Through a clear space scratched in the thin whitewash that covered the glass Todd could see the wooden tables inside, covered with flats of earth in which small leaves showed green. He glanced downward at the plank walk between the tables. A short cylindrical glass jar was visible there, partly filled with a colorless liquid. Through the open door he glimpsed two more. The warm, steamy, earthy smell of all greenhouses drifted out and blew softly away on the wind.
“Now,” said Mrs. Majendie, and walked in with a firm step. She looked up and down along the ground. Complete stillness came over her, and at the same moment Todd saw what she had seen. From under one of the tables protruded a thin brown hand, curled like a bird’s claw.
Without moving, old Chloe said, “My poor Joan. My poor, poor Joan.” Then she bent with surprising ease and swiftness, going on her knees beside the thin body that the table all but concealed. She touched the hand briefly. “She’s dead, I’m afraid. She must have died a good many hours ago.”
“Please,” said Todd sharply, “I needn’t remind you not to move anything, I suppose?” He in turn glanced around. The plank walk was clean and dry. There was nothing on it but the three jars.
Mrs. Majendie shook her head. “I gave way to an impulse, last Tuesday,” she said as if to herself. “It was a terrible mistake for me to tell you about my husband. This is what I have done.”
Todd, now squatting beside her, remarked, “You will forgive me for doubting that?”
“Why else should the poor soul kill herself?”
“You think that is what she did?”
Mrs. Majendie got to her feet, more stiffly than she had gone down. “I am afraid so.” She took a container from a high shelf and glanced into it. “We were low on the cyanide eggs. There were only three left. Joan knew where they were, she used them all in these three jars of acid to—to make sure. And then she lay down, I think, and closed her eyes.”
“Yes. They’re closed. I have never heard how the gas chamber—” Todd broke off and stretched to look around past the top of the still head. “There’s something—the pieces of a heavy flowerpot, I should think, and the earth that may have spilled out of it. Did you leave broken pots under these benches as a rule?”
The old lady looked at him keenly. “Never to my knowledge.”
“And—I can’t see very well without moving her, but there’s something like a bruise on the far side of her head.”
“There is? Could Joan have been bending over, and tipped the pot off the table so that it stunned her?”
“And put the eggs into the acid afterward, Mrs. Majendie?”
“Mr. McKinnon, what do you want me to tell the police?”
Todd looked up at her. Presently he got to his feet and brushed the knees of his trousers. “I should tell them that you have found Miss Godfrey dead, and that’s all,” he said.
“I’m grateful for your advice. You will stay until they come? Yes, of course, you would have to.” She turned her head. “Very well, Ryn, come in if you want to, but I see no need for it.”
For the past few minutes Todd had forgotten about the figure that had been climbing the cliff path. He glanced outside at Ryn Johnson, who was standing motionless on the gravel, her green coat tightly wrapped around her, her eyes dark and ringed with what seemed like fatigue. “Joan?” she said unsteadily.
He turned back and stooped once more. Yes, he was right. The loose earth from the pot had been pushed into a ridge on the far side of Joan Godfrey’s head. It looked very much as if she had been pushed under that bench after she was unconscious.
He went out, shutting the door behind him. He’d done the best he could for Nelse, but he hadn’t been quick enough to keep Mrs. Majendie from picking up that can that had held the cyanide eggs. He had, however, noted just where she’d taken hold of it.
“—see her Tuesday night?” Mrs. Majendie was finishing a sentence to her niece.
Ryn shook her head dumbly, her eyes fixed on Chloe’s. With a sudden unaccountable feeling that was like a crackling of the nerves, Todd realized that he had never before seen either of the Johnson girls with their aunt. Perhaps this was hardly the right time for evaluating an attitude, but something about Ryn’s tucked-in chin and the way her eyes were lifted gave the impression that she loved and admired her Aunt Chloe and went in terror of her.
“It’s a shock, I know,” said the old lady with great kindness, “but you must get yourself in hand, my dear. What time did you get home on Tuesday night?”
Ryn Johnson forced out a few hoarse words. “Not late. About—eleven.”
