Bill said: “It’s all true, then.”
“True?” said Jem.
“I mean—well, it’s so incredible. Leda.”
Jem drank slowly and put the glass down. His failure to reply to Bill was itself a reply. “Got anything over there to eat?” he said.
Amanda got up and went to the narrow table at the other end of the room and put sandwiches on a plate. Sutton said: “You’re done up, Jem. How’d Johnny take it? Do they know who killed her or anything about what really happened?”
Jem took a cigarette. “No. They took Leda over to Monterey. For the medical examiner. After taking pictures and fingerprints all over the house—all that. Nobody was hiding anywhere around. It was pretty dark, but the place was deserted. They got Johnny. I went with the fellow that went for him. Johnny’s stunned, I think. Didn’t seem to take it in for awhile. He didn’t go to pieces. Johnny’s got a lot of nerve, you know. Courage. Thanks, Amanda.”
She put down the plate at his elbow.
“Where’s Johnny now?” asked Dave.
“At the police station.”
“Police …” began Amanda and caught her breath sharply.
“Yes. They were only questioning him. He’s not under arrest.”
There was a silence. Again, and with every word he said, the truth was being brought home to them. “Arrest …” began Alice blankly and stopped. Bald-headed, jovial Johnny Blagden whom they’d known all their lives, questioned about the murder of his wife but not under arrest.
Bill Lanier said: “Do they think he did it?”
It was again like Bill, brutally direct.
Jem shook his head. “I don’t know. No, I don’t think so.”
“I suppose they wanted to question him before they gave him a chance to get over the shock,” said Bill. “Still, of course, if he really did it, it wouldn’t be exactly a shock to hear about it.”
“Bill!” cried Alice: “You make it sound so—so horrible.”
“Well, that’s the way it is,” said Bill, and went over to her. “I’m going to take you home, Alice. Come on.”
“No, I …”
“I said, come on,” said Bill, his face darkening. And quite suddenly Alice gave in. “Yes,” she said. “It’s better. Yes. I’ve got my car here. You can drive me home, Bill. But you can’t stay.”
“Good God, I don’t want to stay,” said Bill. “We’re divorced. Remember? See you later, Jem. Probably we’ll all see a lot of each other in the police station.”
Alice said rather faintly: “Good night. It’s all so horrible, I won’t sleep a wink. And I’m on duty at the hospital again tomorrow.”
Sutton went with them into the hall. Amanda said tensely: “Jem, you’re not telling us everything. Do they suspect anybody? Anybody in particular?”
“I don’t know. They asked me some questions. How Serena happened to find her. How I happened to be there. Whether or not we’d seen anything or heard anything. How Leda got there. I didn’t know …”
Amanda interrupted. “How did you happen to go there, Jem? And you, Sissy?”
Jem replied. “Leda had phoned and asked Serena to meet her at Casa Madrone. I followed Serena there.”
Amanda interrupted: “Why?”
“Why?” repeated Jem.
“Why did you follow Serena, of course?” said Amanda impatiently.
“Because I wanted to see her,” said Jem. Amanda’s eyelids came down, straight and ugly. Jem went on quietly: “I’d stopped here. Ramon said she’d taken the station wagon and gone. I guessed she’d gone to take a look at Casa Madrone. Naturally. I got there, saw the station wagon—went in.”
Amanda was angry. It was in her eyes even though her voice remained smooth. “How did you get in? Or did Serena know you were coming and open the door …?”
“I’ve just explained all this to the police, Amanda. But if you want to know, Serena did not know I was coming. I came in the back door, as a matter of fact, but for no special reason except that I knew it was open and thought Serena had probably come in that way and might be anywhere in the house—upstairs, anywhere. But Serena had got there about thirty seconds before I did and found Leda dead. I came in just as Serena found her. That’s all. There wasn’t anything that either of us saw in the way of a clue …”
“What about my scarf? Where was that? How did they know it was mine? Did you tell them?”
