“What was the description of the Cartier bracelet?” she asked Anderson, and he replied, as she knew he must reply: “It was a wide, ornamental gold band, set with diamonds and five small emeralds.”
There was a short silence. Then Jem addressed Lossey quietly: “Was such a bracelet found among Leda’s things?”
Lossey answered, “No.” His eyes were suddenly very bright.
And Serena turned desperately to Amanda. “Tell them about your bracelet. Tell them what happened to it. If you don’t, Amanda, I’ve got to tell everything I know about it. And everything I …” She stopped on the very verge of saying “everything else I know.” Tell them that Amanda had quarreled with Luisa about Jem’s presence there, and that Leda had known it? Tell them that Luisa had objected to Jem’s presence and had threatened to make Sutton do something about it? Tell them that Jem had been in love with Amanda—not now; not now—but once and so short a time ago?
So they would say that Jem had a motive for killing Luisa? So they would say that Jem had had a motive for stopping Leda’s talk?
It was a dizzying flash of percipience. It was as if a cliff had riven itself open at her feet and she had stopped at the very edge of a terrible abyss. Anderson was looking at her oddly. What had she said? How could she cover it?
As she thought that, Dave said suddenly: “I’m sorry, Anderson, but I—I’ve got something to say. Will you—well, it’s about my laboratory. The destruction of it, I mean. I don’t think you’ve given it enough consideration. That is, of course, I didn’t tell you.… I ought to have done it before now but—you see, Jem, when you asked me about the records, I said there was nothing anybody would want to keep a secret. Well,” he swallowed hard and pushed his hair back, “the fact is, there was something. It was about—well, it was about Leda.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE LONG ROOM, WITH its windows, its blue and red rugs, its bright, chintz-covered chairs, was so still that they could hear for a moment the far-away whinny of a horse, away off somewhere among the corrals. It was an eerie, distant sound muffled by the fog. The small fire cracked sharply. Amanda whispered: “Leda! What was wrong?”
And Anderson said slowly: “But it was Mrs. Blagden that was murdered.”
“I know. Yes, I’ve thought of that. I mean, she couldn’t have—well, got low in her mind and killed herself, I suppose …”
“No,” said Lossey definitely. His ratlike eyes were fixed and beady upon Dave. “Go on, Doctor, tell us the story.”
“Well, I can see why she might have killed herself. And why she might have destroyed my laboratory in order to destroy my records. She might not have known, you see, just which were my records and which my working notes about other things. Or she may have done it—destroyed the whole thing as thoroughly as she could, not just written records but equipment and all that, breaking it and doing all that damage—in order to throw us off the scent. I mean …”
“I understand,” interrupted Lossey impatiently. “To make it look as if wholesale wanton destruction was the purpose, not just the destruction of the records of one case. Go on.”
Dave swallowed again and sat down nervously peering up at them rather apologetically. “I don’t like to do this. But Johnny will understand. And it’s no disgrace, Heaven knows, although Leda must have felt that it was …”
Amanda said with a sharp kind of gasp: “Dave, what do you mean?”
“Take your time, Doctor,” said Anderson quietly.
“I don’t like—but I think the destruction of my laboratory may have some bearing upon the murder and I don’t think—I heard you, you know, as I came in—I don’t think it’s right for you to arrest Serena if …”
Jem crossed to Dave and put his hand on his shoulder. “You can’t hurt the dead and you may help the living. Johnny will understand.”
“Yes. But I—well, you don’t know much about my work. It’s not very interesting to anybody but—oh, that’s not the point. I’ll make it brief. I’ve been working on some of the rarer types of blood diseases, particularly tropical parasites. Oh, I haven’t done anything very remarkable, not enough to deserve …”
“You will,” said Sutton. “You will, Dave. After the war. When things have quieted down.”
“Well—yes, perhaps. If I come back. Thanks, Sutton. I think that in the end I might have … However, that’s not the point either …”
“What did Leda have?” demanded Amanda sharply. “Dave, was it contagious?”
