Dane disclaimed any intention of looking for that aristocratic old lady in such surroundings, and ate a good lunch. After that he inspected the hillside. As Alex had said, it was hopeless. It was covered inches deep with charred wood and ashes, and the skeletons of blackened trees towered over it.
It was the border that interested him, however. It was irregular, as though the fire had started in several places at once, and he was inspecting it when someone spoke behind him. He turned sharply, to find a youngish man eying him.
“Quite a fire, wasn’t it?” he said amiably. “Spoils the place, rather. I always liked that hill. Used to play on it when I was a kid.”
Dane inspected him. He saw a big good-looking man in slacks and sweater, rather than like his own outfit, who was smiling as he offered a cigarette.
“I’m Greg Spencer,” he explained. “Only got here last night after the show was about over. Drove up. My sisters were pretty much upset.”
“They’ve had a good bit to be upset about. Especially Miss Carol.”
Dane was not certain, but he thought Gregory Spencer’s pleasant face became rather wary.
“Yeah. Terrible thing,” he said. “She’s a courageous child, or she’d have got out before this. How she kept the servants—I came as soon as I could. I’ve been in the South Pacific, and I’m trying to get married before I go back.”
Dane introduced himself. They had been in different theaters of war, but the service was a common bond between them. Also Dane found himself unwillingly liking the other man. They went in together for a drink, to find Elinor there alone.
“Carol’s gone to see Lucy Norton,” she said. “We’ve had Floyd and his outfit here all morning. To hear the way they talked to the servants you’d think we had set that fire last night.”
“Why think that?” Dane asked.
“I don’t know,” she said pettishly. “It’s silly, of course. It spoils the place dreadfully.”
She did not look well. She was as carefully dressed as usual, but she looked her age and more. Dane took his highball and went to the fireplace, where he could face her.
“I was looking at it. I think it was deliberately set.”
If she knew anything about it she was good, he thought. She lifted her carefully penciled eyebrows in surprise.
“But why?” she asked.
“The dead girl’s clothes were never found. They might have been hidden there.”
“That’s rather farfetched, isn’t it?”
Gregory put down his glass.
“Oh, come now, major,” he said. “Why go looking for trouble? The place was dry, and probably somebody dropped a cigarette.”
“Dropped six cigarettes, in that case. It started in half a dozen places.”
There was an uneasy silence. Greg picked up his drink again.
“What you’re saying is that it was set to burn the—to burn the girl’s clothes. Is that it?”
“It looks like it. That’s why the police have been here. They’re used to forest fires, you know. I expect they had a ranger with them, didn’t they?”
Elinor didn’t know. She had slept late, and they had not come into the house. The servants had told her. And for goodness’ sake let her forget it. She was giving a dinner that night at the club. She went back to her list, using the telephone now and then while the two men talked, about the war, about their respective services, even about the political situation. Carol found all three of them there when she came. She came in tumultuously, flinging off her hat and ignoring Dane completely. Greg looked at her.
“Well, did you see Lucy?” he asked.
“If you can call it that. They kept a nurse in the room every minute. I tried to get rid of her, but she said she had orders. I think Lucy knows something, but she doesn’t intend to tell it.”
Dane, conscious of tension when Carol came in, now sensed relief in both Elinor Hilliard and Greg. Especially in Elinor.
“What makes you think she knows anything?” she inquired.
“The way she looked at me. The way she tried to send the nurse on an errand. She wouldn’t go, of course.”
“Rather highhanded of Floyd, eh?” said Greg. “Have a drink and forget it, Carol. So long as the old girl minds her own business, why worry?”
Carol refused the drink. She picked up her hat and prepared to leave and Dane, seeing her almost for the first time—except for a glimpse at the inquest—without the slacks and sweater which had made her look young and boyish, realized now that she was neither; that she was indeed a highly attractive if indignant young woman, and that she was still angry with him. In fact, at the door she turned on him sharply.
