, “I thought it had better be. You sounded like a snapping turtle.”

  “Turtles,” said Miss Comfort witheringly, “don’t talk.”

  “And this was when?” asked Mr. Pennyfeather.

  “Just before all that ruckus.” Mr. Jessop pointed his knife handle at Taffy. “Just before she hit the stairs.”

  “I see.” Mr. Pennyfeather, however, was frowning. “At the time Taffy took her fall, you had just returned to your room across the hall from Mrs. Andler’s. And you, Miss Comfort, were in the bathroom.”

  “I was drawing a basin of water for Miss Hazzard. I intended to take it to the room and help her to wash. At about the time I was ready to go out into the hall, the lights went out. I was afraid, since the hall was unfamiliar to me, to try the trip in the dark with a full basin. I waited for some minutes in the bathroom. Then I went back to Miss Hazzard—without the water.”

  “She was in her room?” said Stacey quickly.

  “She was already in bed,” said Miss Comfort. “So I didn’t disturb her.”

  Stacey looked at Glee, who nodded. “I heard Miss Comfort look in. I was too tired to get up to wash. I pretended to be asleep.”

  Mr. Pennyfeather said: “Excuse me, Sheriff. Could I ask Miss Comfort where she found a basin?”

  “In the closet off the bath,” said Miss Comfort promptly.

  Stacey brightened like a display of neon. “You mean you opened that closet?”

  “I did.”

  “And saw the ax?”

  “No.”

  “Where was the basin?”

  “Next the dirtiest collection of mops I’ve ever seen,” snapped Miss Comfort. “I scrubbed that pan good, too, before running water into it.”

  Mr. Johns began to sputter.

  “Shut up, Ed,” said Stacey. “You know what kind of a housekeeper you are. Someday you’re going to find out it isn’t just the rooms that need cleaning. You’ve got halls and a lobby. And now you know what they think of your closet upstairs.”

  “Do you mean, Miss Comfort,” said Mr. Pennyfeather quietly, “that the ax really wasn’t there? Or could it have been in the closet without your noticing it?”

  She took a long minute to think. “I don’t believe it was there at all. I believe I’d have seen it if it had been.”

  Mr. Pennyfeather turned to Stacey. “I should like to explain, if I might, an idea which has occurred to me.”

  “Go right ahead,” said Stacey.

  “It concerns the whereabouts of Mrs. Andler during all the excitement over Miss Whittemore’s fall. You see, Tick and I had been waiting in Mrs. Andler’s room for her. She wasn’t there. We stepped out into the hall and saw no sign of her. Miss Comfort, we know now, was in the bathroom and even looked into the closet beyond. When all the fuss was made by Mrs. Blight and Miss Whittemore, I wondered why Tick’s aunt didn’t appear.”

  Stacey squinted and scratched his head. “Maybe she didn’t like these folks.”

  “She almost certainly didn’t like them, and their actions in regard to Mr. Burrell should have brought her out like a four-alarm fire.”

  Stacey ticked off his fingers. “She wasn’t in her room. She wasn’t in the bath. Nor the halls.”

  “Nor the lobby,” said Mr. Pennyfeather. “Nor the—the cactus garden.”

  Mrs. Blight drew a swift breath of enlightenment and glared at him.

  “When you made the rounds with the candles,” said Mr. Pennyfeather, turning to Mr. Johns, “did you see any sign of her?”

  “If I had,” said Mr. Johns, “you’d have known it. I don’t like middle-aged females who crowd in with soldiers.”

  “I take it, then, that you looked through the lower floor only.”

  “That’s right. Jessop was at the top of the stairs when the lights went out. He said you and that trouble-making soldier didn’t go up that way. So we looked in the lower rooms, and then I drove them all off to bed.”

  Mr. Pennyfeather felt again the cold touch of apprehension which he had felt that morning. The memory of the strange blue light in Mrs. Andler’s room was very clear; he thought that by shutting his eyelids he could see it again, flickering and ghostly. He kept his eyes open wide; he didn’t like the chilling thought of that light.

  “She hadn’t been murdered at that time,” said Mr. Penny-feather slowly. “That must have been all of a half-hour before I found her dying in her room. Where was she?”

  The room grew very still. There was the feeling of the hot desert morning crowding in at the open door. A few flies buzzed against the dusty windowpanes. Glee Hazzard exhaled a sigh and tapped her cigarette into an ash tray. Taffy Whittemore and Mrs. Blight were still as stones.

  “Where was she?” Mr. Pennyfeather asked again.

  “Maybe when we know that,” said Stacey grimly, “we’ll know who used that hatchet on her.”

  Chapter Nine

  “I can’t help but wonder,” said Mr. Pennyfeather to Sheriff Stacey, “whether anyone except her murderer saw Mrs. Andler after she entered the hotel.”

  Stacey nodded warily, keeping a poker face. “Yeah.” He shot a glance about the room which included the two silent men at the top of the stairs. “You, Miss Whittemore. Did you see her?”

  “No,” cried Taffy, shaking a pale-gold head. “I didn’t.”

  “You?” Stacey’s glance crept toward the grim cleanliness of Mrs. Blight.

  “So far as I knew, the woman hadn’t even come into the hotel. We were in our rooms, remember, settled for the night.” There was a great deal of fierce control behind her shining
lenses.

  “You made a trip to the bathroom and handled that ax,” Stacey pointed out.

  “That didn’t take long.”

  He swung suddenly to Glee. “Miss Hazzard?”

  The look that came into Glee Hazzard’s face was one of fear and tension. Mr. Pennyfeather knew all at once that Glee had seen Tick’s aunt and that her seeing her would somehow be against Glee. He whispered inwardly and agonizedly, to his own surprise: Lie, girl! Lie out of it!

  Glee stared uncertainly at Stacey. “I—Yes, I saw her.”

  Mrs. Blight said, “Now!” very loudly, as though some long-overdue truth were about to emerge.

  Stacey said: “Go on, Miss Hazzard.”

  “When I reached the top of the stairs on the way to my room, I glanced toward the rear of the hall. The light was quite brilliant. I saw a door to my left open an inch or so, and in the narrow space was Mrs. Andler’s eye and a part of her cheek. She did a most peculiar thing when she saw me—peculiar, that is, when you remember on what bad terms we were. She nodded, a quick short nod. It—it didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t now.”

  Stacey went back to squinting. Finally: “You do it, Miss Hazzard, just the way she did.”

  Glee stood up nervously. She fixed her eyes on Mr. Pennyfeather. She ducked her chin slightly in a way that signified recognition or agreement over something—a puzzling move when he tried to connect it with Mrs. Andler.

  “I see,” said Stacey. He looked for a long minute toward the head of the stairs. “Then what?”

  “That was all,” she said. “The door went shut.”

  “You didn’t see her any more?”

  “No.”

  Stacey obviously was putting Glee’s name in second place, right under Tick’s. “Well, let’s see. Miss Comfort, you were with Miss Hazzard. Did you see this nod from Mrs. Andler?”

  Miss Comfort shook her head. “I was behind and below Miss Hazzard on the stairs. I’m afraid I missed what she saw then.”

  “Maybe,” said Stacey to Glee, “Mrs. Andler wanted you to drop in on her later. Maybe that’s what the nod meant.”

  Glee sat down slowly. “I’d thought of that.”