“You can see, of course, what Leigh is up to?”
Miles merely grunted. Donia was apparently used to this reception of her words, and she went on with light malice.
“You’re very good at ingratiating yourself, aren’t you, Leigh? Flattering her like that! Laura accepts you more and more as her daughter. She’s turning to you, relying on you. And now that you’ve convinced her that she can go back into pictures, she adores you. That’s very clever of you, Leigh. Your mother is a wealthy woman. And as I recall, Victor Hollins left very little of the money he made in his lifetime for his family. Laura hasn’t been like that. She has investments abroad, and money in Swiss banks. And wills can always be changed, isn’t that true, Miles?”
“Shut up, Donia,” Miles said.
I’d turned to stare at her in astonishment, and I saw the look of venom she flung at her brother. She scrambled to her feet without another word and went out of the hut, turning her coat collar up about her neck, her legs in yellow trousers bright against the snow.
Miles rose and closed the door that she’d left rudely open behind her. Then he came back to his chair beside the table, making no comment on his sister’s outrageous behavior.
“Sit down, Miss Hollins,” he said.
It was still cold in the cabin and I’d kept on my woolen jacket. I thrust my hands into its slit pockets as I did as Miles asked. My fingers touched the crayon-scribbled paper I’d thrust into one pocket. Whatever was coming, would be unpleasant, I knew, and I felt annoyed with Gunnar and Laura for leaving me in this predicament.
“Perhaps it’s time we talked,” Miles said.
“I don’t think talking will serve much purpose,” I told him. “You’ve made it plain from the start that you didn’t want me here.”
“And I was right, don’t you think?”
“How can you say that? After you talked to me at the hotel the other day, I took a taxi to Kalfaret. I saw you and Irene bring Laura out of the house. She looked scarcely alive. She was a sick woman, with no hope, no energy—nothing. Now she’s Laura Worth again. Isn’t that an accomplishment? And isn’t it because I’ve come here?”
“Perhaps a slow recovery would be safer. A recovery based on a real improvement in her health, rather than on nervous stimulation.”
He was a doctor and I couldn’t very well tell him that there was nothing wrong with her health. I held to a disbelieving silence, and after a moment he went on. Once more I was aware of his eyes that seemed to hold a pale gray light in their depths.
“It’s difficult to be sure of your motivation, Miss Hollins. I think Donia exaggerates—but how can we be sure? You’ve encouraged her to return to Hollywood and she’s taken the bit between her teeth.”
“What I said was said impulsively,” I told him. “Afterwards she wouldn’t allow a retreat.”
“I would like to believe that you mean her no harm,” he said, and I knew this was not what he believed at all. “The worst possible thing that can happen is for her to return to Hollywood.”
“Why?” I asked bluntly.
The gray eyes flickered. “Quite aside from the obvious fact that it’s too late for her to take up an acting career again, there is the danger of opening up an old murder case. Reporters would be on her like wolves.”
“Danger to whom?” I asked, remembering that it had been hinted that Miles’s excellent alibi was not as good as authorities had thought.
He stared at me for a long moment, and the only sound in the world was the crackling of the fire across the room, the only movement the flickering of shadows cast by the flames. An uneasiness stirred in me, and I was aware of his big hands folded grimly into fists on the table between us. I wished that Donia had stayed in the hut.
He spoke abruptly, roughly. “How can I persuade you to go away? You work in the commercial world—would a sum which would pay you well for this lost effort serve to make you leave? You have no love for Laura, obviously, but I realize that you hoped to gain something from this interview, and I would be willing, within reason—”
He was just as bad as his sister. I struggled with my further sense of outrage as I interrupted him. “Why are you so anxious for me to go away?”
“I have Laura’s interest at heart. You haven’t. From the first that’s been evident. Now you’ve done her more injury than you can realize. You must leave as soon as you can, and I’m willing to make it up to you if there is a money loss in your leaving.”
