Yellow Room

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  Greg shook his head confusedly.

  “I didn’t do it. I don’t even know who did.”

  “But you knew she was dead, didn’t you? You went ahead with your plans for being married again. How did you know all that, Spencer? Who told you?”

  “I’d rather not answer that,” Greg said slowly. “I knew it. That will have to do.” He drew a long breath. “I’d had a year of hell, Dane. It was a relief.”

  He dropped his head in his hands. It was some time before he looked up, and his eyes were dull and hopeless.

  “Let me tell you the story, Dane,” he said. “God knows I’ll be glad to get it off my chest. I came back on a special mission last May a year ago. I guess you know how these things are. I did the job—it was in Los Angeles—but I had to wait for a plane to take me back. I fell in with a lot of fellows, and they found some girls somewhere.

  “We were drinking pretty hard, and one of the girls seemed to like me. I remember that, and by God that’s about all I do remember, except that I woke up a morning or two later below the border in Mexico with this girl in a room with me, and she said I’d married her.”

  Dane nodded. He knew better than most the strain of the war, and the drinking that was so often an escape from it. He was no moralist, either. He offered Greg a cigarette and took one himself.

  “Go on,” he said. “It’s a dirty trick, of course. It’s been done before.”

  Greg looked grateful.

  “Well, figure it out for yourself,” he said. “It was true enough. She had a certificate. And until I saw it I didn’t even know her name!

  “I went back to the Pacific, and I tried my damnedest to get killed. That’s why I got that decoration. Believe me, I was sick at my stomach when they pinned it on me. I’m still sick. I’d tried all year to break off with Virginia. Imagine how I felt when I came home and found she had planned our wedding! I couldn’t marry her. I couldn’t marry anybody. I tried to prime myself to tell her by taking a few drinks, and that turned out as you might expect.

  “That’s the story, Dane. I didn’t kill Marguerite, but I knew she was coming east. She wrote me at Washington. I haven’t seen her since I left, more than a year ago, but I sent her a thousand dollars then to keep her quiet. I thought maybe she’d let me divorce her. But she didn’t want a divorce. She was coming east to see Carol and my mother. I tried to stop her. I flew to New York, but I was too late. She’d left her hotel. The next thing I knew she was dead.”

  “You didn’t know she was coming here?”

  “How could I? Mother and Carol were in Newport. But she must have told poor old Lucy who she was, or she wouldn’t have let her in the house. That’s what gets me, Dane. I can’t pretend I’m sorry about Marguerite, but Lucy—what on earth happened to Lucy?”

  He got up. He looked rather better, as though telling the story had given him relief.

  “I’ve wondered,” he said. “Lucy was fond of us. She might have killed herself. She was a little thing—Lucy, I mean—but these New Englanders are capable of violence. The way their boys are fighting in this war—But of course that’s crazy, isn’t it? Who shot Elinor? Who burned the hill? What’s it all about anyhow?”

  The contrast between the two men was very marked at that moment, Greg’s bewildered, not too clever face against Dane’s keen determined one. Dane lit a cigarette.

  “I can tell you about the fire,” he said casually. “At least I’m morally certain. Your sister, Mrs. Hilliard, set it.”

  Greg’s expression changed, hardened. He flushed angrily.

  “You’d better have good reason for an accusation of that sort,” he said stiffly. “My sister is not mixed up in this. It’s my story, not hers.”

  “You’re sure of that, are you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “She knew you married this girl, didn’t she?”

  For the first time Greg’s frankness deserted him.

  “She didn’t know it until recently.”

  “How recently?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  He was definitely on guard now, and Dane got up.

  “About that ring,” he said, “How do you account for it?”

  “She must have bought it herself. I never gave her one. I never even saw her, after Mexico.”

  “Any letters of yours?”

  “Only one with the check in it. The check had my name on it. I didn’t sign the letter. Only my initials.”

  “Do you think she brought the letter with her?” Dane persisted. “She brought something, I am sure of that, and something somebody wants. I don’t know what it is. I don’t even know who wants it. If it wasn’t your sister who was shot last night I would think you were that person. Look here, do you remember any of the men in Los Angeles who were in that party?”