Sutton said, “For God’s sake, Amanda!”
Dave gave Amanda a weary look. “No, Amanda, what she had was not contagious. She didn’t have anything.”
“What …” began Jem and stopped.
“But you just said …” Sutton stopped too. Dave went on: “Unless you call a fine case of hypochondria contagious. Leda didn’t have anything, but every so often she thought she had and came to me. She knew in a general way what my work was—and practically every time she read or heard of any allusion to any disease she was likely to think for a day or two that she had it. She was inclined to be hysterical. She—didn’t do a great amount of thinking, really. Oh, you all knew Leda; she meant no harm. She came to me several times, thinking she had this or that, and I’d put her straight and she’d go away, happy and content again. I would always tell her to go to her own doctor, and she would insist and eventually persuade me to do a test or two. I would, only to humor her; there was never anything the matter with Leda. As far as I know, she was perfectly well. But she got these notions.” Dave took off his glasses and wiped them again.
Nobody spoke. Dave put on his glasses again and stared at the rug as if he’d said everything there was to say.
“But Dave,” cried Amanda finally. “What did she think she had?”
“Oh, everything.” He shrugged. “It’d be easier to name what she didn’t think she had, at one time or another.”
“But she must have had some symptoms,” insisted Amanda. “What were they?”
“There was never any question of her really having anything! That’s what I’m telling you. If there ever had been I’d have seen to it that Johnny knew, and that she was taken care of. Lately she stopped coming to me. So I thought that she’d stopped being such a fool about symptoms and about herself. But now I—well, now I wonder if by any chance she still believed that she had something …” He shrugged again, “anything! You could almost take your choice of a disease—and if she wanted the record destroyed. I’m going away and she may have thought it a dangerous thing to have about.”
“You had made records of everything?” asked Anderson.
“Of course. They didn’t mean anything. I did it to impress Leda with the seriousness of my tests. So she’d believe me and feel settled in her mind. She’d get so scared she’d be really half sick from fright. She always got very upset and—but she needn’t have destroyed the laboratory,” said Dave. “I’d have given the records to her to destroy if she’d asked for them. I was going to go through my files and papers before I leave anyway—just in case. I’d probably have destroyed everything myself. I’d have done so long ago if I’d thought twice about it.”
“Maybe she did have something terrible—something she’d hate to have anyone know about!” cried Amanda suddenly, her eyes glittering. “Maybe somebody knew of it and thought she actually had it and wanted to destroy your record of it to keep it a secret. Maybe—maybe whoever killed her did it because she was growing worse, or he thought she was growing worse and …”
Sutton said: “Amanda. Stop that.” Dave said: “Believe me, Amanda. I’m right about it. But they can check with the findings of the post-mortem if there’s any doubt of it. It was always a mountain out of a molehill on Leda’s part.”
“Or,” went on Amanda swiftly, “somebody thought she had something but was getting better; and that you were curing her. So your means of curing her was destroyed and the record of her illness and then Leda was murdered …”
Sutton said qui
ckly: “Amanda, that’s horrible! Think what you’re saying.”
“Well, she was murdered, wasn’t she?” demanded Amanda. “I don’t see what’s so terrible about what I’ve just said. Somebody murdered her …”
“I don’t know whether or not there’s any significance in what I’ve just told you, Anderson,” said Dave. “But it seemed to me that you might want to give it some consideration before you take any”—he hesitated and said—“any drastic steps.”
“Exactly what significance do you think it has?” asked Lossey.
“I don’t know that it has any. There are only those facts to go on—the laboratory was destroyed the night before Luisa Condit’s death; then Leda was murdered.”
“You feel then that Luisa Condit’s death was murder. Why do you feel that?” asked Lossey quickly, his beady eyes very bright.
Dave looked badgered. “I don’t know. But it happened as if it were a sequence—as if one thing led to another. Beginning with my laboratory.”
“Did you try sending her to another doctor?” asked Anderson.
