Death and the Maiden

by Q. Patrick

  Something was distinctly wrong at Wentworth.

  I smoked a cigarette to calm my nerves, then climbed back into bed. Oddly enough I slept.

  A bell rang somewhere. That’s what awakened me next morning. The first thing my eyes opened upon was Grace’s bed. I sat up very straight, staring.

  That bed had not been slept in. Grace Hough had not come back.

  My immediate reaction as I stared at those smooth, untouched bedclothes, was: “Grace was in a queer mood last night. She’s probably got herself into some jam.”

  Then, as the events of the night before began to come crowding back to my mind, I had another notion. There had been something valedictory about all Grace’s actions. She had asked me to deliver letters for her; she had given me that pep talk about Jerry; she had kissed me goodnight as if she were going away.

  Then there was the naval officer, the writer of those ardent letters.

  Why shouldn’t they have gone off together? For a moment I felt that vicarious thrill which the thought of an elopement inevitably brings. And, as I dressed, the thought of an elopement with the naval officer seemed more and more reasonable. It would explain so many of the other things that had seemed so inexplicable last evening. Grace had been more than usually excited by the special delivery letter, and she had spat out at Norma with the self-assurance of someone who is planning something romantic and spectacular.

  And it motivated that even more astonishing episode—the scene between Grace and Robert Hudnutt in the foyer of the theater. Grace loved to squeeze the last drop from her emotions, even after they had ceased to exist. It would have been quite in character for her to have thrown a melodramatic farewell scene in front of the old love before going off with the new.

  I rushed over to Commons for breakfast, quite enamored of my own powers of deduction. It was not until I returned to Pigot that a thought came to me which made me suddenly uneasy. Grace was the most scrupulous of borrowers and last night she had taken my fur coat. I was convinced that she would have never deliberately gone away from Wentworth without first returning it.

  I went to the closet. The coat wasn’t there. It was this one, trivial little fact that really started me worrying.

  And the only person who could stop me worrying was Jerry. One of those three letters Grace wrote last night had been addressed to him at the infirmary. If it had arrived, he might know exactly what had happened.

  I decided to go and see him before doing anything else.

  When the nurse let me into his room, Jerry was propped against the pillows, looking pale and rather moody. Not that I noticed it right away. During my first few moments alone with Jerry I never noticed anything except the blue, restless eyes, and the strong line of his jaw.

  He seemed surprised to see me. “Why, hello, Lee. Thought you’d forgotten my existence.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, avoiding the hump made by the plaster cast on his foot. “It’s about Grace, Jerry. She didn’t come back last night.”

  I told him everything then about the arrival of the special, of Grace’s sudden change of plans and her subsequent behavior at the Cambridge Theater.

  “She must have gone off with that naval officer. That’s the only explanation I can think of,” I concluded lamely.

  There was a puzzled furrow on Jerry’s forehead. “But that’s crazy, Lee. I never even knew Grace had a friend in the navy.”

  “Neither did I. But someone’s been writing her all those specials. She wouldn’t ever tell me where they came from.”

  Jerry’s hand slid over the coverlet, gripping mine. “One thing I’m dead sure of, Lee. Grace wouldn’t have gone off and got married—or anything serious—without telling me.”

  “Maybe she just decided it on the spur of the moment. Maybe she didn’t have the time.”

  “But she did have the time. That’s just the point.” Jerry’s lips tightened. “You see, I got a letter from her early this morning. The night nurse said it was delivered here some time around four.”

  So my hunch had been right.

  “It was pushed under the door of the infirmary. The nurse brought it to me this morning. If Grace had decided to elope, she’d most certainly have said so in the letter. Don’t you see?”

