Yellow Room

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  The more he considered it the more certain he was she had done exactly that. If she intended blackmail she would naturally go to Elinor. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He could almost see what happened. The girl, pretty in a common way, in the fur jacket and white hat. Admitted under protests, unless she had said she was Mrs. Spencer. And Elinor sweeping into the room.

  “Mrs. Spencer? Which Mrs. Spencer?”

  “I’m Greg’s wife.”

  Elinor staring at her, dazed and incredulous.

  “I don’t believe you. And you’re getting out of this house. At once.”

  “You can put me out right enough. But you can’t change things, you know. I’ve got my certificate.”

  “I wouldn’t believe it if I saw it.”

  “You’re not going to see it. I’m taking care of that. All right, Mrs. Hilliard. If you feel this way about it, maybe your mother and sister won’t. I’ve looked them up. In Maine, aren’t they?”

  Leaving, and Elinor rushing to the telephone, telling Greg what had happened, and Greg unable to face it and taking the usual way out. Going to New York, on his way to Newport, and starting to drink himself blind on the way.

  It had to be something like that, if Greg’s story was true and if Elinor had been at Crestview the night of the murder. Why had she come? To buy the girl off, to urge a divorce and promise some considerable sum in return? Or to kill her? Everything else aside, she was capable of going to almost any length to avoid scandal and to save her social position. Even Hilliard would not have taken it well. But if she had killed Marguerite Spencer he was certain she had not done it alone.

  He realized that he was going stale on the case, and that afternoon he asked Carol to go for a drive.

  “I need exercise,” he told her. “Why not leave the car somewhere and do a bit of climbing?”

  “I’d love it. How about your leg?”

  “I’ve forgotten I have it!”

  They had a happy afternoon. From the top of a low mountain they could see the open ocean, and the bay sprinkled with its low green islands, like emeralds set in blue. Far below, the women on the golf course were bright bits of color, and the town itself picturesque and gay.

  Sitting on a rock there he told her a little about himself; about his enlistment in the army, about his having been detached to a special job, and his anxiety to get back to it.

  “It takes me around a lot,” he said casually. “Trouble is, a man in my position has no business having ties. My mother worries as it is.”

  “All women have to accept it, don’t they? I mean, almost everyone has somebody.”

  He reached out and took her hand.

  “Look, darling,” he said, “I’m pretty badly in love with you. I’ve been fighting it for days, but you might as well know it. I know you still remember Don Richardson, for one thing. The other is—” He threw away his cigarette. “How does any man know he’s coming back these days? Or he won’t be mutilated, or blind?”

  “Would that matter so much?” she asked quietly. “If the woman cared—”

  “It would,” he said fiercely, and got up. “It would matter my dear. All right. Let’s go.”

  He flew to Washington that night. With Elinor still shut off he felt he had reached a dead end, but there were things he could learn there he could not learn elsewhere. He was not too happy. He had done an idiotic thing, he felt. He had told Carol he was in love with her and in the same breath had said he had no intention of marrying her. Only a damned fool would do a thing like that, he reflected, as the plane roared south.

  He did not go to a hotel. He had kept a small apartment there, and he admitted himself, mixing a good strong drink before he turned in. But he slept badly. He bathed and shaved, dressed, got some breakfast at a restaurant, and then reported to an office tucked away among the innumerable War Department buildings. He was not limping at all as he went in, and the man behind the desk surveyed him with a smile as he thrust out his hand.

  “Hello, Dane,” he said. “How’s the Eagle Scout?”

  Dane grinned.

  “I’m fine. Hard luck, missing the invasion.”

  “Well, you’ve had plenty—Dieppe, Africa, Sicily, Anzio beachhead, Cassino. That’s a record for any man.”

  Dane shrugged and sat down.

  “I’m reporting for duty,” he said, “but I’d like a few days first. Maybe a couple of weeks. There’s a case in Maine I’d like to look into.”

  “That murder at Bayside?”

  “Yes.” He grinned. “I see you read the papers.”