“You must really be desperate to make an offer like that!” I said heatedly. “I’m not to be bought off!”
His hands clenched and unclenched. It was a moment before he answered me.
“It’s necessary to protect my wife, at whatever cost,” he said.
I made my attack swift. “Then why did you let her believe that she’d done that terrible thing to her portrait—that scarring with the scissors?”
“It wasn’t I who told her what she’d done. Though of course she would have to know it eventually.”
“But she’s sure she didn’t do it. She has told me so, and Irene supports her.”
Again he gave me that long, cold stare. “You were there. You saw. She had the scissors in her hands. She was holding them when I came into the room and found you both there.”
“They could have been placed in her hands earlier. Or she could have picked them up.”
He seemed about to deny this, and I went on quickly.
“If that cruel game has any meaning, who do you think X is?”
“The game can be dismissed. She was unconscious—she didn’t know what she was doing.”
I reached into a pocket and took out the folded sheet of paper I’d found in the sandalwood box.
“Do you think Laura wrote this and left it for me to find?”
The ugly, childish scrawl lay on the table between us. He could read what it said, but he did not touch it. His face had taken on a closed look that neither accepted nor admitted. I could sense that fury against me was rising in him.
“Why do you want to keep her captive?” I demanded.
He shoved back his chair with a roughness that startled me, and suddenly I was afraid. I left my own chair and went to the door. In an instant I was outside, running along a track where I wouldn’t sink into snow. A little way off Donia was trying to build a snowman with an air of gleeful enjoyment. The snow was wrong for her effort, but she didn’t seem to realize the fact. She stood up to stare at me, patting snow between her mittens.
Miles didn’t come after me. When I looked back, I saw him standing outside the hut, with icicles dripping from the eaves over his head. After a moment, he disappeared inside and closed the door.
“It’s a good thing to run when he loses his temper,” Donia said cheerfully. “Laura’s rages are nothing when you compare them to the fits of anger my brother can go into. He’s been boiling up against you for some time.” She looked pleased over what had happened.
“Do you know which way Laura and Gunnar went?” I asked her curtly.
She pointed, grinning, but for all her cheery manner, there was spite in her eyes as she watched me. I turned my back on her and followed ski tracks that led across the snow. The walking was not easy, and in a little while the sturdy effort gave me some release. I tried to put the encounter with Miles out of my mind. Perhaps I’d been frightened over nothing.
Up here it was as though I were at the very top of the world. Nothing of Bergen or the seacoast was visible. Only more mountain peaks with their frosting of snow rose around Ulriken, extending endlessly into Norway. Flöyen, alone, treecovered, except for its rocky face, and not as high as the other peaks, was almost free of snow, the black of its rocky cliff, the dark green of its firs and pines showing dull beneath the sunny sky. Immediately around me stretched the snowfields, and skiers were busy crisscrossing them, moving with knee bends that sent them striding across the snow. At a little distance I could see Gunnar’s red sweater, and Laura’s black and white. They were moving wit
h surprising ease up an incline, as cross-country skiers do, and I knew they would be out of my sight in a moment There would be no use trying to follow them. But as I watched, they reached the top and made a turn to start the run in my direction. I waited where I was and they had gone no more than a few yards when I saw Laura’s body twist as she plunged into a sliding fall. She cried out and her voice came to me faintly. Already Gunnar had slid to a stop and was turning about. In a moment he was out of his skis and kneeling beside her.
I knew she was hurt. I began to run across the snow, sometimes plunging to my knees where the crust broke to let me through, so I tumbled harmlessly several times before I reached them. She couldn’t have been badly hurt, I told myself. The snow would ease her fall, and she had not been going fast. But I did not like that twisting of her body, and I floundered toward her frantically.
When I reached them, Gunnar had helped Laura to her feet and she was examining her ankle gingerly.
“Are you hurt?” I cried, churning through the snow to get to her.
