Chad turned away. “For God’s sake.”
“Rigid,” Crawford said hoarsely. “Won’t bend. It’ll take three of us.”
“Why can’t we drag her?”
“Because I say so,” Crawford said.
“Because you say so doesn’t make it necessary.”
Crawford turned and hit him on the chin. It wasn’t a hard blow but Chad staggered and fell back.
“I owed you that,” Crawford said.
Chad got up and brushed off the snow from his coat. His face was pale.
“Now I owe you something,” he said. “You want it now?”
“Some day I’m going to slap your ears off.”
Herbert came up then and found them standing looking at each other. He didn’t see Floraine at all until he stumbled over her foot. He let out a shriek and tripped and fell on his face in the snow. He came up spluttering and wiping his eyes.
Crawford said, “Get up and grab one of her legs. We’re going to carry her in.”
Crawford’s tone was menacing. Herbert touched the leg.
Chad said, “Killer Crawford,” in a half-jeering way but he, too, moved towards Floraine. He picked up her other leg. Crawford held her under the armpits and they went forward drunkenly through the drifts. Both Chad and Crawford swore audibly, but Herbert was silent. He had his eyes closed and he wasn’t really carrying the frozen leg at all, he held it and let it lead him along.
When they reached the front door they had to prop her up so she’d go through. Lying in the hall which was still dim she seemed to glow like phosphorus and she looked more terrible, more unreal, than she had outside in the snow.
Crawford took out his handkerchief and tried to brush off her face, but he saw that the snow wouldn’t come off yet, so he removed his coat and covered the body. One leg and
the hands weren’t covered and Chad took off his coat, too, and hung it over the leg that still stuck up in the air. But everything they did only made it more grotesque and the upstretched leg looked like a clothes prop.
Herbert made a funny noise in the back of his throat and walked away quickly.
“We can’t leave her here like that,” Chad said.
“Have to, until she thaws,” Crawford said. “The other doors are narrower and she barely got through the front door.”
“I wouldn’t want the women to see her.”
“Let them look the other way. Or keep them in the dining room. Who in hell cares?”
“I like your mood,” Chad said. “It just suits you.”
Crawford didn’t answer or even turn around. He was looking down at Floraine with a sad, tired expression in his eyes.
Chad shrugged and went into the dining room. When Crawford heard the door shut he bent down and took the coats off Floraine.
She was wearing a dark blue coat over her white uniform. None of her clothes were torn, and there were no bloodstains visible. He looked at her neck and her fingernails and the pupils of her eyes, but there was nothing to show how Floraine had died.
She may actually have frozen to death, Crawford thought, or suffocated in the snow.
What was she doing on the balcony dressed in her coat? Whose window was above where the body had been found?
Behind him he heard the dining-room door open again. He turned quickly and shouted, “Stay in there!”
But Isobel was already in the hall, and she had already seen Floraine. Her eyes were glassy and she had one hand to her throat.
“Can’t you—cover her—up?” she whispered.
“I did cover her up,” Crawford said dryly. “She looks like hell anyway. Now how would you like to go back in that room and stay there?”
She seemed ready to cry. “I thought I—I could do something.”
“She’s dead as a doornail, sister, and you can’t do a thing. Listen.” He drew his foot back and gave one of Floraine’s legs a little kick. It sounded as though he had kicked a piece of stone.
Isobel stepped back, staring at him. “Must you be so—brutal?”
Crawford laughed and said, “Brutal, for Christ’s sake. Listen, sister, I’m nervous.” He began to walk towards her very slowly. “When I’m nervous I do anything. I’ve got to have action when I’m nervous. You go back into that dining room and tell the gentlemen to step out into the hall two at a time and I’ll knock their heads together.”
He was within two feet of her now and there was a crazy light in his eyes.
“I won’t hurt you,” he added softly. “I like the shape of your mouth and the way your eyebrows grow and your chin . . .” He put his hand under her chin and raised her face. His hand was not gentle, and his mouth when he put it over hers was hard and cold.
She stood motionless, hardly breathing, hypnotized by this strange man who kissed her as if he hated her. Finally he drew away and she saw that he was smiling a little, though his jaw was clenched.
“That’s not what I mean by action,” he said. “But failing anything better . . .” He shrugged his shoulders and turned and walked away, back to Floraine.
Isobel put her hand slowly to her mouth and rubbed it. Her legs were trembling and she felt cold all over as if his cold mouth had chilled her.
“Don’t stand there,” he said sharply.
His tone whipped the blood into her face. “Don’t order me around.”
“No?”
“And don’t touch me again.”
“You’re safe. I’d rather kiss an ice cube.”
There was a silence. Then Isobel said quietly, “Was Floraine murdered?”
Her quietness affected him. “She was,” he said more civilly.
“How?”
“I don’t know. No marks on her. She was pushed off the balcony and may have smothered in the snow.”
“Then if we’d looked for her right away . . .”
“Shut up,” he said savagely. He drew in his breath painfully. “You’re blaming me?”
“No, no, I’m not. All of us . . .”
