Death in the Back Seat

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A Lady of Mystery

  The missing high-school annual revived my thirst for information. I wanted to learn more about Jane Coatesnash, a good deal more. Beyond vague gossip I had little positive knowledge of the girl, her death and disappearance. I determined to adopt Harkway’s suggestion and to consult the newspaper files.

  The Crockford public library was not citified enough to boast a periodical room. Outdated publications were stored in the attic. I climbed a flight of stairs to a musty, dusty space lost beneath a maze of overhanging eaves. Stack after stack of yellowing newspapers climbed to the sloping room. They gave forth an odor of dry rot and decay. A heap of magazines, fallen, spread like a pack of cards, strengthened the illusion of neglect and disuse.

  In the wan illumination I saw two things. The dust on the floor was marked by footprints where someone had walked; a round smudge before one of the newspaper stacks indicated that someone had sat or knelt there a short time previously. I approached the newspapers. I simultaneously discovered that each stack contained issues of the Crockford Blade for a particular year, and that directly before the 1920 stack was the smudge on the floor. Wondering who else had possessed an interest strangely like my own, I briefly studied the smudge, then spread a handkerchief, dropped to my knees and pulled out a bundle of papers.

  Except as to year, the issues of the Crockford Blade were not chronologically arranged. I desired reports for two months only. February 1920, June 1920. These eight weeks covered the disappearance and search, the sad conclusion of the mystery.

  The task I set myself was dull and tedious. Beside me mounted a discard pile. I paused once to read the society notes of January 2, 1920. On January 2, fifteen years before, Jane Coatesnash had entertained at luncheon. She received her “many friends in the lovely Coatesnash drawing-room”; she presided at a table “bedecked in larkspur and delphinium”; she wore a “Paris frock, taffeta in the new apple green.” With my knowledge of her death falling like a shadow across the printed page, Jane Coatesnash clothed herself in vividness and life. I saw her in the apple green; I saw the Coatesnash drawing-room in a different light; I grasped at and dimly understood an old woman’s overwhelming, uncomprehending grief.

  I resumed my labors. Perhaps fifteen minutes later I paused, listened. Someone had come into the attic. I was quite sure of it. Someone had quietly climbed the stairs and stood now, watching me. I turned.

  Annabelle Bayne and I stared at each other from opposite corners of the dusky room. A smile curved her lips. I spoke first.

  “Good heavens! How you startled me. Why didn’t you speak?”

  Her hand sketched an airy gesture. “I hated to interrupt. You were so intensely occupied.” Her bright, quick glance included me, the papers on my lap, the papers on the floor. “What on earth are you doing?”

  I didn’t propose to say. Her smile deepened, and she passed the silence negligently. “Never mind, Mrs. Storm. I can guess what you’re hunting and you’re simply wasting time. Those months are gone.”

  “What months?”

  “February and June of 1920. The months that carried Jane’s story. They’ve disappeared. I know. I looked this morning.”

  Too taken aback to question her sudden interest in the fifteen-year-old tragedy, I heard her question mine.

  “What did you expect to find in the stories? What put them in your mind?” I said nothing. She paused. “Did you decide to come here after you learned Laura Twining hadn’t returned the high-school annual?”

  “So you knew that, too!”

  She nodded, crossed the room. Planting an elbow on the adjoining stack, she leaned there, languid and yet alert, in her way. “Are we friends or aren’t we? Didn’t we agree to work together, you and I? How can we, if you make a mystery out of everything?”

  Incomprehensible, that woman with her calm assumption that she and I were allies. How like her to demand my confidence, when as recently as yesterday she had fobbed me off with unblushing lies! She was waiting—a reply was indicated.

  I said coldly, “There’s no mystery. I’ve heard a lot about Jane Coatesnash and I was curious.”

  “Which means you refuse to say why you wanted to read the papers.”

  “Will you say why you did?”

  “I didn’t want to read them,” was the provoking answer. “I only wanted to see if they were here, I thought they might not be”

  “Why should you think that?” I demanded irritably. “If you are sick of mysteries, so am I! How could you possibly suspect newspapers fifteen years old had disappeared?”

