Escape the Night

by Mignon Good Eberhart

  “Serena …”

  “I’ll follow you to the car, I’ll scream, I’ll telephone the police …”

  He laughed, holding her tight. “No …”

  “I am going with you.…”

  “But you can’t,” began Jem. And looked down into her face for a moment and said: “All right; but only …”

  “Only what?”

  “Never mind. Get your coat.”

  No one stopped them. Sutton’s station wagon was standing in the driveway and they got in. The sound of the engine was loud in the quiet, darkening night. The dimmed lights made a ghostly lane ahead of them. They started slowly down the mountain road. “Bill was right,” said Jem. “They know that with the military and naval guard as heavy as it is now none of us would have a chance to escape. They can take their time. They said, though, that they’d keep a policeman out here tonight; he should come soon. It’s just as a precautionary measure, I imagine. There’s a terrific lot of detail—the checking of alibis, questioning everybody, fingerprints, photographs, a thousand details like that. The medical examiner gave them a report about Leda. She was perfectly well, apparently. They’re still trying to find Luisa’s body. They thought they had during the afternoon. It’s the first clear day since Luisa was drowned and somebody in the blimp radioed when they went over that there was something caught on some rocks below the surface of water, near the point where Luisa fell. But it was …” Jem leaned forward to scrutinize the road ahead; they had reached the village, gray and ghostly in the blackout. “It was something else,” he finished.

  “Did you find out anything last night?” she asked him.

  “From the clerks at Gregory’s?” There was something grim in his voice. She glanced at him, but he was leaning forward over the wheel again, his profile straight and unrevealing. The road curved and curved again. They left the village behind and started to climb toward Casa Madrone. It was darker now; clouds were sweeping rapidly over the sky. But the star—her star that had promised and beckoned—was still visible and shining. She looked at it gratefully.

  Jem said: “One of the clerks—the new one—recognized Leda’s picture. Or partially recognized it. She said she thought Leda came in for a moment and went right out again. She was hurrying to attend to another customer in order to wait on Leda and when she finished Leda was gone. I told Anderson and Captain Quayle. It does a lot to substantiate your story.”

  But not enough, thought Serena suddenly, struck again by that grim note in his voice. She said: “Was there anyone else in the pictures—I mean, did any of the clerks recognize anyone else?”

  After a moment Jem said: “No. Is this the turn, Serena?”

  She leaned forward to look and recognized the bent cypress trees and said, “Yes, turn left, then right again,” and then realized that probably Jem had known and merely wanted to divert her questions. They were almost at Casa Madrone. As she thought, Jem turned suddenly, making a wrong turn, under some trees. “I’m going to leave the station wagon here,” he said. “And you.” He stopped behind some thickly growing broom and turned off the engine. It was extraordinarily still and extraordinarily dark; clouds now covered almost the entire sky.

  “But I’m going to the house …”

  “I can’t let you go to the house with me. That’s final.” He held his watch so he could see the illuminated dial.

  “Jem, why …?”

  He was fumbling for something in his pocket. “I got Gregory’s to let me look at the bills for the day Leda was killed and I—found one. There wasn’t any name. It was a cash purchase. Here, keep this.”

  She was scarcely aware of the revolver he put in her hand. “Jem, what do you mean? What are you going to do?”

  He turned. His face was scarcely perceptible in the gloom of the night and in the car. “I don’t really know,” he said slowly. “But you’ll be safe here.” He reached across her and locked the door beside her. He locked the back doors. And put his hand lightly against her cheek. “Stay here. It’s nothing dangerous. I promise you. I’ll be back …”

  Perhaps twenty minutes later she thought of that.

  She was almost at the house then. From the black tunnel of the driveway she could see the dimly lighted open space ahead that was the courtyard. She had Jem’s revolver in her hand.

  She couldn’t stay there, waiting, listening, wondering what was happening to Jem at Casa Madrone, wondering why he had gone to the dark and empty house.