“Lord, yes,” said Dave. “They’ve got a family doctor. Cadwell, in the village. But when she was really scared she’d come to me.”
“More confidence,” said Sutton.
“Nonsense.” Amanda gave a little laugh. “Dave didn’t charge her. Did you, Dave?”
“She never had anything wrong. Besides, I’m not practicing medicine, really. No, the reason she came to me was simply fear. Talking to me was easier than going to anybody else. It satisfied her and still wasn’t like going to a practicing physician.”
Jem was looking anxiously at Anderson. “What about it, Anderson? Don’t you think there’s enough new evidence in all this to warrant calling Quayle?”
Lossey suddenly—and rather unexpectedly from Serena’s viewpoint—proved himself without the personal vanity which obliges some men to cling to a formed conviction, right or wrong. He said: “It’s new evidence, yes. It’s not particularly conclusive evidence in any sense. It’s worth considering; anything is worth considering.” He turned to Serena: “You had just spoken to your sister about a bracelet, Miss March. As Dr. Seabrooke came in. You asked her to tell about it. What bracelet did you refer to—Mrs. Blagden’s?”
That, thought Serena, had been a mistake. Perplexing and ugly, and terribly dangerous to her, Serena, though Amanda’s lies had become, they were inexplicable lies—so inexplicable that there must be some important reason for them; something so important that Amanda did not hesitate, even, to place Serena in jeopardy. She must talk to Amanda alone. She wished swiftly that she had not spoken of the bracelet in the detective’s hearing. But before she could say anything Amanda moved forward and said composedly: “Oh, I’ll tell you about that, Mr. Lossey. It’s nothing really. I had a bracelet—set with a lot of stones, some green ones were among them. It wasn’t real. It was fake. But I liked it and I liked to wear it. Then …” she hesitated for the merest breath and plunged ahead with a dependence upon Serena’s silence that struck Serena as fantastic—and yet exactly like Amanda. “I lost it. I told Serena that I thought somebody must have taken it. But I didn’t really think that; it wasn’t valuable enough for anybody to steal. Anyway there’d be nobody to steal it. But that must have been what she meant.”
There was another brief silence. Lossey and Anderson rather ostentatiously didn’t look at each other. A small log fell in the fireplace and Dave got out cigarettes and lighted one, and absently passed them to Lossey who stood beside him. Jem’s face was a mask. Sutton fidgeted with his yellow scarf. And finally Lossey said: “You saw the bracelet, Miss March?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The—night I came home.”
Amanda interposed swiftly. “I wore it at dinner that night. At the Lodge. I had a dinner party. Somebody spoke of it and they—oh, teased me a little about it, as I remember it. They knew, of course, that it was merely junk. I don’t have the money for a bracelet like that, of real stones, if that’s what you’re implying, Mr. Lossey. You may not be aware of it but we are really frightfully hard up. I don’t buy emeralds and diamonds.”
“When did the bracelet disappear?” asked Lossey.
Amanda’s eyes were wide and appealing. “Why, Í don’t know. Sometime after that, of course. I think it was—oh, perhaps the next night when I missed it.”
Again with the most fantastic faith she counted on Serena’s support. Again it was exactly like Amanda to demand that support—and get it. And again and strangely Serena felt a sudden wave of pity. Amanda, somehow, some way, needed protection.
It angered her too, to realize that she felt that, and that she was going to give it to Amanda.
She did not see that, actually just then, she was almost as blind to reality as Amanda. She did not really comprehend the fact that Anderson and Lossey and the unobtrusive man with the notebook were fully resolved upon arresting her and charging her with murder until quite suddenly Lossey jerked his shining, bald head toward the telephone.
She didn’t know—perhaps no one there, then knew—why he said what he said. It was enough that he said it. “It wouldn’t do any harm, Lieutenant,” he said, “just to tell Quayle the latest developments. It wouldn’t do any harm …”
He turned around without another word and walked out of the room. The hall door closed as Anderson started to the telephone. He gave a number and waited and all at once Serena did comprehend reality. In another moment—in a few short seconds—she might be taken away, under arrest, charged with two murders; a trial—newspapers—horror unthinkable.
