Omit Flowers

by Stuart Palmer

  Everything was gray in the twilight, a dim and unreal world. High in the sky hung a moon, and—as in the Chinese proverb—a dragon had bitten a good deal of it away.

  I came up to her all out of breath from hurrying. She whirled to face me, and I thought that a faint look of disappointment came over her.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said.

  I told her that there was no use taking things so hard, that she was doing Mildred no good by wandering around alone, going to pieces.

  “I didn’t come out here to brood,” Dorothy told me softly. “While you were all watching that dapper little banker I happened to look out of the window—and I saw Oviedo going by in considerable of a hurry, carrying a rope. And it struck me that perhaps—” She shrugged. “But he’s disappeared.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  She pointed vaguely down the hill, into a tangle of untended shrubs, hedges, and brush which ended somewhere on the farther slope at the cemetery.

  We went on through briar and bramble, finally striking a meandering little path that made the going easier. I had, I confess, slight interest in the actions of the Mexican. After all, he had little enough motive for being mixed up in all this. And I did not share Dorothy’s feeling that a twilight journey with a rope meant anything sinister. All the same, I wanted a chance to be alone with her. We had things to talk about, she and I.

  We came out suddenly upon a ruined iron fence, beyond which loomed a gray pyramid perhaps ten feet high. In one side stood a square door of ironwork, and the thing was topped with a Greek cross.

  This was the cemetery of Cameron City. Unlike the subdivision itself, Uncle Joel had managed to get one tenant here—Aunt Hester slept the long sleep within that pyramid.

  We paused at the fence. “Dorothy,” I said, “I’d like to know where I stand.”

  She looked at me. “You stand in what looks suspiciously like an anthill, Alan dear.”

  I moved hastily. “You know what I mean!” I told her. “You’re in trouble. I’d like to share that trouble. You’re unhappy. I’d like, if I have the right, to try to lessen that unhappiness. You put me in an odd position because you didn’t answer me last night.”

  “Do I?” she said softly. “Didn’t I?”

  “I’m not asking you to make up your mind right now,” I blundered on. “I only want to know—want you to realize that if you—if I—”

  I could see, even in the darkening twilight, that she wasn’t listening. She wasn’t even looking at me, for her eyes were turned over my shoulder, toward the weedy waste of the cemetery.

  “If you have anything to tell me,” I went on, “anything at all, realize that I’ll understand.”

  She had only one word. “Look!” she whispered.

  I turned, and saw it.

  A foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon! I was at once reminded of the description of the original Hound that hunted the Baskerville family, reminded because this beast in the bushes, for all its tremendous voice, was so different.

  It howled, so that all other sound seemed to stop. The voice was that of a soul lost in hell, yet we looked upon a slinking creature covered with moth-gnawed, dirty gray fur. The mouth was red, the teeth large and white, and we could see the very tremors of its throat as the unearthly wail again rose to the sky.

  There was more of dog in the beast than fox, and seemingly more of the hyena than either. “The wolf! If it is a wolf,” I gasped, looking around for a club or stone.

  “It’s a wolf with an inferiority complex,” Dorothy told me. “In other words, a coyote!”

  Of course I should have known. I stared, wondering that so great a voice could come from so mean a creature. The coyote seemed unnaturally interested in us, cocking its head as we spoke. Wary but unafraid of human scent; it moved as we moved. I picked up a pebble and flung it, but the creature showed an insolent disregard for my aim.

  “Do you suppose he’s been hired to haunt this house?” Dorothy asked, with a faint quaver in her voice.

  “Get out of here!” I shouted. “Go on, get out. Scat!”

  “‘Scram’ is the word,” Dorothy prompted. I found a larger stone, flung it. The coyote streaked away like a racehorse breaking from the barrier. In mid-flight it paused, sat down calmly, and howled at the moon again. The pale yellow eyes stared at us steadily, unblinking.

  Dorothy moved back along the path. “Two is a company, three is a crowd,” she said. “Let’s go on back.”

  The beast followed us at a respectful distance. “Question of etiquette,” Dorothy said. “Should we ask him in ? Maybe in spite of everything he’s a werewolf. Doesn’t somebody have to invite them in the first time? As in the Dracula story?”

