Listen for the Whisperer

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  Laura explained lightly. “Leigh isn’t feeling well since that dreadful fall. I want her near me tonight.” She said nothing of the fact that this had been planned long before the fall.

  Miles kissed his wife good night somewhat remotely, and for just a moment she clung to him. Then he went through the dressing room into his own bedroom, closing the far door behind him.

  I had watched alertly, and when he’d gone I asked the question that had long puzzled me. “Are you in love with him, Laura?”

  She smiled at me rather sadly. “The enemy within the gates! That’s what you are, in a sense, aren’t you? But an enemy on only one plane. That’s why I can trust you. In a lifetime, Leigh, there are different kinds of love. I’ve known several of them. I need Miles in my life. No matter what happens in the future, I think I will always come back to him. You see, I don’t really care what he is like any more. I only know that I need him. Perhaps someday we can be friends. As we once were.”

  “Before Cass Alroy died?” I asked.

  “Perhaps,” she said. “Perhaps that’s one reason I want to go back to that time. Miles thought I was marvelous in those days. He liked the idea of an attachment to someone who was successful and world famous. Now I’m nothing—nobody. But I mean to change that.”

  “Even though he doesn’t want you to?”

  “He believes I’ll be humiliated and hurt. He sees trouble ahead for me. Tonight I hoped to change his mind, but I haven’t succeeded. So now I must go ahead on my own and do what I have to do.”

  “Will he try to stop you?”

  “He’s already trying to stop me. But I shan’t permit him to succeed.”

  “I wonder if he’s afraid of more than your possible failure?”

  “Yes—he’s afraid of the truth. As I have been. Now, no matter what happens, it must be faced. You’re helping me to face it.”

  I was not sure about that, not sure about anything. Not even sure of what truth she meant—except that it had to do with the death of Cass Alroy.

  I picked up the nightgown and robe that Irene had brought upstairs for me, and went to the door. “You’ll be all right for a little while?”

  “No one will touch me,” she said. “Not tonight.”

  I went across the hall to the bathroom. All the other doors were closed and I moved quickly, keeping away from the stairs. When I was ready for bed, I returned to Laura’s room.

  She stood at the balcony door, looking out over the lights of Bergen and I went to stand beside her.

  “It was very successful tonight, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  I felt my shoulder. “Successful is rather a strange word.”

  “No—no! I mean my performance. It was only a pocket-sized performance, as you say, but—”

  I gave her the praise she wanted because I could understand her endless hunger for applause. That was the way she was made. She could not help herself, and because this hunger was once more alive in her, she would probably be successful in feeding it.

  “I meant what I said earlier,” I told her. “Tonight you were better than ever.”

  She nodded her agreement without false modesty. “That’s because I’ve had these years in which to grow and mature. I have something to bring to my work that I lacked before.”

  She turned back to the room and switched off the lamps, one by one. Then she settled down upon the sofa, and I think she went quickly to sleep. I stretched out in her big bed, where the mattress had just the right resistance to my body, and tried to think about all that had happened, tried vainly to find the answers. But the aspirin I’d taken was making me feel drowsy and relaxed, and I went to sleep remembering Gunnar’s arms when he carried me up the stairs, his kiss upon my cheek. It had all been casual—meaning nothing. So I dreamed about him intensely.

  Sometimes a dream can waken us to reality. What is vividly felt during sleep can seem comforting, fulfilling, exciting, and though it can’t always be remembered and grasped when we awake, it can nevertheless make us newly conscious of some truth not previously understood or accepted. I awakened warmed by the happiness of my dream, and even as it slipped away from me, I knew and accepted for the first time what I was beginning to feel about Gunnar, what I had always thrust away so that I needn’t look at it. In these few days something had happened to me that had never happened before. Now I didn’t try to fight the knowledge, as I might tomorrow when I was fully awake, but gave myself warmly to a new awareness of myself as a woman who could, after all, fall in love, and I fell asleep hoping the dream would come back to me.