  He twisted around and pulled an envelope from under his pillow. I took out a single sheet of college notepaper and read:

  JERRY DARLING:

  You know how bad I am at expressing myself on certain subjects in speech. That’s why I’m writing this to you in a letter. And it’s important—terribly important. I’ve got to warn you against Norma Sayler. She’s rotten—absolutely rotten. She’s always tried to humiliate me because she despises me. She doesn’t love you. She isn’t capable of loving anyone but herself. And she’ll make you desperately unhappy if you let her. So, please, don’t get too fond of her. I’ve always wanted the best for you. Norma is the very worst. That’s why this hurts me so much. You see, I know how terrible it is to love someone who doesn’t love you. I couldn’t bear to have you suffer the way I’ve suffered. Forgive me for writing this.

  Love always,

  GRACE.

  I folded it into the envelope and handed it back to him.

  “What do you make of it?” he asked urgently.

  “I expected something like this,” I said quietly. “You see, Grace almost asked me to deliver this letter myself.”

  I told him how Grace had pulled the three envelopes out of her bag and then put them back again. I felt I had to let him know, too, what she had said to me about Norma.

  His flush deepened. “I’m not worried by what Grace thinks of Norma,” he said gruffly. “She’s always been hipped on the subject anyway. And I can take care of myself. But what gets me is—why on earth was the letter delivered in the middle of the night? Lee, you don’t think there’s something wrong—really wrong?”

  His eyes were fixed on my face, anxious for me to reassure him. I was terribly conscious of his nearness, of the warmth of his body.

  I said, “I guess everything will be all right.” But I didn’t really think so. “Jerry, do you think I ought to tell the Dean?”

  He nodded quickly. “Yes, Lee. Tell her right away. We …”

  He broke off, dropping my hands. He was gazing over my shoulder, toward the door.

  “Hello, Norma.”

  I turned sharply. Norma Sayler was moving casually toward the bed, svelte and stunning in a close-fitted sports suit and a tiny green hat tilted over the sensational hair.

  “Hello, darling.” Her voice was soft, proprietary. “I haven’t any classes till twelve so I’m just sneaking off to the hair-dresser. I thought I’d bring you the latest editjon of the campus rag.”

  She pulled a copy of the Wentworth Clarion from under her arm and tossed its yellow sheets onto the bed. It was only then that she deigned to acknowledge my presence.

  “So sweet of you to drop in and cheer Jerry up the way I asked you to.”

  Then she ignored me.

  But Jerry didn’t. As I slipped out of the room, I had the satisfaction of knowing that he was watching me—and that Norma was fully aware of the fact.

  IV

  My visit to the infirmary had only increased my anxiety about Grace. She hadn’t confided in Jerry about the naval officer. She had mentioned no plans for an elopement. And she had disappeared without returning my fur coat.

  Just then I saw Elaine rushing across the campus toward me.

  “My dear, I’ve been breaking my neck trying to find you. What a night! What a night—and I don’t remember a word of it! Nick Dodd’s just told me Steve arrived home with the milkman and …” She paused a moment for breath. “I suppose you know Grace didn’t come back at all. The dormitory warden reported it and Penelope’s been up to Pigot, her face like a thundercloud. She wants to see you in her office at once. We’re undone, darling. It’ll all come out about the Amber Club, and—here, jump in the car—I’ll run you over.”

  Elaine jumped
in the car and jumped out again. “Damn Norma; she always takes the key out.”

  But I didn’t wait for âny more. Fighting back an absurd sensation of panic, I hurried across the campus to the Administration Building.

  I found Penelope Hudnutt in her office. She was standing by the window, puffing jerkily at a cigarette. With her was a tall young man—a stranger, Wearing a gray suit and a maroon shirt and tie.

  The Dean didn’t look at me. She stubbed the cigarette and said: “I suppose you know that Grace Hough did not return to college last night?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Penelope Hudnutt indicated the young man. “This is Lieutenant Trant, Lee.” Very slowly she added: “Of the New York Homicide Squad.”

  I gave a little gasp.

  “I’m afraid there is some very bad news.” The Dean turned her back on the window and faced me. “Lieutenant Trant has had a report from Greyville, a small town some twenty miles from here on the Albany road. The body of a girl has been—er—retrieved from the river there.”

