Upstairs, aroused by the deafening sound, Miriam rose up sharply in her bed and threw back the covers. At the same time several more shots came resoundingly from the floor below. Miriam turned to the nightstand, saw that the revolver was missing, and, getting up swiftly, hurried from the room. Running down the hall, she glanced into Charlotte’s room briefly, just long enough to know that Charlotte was not there, and then she ran down the stairs.
“Charlotte!” she cried. “Charlotte!” And when there was no answer, she hurried on, headlong, down the hall. Stopping, she looked wildly around and, seeing the doors of the ballroom ajar, she ran toward them. As she entered the room she saw Charlotte silhouetted against the flood of moonlight, quite still and silent. When Miriam called out to her, Charlotte made no move to answer. Miriam switched on the lights and saw that Charlotte was standing over a fallen figure.
“What have you done?” Miriam demanded as she ran forward. Charlotte, too deeply in shock to respond, simply stood there staring down at the figure. Miriam looked down to see the man had fallen so his face was hidden. She looked at Charlotte. “Who is it?” she demanded to know.
But Charlotte still made no move or sound.
Reluctantly, Miriam knelt down to touch the man’s shoulder, and, forcing herself, turned him over. Slowly, the bloodied head of Hugh was revealed.
“Hugh!” Miriam screamed, looking up at Charlotte. “But why…?”
Charlotte began to moan. Dropping the gun, she covered her face with her hands and turned away. Miriam looked at her for a moment in stunned disbelief.
“I’ll have to call the police,” she said as she started from the room.
But then she hesitated and forcefully headed to the phone. Again she stopped and looked toward the ballroom. Should she go back and look after Charlotte before making the call? Charlotte, swift, suddenly, like a wraith, appeared from the ballroom, came to Miriam and stopped her hand as she dialed the phone.
“You can’t call them!” Charlotte babbled breathlessly. “You can’t do it, Miriam. Oh, Miriam, if you’ve got any feelin’ at all for me, if you’ve got any feelin’, don’t, oh, don’t…”
“But I have to,” Miriam replied. “There isn’t anything else I can do.”
“But it will be like it was then. They’ll all come and ask all sorts of terrible, personal questions. Why do you think I’ve stayed alone here all these years? I can’t stand it. They shamed me. They killed Daddy and Mama. You can’t let them kill me too!”
“Charlotte, please stop.”
“No, listen, listen. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was Hugh. Why would I? He was just about the only one to pay me any mind all these last few years. I was so scared. It was dark, and when I looked and saw him there, it was just like…”
“Just like what?”
“Like a dream. A dream I’ve had over and over again for years and years… ever since that night when Daddy came here into this house and told me. Ever since they found John’s poor hand. Oh, Miriam, Miriam, I can’t stand it. I can’t!”
“But what can we do?”
“Take him away. Take him back to his own place and leave him there… where they’ll find him and take care of him… do what needs to be done…”
“Oh, Charlotte…”
“What good will it do? What good for them to come here. Miriam, I beg you, take him away. I didn’t mean it. I’d had all those pills and everything seemed… strange.”
For a moment Miriam stared at her, and in the excitement of the moment seemed convinced. “You’ll have to help me,” said Miriam. “We’ll have to get him into the car, and… you’ll have to help.”
Charlotte nodded, “All right then.”
“You wait here,” Miriam told her, “while I get the car.”
“Must I… must I stay?”
“Go inside, then,” Miriam told her, “and come out when you hear the car. I’ll be just a minute.”
Miriam hurried off into the darkness as Charlotte went back into the hall, crying softly.
When Miriam arrived back with the car, she was forced to go to get Charlotte. Together, Charlotte weeping and frightened, they managed to get Hugh’s body into the back seat of the car and to cover him with a blanket.
“Can’t I go now?” Charlotte asked in her frightened, little girl’s voice.
“We have to get him out again,” Miriam said firmly and forced Charlotte into the car beside her. “I must be mad to be doing this for you.”