  “Greg Spencer’s apparently mixed up in it somehow. That puts it up to us in a way. Not our business, of course, but after all a fellow with a record like his—Better tell me what it’s about, Dane.”

  Sitting there, referring to his notes, Dane related what had happened. It was not an uninterrupted narrative. Telephones rang. People came in and went out, quick important decisions were made. But he finished at last, and the man behind the desk made some notes.

  “I wired you before,” he said. “So far as we can check Terry Ward did not come east on his present furlough. He’s still somewhere on the Coast now. Be leaving soon. Of course, all that’s not positive. When you can cross the continent in seven or eight hours, and you’re a flier with friends in the service, you can get places pretty fast.”

  “Any way to check on his past? Say the last year to two?”

  “What sort of check?”

  “Women. Did he play around with anyone like the Barbour girl?”

  “My God, Dane, what do you think he is? Just because he flies doesn’t mean he has wings like an angel.”

  It was the best Dane could do. He stayed in Washington for a day or two, learning nothing of any importance, meeting fellow officers, drinking at this bar and that, even going out to dinner once. But he was increasingly restless. On Thursday he flew back to Maine. It was still daylight when he arrived, and Alex met him at the field, an Alex with a long face and his one eye anxious and unhappy.

  “I’m glad you’re here, sir,” he said. “Floyd arrested Captain Spencer for murder this afternoon.”

  21

  CAROL HAD HAD A rather difficult time during Dane’s absence. Greg was taciturn and worried. Tim—the man who was to assist Maggie—had a habit of turning up at unexpected places, particularly at night. And Colonel Richardson had taken it upon himself to see that she was not lonely or downhearted.

  It was difficult to see Maggie’s picture of him running in the rain in the dignified elderly man who daily brought her flowers from his garden, and who talked garrulously the small gossip of the community. On Tuesday he noticed that she was no longer wearing Don’s ring. He picked up her hand and looked at it.

  “Have you no faith, no loyalty, my dear?” he asked gently.

  “It’s so long,” she said, afraid of hurting him. “It’s over a year. I have tried, but…”

  “They’ve been found after longer periods than that,” he insisted, and the next time he came he brought a clipping about such a case, and a map.

  “Now look, my dear,” he said. “You see what I mean. I’ve drawn in the new routes, ship and plane. This is where he was seen last. That doesn’t mean his plane went down there. It might still have gone quite a way, and here’s this island.”

  He pointed at it, his eyes full of hope, his lips slightly blue, and his veined elderly hand tremulous. She quivered with pity for him, but why couldn’t he accept it? she thought. Other people did. There were people near-by, among the townspeople and the summer colony, who had had similar losses. They did not talk about them. They went around with quiet faces, or with the forced smiles that made one ache for them.

  The situation was complicated by his continued jealousy of Jerry Dane. Not that he spoke about him. It was just there, behind his faded blue eyes as he watched her. In a way it was like a silent battle between them, one of strategy rather than the firing line. But she did not put on Don’s ring again.

 
Greg watched the situation morosely.

  “Why don’t you get rid of the old buzzard?” he said. “I’m sorry for him. I’m sorry for a lot of other people too. Only they bury their dead decently. He won’t.”

  Tim did not add to her comfort. He was watching her carefully. At night, after she had gone to bed, he prowled around, trying her door to be sure it was locked, watching all doors and windows. At two in the morning Alex took over, but outside the house, and Tim got some sleep. Carol knew nothing of the arrangement, although Greg, coming home late Tuesday night from a dinner and taking a short cut to the house, found himself confronted with a flashlight which blinded him. He was indignant.

  “What the devil’s all this?” he demanded.

  “It’s all right, captain. Sorry. Just happened to be passing and saw you.”

  He had a vision of a big body and a face with a patch over one eye, and went on, still surprised and affronted.

  It was almost a relief to Carol when on Wednesday afternoon a sort of inquest on Lucy Norton’s death was held. There was no need of an inquiry, Dr. Harrison insisted. He even doubted if it was legal. But Floyd set his heavy jaw and demanded one.

