The Iron Gates

by Margaret Millar

  LUCILLE MORROW

  WAS A WOMAN

  TO BE ENVIED. . .

  In early middle life she retained the beauty of her youth; her husband was wealthy and completely devoted to her; she was the mistress of a large and charming home, properly staffed.

  Yet, in one unforgettable day, Lucille Morrow changed from a serene and self-possessed woman into a whimpering, fear-dominated creature glad to be shut up behind the iron gates of an asylum for the hopelessly insane.

  The only clue to what had caused her breakdown was a mysterious package delivered that morning. Who had sent it—and for what evil purpose—no one could say.

  Though still a young woman, Margaret Millar has won widespread recognition as one of America’s leading mystery writers. Her books are marked by an incisive style, which she has made very much her own—and by a constant breaking of fresh ground, especially in the field of criminal psychology.

  THE IRON GATES, the story of a woman driven beyond the limits of sanity by a horrifying fear, is undoubtedly one of her best.

  number 26 of the

  THE IRON

  GATES

  Dell Great Mystery Library

  by Margaret Millar

  Published by

  DELL PUBLISHING CO., INC.

  750 Third Avenue

  New York 17, N.Y.

  © Copyright, 1945, by Margaret Millar

  All rights reserved

  Reprinted by arrangement with

  Random House, Inc.

  New York, N.Y.

  Designed and produced by

  Western Printing & Lithographing Company

  Previous Dell Edition #209

  New Dell Edition:

  First printing—January, 1960

  Printed in U.S.A.

  to Frances MacNaughton

  Part One

  THE HUNT

  1

  The dream began quietly. She and Mildred were in a room and Mildred was curled up in a chair, writing.

  “What are you writing, Mildred?” Lucille said. “You are writing, what are you writing?”

  Slowly, dreamily, Mildred smiled, “Nothing, I have finished, I have quite finished,” and she rose and walked through the window into the snow.

  “You mustn’t go out just in your dress like that, Mildred, you’ll catch cold.”

  “No. . . . I’m going away. . . . I’ve quite finished. . . .”

  “No, it’s dark, it’s snowing.”

  But she walked away inexorably, leaving no tracks, casting no shadow.

  “Mildred, come back! The back of your head is open!”

  “No . . .”

  “You’re bleeding. You’ll make the park untidy.”

  “I’m going away,” Mildred called back, softly. “Goodbye, dear. Good-bye, Lucille.”

  She walked on, between the trees, and up and over the hills. With each step she became smaller and smaller, yet more and more distinct, as if neither time nor space had the power to blur her details. Now and then she turned around and she was always smiling, like a little doll.

  “Little doll!” Lucille cried. “Little doll . . .”

  “Away,” came the answer, soft as a whisper but so clear. “Good-bye—good-bye, dear . . .”

  Eternally she walked and bled and smiled and grew clearer and clearer.

  Lucille awoke, suffocating, sick with horror at this tiny thing moving across her mind, no bigger than a finger, a match, a pin. She sprang from her bed and pulled aside the curtains that shrouded the windows. She looked out, and there was the park, there were the trees, the hills, the trackless snow. But Mildred had been dead for sixteen years.

  Somewhere in the distance a church bell rang out the Sunday sound of a city. She became suddenly conscious of how grotesque she would appear if Andrew should walk in and find her like this, crouched beside the window, scanning the snow for his dead wife.

  She rose and turned, and caught sight of herself in the mirror. She had forgotten the mirror was there, and for an instant, before she had time to set her face, she seemed a stranger, a lady in a mirror, no longer young, wearing a blue nightgown, with her red-gold hair swinging against her shoulders in two long thick braids. She paused to look at the stranger, smiling faintly because it was only a game, yet uneasily because games were never just games, Andrew said, there had to be some motive behind them. Perhaps even after fifteen years that was how she still felt, like a stranger in the house, visiting someone else’s husband and someone else’s children.

  “Oh, nonsense,” she said aloud, and walked quickly toward the mirror and the stranger moved and grey and became herself. “What utter nonsense!”

  Her tone was the one she used with Andrew and the children, half-severe, half-humorous, completely understanding. The I’m-smiling-but-I-mean-it voice. The sound of it was so familiar that automatically the accompanying facial pattern sprang into place. Her eyes lost the strained anxious look and became kindly and intelligent, her full firm mouth softened, one eyebrow rose a little.

  That’s better. This is how I really am. This is me. Lucille Morrow.

  Mildred wasn’t important any more, though her portrait still hung on the living-room wall, and now and then she bobbed up in dreams. A fat kewpie doll carved out of soap, Lucille thought. Something doughy and sticky you couldn’t get off your hands . . .

  She picked up a brush and began to brush her hair vigorously. With each stroke the dream receded and the doll blurred and melted;

  Her moment of insecurity had passed and left her with a more conscious sense of possession. This was her hand, her brush, her house, her husband whistling in the adjoining room. Only the children could never belong to anyone but Mildred. For Andrew’s sake Lucille had tried to like them and make them like her in return. But they remained Mildred’s children and she was uneasy with them and the most she ever achieved was an armed truce.