“For me,” Charlotte said, seeming more than a little disoriented. But then, very gracefully she continued, “Yes, for me. And I’ve been wicked… so awfully wicked, Miriam.”
They drove through the night, at first with their lights out, so as not to attract attention, and then, when they got into the back roads, with them on. Charlotte, in a state of extreme shock and dazed hysteria continued to babble, and then to rave.
“I wouldn’t hurt him! I wouldn’t, you know that… I wouldn’t!”
Miriam finally was forced to stop the car and slap Charlotte hard across the face to bring her back in control.
“You’ve got to be quiet,” Miriam told her. But before they could move on, they looked around to find that they were parked almost directly next to a car in which a couple was necking. They drove away, just as the couple, only now noticing their presence, looked after them.
Finally, they pulled off the road and to a place near a shallow ravine. Miriam forced Charlotte to leave the car. To Charlotte, getting out into the darkness, every shadow, branch and leaf became a menace. With an averted gaze, she helped take hold of Hugh’s body as Miriam gave her instructions as they dragged Hugh across to the ravine.
“We must cover him with leaves,” said Miriam as Charlotte began to sob and babble.
“So much death… so much death…” babbled Charlotte.
“Come,” Miriam said to her, “we have to get back.”
She led Charlotte back to the car, and they drove away.
They entered the drive with their lights out and approached the silent, dark house. Miriam stepped out to help Charlotte out of the car in front of the veranda.
“You go in. I’ll put the car away. Go straight to your room. Don’t turn on any lights.”
“Yes,” said Charlotte in a faraway voice, “straight to my room.”
Miriam drove away, and Charlotte stood there looking after her. As the house loomed in front of Charlotte she seemed paralyzed, but remembering Miriam’s words, clinging to her instructions, she made her way to the door, shoved it open and entered the house. She started to the stairs and then noticed a light coming from under the ballroom doors, where there wasn’t any only a moment before. Uncertain, she made her way in that direction.
At the door of the room, she stopped, afraid to look in, not wanting to see the terrible stain of blood on the floor. But she threw open the doors and looked in. There was nothing there. The floor where Hugh bled out his life was quite clean and unmarked. Somehow this was even more shattering to Charlotte than if some new horror had been waiting for her there. The senseless impossibility of it struck her like a physical blow. She turned about and ran down the hall and up the stairs.
So concentrated was Charlotte on her headlong flight that she was unaware of the light coming on just at the landing. Not until she was full upon it, did she see it. In horrifying view was the bloodied figure of Hugh. She very nearly collided with the figure, and then, seeing it, uttered a piercing scream and fell back. Just managing to catch herself against the railing, she clung, sobbing, gibbering madly as she collapsed slowly to the steps, holding her face in her hands, shielding it from the view of the terrible, impossible thing there above her, only a few feet away.
Miriam, hearing Charlotte scream, ran into the house, through the ballroom, along the lower balcony and up the stairs to where Charlotte had collapsed along the railing. Charlotte could only hold her hand out, as if in defense of something at the head of the stairs. As Miriam
looked in that direction, she saw that the landing was quite deserted. Dragging Charlotte to her feet, Miriam forced her up the steps and down the hallway to her room.
Miriam helped Charlotte into bed and waited for her to fall asleep.
“It will all be better tomorrow,” she told Charlotte. “Tomorrow we will go away from here and never, never come back.”
“Yes…” Charlotte managed to breathe as she drifted off to sleep. “Yes.”
Miriam got up, very wearily, left the room and locked the door.
Miriam went to her room and changed into her negligee, but instead of going to bed she came out of her room, turned out the hallway light and made her way down to the ballroom, across it, and out on to the terrace. She stood there looking out into the night, the wash of moonlight across the drowsy landscape. From behind Miriam appeared a man’s figure—Hugh’s. Hearing a sound, Miriam turned, saw him and smiled. He handed her a drink.