  “What’s the difference whether she was hit on the head or scared to death?” he shouted. “All right. All right. We won’t have a jury. We’ll conduct an inquiry, and we’ll let the public in if it wants to come. What’s wrong with that?”

  It was held in Floyd’s office, which was jammed to the doors, but it brought out nothing new. Even Joe Norton’s statement told nothing fresh.

  “She was all right when I seen her last,” he said. “Only she had something on her mind. I don’t say she was scared. She just wasn’t talking. If you ask me, that girl told her something before she got killed and somebody got in her room at the hospital to find out what she knew.”

  Asked if he had any idea what this knowledge could have been, he had not. “Except that the girl said she was a friend of Carol Spencer’s,” he said after some thought. “It might have been something about the Spencers.”

  As having possible bearing on the case, a statement from Elinor Hilliard was read. She had not seen the person who shot her. She had been unable to sleep and had gone out. The rain was not heavy at that time. She had been in the lane when she had heard someone running toward her; in fact, she had thought there were two people, one behind the other. She was not sure, however. It was very dark. But she had not been on the hillside and had no idea how she got there. She had been conscious when she fell, but she must have fainted almost at once. Someone must have carried her to where she was found.

  There was no verdict, of course, and the press went away dissatisfied. There was only one angle the reporters had not already known. This was the fact that several patients in private rooms had had their doors opened the night of Lucy’s death, opened and then closed again.

  Floyd, realizing that things had fallen rather flat, made a small speech, standing behind his desk to do so.

  “I think,” he said, “in view of one murder and a shooting, not to mention the death of Lucy Norton, this town should take certain precautions; such as an early curfew for the children and the careful locking of houses at night. Without wanting to cause undue alarm, there seems to be someone around who doesn’t hesitate to kill, and I shall inform the state troopers and forest rangers to that effect.”

  That had been the situation until Thursday afternoon, when Greg was arrested. Alex at the airport, having thrown his bomb, produced a bottle of Scotch from beside him in the car.

  “Better take a drink, sir,” he said. “There’s a fog coming in. It’s cold.”

  Dane drank the liquor straight. It burned his throat, but he felt better after it.

  “All right,” he said, as Alex put the car in gear. “Let’s have the story.”

  Alex did not know a great deal. What he had had come from Tim, and that gentleman, liking Greg and considering Floyd too big for his pants, had resented the highhandedness of the procedure.

  “As I get it, sir,” Alex said, “Captain Spencer and Miss Carol were having lunch when Floyd drove up. He had Mason and a state trooper with him, but only Floyd went into the dining room. Tim was in the pantry, and the door has a little glass window in it, so he saw it all.

  “That girl got up, but Spencer didn’t move. The girl said ‘Is there anything wrong, chief?’ and Floyd didn’t answer her. He walked over to Spencer and said he was arresting him for the murder of his wife. Wife! I haven’t got that straight yet. But so far as I know Spencer didn’t say much. He told his sister not to worry, he hadn’t done it, and he asked if he could pack a bag. Floyd sent the trooper up with him, but he didn’t make any trouble. Last Tim saw of him he was getting into Floyd’s car. He’s in jail at the county seat now, and they’re going to call a special session of the Grand Jury.”

  It was a long speech for Alex, so long that he lapsed into complete silence after it. Dane was grateful for it. Floyd must have his case, he considered, to have gone so far. And he knew a good case could be made.

  His chief worry was Carol. He looked at his wrist watch when he got home. It showed only nine o’clock, so without stopping he walked over to Crestview. She was standing on the terrace gazing forlornly out at the bay, now misty with fog, and his heart contracted with pity when he saw her. Evidently she recognized his step, for she turned quietly and waited for him.

  He was astounded to find her face frozen into a stiff, resentful mask.

  “Haven’t you a good bit of courage to come here?” she demanded.

  “Courage? What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you? Greg’s under arrest. That’s what you’ve been working for, isn’t it?”

  He lit a cigarette and studied her, not speaking.

