Death Has a Small Voice

by Frances Lockridge

  “So it’s you,” Rogers said. He looked at the others. “Hello, Rogers,” Jerry North said.

  “What the hell goes on?” Rogers asked them.

  “Perhaps you’d better tell us,” Bill Weigand said.

  Rogers hesitated.

  “Now,” Weigand advised.

  Rogers looked from one to the other of the three men. He looked longest at Jerry North, and then seemed most puzzled. He looked back at Bill Weigand.

  “I got worried,” he said. “After you left—something came up. I got worried about Hilda.”

  “Why?” Bill asked him. “You weren’t this afternoon, Mr; Rogers. Why are you now?”

  Rogers hesitated again. They waited.

  “Well,” he said, “the manuscript I was telling you about—the manuscript of her novel—it’s disappeared. I found that out after you left. I decided to take it home and start reading it. And—we seem to have lost it. First Miss Godwin goes away, without telling anybody—”

  He stopped, because Weigand was shaking his head.

  “She told a man named Shaw,” he said. “Told him that she was going south. That—”

  “What’s Shaw got to do with it?” Rogers demanded. He flushed a little; his words were hurried. “Where does he come into it?”

  Bill Weigand told him. Rogers shook his head, with violence. They waited.

  “Maybe she told him that,” Rogers said. “Maybe she thought of going. But she didn’t go. She’d have told me before she went.” He spoke with conviction.

  “Why?” Bill asked.

  “Because—” Rogers began, and hesitated, and went on more slowly. “She’s submitted this book,” he said. “We hadn’t made a decision on it. She wouldn’t go away without telling us where we could reach her.” He looked at Jerry. “You know that, North,” he said. Jerry nodded.

  “You didn’t mention that this afternoon,” Bill said. “You seemed to think it was perfectly reasonable that she should merely go off somewhere.”

  “I know,” Rogers said. “It’s true, she does do that. But then, I got to thinking. And then the business about the manuscript came up.”

  “Go ahead,” Weigand said. “Tell us about that, Mr. Rogers.”

  Rogers told them. The manuscript of Hilda Godwin’s novel had come in, from her agent, about two weeks before. At that time, Rogers, who normally would have read it first, was away on vacation. “I’ve been her contact at the office recently,” Rogers explained. “Not on much—reprints of her earlier stuff, that sort of thing. Mr. Wilmot felt that, since the editor she used to work with isn’t with us any more, I might as well handle her prose, if she was going in for prose.” But with Rogers away, a preliminary reader had gone over the book and then it had been started on the rounds of advisory readers. “Just to get things moving,” Rogers explained. “In the end, I’d have made the recommendation to Mr. Wilmot, and he’d have decided. But with her name—” He shrugged, and looked at Jerry North. Jerry nodded.

  The first advisory reader had recommended publication, although he had qualified his approval. In some respects, it was a characteristic first novel. It was obviously autobiographical. Then it had gone to Professor Bernard Wilson. He had returned the manuscript a few days earlier. “Last Friday,” Rogers said. It had not been seen since.

  Wilson had personally returned the manuscript, leaving it with the receptionist in the outer office. He had also brought along his report, in a separate envelope. The receptionist had given him a receipt for the manuscript and put it on her desk, along with the report. “He’s very enthusiastic about the book,” Rogers added.

  This was in the middle of the afternoon. The receptionist was busy; the afternoon was busy. She had left her desk frequently to announce the more important of the visitors. It was late in the afternoon that she noticed the manuscript was missing, although the envelope containing Wilson’s favorable report was still on the desk.

  “And, reasonably enough, she supposed, somebody had picked it up,” Rogers said. “One of our people, I mean. She was so sure that she didn’t even mention it until Monday. It took most of Monday to find out that none of us had taken it. So—” He shrugged. “The point is,” he said, “nobody steals a manuscript. What would be the point?”

  Nevertheless, somebody had taken, if “stolen” was too strong a word, the manuscript of Hilda Godwin’s novel.

  “I didn’t hear of it until late this afternoon, as I said,” Rogers told them. “And then—then I got worried. I kept trying to reach Hil—Miss Godwin and finally I came down here. She didn’t answer so—well, I found the door was unlocked. I came in and called her a couple of times and then started to look around.” He looked around now, from Bill Weigand to Jerry North to Sergeant Aloysius Mullins. His expression suggested they make something of it.