  It did not. I dreamed instead of something anxiety-ridden and disturbing, though it too fled when a sound from outside penetrated my heavy sleep. It was long after midnight. I opened my eyes to pale light beyond the windows and lay very still. Someone was in the room. A shadowy figure loomed against the light from the picture window—a figure that moved toward my bed. As silently as possible I rolled to the far side and clung to the edge, stiff and waiting. Hands crept toward me across the pillow, shadowy arms extended in my direction, searching, searching.

  Quite suddenly the voice whispered through the room, “Listen …” and once more, “Listen …”

  I flung myself off the bed and fumbled for the nearest lamp. Light flooded the room and I whirled to face the bed.

  She stood there in her long-sleeved lacy nightgown, her hands patting futilely at the pillows as though she searched for something. It was Laura who stood there, and she was sound asleep. Yet it must have been someone else who whispered—someone across the room. Whoever it was had gone. The door to the hall stood closed as we had left it, and while the dressing room door was open on this side, the far door to Miles’s room remained closed. Laura had not heard the voice. Her sleeping face was empty of alarm, expressionless. She made no sound.

  I went around the bed and took her gently by the arm. She did not waken as I led her back to her sofa bed. She was tranquil beneath my hands and allowed herself to be tucked under the covers without awakening. When the eiderdown was over her, I went to the hall door and opened it softly.

  There was no one there, as I had known there would not be. The other doors were closed and blank to my inquiry. Yet I knew that behind one of them the Whisperer waited, listening as he had warned others to listen.

  I went back to my bed and lay awake for a long while. The pattern made so little sense. Mischief, mischief. But growing stronger and more dangerous. I was glad that today we would be visiting Gunnar and his mother. We would get away from the house. And—I would test my earlier dream.

  Birds were singing in the garden by the time I fell asleep.

  Chapter 12

  When I next awakened, I found Laura already up and dressed. She came to stand beside the bed.

  “How do you feel?”

  I sat up and stretched widely. My body was stiff and sore from the fall and I suspected bruises would be appearing. But I knew I’d limber up when I moved around. I was all right.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “How are you?”

  “My ankle feels only a little sore. I’ll come downstairs for breakfast this morning. I’m tired of being pampered. Gunnar won’t be here until eleven—have you any plans for earlier in the morning?”

  “I told Irene I might go marketing with her. But perhaps I’d better not leave you alone.”

  She considered that for only a moment. “I’ll come with you,” she decided. “It’s true that you should visit Bergen’s fish market, and I would enjoy it too. It’s a flower market as well, you know, and for fruits and vegetables—and town gossip.”

  I slipped out of bed and put on my robe. “How did you sleep?” I asked casually.

  Her smile was bright, unclouded. “Wonderfully well. I felt safe with you in the room. No sleepwalking, no voices, no bad dreams.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, and went across the hall to the bathroom.

  Irene stepped out of her room, stopping me at the door. She put a finger to her lips and looked
toward the other closed doors. Her thin face wore its usual solemn look.

  “Come into my room a moment, Miss Hollins.”

  I wanted to wash and dress before I contemplated either old problems or new ones, but her manner was urgent and secretive, so I followed her reluctantly.

  Her bedroom was of modest size, comfortably furnished with fine old things that must have been in the house since the time of Laura’s mother. The draperies and bedspread were on the austere side—a dull slate blue, and three photographs of Laura Worth smiled from neat frames hung against one wall, all of them autographed. Irene did not ask me to sit down. When she’d closed the hall door she turned to me earnestly.

  “Was there any trouble last night?”

  “She walked in her sleep,” I said. “But she doesn’t remember it. I was able to get her quietly back to bed.” I hesitated, wondering whether to tell her any more.

  “At what time was this?”

  “I haven’t any idea. After midnight, I’m sure.”

  “Could she have gone out of the room, do you think? Before you found her, I mean?”

  “I don’t know. I was sleeping soundly.”

  “Someone opened my door last night.”

  I waited, knowing what would come next.

  Irene nodded. “Someone who whispered one word—‘listen.’”