“I suppose all this pleases you,” she said. “You think I started the fire last night, don’t you? You told Floyd to keep Lucy from talking, too. He’d never think of it himself.”
“Perhaps you underestimate Floyd,” he said gravely. “I didn’t advise him about anything. I rather think we have different ideas about the whole business.”
She did not leave, after all. She was still in the doorway, looking uncertain, when Floyd accompanied by Mason, came along the hall. Mason was carrying a largish package wrapped in newspaper, which he held onto even after he sat down. Floyd did not sit at all. His big face showed excitement and something else.
“Sorry to bother you all again,” he said. “Hello, Greg. Didn’t know you were back.”
“Got back this morning Drove up.”
“After the fire?”
“After the fire. Yes.”
The chief looked around the room.
“Well, folks,” he said, “that’s what I came to talk about. Seemed queer to me, that fire. It spread too fast. It looked like it had started all over the place. So I got one of the forest rangers here this morning. He thinks the same as I do. Somebody set it.”
No one spoke. He braced himself on his sturdy legs.
“Now it isn’t as though things were just as usual around here. Maybe we’ve got a firebug. Maybe we haven’t. What we know we’ve got is a murderer, and that ain’t common. Not here it isn’t. Sol begin to think. That girl’s clothes were never found, but she was staying in this house, and she didn’t come in a red wrapper. So—well, there’s the hill. Lots of places to hide clothes there.” He glanced at Dane. “I reckon Major Dane had the same idea. He’s been snooping around some. So the hill gets burned and the clothes with it. That’s the general idea.”
He fished in his pocket and brought out something which he held in his hand.
“It’s still burning in places up there,” he said. “Likely to go on some time. So I put a man to watch it. This is what he found.” He opened his hand and held it out. On his broad palm lay another metal initial letter, this time a B. It was blackened by fire, but it had not melted. “Off the bag she carried,” he said, and looked around the room. “Anybody recognize it?” he inquired.
No one spoke until Elinor rose abruptly.
“This is all very interesting,” she said, “but I can’t see how it concerns us. None of us were here at the time this girl was killed, and I object strongly to your attempt to involve us. It’s ridiculous.”
“Whoever set that fire knew the girl’s stuff was on the hill,” he said stubbornly.
“How do you know who set the fire?”
“Sit down, Miss Elinor,” he said. “I’m not through yet. Give me that package, Jim.”
Mason placed it on the table. This time it was not fastened, and he simply unrolled it and exposed its contents. What lay there was an old-fashioned pitcher, of the sort that belonged with a washbowl in the days before modern plumbing. It was chipped here and there, but the pattern was clear and distinct. Floyd stood off and let them see it.
“No prints on it,” he said. “The gardener over at the Ward place, Rockhill, found it in the shrubbery near the lane there this morning. It might have been hidden there a year or so ago, but old Nat Ward took a notion to clean out that corner today. So here it is.”
&
nbsp; Dane glanced at Carol. She was staring incredulously at the pitcher, and her color had faded.
“Maybe some of you remember it,” Floyd said. “Probably not you, Miss Carol. You’re too young. But you might, Greg. Miss Elinor too.”
Elinor shook her head, and Greg looked puzzled. Dane pursued his policy of watchful waiting.
“It looks familiar,” Greg said slowly. “It’s years since I saw a thing like that, but the pattern—”
His voice trailed off, and Floyd smiled.
“It just happens,” he said, “that I know where it came from. I took it to old Annie Holden at the China Shop, and she remembered it all right. It was a special order. She got out her books and showed it to me. Your grandmother bought it thirty-odd years ago before your father built in the extra bathrooms.”
“But what has it got to do with the fire?” Carol asked, looking bewildered. “I don’t see—”
“Only that it’s had gasoline in it,” Floyd said. “That fire was set with gasoline, Miss Carol, and it was poured out of this.”
There was a stricken silence. Dane, watching all the faces, realized that the difference between surprise and fear was very small. They all looked shocked. In a way, they all looked guilty.
