Night Call and Other Stories of Suspense

by Armstrong Charlotte

  “Why do you ask that, Henry?” said old John sadly.

  “Just checking. Do you?”

  “Not me,” said John Bryson. “Of course, I don’t need it. I’ve got my pension. I’ll miss the shop.”

  “What happens to the shop?”

  “Well, I imagine it goes, with all the rest, to his grandsons.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Back east. Indiana. I sent a wire off, early. See, Walter’s son died and his son’s wife married again. The boys are with her and her new husband. Maybe they’ll sell the shop or just close it up.”

  “Won’t you buy it?”

  “I haven’t got the money to buy anything. This place doesn’t make any money, Henry. Walter liked it for a hobby. He could afford it. Course, he didn’t like having to stay down here to keep it open. That’s why he let me have the job.”

  “Pay you well?” murmured Henry.

  “Well enough,” said John Bryson. “And I got my living room and meals up to Walter’s house. Very comfortable. And we kept each other company. Suited me just fine. Of course, now . . .”

  “You won’t be living there?”

  “No, no. I couldn’t keep up that place. I suppose the daughter-in-law or her husband will see that it’s sold. Ought to bring a good price.” The old man looked out the dusty window. “It’s kind of an end, for me,” he said. “I never thought I would survive Walter. I don’t hardly know

  how to make my plans.” Then he looked around shrewdly. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Couple of things,” Henry said. “Hallie White says Walter had been drinking.”

  “Con Meloney told me,” Old John blinked. “Why would she say a thing like that, Henry?”

  “She says she could smell it on his breath.”

  “Well, for pity’s sakes,” said old John. “Henry, you know I take a drink when I want to, but Walter, he never did.”

  “Did Walter disapprove?”

  “No, no, he didn’t fuss. Not at me, anyhow.” John Bryson looked around the shop. “Why would he come down here in the middle of the night? Maybe he couldn’t sleep, got restless.”

  “How valuable is this stock?” asked Henry.

  “If they sell it out to another shop, it’s not worth much,” said the old man in a discouraged way. “If you could get rid of it to collectors, piece by piece, you might do better. Some of it . . . Look here . . .” Old John bent to reach past Henry’s body. “That’s called semi-precious.”

  Henry was looking down, not at the chunk of malachite, but at the old man’s neck where the wrinkles criss-crossed, and at the sparse white hair on the clean pink scalp. He said, abruptly, “The thing I can’t figure is Walter jumping into the way of a car. Unless . . . listen to this. Could it be that Walter had a seizure of some kind, felt dizzy or sick, or something like that? He’d see the lights of the car for miles. Would he try to stop it and get help? What do you think?”

  John Bryson straightened up, turning the specimen in his gnarled hands. He said, “Maybe. Only thing is, Henry, if he felt bad and wanted help, why wouldn’t he use the phone?”

  “That’s right, too,” said Henry with a sigh. “Well, I got to go up

  to his house, I guess. What we call routine. Can you let me have a

  key?”

  John Bryson sighed and put the malachite down. “I’ll go up with you. Can’t hide away. Folks will be calling. I just didn’t like the feel of the house . . .” The old man’s voice shook. “He was young. He should have lived a long time yet.”

  They stepped out into the sunshine. Henry said thoughtfully, “Would there be anyone who, for any reason, would rather Walter didn’t live too long?”

  Old John, with no sign of being shocked by the hint in the question, said sadly, “Nobody. Not a soul I can think of. Not in this town.”

  Old John let Henry into the long house that lay low on the slope. The interior was chilly and dim, having been shut up against the night. Henry strolled through the rooms, breathing deeply. “This was Walter’s bedroom,” said his guide, speaking in hushed tones as if they were touring a cathedral. “I haven’t been in here, not since. I wouldn’t want to handle his things.”

  “TV set’s in here, I see. Got your own, Mr. John?”

  “No, no, I don’t care for it. I could have come in here to watch with him. But Walter got so’s all he ever turned on was a Western.”

  Henry, standing still beside him in the doorway, said thoughtfully, “Phones don’t ring in Westerns.”