  “Come on back to the house,” I advised her.

  But she lingered. “The thing is like a buzzard,” she said. “It hangs around waiting for one of us to drop.”

  And then I saw that Oviedo was creeping toward us through the bushes, a rope dangling from his fist. I would have cried out had I not seen that his finger was pressed against his lips. There was a look of eager excitement on his swarthy face.

  And then Oviedo made his cast—and a good cast it was. Rope whirled through the air with a musical z-z-zing sound, three lengths of rope joined in the middle and running out to weights at the ends.

  The coyote yelped and leaped into the air, but the whirling ropes wound themselves around him, and he fell—

  “Ah!” cried Oviedo. “Bueno, eh?” And as we watched he fell upon his quarry, deftly tied jaws and legs, leaving the coyote helpless.

  The Mexican looked up at us. “Good joke on Tito, that! He watch you, he forget to watch bushes. I try thousand times to get him back, this time I have luck with bolo cord.”

  “Wait a minute!” I said. “This beast is yours? He’s not wild?”

  Oviedo laughed. “Wild coyote don’t come around houses, not much. This Tito, I raise him from pup. He don’t know how to catch rabbit, how to find himself food. He hang around house.”

  “Oh,” Dorothy said, gradually becoming interested. “What an odd pet to have! How did you happen to let him go?”

  Oviedo’s face darkened. “Mist’ Cameron, he happen to let Tito go—happen on purpose. He cut rope—tell me I waste too much food on Tito!”

  Oviedo came closer, lugging his captive. He lapsed into Spanish, a language which lends itself to invective. “That old one, he was a cruel hombre, a bajo hombre! His maternal ancestors were unmarried. He let my Tito loose, then he laugh and laugh at me!”

  The dark face showed a gleam of teeth. “I tell him someday he laugh once too much!”

  The procession moved slowly toward the house where the sheriff’s car showed that he had returned with the remains. Dorothy drew closer to me. “This just goes to show,” she said softly, “that you can never tell about people. That Mexican is the last one on earth I’d pick as a nature lover—but see how he felt about the loss of his pet! You don’t suppose he would have gone so far as—” She pointed toward the blackened ruins of the garage on the hill above us.

  We stared at each other, wondering what we had stumbled upon. Then the Mexican swung past us, clinging to his captive. The coyote seemed to take it all in a friendly spirit, though its jaws worked steadily at the entangling ropes.

  “What are you going to do with him, now you’ve got him?” I asked Oviedo.

  He paused, smiled a wide smile. “Bimeby he have plenty pups, this one. He’s she-coyote.”

  “Puppies!” I said, looking at Dorothy. I felt a sympathy toward this aborigine.

  He nodded. “Coyote scalps worth ten dollar,” he explained. “I get lots of pups, get lots of bounty money!” And he went off toward the kitchen door.

  Even Oviedo had got something he wanted out of this muddle. So, of course, had Uncle Alger, Eustace, Mabel, Evelyn, and the Waldrons—for they all wanted money.

  That left only the three of us.
I wanted Dorothy, and knew now that we spoke a different language, knew that I loved her in that useless sterile sort of love which comes in the autumn of life and makes a sober, mature man into a ridiculous clown….

  Dorothy wanted—what? Todd, perhaps. If she knew, or was willing to admit to herself what she wanted. And as for what Todd wanted, heaven only knew. Probably it was only to have this whole thing settled somehow, so he could go off a-venturing again.

  As we came up the steps of Prospice Dorothy halted. “One thing I must ask you, Alan.”

  “Anything!” I declared.

  “It’s about Todd,” she said. Somehow I had known that it would be. I nodded.

  “I must know,” she went on. “I’ve got to know. You can tell me—did he love my sister?” Her voice was strained.

  I said, a little stiffly, that Todd ought to answer that.

  “He has,” she said. “But that isn’t enough. There’s a reason which you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Wouldn’t I!” I muttered.

  “Because if Todd loved Mildred, really cared for her, then it makes a difference—all the difference in the world!”

