Night Call and Other Stories of Suspense

by Armstrong Charlotte

  FROM OUT OF THE GARDEN

  Maude Seton, aged twenty-eight, was a girl who trotted around the city of New York in the most bizarre high-fashion clothing she could find, with a very thin attaché case hanging by a strap from one shoulder as the badge of the newspaper woman she was hell-bent to be. Nobody loved her; nobody even liked her; but Maude Seton had settled, long ago, for just being envied. She was already an aggressive and accomplished pest.

  She was swinging down a side street one summer afternoon, plotting how to “angle” the assignment she had nagged out of Ben Crawley a few days before.

  “Okay, toots,” Ben had said wearily. “How about twelve hundred words, for January, on the fifteenth anniversary of the mysterious disappearance of the famous and beloved Elizabeth Rose?”

  “Aw, come on, Ben. You know I purely hate sugar.”

  “Take it or leave it,” he had said. “But kindly and firmly leave my midst. I got work.”

  “Okay, toots,” she had said. “Maybe I’ll solve the mystery. When Seton digs, she digs.”

  Maude had already ferreted out the daughter and had talked to her. Today she had an appointment with the husband and the mother. The old house, for which she was now bound, was the only residence that still stood on the south side of the street, where it seemed stuffed in at the bottom of a tall crack between towering new office buildings.

  Maude skipped up the steps, noting that this brownstone had once been remodeled; its face had been covered with white brick, although the white had turned dingy, and the green paint on the door was no longer bright.

  A small gray-haired woman, with plump and matronly contours, opened the door. She was, she said, Mrs. Allen, the housekeeper, and would Miss Seton please come in? Mr. Mortmain would be down in a moment. Sniffing and peering, Maude followed her in.

  The entire house was only about twenty-five feet wide. At Maude’s left, as she entered, a gray-carpeted stairway went up, almost immediately. At her right a white door was ajar, and she caught a glimpse of a fairly modern kitchen. The passage seemed very long and narrow, between the stairway and the wall, and it ended with three steps leading down into a large sitting room which overlooked, through a wide glass door—of all things!—a garden.

  Maude, frankly staring all around and storing up things to describe, caught a glimpse of the dining area adjoining the kitchen—up three steps as if it were a stage. She could see in her mind’s eye the famous beauty sweeping her guests to a little late supper.

  “Are these her things?” she asked with the expected awe.

  “Very little has changed,” said the woman. Cold light from the garden beyond the glass door was falling on the pale and delicate texture of her skin. “That is her piano. That is her portrait, of course.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Maude, who had seen it as a print. Over the mantel (where else?) hung Elizabeth Rose. Oh, Gawd, thought Maude, observing the pink and white of the face, the flat-topped hairdo that now looked so antique, the gold of the curls, the baby-blue of the eyes, the pink and simpering mouth, the white lace dress with the rosebuds on it. How utterly icky!

  Maude turned to look out at the garden. Beyond a pavement of cemented brick, some grass was trying unsuccessfully to be a lawn around a central bird bath. There was one discouraged-looking tree. But at the far end, massed in an arc, there was a bank of tall marguerites.

  “How unusual to see a garden in the city,” said Maude. She spotted the wrought-iron supports. “Oh, I see the balcony. That’s where the child fell, isn’t it?”

  “Won’t you please be comfortable,” said Mrs. Allen primly.

  “I’ve met Mrs. Sidney, you know—Miss Rose’s daughter,” said Maude chattily, not sitting down yet. “She and her husband sailed for Europe this morning, I believe.”

  “Is that so?”

  “A nice girl,” said Maude, who thought Barbara Sidney deserved this flabby adjective. “The deformed arm isn’t conspicuous at all, is it?”

  “I am glad to hear that,” said Mrs. Allen quietly.

  “She couldn’t tell me a thing about the night her mother vanished, having been in the hospital at the time, and only six years old, besides. She has never lived here since?—Barbara, I mean.”

  “No,” said the housekeeper. “There is only her stepfather here and her invalid grandmother. A little too depressing for a young person.”

  “I see.” Maude tended to agree. This place had charm, but it was an embalmed charm. “Were you here?”