“Of course,” he said quietly, “you have to show that it came from this house. Things like that can be given or thrown away. Unless the rest of the set is here—”
“You needn’t bother,” Carol said, her voice flat and expressionless. “It’s been in the attic for years. I saw it there the other day. You can go up and look if you like. One of the maids can show you the way.”
Floyd nodded to Mason, and he went out. No one said anything. Floyd replaced the monogram letter in his pocket and looked at Carol.
“Your car was in the drive last night. I saw it there when we were working on the fire.”
She nodded.
“It’s too far down to the garage. I’ve been leaving it there at night. The weather was all right.”
“All right for a fire too,” he said. “Got any rubber hose around?”
“Rubber hose? There is plenty in the tool house.”
“Narrow hose, I mean. Tubing.”
She tried to think.
“I suppose there is,” she said. “For shampooing hair. We usually leave such things here. Why?”
“Siphon out the gas. You can’t turn a tap and let gas out of a car, you know, Miss Carol. You have to siphon it.” His voice was milder when he spoke to her, almost apologetic. “Miss any gas today? That thing there”—he indicated the pitcher—“holds quite a bit.”
“I didn’t notice,” she told him, and fell silent again.
There was a rattle of crockery from the stairs and Jim Mason came in. He was carrying an assortment of heavy porcelain, a washbowl, soap dish, tooth mug and so on, and his manner was triumphant as he placed it on the table.
“There’s another piece up there, but I didn’t bring it,” he said, wiping his face with a dusty hand. “Ladies present. Guess this is enough anyhow.”
There was no argument about it. Except that it had been wiped, the pitcher was obviously a part of the set, and Floyd’s face was uneasy as he looked at Carol.
“Now,” he said, his voice still mild, “why did you hide that girl’s clothes, and set fire to the hill, Miss Carol? Who are you trying to protect?”
13
AN HOUR OR TWO later Dane left the house, as did Floyd and Mason, the latter still carrying the crockery and putting it carefully in the chief’s car. Floyd looked disgruntled. His questions had got him nowhere. Carol had simply looked confused.
“I don’t know,” she said over and over. “Yes, I did go with Major Dane to the hill, but I never thought of burning it. Why should I?”
People were already coming to call by that time. The news that Greg was in town had got around, and the summer colony came in numbers to see its returned hero. Also of course to look at the burned hillside, and to conjecture once more about the murder.
The chief in disgust had wrapped his pitcher and escaped, with his satellite trailing him. And Dane had had to admire the three Spencers. Blood always told, he thought; Elinor delicately pouring tea, Carol seeing that the men—and most of the women—had drinks, and Greg hearty and cheerful, apologizing for his impromptu costume and shrugging off his new honors.
He did not stay long after Floyd’s departure. The pitcher was a solid if chipped piece of evidence, and Carol had known about the metal initial he had found on the hill. On the other hand, she had looked, he thought grimly, as confused and guilty as the innocent often did look.
He stopped by the fountain, a monstrosity of yellow marble with a tall bronze figure on top, and around the basin a row of grinning satyrs, some holding goblets aloft, some playing on pipes or cymbals. He lit a cigarette and sat down on the rim of the basin. Only two or three days earlier he and Carol had sat here, after a futile search of the hill. His leg had hurt damnably, and she had asked him how he got it.
“In Italy,” he had told her. “Old Alex got me back, or I wouldn’t be sitting here. That’s how he lost his eye.”
And later that day Freda had walked across with a beefsteak and kidney pie, not for him but for Alex, with a card which said: “For Alex, with thanks.” Alex had blushed with embarrassment.
“What the hell you been telling?” he demanded. “I’m no bloody hero. If that gets around—”
Dane had laughed.
“I don’t think it will,” he said pacifically. “Calm yourself, old boy. If ever a man deserved a steak and kidney pie you do.”
