“Mourning?” Ava moaned. “Jeeps, Aunt Dollie! You do have the most macabre ideas.”
“Besides, you can’t buy anything decent,” Aunt Dollie said. “There’s not a thing in the shops, and if there were, some defense worker would have snatched it long before you got up and got there. In Paris, of course, we’d wear it—but Paris can make a chic frock out of a sack. Besides, even mourning is chic in Paris.”
“Mourning had not entered my mind,” Aunt Rita said quietly. “Of course, it is quite out of the question.”
“Thank God for that, anyway,” Aunt Dollie said. “Of course, you look all right in your sort of thing, no matter what happens, Rita. But me—well, I do like color. I admit it. I feel happy when I look gay.”
“That’s the g-girl,” Uncle George approved.
Carol Graham came in, wearing a blue-and-white printed dress. Her long tanned legs were bare, her sandals in a deeper blue than her dress.
It was the first time I had seen Carol this morning. She returned my smile with a frigid, brief stare. Now what? What on earth had I done to Carol Graham?
IX
WITHOUT A WORD to anyone Carol pulled an ottoman up next Aunt Rita’s end of the sofa and folded down upon it. Aunt Dollie was talking now about something which had happened in a department store when she had tried to buy a boutonniere and had had it literally snatched out of her hand. Uncle George was listening to her with bright interest. Aunt Rita listened with politeness. She had given up, I thought, further attempts to make this group think seriously about the plight of the small Negro nurse.
Toby had looked up when Carol entered with a flicker of that curious look of yearning—curious in him. He had instantly grown cautious. He avoided even a glance at Carol after that first revealing one.
Ava continued indifferent. Ava was sure of him now. There had been grass on his shoes last night which he hadn’t got walking the pavements from the Good Angel to the Clary house just to change his suit. How much, what, did Ava know?
Deferential, grizzled Hugo and bespectacled Marie and their strapping brown daughter Paulette were now ushered into the room by Sergeant Callahan. He told them where to sit, at the far end of the room. The sergeant went out. The young man in uniform who acted as Captain Jonas’s secretary appeared. He ignored everybody and, with great tranquillity, set a lamp edged with crystals and a number of small curios off a satinwood table, pulled a couple of antique chairs up for himself and his superior officer, sat down at the table and pulled out his notebook.
Roger Clary and Patrick came in together and, after a short interval, the detective entered.
He wore a light-beige tropical suit and had a small cluster of cornflowers in his lapel. His wide jowls had been closely shaved and powdered. He appeared to be in a jovial mood. He nodded at the group brightly, sat down beside his secretary, and made a speech.
“Well, here we are,” said Captain Jonas. “The nurse has not been found, but I’ve just had some news which may take care of that.” There was a ripple of small glances. Aunt Dollie coughed. “I’m sorry for all the trouble this is making you folks, but we’ll soon get at the bottom of it, never fear. Perhaps you don’t know it—as people are always the most ignorant of what goes on in their own hometown—but your own City of New Orleans has the finest record in the whole United States when it comes to murder.”
The word murder produced its usual effect and everyone reacted in some way or other, with little shudders, twists, gasps, or stiff silence.
Toby Wick said, “I suppose you mean New Orleans has the most murders?”
“I mean we solve the most. And we don’t do it with mirrors. We don’t make mistakes. We work as fast as we can and we get results.”
Everybody listened with dumb-looking faces, including mine, which felt numb with dumbness because I couldn’t even pretend to understand what this was all about.
Jonas brandished his helpless-looking hands.
“I have talked with you one at a time.” Then he must have been here in the house earlier than we knew. “Now you are all together and I want to go over the evidence again. Perhaps one of you has observed some little thing which, if called to somebody else’s attention, will remind him of some small but important little episode he has forgotten or overlooked.”
It was an impressive sentence. And the detective was beaming on us as a group in a way that made his pale-blue eyes, above those liver-colored pouches, decidedly sinister.
Uncle George piped up. “But, s-see here! I thought the autopsy proved she wasn’t m-murdered?”
