Simon, however, came quickly after me. I was hurt and angry, and for the first time in my life I would have barred him from my room. But he followed me in. I seated myself at my desk, and made some transparent show of being busy. Simon declined to take the hint. He sat down placidly at my dressing table. I rattled papers. Simon didn’t stir. Quite as though I wasn’t present he began absently to examine the silver-framed photographs which lined the dressing table, and which I carried everywhere. Those photographs, a lone woman’s substitute for a family of her own, measured the changes in my kin for thirty years and more. Simon had seen the collection countless times, and he could have had no interest in studying Marian in swaddling clothes supported in the arms of a youthful Verity, or in examining the stern-visaged portrait of my father, or in lingering over the wistful lovely picture of my long-dead mother. Indignation got the better of my intention to let him heal the breach.
“Well, Simon?”
Simon was gazing at Julia pictured beneath her wedding veil, Julia radiant and shining, as they sometimes are, who are marked for early death. “Your sister,” he said musingly, “was a remarkably handsome girl.”
I was well aware of Simon’s opinion of my sister Julia’s beauty. His expression, as he studied her glowing face, did nothing to improve my temper. I stood up from the desk.
“By the way,” asked Simon, “what do you hear from Chal Enlow?”
“I never hear from Chal,” I said, surprised, “except when he’s in urgent need of money. What made you think of Chal?”
“Julia,” said Simon.
I wasn’t entirely satisfied. I looked at him sharply but again his eyes were not for me. He sighed. “The beautiful and the good die young.”
I had loved my sister, too, but I could not resist a tart reply. “Don’t pity Julia, Simon. She lived her life, and a full life, too. She had the man she loved—she had her son.”
“I daresay you’re right. But it seems a pity the two who meant everything to her should be so completely alienated. Ames here, Chal buried in interior Mexico.”
“It suits me,” I said shortly. “I imagine it suits Ames. His father never had the slightest interest in his welfare, or in anything except painting canvases that only the most devoted relatives will buy. I can’t waste much sympathy on Chal Enlow. He’s made his bed, and from all reports he likes it.”
“Then you do get reports?”
“Often enough,” I said, “to be informed that the climate and pace of Mexico are better suited to the cultivated man than the hurly-burly of the States. Which means, I suppose, that Chal isn’t required to change his shirt in Yucatan. But I do wish, Simon, you’d stop staring at those photographs and tell me why you’re here. I know you didn’t come to discuss Julia and Chal Enlow.” Simon rose from the dressing table. He crossed the room and took my hands, both of them, and looked down into my face.
“Are you willing to trust me, Margaret?”
“To a degree,” I said coldly.
He ignored both reply and tone. “I want you to make me a promise, Margaret. I want you to bolt your doors at night and for God’s sake not go wandering about the house.”
“Why should I promise?”
“Because,” he said sharply, “I don’t believe you’re safe. I wish that you and Jane could go away, but since you can’t the least you can do is lock your doors.”
I said stubbornly, “I’ve got no enemies, Simon.”
“You don’t know whether you have or not! Hasn’t it occurred to you that Dorothy’s room connects with yours? And that we’ve found no explanation for that episode last 'night?”
“Nonsense! You can’t believe that I’m in actual danger. Or if you do believe it you know something that I’m entitled to hear.”
“I’ve asked you to trust me, Margaret. I’m afraid you must. I don’t intend to leave, my dear, until I have your promise.”
Simon could always get around me. Like some figure in an unreal dream I heard myself promising to lock my doors against the other members of my family. It was only then that he departed.
I can realize now that after that scene with Simon my state of mind was not exactly normal, that I felt not only frustrated but desperate. It seemed to me that everywhere I turned walls rose to shut me out. Simon’s insistence that I lock my doors, his suggestion that I was in danger followed by his refusal to elucidate his reasoning, were characteristic of the condition of the household.