  Annabelle shifted the elbow. “My reason wasn’t logical; it was just a hunch I had. After learning yesterday about the high-school annual, I remembered the articles in the Blade. I thought Laura might have carried off the newspapers; so this morning I dropped by to see. I’m convinced now she took them. They’re gone.”

  “Laura! But why?”

  “She took the annual.”

  “Where did you find out? From Miss McCall?”

  She shook her head. Again she smiled, and dropped a bombshell in my lap. “The high-school annual isn’t really missing. I have it.”

  “You have it! Where?”

  “At home.”

  I was amazed and silent. Also I daresay I looked skeptical. She studied my face. “You don’t believe me, do you? Why don’t you come to the house and see for yourself? I’ll gladly show the thing.”

  “How does it happen to be there?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll explain at lunch.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s past twelve. Suppose you postpone your researches and lunch with me. Then we can talk.”

  I recalled an old saw to the effect that one should beware the Greeks bearing gifts. Annabelle Bayne was an opportunist, a born trader, a glib and talented liar. Obviously there was a joker in the invitation. In some unknown fashion, what I knew or what she suspected that I knew must be important to her. On the other hand, she knew certain things I needed to know. Facts important to me. I badly wanted an explanation of the high-school annual. Unless I went, it was evident she would not explain.

  I accepted.

  The Bayne home, a spacious colonial dwelling which I had viewed only from the beach, bore throughout its interior the imprint of Annabelle’s personality. She lived there alone, and she had made restless and like herself a serene landmark of the past. Pine-paneled walls were hung with startling black and whites, and garish lithographs. Copies of Spur and The New Yorker spilled from a Sheraton table; a square cushion-like contraption, more comfortable to look at than to sit on, unfolded beside a Chippendale sofa; a smart portable typewriter, painted red, struck an anachronistic note on a seventeenth-century desk. Bakelite bowls of flowers, oddly shaped, mingled the deep blue of bachelor buttons with the raw disturbing orange of marigolds.

  Annabelle flung off her hat, sank to the cushion-like contraption, rang for lunch. Rummaging in an open bookcase partially hidden by the cushion back, she selected a volume, tossed it to me. “Here’s the annual. Are you convinced?”

  “Won’t you tell me where you got it?”

  A stout-waisted village girl, absurd in a frilly cap and apron, entered and began to set the table. Annabelle nodded at her.

  “Velva turned it up.” To the girl she said, “What became of the wrappings?”

  Velva produced a square of thick brown wrapping paper, creased in the shape of a book, and a length of cotton string. She gave me a dully curious look. Her mistress spoke.

  “Now about your finding the book. Tell it just as you told me.”

  The girl assembled labored phrases. “I was dusting yesterday around ten o’clock, or maybe earlier. I took out the books. This one had been pushed behind the others, stuck against the wall. It was wrapped—I thought it was a package, a box of stockings maybe. Soon as I seen it, I gave it to you.”

  “You don’t,” said Annabelle, “dust half enough, my girl. Else you would have come upon it weeks ago.”<
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  Velva shuffled her feet. “The book wasn’t hurting no one, the dust neither. They was out of sight.”

  Annabelle laughed. “A new definition of successful housekeeping, not a bad one either. Now run along. Tell Mary we will have sweetbreads and ham—and fresh peas, if she ordered them.”

  The kitchen swallowed Velva. I glanced at Annabelle. “But how came the annual to be in your bookcase?”

  “‘Laura Twining forgot and left it there. On top, of course, but it slipped behind. Nearly two months ago—the day she sailed. February 17th, wasn’t it? That’s the only time she has been here.”

  “She called on you?”

  “Dear me, no.” The brown eyes twinkled. “Laura and I are chronic enemies. She thinks I’m fast; I think she’s a bore. She got out of the car with Mrs. Coatesnash for the usual polite good-byes—they were on their way to New York then.”