“I was home by then, myself. Joan was already gone. When did Cass come in?”
Again Ryn shook her head. With what seemed like a great effort she unclasped one hand from the front of her coat, and moved it shakily in the direction of the greenhouse. “Is there—” she said in a painful whisper, “is—is it only Joan—in there?”
Todd looked at her narrowly, turned and stepped back into the greenhouse. There was another bench at the far end, on which some sacks had been spread out to dry, their hanging ends shadowing the space underneath. He bent swiftly and looked.
There was a large basket there. He took a plant stake from the table near him and carefully lifted the basket’s lid. For a long minute he gazed at what was inside it.
From the open air came that almost unrecognizable voice. “Cass—Cass hasn’t been home since yesterday morning. She was asleep when I got in Tuesday, she left Wednesday before I got up—I didn’t know where she was going, she didn’t come home at all last night, I sat up waiting for her—this morning I called David Shere, but he hadn’t seen her—”
Todd stepped out again. “She’s not in there, Ryn. We’d better tell the police that she’s disappeared, at the same time we—”
Ryn’s shadowed eyes turned to his. “But you did see something. I heard you suck your breath in.”
“Yes. There’s a wicker carrying basket, and Joan’s Siamese cat is inside it.”
“I thought she had taken Dian with her,” said Mrs. Majendie gravely. “Evidently she did—but farther than I knew. Isn’t that a point in favor of suicide, Mr. McKinnon?”
“That’s hardly for me to say. It isn’t just—” Todd hesitated—“that the cat has been gassed. Its head was crushed, Mrs. Majendie. It looked almost as if someone had—swung it against a rock wall.”
“Joan—” said Mrs. Majendie in a low voice, “Joan would never have done that to her cat.”
Todd, his attention caught by a stifled sound from Ryn, looked around quickly. She was gazing at her aunt, and this time the meaning of the look was plain; she was in mortal terror.
“We—we must get the police. I’ll call them, I’ll call Howard, you stay here, I’ll do it,” she cried out through chattering teeth; and then she had wheeled and was off up the slope toward the redwood house.
Her eyes, her voice, every movement of her body while she stood there had told a story of cruel strain; Todd had stood near her, expecting that at any minute she might crumple up in a faint; but her feet were swift and steady on the cliff path, her speed did not slacken as she rounded the turn, the green coat flying out behind her, and disappeared beyond the lip of the cliff.
CHAPTER TEN
GEORGINE MCKINNON, having set her hand to the plough—or, in this case, the bottle of Windex—was not going to turn back, but she was performing with a very ill grace. The bedroom rugs had gone into the washer immediately after Todd’s departure, so that part of her resolution had been fulfilled. Of course, getting them to dry flat was something else, but they were now hung up to get the first moisture out, and maybe tomorrow they could be laid on the Manfreds’ basement floor. She told herself, however, that no part of the window-washing could be postponed. She would tackle the big bedroom at the front of the house first, and a dismal job it was, too, what with her having to work in a heavy sweater… The bathroom window was of nubbled glass, and the opaquer it was the better. She needn’t bother with th
at. Todd might be at home any minute, wanting to work in his study, so perhaps it might be better not to go in there and get the air as chill as the grave… As for Barby’s room, that had been done fairly recently—well, only a few weeks ago…
The house seemed very still. She longed for the sound of the typewriter; she would even have welcomed the First Symphony. On a gloomy sort of day like this one ought to have company, providing, of course, that the company was the right sort.
This bedroom looked out both on Cragmont Avenue and the cross-street. Georgine polished soberly, watching the autumn look of sky and trees, smelling the bonfire smoke, seeing the small children coming home from school, each with the day’s achievement of crayoning or finger-painting in a proud grasp. —It must be at least half-past three, she thought. —Todd’s late, I wish he’d come back.—
A sedan full of young women in smart fall suits went past. All the women were laughing and talking and lighting cigarettes, and Georgine looked at them with ignoble envy. She had had this feeling before, of being set apart, the world moving on normally about her, and herself the only person who was beset by fear.
