I said, “And you fell…” and he said, shaking his head, “No. Somebody hit me.”
“Somebody…” I stopped with a kind of gulp.
He gave me a look of annoyance. “Don’t gargle,” he said briefly.
“B-but you said…”
“Certainly I said somebody hit me. Somebody did. I was just at the top of the stairs. I heard someone behind me and I turned and that’s all. Just as I turned it hit and I went out like a light. I remember that.”
Suddenly and completely I believed him. His look and his voice were perfectly clear and rational. I said, after a moment, “Who?”
“I don’t know. I tell you that’s all I remember except later-a long time later-Drue was here.” His voice when he said her name changed subtly, so it was grave and yet somehow warm and tender, as if it spoke a loved name. But he had left her and had let her shift for herself, without ever a word from him. A nurse’s life is not an easy one. I hardened my heart against him.
All at once he caught my wrist in a quick, impatient grip. “But what happened? Who screamed?”
So I told him. I would have evaded but I couldn’t. I knew an attempt would only make a bad matter worse and excite him unnecessarily. I did it as gently and as kindly as I could, and I reminded him that his father had had a bad heart condition apparently for years. I also said it had been quick.
I didn’t mention the police or Drue or the digitalis.
When I had told him I went to the window and stood there, my back to the room, looking out at the gray daylight. After a long time he called me.
“Yes?”
“Thanks…”
“It-it wasn’t unexpected,” I said again. “And it was mercifully quick.”
“Yes; yes-I’ll see the doctor when he comes, Nurse.”
“Certainly.” He hadn’t asked again about Drue’s scream, and I was thankful for it. He let me wash his face and ring to order breakfast. Anna answered the bell. “I’m sorry, Mr. Craig,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
“I-yes, Anna. Don’t cry.” He patted her hand a little, kindly, and she went quickly away. Almost at once Alexia came.
I was straightening the bed and thought it was Anna. Alexia was in the room before I realized it was not. She had dressed and wore a sleek black dress with white lace at her throat and small wrists. She came quickly to the bed and knelt there.
“Craig, they’ve told you…”
He looked at her for a moment without replying. There was a queer look on his face-a kind of grimness all at once that, again, made me think of his father yet was totally unlike, too, for it held sensibility, or concealed it, where his father’s look was only obstinate and a little cruel.
Alexia put one arm across him so her hand on the bed supported her and leaned very close to him. Her mouth was lightly lipsticked that morning and looked very tender and tremulous in spite of that full, cruel underlip; her misty, short, dark hair was a soft frame for her creamy, small face with its delicate features. She said, “I’m sorry, Craig. He was your father.”
Craig’s eyes narrowed. “He was your husband, Alexia.”
Her face didn’t change, unless her eyelids lowered a little; but I could see the curving lines of her body stiffen slightly. She said rather slowly, very musically, looking into Craig’s eyes, “I never needed to be reminded of that. You know that, Craig, better than anyone.”
There was a short silence. I prepared to remove the top blanket and thus oust Alexia, but as I moved to do so she said, “It’s horrible-the police and all, I mean! They found the revolver in Drue’s room.”
“Drue! What do you mean? What about the police? What revolver?”
“Really, Mrs. Brent, I’ll have to ask you to leave! My patient isn’t…” I was hurrying forward, my starchy uniform rattling.
Alexia silenced both of us. “Don’t try to think, my darling,” she said, putting her face against Craig’s. “Oh, Craig, you knew-you always knew I never loved Conrad. And now all that is ended for us both, my darling.”
Over her shoulder Craig’s eyes plunged into mine. “For God’s sake, what does she mean? What revolver?” he cried urgently.
9
WELL, I COULDN’T HAVE told him even if I’d known, I was so livid and gibbering with rage. I put my hand on Alexia’s shoulder and may have taken a tighter grip even than I intended, for she wrenched herself away from me with a rather startled look and got quickly to her feet, clasping her shoulder with her other hand. “Nurse, you forget yourself! How dare you touch…”
“What revolver, Alexia?” demanded Craig again. “What revolver?”