“No, I’m to blame. I was sure she was hiding somewhere. I never thought of looking outside. She might have still been alive while we were shoveling that coal looking for her body. And all the time she was out there fresh-frozen like a Birds Eye chicken.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Isobel said faintly.
“Where’s Miss Rudd now?”
“Gracie Morning is looking for her upstairs.”
“Miss Morning is a brave woman,” Crawford said. “Or is she stupid? Or—” he smiled dryly—“does she know more than the rest of us about Floraine’s death? Does she know, for instance, that Miss Rudd didn’t murder Floraine?”
“You’re wrong about Gracie. She just doesn’t seem to realize—she’s irresponsible.”
“I wonder how irresponsible,” Crawford said.
“You’re wrong,” Isobel repeated dully. “You’ve forgotten the cat. Miss Rudd killed the cat. And what happened to M. Hearst, the bus driver?”
“Would Floraine go for a walk on the balcony with Miss Rudd? Look again and you’ll see she has a coat on.”
Isobel looked again and as she looked one of Floraine’s hands moved. She turned and ran. She heard Crawford laughing behind her and his sharp brittle voice saying, “She’s thawing, sister. She’s just thawing.”
10
Maurice Hearst opened his eyes. A sliver of sun shot through a crack in the drawn blind and hit his eyeballs. He felt a sharp searing pain go right through his head.
He closed his eyes, wincing, and thought, funny, I don’t remember that crack in the blind. It wasn’t there before.
He turned his head and burrowed it into the pillow to shut out the light and the sounds that came from the next room, and from the street. But the sounds kept coming right through the pillow, and he could still imagine the sliver of light and it w
as almost as bad as seeing it, because it worried him. He couldn’t remember the crack in the blind, but he didn’t want to get up and look at it, he didn’t want to move at all. His head was too hot and heavy a thing to go carrying around. And it must be early, his alarm hadn’t gone off yet.
But as soon as he thought of his alarm this began to worry him, too. Maybe he’d forgotten to wind it, or the clock had stopped. It wasn’t a very good clock anyway, it had a loud rattling alarm and the tick was wheezy and uneven and you could hear it when you were walking down the hall even before you opened the door.
He moved his head and listened and heard no ticking, nothing but the boom-thump of his own blood pounding in his ears. He forced himself to open his eyes again. Then he lay on his back and looked at the ceiling and tried to concentrate.
The blind and the clock—and now the ceiling. It wasn’t the right color.
“God,” he said aloud, and put up his hand to brush away the sudden sweat from his forehead. He saw his wrist, thick and tanned, with coarse fair hairs on it. But it was a swell wrist, he could remember it, it was his.
His eye traveled up and he saw that he was wearing his coat. He had gone to sleep with his clothes on. He had never done that before, never been drunk.
He moved again and the armholes of the coat felt tight and uncomfortable and the sleeves were too short.
Breathing hard and fighting off nausea, he sat up in the bed. These weren’t his clothes, this wasn’t his bed or his room, there was no clock . . .
No, that couldn’t be right.
I’m sick, he thought, I’m very, very sick and I’m imagining things and in a minute everything will be all right. When this pain goes away, when I can see better, it will be my room again.
He waited, his eyes closed, trying to force himself to breathe deeply and evenly. But he didn’t get enough oxygen that way, and he had to open his mouth and gasp and drag the air into his lungs.
Last night. Remember last night. Think about last night. Get that straight first.
But it wouldn’t come. Last night seemed ordinary. All his nights were pretty much the same. He played poker with Gaston, the headwaiter, and a couple of kitchen boys, or he went to bed early and read a book, or he took on some of the guests for billiards in the basement. Nobody could beat him at billiards. He had a steady eye and good nerves . . .
“Good nerves,” he said aloud, and tried to laugh about it. But the laugh turned out to be a whimper and his voice sounded as strange to him as the room and the bed and the clothes. It was weak and husky.
I’m sick, he thought again. Where did I get sick? Where was I? Where am I?
He looked around the room again. It wasn’t his room, but he’d seen it before. Somewhere, sometime before he had been in this room.
There was a pitcher of water on the little table beside the bed and three glasses.
Three glasses. Why three glasses? He squinted to make his eyes focus better, but there were still three glasses. He picked up one and poured some water into it. He was very thirsty and in a minute all the water was gone from the pitcher and he was feeling steadier and the pain behind his eyes had settled down into a gnawing ache. When he put the glass back on the table he saw an empty quart bottle of gin on the floor.
Gin, he thought, I never drink gin.
But the bottle was empty, and he, obviously, had been full, so he must have drunk gin, or else he’d had someone with him.
As soon as he thought of that he knew it was right. He couldn’t remember anybody, but something seemed to move in his mind and click into place. Someone had come here with him, maybe two people if there were three glasses.
From the next room came the sound of a vacuum cleaner starting up. I’m in a hotel, he thought. If I could get over to the window and pull up the blind and look out maybe I’d know where I am. I could always remember roads and buildings . . .
Roads.
There was something about the word that hit him. His heart began to thump again and the blood roared in his ears. Roads.
