“There’s nothing to worry about,” I told her. “Probably Lizzie had a nightmare.”
“I suppose I’m used to the city, miss,” she said, and shivered.
Ellen was quieter when, having locked the rooms again, I went downstairs. Juliette was still out, and I had left Jordan on the second floor. It was only later, in the library, that the doctor asked any questions.
“What’s all this nonsense about bells, Marcia?” he inquired. “And what about this man with a hatchet?”
“I suppose Lizzie is getting old,” I said evasively. “As to the rest, you know how it is. An old house—”
“Maggie says you left this hatchet in the quarantine room.”
“I thought so. I may be mistaken. Or it may not be the same one.”
Then he made my blood run cold, for he said: “Somebody up to Arthur’s old tricks with the trellis and the drain pipe, eh? I suppose Arthur himself wasn’t around?”
“With a hatchet?” I said. “And with Juliette in the house?”
“Well,” he said, and grinned. “If I were Arthur the conjunction wouldn’t be entirely surprising!”
I should have told him then and there. He had looked after me all my life, in the summer, and he had often said that in case he ever became delirious he was to be shut in a sealed room. He knew too much about us all. Arthur’s insistence on secrecy, however, was still in my mind. I merely smiled, and soon after that he loaded his bag and folded himself—he was a tall thin man—into his always muddy car and drove away.
It was after he had gone that I made a round of the grounds. But I found nothing. Mike showed me where the hatchet had been found, its head in the mud of the pond, but there were no footprints except his own.
“Looked as though it had been thrown there,” he said. “Anybody standing in the drive near the gates could do it.”
The excitement in the house was dying down. Ellen was sleeping under a hypnotic, the key to the hospital rooms was again in the drawer, and except that Lizzie was positive that the man with the hatchet had been chasing somebody or something, I had learned nothing whatever. But the bells chose that morning to ring again. They rang from all the rooms, indiscriminately, and I sent again for the electrician.
“Take out all the wires if you have to,” I told him, “or the servants will desert in a body.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the wiring, Miss Lloyd,” he told me. “Looks like somebody’s playing a joke on you. They don’t ring by themselves. That’s sure.”
It was at noon that the riding academy called up.
“I just wondered, Miss Lloyd,” said Ed Smith, “if Mrs. Ransom has come back?”
“Not yet, Ed. Why?”
“Well, I suppose it’s all right,” he said doubtfully. “But she’s about two hours over her time, and I like to keep an eye on my customers.”
“I wouldn’t worry, Ed. She knows how to ride.”
“She does that all right,” he agreed. “Good seat and good hands. Has a quiet mare too. Sorry to have bothered you. She’ll be coming in any minute probably.”
The car was still at the academy, so I was virtually marooned. I went upstairs and telephoned for the house supplies, meanwhile trying to put Arthur out of my mind. But I could think of nothing else. Something had roused him, he had picked up the hatchet and got out the window. Then what?
Even by plane, if he had kept the one that brought him, it was too soon for him to have reached New York. Nevertheless, I called his office, to be told that he was out on his sloop and had given no time for his return. It was only then that I remembered Mary Lou at Millbank, and at one o’clock I telephoned her there.
“How are you?” I said, as naturally as possible. “And how is Junior?”
“All right,” she replied. “What are the prospects, Marcia? How soon is she going? I detest this place.”
“I can’t tell yet. Pretty soon, I think. Any word from Arthur?”
“He’s left town to see about the boat. I suppose he’s got it out somewhere,” she said vaguely. “He called me the day before yesterday and told me. I do hope it doesn’t blow up a gale.”
I had entirely forgotten Juliette by that time; and it was something after one o’clock, when William was announcing lunch, that Ed Smith called again.
“I think I’d better tell you and get it over,” he said. “The mare’s just come back. She must have got away from Mrs. Ransom. She didn’t bolt. She’s as cool as when she went out.” And when I said nothing, he added: “I wouldn’t worry, Miss Lloyd. Mrs. Ransom probably just got off for something and the horse started home. I’ve sent a couple of boys up with an extra for her. She generally takes the same trail, over above Loon Lake.”