  The old man looked foxy. In a moment he said, “I think Walter got a notion, that’s all. Because if anybody came to town and wanted to see him, why wouldn’t they just come here? Why call him up to meet at the shop? I can’t think . . .”

  Henry did not comment, but he thought . . . Someone who wanted to see Walter Bryson alone, all alone, wouldn’t come here where the old man also lived.

  Henry walked into the bedroom which was well-furnished and as characterless as the rest of the house. He peered into the bathroom. (‘Checking’ he told himself). He actually stepped in and opened cabinets. Back in the bedroom, he glanced into dresser drawers. Then at two photographs, each of a young boy. “These his grandsons?”

  “Yes. That one on your right, that’s Georgie. He’s about twelve. And the other one is Kent. He’s fourteen, by now. The room is just the way he left it,” old John said. “I wouldn’t touch his things.” The old man had not put his foot inside the room, Henry noticed.

  “Walter see much of the boys,” Henry asked.

  “Not much. It’s a long trip. Last time they came was about a year ago. Walter—uh—didn’t get along too well with the boys’ new step-father. Oh, he’s a nice enough fellow. But he liked his liquor and it didn’t like him.”

  “Smith is his name?”

  “William Smith. He’s a travelling man.”

  Henry joined him in the doorway. “You notified the Smiths by wire? Didn’t telephone?”

  “I wouldn’t want to talk. She’s bound to be upset. Of course, it will mean they’ll have the property sooner than they . . . You want to see the rest of the house, Henry?”

  Henry, following him toward the back of the house now, said, “They’ll come out, I suppose, to the funeral and to settle the estate.”

  “Oh, yes,” said old John. “At least, I’m sure she will. Mighty nice girl, the daughter-in-law. This here’s the dining room, and this way is the kitchen. My room’s on the corner . . .”

  The old man’s room at the back of the house was very small, with a tiny bath attached. It must have been designed with a servant in mind. In the tiny bathroom old John’s necessary bottles and jars stood on an open hanging shelf. Henry glanced at the good bed, the good lamp, some tattered magazines.

  “Pretty snug quarters,” he said. “Too bad to lose them.”

  “Yes,” said the old man with a heavy sigh.

  Henry was frowning. Keep checking, he told himself. “I suppose this William Smith knew how the property would go, did he?”

  “I guess so,” said old John dully. “He’s all right, you know. He’s had a little trouble holding a job, but that can happen.”

  Frowning, Henry pulled the window drapery aside and looked out into a walled backyard. It was planted with an array of cactus—large spikes, dramatically placed near large dramatically balanced rocks. “Who takes care of all this?”

  “Walter did.” The old man looked as if he would burst into tears. “I’m too old. That girl is young, though. She’s going to be all right, ain’t she, Henry? I don’t really blame her, not for one minute. If I hurt her feelings last night, I’m sorry. She’ll get over it, won’t she? You tell her, Henry, that I know things like this can happen. It was an accident?”

  His voice went upward on the last word.

  “I’ll tell her,” said Henry, ducking a question, if a question were, indeed, being asked. Henry Green didn’t know the answer.

  He drove back, down slope, into the main part o
f town and pulled up in front of Ruby’s cafe. It was full morning now, and Henry had had no breakfast. Ruby’s husband, Bob Mackay, was presiding. He put Henry’s eggs into the same pan with those he was frying for two other customers. These were men Henry knew, and he fended off their questions with a calm, unpuzzled and unexcited air that he drew around himself. He drew it even tighter as he sensed that the men were not simply deploring a simple accident. Something in the air.

  When the others had left, Bob came over. “How’s Hallie White feeling now?” he asked. A touch of triumphant malice in his voice made Henry blink.

  Old triangles, old quadrangles, old spites and disappointments had the power to touch the present, as Henry knew. Once upon a time Bob Mackay had had a ‘crush’ on Hallie White. But ‘Hallie White likes Henry Green . . .’

  “How would you feel?” said Henry cautiously.

  “Ruby says she was taking it pretty cool, last night,” said Bob. “So it happened. So what? That’s the way she struck Ruby.”

  “That so?” said Henry, spooning sugar.

  “Suppose she don’t think it matters much if you mow down some local yokel.”