He swung his legs off the bed and staggered over to the window and tore at the blind to get it up. It came off the roller and fell on his head and he fought it off desperately as if it were an animate thing, and a mortal enemy.
It ripped and fell to the floor and he looked down at it savagely and kicked it away with his foot.
The sun beat in on his eyes and for a second he could see nothing but a black-red glare. The glare faded and became the orange twinkle of sun on snow.
He was on the second floor of the hotel. Just outside his window a painted sign swung gently back and forth: Hotel Metropole, it said on one side. Prix moderes. Tout confort. On the other side it said, Metropole Hotel. All conveniences. Reasonable Rates.
The sign brought everything back so vividly that he had to breathe deeply again to ward off the sudden nausea that hit him.
The bus. Where’s the bus? I’ve lost the bus.
He strained his eyes to see across the street. There was the station looking the way it always did, too bright and modern in this sleepy third-rate little town. But the place in front of the station where he always parked the bus was empty.
That was where he kept the bus, waiting for the Montreal train to come in. Sometimes it was late and he went across to the Metropole for coffee or beer, but he’d never stayed here before. He’d never been upstairs.
He turned away from the window and sat on the bed holding his head in his hands and trying to think through the pain. Maybe if I talked out loud, he thought, maybe if I asked myself questions I’d remember everything.
What’s your name?
Maurice A. Hearst. A for Albert.
How old are you?
Twenty-six, hell, no, twenty-seven. Who cares? Old enough to know better than to talk to strangers.
Strangers, eh? What kind of strangers?
I don’t know. That just slipped out. I don’t . . .
Well, take it easy. Where do you work?
I work for the Chateau Neige. I drive their bus. I’ve been there for two years now and I’m a damn good driver and that bus gets through roads that nothing else can get through but a snowplow. It’s like a jeep, see? It bounces. It doesn’t look so hot and you have to coddle the engine but . . .
All right, all right, so it’s a jeep. Where were you last night?
I don’t know.
All right. Where were you this morning?
Here.
You couldn’t have been here this morning. You drove the bus down this morning, didn’t you? That was this morning, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?
He groaned, “Oh, Jesus,” and rolled his head back and forth. Then he began again.
You still there, Mr. Hearst?
Sure, sure. It’s my wrist, isn’t it? Sure, I’m here.
You know what day this is?
No.
You know what time it is?
No—wait, the sun—it’s noon, twelve o’clock.
Good work, Mr. Hearst. Where are you usually at noon?
I’m in my bus waiting for the train to come in.
So that makes this today and not yesterday. Isn’t that right?
Sure, sure. It’s today. If it isn’t yesterday it must be today.
So you’ve lost twenty-four hours. Where were you yesterday at noon?
I was in my bus. I had the motor idling because on the trip down it coughed a couple of times and I didn’t want to have any trouble with it going back. It was ten below and the roads were as bad as I’ve ever seen them.
Anybody with you on the trip down?
No, not this time.
All right. You’re sitting with the motor idling. Do you remember seeing anyone?
Sure, a kid with a St. Bernard.
That’s dandy. Maybe he got you drunk.
&nb
sp; I wasn’t drunk. I was knocked out or something. I’m sick.
All right. The kid and the dog. And what else?
A couple of guys came out of the station. I remember thinking it was funny because the older guy was all dressed up but the younger one was shabby . . .
Hearst got off the bed and walked over to the window again. He tried to picture the bus standing in front of the station, and himself behind the wheel, and the two men walking out of the station. There had been no sun and the wind ripped up the street, and the train was going to be late . . . The two men came over and one of them rapped on the door of the bus, it was the well-dressed one who looked as if he came from the city . . .
Hearst looked down at the blue serge suit he was wearing. It belonged to the shabby young man, the one who hadn’t talked. The older man had done the talking. He looked as if he came from the city . . .
“Is this the Chateau Neige bus?”
“Sure is,” Hearst said.
“How long do you wait here?”
“As long as it takes the train to come in. Been late a lot the last month.”
The older man grinned and said, “The war or the weather?”
“Both,” Hearst said. He liked talking but the two men were keeping the door open and the bus heater didn’t work so well. He said, “You want to go up to the Lodge? Well, hop in. I have to close this door.”
“No, no,” the older man said. “I’m supposed to meet somebody here, a lady. She’s going on up but I’ve got to wait a couple of days in town here. Business. Any place I can get a drink?”
Hearst pointed. “Sure. The Metropole.”
The shabby man smiled and nodded his head.
“Maybe you’d like to join us?” the older man suggested. “We’re strangers in town . . .”
“Have to wait here,” Hearst said, but the idea tempted him. He’d go and look on the call board and see how late the train was going to be and maybe he’d have time for a quick one.
Both of the men looked pleased, and they went with him to see about the train. It wasn’t due for half an hour.
The older man said his name was Aldington. He was in the lumber business. The other man, hunched inside his coat even in the bar, kept smiling stupidly at everybody and didn’t say anything.
Fire Will Freeze Page 11