Gunnar and she both turned to watch my approach, and Laura smiled reassuringly. “I’ve twisted my ankle, but I don’t think it’s serious. Don’t hurry like that, Leigh! You look as though you’ve taken a few falls yourself.”
I began to brush the snow from my pants and jacket, aware for the first time of my own emotional state, which was completely mindless and out of hand. I’d rushed toward her like—like a child hurrying toward an injured mother. The realization shocked and quieted me before I betrayed myself further.
Gunnar bent above Laura’s ski to see what had caused her fall, and when he looked up at us, his eyes were grave.
“The cable which holds the boot to the skis has been damaged,” he said. “Just on one ski. At best, you couldn’t have skied for long, Laura. At worst, you could take a fall—which is what happened.”
Laura stared at him, her eyes frightened. “Now will you believe what is happening?” she asked him. “Will you believe this was deliberate?”
I thought of the scarred picture and the whispering voice, the lettered paper. There had been no real danger in any of these things—only a tormenting. A tormenting that might eventually drive a despairing woman to some wild act? But Laura was not despairing any more. Or was she? As Gunnar removed her other ski I saw that all the earlier gaiety and elation had gone out of her. Fear had returned—a fear that was even greater than before.
“Don’t you understand?” I said to Gunnar. “Someone wants her to be frightened and helpless. I don’t know why, but it’s true. It’s as if she were being prepared for something.”
Gunnar did not disparage my words, or deny Laura’s obviously fearful state, but I sensed that this sort of maliciousness was outside his knowledge and experience. He was a man who lived in a well-balanced world, a clear, sane world where such things did not happen.
Laura clung to his arm, trying her foot carefully. “I want to get back to your hut and take off my boot, please. Miles will know what to do. But, Gunnar, my dear, make plans for me during the next few days, as you said you would. Help me to get through this time until I can leave for the States.”
Gunnar put his arm about her and looked at me questioningly over her head. He had no weapons with which to fight so nebulous an evil. He seemed to ask for a help I didn’t know how to give.
“I’m already making plans,” he said. “I was able to get a box at the theater for Wednesday night. And Monday I will take you both to visit my mother. I am taking the day off. But, Laura, it would be better to tell us what is happening to you, would it not? Surely the matter can be righted if we know who is tormenting you.”
Laura shook her head almost violently. “No, no! I will leave for Hollywood soon. The past is over. It’s done with. It mustn’t involve us all again. The results would be too terrible to bear. Miles doesn’t want to return, and I won’t ask him to, but I’ll go alone if I have to.”
“Was Miles in the studio that night when Cass Alroy died?” I asked her directly.
Until that moment she had been treating me warmly, almost with affection, but now she looked at me as if I were the stranger I’d told myself I wanted to be.
“Of course he was not in the studio. That’s ridiculous. He was at the theater with his sister that night. Everyone knows that. What are you trying to do? What trouble are you trying to stir up now?”
I felt far more comfortable in the face of her irritation with me than I’d felt over rushing toward her so heedlessly. This was the way I wanted it to be.
“Your husband just tried to bribe me into going away,” I said. “Why is he so afraid of me?”
“If I thought I could succeed, I would bribe you to go away myself!” Gunnar said. “You have done enough damage for now.”
He and Laura started ahead through the snow, Gunnar carrying skis and poles on one shoulder, and supporting Laura with his free arm, leaving me to consider the shock of his words. I plodded along in their tracks. Laura limped as she walked, and their progress was slow.
The clear air in this high place, the beauty of clean snow and surrounding mountain ranges no longer lifted my spirit. I told myself repeatedly that now I was going to feel a great deal better; I was no longer trying to please anyone but myself. That was the cause I should have held to from the first.
Laura tired before we reached the hut, and when we came to an outcropping of rock, Gunnar helped her onto it and she lowered herself cautiously to sit on a stony ledge and rest her foot. Gunnar sat beside her, watching her in concern, while I stood aside in the snow, as if I were not one of the party.
