Death and the Maiden

by Q. Patrick

I screamed.

  Jerry’s hand wasn’t in mine any more. There would never be anything in the world to steady me. Jerry had sprung forward. I saw his arms plunge up to the elbows into the pool. His shoulders were tensed with the effort of lifting, lifting …. I saw his face in profile, drawn, distorted like his own face in a nightmare.

  And then I caught a glimpse of gold out of the water. I saw the body of a girl in his arms, her head drooping backward with its streaming gold hair, a girl with white, bare shoulders above the gown of shimmering gold lamé.

  I said it then, said the words that were hammering in my brain like pistons.

  “It’s Norma—Norma Sayler.”

  XXI

  Even now I can’t remember the moments that followed with any coherence. I have forced them back, deep into my mind, so that they have no shape, no sequence. They are nothing but a cacophony of sounds, images, sensations—the memory of Jerry’s kiss still warm on my lips and then my own voice screaming, hoarsely out of control. Jerry stooped over the pool, Jerry lifting a girl’s body out of the water, his shoulder squared, his muscles tense. The moonlight gleaming on the golden lamé of Norma’s dress as he laid her down on the soft turf at the fountain’s edge.

  I tried to make myself think. I had to get to the gym. Somehow I had to find Lieutenant Trant. I turned my back on the fountain and started stumbling through the moonlight toward the swaying rhododendrons.

  That’s when the second phase of blurred memories begins. Suddenly there were people—people streaming through the bushes toward me, burning cigarettes, glimpses of bright dresses, voices, hoarse, curious. “Did you hear the scream?” They came up to me and past me. I couldn’t stop them. Then I felt a hand clutch my arm. I turned dazedly and Elaine was there, her face white, startled in the shadowy light. Nick Dodd was with her.

  “Why’s the spot turned out, Lee? What’s happened?”

  Her hand still on my arm, Elaine started forward again. I tried to drag her back.

  “Elaine, stop. You can’t go there. Nick, stop her.”

  Then, somehow, all three of us were on the edge of that group which was staring across the lawn at the ghastly tableau of Jerry stooped over Norma’s body.

  Someone gave a stifled cry. Everything was an uproar of harsh voices and quick moving figures. The music had stopped, breaking in the middle of a bar. Then there was a tall man pushing through the throng, hurrying to Jerry’s side.

  His voice clear and taut echoed above the babel. “Everyone get away from here at once—everyone.”

  Lieutenant Trant!

  It was amazing how instantly he was obeyed. Girls and boys started backing away. I lost Elaine and Nick in the near panic of that retreat. All the students were gone now and other men were hurrying up, men in day clothes. The local police.

  The voices around me were brisk and official. A flashlight blazed downward, swinging to left and right. In its beam I saw someone hurrying toward me. It was Jerry, his coat stripped off, his shirt gleaming white. He put his arms around me, holding me close.

  “Lee, darling.”

  “Jerry.”

  “Trant says we’ve got to wait. Hudnutt’s coming. We’re all to go to his house.”

  Then Marcia was there at our side, a slim white shadow in her white satin gown. “Lee, Jerry, come with me. Penelope has Elaine. She’s driving her back to their place. Robert’s getting my car. We’re all to go, too.”

  The three of us hurried around the gym, pushing through the jostling crowds of students who were pouring out from the dance which had so suddenly and terribly been abandoned. Robert Hudnutt was waiting with Marcia’s car. We swung away from the gym, through the campus, down the narrow path to the Hudnutts’ house.

  When we all trooped into the Hudnutts’ long living room, I was still in that state of numbed shock where nothing seemed to mean much. I was vaguely conscious of Jerry’s hand still in mine, of Marcia moving to turn on a single light.

  I could feel Jerry’s fingers in mine trembling and I realized suddenly that his shirt and trousers were wringing wet. Somehow that cleared my head a bit.

  “Jerry, you’ve got to put on some dry clothes.”

