Death and the Maiden

by Q. Patrick

  And he’d done that just because he thought I was going to be rich. Steve had done that!

  I was still sitting there, feeling that all the life had drained out of me, when the door opened softly and Lieutenant Trant was there. He came into the room. I got up. And we stood looking at each other.

  His level gray eyes which during the past days had held so much menace for me were very soft and sympathetic now.

  I said: “Then it’s over?”

  “It’s over. He’s made a full confession. It’s much easier that way. Chief Jordan’s taking him to the station. They’ll be here any minute to pick me up. So I guess it’s time for me to walk out of your life. I’m sorry it had to be this way, darn sorry. You won’t hold it against me, will you?”

  I shook my head. “You had to do what you had to do. It’s just that I can’t believe it yet because it’s too much coming so suddenly …”

  He broke in quietly: “You were fond of him, weren’t you?”

  “Of course I was fond of him, terribly fond.”

  “I thought so. Once I had the idea you were a bit in love with Steve Carteris.”

  It was strange and cruel that I should only have realized it then. “Yes,” I said. “I think I was a little in love with him—if you can be in love with two people at once.”

  He took my hand. “You can do anything when you’re young, kid,” he said suddenly. “You can be madly in love with fifteen people at once. You can think you’re in love when you’re only really clinging to memories. You can fall out of love overnight.” He paused, that queer slight smile on his lips. “You can do most anything—if you’re young and you try hard enough.”

  His fingers tightened their pressure on mine; then he drew his hand away. “Okay, Lee Lovering. We’ll be meeting again one day and this will all be just something that hit and hit hard—but didn’t have enough punch in it for a knockout.”

  And he was gone, closing the door behind him.

  I moved aimlessly to the window. The sun had slid behind a cloud now. It seemed to be banking up for rain and the campus was gray and somber. Steve’s car was still there parked on the gravel drive, half hidden behind the young spring foliage of the maple trees.

  But a second car was there too, parked near to it. Vaguely could see men inside. I couldn’t bear to look more closely, to catch a glimpse of Steve there in the police car—under arrest.

  I saw Lieutenant Trant hurry down the steps of Pigot to the police car and lean in the window. Then Chief Jordan emerged and he and Trant. moved across the campus, disappearing into the Administration Building.

  At that moment there was a soft tap on my door and Elaine slipped into the room. She was dressed in ordinary clothes again and her face was very white and dispirited. She came up to me, putting her hand impulsively on my shoulder.

  “Darling, I had to tell them. He was the person who suggested I should go up in the gallery and stand in the spotlight so everyone could see my back better. I thought it was all just part of the gag.”

  “Of course you had to tell,” I broke in miserably.

  I glanced out of the window again. Lieutenant Trant and Jordan had come out of the Administration Building and were moving back toward the police car.

  “Lee, darling,” Elaine was saying awkwardly, “I just met Lieutenant Trant. He gave me something for you—a letter. He told me to bring it to you.”

  She took an envelope out of her bag and handed it to me. I stared at it without much interest.

  My fingers moved to slit it but suddenly Elaine gave a little stifled scream.

  Her hand was clutching my arm. She was staring out of the window, her face blank with surprise and fright.

  “Look, Lee. There’s a fight or something—down there.”

  It was hard to see clearly, for the maples half screened us from that thing which was happening out on the campus. But I saw the confusion around the police car, saw a door swinging open, a plainclothes man staggering backward and sprawling onto the drive. There were harsh cries, the sharp crack of a pistol shot. Another policeman was dashing away from the car.

  And, for one lightning second, through the screen of maples, I caught a glimpse of a third figure running in the direction of Steve’s parked car. I heard a door open and slam shut. Once again there were warning shouts, then the roar of a car engine suddenly bursting into life.

  “Lee!” Elaine cried hoarsely. “He’s making a get-away.”