  “For another copy of the typescript?” Jerry suggested.

  “For that,” Rogers said. “For Hilda herself. For anything I could find. I was worried.”

  “About the manuscript?” Bill suggested. There was a certain note in his voice. Rogers looked at him.

  “All right,” he said. “About Hilda. It’s nobody’s business but ours, but we’re—” he hesitated momentarily—“planning to get married. That’s really why I know she didn’t go south without telling me. I know she’s all right, of course but—” He let it hang.

  “You’re sure the door was unlocked when you came?” Bill Weigand asked. “That you came here, just on a chance, and just happened to find the door unlocked?”

  He waited; he very obviously waited, very sceptically waited. After a moment the tall, youngish man flushed again.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ve got a key. I didn’t say so because you’d misunderstand. It’s—Hilda and I are going to get married.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “You told us that. Well—did you find anything here? In the basement, say?”

  “I just started there,” Rogers said. “I looked down here, then upstairs. For her copy of the manuscript, I mean. She has a filing case down in the basement for old manuscripts and I was looking there. Then I heard you come in and—”

  “Decided to wait us out,” Bill told him.

  “All right,” Rogers said. “But I got cramped and moved and hit a box or something.”

  “Although for all you knew we might have been anybody,” Bill said. “A new set of burglars. Or—Miss Godwin and some friends. Mr. Shaw, say, or—”

  “All right,” Rogers said. “I listened. I wanted to find out. There’s an air shaft or something and it’s easy to listen. If Shaw had been here, I’d have come up fast enough.” He made the last statement with peculiar vigor.

  “Why?” Weigand asked him.

  “Because the—” he began. He stopped. “Never mind,” he said.

  They waited.

  “He won’t leave her alone,” Rogers said, after the silence had gone on, pressed down on him. “He keeps-bothering her. His wife knows it; everybody knows it. He’s not—not rational about it. She’s told him no, she’s told him about us. It doesn’t do any good. I’m about ready—” He stopped again.

  “I wouldn’t,” Bill said.

  Jerry North had had enough, by then.

  “For God’s sake, Bill,” he said. “Can’t you let this slide? We’ve got to—”

  “Right,” Bill said. “You didn’t find anything in the basement?”

  The last was to Rogers. Rogers shook his head.

  “Well try again,” Bill said. “You too, Mr. Rogers.” It was more order than invitation. They went back to the steep flight of wooden stairs, found a light switch at the top of it, went down into a cellar dimly lighted by a single dangling bulb. The flashlights helped.

  There was an oil burner; there was a filing cabinet, as Rogers had said. It was dust covered; the dust was smeared. “Let’s see your hands, Mr. Rogers,” Weigand said, and looked at them under the flashlight beam. They were grimed. They bore out his story.

  “Look for it,” Weigand sa
id. “Mullins will help.”

  Rogers hesitated a moment, turned to the filing cabinet; opened the top drawer and began to go through papers, bound typescripts. Mullins helped by watching.

  The basement was small, like the house. At the far end, a short flight of cement stairs ran up to a padlocked door.

  Opposite the oil burner there was a relic of the past—a coal bin of roughs, heavy boards, built out into the basement. The door was closed. They looked there first, by flashlight. There was coal dust on the floor, but it did not lie evenly. Feet had scuffed it; here something, or someone, had lain on the floor.

  Jerry saw the handkerchief first. It was small and black with dust. It had been white; it had had a brown border. Jerry North picked it up. As he held it, his hands shook a little.

  “Pam had one like this,” he said. “She wore it in the pocket of her dress. A beige wool dress.” He lifted the handkerchief to his face. “I think it’s the scent she uses,” he said. His voice was dull.

  “It’s not there,” Rogers said behind them and, behind him, Sergeant Mullins said, “That’s right, Loot.”

  Jerry and Bill Weigand hardly heard them.

  “She’ll be all right,” Bill Weigand said.

  “Look,” Jerry said. “Would you just as soon stop saying that?”