  He didn’t seem to hear, but Robert did. He took Jerry away with him and when they came back Jerry had on gray flannel trousers and a high-necked sweater. But there was still that bluish pallor to his lips as if he never could be warm again.

  I don’t know how long the four of us waited there in pinched silence for Trant to come and to bring what news there was. At some stage Dean Appel arrived, very pink and flustered. Behind him, his dark face showing a sort of perplexed anxiety, was Steve Carteris.

  He moved quickly to Jerry and laid his hand on Jerry’s arm. He didn’t say anything.

  And then Penelope appeared, erect, cool, handsome. It was amazing that just by coming into the room, she managed to make everything seem normal and under control.

  She said to Marcia: “I’ve left Elaine upstairs with Nick Dodd. I think it’s best that way, poor child.” She crossed to me, putting a firm hand on my shoulder. “I don’t want you to go back to Pigot tonight either, Lee. I’d like you to sleep here with Elaine.”

  I don’t think I ever admired Penelope quite as much as I did at that moment. In spite of everything she could still be the Dean of Women. She could make all the proper arrangements just as if we were seven ordinary people presenting ordinary executive problems.

  Seven ordinary people! When each of us really was there for only one reason—because we were under suspicion of double murder.

  A few minutes later Trant arrived alone. He was incongruously cool and immaculate in his white tie and tails, but there was a marked change in him. The deceptive surface of casualness had been stripped away, leaving his face grim.

  “Chief Jordan will be here as soon as he can make it. There’s still a great deal to be done.” His gaze had instinctively picked out Penelope as the dominating factor in the room. “Meanwhile he’s asked me to talk to you people. I know it’s tough, but it’s got to be done.”

  “Of course,” agreed Penelope. “There is only one thing I must insist upon. I will not have Elaine Sayler bothered by any questioning tonight.”

  “That should not be necessary, Mrs. Hudnutt.” Trant dropped into a chair close to where Jerry and I sat together on the couch. “At the moment there is one question of extreme importance. I want to know whether Norma Sayler gave any of you people the special delivery letter which she found this afternoon in the pocket of Grace Hough’s borrowed fur coat?”

  I was back again at my first visit to the formal garden—when I saw Norma Sayler take the letter from her purse, saw her hold it toward Marcia and then saw no more in the sudden astonishment of Steve’s reappearance. I turned to look at Marcia.

  She didn’t speak. Nor did anyone else.

  After a pause Trant said: “Then there’s no doubt as to the motive for this second murder. Norma Sayler was killed because of that letter and what it told her. Chief Jordan’s men have retrieved her purse from the fountain. The letter is not there.”

  I had known that must be the motive, of course.

  “The medical examiner has not had time yet to give us details,” Trant continued, “but we know that Norma Sayler was not drowned. Like Grace Hough she was struck on the back of the head before she was thrown into the water.” He looked down at the soft gray carpet. “We have already found the weapon—a small iron statue which used to stand by the edge of the pool. It had been thrown in the water, too. There will be virtually no chance for fingerprints.”

  The little bearded dwarf! The manikin which had seemed to listen so sardonically that night when Steve and I were together in the garden, the manikin whose red-pointed shoe I had seen thrusting out of the water.

  Trant’s voice cut into my thoughts again. “There’s another thing Chief Jordan wants to know. During the earlier part of the evening a small spotlight played on the garden. At some stage it stopped working. Mr. Hough, I believ
e you helped with the lights? Do you know anything about that?”

  Jerry said: “Lee and I noticed it. I was surprised. Nick had told me earlier he was going to keep it on all the evening.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Trant. “You see, the spot wasn’t switched off from inside. The wires had been cut through—presumably by the murderer of Norma Sayler.”

  The detective looked up, his face very drawn, as near to giving away his feelings as I had ever seen it. “I want to admit to you all that the police are partly responsible for what has happened. Miss Lovering reported to me immediately she found out that Norma was holding back that letter. I came here as quickly as I could. When I arrived, instead of going to her immediately, I thought it even more important to hear what Mr. Carteris had to tell me. Although I guessed there might be danger for Norma, I never dreamed it was as real as it turned out to be.”