  I saw Steve’s car then, swerving away from the running policemen. It was heading straight at Chief Jordan and Trant, gathering speed every second. Jordan sprang forward, making a futile attempt to check its wild career, but Trant gripped his arm, jerking him back to safety as the automobile hurtled past them.

  There was something frightful about that swift, crazy flight. The car seemed to be heading at random. It hadn’t turned toward the college gates; it was roaring insanely toward, the gym.

  Then suddenly I saw it swing off the drive. I saw it tearing headlong over the lawns. I saw a tree looming ahead, straight in its path, a huge old oak tree. I stood there at the window, every nerve in my body numb.

  There was a crash, a grinding, wrenching crash of metal as the car careened into the tree, sprang up like a live thing and lurched over onto its side.

  I stumbled away from the window. I didn’t see any more.

  But I had seen enough to realize that no one could have been in that car—and lived.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, too dazed really to think or feel much. Elaine was at my side. For a long moment we just sat gazing at each other, seeing the remembrance of that horrible thing in each other’s eyes. At last, her voice very small, Elaine said:

  “I suppose it’s better that way, Lee. You’ve got to see it’s better. No trial, no beastly drawn-out trial with newspaper stories and everything.”

  I managed to say: “I guess it is best. But if—if you don’t mind, I think I’d rather be alone.”

  “Of course, darling.” She bent and kissed my cheek. Then she slipped out of the room.

  After I was alone again I sat there on the bed, not moving. There were vague sounds from outside. Once I heard a car start and drive away. But I didn’t go to the window.

  Gradually, as my mind started working again, I realized that I was still holding in my hand the envelope Elaine had brought me from Lieutenant Trant. Listlessly I opened it. There were two folded pieces of paper inside. I unfolded one. I saw Trant’s neat, careful writing.

  “DEAR LEE:

  Maybe I should have broken the news myself but I thought it might be easier this way—easier for you. You’ve read or heard the contents of every document in the case except one. I’m enclosing a copy of that one. The pieces have just been fitted together at the station. I think it speaks for itself. Chin up.

  T.”

  Feeling a cold constriction around my heart, I unfolded the other piece of paper. It was the typed copy of a letter.

  I read:

  Copy of letter written by Grace Hough to her brother on the night of her suicide.

  JERRY DARLING:

  Before anything I want you to promise me to destroy this letter as soon as you’ve read it. If there’s no way for you to destroy it yourself at the infirmary, you must get Lee or someone to do it for you. You’ve got to do that. I shouldn’t be writing this, I know. But I couldn’t do what I’m going to do—not without saying good-by.

  Jerry, you musn’t—mustn’t be sorry when you hear this. Tonight I’ve found out something that just makes it impossible to go on any longer. Jerry, please say you understand, that you forgive me. I’m going to kill myself. It sounds terrible, I know. But it’s the only way. What is there for me anyway? It’s stupid to kid myself I’ll ever get what I want out of life. No one ever likes me. In fact, I think people hate me, people have always been so cruel, they’ve hurt me so much, they’ve made it all unbearable. You’re the only one I love—you and Lee. But you wouldn’t want me always as a burden.
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  No one will know I’ve committed suicide, darling. I’ve arranged for that. Don’t think there’ll be a scandal, all the awful things that happened with Dad. But I’ve done one thing you may hate me for. Please believe I’m doing what I think best. I know you gave Norma your fraternity pin this afternoon. And I can’t bear the thought of you being engaged to her. I know what a temptation she must seem at the moment. And I thought if you were to get my money, you’d never get out of her clutches. That’s why I made a new will, leaving everything to Lee. She loves you; she’s worth five thousand of Norma. It would make me so happy if I thought one day you could marry her. You need someone strong and decent—just the way I do. We’ve got so much to fight against; we’ve got such a rotten heritage. I think I knew this would happen to me, knew it that night when we heard about Dad—a sort of presentiment.

  Good-by, darling,

  GRACE.