Her eyes had retreated behind those soft, satiny eyelids. She said breathlessly, “Conrad’s revolver. It was in Drue’s room. The police found it.”
Craig was as white as the pillow, and I intended to put Alexia out of the room by sheer physical force if nothing else sufficed. He said, “But he wasn’t shot!”
“No! He wasn’t shot,” I said quickly. “He died of a heart attack, just as I told you. Now then, Mrs. Brent…”
“But the police,” said Craig. “Why are they here?”
“Someone called them.” Alexia answered him. “No one knows who. But someone got on the telephone just after Conrad died and told the police your father had been murdered. So they came, and they are going to investigate his death…”
“Murder!” said Craig. “But that’s impossible!” He made a motion to get up, winced as he moved his shoulder and turned even whiter. Peter Huber knocked, entered quickly, stopped as quickly as he seemed to sense something electric in the atmosphere and then said, “It’s only-well, they want you downstairs, Alexia. Right away. They are waiting. You too, Nurse Keate.” His eyes went past us to Craig, and he said, “You’ve told him?”
Behind him on the threshold Anna appeared with the tray. “I’m not going,” I said. “I’m on duty.”
“Is it the police, Peter?” asked Craig.
Peter Huber nodded. “Craig, I’m sorry about your father…”
Craig closed his eyes as if to shut out talk of that. “Yes, Pete,” he said. There was a little silence while Anna went to the bed with the tray and I followed her. Craig looked up at me. “Go on down,” he said. “Anna will stay with me. Don’t you see, I’ve got to know…”
“I’ll tell you, Craig. I’ll tell you everything the police do.” Alexia started toward the bed, stopped as I straightened up rather abruptly from adjusting the pillows and looked hard at her, said softly to Craig, “Don’t think, darling. Don’t try to think now. I’ll be back,” and went out the doör. Peter came to the bed and Craig said again to me, “Please go downstairs, Miss Keate. I want you to tell me everything they do…”
So in the end I went; not because of the police, but merely to keep Craig’s temperature down. Anna stayed with him and Peter Huber, too, for a while, although they sent for him also before that morning’s long inquiry was over.
It lasted nearly three hours. Three hours of steady questions and answers-statements, repetitions, explanations, and probably a few lies, spoken or implied. But there was no way of identifying those.
It was already under way when I entered the little morning room, with its ivory woodwork, green and rose chintz, and blazing wood fire.
Everyone except Craig, and for the moment, Peter, was there: Lieutenant Nugent and two troopers, very lean, and silent as their chief; a man in gray, fat and rosy-cheeked with winking eyeglasses who proved to be the District Attorney (so I knew, then, that they were sure it was murder); Nicky; and Alexia who was, subtly, a broken reed. Their two faces were so much alike, so secretive, so delicate and beautiful that it was as if one was the mirror of the other; as if some deep affinity joined their very thoughts. Which, as a matter of fact, was very far from the truth.
Maud was there, too, little and indomitable in sweeping black with her pompadour rising high above her narrow, sallow, little forehead, her collar of boned white net lifting her little dark chin in the air
, and her eyes brooding and angry, watching the police, watching Nicky and Alexia-watching even me, fixedly. I don’t think a move or a look or a quickened pulse escaped her eager, antlike eyes. Claud Chivery wasn’t there.
Then I saw Drue; she was sitting in a tall armchair, her hands around the arm of it, her white cap like a crown upon her shining hair. She was very pale; her dark gray eyes had a kind of terrified stillness. I thought she tried to communicate with me, mutely, with her look, and I tried, mutely, to remind her of danger, and in the same fractional glance that I was on her side. So it was a rather complicated glance, I daresay; certainly it didn’t seem to accomplish anything in the way of improving the situation.
Then I felt that somebody was watching us and turned. It was Lieutenant Nugent, his eyes narrow and thoughtful, more green than gray-which was, as a matter of fact, a bad sign. All through that interview he was as laconic as ever and when he was forced to say more than a few words did so with an air of positively grudging distaste and terseness.