“But then,” said Georgine half-aloud, “I feel that way when I’m going to have a tooth out, too. All those happy people who aren’t going to the dentist… Oh, dear, and I have an appointment tomorrow morning—only to have the inlay put in, of course.”
She dropped her work and went downstairs, somewhat defiantly, to telephone the hairdresser. It would make her feel better if she could get her hair shaped and washed tomorrow, too, and nuts to the expense—she’d save it somehow.
Deeper and louder voices could be heard from the sidewalk now, and she could easily identify the high-school crowd, who began to straggle homeward not earlier than four. She looked at the telephone dubiously, and then picked it up and called Mrs. Majendie’s number. Probably it wouldn’t be answered, or at best the old lady would be there, and would tell her that Todd had left two hours ago. But it wasn’t like him not to let her know—
The bell at the other end burred twice, and was answered; briskly, efficiently answered, by a deep bass voice. Georgine recognized it at once. “Allen Slater, what are you doing at Mrs. Majendie’s again?”
“Oh, it’s you, Mrs. McKinnon. —Yes, he’s here. I’ll see if he can come to the telephone.”
There were faint sounds of altercation in the background, and then Todd’s voice, nearer the instrument: “Like hell I won’t tell my wife!”
He told her.
When he had finished— “Todd McKinnon,” said Georgine, “did you suspect something like this? Was that why you went to the Canyon this afternoon?”
“Word of honor, no, Georgine. I’m not happy about it.”
“Oh, no? I’ll bet Nelse made some crack about the vultures gathering… A tiger smelling blood? Is that any better?… Well, wasn’t everybody rather relieved that there had been an undoubted murder? I’m sorry for the poor old creature, too, but I can’t regret the cat much… And you had to help discover them!”
“I have a feeling,” said Todd in a cautious low voice, “that anyone else might have done as well. And I don’t feel at all relieved. It’s the wrong thing to have happened, Georgine; it’s all wrong.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’ll explain later. Slater’s making faces at me from the door, I’ve got to get off the ’phone. Oh, by the way, you’re still alone, aren’t you?”
“Certainly I am, and not liking it much.”
“I’ll be home soon, with luck.” His voice dropped again. “I think Nelse may take Mrs. Majendie and Ryn down to the Hall of Justice after a while… Yes, Allen, coming!”
Georgine hung up, put a hand to her head and groaned aloud. After a time she remembered her unfinished job and dragged herself upstairs. It had seemed that the depth of depression had been reached, but she had sunk to a new low at this moment. So there had been a real murder; better fifty alarums and excursions into the Beyond-Truth than this evidence that someone would really kill. What was it that Todd had said? “A clumsy attempt to make it look like suicide or accident; possibly a li’le too clumsy.” Lucky that she’d saved some face; her fear had come out as flippancy over the telephone, but she was afraid now.
There was the homely task to be finished, there was the placid suburban street outside, and the high-school students still strolling home by ones and twos, the girls’ soft mouths bright with newly applied lipstick, their burnished hair blowing in the chilly wind. There was nothing to be afraid of here, but she was afraid.
Twenty minutes later, when she was nearly done, a car stopped at the foot of the steps. Todd, she thought on a wave of relief; leaned out perilously to call a greeting, and then swallowed the welcoming words. The man who was charging up the stone stairs as if he meant to take the house by storm turned out to be David Shere.
He saw her, stood still with his head tipped up, and shouted, “Is Cass here?”
“Cass Johnson? No, of course not,” Georgine called back.
“Do you know where she is? She didn’t call you or anything?”
“Now, why should I, or should she?”
“Oh, God.” David Shere deflated suddenly. “I’ve got to find her. She’s been missing since yesterday.”
“I know,” said Georgine coldly, “and I also know what’s been happening up at the Canyon. If you think I—”
Shere wasn’t listening. “Look here,” he said desperately, “I’ve been looking for her all day, ever since Ryn called me this morning to find out if I’d seen her. And I hadn’t, not since we were here Monday. She goes to the Day Nursery on Tuesday, and she never lets me take her to lunch or dinner that day, so I didn’t set eyes on her. And I wasn’t home all Wednesday. There was that business with you people, in San Francisco, and I stayed over there till pretty late that night looking for Mrs. Trumbull. So when could I have seen Cass? And that was three disappearances!”