“No. It’s that red and white one that has your name written on it. I thought they told you.…”
“Oh, that one. There’s a place that does it, stationery and scarfs and all that. They paint on a special design of your name. Somebody gave it to me for a present one time; they’re quite expensive. I wouldn’t buy anything like that for myself, of course. I haven’t the money for luxuries.”
Sutton entered the room as she spoke and heard what she said. Again a wave of crimson came up into his pleasant face. He said however, quietly: “Yes, what about Amanda’s scarf, Jem? Where did they find it?”
“It was caught on one of the shrubs. Quite near the door. They asked if I remembered having seen it when we left, Serena, but I don’t. Did you see it, then?”
It took Serena back to the wet, shifting madrone trees and the listening shrubs. She shook her head. “I don’t remember seeing it. I’m not sure I’d have noticed.”
Amanda got up with a swift movement. “It’s obviously an attempt to incriminate me! My scarf, with my name on it, caught on one of the shrubs! Don’t you see? Somebody tried to make it look as if I …”
“There’s the bell,” said Sutton. “I’ll go.…”
Amanda stopped and turned slowly in her long red gown, to watch Sutton go into the hall. No one in the room spoke or moved. There was the murmur of voices in the hall.
This time it was the police.
Anderson, the tall, bronzed police Lieutenant to whom Serena had talked after Luisa’s death, came in first; with him were Captain Quayle, the head of the village police department, and another man also in uniform whose name was Slader. Quayle much resembled Anderson. He was tall and spare and bronzed, although an older man, his hair white. Slader was very thin and dark and was, it soon developed, able to take shorthand and make the resultant records of the statements which, Quayle said at once, they had come to get.
“I’m sorry to have to come at this time of night,” said Quayle, pleasantly but directly. “We’ve talked to Mr. Blagden and to the servants at the Blagden house and we’re trying to find out as much of Mrs. Blagden’s activities today as possible. I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Condit. The fact is, of course, we’ll have to talk to all of Mrs. Blagden’s closest friends. But I’m sure you want to help.”
“Of course,” said Sutton. Amanda said: “How was Johnny—Mr. Blagden?”
“Well, it was a shock, of course,” said Quayle. There was a quality of strength and dignity about him, something quite marked and solid beneath his rather quiet manner. There was also a reticence; clearly he wasn’t giving anything away, clearly he was shocked by the murder itself and as clearly he was the kind of man to do his duty to the best of his ability. It was in his lean, tanned face, his honest and very intelligent eyes, his solid figure. Amanda said quickly:
“But he has an alibi, you know. I mean if you were thinking of him as a suspect.”
“Why, Amanda, you suggested …” began Dave and then checked himself as Amanda quickly spoke again: “Yes, I know, Dave. But I’d forgotten. The fact is, I was in Johnny’s office at almost the time the murder must have occurred. I expect he told you, though …” She paused, looking at Captain Quayle, who said: “What were you about to say, Mrs. Condit?”
“Why, only that I was in Johnny’s office almost all afternoon. At least I went there almost as soon as we—my husband and I—left the village station after we talked to you, you know, about our aunt.”
“Yes.” Quayle inclined his white head gravely and waited. Sutton moved quietly, pushing up chairs and passing cigarettes. Obviously he knew Quayl
e and the others as they knew him and Amanda, and Dave and, even, Jem. It became a curiously matter-of-fact, quietly businesslike occasion—and it was the beginning of an inquiry into murder. Serena thought that, and then noted that Slader had unobtrusively pulled out a shorthand tablet and a pencil. Amanda saw that too, with a nervous flicker of her eyes. She bit her lip and said to Quayle: “My husband and I drove directly from your office into Monterey. Suttoņ had some things to do—he’ll tell you, if you want to know about it—and I went to Johnny Blagden’s office. That must have been about three o’clock. Johnny was busy, and I had to wait some time. The office girl was there—she’ll tell you. Eventually, whoever was with Johnny went away—out the door that goes from his office directly into the hall. At any rate, whoever it was didn’t go through the waiting room, for I didn’t see anybody. But the girl finally said I could go in. It must have been nearly four, then. I was with Johnny for a long time. I’d gone in to see him about Aunt Luisa’s will. You see, if the body isn’t found, there’s a question about when the will can be probated and I …”
Sutton interrupted: “They don’t want to know all this, Amanda.”