  Somehow she’d got an impression that time was important. She began to think of that as she walked along, quiet as a shadow among all the deeper shadows of the driveway. She wished Jem had explained what he intended to do. There hadn’t been time to tell her, of course; there hadn’t been time for anything. Besides, he hadn’t wanted to; he hadn’t even wanted to tell the police.

  She reached the courtyard and stopped beside a madrone tree. The open space was faintly lighter; she could see the dim, gracious outlines of the old Spanish house. There was no sound anywhere. Nothing moved across that open courtyard, nothing seemed alive within the silent house. Yet the black windows seemed to watch. The night, so still, so rimmed with shadow, seemed treacherous and watchful too. Where was Jem?

  The revolver was cold in her hand. He ought to have it; he ought not to have made her take it. The sense of danger in the night focused itself about the blind yet watchful house. And Jem was there.

  By keeping to the line of madrone trees, she kept also within their shadow. There was a grassy space there, too, but once she stepped on the rim of the driveway and the faint rattle of gravel sounded terribly loud and betraying in the night. She waited; but still nothing moved. She went on. She reached the deep shadow of the veranda, and stopped again to listen.

  The clouds were parting; a white streak of starlight fell upon the courtyard. She watched it swiftly widen until again the shadow under the madrone trees blocked it.

  She ought to go back to the car. Hurry—run through the shadows—escape the treacherous night!

  She caught herself and panic; that was nonsense. When the patch of clear starlight reached the edge of the veranda she would walk boldly along the veranda and open the door and call Jem.

  She did neither. She moved along close to the wall of the house. Her feet made no sound upon the old stone floor. Her fingers brushed the wall softly, guiding her.

  And then suddenly met nothing.

  The door was open.

  It was for a moment an invitation—a lure, beckoning her within that empty, silent cavern within the house.

  But it wasn’t empty. Jem must be there. Jem—or someone—was coming down the stairs!

  She could hear the steps as clearly as she had heard them when she’d stood above Leda’s body and listened as she was listening then, as if even her heart had stopped.

  Listening—and counting.

  Two steps—three—four. There was a long, strained silence. And then suddenly, yet so lightly, so furtively, another step. Only it didn’t creak. So whoever was there had stepped over that fifth step. As Leda’s murderer had done.

  Around her the deep shadows of the madrone trees seemed to press closer as if they too must listen.

  Whoever was on the stairway had stopped—again as Leda’s murderer had stopped.

  She’d been wrong to come; she’d been wrong to wait. She must hurry—creep close to the wall—escape to the madrone trees—hide …

  She must have moved. Her sleeve caught on the bolt of a shutter near her and jerked the revolver out of her hand and it spun across the stone floor with a loud clatter—terribly loud, like a shriek in the night. She was running. There were sounds behind her in the deep black cavern of the house. A lane of light from a flashlight somewhere shot out across the veranda, across the trees, and caught her so her shadow was in front of her, huge and black.

  But another shadow was coming behind; only it wasn’t a shadow. It was a voice, running footsteps, someone who caught her and spun her around and turned the flashligh
t full in her face.

  And then said out of the gloom behind the flashlight, in the strangest, saddest voice: “Serena! So you knew! And I liked you, Serena.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ALL THE NIGHT WAS shocked into listening. The night had a thousand eyes—and ears; the night had no breath, no heartbeat, only silence and treachery. She cried against that shocked, incredulous silence: “You …!”

  “So you did know. How? Did you see me?”

  “No—no …”

  “I’m sorry. I liked you. I—you see, I’m crazy, Serena. I’ve known it for—oh, a week or two. At least—” something crafty and dreadfully smug came into the voice—“at least that would be my defense. If I were in the position to need a defense. I can claim insanity and I know enough of it to substantiate my claim. But I don’t intend to put myself in a position to need a legal defense. It’s true though that I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But I had to.”

  “Why? Why did you do it?”