  I told her, “I don’t see why it should bother you. But if you ask me, I think that Todd loves you. And why not ? You have my blessing if that makes any difference!”

  It was what I knew she wanted to hear, and I blurted it out with the best grace I could. “After all,” I pointed out, “there’s no reason why Todd shouldn’t love you, and you him. Don’t let me stand in the way; after all, our romance was pretty nebulous. If we could spend our lives dodging in and out of closets, eavesdropping and playing detective and so on, it would be just dandy. But things are going to be everyday again very soon, and at my age I need a housekeeper and a stenographer far more than I need a wife.”

  Dorothy smiled. “You’re giving me back my freedom, Alan? So I can love Todd with a clear conscience?”

  “Exactly!” I retorted, and reached for the door. But it opened inward, and there stood Sheriff Bates, the light of triumph in his eyes and Todd Cameron handcuffed to his wrist!

  I stood there and stared, mouth open, for what seemed an eternity. So did Dorothy.

  “One side, folks,” said the sheriff.

  “Yes,” said Todd dryly. “You’re interfering with an officer in the performance of his duty.”

  But Dorothy did not move aside. “What crazy foolishness is this?”

  “Just that I’ve arrested this smart alec for the murder of your sister,” pronounced Sheriff Bates. “Yeah, and for the murder of Joel Cameron, too. Because he wouldn’t have had to pull the second one if it hadn’t been for the first!”

  I, too, raised my voice in bewildered protest. Sheriff Bates’s temper wore thin. “I don’t have to account to you,” he blustered. “But I don’t mind pointing out a fact or so. First place, Mildred Ely didn’t commit suicide. Suicides always lock the door behind ’em so they won’t be disturbed, and most generally they leave a note. Girls especially.”

  There was an odd expression on Dorothy’s face. “Oh, but this is—this is insane!”

  Sheriff Bates smiled. “No it ain’t. This guy nearly got by with it, too. Him and his trick gag of telephoning so the guilty person would try to run out! Nearly had me fooled—until I found out. You know what he did? He came up here and tossed that girl out of the window—he had to do it, because she’d been wandering around in the house at night and seen him up to something! He knew she’d break down and tell if we really got after her, so he worked out a foolproof scheme.”

  “Listen—just one minute!” I cut in. “I was standing outside the house with you when Mildred fell. And at that moment Todd was guarding the dirt road near the barranca…”

  “So he says!” cut in the sheriff. “But there’s a back door to this house, isn’t there? He could have slipped in and out, and nobody the wiser. Besides—” and here Sheriff Bates fairly purred—“besides, you ain’t heard the half of it. I just found out that he didn’t guard that road! One of my deputies came by there looking for me—just about the moment she went out of the window, according to my calculations—and the road was unguarded!”

  “I told you,” Todd put in, “that I was afraid, from the way she took the news over the phone, that it was Mildred. And I left the road clear because—well, because I didn’t want to catch her!”

  “Horsefeathers!” said the sheriff jovially. “The girl had something on you! She sneaked downstairs in the night, probably to get her a book to read, and saw you.”

  “It wasn’t a book,” Dorothy explained wearily. “My sister went down to rob the pantry both nights. She used to do it at home, too. It was because she hated to let people see her eat a big meal—she wanted to be so dainty! Not that it matters now…”

  “All right—she was hungry!” agreed the sheriff. “But anyway, she ran into this guy up to some deviltry, and that’s what she was brooding over so long.”

  “When she was frightened downstairs, Todd was with me!” I put in.

  Sheriff Bates smiled. “Don’t alibi for him, Mr Cameron. He ain’t worth it. He’s a murderer, and if we can’t prove that he burned up the garage and the old man, we’ll sure get him for killing that girl! A little quiet questioning will bring it out of him.”

  Dorothy relaxed suddenly. “All right, Sheriff. Wait here a moment and I’ll give you proof of something.”

  She ran up the stairs. In a moment she was back, bearing a bit of linen with a lace edge. One corner was blackened.

  “I tried to burn it,” she confessed. “But it smelled so!” I recognized instantly that this was the bit of cloth I had found in the billiard room, just before I was put to sleep with a billiard cue.