The events of that morning had destroyed entirely my sense of proportion, to say nothing of my moral values. The possibility that some member of my family might be implicated in a cold-blooded murder had almost ceased to shock me. It had become unimportant in my thinking. All that seemed important was that I should find out the true facts at once, before it was too late, so that I might cover them up, decide how best to keep them from reaching the police. My family could not go on, with every member of it set against the others. I had to dispel the cloud of suspicion in my mind or make it actual.
In some such mood I determined to inaugurate a personal investigation into the circumstances of Dorothy Fithian’s murder. I would begin by finding out who had gone to her bedroom the night before. I had as a starting point the memory of a tasseled cord flitting swiftly through a closing door.
I can smile now at my conviction that I could go through every wardrobe on the third floor, discover a dressing gown with a tasseled cord and know at once the identity of the intruder to Dorothy’s bedroom. I had overlooked the fact that almost every tailored dressing gown is belted with a tasseled cord, and that a tailored dressing gown is virtually a necessity in a household where baths are scarce. In that single flashing glimpse I had had no opportunity to distinguish the color of the cord, the texture or the length.
Half an hour later I had learned the worthlessness of what I had seen. In five different wardrobes I found five tailored dressing gowns in five different colors, each with the inevitable tasseled cord. Even Marian, who usually went in for brocades and velvets, possessed such a garment. So did Jane. Each of the men, Simon and Ames and Fred, owned a dressing gown that fitted neatly with my mental picture. Verity did not own a belted dressing gown. Nor did I. But five separate dressing gowns, maddeningly alike, were four too many to be of any use to me.
For some reason, difficult to explain, I searched Fred’s closet last. His dressing gown was made of dark blue silk and the dark blue belt consisted of a length of twisted silk finished off with silken tassels. Fred had a habit of losing his belts, and Verity had firmly sewed the cord into place. Later on I had cause to remember myself examining that cord of twisted silk, stitched firmly to the heavy fabric. But at the time I only felt weary and discouraged. I shut the closet door and started to leave the room. But as I neared the outer door I heard Marian’s voice in the hall. I braced myself, expecting that she would come in, discover me there, request explanations. Explanations I didn’t propose to give. And then she passed by, and went on down the stairs. The hall became very quiet.
I had thrust deliberately into the background of my thoughts Marian’s tale of Fred’s missing gun, his fatal absence from the theater. But now her tale returned to haunt me. How long could such news be kept under cover? Surely not much longer. It was a miracle that Inspector Chant had not found out already. Half a dozen theater attendants were aware that Fred had left the play, and with the newspapers ringing with the Monday evening murder, they were bound to talk. They were probably talking now.
Quite lost to shame, moved by some vague hope that Marian might have been mistaken about the absence of the gun, I went slowly to Fred’s bureau. I carefully searched the drawers. But the gun was gone, although I did discover the permit which Harold had obtained months before, not at Fred’s request, or at mine, but, ironically, at my sister Marian’s insistence. Marian had valued her small amount of jewelry above my peace of mind, and Fred’s too. I remembered as I stared into the empty drawer Fred’s flat refusal to keep his weapon loaded.
Dorothy
had been strangled, and how that weapon fitted into the murder was beyond my comprehension, but I had no doubt Inspector Chant would make something of the absence of Fred’s gun. Just as—once he found out—he would make something of my brother-in-law’s departure from the theater.
How could Fred possibly explain to the Inspector? Would he dare to look into those cool, blue eyes and swear that on a chill, unpleasant night a sudden impulse had caused him to abandon wife and daughter and set forth on an aimless, solitary drive? How could he explain the fact that he had armed himself? I turned around and walked out of Fred’s room.
That was at half past eleven o’clock, on the Wednesday after Dorothy Fithian’s murder. I have many reasons to remember that dreary sunless day and not the least of them was the unannounced and unexpected appearance of Inspector Chant. He was in the house some time before I was aware that he was there. At exactly twelve o’clock he sent up word that he desired to see me. The clock was striking as I walked down the stairs.