  He said: “It was the same with Chief Jordan. He has been at Wentworth College all evening. He knew about Norma but he was busy investigating something else which has just come up—something which seemed of vital importance to him.” Trant smiled a thin, humorless smile. “We all showed a tendency to mistake the fiddling for the burning Rome.”

  His voice was suddenly clipped, impersonal again. “Mrs. Hudnutt, Mr. Hough, Miss Lovering, Mr. Carteris and I all saw Norma Sayler in the gallery just as I arrived. Did any of you see her after that time?”

  Dean Appel swung one large leg over the other. No one spoke. “Presumably then she was killed very soon after she left the gallery—while I was talking to Mr. Carteris.” The detective glanced at Steve, adding quietly: “Alibis for those moments may be rather important later on. Meanwhile I understand from Miss Lovering that Norma did not take that letter to the police straight away because she had a reason for wanting to talk first to the person who wrote it. I should be most interested to know which of you people were alone with her at any time during the dance.”

  I could feel Jerry’s arm tense beneath the soft wool of the sweater. There was still that blind remembrance of horror in his eyes but his voice was doggedly in control as he told the story of his talk with Norma as he had told it to me—how he had made her go out into the formal garden, had urged her to give the letter to the police and how she had paid no attention.

  “I left her by the fountain. She wouldn’t go in with me. She—she said she had a date.”

  It’s strange how I could feel a sudden tautness in the atmosphere although I’m sure nobody moved.

  Trant was saying: “And Norma told you who the date was with, Mr. Hough?”

  “No. But as I was going away, I saw someone move toward her from the direction of the gym. I don’t …”

  “There isn’t any need to have him say it,” interrupted Robert in a small, tired voice. “I’ll admit it was I. I was the person whom Miss Sayler insisted upon seeing in the garden.”

  Neither Penelope nor Marcia stirred and I knew then that they knew whatever it was that Robert had to tell.

  Trant said, “And why did she insist on seeing you?”

  “Surely you must know by now that anyone who gets murdered invariably insists upon seeing me first.” Robert gave a savage little laugh which showed me more than anything just how near the breaking point he was. “Norma Sayler had a very good reason for wanting to see me. She had read that special delivery letter which had been sent to Grace Hough. She was under the impression that it was I who wrote it.”

  “She had a reason for that assumption, Dr. Hudnutt?” queried Trant quietly.

  That long, suspended pause was almost more than I could bear.

  Then Robert said: “I can tell you what Norma Sayler told me, Lieutenant. I went out to the garden. She was waiting there by the fountain. She seemed in a highly excited state. She produced a letter from her bag. It meant nothing to me until she told me it was the special delivery which had come for Grace Hough on the night of her death. My first instinct naturally was to tell her to give it to the police right away. She said: ‘I’m surprised you should advise me to do that. You of all people!’ I didn’t have the slightest idea what she was driving at. Then she took the letter out of the envelope, held it in the path of the spotlight and started to read passages out loud. They were passages of an extremely ardent nature; one was extolling Grace Hough in comparison with Norma Sayler; the other spoke of a quarrel in the afternoon, of forgiveness, of an appointment at the theater later in the evening. She asked me if those sentences didn’t strike a chord in my memory. It was then that she accused me of writing the letter myself.”

  Robert Hudnutt threw out his hands in a gesture which expressed far more than any words could have done. “What was I to say? I denied it, of course. I had never written a letter to Grace Hough. But Norma Sayler insisted that it could have been written by no one else. She said it was signed: Robert.”

  I expected to hear Lieutenant Trant’s quiet, relentless voice. But he did not speak. He sat bent slightly forward in the chair, brushing a speck of ash from the sharp creased trousers of his dress suit.

  “Since she had made that accusation,” continued Robert, “I thought I had the right to see the letter. But she would not give it to me. Finally I did persuade her to show me the envelope and I pointed out that even if she thought the style was mine, at least she must realize that the writing was not.” He gave that slight, dry laugh again. “After all, there are a great many other Roberts in the world. But Norma continued to accuse me of having had some clandestine relationship with Grace Hough. Finally she said she intended to show the letter to the police eventually but she felt it necessary to show it to my wife first.”

