When Carla had happened in my office at the time I got Sondo’s letter, she had seen the picture and had recognized it at once as the one Helena had told her about.
Until Sondo’s death, Carla’s actions had been apathetic. She had a strong tendency toward fatalism in her nature and she felt that Luis’ death had now been avenged. As far as the future went, what would be would be.
And so she’d gone her dreamy way, listening to Sondo’s sentimental records, living in the past, not caring very much about what happened in the present. Though she did bestir herself sufficiently to stay with Sondo that one night, in an effort to keep Helena away from her.
But she had not really roused from her apathy until Sondo was murdered.
As Carla sat there in Monty’s office, trying to explain her actions, I began to get a picture of her confusion and fear, her futility. The dreamer thrown abruptly against ugly reality and unable to cope with it decisively. Unable even to decide upon a course of action.
She was appalled by Sondo’s murder, but could not even then bring herself to go to the police. She was half afraid she would not be believed and that her own motives might come to light. Owen was already suspecting her of Sondo’s murder because of her foolish dancing that night in the display department. On the other hand, she was beginning to fear Helena, to wonder when the other woman might strike out to silence her. So, torn many ways, she must have moved endlessly on her treadmill of indecision, unable to settle on any course of action.
Then, when she saw the picture Sondo had left for me, she was seized with the conviction that if she could get that picture for Helena, the tragedies would stop. She counted on me to make the same mistake Sondo had made and take the picture for one of Chris. So she did her best to get it from me, even to the extent of enlisting the aid of poor, bewildered Susan, who knew nothing of the truth at all. But when I refused to give up the picture, Carla dropped helplessly back into her fatalistic attitude.
Helena, however, had not been content to leave matters in Carla’s hands. She had got off work early and had come upstairs wearing her turban and coat. Not even Carla had known she was hiding there in the department, listening to everything. When Carla and Susan had failed with me, Helena had made her final, desperate attempt to get the picture.
That was all.
“You see the pattern?” Carla said. “The way Helena tried to the very last to stick to her purpose of protecting Chris? That’s why she made that statement to the police just now that left out so much of the truth. She knew she had to give them something that would serve as a confession, and then die quickly before the answers came out. To protect Chris, she even took her own life. There’s been a—a sort of fate acting through this whole thing. So now, must the pattern be changed? Must Chris know the truth?
She stopped and there was a long silence. We were all looking at Hering, and he was looking at none of us. Hering was the police. It was up to him to go to McPhail with the true story.
The wailing of an ambulance siren came up to us. I shivered, knowing what the sound meant Hering listened for a moment and then came over and picked up the tiny oval snapshot I’d laid on the desk. The picture of a girl who looked like Chris.
And while we all watched him, scarcely daring to breathe, he took a packet of matches from his pocket, lit one and held it to the picture. It flared briefly and then floated in black ash from his fingers. He dusted his hands and walked out of the room without a backward look for any of us.
We had our answer.
Carla wandered off by herself, looking more lost than ever, and Bill and I went downstairs. I’m afraid I was clinging to him as if he were a lifeline which I never meant to let go.
“Bill,” I said, my voice going up into unexpected quavers, “I don’t want to go back to the apartment. I couldn’t face it. All Helena’s things. Her empty bed. Knowing that I’ve been so close to her all the while and—”
“Of course you’re not going back,” Bill said. “You’re coming home to meet my mother. I’ve been telling her all about what a lucky girl you are and I think it’s high time she had a look at you.”
But I couldn’t even rise to that bait.
“I don’t want to be teased any more!” I wailed. “I don’t want—”
Bill put an arm around me. “Look, baby, one of these days when you’ve had time to get over all this, you’re going to have a proper proposal. With all the trimmings. But this isn’t the time, the place, or the atmosphere.”
Together we went past the watchman and out the revolving door.
A BIOGRAPHY OF PHYLLIS A. WHITNEY
Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903–2008) was a prolific author of seventy-six adult and children’s novels. Over fifty million copies of her books were sold worldwide during the course of her sixty-year writing career, establishing her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century. Whitney’s dedication to the craft and quality of writing earned her three lifetime achievement awards and the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”
Whitney was born in Yokohama, Japan, on September 9, 1903, to American parents, Mary Lillian (Lilly) Mandeville and Charles (Charlie) Whitney. Charles worked for an American shipping line. When Whitney was a child, her family moved to Manila in the Philippines, and eventually settled in Hankow, China.