  “Not at that time,” the woman said coldly.

  Maude thought the garden was really weird. On three sides were the blank twenty-odd-story walls of three office buildings. What bird would be caught dead in that ridiculous bird bath? The patch of garden must be like the bottom of a well.

  “May I just step out?” she asked.

  The housekeeper said, “Oh, no. Please sit down. I’m sure Mr. Philip—”

  “Miss Seton?” a man said.

  Maude Seton knew that her latest costume must be silhouetted against that gray light, in all its saucy outlines, but that her face was in shadow. She was glad of it. Maude had had, of course, the usual casual adventures, but she hadn’t been exactly enchanted by any of her temporary partners. Her first sight of this man was sending a ripple along her nerves that was quite a shock to her.

  He was tall, a little stooped, elegantly thin, with dark hair and a face that seemed surprisingly unlined. It was pale; he had no outdoor look. But he seemed very, very male just the same. Even his clothing had some quality of elegance she couldn’t define, although it was verging on shabbiness. And there was something—her heart had actually jumped.

  Maude resented this fiercely. She went into her pitch. Her Editor felt so-and-so. People were still so-o-o interested. She sat down. So did he. “I am hoping,” said Maude, “that I can give the story a little touch of something new.”

  “I don’t know what that could be,” he said sadly.

  “Fifteen years ago, next January? Tell me—”

  So they went through the well-known biography—the familiar list of great, and now classic, musicals in which Elizabeth Rose had starred, and all the worn-out anecdotes of Elizabeth Rose’s heyday in the theater. Philip Mortmain had a pleasant voice and he spoke willingly, yet he gave the impression of being a very quiet man.

  Maude was dying to ask how old he was, but she refrained. (She could find that out easily enough in the files.) He was the famous star’s third husband, and sometimes these women, ageless themselves, kept marrying younger and younger men.

  “Everybody knows,” she said, “that your wife disappeared on the night that little Barbara fell. Do you think that might have been, in some way, pertinent?”

  “Elizabeth was certainly very much upset,” he said gravely.

  “She wasn’t in the house when it happened?”

  “No. Barby was already in the hospital when Elizabeth came home. By that time the child had been in surgery and was all right, you know. Elizabeth saw her in the hospital, of course. But then she followed the venerable tradition. The show must go on, mustn’t it?” He smiled at her.

  “I understand she gave a brilliant performance,” said Maude, a little cattily. “You were in the theater that night, Mr. Mortmain?”

  “Oh, yes. But after the curtain I was detained by some friends who had heard about Barby and were concerned. By the time I reached backstage, Elizabeth wasn’t there.”

  “And no one has ever seen her since.” Maude sighed. “It is a famous mystery.”

  “I suppose so,” he said wearily.

  “But I wonder.” Maude leaned forward in her taut and forceful way. “I couldn’t help noticing that this neighborhood has deteriorated. Why do you stay on here, Mr. Mortmain?”

  “Why, because,” he said gently, “One of these days Elizabeth may return.”

  Oh, now, come on! thought Maude. You can’t really believe that! “Elizabeth has never been declared legally—?”

  “Dead?” he supplied
. “Oh, no.”

  “But she must have had a considerable estate.” Maude was thinking, All those hits! And this piece of land alone must be worth a fortune.

  “Elizabeth’s estate is in the hands of trustees,” he told her patiently. “A bank allows funds for the maintenance of her home, the care of her mother, the education of her daughter, and the board and keep of her husband.” His voice was very calm.

  “I see. But surely some day—”

  “Some day it will all belong to Barbara.”

  Ah, so? thought Maude. It will, will it?

  “What do you do, Mr. Mortmain?” she asked him boldly.

  “Oh, I dabble. Read. Study.”

  “You used to be in the theater, yourself?”

  “A long time ago.” He smiled.

  “I see,” said Maude. To keep on feeling attracted toward this man was perfectly ridiculous, so she took care to think, cynically: Turning on the old charm, aren’t you, my friend? She rose energetically. “Now, may

  I see the garden?”

  He rose. “You can see it all from here, Miss Seton.”