“Well, I only …”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Condit,” said the Captain. “It’s just as well in a case like this to get the fullest possible statements from everybody concerned. And then …”
“Oh, that’s all, really,” said Amanda. “I left Johnny’s office at about five, I imagine. The office girl would know.…”
“Well, no, she doesn’t,” said the Captain. “She left at four-thirty. But she thought Mr. Blagden and you were still in his office when she left. She said there were voices; she could hear that.”
“But then you …” Amanda flushed slowly. “Then you’ve already questioned her?”
“Briefly,” replied the Captain in that pleasant and impersonal tone. “We had to get a statement, of course, from Mr. Blagden. He said, too, that he was probably with you when the murder occurred.”
“You see,” said Amanda, with a glance at Sutton, “he does have an alibi.”
“And so have you, Mrs. Condit,” said the captain of police, in a completely flat and inflectionless voice. “We might as well get your statement, too, Mr. Condit.”
“Does this mean—what exactly does it mean, Captain?” asked Sutton. “Do you believe that Mrs. Blagden’s murder was premeditated? Is that it?”
Anderson shifted his position rather uneasily, putting one long leg over the other. His face was inscrutable. The Captain said: “There were no marks of violence on the body, if that’s what you mean, Mr. Condit. We don’t have the full report from the medical examiner yet. We didn’t touch the body, of course, until he’d arrived to see it; then it was taken away for a post-mortem. So far as we know now it isn’t a question of any maniac or of robbery. Her bag was under the body; there was some money in it, not much; apparently it was untouched. Whoever strangled her did so with some instrument.”
“Not my scarf!” cried Amanda.
“It could have been that,” said Quayle. “Or it could have been something else. We …”
“But can’t you tell? Wouldn’t there be—oh, wrinkles in it? Leda’s perfume? Can’t you prove it was not my scarf? Powder marks? What are laboratories for?”
“I assure you, Mrs. Condit, we are giving the matter of the scarf every consideration—the scarf and any other possible lethal instrument.”
“Oh.” Sutton gave a little start. “Yes, of course. Well, it’s as my wife said. We drove from your office into Monterey. She went to ask Johnny Blagden what he thought of the chances for probating my aunt’s will in case the body isn’t found for some time. I did a little shopping; stopped in a couple of electric stores to try to get some batteries and couldn’t, of course; stopped at a drugstore; spent most of the time down at the railway station talking to the freight man about shipping some cattle. He’ll remember it, if you want to ask him. But if it’s an alibi, I don’t know that it’s a very good one. But I didn’t kill her.”
“I don’t know that we are at the place where we have to ask for anybody’s alibis,” said the Captain equably, “but thank you very much, Mr. Condit. You weren’t in Gregory’s by any chance, were you?”
A hardware store in Monterey. Serena’s nerves tightened. Jem’s face was completely without expression; but he had told them, then, of Leda’s telephone call and something at least of what she’d said. Obscurely Serena was glad he had done so. Amanda’s gaze had sharpened. “Gregory’s!” she exclaimed. “Why Gregory’s? That’s a hardware store, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You weren’t there, were you, Mr. Condit?”
“No,” said Sutton, looking puzzled. “Why?”
“Any of you there?” asked the police Captain in a perfectly pleasant and quiet way as if it didn’t really matter very much.
There was a general denial. Sutton said “No” again. Dave shook his head. Jem said nothing but watched the Captain rather closely, Serena suddenly perceived. Then she realized that the Captain was looking at her and she hadn’t replied. “No,” she said, “I wasn’t there.”
“You the young lady that found her?” The Captain’s blue eyes were direct and very patient. It was not, however, the kind of patience that merely, passively waits. It was the deadly kind of patience that never gives up. She seemed to feel that, even then. She said, her heart in her throat all at once: “Yes. Yes, I found her.”