  His eyes, so vague and defenseless, moved to Penelope’s. “During these last days all of us have become so deeply drawn into this terrible business that I have given up trying to fight against circumstance. I told Norma Sayler that if she wanted to do that senseless, unfair thing, it was not in my power to stop her. I left her and went back into the gym to Penny and Marcia. I told them what Norma Sayler had said and what she was planning.”

  If you believed him, there was something pitiful about that story. It was pitiful for Robert, who had been hounded remorselessly from the very beginning of the affair. It was pitiful for Norma, too. There was no question now that she had held that letter back out of a spiteful desire to avenge the public reprimand Penelope had given her that day in Commons.

  Trant was looking at the Dean of Women now. “And Norma did come to you after she made that extraordinary accusation against your husband?”

  Penelope nodded. “She did.”

  “Let me tell, Penny.” It was Marcia Parrish who had broken in. “You’d better hear it from me, Lieutenant, because I was the one who talked to Norma. She came into the gym just after Robert had told us what she’d said. She asked to speak to Mrs. Hudnutt. I knew she bore the Dean a grudge and I knew it would be impossible if she was allowed to have the scene with her she wanted. I insisted on Norma’s speaking to me instead. It was her idea to go out in the garden again. She wouldn’t stay where people might overhear us.”

  Marcia moved forward so that she stood in the path of light from the shaded lamp … serene, lovely, very much mistress of herself. “I didn’t stay with her long. I told her what I thought of her behavior. Even if she did honestly believe Robert had written the letter, she had no right to satisfy her spite by being deliberately cruel.”

  Marcia paused. “She went on claiming over and over again that Robert must have written the letter even if the writing was different. She took it out of her bag and asked me to read it if I didn’t believe her.”

  Once again there was a sudden sharpness in the atmosphere.

  “Did you read the letter, Miss Parrish?” asked Trant.

  “I did not.” Marcia’s voice was very calm. “I just told her to take it to the police.”

  “And she said she would?”

  “No.” Marcia gave him a rather queer look. “She said something that was a little odd. She
said she’d just realized how the whole matter might have quite a different explanation.”

  Trant asked incisively: “What did she mean by that?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything more. And she refused to return with me to the gym. I couldn’t force her back against her will, so I left her. But I telephoned the local police immediately. They told me Chief Jordan was already at Wentworth.”

  “This, of course, was some time before I arrived?”

  “About half an hour, I’d say.”

  Trant’s eyes had moved to Dean Appel. “Well, Dean, did you speak to Norma at any time?”

  “I?” echoed Appel hastily. “Indeed no. At least, I had a few moments dancing with her earlier in the evening. But one of the boys cut in almost at once. Hardly spoke two words to her.”

  “Mr. Carteris?”

  Steve started as if he had been shaken out of some train of thought of his own. “I? No, I never was near Norma. I just caught a glimpse of her in the garden with Miss Parrish when I met Lee. That’s all.”

  It was my turn then. Rather shakily I told of my own frustrated attempts to get to Norma, how I had met Steve and gone back to dance with him and later with Dr. Hudnutt, how finally I had reached Jerry again. We’d been together then right through the moment of Trant’s arrival down to the time I had made my frightful discovery in the fountain pool.

  The detective listened intently. Then he said: “Well, that seems fairly clear. It’s also very clear that the murder was committed after I arrived at the dance and we saw Norma in the gallery. I can account for Mr. Carteris during that time. He was with me right until the alarm was sounded. Mr. Hough and Miss Lovering were having supper together and can account for each other.” He paused and the implications of that pause were obvious. “But if anyone else had gone out again into the formal garden after …”

  He left the sentence there, his eyes moving slowly from one face to another with a gaze which wasn’t accusatory, but which somehow had the effect of putting the emphasis of suspicion on each person in turn.