  At once the case which Jack and I had patiently evolved developed an annoying flaw. If Laura Twining had stopped at the Bayne house, she had not been murdered on the back road leading from Hilltop House to Crockford—not unless the limousine had retraced its course. There were other back roads, deserted, suited to secret purposes. But a casual farewell call hardly suggested itself as a prelude to murder. Would Mrs. Coatesnash have brought her companion here, paused to chat with a friend, if she had had murder in her mind? Annabelle stirred among her cushions. “Why are you frowning so? Have you thought of something?”

  “Nothing of any consequence.”

  I hurriedly opened the book. Immediately, on page 33, it fell apart. From the center of the page the picture of a dark young girl gazed out with dark, young, uncomplicated eyes. Jane Coatesnash, class of ’20. President of the Sorosis Club, Treasurer of the Quill Club, class historian. Her average for the four-year term was A; her ambition was social service; she was bound for Mather. Not a beautiful girl. Instead, deadly serious and a little plain.

  “Oh,” I said. “I imagined she would be pretty.”

  “Jane,” said Annabelle, “was exquisite. More than pretty. Much, much more. She had the virtues that have gone out of fashion. Plus sense and spirit. Plus charm. She wasn’t priggish.” A caption, typical of high school wit, was printed beneath the photograph. I read it: “This is a matter beyond our ken—little Jane craves older men.” A senseless, silly, perplexing rhyme to be associated with the grave young face. I read the couplet a second time.

  “What does it refer to?”

  Annabelle shrugged. “Those kid things always baffle me. No doubt the lack-wit editor was lamenting the fact that Jane preferred study to callow boys.” The subject was distasteful to her, and she briskly changed it. “Did you hear me say we found the annual done up in wrapping paper? This paper. It struck me as curious. Why should Laura wrap a library book?”

  I felt startled. “Perhaps she intended to mail it back.”

  “Why mail it back? The car must have gone directly past the Square. Why didn’t she plan to drop it then? Apparently she didn’t. Furthermore, she must remember where she left the book; it’s long overdue, and yet I haven’t heard from her.” Annabelle’s steady gaze fastened upon me. It was my turn to shift the conversation. “Did you see Laura leave the annual?”

  “Not actually. However, she was sitting in the Windsor chair beside the bookcase, and I’ve a hazy recollection she carried a squarish package. It lay on her lap awhile.”

  Lunch arrived. Perfectly cooked, perfectly served. Annabelle knew wines, herbs and sauces, as her type would, and kept her staff at its culinary best. We ate indifferently, virtually in silence, busy with our separate thoughts. At length my hostess poured coffee, handed me a Wedgwood cup. “I’m certain Laura Twining took those newspapers, stole them in honest fact. I’m equally certain she had no intention of returning the book. But there I stick. I make nothing of it.”

  Suddenly, like the long-sought answer to a riddle, a possible explanation occurred to me. There was a hint of the psychic in Annabelle Bayne, or perhaps she only saw my face and guessed. She straightened. Her eyes grew big and almost frightened. “Good God,” she whispered, “is it possible?” She carefully laid down her spoon. “Suppose Jane were still alive. Suppose Laura Twining knew it.”

  This approximated my own stumbling theory. But Annabelle appeared to forget me. Her next words were uttered in the musing fashion of one who thinks aloud. “That would explain many things.”

  “For instance?”

  “It might clear up Laura’s interest in the annual, mightn’t it? Also it would clarify the missing newspapers.”

  “Are you being entirely frank?”

  The slow exasperating smile emerged. “Compared to you, I’m transparent as a pane of glass. You’re a queer little person, Lola Storm. You sit at my table, stiff as a poker, wary, suspicious, expecting the worst from me. Always the worst.”

  I seized the opening. “You puzzle me. Miss Bayne. Enormously.”

  “Nonsense. I’m very simple.”

  “You weren’t simple yesterday. Why did you say you had never met Franklyn Elliott?” Her expression did not vary, but I fancied she was embarrassed. I cast discretion to the winds. “Thursday night, about eleven o’clock, he came here. I was on the beach. I saw him.”