He said then, “Sit down, please, Nurse Keate. The District Attorney, Mr. Soper, wants to question you.”
I sat down, and that long bout of questioning began for me. It began badly and ended badly.
The first thing Soper said was a flat, bald statement to the effect that they had found enough digitalis in Conrad Brent’s blood stream to kill him, and they believed it was murder.
From there they went on to that inevitable conclusion.
They did it slowly, detail by detail, taking so much time at bypaths and crossroads, so to speak, that it wasn’t till the very end that I could look back and see that Soper, at any rate, had planned and charted his whole road to arrive at exactly that destination. As I have said, it took a long time; they questioned me and I told them again exactly what I had already told Lieutenant Nugent, no more and no less. They questioned Maud and Nicky and Alexia; they sent for and questioned Peter Huber; they questioned everybody. Gradually the story built itself up-much of it by confirmation, for it was obvious that they had already done considerable, less public, questioning.
Conrad Brent had spent the previous day about as other days were spent, except for his anxiety about his son, two or three morning visits to Craig’s room (before Drue and I arrived) and a talk with Dr. Chivery. This (according to Maud) was entirely about Craig’s condition. The Lieutenant already knew that Conrad had had an interview in his study with me and then with Drue after our arrival. I was questioned again about that almost immediately. It was about his son, I told them firmly, and that was all. There was a speculative look in Nicky’s eyes as he turned to look at me then, and Maud said abruptly, “That isn’t all, Lieutenant. Don’t forget that Conrad was furious because Drue Cable came here, and told her she had to leave. She was to go this morning. She…”
“Yes, you told me that,” said Nugent. Drue’s lips parted a little and she leaned forward as if to speak, but Nugent did not permit her to do so. “Now, then,” he said briskly, “there were no callers yesterday except Dr. Chivery and myself. “What about dinner?”
I couldn’t tell whether or not they had yet questioned Drue. It seemed logical that they had, but somehow I thought they had not and it seemed wrong-an ominous omission.
They were replying, one and then another. The whole inquiry began to seem more and more like a formal assembling of already established facts. Except for the impression I continued to have to the effect that Drue herself had not been questioned directly and alone. Consequently, it began to look more and more as if the already established facts had been established, so to speak, around her. When they did question her they would have a solid framework of evidence on which to base their inquiry.
I listened anxiously.
Dinner had been at the usual hour, they were saying; Nicky, Peter, Alexia, and Maud and of course Conrad had been at dinner. Drue was there, too, said Maud, but the other nurse (her eager black eyes went to me) was on duty so a tray was sent up to her. But nothing happened at dinner; no one talked much; all of them ate the same food. So he couldn’t have been poisoned then.
“Digitalis,” said Nugent, “has a very rapid effect. Almost instantaneous.” And went on. The evening had been passed, again, much as usual. They had played bridge, Conrad, Maud, Alexia and Peter-Nicky had read and watched. During the game there had been the usual talk of current news, the war, affairs at home; sometime during the game (no one remembered the time) Conrad had sent Alexia to get the clipping; the box of medicine had been in the desk drawer then. All efforts to discover more exactly when it had disappeared were without result.
At about eleven they had stopped playing. Conrad had gone for his walk, the others had gone to bed. Dr. Chivery had stopped shortly after eleven (Maud told this, too; she was altogether more eagerly informative than anyone else); he had gone to the room she always occupied when she stayed as she so often did at the Brent house, but he had not remained for long. He had walked to the Chivery cottage. “There’s a path, a short-cut,” said Maud, and Nugent nodded.
“He said he didn’t see Brent?” said Soper to Nugent who nodded again. So I knew they had already questioned Dr. Chivery.
Usually Conrad returned from his walk in about forty-five minutes; he walked very slowly, so probably he had not taken a really long walk. His coat, stick, and hat were in their usual place in the closet off the hall. His dinner-jacket hung there, too, and he had put on a lounge coat and, apparently, gone directly into the library.