And now Floyd suspected her of burning the hill. He was not fooling himself. She could have done it, have learned something that made it imperative to destroy the dead girl’s identity. But she was not under arrest. There had been time before the first callers were announced and had traveled the long hall around the patio for Floyd to tell her so.
“I’ll just ask you not to leave this town,” he had said. “I think you’d better stay too, Greg. As for you, Miss Elinor—well, I wouldn’t be in a hurry if I were you.”
“Why should I stay here?” Elinor had demanded. “I’m needed at home. I have a husband there, and a mother.”
“From what I hear they won’t suffer any,” Floyd said dryly. “You got plenty of help, haven’t you?”
Greg’s protest had been violent. He was about to be married, and part of his leave was gone already. But his real resentment had been at the accusation against Carol.
“Preposterous,” he said. “Why would she do it? Ruin a place she’s loved all her life? And you can’t connect her with the murder. Don’t try to push us too far, Floyd.”
“All right,” Floyd said. “Explain that pitcher. That ought to be easy.”
Dane went over that in his mind. The chief was shrewd. Only perhaps he was beginning at the wrong end. What was the motive for the murder? Who was the girl? Why had she come to the Spencer place, claiming to know Carol? And why had she got up late at night, left her room and gone outside. For sometime that night she had been outside. There was the pine needle in her slipper to prove it. Why had she gone out, clad only as she was with her fur jacket to keep her warm? Whom had she met that June night? A woman?
He thought it possible. Could it have been Elinor Hilliard? There was that story of the Dalton girl’s about seeing Elinor’s car. But Elinor had an alibi, or so she claimed. Gregory? He considered Greg Spencer carefully. He might have used his sister’s car, and he was the kind to be tied up with women. Dane knew the type well. Yet there were one or two things against the theory. The dead girl had been small and light, but her body had almost certainly been taken up in the elevator. Gregory, in a hurry as he must have been, would not have needed to use it, not with Lucy in the house.
The bobby pin had belonged to her. He knew that, if Carol did not. The hair caught in it had been bleached and showed dark at the root, whereas Elinor Hilliard was a natural blonde.
All right. Go on from
there. Greg would not have used the elevator, even allowing for Lucy’s slight deafness. He had investigated it after Carol had given him the bobby pin, and it made an unmistakable rumbling sound. But Elinor Hilliard could have, taking the desperate chance it must have been.
He considered that carefully. She had presumably been seen that night, or her car had. Also no sooner had she arrived yesterday than the hillside had been burned that night. There was a resemblance here too, he thought. In both cases fires had been set. But once again he found himself up against Lucy’s definite and, he believed, truthful statement that there had been no fire while she was still in the house.
He lit another cigarette and straightened his leg.
Was it possible, he wondered, that the girl had not been killed on Friday night, after all? That she had stayed on for another day, living in the yellow room and eating what she could find? He thought it unlikely. Not only had the postmortem fixed the approximate time as Friday. There was also Lucy’s story of the hand reaching out from the closet door. That had been real enough for her to break a leg, trying to escape from it.
He got up rather drearily and limped home. There was no news from Tim, but he had not expected any. Tim had only had time to reach St. Louis. But Alex found him irritable and without appetite that night.
“For a man who’s trying to get back in this war,” Alex said somberly, “you act like you never heard of a kraut. You eat that custard. It’s good for you—sir.”
He did not eat the custard. He pushed it away and lit a cigarette.
“The police think Carol Spencer set the fire last night, Alex.”
“That girl? I don’t believe it, sir.”
“Nor do I. Just the same she’s in real trouble. A little more and they’ll arrest her for arson, and possibly for concealing evidence of a crime.”
Alex fixed his one eye on the view.
“I’ve been thinking, sir,” he said. “Maybe somebody chased that girl outside.”
“In a fur coat?”
“We don’t know she had it on, do we? It was easy enough to put it on later. As I get it, the idea was to make it look as though she was killed in the house.”
Yellow Room Page 12