“The autopsy proved nothing at all, Mr. Sears.”
“Then what was the p-point?”
“Matter of routine,” Jonas said. “Are you trying to hinder this investigation, Mr. Sears?”
“Oh, fiddlesticks!” Aunt Dollie waved her cigarette. “If the autopsy didn’t do what you expected it to why did you bother with it?”
“The autopsy is part of the routine,” Jonas was already ceasing to be so good-natured. “Now, this investigation will continue until—well, until the case is officially closed. So please don’t interrupt with useless questions. We are still looking for the nurse. We have checked St. Martinville and investigated anywhere she might have logically gone here in New Orleans. Right now my men are searching this house.”
There was a crisp, startled silence. Toby Wick felt nervously for his cigarettes. Aunt Dollie gaped. Roger Clary leaned forward and frowned. A queer bright look came into Ava Graham’s eyes, and Carol looked worried. Uncle George sputtered something about a search warrant, and the detective, delighted with the effect he had produced, smiled jovially again, and said, “I am having the house searched not only with complete authority but also with Miss Clary’s permission.”
Aunt Rita arched her eyebrows. “I don’t think my permission had much to do with it, did it? I thought that if you wished to search the premises you would do so, therefore what difference did it make whether I gave my consent or not? I didn’t know, either, that you were doing it without the others knowing it. I feel I owe everyone here my apology.”
“Besides, it’s r-ridiculous!” Uncle George said. “How could the g-girl hide in this house a-all this time? What’s more, I saw her l-leave.”
Jonas eyed him.
“She might have come back. You didn’t sit at that window all night, did you, Mr. Sears?”
Uncle George fidgeted. The priceless divan swayed whenever he moved, and it creaked. He did not answer the question.
“Now, let’s get down to business and review what little evidence we have,” Jonas said in a fatherly tone. “And see if some of it doesn’t bring up things we’ve overlooked. Here goes: Mrs. Abbott heard Mrs. Clary fall down the steps onto the lawn, ran down, thought she was dead, ran back into the house and was herself knocked unconscious as she entered Major Clary’s room by a falling curtain pole.” He paused on the curtain-pole item and watched us, his eyes picking us out one by one. Uncle George’s divan creaked, but no other sound punctuated the stillness. “Now, Mrs. Abbott, what time was it when you found Mrs. Clary?”
“It was two o’clock.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“The chimes were starting to ring as I started downstairs. I had already noticed the time by my own clock when I woke up.”
The Captain nodded.
“Now, Mr. Sears, what time did you see the nurse leave the house?”
“It was a little past two.”
“You don’t know exactly?”
“No, not exactly. I never pay much a-attention to time. I don’t sleep very well these hot nights and I was up for a while a little after midnight and again sometime around two. I saw her l-leave, though.”
“Was it two-fifteen?”
“It might have b-been.”
“Major Clary says he came in shortly before a quarter past two. Did you see the Major come home, Mr. Sears?”
“No reason why I should,” Mr. Sears said. But his glance wavered. “Spec
ially if he came in from Chartres Street...”
“And I did,” Roger said.
“T-there you are!” Mr. Sears said, with a sort of triumph. “The nurse went the other way, toward Royal, and consequently I s-saw her. Couldn’t help it. But Roger did not pass by my w-window so there is no reason why I should have seen him. Besides, I went to b-bed right after I saw the nurse pass. Perhaps I was already turned in when Roger came in.”
“What was the nurse wearing, Mr. Sears?”
“Oh, what she always wore. White outfit. Handkerchief tied around her h-head.”
“You’re positive it was Victorine you saw? Not some other nurse? There’s a lot of colored women going about in white dresses and white kerchiefs, Mr. Sears.”
“Certainly I’m p-positive!” Uncle George said.
“If Victorine went out at two-fifteen, Major Clary by his own admission was already in this house?”
“W-well, maybe it was earlier. M-maybe it was ten minutes p-past?”
Jonas said, “You’ve got to be definite!”