  “Whoever it was came to our room too,” I told her. “I heard the voice when I found Laura near my bed.”

  “I’ve never believed in this voice before,” Irene said. “But now I’ve heard it myself.”

  “Do you suppose Laura could do this whispering?” I asked.

  “It’s possible. But she claims to hear it herself.”

  “And you’ve never heard it before?”

  “Never. I thought it was Miss Worth’s nerves and imagination.”

  “Yesterday you spoke out rather strongly,” I said. “You pointed out that we were dealing with a murderer. Perhaps now someone’s warning you.”

  “I can take care of myself. I’m not afraid—except for her. What I said was true. The person who killed that man in Hollywood is here in this house. I’m sure of it.”

  “Then it’s the same person who pushed me on the stairs.”

  “I suppose so,” Irene agreed. But she was not really thinking about my fall. Her entire concern was for Laura.

  “Which one of them is it?” I pressed her. “I can imagine Donia doing these things, but not Dr. Fletcher. Yet neither of them was in the studio in Hollywood that night. Neither would have anything to fear from the past.”

  She regarded me darkly for a moment and then changed the subject.

  “Are you coming to the market with me this morning?”

  “Yes—I’d like to. Laura will come with us. So she won’t have to stay alone while we’re away.”

  Irene accepted the change in plans with approval. “That’s good. It was not you someone pushed on the stairs last night, Miss Hollins. The costume made it seem that you were Miss Worth. But perhaps it’s fortunate it happened that way. She’s not as young as you are. The fall might have injured her more severely.”

  “Anyway, we mustn’t leave her alone,” I said, and went off to the bath.

  While I got ready to face the day, I tried to think of nothing. Especially not of dreams, especially not of Gunnar Thoresen. I did not want that warmth which relaxed my will to engulf me again. Gunnar could never mean anything to me. He did not really like me, and very soon I would go home and never see him again.

  When I was dressed, Laura and I came downstairs to breakfast. She brought with her the dragon candlestick she had used last night, and placed it on a table near the garden doors in the dining room. I knew why. She didn’t want to keep it in her bedroom, but she wanted to set it out in plain sight to prove she was no longer afraid of it.

  Donia and Miles were already at the table. Miles rose to seat us and inquired how I felt this morning, and how Laura had slept, how her ankle was doing. I let Laura’s statement that she had slept well stand, and said nothing about what I had seen and heard. Our plans for going to the fish market with Irene were discussed, but I couldn’t tell whether he and Donia were pleased or displeased. Our talk was rather purposefully light and unconcerned, yet I sensed tension beneath the words. No one had forgotten yesterday.

  I was glad when the meal was over and Laura and I went to change into slacks and sweaters. When we got into the car Irene took the wheel and we left Kalfaret and drove past the old tollgate and into the center of town. We drove down wide Torgalmenning, past its arcaded shops, central mall, and great Seamen’s Monument commemorating those who had served Bergen from the sea. Irene said the moment it was warm enough Bergen would become a city of flowers, and great buckets of them would be set out in the mall, with bright umbrellas and tables.

  There was parking space near the market and we left the car and strolled among the flower stalls where fragrant wares were shown in small, glass-sided carts that were banked with flowers. All over the busy market were brightly colored canopies, roofed counters and stalls where produce and fish were being sold. Everything was sparkling clean and neat, with no sign of litter anywhere. Norwegian flags flew from tall poles, and the Jubilee flag with its castle towers on a shield, fluttered in the wind, celebrating Bergen’s nine hundred years. Through the open market area were granite blocks surmounted with bronze lions snarling and lashing their tails.

  Laura bought an armful of lavender rhododendrons from a dealer who made change from the huge purse that hung from his shoulder like a woman’s handbag. The market was built at the end of Vågen, that arm of the sea that reached deep into Bergen. Fishing boats bobbed on the water, sometimes three deep from shore, while along the quay the few gabled warehouses of old Bryggen which had survived destructive fires gave a flavor of the medieval to the scenes. Once the Hanseatic League had flourished here and this had been known as the German Wharf. All around the busy central scene rose the Seven Mountains, and I could see the funicular climbing to the low buildings on top of Flöyen, and the tall communications tower rising from the snows of Ulriken.