“You and Mr. Daly, that is. You were with Miss Condit yesterday, too.”
“Y—yes,” said Serena again.
“Wonder if I could talk to Miss March alone,” said the Captain very pleasantly.
“But—why …” began Sutton. Jem got up and walked across to stare at the fire—listening, Serena felt, with every nerve in his tall body.
“Won’t take long,” said the Captain. “We can just stay right here if you others don’t mind.…” he glanced at the door.
Amanda said abruptly: “But what about my scarf, Captain? I didn’t leave it there. I wasn’t near the place …”
“We’ll come to that, Mrs. Condit. A lot of it isn’t clear at all just now. In fact, almost none of it is clear except”—the pleasantness gave way to an underlying sternness—“except,” he said, with a bleak and cold look in his face, “that it was murder. Now then …”
Slader remained with his notebook. Anderson took up his position in the rim of shadow at the end of the long table. Amanda went rather quickly; Sutton, it seemed to Serena, reluctantly. Jem followed Dave and, as he passed her, put his hand for a moment on her shoulder. At the door, however, he turned. “I’d like to stay,” he said directly to the Captain. “I was with her, you see, and …”
“Sorry,” said Captain Quayle. It was quiet and pleasant but final. Jem looked at Serena. He said: “I’ll be waiting …” then the door closed behind him. And Quayle said:
“Now then, Miss March, just tell us what happened. What did she say over the telephone? When did she telephone to you? Why do you think she was murdered? But first—we’d better begin at the beginning, you see—how did it happen that you came home day before yesterday?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT WAS WHAT JEM had asked.
And there were things that she couldn’t tell them; things that concerned Amanda and Jem—and thus herself. She tried to think, quickly, what those things were. The best course was to talk quite slowly and deliberately, making sure where a sentence was going to end before she began it. The dark, thin man with the shorthand tablet had moved out of sight as the others left the room but he was still there, in a small straight chair behind the long sofa with his tablet on his knee. So every word she said was to go down in black and white.
The Captain was waiting, his honest, intelligent—terribly patient—eyes upon her. She linked her hands around her knee. “I had a vacation,” she began. “I came home. I hadn’t been here for several years.”
“Four,” said the Captain. It was a small and definite word which g
ave Serena her first glimpse of the minuteness of detail which a police inquiry eventually extracts, assorts, weighs—discards or retains. He said: “You saw Mrs. Blagden in New York before you came?”
He knew that, too. Jem must have told him. Still it hadn’t been a secret—her visit with Leda. Johnny could have told him. Or anyone to whom Leda had mentioned it.
“Yes.”
“Tell me about that, Miss March, will you, please? Don’t try to select anything that you think might be important. Just tell me all about it.”
His look, his voice, his words were all disarming, too disarming. She must watch out for that. It would be fatally easy to do exactly as he told her to do; tell him everything, in the greatest detail. And thereby plunge Amanda and Jem—and, always, herself—into a very equivocal position, to say the least. Amanda hadn’t murdered Leda. Or Luisa.
“We talked. Just chat, mainly.”
He waited and then said: “Anything in particular?”
“Well, I—don’t know exactly what you mean.”
“Anything that might have a bearing upon her murder, Miss March?”
That was safe. “No,” she said firmly.
There was a slight pause. Then he said: “But you came home right away.”
“Yes. I got to thinking about home and the people here and that I hadn’t been at home for a long time. So I asked for my vacation and came. I don’t know who killed her. I …”
“Well, well, now, Miss March. Don’t get upset. Tell me about her phone call to you. She was in Monterey, Mr. Daly says, and indicated to you that she’d seen something in Gregory’s—or I guess it could have been somebody—that made her think Miss Condit was murdered, and she wanted to tell you about it. That right?”
“Yes.”
“She was sure Miss Condit was murdered?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did she say?”
“She said that the body wouldn’t be recovered and that she knew why. She said—well, that she’d been in at Gregory’s. She wouldn’t tell me what she’d seen. She seemed upset about it and …”
Escape the Night Page 14