  “I’d like to go out there.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said gently.

  Maude gazed rebelliously through the glass door and said, with a bit of an edge, “How does your garden grow? There can’t be any sun.”

  “No, not any more.”

  “Those are potted plants?”

  “Yes. Elizabeth was always very proud of her garden. That means, you know, a walled or guarded place. I’m afraid the city is overdoing the walls just now. No, nothing really grows. When those fade I’ll bring in chrysanthemums.”

  “Because,” she snapped, so outraged that she let it show, “she may yet return?”

  She was thinking, what is this? An obsession? Is he really languishing around here, still romantically in love with darling Elizabeth, who is going to show up any minute, after fifteen years? What a waste! I don’t think I believe it.

  “Mr. Philip?” The housekeeper spoke behind them. “Mrs. Rose is ready to see the young lady now.”

  “Oh, yes, Mrs. Allen. Thank you. Miss Seton, I know that you wish to speak to Elizabeth’s mother, but may I ask you not to talk too long? Mrs. Rose has not been well. Will you watch me, please, for

  a signal?”

  “I promise,” said Maude.

  At the foot of the stairs he let her go first, with old-fashioned good manners—the man behind in case of a fall. Upstairs he led her along another narrow hall, this one neatly wallpapered, and then into a large bedroom that also looked out on the garden. Across its bank of windows and another glass door ran the white wrought-iron tracery of the balcony’s low rail.

  But Maude only glanced that way. She bent her attention to the woman who was propped high in the huge bed, against white satin pillows.

  “I have been admiring your garden,” said Maude, when the introductions were over. She didn’t know what else to say. This woman was ill, all right. Her wrists were thin to mere bone. Her face was fallen in—the gray flesh sagged. Her white hair was disagreeably streaked with yellow. And her eyes! Ah, so, thought Maude, is the poor old crone loopy?

  Philip Mortmain began to prompt the conversation. Maude noticed that the housekeeper remained standing silently in the room, as the woman in the bed started to speak of her daughter with such idolatrous praise that Maude felt sickened. It seemed that Elizabeth Rose had been the most beautiful, the most charming, the most talented, and the kindest, the sweetest . . . Was there a cult? Was this house a shrine?

  But Maude, as she listened, began to watch more closely those slippery eyes and the old lips which said, “Philip adored her, of course.”

  “Of course,” he agreed softly.

  So Maude said, in polite malice, “Your daughter was married three times, I believe, Mrs. Rose?”

  “Yes, my daughter—” The eyes fled; the old lips began to tremble.

  Philip Mortmain rose and said, “We mustn’t tire you. Mrs. Allen, we’ll go down for tea now.”

  “Yes, Mr. Philip.” The housekeeper went away.

  But Maude Seton ignored the signal. She did not rise from the low chair. “I would so like to have known your daughter,” she gushed.

  “Tell me—”

  Whatever the old woman was mumbling, she couldn’t hear, because Mortmain’s hand took hold of Maude’s arm and pulled her up. “Please excuse Miss Seton now?”

  “Yes,” said the old woman with a sigh. She gazed out at the shadowy space—toward the garden where no sun shone and nothing grew.

  He took Maude forcefully along the upper hall, saying nothing. Oh, he was angry. But at the stairs he let go of her, and as a gentleman should, he started down first. So Maude, behind his back—because he couldn’t order her around, no man could!—turned and scooted back as fast as she could to pop her head into that room. The old woman lifted on one bony elbow.

  “Where is your daughter?” Maude spoke low, but in her own forceful and insistent manner.

  “My daughter is buried in the garden,” the old woman whispered, with terror in her eyes, and sank back.

  Philip Mortmain came behind Maude and put cruel hands on her shoulders. “I thought I had dropped my pen,” she cooed, but he said nothing. He wasn’t going to let her loose again. Mrs. Allen, going up swiftly, passed them on the stairs, heading toward the sound of weeping in the bedroom. Her look was severe. There would be no tea.

  At the bottom of the stairs the man said coldly, “I don’t believe you will have any trouble finding a photograph—somewhere else” (He was going to put her out, was he? Well, Maude had been put out of better places.) “You will mail me a copy of what you write,” he said sternly. “If I do not approve, you will not submit it to the magazine. That was agreed.”