  Still, they were no longer children. Polly was getting married this week, and some day Martin would marry, and she and Andrew would be left alone in the house. With Edith, of course, but she didn’t count.

  Her hand paused. She gazed into the mirror and saw the future stretching out in front of her, a length of red-velvet carpet covered with a marquee.

  She dressed quickly and coiled her hair in a coronet around her head. Like a queen she moved out into the hall, proudly but cautiously, as if she must test the red-velvet carpet and measure the height of the marquee. She walked down the stairs enjoying the sound of her taffeta morning coat following her with obsequious little noises like a genteel servant.

  Upstairs, a door slammed and Andrew’s voice shouted, “Lucille! Wait a minute, Lucille!”

  She paused at the bottom of the steps.

  “What is it, Andrew?”

  “What’s happened to my scarf?”

  Lucille checked an impulse to say, “What scarf?” She said, “All your scarves are in your bureau drawer.”

  “All except this one and this” is the one I want to wear.”

  “Naturally.”

  “What did you say?”

  Lucille raised her voice. “I said, naturally, the one you want to wear is the one that isn’t there.”

  “It’s the other way around,” Andrew shouted. “The one I want to wear is the one . . .”

  “All right,” Lucille said, smiling. “What does it look like?”

  “Blue. Dark blue with little gray things on it.” He came to the head of the stairs and gesticulated. “Little gray things like this.”

  He was a tall, gray-haired man, nearly fifty now, but he was still slim and he had the quick vigorous movements that characterized his son Martin and his sister Edith. His features were thin, almost delicate, but he had large soft brown eyes which gave his face an oddl
y guileless expression and caused him trouble now and then with his women patients. Like many really good-natured men, when he tried to look cross he overdid it. He sent a ferocious scowl down the steps at his wife.

  “Somebody gave it to me for Christmas last year,” he said.

  “I did,” Lucille said serenely. “And it’s not blue, it’s black. Have you looked under your bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Andrew, why? Why do you always look under beds for tilings first?”

  “It’s the logical place. So much room. Lucille, you wouldn’t come up and . . .”

  “I wouldn’t,” Lucille said. “If I came up and found it for you it would only make you crosser.”

  “I promise.”

  “No.” She turned calmly and walked away, flinging over her shoulder, “Try the cedar closet in the hall.”

  Ignoring Andrew’s noises of distress she went into the dining room.

  Edith and Polly were already at breakfast. Edith was buttering a piece of toast with the precise contemptuous movements of one who despises food as a necessary evil to be gotten over with as quickly as possible. Polly, a cup of coffee in front of her, was smoking and gazing dreamily out of the window.

  “Good morning, Edith,” Lucille said. She bent over Edith’s chair and the cheeks of the two women touched briefly. It was a routine of long standing. They were fond of each other, in a dry expedient way, for they were of the same age and they were interested in the same thing, Andrew. “Good morning, Polly.”

  “Morning,” Polly said, without taking her eyes from the window.

  “Good morning,” Edith said. “Sleep well?”

  “Fine.”

  “More than I did.” Her voice was so high and sharp that it seemed ready to break into hysteria, or snap with a death twang like a violin string. Every year it seemed to Lucille that Edith’s voice got higher, that the string was pulled more and more taut and played a thin sinister obbligato over the most ordinary remarks.

  “What is all the shouting about?” Edith said. “If you want fresh toast, ring for Annie. I told her to have it ready. Sometimes I think Andrew likes to shout simply for the sake of shouting.”

  Lucille sat down, smiling, and unfolded her napkin. “Perhaps.”

  “I’ve seen him at the office simply oozing quiet charm, and when he gets home he howls, he does, he really howls.”

  “He couldn’t find a scarf he wanted,” Lucille said.

  She felt suddenly and absurdly happy. She wanted to laugh out loud, she felt the laughter forming in her throat and she had to force it down. She couldn’t explain to Edith or Polly that she wanted to laugh because this room was warm and bright, because it had begun to snow outside, because Andrew. couldn’t find something and had looked under the bed. . . .

  She looked at Edith and Polly and for a minute she loved them both utterly, because she was so pleased with herself and the beautiful quiet life she had built out of nothing. I love you, my dears, my dears. I can afford to love you because I have everything I want and neither of you can take anything away from me.

  “Andrew never could find anything,” Edith said. “And the closer it is to him, of course, the more trouble he has finding it. I suppose it’s psychological.”

  Polly stirred slightly. “What is?” she said. “No, don’t tell me. . . .”

  “Finding things,” Edith said. “I expect Freud would say that you find only the things you really want to find. Some people have the most wonderful gift for finding money. There’s a man in New York . . . Polly, it would be nice if you sat up straight.”

  “What for?” Polly said.

  “You look as if you have curvature of the spine all huddled up like that.”

  “I’m not huddled, I’m relaxed.”

  “The table is no place to relax.”

  “O.K.,” Polly said without resentment, and uncoiled herself from the chair. For a minute she remained upright, and then she propped her elbows on the table and supported her head in her hands. Her long black hair swung silkily over her wrists.

  “Honestly,” said Edith, in affectionate exasperation.