  I must have swayed, for Lieutenant Trant was at my side instantly, steadying my arm.

  “From the cleaner’s mark on her dress they know this girl comes from the Wentworth neighborhood,” continued the Dean. “We cannot, of course, be certain that—that it is Grace, but Lieutenant Trant wants someone to go with him to Greyville to try to make an identification.”

  I wasn’t really seeing the Dean any more. Her face had faded into a shadowy blur merged in the larger blur that was the room.

  “As you know, Lee, apart from her brother, Grace has no immediate relatives, and Dr. Barker says it is impossible for Gerald Hough to be moved from the infirmary at the present time. You are under no obligation whatsoever. I myself or some other member of the faculty would be perfectly prepared to go. But since you were with Grace last night, since you are her roommate, her oldest friend …”

  “I’ll go.” The words were strange, remote. They didn’t seem to come from me. Slowly I turned to Lieutenant Trant. “What—what makes you think it is Grace?”

  “How was your friend dressed last night?”

  “Pink. A pink satin dress and a cream-colored fur coat.”

  “And a little diamond brooch?”

  I thought of Grace pinning on that old-fashioned brooch—the one piece of jewelry she possessed.

  And I said: “This girl? Was—was she drowned?”

  Lieutenant Trant shot a swift glance at the Dean.

  “She might as well hear now or later,” he said. “No, this girl was not drowned. She was killed by a severe blow on the back of the head.”

  “Then it’s not—it couldn’t be suicide?”

  “I’m afraid that’s hardly possible, Miss Lovering. In fact, it is almost certain that she was—deliberately murdered.”

  V

  Even before Lieutenant Trant and I started on that somber drive to Greyville, I knew that the girl they had found in the river would be Grace Hough.

  For the most part Lieutenant Trant kept his cool eyes on the road and seemed absorbed with the problems of driving. When he did ask me about Grace, he spoke of her casually.

  I told him what little I could of the Hough family background; how, from being the wealthiest people in Newhampton, they had been plunged suddenly into poverty and disgrace. Mr. Hough, as president of a large insurance company, had speculated with money intrusted to him and had committed suicide rather than face the inevitable exposure. There had been nothing left to Grace and Jerry except the insurance on their education and Grace’s life insurance.

  “Grace had a nervous breakdown after her father’s death,” I said, “and missed a term at Wentworth. When she came back, she was, well—different.”

  “How do you mean, different?”

  “She was more interested in men than before, more eager for life. It was as though she realized she’d missed a lot and was desperately anxious to catch up on what she’d missed.”

  “And the man?” Lieutenant Trant asked.

  I gave him a guarded account of Grace’s relationship with Steve Carteris, her crush on Robert Hudnutt and her recent correspondence which had culminated last night in the appearance of the red-headed naval officer.

  I was still talking when we reached a small town and drew up in front of a gray, cheerless building.

  Lieutenant Trant said: “They’ve got her in the morgue, Miss Lovering, and they are holding a preliminary inquest at two-fifteen. We shan’t have to stay unless you can make the identification.”

  I was vaguely conscious of entering the building, of an acrid sweet smell and then of voices. Someone said:

  “We’ve got her dressed just as she was when they found her.” I felt a moment of blind panic, then suddenly I became surprisingly calm. There was a girl lying on a marble slab in front of me.

  I knew at once that it was Grace.

  My gaze moved downward over the pink satin dress, stained now and muddy. I saw the pink slippers, the little diamond brooch. Instinctively, I suppose, I was looking for something I expected, but did not see.

  Then I realized that Grace was not wearing my cream galyak fur coat. Slipped over her dress was a bright red raincoat whose scarlet clashed violently with the rose pink of the satin. Neither Grace nor anyone I knew owned a coat like that.

  “It’s Grace Hough, isn’t it?” Lieutenant Trant’s voice was very gentle. “But it’s the wrong coat?”