“Did she jump that mare?” I said sharply.
“I guess maybe she did, but those jumps are safe.”
Well up in our hills is a small cleared space with two or three low jumps built, and the trail Juliette usually took led to it. But, as Ed said, they were safe enough. I took them myself, had taken them ever since I was a child, and I had never heard of an accident.
“I’m going up myself,” he added. “What I want to know, will I send your car to you? It’s here and you may need it.”
I asked him to do so, and got my hat and a light coat. Then I saw William in the doorway, and told him.
“Miss Juliette’s horse has come back without her,” I said. “She is probably all right, but I’ll get the doctor and drive to the foot of the trail anyhow. I wouldn’t tell Jordan. Time enough when we know what’s happened.”
I must have been pale, for he made me drink a cup of coffee before I left. Then the car came in, and still dazed I was on my way to the doctor’s. Only one thought was in my mind. Had she or had she not told Arthur that she was riding that morning? I could not remember. All I could remember was his desperate face. “Now you’re fastened onto me like a leech, and, by heaven, I can’t get rid of you.”
I found Doctor Jamieson at his lunch, but he came with me at once. He put a bag into the car and, folding his long legs into the space beside me, gave me a whimsical smile.
“Don’t look like that, girl,” he said. “All I’ve got is a few bandages and some iodine. Probably neither of them needed at that. Most people fall off a horse sooner or later.”
His matter-of-factness was good for me. Then, too, once out of the house I felt less morbid. The weather had cleared and the air was bracing, almost exhilarating. The golf links showed a brilliant green on the fairways, and Bob Hutchinson was driving a row of balls from the ninth tee, with Fred Martin, the professional, standing by. Tony was just coming in with Howard Brooks, both looking warm and cheerful. They waved, but I drove on past and into the dirt road which led to the bridle path. At the foot of the trail I stopped the car, and the doctor gave me a cigarette and took one himself.
“Pretty spot,” he said. “Relax and look at it, girl. You’re tightened up like a drum.”
“I’m frightened, doctor.”
He turned and looked at me.
“See here,” he said, “let’s look at this thing. At the least let’s say she merely lost her horse. That’s possible. Then let’s say she’s had a fall and is used up a bit—well, that’s easily fixed. You’re not so fond of her as all that, Marcia. What are you scared about?”
“Suppose she’s dead?” I said with stiff lips.
“Why suppose anything of the sort? But just to be practical, she hasn’t meant so much to you and Arthur that you couldn’t outlive even that. How is Arthur, anyhow?”
“Fine, so far as I know.”
My voice may have been constrained, for he glanced at me.
“Haven’t seen him lately, then?”
Once again I should have told him, of course; told him the whole story. As I write this I find my hand shaking. What if I had told him? Could any lives have been saved? Perhaps not. Almost certainly not. The motives were too deeply buried. Yet I would like to feel that I had trusted him.
B
ut Arthur’s story to Mary Lou and his insistence on secrecy were uppermost in my mind.
“Not for some time,” I said, and then I heard a horse coming down the trail. It was one of Ed’s boys, and he stopped beside the car.
“Haven’t found her yet,” he said, touching his cap. “Mr. Smith and Joe’s gone on a ways. One thing, she didn’t do any jumping. Doesn’t look like it, anyhow.”
Over an hour passed before Ed Smith and Joe came back. Their animals were sweating, and had evidently traveled far and fast. Ed took off his hat and wiped his face.
“Only thing I can think of,” he said, “she started to walk home and tried a short cut. Maybe she’s lost. Maybe she fell and hurt herself. There’s a lot of steep places, and she was in boots. If she slipped—”
It was past two o’clock by that time, and the doctor had to go back. I turned the car in the narrow road by which Ed stood.