  I never knew before just now how it could feel to have everything—absolutely everything—swept away from under your feet. For one moment it was as if I were turned to ice. The blood in my veins was ice; my fingers holding the letter were stiff icicles. Only my mind went on working, presenting one thought after another in a cold, deadly sequence of logic.

  Grace had written this letter to Jerry on the night of her death. Jerry had shown me another one, the earlier one she had written about Norma. Jerry had deliberately shown me the wrong letter so that I should be a witness to the fact that it gave no indication of suicide. Then he had persuaded Norma to tear both the letters up. He had known from the beginning just what Grace was planning to do; he had known she was making a will in my favor. If that will was proved valid, I would get the money and he would get me. If it was proved invalid, he would get the money anyhow—provided the suicide was kept dark. Of course, his motive was far stronger than anyone’s. He had to kill Norma because she was endangering his chance of getting the money. Jerry had killed her and had gone out with me to the fountain for an alibi. He had used me for an alibi, made love to me, knowing what was there in the pool. Jerry had done that. He had done all those things I had been attributing in my mind to Steve.

  And the car, the car that had hurtled across the campus and had been shattered into twisted wreckage. It hadn’t been Steve in that car. I had been wrong; I had been fooled—so hopelessly, abysmally fooled.

  There wasn’t anything that could matter any more because Jerry had done that to me. And Jerry was dead.

  I never heard Steve come in. I never knew he was in the room until he was there, standing in front of me, watching me from those dark steady eyes which said so much more than he or anyone could possibly have said in words.

  He took the letter from my numb fingers. Very deliberately, he tore it up, scattering the fragments on the floor.

  “Don’t think what you’re thinking, Lee,” he said softly. “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s only half true. You’ve got to believe it isn’t quite as ugly as the words say it is. Jerry told me everything; he wanted to tell me, not the police. He knew Trant had guessed this morning. That’s why he offered to break his own alibi and confess.”

  I looked at him, but I wasn’t really seeing him. “He’s dead, isn’t he, Steve? Jerry’s dead.”

  He nodded, his eyes careful and solicitous, never leaving my face. “I guessed he might do something like that. But I—I didn’t tell Trant. I thought it was better to let him do it his own way. You see, this morning at the garage—that’s what happened. He knew that when you found the pieces of Grace’s last letter—the real one—there in the Wentworth Clarion, he knew then that it was all up. He couldn’t go on lying to you any more and he—he tried to finish it there in the repair shop. It was he who locked himself in and turned on the engine because he was through then.”

  I found I could still speak, still think, just as if my heart wasn’t breaking. “And it was you who followed us?”

  “Yes. Trant knew it all last night. He was scared something might happen to you so he asked me to hang around to see you didn’t run into any danger. He told me about that letter, too, and how Jerry would be desperate to get the pieces if he found out where they were. And then you telephoned in the middle of the night. I hated to snoop on you, but I had to follow. I got the Wentworth Clarion from Jerry there in the repair shop. I knew it was his death warrant; that’s why I couldn’t bring myself to speak to you when I got back to the car. I was planning to drive you back to college and try to give you some sort of explanation. But you jumped before I could stop you. It was then I realized that you thought I was the murderer.” His voice broke, then he went on hoarsely. “But that wasn’t so bad as having to tell you that Jerry was. So I didn’t go back for you, Lee. I shirked it. I sent the garage man up and told him to drive you home in my car. I didn’t think you were badly hurt, and I never dreamed Jerry would try to kill himself.”

  I said dully: “But now he’s dead. Jerry’s dead, and he made me think he cared about me, and all the time …”

  “No, that’s not true.” Steve’s hands had taken mine and were holding them gently. “Try to understand, Lee. Jerry told me everything. One reason he confessed to me instead of to the police was because he wanted me to tell you some of these things. Grace left him a terrible temptation. He wasn’t strong enough to resist it. But he did love you. It was just that he only found out when it was too late, when he’d gone too far down the other way.”