Roger Clary leaned forward in his chair.
“Captain Jonas, it is my opinion that Victorine left this house shortly after midnight.”
No one sat up more stiffly than Jonas himself.
“B-but I saw her!” Uncle George insisted. “I was at the w-window....”
“Perhaps you were mistaken in the time, Uncle George?” Roger said gently. “Let me explain why I think you might be. At twelve-thirty last night Helen got out of her room in some way and went upstairs to the Abbotts’ gallery.”
Aunt Dollie gasped and Uncle George started quivering as if from fresh excitement.
“But how shocking for you, my dear!” Aunt Dollie said to me.
“Why wasn’t I told this before?” Jonas asked me.
I felt very uncomfortable.
“Well, I didn’t think it mattered....”
“Mattered?” Jonas glared at me. “Go on,” he said to Roger. “Well?” he snapped, before Roger could possibly have spoken.
Roger said, “I feel sure that Victorine went away before Helen went upstairs. If the nurse had been in the house Helen would not have been wandering about. That was why I suggested that perhaps Uncle George saw her leave shortly after midnight, instead of after two, as he said. It still does not explain, however, why she left. That I can’t understand.”
“Why in the name of all that’s holy didn’t you tell me this last night?” Jonas demanded of me again.
“I thought I should tell my husband first.”
“My God!” said Captain Jonas. “What happened then?”
“Nothing happened. My—my husband was away and I was sitting on our porch smoking a cigarette and Mrs. Clary just came up. She went right down again.”
“How did she behave?”
“She was sweet and lovely.”
“You mean, she didn’t seem crazy?”
“This is too utterly macabre!” Ava Graham said. Jonas shot an angry glance her way. It lingered, cooled off, became admiring, and reluctantly came back to me.
“Of course she seemed crazy,” I said. “But in a nice way.”
Roger Clary said to Jonas, “I told you she was like a nice sort of child.”
“You deliberately withheld important evidence,” Jonas accused me. He breathed in and out a couple of times. “Well, the purpose of our getting together here is to bring out points we’ve overlooked, so...”
Toby Wick said, “The reason we’re all here together is so that your men can search the premises without our interfering in any way. I’ll have you know, Jonas, that my apartment is entirely independent from this house. No one, not even Miss Clary, has the right to give you permission to go in there, so if you haven’t got a search warrant you’re going to hear from me, and how.”
“I did not give the inspector permission to search your apartment, Toby,” Aunt Rita said.
“I’m not an amateur,” Jonas said. “I’ve got complete authority to do anything that’s necessary here, so hold your horses, Wick. Well, Major Clary, so you now think the nurse went out a couple of hours or more before Mr. Sears there says she left?”
Uncle George wiggled emphatically.
“B-but I saw her go! I’m p-positive!”
“Could Victorine have fallen asleep, Roger?” Aunt Rita asked. “I mean, at half-past twelve when Helen was seen wandering about?”
“It’s possible.”
“Oh, now you think she fell asleep, do you, Major?” Jonas’s tone bantered.
“You’re being unfair,” Carol said, from the ottoman, where she now sat up tall and looked outraged. “What difference does that sort of thing make now? What bearing does it have on the important thing, which is the murder?”
“You agree it was murder, young lady?” Jonas said, very softly, and Roger cleared his throat and shook his head at Carol, and of course the young policeman put it all down in his book.
Ava said, “You all simply kill me. Why don’t you find the nurse and go on from there? I don’t know how you all feel about this little party, but I for one am too utterly bored. Let’s call it a day and go home.”
The detective wanted to rebuke her, but once again his annoyance changed to admiration, and he let this piece of insolence get by.
A tall policeman I had not seen before appeared at the door. He gave Sergeant Callahan a couple of slips of paper and withdrew. The sergeant carried the messages to the table and handed them to the stenographer, who read them and passed them along to Captain Jonas. He read the first without any change of expression. The second made his lips spread thinly across his face, and he immediately got up and left the room.