“For a difficult night’s work,” he said.
“Difficult, and unpleasant. As much as I’ve hated her all these years—her and her whole monstrous family,” Miriam shrugged, “it had to be done.”
“I know,” Hugh replied. “You do feel sorry for her when you think how life might have been for her. It’s too bad Jewel ran out of money…”
“Murder can be very expensive,” said Miriam.
“When observed by such an expensive witness,” added Hugh.
Miriam nodded in agreement. “Yes. And I am expensive. Very expensive. I think you’d better keep that in mind from now on.”
“Oh, I will,” replied Hugh. “I don’t expect much… a decent allowance…”
“But don’t get any fancy notions. I fell out of love with you years ago. Your life with me isn’t going to be easy.”
“It’s going to be hell… with Charlotte’s money… and you,” Hugh lifted his glass. “Here’s to us.”
“Here’s to you,” Miriam corrected him. “And to me.”
They drank.
“You are beautiful,” said Hugh. He moved toward to touch her.
“Yes,” said Miriam, and as Hugh started to kiss her, she added, “and expensive… remember.”
“And to Charlotte,” Hugh added.
Above, Charlotte stood on the balcony, looking down on them. There were tears in her eyes, not tears of terror now, but of great sadness. She looked down on them as they embraced and a tear fell from her eye. She reached out to the remaining stone urn that stood in its moldering base.
Miriam, allowing Hugh to kiss her, was nonetheless observant enough to notice the droplet that had unaccountably splashed to the stone floor of the terrace. For a moment she couldn’t think what it meant, and then, as it dawned on her, she shoved Hugh from her and cast her gaze upward. At that moment the stone urn toppled from its base and came crashing down upon them.
From above, Charlotte looked at the ruined urn and the ruined figures below. Then she sank to her knees and the tears flowed freely.
The next morning the crowd had gathered at the front of the old Hollis place, the news of the tragedy having spread through the town. Among those gathered, being held back by the local police, were the reporter Paul Selvin and his new friend, Waldo Hopper.
“I just knew if those kids didn’t stop pestering her around out here, somebody’d get hurt,” said one woman. “Throwing things at the house and deviling that old woman…”
“And then to have it happen to the other two. They say she was in her nightgown.”
A hush fell over the crowd as the front door of the old house opened, and Charlotte, being helped by the old Judge, came out of the house. She was dressed in all her finest finery; after all, Charlotte was not a poor woman, and she would soon be still richer from the settlement of her property. She leaned on the Judge’s arm as he led her toward his car which was waiting in the drive.
Paul Selvin and Waldo Hopper started forward. Paul got ready to take a picture, and Charlotte, seeing him, far from ducking away, paused to give him her best angle. As she moved on to the car and got inside, Waldo came up to the car. The police moved in to block him, but Charlotte raised her hand and they let him through.
“I have it on good authority that Jewel Mayhew suffered another attack this morning when she heard the news… a paralytic attack this time. Perhaps you’d be interested to know.”
“Poor, poor Jewel,” said Charlotte. “I do really feel sorry for her.”
“Sorrier, I dare say, than your cousin, Miriam, did?”
A certain quickness came into Charlotte’s face, which caused Waldo to smile. “I’ve had reason to speculate since our last meeting on the identity of that witness, and where he… or she… might have been all this time. The only thing that might have kept them silent—I would judge—would be blackmail. Would you agree with that, Miss Hollis?”
Charlotte was not able to answer, for at that moment the car pulled away. As it drove into the distance, Charlotte looked out the window, at Waldo, and very faintly, she smiled.
THE DEBUT OF LARRY RICHARDS
None of them that night would have hesitated to help him had they known of the danger. Long before showtime, however, they were all quite prepared to dismiss his behavior during the performance as simply another manifestation of his “artistic temperament.” Allowing even that the rehearsals had gone smoothly—which they had not—the incident at the end of the final run-through would have convinced them of that much. It is one of the commonest of human failings that few of us ever see in the unpleasantness of others the generative element of fear, and only Larry knew the truth.