“What I was thinking,” he said, “was to get some of those CCC fellows and let them look around. If she’s hurt herself we ought to get her, and even if she’s lost it’s cold at night. Those boys know the country. They’ve been cutting trail all spring.”
But I was convinced by that time that Juliette was not lost.
It is strange to remember that the picture of Loon Lake was delivered late that afternoon. William received it and carried the small canvas gingerly up to my room.
“There’s a person downstairs,” he said stiffly, “who says you ordered it. The price is fifteen dollars if you like it and nothing if you don’t.”
I did like it, and I thought it had been carefully worked over since I saw it. Worried as I was I hastily powdered and went downstairs, to find the painter in the hall, still in his sweater and old slacks.
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “how about it? I’ve made you a sort of double-or-quits proposition. It’s worth about seven-fifty, I’ve asked fifteen; but you don’t have to take it at all.” Then he looked at me closely. “See here,” he said, “you’re not sick, are you? You don’t look right to me.”
“We’ve had a little trouble. At least I’m afraid so. I—”
I must have looked faint, for he put an arm around me and caught me.
“None of that,” he said. “Come into this room, whatever it is, and sit down. And if we can find that high and mighty butler of yours a little brandy wouldn’t hurt you. Or me,” he added, with a smile.
He put me into a chair and stood over me until the brandy came and I drank it. Only then did he relax and sit down.
“Do you want to talk about it? Or don’t you?” he said soberly. “Sometimes it helps.”
I felt better by that time. I told him about Juliette, and he listened attentively. When I came to the end, however, he surprised me.
“Did you really care a lot about her?” he said abruptly.
“No. That’s partly why I feel the way I do.”
“Now listen, my child,” he said. “The world’s full of people grieving for somebody they cared about. It’s sheer sentimentality to worry about the ones we don’t. If anything’s happened to her, be sorry but for God’s sake don’t feel guilty.”
He went soon after; abruptly, as if he had said more than he should. But I felt comforted, in a way, and almost calm. I stood at a window and saw him going up the driveway, his head up and his big shoulders square and self-reliant. But some of the vigor seemed to have gone out of him. He walked like a tired man.
I watched him until he was out of sight. Not until he had gone did I remember that I had not paid him, or even asked him his name. I found that later, however. It was in the corner of the picture, and it was Pell: Allen Pell.
At nine o’clock that night we still had no news. Jordan was shut fast in her room, and the one glimpse I had of her showed me a stony face and swollen reddened eyes. I sent her a tray at dinnertime but she refused it. But I myself could not eat. Arthur had not reached either his office or his hotel, and there seemed to be nobody at the yacht club.
Then at nine o’clock Tony Rutherford came in, looking grave.
“Sit down, Marcia,” he said. “How long have you been walking that floor? You look all in.”
He waited until I had settled myself. Then very deliberately he lit a cigarette.
“They haven’t found her,” he said. “But there are one or two things—See here, did she have any enemies around here that you know of?”
“I suppose plenty of people didn’t like her.”
“Still,” he persisted, “she hasn’t been here for six or seven years, has she? That cuts out the new people. Look here, Marcia. Did she wreck any lives around here?” He smiled, but I saw that he was deadly serious. “You know what I mean.”
“Only Arthur’s and mine. And Mother’s last days on earth.”
He explained then. They had not found her, but beside the trail and not far from the jumps they had found her riding hat and gloves beside a log, where she must have sat down to rest. And there was a cigarette smeared with lipstick, as though she had been smoking. Apparently the mare had stood there for some time. Unfortunately Ed Smith and his men had mussed up the trail itself.
They had sent for some bloodhounds on the mainland, he said, and the sheriff, Russell Shand, was bringing them over.
“Have you notified Arthur?” Tony asked.
“I’ve tried to. Mary Lou says he’s been out with the sloop, and I can’t raise the yacht club.”
“He may be back. Suppose I try again?”