“If you’re worried about your landlady,” said Georgine, “we found her. Never mind where. That just leaves Cass.”
“Yes, and you know what it might mean! The Godfrey woman was found dead, and—maybe Cass is somewhere else, dead too.”
“She isn’t dead here,” Georgine informed him. “Hadn’t it occurred to you that the police might have thought of this place? They asked Todd if she was here this noon, when he talked to Nelse.” (He hadn’t thought to tell her about it until half an hour ago, but that was unimportant.)
“Nor—alive?” Shere asked huskily.
“Are you crazy? D’you think we have her hidden in the priest’s hole, to deceive Nelsing?”
“No. No, I guess not. Maybe I am sort of crazy.” David Shere swayed a little, as if from overwhelming fatigue. “I— when I heard about Miss Godfrey—”
“How did you hear?” Georgine looked down at him in sudden suspicion.
“I called up Mrs. Majendie,” he said. “—Look, couldn’t I come in and tell you about it? I’m just about all in.”
“I’m not letting anyone in. Sit on the steps if you want to.”
He did so, after a pleading upward look. “You see, Mrs. McKinnon, I’d had a note from Miss Godfrey…Yes, the police know about it, I’ve just come from talking to ’em… She must have mailed it Tuesday night, they figured, but it wasn’t picked up from that box near Mrs. Majendie’s until Wednesday morning. It was under my door when I got home late that night. She’d meant to come and see me that evening, that Wednesday, for some crazy reason. I wasn’t sorry to have missed her—if I had missed her; my landlady on Grove Street said she’d been in the lower hall all evening, and nobody’d been there. Just the same, I thought I’d better call up, the note said it was about something that—” His voice went into quotation tone—“ ‘concerned me closely, both here and Beyond.’ ”
“And now you’ll never find out,” said Georgine slowly. He shook his head and then lowered it wearily.
She looked down at him. Something that concerned him—it couldn
’t by any chance have been some knowledge that Joan had of his commission of a crime? And could he have met her by chance, that evening as she was going to his room and he was returning from the City—met her, heard what she had to say, and killed her? He knew the set-up at Cuckoo Canyon. He could have driven Joan Godfrey up there and placed her body in the greenhouse without too much danger of being observed. Todd had said they thought she’d been dead since Tuesday night, but—there had been no time yet for an autopsy, and the passing off of rigor mortis wasn’t an infallible test.
She thought, I’m safe enough here, surely; he can’t get at me; but if he suddenly decided to shoot—
Shere looked up at her again. “They’ve got Ryn down at the police station now,” he said. “I don’t know what they’re doing to her. If they think she had any hand in Cass’s disappearance—”
Something about his attitude caught Georgine’s attention. It was almost as if this were the only thing that really worried him; as if he wanted to find Cass only for Ryn’s sake. She said, “Mr. Shere, which of the Johnsons are you really in love with?”
“What?”
“I said, which of them are you in love with?” Georgine shouted.
“What business is that of yours?” he shouted back, leaping to his feet.
“Sit down and keep your temper. If anyone around here gets mad, it’s going to be me. You owe me something, David Shere—plenty, in fact. Now just answer that one question.”
He sat down, and once more lifted his face, with a look on it that was almost piteous. “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. Oh, Lord, I wish I had a drink.”
Georgine’s compassion, always getting the better of her at the unhandiest times, did so now. “You do look as if you needed one,” she admitted. “I—if you’d stay right there, I’d get it for you.”
She ran downstairs, found the meager remains of Nelsing’s gift Bourbon, and after a little thought emptied it into a screw-top jar. If anyone happened to be passing the steps while he was drinking, it might look a bit better. She then put the jar into a large paper bag with twine handles, attached a length of string, went upstairs again and lowered the bag from the window.
The Smiling Tiger Page 17