  Greg shook his head.

  “They came and went, the way those things are. I expect some of them are gone by this time. Anyhow I’d had plenty to drink before that. I was pretty well under before the party—if you can call it a party.”

  “Was young Ward part of the crowd?”

  “Ward? You mean Terry? He may have been. I didn’t see him.”

  There was a long silence. Then Greg returned to Elinor.

  “What about Elinor and the brush fire on the hill?” he asked. “That’s the hell of a thing to accuse her of.”

  “Her car was seen here the night of the murder, captain. Now wait a minute—” as Greg made a move toward him. “I don’t think she killed the girl. It seems unlikely under the circumstances,” he added dryly. “The fact remains that she may have known more than she’s ever told. For instance, there was a definite attempt to conceal Marguerite’s identity. Her clothes haven’t been found, not even her overnight bag. Perhaps Carol has told you why we believed her things were buried on the hillside, about the spade we found and so on.

  “But she may not have told you that Mrs. Hilliard was pretty badly scared when Lucy testified at the inquest. I watched her. I know. But Lucy Norton was careful. She told only a part of the truth, and Mrs. Hilliard knew it.”

  “She didn’t kill her,” Gregory said thickly. “I’ll stake my oath on that.”

  “Then why did she set fire to the hill?” Dane demanded. “I think you’ll find she did exactly that. She knew the pitcher was in this attic and Carol’s car was in the drive. She even had a rubber hose to siphon off the gasoline. I saw it in her bathroom, part of a shampoo arrangement. It still smelled of gasoline, although I imagine she had tried to clean it.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Gregory said stubbornly. “I don’t believe she was here when Marguerite was killed. Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Because she had an alibi of sorts.” Dane’s voice was bland. “She claims to have spent that night in her empty apartment in New York. She certainly was in New York Saturday. She says she had dinner with her husband that night and went to the theater. She probably did, unless he is involved in this too. But she could have been here, you know; have driven the rest of Friday night to Providence and taken an early train to New York. In fact, that’s almost certainly what she did.”

  “So she shot herself!” Greg said roughly. “She went out in the rain, climbed the hill and shot herself in the thigh! For God’s sake, Dane, make sense.”

  “All right,” Dane agreed. “Let’s try something else. She didn’t kill the girl. She came after her, because she knew she was coming here. When she got here the girl was already dead, so she did the only thing she could think of. She took the body upstairs in the elevator and put it in the closet.”

  “It sounds crazy.”

  “It does indeed, but something of the sort happened. The body was hidden to gain time, of course.”

  “So Elinor could get to New York and go to the theater!”

  “So she could protect you, captain. And her own position too. Want me to go on?”

  “I’ll have to hear it sometime,” Greg grunted.

  “All right. Let’s say Luc
y’s still at the foot of the stairs. She’s unconscious, but she might recover any minute. Mrs. Hilliard didn’t know Lucy had broken her leg, but she had to get rid of the girl’s clothes. She found them in the yellow room, along with her bags. Lucy was stirring by that time, and probably moaning. What could she do? Take them with her? She was going to New York, remember, and Lucy might raise the alarm any minute.”

  “Can you imagine Elinor burying them in the middle of the night? She could have got rid of them in a hundred places on her way to New York.” Greg was openly defiant now. “She has her faults, but she’s not an idiot.”

  Dane nodded, still imperturbable.

  “Precisely. That’s where I stop. I’ve been stopped there for ten days; bridges, rivers, empty fields, and those clothes buried up on the hill! Unless she had help, of course.”

  There was another silence. Greg broke it.

  “Who claims to have seen her car?”

  “Old Mrs. Ward, for one. She was out looking for her husband. It seems he sleeps badly. She told it quite innocently. But the Dalton girl saw it too. She was out with her dog.”

  He had commenced to dress. Dane watched him idly, his mind busy with what he had learned. He roused as Greg shrugged into his blouse.