  “But he fooled me,” I insisted brokenly.

  “Not in the big thing, Lee. He fooled you by switching Grace’s letters that day in the infirmary. There was a weak, rotten part of him that saw how the insurance money could mean all the difference between everything and nothing. And then, when he had gone so far off the rails, there was nothing for it but—murder. You see, Norma confronted him with the special delivery letter at the Ball. She was mad at him anyhow and quite prepared to be nasty. She had figured it out that Grace had written the letter herself and that she’d probably committed suicide. She had figured out about the insurance money too. She accused Jerry of deliberately switching the letters on her and making her tear up the suicide note. She had it all straight in her mind. Then she dropped a bombshell. She said she hadn’t destroyed the pieces of those letters; she wouldn’t tell him where they were but she said she was going to take them to the police. That was fatal. He killed her then. She was the only person, so he thought, who could prove anything against him.”

  For a while neither of us spoke. We just sat there together listening to the dreary patter of rain in the leaves outside.

  “That’s what Jerry told me.” Steve’s voice came at last through the stillness. “He wanted you to know and he wanted me to say that it was better for you without him. He said you weren’t ever really in love with him, with the real Jerry. You were in love with the memories of the way he used to be when you were kids, before everything happened and he changed. He said he wanted you to forget him. That’s what he told me, Lee.”

  “But I won’t forget him. I can’t forget how life can do this to you.”

  Steve’s face was very white. I knew then that it was hurting him almost as terribly as it was hurting me.

  “Ever is a long time, Lee,” he said huskily. “I guess it seems like the end of everything now. But one day, maybe, it won’t be so tough. And if—if ever you want anyone, perhaps you’ll remember what I said last night. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

  He drew me a little closer. His hands on mine were warm and comforting.

  And, strangely, something Lieutenant Trant had said to me just a little while ago trailed back into my thoughts.

  You can think you’re in love when you’re really clinging to memories. You can fall out of love overnight. You can do most anything—if you’re young and you try hard enough.

  And I wondered …

  THE END

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Lieutenant Trant Mysteries

  CHAPTER 1

  The great pleasure ship gave
a majestic snort and nosed toward the dock through the brilliant Bermuda waters. Kay Winyard, leaning her elbows on the rail of the sun deck, thought: It’s absurd to be afraid. Ivor can’t mean anything to me. He can’t hurt me any more.

  Passengers were pressing around her, shouting greetings to sun-tanned friends on the wharf below. The shining panorama of Hamilton stretched before Kay with its white toy houses, its streets thronged with carriages, cyclists, and vacationists.

  Kay had known this moment would be an ordeal. It seemed as if Bermuda had stood still during the three years of her absence, as if, fantastically suspended in time, this was the same summer day, these the same carefree people who had stood there on the dock, waving to departing friends, when she had last left the Islands—three years ago.

  She had left Bermuda then hating its drowsy beauty, hating everything about it that reminded her of Ivor, thinking that nothing could ever thaw the circle of ice around her heart.

  She had sworn that she would never, never come back. Now, she was here again.

  And suddenly she felt afraid. She was crazy to have come to fight Ivor in Bermuda. It had been dangerous enough when he had been her lover. It was going to be a thousand times more dangerous now that she was to make him an enemy.

  Kay’s slim fingers closed tightly over the rail. She tried to steady herself, tried to make herself feel the way she had felt when she left America, angry and purposeful—instead of afraid. Over and over again she thought of her sister’s amazing cable, those few terse words that had left a world of things unsaid but had brought the past blazing to life and made it suddenly the present and the future:

  ELAINE TO MARRY IVOR DRAKE HERE IN

  BERMUDA NEXT WEEK. CAN YOU COME.

  MAUD.

  That was all Kay knew. No details. Not even of how the Chilterns’ depleted finances had made a Bermuda vacation possible.