  “I keep asking myself why,” she went on, her voice flat. “Why? He knows Greg didn’t do it. He was here when it happened. Maybe he did it himself.” And when he still said nothing: “What do I know about you, Jerry Dane? Nothing. Not who you are or what you do. You put a man in this house to watch us, everything we do. Then you get poor Greg’s story out of him. He was married to that tart, and that’s luck for you, isn’t it?”

  “You’re excited, my dear.”

  She gave a small hollow laugh.

  “That’s funny, coming from you,” she said, her voice still bleak. “Why wouldn’t I be excited? My brother’s under arrest for murder. My mother’s in bed with a heart attack. My sister’s been shot—did you do that too? And Greg’s fiancée’s driving me crazy over the telephone wires.”

  “See here,” he said authoritatively. “You’re not excited. You’re hysterical. Sit down and listen to me or I’ll carry you up to bed and get a doctor.”

  He waited until she sat before he spoke. Then his voice was as cold as hers.

  “In the first place, I didn’t kill the girl. In the second place, your brother didn’t do it either. Now stop being a little fool and listen to me. I’ve been doing my damnedest to keep Greg from being arrested. I couldn’t do it in time. But an indictment—if it comes to that—is not a trial, and I’m not through,” he added grimly. “Now—did you eat any dinner?”

  She was quieter. She was even apologetic.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “I’ve been here alone all afternoon, and thinking about Greg…”

  He smiled at her.

  “That’s better,” he told her. “Now, once again—did you eat any dinner?”

  “I wasn’t hungry.”

  “You’re going to eat now,” he said firmly. “Half of that attack on me was empty tummy. And after I’ve got some food in you I’m going to see Floyd. I think he’s slipped up. At least I hope he has. How is Mrs. Hilliard?”

  She looked at him, surprised.

  “Elinor? She’s doing all right. Howard’s going home. Or he was until this happened. He’s sent for his lawyer now.”

  “And your sister is still not talking?”

  “What
do you mean, talking?”

  He eyed her gravely. She could take it, he thought. She had plenty of guts. Nevertheless, he told her as gently as he could.

  “I’m afraid she knows some things, my dear. I think she knew of this marriage, which was hardly a marriage at all. Greg was on leave and drinking when it happened, and this girl more or less kidnapped him. But I think she knows something else, or suspects it.”

  “What? Don’t treat me like a baby, Jerry. I’ll have to know sooner or later, won’t I?”

  “I think she knows either who shot her or at least why she was shot, Carol.”

  She took it well. “Does that mean—do you think she knows anything else?”

  “I’m afraid she does, darling.”

  She was silent when he called Tim and asked for some food for her. And Tim, in a white coat too small for him, took the order stolidly, as if he had never seen Dane before.

  “Certainly, sir,” he said, in an outrageous imitation of an English butler. “And may I offer the major a cup of coffee, sir? Or perhaps you would favor a ham sandwich.”

  Dane was not amused. He managed to get her to eat a little, and he saw her go to bed before he called Alex to bring the car. It was almost ten o’clock by that time, but he counted on Floyd’s being still in his office. He had not expected to find Campbell there, however. Both men eyed him with disapproval and resentment.

  “I’ve a damned good idea to arrest you, Dane,” Floyd said explosively. “You’ve known all along this girl was Spencer’s wife. You’ve been covering for him—for the whole family, for that matter—and you know it.”

  Dane sat down. He was still in uniform, and he put his service cap carefully on a table beside him.

  “I suppose it was the wedding ring,” he said casually.

  “You suppose right. I’m no fool. I got Hodge Hopkins’s glass on it myself after you brought it back. That C was a G. How many men’s names begin with G?”

  “George, Gilbert—” Dane began easily. But Floyd held up a hamlike fist.

  “And Gregory,” he said. “Not that I was sure. Not then anyhow. In fact we had a bit of luck. The Coast turned up a young woman who had been reported missing by the people who were keeping her baby. Lived outside Los Angeles. She answered the description, clothes and all, and Doc Harrison said the girl here had had a kid. Didn’t know that, did you?”