  Henry said, “Hallie White told Ruby that, did she?”

  Bob laughed. “Oh, come on, Henry. She didn’t have to say it. But it seems like Ruby was more upset, herself, about the whole thing than Hallie White was. Ruby about flipped when she saw the blood.”

  “The blood?” said Henry, calmly.

  “Yeah,” said Bob, watching him. “There was his blood on her hand. But Hallie White makes nothing of it. Just washes it off.”

  Henry sat perfectly still.

  “Listen,” said Bob, breaking the silence, “you know Ruby’s got a heart as big as a house. So Ruby’s all set to let Hallie White cry on her shoulder, and Ruby gets her some coffee. I mean, you’d think any dame woulda felt something. But no, Hallie White, she’s cool as a cucumber. Happened, she says. So what?”

  Henry listened to the malice that was too plain to be new.

  “Oh, well, it takes all kinds,” Bob went on. “Hallie White always did think she was too good for this town and everybody in it. That’s right, wouldn’t you say? You remember her, don’t you, Henry?”

  Henry swallowed what he had in his mouth. “You ever hurt anybody with your car, Bob?” he inquired.

  “Nope. Been lucky. Or else smart.”

  Henry kept his voice quiet. “What would you do if you saw blood on your hands?”

  “Huh?”

  “Faint, would you?”

  “What are you talking . . .”

  “Scream? Bawl? Carry on?” Henry’s green eyes had become slits.

  Bob drew back. “A man . . .”

  “Yeh? What brave manly thing would you do? Besides washing it off?”

  But Henry saw that this was doing no good. A knowing, mocking look appeared in the man’s eyes.

  “Oh, I’d wash it off, you bet,” said Bob. “It would worry a man a little bit, though, to have hit-and-run. Maybe a woman don’t have to worry so much?”

  Henry Green sat still.

  Bob cocked his head and said, “She left him out there, didn’t she?

  I thought there was a law.”

  Henry said nothing.

  “Like I said to Ruby,” the man went on, “she didn’t have to come all the way in town. Why couldn’t she break in the Rock Shop and use the phone?”

  Henry lifted his cup and drank, deliberately. He could not tell this man the story that did not match with the physical evidence. If Hallie White had gone into a spin, from shock and nerves, and was telling a story that seemed true to her but was not true, Henry intended to be sure of it, himself, before it ran on tongues like this one. His silence was tempting. The tongue wagged, once more.

  “ ’Course,” said Bob, “some people figure to get away with a thing like that. Probably some people can. Depends on who their friends are, don’t it?”

  “Does it?” said Henry levelly. “Where were you last night, Bob?”

  “In the sack,” Bob answered in a moment.

  “Then you didn’t talk to Hallie White yourself?”

  “No. But Ruby, she . . .”

  “Ruby has evidence that Hallie White hit-and-ran?”

  “What do you mean, ‘evidence’?”

  Henry rose. “You tell Ruby to come by the police station.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ll want her sworn statement.”

  “Look, she can’t swear . . .”

  “Did Ruby hear her call the police?”

  “You know she called . . .”

  “We have a record of the call,” said Henry. “But if Ruby knows different . . . or if Ruby knows why she didn’t break into the Rock Shop, for instance, we want that statement. And we want Ruby’s sworn statement that Hallie White didn’t think it mattered if she ‘mowed down a local yokel’. . .”

  “I didn’t say she said. . . .”

  “For the inquest,” said Henry sternly. “You tell Ruby.”

  He put his money down on the counter and went out.

  He drove to the police station, but having arrived, he sat in his car and looked at the mountains. Hallie White had not been as cool as any cucumber, to Henry’s observation. But he had better be. He was a policeman, and a good one, and he did not intend to be drawn off into any personal byways. It was infuriating to realize that, for malice or envy or whatever reason, anyone was saying that he, Henry Green, would let Hallie White off, simply because she was who she was. Henry knew that he had better not resent this too openly, but go very slowly and surely, and make no errors. He must take care to accept nothing without some corroborating evidence, and watch lest he trust, too far, an intuition. But if there had been blood on her hand—That didn’t jibe. That upset his ideas. Think again.