I found the Inspector in the library, enjoying a comfortable cup of coffee. I thought that he looked tired, and also very much at home. He had examined and discarded the morning paper, and, as I recall, was idly leafing through one of Simon’s books. He laid the heavy volume with the others.
“These new?” he asked casually.
“They just arrived this morning. Dr. Hargreaves,” I couldn’t refrain from adding irritably, “doesn’t like to lose touch with his professional interests.”
The Inspector smiled. I received no inkling that he had anything portentous on his mind. I did observe that when he rose and seated me, he behaved a little as though he were host and I was guest. I didn’t care for coffee, but he pressed a cup upon me. He made me very comfortable. Then he crossed to close the door.
“I thought you might like privacy, Miss Tilbury.”
I felt an anticipatory chill. I rested my coffee on my knee. “As you like, Inspector.”
“I was thinking of you, Miss Tilbury.” Again he smiled gently. “Perhaps I should warn you that I’ve come here with a serious purpose. I want you to cast your mind back to the night of Dorothy Fithian’s murder. Why,” he asked pleasantly, “why on that night did you move a pair of hedge shears from the severed telephone wire and replace them in the tool-box?”
15
There ensued the most awful silence—a silence that seemed to ring. It was my move now and I had no idea what move to make. I sat back and looked at Inspector Chant. I could not read from his impassive face whether he knew that I had moved the shears, or whether his remark was based upon suspicion only. I considered a flat denial, I considered various lies but no convincing lie occurred to me. One of my father’s axioms, “When you’ve got to fight, daughter, hit first and hit hard,” flashed into my mind, and I thought of no better plan than to carry the offensive into the enemy’s country.
I said, “So it’s you, Inspector, who is responsible for the disappearance of those shears.” He blinked at me. I added firmly, “I don’t quite like your way of doing things. In the future if there’s anything of mine you want I’d prefer that you speak to me about it.”
And then to prove my poise I upset my cup of coffee in my lap. The inspector leaped to save his trousers. But he was smiling as he began to help me clean up the mess. “I’m sorry, Miss Tilbury, that I startled you.”
I was attempting to scrub coffee from the carpet, and the quiet satisfaction in his tone aroused my ire. “You’re not sorry in the least! I suppose there’s no use my saying I didn’t touch those shears.”
“None,” he said, “for I know you did. That is, I know now. I’m merely asking you to verify my knowledge.”
“And if I refuse?”
“That,” he said, “would be very foolish of you. But you haven’t answered my question yet. Why, Miss Tilbury, did you choose to hamper my investigation almost before I had begun it? What made you determine to conceal the fact that those particular shears had been used to cut the telephone wires?”
I didn’t say a word.
“When you moved those shears,” he went on calmly, “you committed a felony, punishable by a term in jail. You must have had some very pressing reason. What was it?”
Still I didn’t say a word.
“Suppose I tell you,” he suggested pleasantly, “what your reasoning was. You can stop me if I’m wrong. But I’m confident”—and again he smiled at me—“I’m right. You saw those shears lying beside the severed telephone wire, and you knew that only a member of your household could have obtained possession of them. You decided then and there that someone close to you had murdered Dorothy Fithian. You were panic-stricken, you were determined to protect that person, you moved the shears. Isn’t that correct?”
I got up from my chair. “I don’t need to listen to you, Inspector. What I may have thought, or what I may have done has nothing to do with your case. Unless—are you accusing me of having a hand in Dorothy’s murder?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! But I advise,” he said grimly, “that you sit down and that you listen.”
I looked at him, and I sat down.
“You can’t deny,” began the inspector, “that you’re working against me. That your family is. Every one of you suspected someone—some specific person—at the moment when you first discovered Dorothy Fithian’s body. That suspicion, that fear has been an underlying factor in the evasion, the lack of cooperation, and the downright perjury which have been my portion in this house. Someone—some member of this family—is being shielded by every one of you.”
“I deny that.”
“Indeed!” Again he leaned toward me. “Let me tell you something, Miss Tilbury. You are a fanatically loyal group of people but as conspirators, believe me, you leave something to be desired. Take you and those hedge shears. It was a simple matter for me to examine those shears, tucked neatly in the tool-box, and to discover caught in the blades a tiny shred of wire which you had overlooked, a shred which matched the severed telephone wire exactly. There’s no magic in police work. I’m not resorting to magic when I say that your niece has lied to me. It’s patent from her story. I know that she saw and recognized someone when she ran upstairs to get the fire extinguishers. From other things that have been hidden, and that I have uncovered, I can guess the identity of the person whom you, your niece, and all the rest of you, are attempting to protect.”
I watched him in sick fascination.
“It was easy enough, Miss Tilbury,” the inspector went on calmly, “for me to discover that Fred Brierly was acquainted with Dorothy Fithian long before she entered this house. A dozen people at Grosvenor Hospital were aware of the situation, and not all of them were as discreet as Dr. Damon Smedley. It was equally easy,” said the inspector still gently, “for me to make a routine call at the theater and to discover that Fred Brierly was not at the play on the night of Dorothy Fithian’s murder.”
Every drop of blood drained from my heart. Chant knew everything. Our efforts at concealment had been worse than futile, they had been damning. In their very failure they had crystallized and brought into being a suspicion that, without them, might never have existed. I tried to say that I had only learned the night before of Fred’s absence from the theater.
Chant brushed that aside.
“Your sister knew he wasn’t at the theater. Your niece knew it, your nephew knew it. What kept them quiet? It was fear! Fear that Fred Brierly himself had murdered Dorothy Fithian. I’m determined to get at the basis of that fear, find out what it springs from, find out why his own family is convinced that Fred Brierly is a particularly brutal killer.”
Put that way, it sounded appalling. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“I wish I could show you people,” the inspector continued in his even, uninflected tones, “how completely you’re working at cross purposes. You aren’t telling the truth to me, but neither are you telling it to one another. You’ve picked your suspect, and you’re moving heaven and earth to becloud the iss
ue, and apparently it hasn’t occurred to any of you that your premise might be wrong. That the truth, once it comes out—and, my dear lady, it will come out—may prove you all mistaken.”
I don’t know when I’ve felt so bewildered. I studied the inspector, calm, inscrutable, so perfectly right in his assertions. “What do you suggest?”
“First of all I’d like to hear from you a clear and coherent account of what went on upstairs last night. The basis for the ghost that has your kitchen force in an uproar.”
Perhaps I was wrong but in the queer, bewildering expansiveness of the moment I told him of the incident in Dorothy’s bedroom, of the midnight marauder, of the typewriter which had been moved on the night of the murder. He frowned at me.
“That typed note again! It keeps popping up, doesn’t it—in a different guise but perplexing in whatever form it assumes. Why should that young woman have typed out any kind of note, Miss Tilbury? Particularly why should she have left note and typewriter underneath her bed?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said.
He looked very grave. “I’ve asked you repeatedly, Miss Tilbury, whether—except for the typewriter—your room was perfectly as usual. I’ll ask you that question again. Think before you answer, for I’m quite sure,” he finished, “that whoever transferred the typewriter had some much more important mission. Must have had.”
But I couldn’t help.
The inspector studied space. He sighed. “Of course whoever moved the typewriter was privy to Dorothy Fithian’s plans for the evening—those plans interrupted by her death. But that doesn’t get us much further. Certainly it doesn’t explain why Dorothy Fithian went out of the house armed with Fred Brierly’s gun.”
I gasped. His eyes twinkled wickedly.
“That surprises you, Miss Tilbury.”
My words came without my own volition. “Are you saying Dorothy Fithian took Fred’s gun? I thought that Fred himself…”
The Strawstack Murders Page 15