“I’m telling you-all,” Paulette announced vigorously from where she sat, the minute the Captain was beyond the closed door, “that that Victorine probably came out into the garden last night, after she thought I was in my bed asleep, and helped herself to my herbs. I reckon that’s where she was when poor Miss Helen started walking around in the dark.”
“Paulette!” Aunt Rita said quietly.
“Yes’m, Miss Rita,” Paulette replied.
Captain Jonas appeared and beckoned to Sergeant Callahan. They spoke outside the partly open door. Jonas put his head in and said, “Lieutenant Abbott, will you and Mrs. Abbott step out here into the hall?”
As I rose I caught the glances around me and none was friendly. Aunt Dollie was looking at us with shocked amazement. Uncle George was agreeably suspicious. There was no honey for me now in Toby’s oblique green eyes. Ava looked bored. Even Aunt Rita’s well-bred glance disapproved, and Carol did not look at me at all. Carol looked as though to look at me would make her sick.
It was not pleasant to be the only outsiders in a Creole home which was under the shadow of murder.
When we were both out in the hall Jonas closed the door and, beckoning us a little way along, stopped and spoke in a low tone.
“We’ve got the nurse,” he said.
X
CAPTAIN JONAS turned the house and its occupants over to the charge of Sergeant Callahan and we followed him downstairs to the carriageway. The nurse, he said, was in the Charity Hospital. She had given another name than her own and Captain Jonas wanted us to come along to identify her. Patrick said he had never had a really good look at the nurse but I had no such excuse. I objected, however, to doing it because of the position it would put us in with the family. We were already in deep enough. If looks could kill, I said, we would have been slain by the glances that escorted us from the drawing room. Jonas grinned wryly and said that looks couldn’t kill, little lady, and what’s more he didn’t want the family to know he’d found the nurse till the right time came, therefore we were the logical people to identify the nurse. I suggested the nurse’s landlady as a substitute, but Captain Jonas had made up his mind. “It’ll save me a lot of time, too, for you to do it,” he said. “I’ve been wishing this case would break before eleven o’clock, because Mrs. Jonas is out of town and I’ve got
to eat out and if you don’t get to a restaurant, any good restaurant, by half-past eleven you have to stand in line sometimes a good while to get a table. I want to go to Galatoire’s. If you don’t get to Galatoire’s plenty early maybe you have to stand in line an hour, or even two. Finding the nurse is a lucky break. Now I reckon I’ll be able to make it.”
As we reached the door to the street there was the sound of running footsteps and Carol Graham rushed into the carriageway, followed closely by a red-faced, panting Sergeant Callahan.
“Now you come back,” the sergeant pleaded, as he caught up. He grasped the girl’s arm. “Please, Miss, you must go to your room. Nobody can leave the house. Ain’t that so, Captain Jonas?”
On seeing us Carol drew rein and stood glaring at us in cold silence.
Roger Clary came out.
“Take your hands off her!” he growled at the policeman. Sergeant Callahan complied.
Carol went on glaring at us, apparently too furious for words. Roger walked over and put an arm about her shoulders. “Come back Carol,” he said. He did not glance our way.
She drooped suddenly and then turned back without a word. Now only compassion and adoration showed in her eyes.
We went out into the street. “What’s eating her?” Jonas asked.
“She’s mad at me, for some reason,” I said. “I don’t know why. I didn’t do anything that I know of.”
“Oh, everybody gets mad at everybody, times like this,” Jonas said. He closed the door after us and then said thoughtfully, “Mighty pretty girl, too.” He added with a touch of envy, “She likes the guy!”
“He’s a fine guy,” Patrick said.
“She’s a fine girl,” I said. We were getting into the big car, which stood against the narrow sidewalk.
“That don’t make it any easier,” Jonas said, plaintively. “I don’t enjoy what I sometimes have to do.”
The car was like an oven from standing in the steaming white heat. The sun blazed through what must be a thin haze. The result was almost shadowless and pitilessly hot.
The Indigo Necklace Page 9