  At last he went into the building. Moloney was not there. The day was in Henry’s hands, but since he had been up during the night, Sam Miller had reported in for duty.

  Henry said to him, “I’m going home for a couple of hours sleep. Makes no sense to try and think without it. You call me, mind, when Doc has his report ready.”

  “Sure thing, Henry.”

  Sam Miller was not the brightest brain in the world, but he was faithful and steady.

  “Meantime, here’s what I want you to do. Call that town in Indiana. Find out whether this fellow, William Smith—married to Walter Bryson’s daughter-in-law—is back home in Indiana. Or whether he is ‘travelling.’ If he is travelling, you find out where and check it. If you locate him, put in a call, and let me know.”

  “What’s all this, Henry?”

  “Routine checking,” said Henry grimly. “I’ll see you.”

  Hallie woke up at 2 P.M., feeling stupefied. Her mother fluttered and fed her. Her mother told her how many people had already phoned to commiserate. “Or,” said her mother, with her small delicate nose in the air, “to make sure I knew all about the trouble you are in.”

  “You are just going to have to sit tight and remember that you couldn’t help it,” her mother said.

  “But, of course I couldn’t help it!”

  “I know that, dear. And I think Walter Bryson was a miserable hypocrite,” her mother went on with fire, “But he had money and he went to church and he was a teetotaler—as far as people knew.”

  “Whereas, I say he had been drinking? Is that it?”

  “It’s envy and spite,” her mother said. “That’s what it is.”

  “But why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, dear. Maybe I have been a bit too proud of you.”

  “And I got away, didn’t I?” said Hallie thoughtfully. “But what do they think . . .?”

  “You needn’t worry, one bit . . . Not really,” her mother said, “with Henry Green in charge. Henry has turned out a very fine young man.”

  “So I suppose,” Hallie murmured.

  “And perfectly fair . . .”

  “Fair!” Hallie bristled.

  “Well
, people do remember . . . He never has married. People wonder . . .”

  Hallie sighed and bent her head to her hand.

  “I’ll never forget,” said her mother, “the time he tried to kiss you, out on the porch, and you screamed and flew into hysterics, and your papa and I came running. We thought you were being killed!” Her mother made laughing sounds, but Hallie looked up and caught her watching, out of the corner of her eyes.

  “Looks like I’m never going to forget that, either,” said Hallie grimly. “Don’t people have anything better to think about than childish

  scenes . . .?”

  “Well, Henry Green is the catch of the town.”

  “He’s the town policeman to me,” said Hallie, “which reminds me. I’d better go down to the police station.”

  “Oh, Hallie, no.”

  “But I never did sign my statement.”

  “Henry will attend to that.”

  “Mother, how could he?”

  Her mother’s chin lifted, mouth twisted. ‘I know what I know’. . . the expression declared.

  Hallie said, “Henry Green may expect me, after having slept on it, to change that statement. But I can’t change what I truly remember, and I won’t do it. I’m glad to hear you say, by the way, that he is fair. May

  I take your car?

  “My car’s been standing still for six months, dear. I don’t drive it any more. I’m not sure that it is safe . . .”

  “Mother, why don’t you want me to go?”

  “I think it would be best if you stayed indoors, today,” her mother said stiffly.

  “Well, I can’t do that,” Hallie said. “I can walk.” She went for her purse. She came back and said, “Mother, you know I wish to heaven it hadn’t happened. But I wasn’t speeding. I couldn’t help it. He had been drinking. Why should I be in trouble? Or stay indoors, as if I were ashamed?”

  Her mother sighed.

  Hallie swung off along the street, walking on the dusty margin because there was no sidewalk. She met nobody who seemed to give, or require, a nod of greeting. But her heart felt heavy and, besides that, her skin was crawling with the feel of eyes upon her. She was appalled that her mother was being made to feel as she felt. Was it possible for a town to be so small as to resent the one who got away, as to rejoice if Hallie White were to be in trouble? Or . . . and she winced away from this embarrassment . . . to be watching Henry Green to see how he would handle Hallie White’s involvement. ‘Henry Green likes Hallie White . . .’