“He liked to rest a little before going upstairs,” said Beevens. “He had a nightcap or smoked a cigarette or two as a rule and then went to bed. He never wanted me to wait up for him; he locked the front door himself.”
Nightcap. Brandy? Well, they had taken away the decanter; they would know if there was poison in it.
Nicky then created a small sensation by saying abruptly that he had seen Conrad return. “I was here in this room,” he said easily. “I saw Conrad come in, lock the door, remove his coat and hat and put on his lounge coat.”
“Nicky!” cried Alexia twisting around to look up at him.
Soper said, “But look here, Mr. Senour, why didn’t you tell us?”
“I didn’t think it was important,” said Nicky silkily. “That’s all there is to it, you see. He didn’t see me. I was sitting over there by the fire, reading. He went into the library and after a while I went upstairs. That’s all.”
Drue was looking at him steadily. I don’t know how I knew that she was holding her breath, perhaps because I was.
“Are you sure that’s all?” said Nugent. “Did anyone-you, for instance,-go into the library?” There was a silence. Nicky smiled and examined the fingernails on one slender hand. “That’s all,” he said with a kind of silky stubbornness. Soper said, “Well, well; let’s get on,” and began to question about motives and about possible enemies. Nugent looked thoughtfully at Nicky. Soper did the questioning, his little eyes suspicious, except when they rested upon Alexia, of whom he obviously approved and who did look, I must say, very lovely and helpless, except when she lifted her shadowy eyelashes and one caught a glimpse of the very cool and self-possessed look in her eyes. Nicky leaned against the back of her chair in an ostentatiously protecting way, still with the shadow of a smile on his lips, and Alexia sat perfectly still for the most part, answering only when she had to and that briefly, one leg crossed over the other and the toe of her pump making impatient little circles.
After a while they sent for Peter Huber, who came into the room and sat down not far from me. He had told Craig, I imagined, as much as could be told. He sighed a little, unconsciously, as he sat down and then lighted a cigarette and listened. As we all listened.
Presently they questioned him-or rather recapitulated some earlier bout of questioning. When he came downstairs he had found both nurses in the library, was that right? Yes, that was right; he nodded. Why had he come downstairs at all?
“I told you that,” he said. “I’d dropped off to sleep, reading. I hadn
’t put up the windows or turned off the light and, when I awoke, the room was too warm. I put up the windows and turned off the light and then I opened the door to the hall, thinking I’d get air into the room more quickly that way.”
As he did it he heard a kind of scream from somewhere downstairs. He’d listened for a moment and as he was closing the door again I had run along the corridor and down the stairs. So he thought something was wrong, went back to get a dressing gown and slippers and had come down after me.
“Mr. Huber,” said the District Attorney, “I want you to think back carefully; this is very important. When you came into the room, were the nurses-either or both of them-doing anything for Mr. Brent? I mean, definitely, did either of them have a hypodermic syringe in her hand? Think back…”
My heart came up in my throat. I didn’t dare look at Drue.
Then Peter said, positively, “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. They were just standing there. We looked at him but he was dead. So Miss Keate sent Miss Cable back upstairs to Craig and me to telephone. I didn’t succeed in getting the doctor then. I couldn’t find the number; I was upset. Anyway, all at once there was this sound of something falling…”
“Yes, yes, you told us about that,” said the District Attorney testily. “Something falling and the sound of a window breaking and we can’t find anything that fell and there is no window broken.” He turned to me. “Miss Keate, was there anything else? Anything that happened last night before the death of Mr. Brent that struck you as being-well, out of the way? Unusual.”
From the way he said it, I had a quick impression that he had asked everyone that. Maud looked rather scornful, and Alexia all but yawned. It was one of fate’s dangerous little jokes that I would have answered in the negative (as I imagine everyone else had done) had not Delphine at that point slunk across the hall, with a wary green eye toward the trooper in the doorway. The fleeting glimpse I had of him reminded me of a very trivial thing I had forgotten up to then. “Why, yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact there was something.”
Wolf in Man’s Clothing Page 9