Jem came to her. She could feel the warmth and strength of his arm around her; yet of course Jem couldn’t do any more than he had already done to stop it. Dave put out a barely touched cigarette with a hand that shook. She saw that—above the small silver ashtray. She was aware of a soft silken rustle near her. Amanda sitting gracefully in a lounge chair, crossing one lovely knee over the other, met her eyes with a long enigmatic look.
They all heard what Anderson said. He did not commit himself; he merely said that, if it was all right with the chief, he’d like to see him before arresting Miss March. Apparently Captain Quayle thought highly of Anderson’s judgment. He seemed to ask a question or two, Anderson replied with a yes and two no’s, and hung up.
They went away without warning any of them to remain on the ranch or even in the vicinity. They went away without telling her, Serena, not to try to escape. They went away without leaving Slader to guard them or even mentioning a guard. They’d said they had to make an arrest because it wasn’t safe not to. But they hadn’t made it.
Serena didn’t really believe they’d gone. She was still tense, holding herself terribly quiet, staring at the empty doorway through which they’d gone. Jem and Sutton had gone out with them; Dave too. There were sounds from the patio and a car started up. Serena took a long breath. She thought of a chair and felt as if, still, she didn’t dare move; but she did move and sat down—slowly—putting her hands along the chair arms. Almost caressing them. Real things, matter-of-fact, ordinary. Reassuring because they were not in a cell!
But that was impossible! They couldn’t arrest her—ever!
She looked up, and Amanda was looking at her quietly across the hearthrug. Quietly and enigmatically and with great composure.
It was the composure that was disconcerting.
Then Amanda gave a little low laugh.
That was disconcerting too—it was so low and yet so full of genuine amusement. She leaned forward and linked her white hands around her knee. “You are really a fool, Sissy. You’re soft. Anybody can make a fool of you. So you decided not to tell them that Luisa and I had quarreled and why we quarreled. So you decided not to tell them that Leda knew why. But perhaps Jem did murder both of them! Men have done such things—for women. Women they were mad about. Women like me. And, after all, Leda had to get to the house somehow. Jem could have picked her up as easily as you. Sissy, when you
like anybody you are disarmed; that’s very stupid of you, you know. I am never like that.” Her dark eyes were sparkling. She lifted both strong white hands and thrust her dark loose hair back away from her head with a free and beautiful gesture. “Thank Heaven I can be ruthless. Listen: if you know what’s good for Jem you’ll do as I say. You’re in love with him. But he’s in love with me and has been for years. And if the police know that and the motive he had for murder—well, do you see, Sissy? So you’re going to be a good little girl and tell them what you did with all that money I’ve been sending you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“YOU GAVE ME NO money!”
“Oh, yes, I did.”
“That’s nonsense! And you know as well as I do that Jem wouldn’t have murdered anybody. You can’t tell the police anything that would make him a suspect.”
“Can’t I?” said Amanda, and smiled again.
There was a long silence, while she continued to smile. Then Serena got up and closed the door. “We’re going to have this out, Amanda. You’ve got to tell me the truth. I don’t think you murdered Luisa or Leda. I haven’t any question about that, so I don’t think that you are telling them all this about having given me money, in order to protect yourself in that way; to make the police suspect me instead of you, I mean. To cover yourself …”
“I quite see what you mean,” said Amanda. “What I told you stands, Sissy. I won’t tell them about Jem, if you’ll admit to taking the money.”
“You didn’t give me any money! Amanda, don’t you see that even if I would consent to that—as I won’t; it’s preposterous—but don’t you see that I couldn’t substantiate it? There are records to—well, to bank deposits. To buying anything I could conceivably have bought with it …”
“Nonsense. Cash for furs. Cash for jewelry …”
Escape the Night Page 17