  I nodded, not quite trusting myself to speak. His steady fingers closed on my hand and he drew me out of the room.

  “Good kid,” he said, as we got into his waiting car. “You needn’t talk now. Keep it for the inquest. I’ve got to leave you a while and do a lot of telephoning.”

  He dropped me off at Greyville’s only decent-looking hotel. I didn’t see him again until almost half-past one. Then he took me back to the morgue and led me along a passage to a large room where a number of people apparently had been waiting for us. It was some seconds before I realized that this must be the actual inquest.

  Then someone got up and began telling how Grace’s body had been found early that morning by two children, playing under a bridge that crossed the river on the outskirts of Greyville.

  After that there was a medical report full of long, scientific words most of which I could not understand. Apparently Grace had been killed some time between two and five.o’clock that morning and had, so the doctor said, been dead for at least half an hour before her body was thrown into the river. Obviously it would have been impossible to strike herself on the back of the head and the wound could not have been caused by a jump from the Greyville bridge. Suicide seemed impracticable.

  That was the gist of it as it reached me. They couldn’t really tell where Grace had been killed or how.

  Then it was my turn. The coroner called me over to his table and asked me to make formal identification.

  “Yes,” I said, “it is my roommate, Grace Hough.”

  He then asked me a few simple questions about Grace. Had she any enemies? Who was the naval officer? Had my fur coat been returned? I answered as best I could and he went on to inquire the value of my coat and the probable amount of money Grace had in her bag which had not yet been found. I suppose they were trying to determine whether the motive had been robbery.

  “The only valuable thing Grace had,” I offered, “was that diamond brooch. It was probably worth more than my coat.”

  The coroner nodded and thanked me. I resumed my seat next to Lieutenant Trant.

  Then the coroner addressed the jury. They did not leave the room to deliver their verdict. It was:

  “Death by the hand of a person or persons unknown.”

  VI

  It was after four o’clock when we arrived back at Wentworth. Classes were over for the day and the campus, usually quiet and peaceful at that hour, was alive with excited little groups of students. Rumors of Grace’s death must already have reached the college.

  Lieutenant Trant didn’t drop me o
utside the Administration Building. Without offering any explanation, he drove on through the campus until we reached the old stone house where the Hudnutts lived. We got out.

  “You’d better come in too,” he said.

  A maid showed us into the long, beautifully furnished living room where tea was laid out on a low table. Penelope Hudnutt, looking very regal, sat behind the fluted silver teapot, while Marcia Parrish stood at her side, leaning against the mantel, a cigarette tilted in her hand.

  Penelope Hudnutt rose and took a step toward us. “Well?” she asked.

  “I am afraid,” said Lieutenant Trant softly, “that the girl was Grace Hough.”

  Penelope’s eyes flickered very slightly but she did not speak. Marcia moved to her side, laying a light hand on her arm. She looked at Trant with her straight, steady gaze. “I expect you’ll have some questions to ask. Dr. Hudnutt and the Dean of Men are upstairs in the study. Shall I get them?”

  “If you would be so kind, Miss Parrish.”

  With a brief, reassuring smile at Penelope, Marcia hurried out of the room. She came back followed by Dr. Hudnutt who looked a slight, almost shadowy figure next to the robustly athletic Dean of Men.

  Lieutenant Trant took out a notebook and said in a voice that was almost gentle, “I would like Miss Lovering to tell me exactly everything she knows about Grace Hough’s movements last night.” It all came out, of course, about Steve’s party at the Amber Club. The gravity of the present situation was brought home to me vividly by the fact that Mrs. Hudnutt seemed hardly interested in that stupid escapade which normally she would have considered a serious breach of discipline.

  I found it a terrific ordeal to tell that story to those five people, each watching me with a different kind of intent silence. It was particularly harrowing because I was watching myself, too, desperately trying to decide what I would say when I came to those moments in the first intermission of Phèdre when I had overheard that crazy scene between Grace and Dr. Hudnutt.