“Shall I loosen your boot?” Gunnar asked.
“No. The swelling had better be contained until we reach Miles. It’s not very painful when I can rest it.”
Another car had brought skiers to the top, and several boys and girls went swishing past us across the snow. If I ever visited Norway again, I would learn to ski, I thought irrelevantly. But of course I would never come this way again, and certainly I would never ask Gunnar to teach me. The thought depressed me further—without reason.
Laura turned her head and looked up at me. “Do sit down, Leigh. You give me a crick in the neck. And there’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about.”
“I’d rather stand,” I told her.
For a moment her clear, lustrous eyes studied me. Then she turned her head so that she did not look at me and spoke in a voice so low that I could hardly hear her.
“Will you tell me about your father’s death, Leigh? I would like to know.”
The rush of angry blood to my temples made me a little dizzy. The last thing I wanted to talk about to Laura Worth was my father’s death. She had no right to know. She especially had no right to know that he had spoken her name at the very end, and thus hurt Ruth cruelly.
“You had better tell her,” Gunnar said, quietly stern.
I told them both then. But I held back what was essential. I said curtly that he’d had a heart attack while working on a novel which he had hoped would reinstate him in the public eye. I had read the chapters he’d written. It was a very good novel, and it was tragic that he could not finish it. My mother and I got him to bed and we called the doctor. But it was too late. He died in my mother’s arms.
When I was small I had called Ruth “Mama.” But when I was older I called her “Ruth.” After I knew about Laura Worth I was never able to call Ruth my mother. But I called her that now, and I repeated it.
“I see.” Laura had drawn up her knees and she rested her forehead against them. She had taken off her visored cap, and her brown head with the thick coil of hair at the back looked somehow vulnerable and touching—to anyone but me. I distrusted her very attitude. She was asking for sympathy, for pity. But I was on guard now, and I gave her none.
After a moment, she spoke. “Thank you for telling me, Leigh. I would always have wondered. I’m glad it was a quick death and that he didn’t suffer. I’m glad his family was there.”
Gunnar put a light hand on her shoulder and I knew she had won the sympathy she wanted—from him, at least.
In my bitter and perverse state of mind I sought for some means of wounding, of stabbing into her very vulnerability. I had to stab her out of my own pain.
“While we’re speaking of husbands and wives,” I said, “will you tell me what happened to Miles’s first wife?”
Gunnar made an impatient sound. Laura did not raise her head, but she answered me.
“She’s dead.”
I don’t know why I asked the next question. Perhaps I simply wanted to make her talk about what might be distasteful to her.
“How did she die?” I asked.
Only then did she look up at me, her eyes clear and somewhat questioning. “She died a suicide. She fell from a high balcony in their Hollywood home. It was Donia Jaffe who found her.” Laura held out her hand to Gunnar. “If you’ll help me up, please. I’m ready to go on now.”
Again they went ahead of me, and again I plodded behind, thinking in some surprise about what I had just learned. I couldn’t help wondering what had driven the first Mrs. Fletcher to fling herself to her death from a balcony. And what had Donia Jaffe been doing on the scene in her brother’s house?
Chapter 10
Although she limped badly, Laura made it back to the hut. Just before we went inside she asked me to say nothing to Miles of the damaged cable.
“I’ll tell him later,” she said. “For now, let it seem that we think it was an accident.”
Miles and Donia sat together before the fire, apparently engaged in some sort of family wrangle, which broke off as we came in. They were clearly not getting along well these days.
Miles noted Laura’s limp at once, and seated her in a chair, where he could strip off her boot. We all watched while he examined the slightly swelling ankle, pressing for any tenderness about the bone, comparing the injured ankle with the sound one. Then he sent Gunnar to break a few icicles from the low-hanging roof outside the hut. With these he made an ice pack by wrapping them in a towel, propped her foot on another chair and said he did not think the injury was severe. There was probably no fracture.
Listen for the Whisperer Page 19