  “What about your alibi when your wife was murdered?” he asked. “You left Washington on Thursday of that week, I know that. You’d better be sure you can fill in that interval, Spencer, and don’t tell me you don’t remember. You’ll have to remember.”

  Greg laughed, unexpectedly and without mirth.

  “All right,” he said. “I registered at the Gotham on Thursday. You can check that. And I called Elinor at Newport that day. You can check that too. You can check that I got my car out of storage also, to drive to Newport to see Virginia and the rest of the family. But you can’t check me for Friday or most of Saturday, because I can’t check myself. I’d got that letter from Marguerite, and I told you how I was,” he added dryly. “I can drink like any other man most of the time. Then when things get too strong for me I drink myself blind. I came to somewhere in lower New York. I’d been slipped a Micky Finn and robbed. That was at noon on Saturday, and you can ask the hotel how I looked when I got back.”

  “That’s no alibi, and you know it,” Dane said sharply. “What was too strong for you? Not that letter, was it? What did Mrs. Hilliard tell you over the long-distance telephone on Thursday? That was it, wasn’t it? And who do you think your sister thought she was protecting when she got here that Friday night? You, wasn’t it?”

  There was another long silence. Greg was obviously trying to think the thing out. When he spoke he did not answer Dane’s questions.

  “I can’t see Elinor in it at all,” he said. “I can’t see her killing anyone or—you know, digging a hole and burying those clothes. I’ve done my share of digging since the war began. So have you probably. It isn’t easy.”

  “No,” Dane agreed. “And the ground was hard that night. No rain for a long time. How did she know the girl was coming here, Spencer? She did know, didn’t she?”

  But here again Greg was evasive. He hadn’t known it himself, he said. She might have learned it some other way. Dane realized that he was on guard now and got up, looking tired.

  “All right, Spencer,” he said wearily. “You’ve got the story now. Where do we go from here?”

  “To see Elinor,” Greg replied gruffly. “Damn it, Dane, she’ll have to talk now, or I’ll find myself at the end of a rope.”

  20

  ELINOR DID NOT TALK that day, however, or for several days thereafter. She had developed a fever, and no visitors were allowed, not even her family.

  Hilliard arrived on Monday, bringing extra nurses and a consulting surgeon on the plane with him. Dane saw him at the hospital, a heavy florid man, on the shortish side, inclined to be pompous, and to regard Elinor’s shooting both as an accident and a personal affront.

  “These damned hunters!” he said, red with indignation. “Shooting deer out of season, of course. When a woman like my wife can’t even leave her house safely—!”

  He succeeded in isolating Elinor completely, although the consulting surgeon seemed undisturbed about her.

  “She’s all right,” he said privately to Dr. Harrison. “A little fever, that’s all.” He smiled faintly. “Three nurses,” he said, “and the country short of them! Well, she’s his wife. If he’s willing to pay for it, I suppose it’s not my business.” He glanced at Harrison. “What’s she afraid of, anyhow?”

  Dr. Harrison looked surprised.

  “Afraid? What makes you think she is?”

  “Looks it. Acts it. Jumps every time the door’s opened. Probably causes her temperature too. Does she know who shot her? Think that’s it?”

  “I haven’t an idea. She doesn’t talk about it.”

  “Maybe she’d better,” said the consultant, and took off his mask and white coat. “Well, I guess that’s all, doctor. Congratulations and thanks.”

  Tim had arrived the day of Greg’s confession, but he brought little or nothing Dane did not already know, which annoyed him greatly.

  “For God’s sake,” he said, “why send me all over the country risking my neck when you know it all?”

  Nor had he discovered much from the suitcase. It had revealed underwear and a dress or two, all of good quality, and a snapshot of a baby a few weeks old.

  “You know the sort,” Tim said. “No clothes. Legs in air. Kind of a nice kid. Boy.”

  “She’d had a child.”

  “Had, eh? Well, that explains it.”

  Tim’s good humor died quickly, however, when he learned that his next assignment was to watch Carol at the Spencer house, and to help Maggie, now alone there. He stalked back to Alex in the kitchen.