  Laura insisted upon carrying her flowers back to the car herself, and Irene and I moved on toward the fish sellers. When Laura was out of hearing Irene turned to me abruptly.

  “I have decided to tell you,” she said. “It is better for you to know. Safer. So you can be on guard. Both of them were at the studio that night twenty years ago.”

  I stared at her blankly and she went on.

  “Mrs. Jaffe had tickets for the play that night, but the woman she meant to go with disappointed her, and at the last minute she asked her brother to accompany her. Instead, he persuaded her to drive him out to the studio. Whether she went through the gates or not, I don’t know. He went to the sound stage where Miss Worth was spending the night in her dressing room. He must have followed Mr. Alroy onto the set. What happened after that, I don’t know.”

  “But aren’t there guards at the studio gates? How could he get in and out, and not be noticed? The newspaper account said Cass Alroy checked in openly at the gate, but there was no record of Dr. Fletcher coming in. His alibi was never shaken.”

  Irene shrugged. “I have never heard about this part.”

  “How do you know any of it?”

  “I heard them talking one day shortly after they moved into Miss Worth’s house. They didn’t know I was home. They were quarreling, as they seem to do frequently. There is something Mrs. Jaffe holds over Dr. Fletcher’s head. Perhaps it is her knowledge of what happened that night.”

  I could see Laura coming toward us through the crowd that thronged the market.

  “None of it matters now,” I whispered to Irene. “But thank you for telling me.”

  “You don’t think murder still matters?” Irene said. “Do you believe there can ever be rest over the years when such a crime has been committed?”

  There was no time to answer her. I suppose all I really wanted was to put my head in the sand
and shut away everything that belonged to the past and which Laura herself wanted to forget.

  She came toward us with that gallant, arresting walk, and my heart turned over strangely. I had a quick premonition of something terrible in store for her, and I could not bear it. She came at once to take me by the arm and I was more gentle with her than I’d ever been before.

  “Come along,” she said. “We must visit the fish!”

  We left the flower carts and walked past counters where aproned men were chopping and cleaning fish on reddened boards. Along the water’s edge were tanks where live fish were swimming. Where we walked, the ground was wet with rivulets from the buckets of water that were being thrown over fish counters. Long shining knives rose and fell, so that the chopping sound was all around us, and that babble of voices in a strange tongue, surmounted only by the screaming of the gulls. Oddly enough, the smell of fish was slight and not offensive. Laura said this was because the fish were really just out of the sea, and because everything was kept so clean.

  This time it was Irene who made purchases. Pink-fleshed salmon was wrapped in newspaper and then placed in a plastic bag for her to carry. Nearby several small boys sat at the water’s edge, eating cooked shrimp and tossing the tails into the water, where gulls swooped down upon them. There was an amusement booth with a lighted wheel to spin and gifts to win. There was a magazine stand flaunting Wild West comic books in Norwegian.

  As we moved on toward the fruit and vegetable section, Laura met a women whom she knew, accompanied by a small girl. The child bobbed the curtsy with which she’d been taught to greet her elders, and while Laura and her mother conversed, she talked to me shyly in the halting English she was learning in school. The fish market had always been a place for social exchange and the meeting of friends.

  When Laura’s acquaintance moved on, we watched Irene as she bought small round tomatoes and knobby cucumbers, crisp green lettuce, bananas, oranges and lemons. Laura and I were pressed into service to help carry her purchases, and Laura seemed thoroughly alive and filled with enjoyment over all she was doing. I saw Irene cast a glance at her now and then, as though she distrusted these high spirits and wondered what was coming next. I wished I’d had time to ask whether Laura knew of Irene’s claim that both Donia and Miles had gone to the studio that night before they had taken care to let themselves be seen coming out of the theater.