Shielding his eyes against the incredible brightness of the light, he wheeled sharply and looked up toward the control booth. In the ragged shadow of his hand, his famous, still-handsome face clearly reflected an inner tautness. There remained, now, less than thirty minutes before showtime, and the crew, waiting in the outer dimness, was restive, sullenly despairing of the last chance for a final break. The voice of the director, sharp with accumulated impatience, barked down at him from the studio speaker.
“Larry, for Petesake remember to work into Camera Three on that last speech. If you don’t, you’re cooked. I wish you could see—!”
In the swift clench of quickened anger, Larry Richards turned and left the set. Holding his gaze coldly averted from the others, he strode across to the hallway, entered his dressing room and slammed the door. He stood for a moment, gripping the doorknob, pressing his nervous excess into its hard, cold surface. These people didn’t know the difference between a real flesh-and-blood actor and the carpet sweeper in the commercial!
In disgust, he let his hand fall limp. He knew, even better than they, that he was behaving like a temperamental child. How could he expect them to guess out there what these next ninety minutes could mean to him, that they were to be the proof to Bert Fielding that, despite four years of illness and forced retirement, he was still up to playing the lead in “The Deaths of Kings”? The legend of Laurence Richards was still astonishingly bright on Broadway. Larry had worked hard to keep it that way, to keep secret his illness, his depleted finances, the poverty in which he and Lisa now lived. Producers were chary of an actor when he was desperate—and quick to forget how good he once had been. Bert Fielding had somehow learned the truth. Larry raised a hand to his forehead, then withdrew it quickly as a knock sounded at the door.
It would be Lisa, of course, come to soothe him. He closed his eyes, willing his mind, as best he could, to quietness. Poor Lisa. These last few days of reheasal had been hard on her. He wondered sometimes if there was anything he could think or feel without her knowing. Not that his recent behavior had concealed much. He opened the door, managing a wry smile.
“Don’t tell me,” he said.
She stood there, just outside, a small, mild woman in her early thirties, huddled in a practical brown coat that almost fatally submerged her subtle prettiness. Her gray eyes, seeming suddenly too large for her small, precise features, met his with
deepening distress.
“Larry,” she said softly, “they don’t understand. They meant only to help.” In her voice there was still a trace of the native Austrian accent she had tried so hard to be rid of. She reached out to him but drew short of touching him. “Please, don’t let them believe you are like this.”
He looked down at her, thinking what a presumptuous romantic he had been when he had married her. That had been twelve years ago, during a Special Services tour in Europe. Then, her youth and her grave foreign manner had seemed a captive, fledgling charm needing only his touch for release and fulfillment. He had intended to change her, to transform her into some splendid Galatea, but she had steadfastly—and wisely—remained herself, letting him realize for himself that his efforts were misguided. His anxiety for tonight’s success was more for her sake, really, than his own.
“What shall I do,” he smiled, “hand out chocolate bars?”
“Please, Larry—”
“Lisa, I created this role on Broadway and played it for over five hundred performances. That’s why they signed me for it. Should I let that young genius out there tell me how to play it—with Bert Fielding watching?”
“Larry, you don’t listen. He doesn’t mean to quarrel with your interpretation. It’s the mechanics—to have you in range of the camera—he is worred about.” Her gaze softened. “When you hurt people, Larry, you make them cruel—”
Suddenly he was sorry that she had come; he felt again the quick, cold twist of uncertainty in the pit of his stomach. Following her turning gaze he saw the company makeup man hurrying toward him from the next dressing room.
“Touch-up, Mr. Richards?” the man called.
The words rushed to Larry’s lips before he could stop them. “I’ve done my own makeup for twenty years,” he said curtly. “I think I can manage it tonight.”
The man’s smile vanished. “Yes, sir,” he said quickly and hurried away.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Page 25