  Lucille remained quiet. She no longer made any attempts to discipline her stepchildren, and even when she was especially annoyed with one of them she had enough self-control to refrain from comment. She had always tried to be fair to them and when they disagreed with their father she often forced herself to take their side against him. But in spite of her efforts they had remained aloof and careful.

  Perhaps it’s because they were at a difficult age when I married Andrew, Lucille thought. Polly was only ten, and Martin twelve, and they were both so fond of Mildred.

  Mildred, Lucille thought, and found that the laughter in her throat had evaporated like the bubbles in a stale drink.

  “Though I never relax myself,” Edith said, sitting very upright, “I don’t mind others relaxing in the proper place. It depends on the personality whether you can or can’t.”

  “Mildred,” Lucille said, “Mildred had a very relaxed personality.”

  She hadn’t said the name aloud for years, she didn’t want to say it now, but she forced the words out. Her moment of complete happiness had gone, and it was as if the warm bright room had led her on and deceived her and she must cast a corpse into it for revenge.

  “Yes, she had,” Edith said shortly. “Though I think you should have enough sense not to . . .”

  “Yes, I know,” Lucille said in confusion, conscious of Polly’s hard steady stare. “I’m very sorry.”

  “Today of all days,” Edith said.

  “I’m sorry, Edith.”

  “I’m glad you are. Today of all days we don't want to be reminded of unpleasant things. We must make a good impression on Mr. Frome.”

  “Lieutenant Frome,” Polly said. “And you needn’t bother about the impression. I made that weeks ago.”

  “Still, we are your family, my dear.”

  “He’s not marrying you.”

  Edith blushed and said sharply, “I realize that he’s, not marrying me and that no one ever has, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Please!” Polly said, and got up and planted a quick kiss on her aunt’s cheek. “I didn’t mean that, silly. I meant I hate fusses, and so does Giles. I don’t want this to be a today-of-all-days. Giles’d curl up and die if he thought he was putting anyone out by coming here.”

  “Then he’s too sensitive,” Edith said crossly.

  “I know he is. That’s why I’m glad he’s got me. I’m not.” She put her arm around her aunt’s shoulders and whispered in her ear, “It’s lucky I’m not sensitive or how could I have stood all your crabbing?”

  “Crabbing?” Edith’s mouth fell open. “Really, Polly! As if I’d ever stoop to crabbing!”

  “You do crab,” Polly said, laughing. “And you make speeches.”

  “Well, I never! The nerve of . . .”

  “Confess it, confess it now or I’ll tickle you.”

  “Oh! You sit down right this minute and behave yourself.” Edith smoothed her ruffled hair and feelings. “You and your jokes. You’re worse than Martin. As if I ever made speeches. Do I, Lucille?”

  “Never,” Lucille said, with a smile.

  “You see, Polly?”

  But as soon as Lucille was brought into the conversation Polly’s mood changed. Her face became a blank, her eyes fixed themselves coldly on Lucille and Lucille read in them”: “See how nicely we get along without you? This is how you've been spoiling things for us all these years.”

  “I don’t believe in mailing speeches.” Edith said. “I think the tongue is a much overrated organ.”

  “Isn’t it,” Polly said absently, and strolled over to the window, her square shoulders outlined in the light.

  Lucille glanced at her and was struck again by the difference between Polly and the rest of the family. There was something compact and uncompromising and stubborn about even the way she was built. She was rather short, and thou
gh slim, she gave the impression of sturdiness and durability. She did not expend her energy haphazardly and aimlessly like Martin and Edith. She moved with a kind of lazy competence and she did nearly everything well, and was at home anywhere.

  Her features had the soft roundness of her mother’s, and she was, like her, fundamentally a tranquil person. But where Mildred’s tranquility had been deepened by happiness and security’, Polly’s had been warped and hardened by years of implacable hatred of her stepmother.

  Perhaps with Martin alone I would have been successful, Lucille thought. He's a man, and more pliant. But Polly . . . Polly seemed already grown-up a: ten. She distrusted me, as a grown woman distrusts another woman whose house she has to share.

  Edith had finished her coffee and her long thin fingers chummed restlessly on the tablecloth. She had finished one thing, breakfast, therefore she must start another thing at once. Whether the activity was her own or someone else’s did not matter. She was constantly on the move and setting other people in motion.

  “I wish Andrew would hurry.” she said. “I expect Martin to be late, of course. I think I’d better go up and see what’s keeping then.”

  “Lots of time,’ Polly said. “Giles’ furlough doesn't begin officially until noon and it won’t take us over an hour to drive out to the camp.”

  “I understand,” Lucille said, rather shyly, “that officers have ‘leaves’ and enlisted men have ‘furloughs.’ ” Polly shrugged, and said, without turning around, “Oh, do you?”

  “I think I—I heard it somewhere.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course, so did I,” Edith said hurriedly. “Though I prefer to call it ‘furlough.’ It sounds so much more important, Polly. Why Andrew and Martin insist on driving out with you I don’t know.”

  “They want to look him over first,” Polly said, “and then if he doesn’t measure up they can dispose of the body some place and bring me on home, teary but intact.”