  They looked further. It did not take them long. At the end of the basement nearest the flight of cement steps there were several trunks and boxes. There had been one more, trunk or box. It was outlined on the floor; the marks of its dragged movement to and up the steps were clear. The marks stopped at the padlocked door.

  Jerry North wrenched at the door with his hands, fruitlessly. Bill stopped him. He sent Mullins to the police car for a tool.

  “Wait, Mr. Rogers,” Bill said, when Rogers moved as if to follow Mullins.

  VI

  Wednesday, October 29: 1:27 A.M. to 4:15 A.M

  The area behind Hilda Godwin’s little house was surrounded by a high board fence. The yard was the width of the house itself, and rather longer. The center section was paved; between pavement and fence there was a border of earth, cleaned now and raked smooth; clearly in summer a border of such flowers as could be brought to live in the city of New York. Near the door through which Jerry North led the way after the padlock had been wrenched from it, was a pile of summer furniture, covered by a tarpaulin. There was nothing under the tarpaulin except summer furniture.

  The flashlights played around the yard. They followed the fence from its juncture with the house, along the side which shut off the street, across, and up to the house again. On the street side, midway down, there were double doors, closed. At the doors, the strip of earth ended and pavement took its place; beyond the doors, the strip again resumed.

  “She keeps her car in here a lot of the time,” Rogers said. “A station wagon. It isn’t here.”

  It wasn’t there. Opposite the double doors, drip from a car had stained the cement.

  “She leaves it there,” Rogers said, needlessly. He pointed. “Packs it up for the country and—” He stopped. “That’s where she’s gone,” he said. “Up to the country. She filled the trunk, dragged it out here and put it in the car and—” Again he stopped.

  “By herself?” Weigand asked.

  “All right,” Rogers said. “Somebody helped her.” He turned suddenly. “Look,” he said, “you aren’t keeping me here all night. Do you want to charge me with anything?”

  “Charge you?” Weigand repeated. “With what, Mr. Rogers? You had a key, you say. Given you by Miss Godwin. What would I charge you with?”

  “Then I’m getting out of here,” Rogers said. “If she’s gone up there with—” He broke off. “You can do what you want,” he said.

  “Rogers!” Jerry said. “Listen! I think my wife was here. Was—held here. What do you know about this?” He moved toward Rogers; Rogers was the larger man, but he drew back.

  “Hold it, Jerry,” Bill said. He moved forward, Jerry North stopped and turned, and shook his head slowly. “She was here,” he said.

  “Right,” Bill said. “I think she was. And—wasn’t hurt here. There’s no sign of that. She’s probably gone with Miss Godwin wherever—”

  “Up to the country,” Rogers said. “I keep telling you.”

  “You know where it is?” Jerry asked. “This place of hers?”

  “Yes,” Rogers said. “Of course. Up beyond South Salem. On a back road.”

  Jerry turned to Bill.

  “Right,” Bill Weigand said. “We’ll get going. You’ve got a car, Mr. Rogers?”

  Rogers had. It was parked in Elm Lane.

  “Take Sergeant Mullins with you,” Weigand said. “Well follow.”

  Rogers seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he said, “All right.”

  They went too fast through unfrequented streets; they went up a ramp at Nineteenth Street to the West Side Highway, and then far too fast north on the Henry Hudson Parkway and the Saw Mill River Road. At the Cross County Parkway turnoff, Rogers’ Oldsmobile hesitated, but then went on north on the Saw Mill. Only at the Hawthorne Circle did it turn right, ignoring the stop sign, its tires squealing on the turn.

  They left White Plains behind and raced north and east on Route 22, which was wide at first and then narrowed, turned often. Rogers took chances on the bends; the police car clung behind the Olds. “He’s quite a driver,” Bill Weigand said. “Poor Mullins.”

  Jerry North said nothing. You ran and ran—across a continent, through city streets, now on country roads. You came to nothing in the end.

  Beyond Bedford Village they turned sharp right and, miles—but only minutes—later they turned right again at Cross River. Minutes more, and the sleeping village of South Salem was behind them; they were on a back road, gravel spurting under tires; they were climbing. Stop lights blared red in front of the police car, then, and the Olds twisted from the road. When they reached the place, there was a lane there, and the tail lights of the other car ahead still, and still climbing. The Olds led them through a gap in a stone wall and stopped on a driveway.