  “You saw me on the rocks. That’s what you knew. You saw me on the rocks. I knew Luisa was coming. She came that way almost every day. I waited and watched. But I couldn’t see the path where you were, and the dog. I didn’t know you had come with her. If I’d known that I’d have waited. I’d tried to frighten her once. She knew it was me; I could tell it in her eyes. And then after I asked her for money and she refused … Yet she had plenty of money.”

  It was all wrong; all of it; it couldn’t have been like that. He was mad, she thought for an instant frantically; well, then humor him. But reason with him, gently, as if he were a child.

  “Luisa fell off the rocks. It wasn’t you …”

  “Oh, yes, I did it. You see, she saw me looking at Amanda. She saw the way I looked at her. She said to me—pretending to be joking, but she meant it; I knew she meant it—she said, ‘You look as if you’d like to kill Amanda.’ And so I knew I had to kill Luisa first. But I wouldn’t have done it if she’d loaned me some money. I asked her but she refused. That was my last chance. Everything was washed up then. I talked to her in the patio the night before I killed her. You nearly caught us talking. Yet I was very cautious. I was afraid Amanda would hear. I came up the stairway near your room. We came down that stairway, too, Luisa and I. We passed your door. Did we wake you? I was crazy then; I couldn’t think or reason. I asked Luisa for money; but she wouldn’t give it to me. I thought she’d be afraid not to because that day—the day you came home—she was alone in the house and I saw her. I was—desperate. I had a gun in my pocket, but I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. I—saw her and I thought: I’ll do something that’ll terrify her, scare her—not let her know who did it but make her understand she needs a friend. It was an impulse—I fired so as to miss her. She didn’t see me; at least I didn’t think she saw me. But then later after she’d refused to give me money”—there was a queer note of perplexity about his voice—“later, I wasn’t sure. I thought perhaps she had seen me, you know. And didn’t tell the police. And then when I’d murdered Amanda she’d come forward and tell it. She’d caught that look in my eyes. So you see I had to kill Luisa first. It was so easy. Nobody guessed how it was done …”

  “Wait—wait—you mustn’t talk. You don’t realize what you’re saying …”

  “Oh, yes, I realize it. I’m crazy, you know. I’m going to insist on that, if necessary. You don’t understand, do you? It’s a relief to talk, of course. But I wouldn’t have killed Luisa—I don’t think I’d really have killed Amanda, no matter how much I wanted to, if it wasn’t for the bracelet …”

  “Why did you want to kill Amanda?” Yet she didn’t believe; she couldn’t believe; it hadn’t happened like that.

  “Because she had ruined my life.” It was a simple statement that somehow carried with it a feeling of truth. “She ruined my life—unnecessarily. But I didn’t know how unnecessarily until I saw the bracelet. I knew it was new, of course; I knew she’d just bought it; I saw it and I knew if Amanda had had a bracelet like that she’d have worn it. Besides, the fact alone that she had it was enough to prove to me how unnecessary—how cruel and wanton and horrible it was for her to ruin my life. She didn’t need money; she had plenty of money; the bracelet proved that. So that night—well, that night it really happened. I—went over the edge. People do that, you know. There wouldn’t be any murders if something violent, something horrible didn’t happen in one’s mind. I got hold of Luisa. It was simple. I went quietly to her door on the upper veranda and knocked and asked her to come down into the patio and talk to me. I’d already paved the way, I thought, that morning, by shooting near her. But she wasn’t afraid. She refused me. She said she’d had enough of loaning money. She’d loaned money to Amanda, too. She didn’t say anything about what happened that morning; so I didn’t know whether she knew I had shot at her or not She …” There was a long sigh. “I must have been crazy that morning! But it was only after I saw the bracelet on Amanda’s wrist, and after Luisa refused me that I—I did what was done.”

  “You destroyed the laboratory?” Serena heard herself say that—and recognized belief in her own question and yet could not accept it.