He did, and this time he got the night watchman. Arthur, he said, had been there a day or two ago and had taken the boat out for a trial run. At least it had been anchored in the bay, and he had missed it when he came on duty. But he had an idea that it was back now. He could go and see. When he came back he said it was there. He could see its riding lights.
“I wish you’d row out and see if Mr. Lloyd is aboard,” Tony said. “If he is, get him to call up his sister. Tell him it’s important.”
I drew my first breath of the day then. My color must have come back, for Tony gave me a reassuring pat.
“Feeling better, aren’t you?” he said. “Whatever’s happened, Arthur’s out of it. Own up, Marcia. You’ve been scared, haven’t you?”
But I thought Tony himself seemed relieved.
“Arthur is no killer,” I said shortly.
“We don’t know that she has been killed, do we?”
Less than half an hour later the telephone rang again, and Tony answered it. It was Arthur!
Evidently he was still half asleep, for Tony accused him of it. He was wide awake enough, however, when he was told what had happened, and agreed to take the first train up. If he hurried he could make the midnight and be there by morning; and would I have a car meet him. Also would we break the news to Mary Lou before she saw it in the local papers.
It was all like Arthur, decisive and responsible, and my sense of relief grew. I saw Tony out and, going back to the servants’ hall, told William to meet Arthur in the morning. They were all there, nervous and silent, but Jordan was not with them. I went upstairs and knocked at her door, but she would not unlock it.
“I’m sorry, Jordan,” I said. “They haven’t found her yet. But they will very soon. They have sent for some bloodhounds.”
“Thank you, miss.”
I waited, but that seemed to be all, so I went away. In my own room I undressed and, putting on a bathrobe, went out onto the upper porch and stared at the bay. By one of our quick turns of weather the air was warm that night, and the tide was lapping in with small advancing waves. The pilings of the old pier showed a faint luminescence at the water line, and for all my anxiety I felt a vague sort of happiness; something I had not known since Tony and I had parted. When I went in I remember standing for some time, looking at the picture of Loon Lake.
CHAPTER VIII
I DID NOT SLEEP THAT night. I had called Mary Lou, and the result had worried me.
“Do you think she is dead?” she had asked, and there w
as a sort of suppressed hope in her voice.
But who was I to blame her? I was sorry for Juliette, if anything had happened to her. She loved to live, had wanted to live. Nevertheless, I faced the situation as honestly as I could. If she was gone for good it meant release for all of us; an escape from the prison of the last few years. She had not left me much, either of faith or of hope, but what was left would be safe.
Perhaps Allen Pell was right. I would be sorry, but I could not grieve.
It was well after midnight when I thought I heard Jordan stirring and got up. Her room was quiet, however, and I did not disturb her. But while I was still up and about I had a shock. I happened to glance out a rear window, and saw someone with a flashlight down near the pond. It would show for a moment as if to direct its holder along the path, and then be snapped off. And it was gradually borne in on me that whoever carried it was moving stealthily toward the garden outside the morning room.
Not until it was close did I raise a window and call out.
“What is it?” I called. “What do you want?”
There was instant silence, and the light clicked off. Whoever held it was in the shadow of the trees, and I could see nothing.
“Whoever you are,” I said, thoroughly aroused by that time, “you are trespassing, and I shall call the police.”
There was still no answer, but there was a cautious movement below, and by the sounds I knew that the invader was retreating.
I wakened William and we made a careful search; but there was no one around.
I was wide awake the remainder of the night. The tide was full at three in the morning, and I lay in bed listening to it as it eased softly over the rocks below. Shortly afterwards I heard Jordan open her door and come out into the hall, and I got up and spoke to her.
“Won’t you let me give you a bromide?” I asked. “You need some rest.”
“No thank you, miss,” she said tonelessly. “I thought I’d go downstairs and make myself a cup of tea.”
She went on down, with that peculiar catlike tread of hers which was almost noiseless, and I went back to bed. But the sight of her had reminded me of something. Had she seen that wretched hat of Arthur’s while I was in the hospital room? She might have been there for some time. In that case—
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