  Hilda Godwin’s other house seemed large; under the lights of the two cars, it rambled along a ridge. It was of brown shingles, in part two-storied. It was dark. On the drive there was no other car. The doors of the garage stood open, and the garage was empty. As they walked toward the house from the cars, they kicked through the fallen leaves of autumn.

  Weigand knocked on the door Rogers led them to, but knocking was a formality. This door, too, was unlocked when he tried the knob. Inside, the torch beams lighted a square hall. In the center of the hall there was a square trunk—a large trunk, a new one.

  “There it is,” Rogers said. “I remember it. She decided to come up here and—Hilda! Hey! Where are you?” He shouted the last. His voice echoed in the hall; must have echoed through the house; was not answered. Rogers started to call again, but his voice trailed to silence. He stood and looked at the trunk.

  “All right, Mullins,” Bill Weigand said. “Open it.”

  Mullins was prepared, now. Steel wrenched at the trunk lock; metal protested harshly. The tongue of the lock bent back. Mullins looked down at the trunk, and hesitated.

  “You may as well go ahead,” Weigand said, his voice quiet. He reached out and grasped an arm of Jerry North, who stood beside him. “Go ahead, Mullins.”

  Mullins lifted the lid.

  The body was doubled up in the trunk. Jerry North’s breath went out, shudderingly.

  It was a small body. The face might have been delicate once, quick with expression. The body might have been light and gay under the yellow dinner dress.

  Rogers turned away, his face working; he made a strange, meaningless sound—a sick sound.

  “Put it down, Mullins,” Bill Weigand said, his voice without expression. “Miss Godwin’s been dead several days, I’m afraid.”

  Rogers made the same sick sound again. He turned from the trunk; he seemed to see no one. He seemed to grope his way t
o the door, and out into the night.

  Mullins lowered the trunk lid. He swore, softly.

  “Of course,” Weigand said, “we had to expect it. Even so—”

  “It’s what Pam—knew about, isn’t it?” Jerry said. He mumbled the words a little.

  “Probably,” Weigand said. “It shaped that way, you know. We had—”

  He stopped as, outside, the engine of a car came suddenly, harshly, to life. He turned, and then ran toward the door. Mullins ran after him.

  They shouted at the turning Oldsmobile, and ran toward it. But Rogers did not stop. The car cut off the drive, lurched for a moment on turf, through fallen leaves, came out of the turn, kicking dirt and gravel behind it. It was through the gap, then. Mullins ran toward the police car.

  “No!” Bill said sharply. “Let him go, Sergeant.”

  Mullins stopped; he came back.

  “See if the telephone’s connected,” Bill Weigand told him. “Get the State Police, if it is. Then the office. Get things started.”

  “Pickup on Rogers?” Mullins said.

  “Right,” Bill told him. “And—tell them they’d better put a couple of men on Shaw.”

  “Oh,” Mullins said. He tried again. “O.K., Loot,” Sergeant Mullins said.

  Jerry was already searching the rambling house; already calling, “Pam! Pam!”

  Nobody answered. They found nobody.

  The State Police found nobody when they came, with sirens—then with lights, with photographers, with the paraphernalia of fingerprinting.

  “She was strangled, I think,” Bill Weigand told the sergeant in charge. The sergeant thought so, too.

  Outside the house, behind it, where a garden had been, they found the start of a hole. It would have been a rather large hole—larger than an ordinary grave. But it was too shallow for a grave.

  If the hole had been planned as a grave, and dug deeper, it would easily have held two bodies, particularly if neither was large.

  It had all the quality of a nightmare—the shifting, distorted shape of a nightmare; the unreasonableness of a nightmare. It was the unreasonableness, more even than the simple physical danger, which was obvious even while it was unbelievable, that caused a kind of screaming in Pamela North’s mind. She had been in trouble before, thanks in large measure to having met, years ago, a policeman attached to Homicide. But the trouble, while never really expected, had grown logically out of something in which she, along with Jerry, had got herself involved. This was different. This time, Pam North told her soreaming mind, I didn’t do anything.