  “What’s wrong with him?” he demanded, indicating Dane in the front of the house. “Is he crazy? Or is he just crazy about that girl next door? It’ll cost him the hell of a lot to pay me for washing dishes.”

  “Money don’t worry him,” Alex said calmly. “Got plenty, or his old lady has. Father was a senator.”

  Which ambiguous statement kept Tim silent for a moment. Then:

  “What’s this about the Hilliard woman getting shot? Papers are full of it. Somebody after deer?”

  “Sure,” Alex said, patting a hamburger neatly into shape. “In June, on a rainy night at one A.M.”

  Tim whistled.

  “Another, eh?” he said. “Well, maybe Dane’s right about the girl friend. How about lending me one of those pretty aprons you wear? If I’m to wash dishes all day and stay up all night I won’t need anything to sleep in.”

  Dane himself was at a loose end, with Elinor shut away and no possibility of seeing her. He was confident now that she had not been alone the night Marguerite was killed. Yet his telegram from Washington saying the answer was no, had left him without any specific suspect. And Floyd was still digging. In spite of his skepticism he had investigated Pine Hill. He might already know that the letter inside the wedding ring was a G and be keeping the wires hot about a possible marriage. And in the center of the mystery was Carol, growing thinner and more confused each day.

  He went over his notes the day of Tim’s return, changing and elaborating them, and after his custom numbering them.

  (1) The body in the closet. Laid out carefully, and with the fur jacket not fully on. It had covered only one arm. Had this been done after death?

  (2) The wedding ring on body. In spite of the engraving, Greg claimed he had never seen it. (Can probably be checked in Los Angeles.)

  (3) Fire in closet. Set sometime after death. In that case improbable either Greg or Elinor had set it. Lucy Norton’s statement at inquest. No smoke or odor of burning that night.

  (4) The bobby pin found by Carol. Someone not strong enough to carry the body had taken it up in the elevator. Hair obviously bleached, indicating it belonged to dead girl.

  (5) The curious discovery in the tool house. Not only the spa
de, but the Lowestoft tea set, and so on.

  (6) Burning of hillside. Pitcher taken from Crestview attic. Almost certainly done by Elinor Hilliard to cover evidence.

  (7) Strange death of Lucy Norton.

  He sat for some time over that. Someone had climbed the fire escape and found Lucy in her room. She had been sufficiently alarmed to get out of her bed, and to fall dead with a heart attack. Would she have been murdered otherwise? Had only the noise of her fall driven the intruder away? But why? He was convinced now that what she had learned from the dead girl had been that she was Greg’s wife. But she had not told it at the inquest. After some thought he put an X after that entry and went on.

  (8) Shooting of Elinor Hilliard and moving of her body from the lane. Why had she dressed and gone out in the rain? To meet someone, and if so, who was it? Another X here.

  (9) Why had Mr. Ward stealthily retrieved shell from mud in lane? Where did the Wards figure in the mystery? The grandson, Terry?

  (10) Attempt, the night Elinor was shot, to discover and probably remove girl’s clothing if buried on hillside. Elinor? X?

  (11) Search of yellow room same night, while entire Spencer family at hospital. X again?

  (12) Deserted house, Pine Hill. Who had been staying there? Blankets left after all other clues carefully removed. Probably overlooked in darkness and forgotten. X?

  After some thought he added another note, thinking grimly that it was the thirteenth.

  (13) Terry Ward expected back on leave. Did not apparently arrive.

  He put away his notes and began to check the movements of the murdered girl. She had reached New York on Wednesday, June fourteenth, and gone to a hotel. On Thursday, shortly after Carol and Mrs. Spencer had left, she had inquired for them at their apartment house. That left her plenty of time to go to Boston and take the night train for Maine, arriving at the village by bus the next morning.

  He sat for some time gazing at this last item. He had missed something here. Boston was only five hours from New York, but suppose she had not gone directly to Boston? Suppose she had stopped off at Newport and seen Elinor Hilliard?