Whitney began writing stories as a teenager but focused most of her artistic attention on her other passion: dance. When her father passed away in China in 1918, Whitney and her mother took a ten-day journey across the Pacific Ocean to America, and they settled in Berkley, California. Later they moved to San Antonio, Texas. Lilly continued to be an avid supporter of Whitney’s dancing, creating beautiful costumes for her performances. While in high school, her mother passed away, and Whitney moved in with her aunt in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from high school in 1924, Whitney turned her attention to writing, nabbing her first major publication in the Chicago Daily News. She made a small income from writing stories at the start of her career, and would eventually go on to publish around one hundred short stories in pulp magazines by the 1930s.
In 1925, Whitney married George A. Garner, and nine years later gave birth to their daughter, Georgia. During this time, she also worked in the children’s room in the Chicago Public Library (1942–1946) and at the Philadelphia Inquirer (1947–1948).
After the release of her first novel, A Place for Ann (1941), a career story for girls, Whitney turned her eye toward publishing full-time, taking a job as the children’s book editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and releasing three more novels in the next three years, including A Star for Ginny. She also began teaching juvenile fiction writing courses at Northwestern University. Whitney began her career writing young adult novels and first found success in the adult market with the 1943 publication of Red Is for Murder, also known by the alternative title The Red Carnelian.
In 1946, Whitney moved to Staten Island, New York, and taught juvenile fiction writing at New York University. She divorced in 1948 and married her second husband, Lovell F. Jahnke, in 1950. They lived on Staten Island for twenty years before relocating to Northern New Jersey. Whitney traveled around the world, visiting every single setting of her novels, with the exception of Newport, Rhode Island, due to a health emergency. She would exhaustively research the land, culture, and history, making it a custom to write from the viewpoint of an American visiting these exotic locations for the first time. She imbued the cultural, physical, and emotional facets of each country to transport her readers to places they’ve never been.
Whitney wrote one to two books a year with grand commercial success, and by the mid-1960s, she had published thirty-seven novels. She had reached international acclaim, leading Time magazine to hail her as “one of the best genre writers.” Her work was especially popular in Britain and throughout Europe.
Whitney won the Edgar Award for Mystery of the Haunted Pool (1961)
and Mystery of the Hidden Hand (1964), and was shortlisted three more times for Secret of the Tiger’s Eye (1962), Secret of the Missing Footprint (1971), and Mystery of the Scowling Boy (1974). She received three lifetime achievement awards: the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985, the Agatha in 1989, and the lifetime achievement award from the Society of Midland Authors in 1995.
Whitney continued writing throughout the rest of her life, still traveling to the locations for each of her novels until she was ninety-four years old. She released her final novel, the touching and thrilling Amethyst Dreams, in 1997. Whitney was working on her autobiography at the time of her passing at the age of 104. She left behind a vibrant catalog of seventy-six titles that continue to inspire, setting an unparalleled precedent for mystery writing.
A young Whitney playing with her doll in Japan.
Whitney with her family in Japan, where they lived for approximately six years. From left: Lillian (Lilly) Whitney, Charles (Charlie) Whitney, Phyllis Whitney, and Philip (Whitney’s half-brother).
Thirteen-year-old Whitney dancing in the Philippines.
Twenty-one-year-old Whitney at her graduation from McKinley High School in 1924.
Whitney worked at the World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois, in 1933. She was pregnant with her daughter, Georgia, at the time.
Frederick Nelson Litten, Whitney’s mentor in writing and teaching, in Chicago, 1935.
Whitney’s first publicity photo for A Place for Ann, 1941.
Whitney, forty-eight, in her first study in Fort Hill Circle at her Staten Island house, where she lived with second husband Lovell Jahnke, 1951.
Whitney at sixty-nine years old with Jahnke in their home in Hope, New Jersey, 1972. Behind them hangs a Japanese embroidery made by Whitney’s mother.
Whitney at seventy-one years of age with Pat Myer, her long time editor, and Mable Houvenagle, her sister-in-law, at her house on Chapel Ave in Brookhaven, Long Island, New York, 1974. After her husband died in 1973, she lived close to her daughter, Georgia, on Long Island.
Whitney at eighty-one years old on a helicopter ride over Maui, Hawaii, to research the backdrop for her novel Silversword, 1984.
Whitney giving her acceptance speech for her Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1985.
Whitney rode in a hot-air balloon in 1988 to use the experience for her novel Rainbow in the Mist.
Whitney ascending in the hot-air balloon, 1988.
Whitney in her study in Virginia in 1996 at ninety-three years old, looking over her “Awards Corner,” which included three Edgars, the Agatha, and the Society of Midland Authors Award.
Whitney at ninety-six years old with her family in her house in Virgina, 1999. From left: Michael Jahnke (grandson), Georgia Pearson (daughter), Matthew Celentano (great-grandson), Whitney, and Danny Celentano (great-grandson).
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1943 by Phyllis A. Whitney
Cover design by Mimi Bark
978-1-5040-4587-2
This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
PHYLLIS A. WHITNEY
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
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