  “Yes. Naturally. And then Luisa. To clear the way for Amanda, you see. But then the next day Leda saw me, buying something I had to have and … But after that, I was still in the house, you see, when you came. Only I thought you were Amanda. You had on her red coat. I’d heard the station wagon drive up and looked through the shutters and saw the red coat and thought it was Amanda. So I thought that was my chance. I ran upstairs and waited. I—it was Amanda all along, you see. Amanda I had to kill as she had killed me. But the hall was dark. I thought the lamp in the corner was a person. It was about the same height. I thought the lamp was Amanda.” There was a sharp sliver of laughter which again seemed to shock the listening night.

  “I’m so sorry you came tonight, Serena. I—but you do see, don’t you, that I’m still sane enough to have to preserve my own life? I thought it didn’t matter—when I decided to kill Amanda. I was crazy. Don’t forget that. I’m still crazy—it’s a queer thing to watch one’s self go mad, you know. But I can see it. I—Serena, what was it you dropped just now?”

  Terror was there again, clutching, as if it had cold fingers at her throat. Suddenly she believed.

  “N-nothing. Nothing—really …”

  “No, no. I heard something fall. What was it?” The flashlight left her face. It had shone in her eyes all that time, she realized then; it mesmerized her, it blinded her. She could not see now, the darkness was so abrupt. She could only see the little rays of light playing over the stone floor—and shining against the revolver. He swooped down and got it in his hand even as she flung herself forward.

  “Serena, Serena, I’m sorry. I liked you.” There was still an infinite sadness—and terror; terror of itself, she suddenly knew—in that voice.

  “But you can’t kill me …” she whispered.

  “No, I don’t want to. I hate to. But I didn’t know that afterward I was going to be afraid. I am, you know, horribly. It’s all I can think of now. I’ve got to save myself if I can. You do understand, don’t you?”

  Now she believed. Now she could not doubt. Whether or not he was actually mad he was so near it with terror and with the knowledge of the horrible things he had done, that he had lost all sense of proportion, and all sense of reality except his own hideously distorted animal sense of killing, and hiding, and killing again. And he was in terror.

  How could they have failed to see outward signs of that inward horror? Yet they were all haggard, worn, nerves strung fine. A fantastic argument flashed through her mind. Was he actually mad? Madness can and does conceal itself—madness and blood guilt. Yet to conceal what he had done, to plan and carry out that dreadful series of murders, required cold, calculating sanity!

  But that didn’t matter now. Nor how sweet life had been to her, and how much the star in that blue sky had promised. “I’m so very sorry, Serena.” It
was said sadly. And the light turned full in her face again and the voice in the dusk behind it had said incredibly, softly, and with frightful honesty: “Stand very still, will you? I don’t want to hurt you …”

  “No—no …” She thought she screamed. And suddenly the house, the darkness, the madrone trees, everything in the night rocked and shuddered and rocked, under a blast of sound—and rocked again and again and again …

  The light from the flashlight shot across the driveway. Another blast of sound throbbed against her ears, struck the walls of the house, shook the crowding madrone trees. Something struck the flashlight. It rolled off the veranda and the little lane of light went out. There was nothing but darkness and sounds and two struggling figures, dimly outlined against the white courtyard.

  And she was alive. Alive and—the sounds ceased. Jem said loudly, unevenly: “Serena …”

  “Yes—yes …”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No. Oh, Jem …”

  “Where’s the flashlight?”

  “It rolled off onto the drive.”

  “I’ll find it. Stay there …” She could hear the rattle of the gravel. Presently a ray of light shot out against the gray and silver madrone trees and then shifted to her and to the veranda. A man there was struggling to get up. Jem said: “Dave—it’s no use. I heard you. All of it.”

  Dave got up wearily and with a queer unsteadiness. He stood blinking into the light for a moment, and then shuffled unsteadily to a pillar and sat down, leaning against the pillar. His glasses were gone, the black lock of hair lay disheveled across his high white forehead. His dark eyes gleamed blankly in the light. His mouth moved a little, wordlessly. Jem’s voice from behind the light said: “Serena, you’re sure none of those shots hit you? I had to grab his hand …”

  “I’m—all right …”

  Dave’s mouth made an intelligible sound: “How long have you known, Jem?”

  “Not very long. I wasn’t sure.”