  “Of course. I promised. And thank you very—”

  But she was now back on the stoop and the door was shut. Maude ran down the steps, savoring her bruises. Yah, yah! All that guff about she-may-return. Romantic devotion—in a pig’s eye! He’d boss Seton around, would he? Well, we’ll see.

  Two days later she had Ben Crawley cornered in a cocktail lounge. “I’m not going along with the gag, Ben. There’s something phony about the whole bit. For one thing, this dame was married three times, and that doesn’t make her the sweet dewy little rose she was cracked up to be. Not in Maudie’s book, it doesn’t. Thirty-one when she so-called vanished. She’d be forty-six today. He’s only thirty-eight—I looked it up.”

  “Who is only thirty-eight?”

  “Mortmain. Mr. Dead Hand.”

  “I’m supposed to be shuddering?”

  “You are supposed to be listening. I dug up her first husband. Sol Divine. That’s his name, believe it or not. He didn’t want to talk. Says it was all a long time ago. He forgets. You bet! I get the feeling that Elizabeth Rose may not have been all sweetness and light. This Sol is bald as an eagle, which he slightly resembles—a real solid type. Fat jolly wife and a pack of kids around. Elizabeth divorced him. The second husband, Barby’s father, she divorced, too. He’s dead.”

  “This is news?” said Ben sourly.

  “So listen. The day the kid lands on those bricks and greensticks her bones so they never do grow even, guess who was in the house? Servants’ day off. Elizabeth wasn’t there. So who? None other than Mr. Philip Mortmain, the kid’s stepfather. Now, don’t tell Maudie that a young sprout of twenty-three, madly in love with gorgeous, adorable, fabulous Elizabeth Rose, is going to be all that nuts about a six-year-old brat of hers from a former marriage.

  “Say our Phil happens to get peeved at the brat and happens to kind of push her off that balcony? Oh, well, he didn’t mean it, and besides, nobody’s there to see. So he calls Doc. Ambulance. Hospital. Surgery. When Elizabeth shows up in a cab, he takes her tenderly in his arms, says the kid had an accident. Elizabeth goes to bedside and emotes. Then to the theater for her brilliant performance. Yah!

  “But whaddaya say, afterwards
the great lady gets home like usual? Late, and the cook asleep in the basement. Now she finds out what really happened to the kid. So, she not being all sweetness and light, they get into a knockdown drag-out fight, and pretty soon, by gosh, there she is. Dead.

  “Maybe he didn’t mean that either, but what’s Philip going to do? The kid can’t remember a thing—she told me so herself. So she’s no problem. But a dead rich wife, whose name means front-page headlines, that’s inconvenient.”

  “Just come on out of the gaslight, willya, kiddo?” Crawley gulped liquor.

  “How come dear Philip—who looks as if he crawled right out of Edgar Allan Poe, believe me, Ben—how come he hangs on to that house? How come he doesn’t sell it for one hell of a lot of money and go enjoy life, aged thirty-eight? How come he’s got his sick old semi-loopy mother-in-law imprisoned there?”

  “Naaaah!”

  “You just listen,” said Maude. “Because I’m telling you that old woman was looking mighty sly. You should have seen her little old eyes peeking at me, by the corners. But they were in the room, you know. Not only Philip but the housekeeper, too. Taking no chances. So I’ll tell you why Philip doesn’t have Elizabeth declared legally dead, which he could do, and sell that house. He can’t sell it. Somebody would build, dig up the garden. Elizabeth Rose is buried in that garden and the old lady knows it.”

  Crawley was shaking his head sadly from side to side.

  “She told me so,” said Maude.

  “Who did?”

  “The old lady.”

  “She told you what?”

  “She said these very exact words. ‘My daughter is buried in the garden.’ Verbatim, my friend.”

  Maude explained and Ben said, “Take it to the cops, toots. You’re not selling it to me.”

  “The old woman is half nuts, I will admit. But I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. Little Maudie’s going to find out.”

  “Pinch yourself first, kiddo.”