  She flushed, was confused. She recovered herself. “I won’t for a minute deny you’re right. But really I had to lie. Let me explain. It was the day of the inquest; Elliott didn’t wish to testify; he asked me to keep quiet about his being in the village. I promised and I do keep my promises.” She laughed ruefully. “When I can.”

  She annoyed me, but I almost liked her. She was one of those dangerous people who readily admit to their faults, and by doing so force you to accept them. I lighted a cigarette. “Would you mind saying what he wanted?”

  “Not at all. I am probably Mrs. Coatesnash’s closest friend, and she is his client. We discussed her and nothing else. It was a purely formal interview, quite short. If you had been in the room, you would have been immensely bored.” She sipped stone-cold coffee. “It was my first meeting with Elliott. He’s dull, but we got on fairly well. We had a common interest. I am distressed that Mrs. Coatesnash has been drawn into the Darnley case. So was he.”

  I stopped liking her. “Exactly. You are like everyone else in town—watching out for her and letting Jack and me watch out for ourselves.”

  She adopted the older-woman attitude. She sighed. “You are young, excitable and—mistaken. No one is persecuting you. Certainly I am not. You deceive yourself and refuse me when I try to help.”

  Her words seemed strained, pretentious, artificial. I looked her straight in the eye. “I’m not a child, Miss Bayne. You help only when it suits your own purposes. I daresay you still deny you saw the light. Just as you denied it yesterday.”

  “The light?”

  “The light in Hilltop House last night. I can assure you there was a light.”

  “There was!” Her fingers—strong fingers for a woman—closed about my wrist. “Tell me how you know.”

  I declined to answer, and blundered seriously. As I was to discover long afterward, I told her too little or too much. I might have altered the course of our later tragedies, saved one life certainly and possibly two, had I completed the confidence or failed to make it. She shook me.

  “I insist you explain about the light.”

  I had my small revenge. “I’m awfully sorry, but I gave my information to the police. They asked me not to talk. I promised, and I keep my promises.”

  She dropped her hand. Her eyes were filled with unspoken questions, but she uttered no further protest. She assisted me with my wrap and accompanied me to the door. To the end she clung to the fiction that we were in friendly accord, working together toward the same objective. I didn’t know what to make of Annabelle Bayne.

  As I walked down the steps, I glanced back and saw her in the foyer. She picked up the telephone, rang the Tally-ho Inn and requested Franklyn Elliott. We know now the tenor of her conversation. S
he repeated to the New York lawyer everything which had occurred during the meeting at the library and luncheon at the house. Consequently when Franklyn Elliott was interviewed by the police later on that afternoon, the lawyer was prepared.

  The luncheon, pregnant with its clouded inferences, occupied less than an hour. Through the fresh, sweet-smelling day I strolled on to Dr. Rand’s offices. His home and office were combined in a large, comfortable, rambling house somewhat in need of paint. Jack, Harkway and the physician were parting on the porch as I arrived. Jack waved at me.

  “Sorry to hold you up, Lola. We were longer than we expected.”

  “It’s all right. I was sufficiently diverted.”

  Harkway gave me a quick look, tipped his cap, asked Dr. Rand to phone him when he finished his report, and strode off toward the station. The physician followed us down a crocus-lined sidewalk to the car.

  “You folks in a hurry?”

  I said we weren’t.

  “Can you spare me several minutes?”

  We could. He took us through a waiting room, in its way as revealing of personality as Annabelle’s living room had been. It had glassed-in bookcases and graceful Windsor chairs. Bound volumes of The Stage and copies of Variety were mixed with medical journals and reports, and patients could take their choice. A reproduction of Rembrandt’s Consultation hung from one wall, but on the opposite wall an inscribed photograph of Lillian Russell showed a majestic bust and gleaming teeth. The actress had visited Crockford in 1901, and village gossips still reported that the physician had been her host at supper.

  We entered the consultation room. Dr. Rand closed the door, sat down and looked at us. Then in a voice so impersonal I hardly recognized it, he said: