“Sit down!” Maria broke in imperiously.
“What! Who are you to tell me to—”
“Sit down!” Maria pushed the girl forcibly into the armchair, stood in front of her and gave a grim smile. “You shall not stand there and talk to me, young lady. For a change you will listen— Don’t dare try to interrupt me, either! I’ve been dealing with girls all my life and I can certainly deal with you. Anyway, you’re still only a child.”
Patricia sat back, her eyes contemptuous. “Okay, I’m just a child! Say what you’ve got to say and get it over with.”
“And you would be well advised to lower your voice!” Maria snapped. “Don’t forget Richard is only in the next room.... Now”—she pulled up another chair and seated herself resolutely—“the nosy old dragon is going to belch fire, my dear.”
“Nosy old—” Pat sat up sharply. “I never called you that! I only said it to— You’ve found Arthur! You’ve found him! Turned him over to the police! By heaven, aunt, I’ll—”
“Quiet!” Maria insisted. “Remember Richard.... You can set yourself at ease. I haven’t turned in Arthur...yet. But I have seen him and learned quite a good deal....” And she went into a detailed account of her exploit in the granary.
When it was over Pat sat with a vaguely shamefaced expression on her sensitive features.
“I—I suppose you’re thinking I’m pretty much of a heel, aren’t you?” she asked at last, uncomfortably. “I mean to say—after the things I’ve said and done to you. But I was scared—scared to death!” Her eyes misted with sudden tears. “Can you understand that?”
“Yes.... I can.” Maria smiled a little, patted the slender hand resting on the chair arm. “Don’t cry, my dear. I know just what you are going through, and how much you have already done. You are young, quite young, and I know that a girl like you, naturally refined and sensitive, has deliberately scourged herself to do the things you have. I know too that a girl like you takes shelter behind a façade of cynicism to hide her real emotions. You never were very convincing, you know—at least not to me. A headmistress has to be a first-class psychologist, you see. You are a girl of great courage, Patricia—and I like courage.”
Patricia gave a wan smile, dabbed her eyes with a wisp of silk.
“Th-thanks, Aunt—you’re very understanding.... But now you do know where does it get us? Arthur’s still in an awful spot. I begin to wish he’d never staged that prison farm break, then instead we might have—”
“He was wrong in doing that, certainly— However, I am going to help you.”
“You!” Patricia stared. “But what on earth can you do?”
“Enough, I think, to secure a stranglehold over this Ransome person—just as you want to do. Tomorrow night I shall launch an offensive against him.”
“An offensive? What is this—a war?”
“You may call it that, against Ransome,” Maria nodded calmly; and then she explained her plan in detail.
“But, Aunt, you don’t know what you’re getting into!” Pat gasped. “Lord, you talk about me having courage while you are planning to rob the biggest racketeer in town! Do you realize what will happen to you if you’re found out—if we’re both found out?”
Maria reflected. “I can imagine,” she said.
“The last two who crossed Ransome were women,” Patricia muttered. “The police found their bodies horribly mutilated. Everybody knows who did it but nobody can prove it. That can happen to us if we slip up. I was prepared to take a chance because I’m Arthur’s wife and that sort of gives me the right to get into danger on his account. But it’s my worry when all is said and done. There’s no need for you to jeopardize yourself.”
“You don’t understand the full issue, Patricia. I am not trying to attack Ransome solely on your behalf—but also as a means to a final end of my own. The point is: are you willing to co-operate with me in my little war tomorrow night? Or rather tonight since it is already early morning.”
“Willing! I wish I’d thought of it myself.... Believe me, the only thing I want is to clear Arthur from this whole beastly business. I loathe the job I’m doing; I’m revolted every time that greasy hog paws me: I take a risk every time I come in the house in case I’m seen and have to lie my way out— The whole thing’s awful! But it has to be! So far I haven’t been caught in the house—but I guess I might have been tonight but for you. It would have meant plenty of barefaced lying to throw Dick off the scent, just as you said....” Pat paused for a moment and looked up sharply. “You spoke of a final end of your own? Do you mean you are still on the hunt to try and prove if dad was murdered?”
“He was murdered, Patricia; I know that now. Ransome is on my list of suspects.... I might say many suspects,” Maria sighed.
“You do not think,” Patricia said quietly, “that I had anything to do with dad’s death? Honestly, I always understood it was suicide.”
Maria smiled. “Unofficially, as one might say, I consider you are entirely innocent, but I have to bear in mind the warning expounded by Allison in his Summing Up the Crime—namely, guilty and innocent look alike until proven otherwise— But forget all this for the time being. You must be tired. You must stay here for the rest of the night and slip out in the morning when it is safe to pass Richard’s room. Come along: I will loan you some night attire.”
Pat stood up, tugged off her overcoat wearily. “The more you do for me,” she said, stifling a yawn, “the more I realize what a hellcat you must have thought me at first.”
Maria smiled, turned to the dressing table. “And yet, had I ever possessed a daughter, I would have asked for one with your courage and looks. Queer, isn’t it?”
* * * *
Patricia made good her escape to her own room before the maid arrived with Maria’s morning cup of tea, and Maria only saw her again at breakfast. She gave a tight little smile and winked solemnly—but to the rest of the family her change in manner towards Maria was more than noticeable.
“Decided to be civil at last, eh?” Dick asked shortly. “It isn’t before time, anyway! What brought about the miracle?”
Pat opened her mouth to reply, thought better of it, and went on with her meal without satisfying his curiosity.
“Maria, dear, just what time did you get in last night?” Alice asked presently. “I retired at eleven-thirty and you hadn’t come in then. It seems awfully late when it gets past half after eleven, don’t you think? Yet if you go sooner it seems a terrible time until one gets up again.”
“I was in for midnight, Alice,” Maria replied. “Altogether I had an excellent day. I saw the city, the outlying districts, the parks”—Maria’s cold eyes wandered to Janet’s rather tense features—“and so finally came home again, only to be awakened by a nightmare the moment I had got to sleep.”
“Nightmare? How extraordinary!” Alice exclaimed. “You don’t strike me as being the kind of woman to have nightmares, my dear. Now if it were me—”
“I have never had a nightmare in my life before,” Maria stated calmly. “Nor am I too sure I had one last night.”
Dick lowered his grapefruit spoon and gazed steadily across the table, but Maria went on eating undisturbed.
“What was it about, Aunt?” Janet asked. “The big, black goblins of liver trouble, or just pink spots rushing about the room?”
“Neither, Janet. I thought I heard Richard striking a woman, and she yelled for help.”
“Say, was that a dream!” Patricia cried amazedly.
“You—what?” Janet asked deliberately, her dark eyes puzzled.
“Of course I was wrong,” Maria smiled, gazing round. “Richard very soon convinced me of that—but it really is surprising what a figment of the imagination can do sometimes.”
“Yes.... Isn’t it?” breathed Patricia, pondering. Then she looked across at Dick as he sat grim-faced and silent. “Not that I’d put it past him,” she added dryly. “I’m glad I’m only his sister instead of his girl friend.”
>
“Meaning what?” Dick snapped, his jaws tightening. “Just what is this, anyway? Aunt had a dream: she admits it! Why try and make something of it?”
“Why indeed?” Maria shrugged. “In fact, Richard, nobody is making anything of it except you!”
He looked at her sharply, then Janet’s cool voice broke in.
“Like Pat, I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s got twenty-two blondes and three redheads in that downtown leg show of his. If he can rule all those and get the best out of them he must be a woman beater. Just plain common sense, eh, Dick?”
“Oh—nuts!” He went on defiantly with his breakfast; but once or twice he looked up to find Maria’s eyes fixed upon him steadily. It was the inscrutable stare that had put more than one Roseway young lady on the spot. The worst of it was that at such moments Maria never put her thoughts into words. In fact she seemed to have shelved the subject of the ‘nightmare’ altogether for she did not refer to it again.
“For myself,” Alice said after a while, as though feeling it was incumbent on her to say something, “I slept perfectly last night. Or did I? No!” She thought and frowned. “No, now I recall it I woke up early in the morning under the impression I heard voices.”
“This is getting catching,” Janet observed. “Don’t tell us that you too heard Dick putting on a Simon Legree act!”
“No, nothing like that. As a matter of fact I thought I heard you, Maria—and the other voice sounded like Pat’s. I must have been wrong, of course. I was half asleep anyway.”
“You must have been,” Maria said dryly, noting Pat’s face had gone rather tense. “Possibly this tendency for us to hear voices has some explanation—psychologically, I mean. You must read Freud’s treatise on dreams some time, Alice.”
Having disposed of the immediate danger Maria glanced at Patricia significantly— Then everybody’s attention was directed towards Cresty the parrot as he went off into a fit of chattering.
“Oi! I saw you! I saw you do it!”
“I just wonder who did teach him that line?” Dick mused. “He saw who do what?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Patricia asked sweetly. “I taught him that line, if you must know—but you don’t know what it was he saw!”
“If anything,” Janet said indifferently.
“If he didn’t see anything why did I teach it him?” Patricia challenged; and Janet shrugged.
“Search me—but I wouldn’t put it past you to teach him that just to watch all our faces.”
“That’s why,” Pat said innocently. “You guessed it....”
The rest of the family looked at each other, except Maria, who was looking at the bird. Then Dick got up and excused himself.
“I’ll have to be on my way, folks. See you later.”
“Not me you won’t,” Janet sighed. “I start singing at the Criterion Theatre tonight, remember. Rehearsal this afternoon,” she added to the others. “Which reminds me I’d better go and test a few top notes. I’ve an idea my voice is a bit rusty from lack of use these last few days.”
She left the terrace, humming softly to herself. Within a few minutes the clear, mellow tones of the grand piano and her own exquisite voice were floating out from the room next to the lounge. Alice lay back in her chair, listening, giving little admiring twists to her head ever and again.
“Superb!” she breathed. “Positively superb!”
“Just what is she singing?” Maria asked, attentive.
“Nothing particular—just a ballad song,” Pat said briefly. “No high notes in it, therefore I’m not much interested. But there may be in a while in some other song. When Jan hits the high C she is tops—”
She broke off and winced as the parrot gave a piercing whistle.
“Walters!” Alice cried. “Walters, for goodness sake take Cresty into the lounge! He’s drowning everything.”
“Very good, madam.”
He picked the bird up on its stand and transported it out of sight. But that didn’t stop Cresty. The girl’s voice had started him off on one of his singing imitations—and very clear notes he rendered too, utterly drowning the girl’s voice at the greater distance.
“Sounds as though Cresty is trying Mozart’s ‘Alleluia in F Major’ again—the one with the high C in it,” Patricia murmured. “He has a passion for that one. Jan always uses it as her encore aria. It was dad’s favorite song, too. She sang it during the last tour— There! Listen to that top note! A perfect imitation of Jan!”
All three sat in silence for a moment, impressed by the bird’s clear purity of tone—then with a chortle at its own ability it finished with a guttural command to “Go cook a hamburger!”
Maria smiled. “Funny how parrots like to imitate singers,” she mused. “The late Luisa Tetrazzini, if you recall her life, had a parrot which could not only equal her superb top notes but could even beat them! The famous soprano admitted that the bird was her one dangerous rival....”
“Yes,” Alice said, in a rather queer tone, “I seem to remember having read of that somewhere.”
Maria thought for a moment, then rose to her feet.
“Well,” she said reluctantly, “engrossing though this is I have to get some work done. I keep putting it off—but it just won’t wait any longer.”
“What work?” Alice asked in surprise. “You’re on a vacation.”
“I still have those instructions to send to the estimable Miss Tanby.”
“They won’t get there until after your college has closed, will they?” Patricia asked, puzzling.
“The college may be closed for education, Patricia, but Miss Tanby remains,” Maria smiled. “Therefore, I have got to get a typewriter from somewhere. And incidentally I had Walters bring yours to me in the fond hope that I might be able to fix it. But—no!”
“Hopeless, I know,” Pat shrugged. “Sorry I’m of so little help.”
“I recall Richard mentioning he has one at his town office,” Maria pondered. “I think I might do worse than go down and see if I can borrow it. He can have it sent up since it is one of the heavy variety. If that fails I’ll try Janet.”
“Why not do it now and save yourself the trouble of walking to town?” Pat asked. “Or why not go in the car? I can tell Smithson to—”
“Why all the fuss?” Maria smiled. “If I must be frank, I am finding a reason for taking a walk. I believe in exercise—yes, even at my age. But I don’t like pointless ambling.... So, into town I go.”
With that she strolled from the terrace and into the lounge. Janet was still practicing, testing an occasional top note now—but Maria was not listening very attentively. She was busy with her own thoughts, but even so her eyes glanced briefly around the lounge. It was mainly experience that made her do it: that inborn necessity to see everything was in order.... And almost immediately she saw something wrong. There was a flaw on the sideboard.
She frowned and went quickly over to it. A wine glass was there with half of its bowl sliced off as cleanly as though with a diamond cutter. The remaining section, a glass bracelet as it were, lay nearby.
“Walters!” she called sharply, and he came in from busying about the terrace. His puzzled eyes regarded the glass.
“What is the meaning of this?” Maria asked shortly. “Do you not realize how dangerous that glass is like that? How did the top half come to be broken off?”
Walters turned and pressed the bell-push. Lucy, the parlor maid, arrived on the scene hurriedly.
“What is the explanation for this?” Walters asked coldly, motioning to the sideboard.
Lucy stared in obvious amazement. “Why, I—er— I don’t know, sir. It was not like that when I dusted this morning—”
“What do you mean—it was not like that? You could not possibly miss a glass in that dangerous condition if you had done your work properly.”
“Honestly, Mr. Walters, without meaning any disrespect, there was nothing wrong when I dusted this morning.”
“D
o you suggest it broke itself?” Walters asked acidly.
“It isn’t the first time it has happened, sir,” Lucy said urgently.
“What do you mean?” asked Maria sharply. “Be explicit, Lucy!”
“Well, I remember some time ago that I found a glass on here broken rather like this one, only much lower down, just as though somebody had cut it off with a razor. It was during the time the master was alive. I just took it away, replaced it, and said no more about it.”
“And was there any explanation for the occurrence?” Maria asked.
“No, m’m. It must just have sort of happened, I guess.”
Maria fingered her watch-chain, her eyes narrowed in thought.
“Hmm, most extraordinary,” she said finally. “Very well, Lucy, clear it away. Thank you, Walters, that will be all.”
He nodded, gave the girl a glance which threatened cyclones in the kitchen, then returned to the terrace. Lucy picked up the glass remains carefully.
“Anything wrong, Aunt?”
Janet came out of the neighboring room.
“No—nothing.” Maria started out of her preoccupation. “At least I presume it is nothing— Just a wine glass smashed in the oddest fashion without anybody apparently being near it.”
“How very extraordinary!” Janet exclaimed, watching the maid. Then she shrugged. “Probably Dick. He often takes a brandy and soda as he leaves. In a particular hurry he might have banged the glass down and a flaw in it caused it to break off.”
“Wine glass for brandy and soda?” Maria raised her eyebrows, shook her head, then went out with stately calm, ascended to her room and began to dress for her town journey. Her mind was completely occupied by the odd mystery of the smashed glass, but she could find no plausible solution for it as she sat on the bus which took her to Dick’s cabaret headquarters. She remembered it clearly enough from his pointing it out to her on the day of her arrival.
Once she arrived she found herself wandering through a maze of upturned tables, humming vacuum cleaners, cleaning women, men in shirtsleeves, and slapping mops. One of the men—who was probably an opulent commissionaire by night—directed her to Dick’s office, or at least to the little room he occupied for business during the run of his show.... She had her knuckles ready to rap on the panels when voices from inside the room came to her through the open fanlight above. Involuntarily she paused and listened.
Black Maria, M. A.: A Classic Crime Novel Page 11