  “Then you did find it!” I accused Dorothy.

  She nodded. “It wasn’t meant for you—nor for me,” she said. “My sister left it by the window, just before she jumped. It’s a suicide note—written at the last moment with what materials the poor baby could find!” Dorothy was almost crying, but she went on.

  “Read it!” she said.

  “Huh?” Sheriff Bates took the piece of cloth, turned it around in his fingers. We all of us stared at the reddish smears.

  “Lipstick!” Dorothy explained.

  I could see the words now—a strange and pitiful message. It began… “Todd darling—I can’t face it—love you always—please forgive—” and at the bottom was a single initial “M.”

  “Her writing!” Dorothy said, in a wild voice. “Her geranium lipstick, and her handkerchief!”

  We all were looking at Todd Cameron. “You found this,” he said softly, “you found this—and you didn’t give it to me?”

  Dorothy was defiant. “Alan found it first,” she said, “but he didn’t have a light and couldn’t read it. I took it from his fingers as he lay unconscious—there must have been a third person in that room, you see—and I tucked the thing into the pocket of my robe. I wasn’t going to let you see it.”

  “Why not?” Todd demanded. “Why in—”

  “Because I didn’t think you loved her,” Dorothy told him simply. “You had no right to read a message like that unless you loved her!”

  XIV

  Can such things be,

  And overcome us like a summer’s cloud,

  Without OUR SPECIAL WONDER?

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  THE SHERIFF WAVED HIS hand, showing a complete disinterest in such a delicate point of ethics. “See here,” he demanded, “you’re trying to say that the girl went out of that high window instead of the one in her bedroom like we thought?”

  Dorothy, biting her lips, nodded. “She must have! She was up there, watching and waiting for the arrival of what she thought would be your lie detector! God knows what innocent secrets she feared to expose when that thing was set to betray her. She’d read of it, as we all have, in the Sunday supplements. And in her panic, when she saw the sheriff’s familiar car coming, she scribbled a note with what materials were at hand and
—jumped!”

  Sheriff Bates shook his head dubiously. “I don’t get all this. Why should she commit suicide if she wasn’t guilty?”

  I wondered if he hadn’t read of Violet Sharpe in the Lindbergh case. The sheriff went on: “And all this about the billiard room and the ladder and somebody hitting Mr Alan Cameron over the head….”

  “There was a third person in that room,” Dorothy said. “I heard the scuffle. Somebody who came in—or out—by that ladder; somebody who hit Alan over the head, but that person had no interest in this handkerchief.”

  “Who was it?” demanded the sheriff eagerly.

  Dorothy said wearily that she didn’t know.

  The sheriff shook his head sadly, reached into his pocket for his keys. Somehow the starch seemed to have gone out of him.

  “Why unlock the bracelets?” Todd Cameron said in a choked sort of voice. “Take me along. I killed her. Just as much as if I had thrown her out of the window. That clever gag of mine that was going to make the killer run into a trap! Why—why—”

  But the sheriff took back his handcuffs, put them in his hip pocket. “You meant well, young fellow. We all mean well, I guess. ’Tain’t your fault. ’Tain’t nobody’s.”

  “Isn’t it!” cried Todd Cameron. And there was something new in his voice, something that made me stare at him wonderingly. But the sheriff had had enough for one night.

  “No use taking one of you unless I take the whole family,” he said, a little wistfully. “And our lockup isn’t big enough to hold all of you. Anyway, sooner or later you’ll have to get used to the idea that your sister—” he was looking at Dorothy—“your sister killed herself because she’d set fire to the garage. That was why she wrote ‘forgive me’ at the end of the note. I guess that’s the way the case has got to be closed, seems like. Disappointing, ain’t it?”

  He nodded, and went out of the door.

  The three of us just stood there staring blankly. Finally Todd spoke. “I appreciate your producing that note,” he said. “Knowing how you feel.”

  But Dorothy wouldn’t or couldn’t talk about it anymore, and the three of us went in search of the rest of the household. We found them around the table in the dining room, so busy spending money (conversationally, of course) that they did not even know that Todd had been under arrest.