Better to Eat You

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Sarah was sitting high on the edge of her chair. “I did say that. I did say it vehemently. I wanted to find out what had happened, why my car went off the road.” Sarah’s chin was up. “The rest is lies,” she stated.

  “Lies, Miss Shepherd?”

  “I did not go to the laboratory. I was not seen coming up those steps because I never went down them. I did not take any poison or have any poison and I did not put any into the glass.”

  “Then Miss Lupino did?” said Maxwell rather slyly.

  “For all I know,” said Sarah.

  Malvina’s head went from side to side as if in helpless sorrow.

  Maxwell said to his man, “Go ask the servants about this morning.”

  “Now,” he turned upon them sharply, “we have to see what there is in the way of a motive. Even if both of you had opportunity, we can’t go very far without a possible motive.”

  Malvina said drearily, “There wouldn’t be any real motive,” and her pose suggested pity and sorrow.

  “There may have been a motive,” said Sarah steadily. “I’m sorry for all of this but I must say it.” She was fighting. David watched and admired and lay low. “Something was wrong with my car, I think,” said Sarah. “Something had been fixed, some mechanical thing, so that it would go over as it did. I was supposed to go over. I wonder if Edgar could have told too much about that if he had stayed alive to tell.”

  “But he didn’t tell,” cried Malvina. “He was conscious and he was perfectly well able to tell anything he wished to tell. Why didn’t he tell, if there was anything to tell?”

  “You were alone with him, Miss Lupino?”

  “Yes, yes I was. He … Very well,” said Malvina, “I see it will all have to come out. For a long time we have all been worried about Sarah. Mr. Wakeley knows this.”

  “Worried in what way?” asked the Deputy.

  “About her mental health,” said Malvina. “She had had a good deal of trouble. It seems,” said Malvina, “that something dreadful happens everywhere she goes.”

  Sarah’s face was white.

  “I guess you’ve heard this before, Wakeley?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard it before,” David said shortly. Maxwell had heard it before too, but he hadn’t listened when David had tried to tell him. David was watching the little white face and he thought, Better she gets out of here, no matter what. No matter how. A quick yank will be the least pain in the end. He said, “I have suggested that perhaps a psychiatrist … But Mr. Fox doesn’t seem to think much of the idea.”

  “Grandfather hates it,” said Malvina. “It’s old-fashioned … but you see, to him it is a disgrace. Yet these things do keep happening. A man was killed in Japan. A date she had. Her husband dropped dead …” Malvina began to pour it all out.

  Sarah sat still. She wasn’t looking at David. She was watching this other man’s face, this ordinary man, a sane, a responsible, an unfanciful man.

  “Is all this true, Miss Shepherd?” Maxwell asked her without excitement.

  “Those things happened,” Sarah said, and her tongue moistened her lip. “I … don’t know why.”

  “Then,” said Malvina, leaning, her forearm on her lap, her hand extended as if to plead, “Mr. Wakeley came here to work on his book. We thought she might be better. But the studio caught fire … We don’t know,” cried Malvina, “we never have known whether these things happened or whether Sarah wants them to happen.… Edgar tried so hard to help her.” Now Malvina was weeping and the tears were real. “Edgar did all he could. But maybe she is getting worse. Maybe she doesn’t want to be helped.… Maybe …”

  Sarah said, “It’s true I’ve been … followed by these strokes of bad luck …” Her voice was about to break and she looked as if she’d crumble.

  And David’s heart was wrenched to see it but he kept still. He could see something desirable ahead, something looming. Even so, when Sarah pulled herself up and flung back her head, he could have cheered.

  Sarah cried out in all their faces, “I would crawl into a hole somewhere and die from the misery of all this, if it wasn’t for the lies. When people tell out-and-out lies, I know there’s something wrong, and not with me. Miss Lupino is lying to you, sir. And I can prove that.”

  Maxwell said, “Go ahead.”

  “Those keys,” said Sarah, fighting. “Edgar did keep his lab locked. Since the fire … ask the servants … he’s had a new lock and only one key to it.”

  “This is the key that was in your pocket?” Maxwell said.

  Malvina wept. “Oh … Sarah …” And Sarah looked at her, startled into silence.

  “Considering the accumulation of … well, doubt,” David spoke quietly, “I think Sarah will be much better off if, under police guard of course, she could be kept in the hospital and competently observed. I think the safest …”

  Sarah’s face flamed. “But you know it isn’t true,” she said, and turned to the Deputy. “I’m trying to explain to you. That key wasn’t in the house this morning. It must have been in Edgar’s own pocket. I couldn’t have unlocked the lab this morning because David brought those keys with him. He can tell you that. He handed those keys to me, not five minutes before you came.” Her voice seemed to set the dust motes dancing. In silence they began to fall.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about the keys,” said David Wakeley.

  And watched Sarah wilt in her chair, shrink, her spine bending. Maxwell rose. His mouth was flattened to a more cynical arc than before. The man in plain clothes came in. “Nothing,” he said to his superior. “The handy man was begging a bite to eat off the Chinaman in the kitchen. They saw nobody. The Missus was with the old gentleman.”

  Malvina wailed softly, “Grandfather …”

  David got up and went toward Sarah. He suffered for her, hated it, but he thought, Let them take her away. Make them take her away. The police can keep her from being murdered. God knows whether I can. This has priority. This is imperative. She mustn’t be murdered, because after that it will be too late for any explanations. He said, “I’m sorry, Sarah. I know you don’t understand. If we all think you will be better off …”

  “Why, I understand,” said Sarah and she rose. “I know that Malvina is lying. I know that you are lying. But surely the truth will come out and I am not afraid to go with the police. I didn’t poison or try to hurt anyone and that will come out. I don’t think I have lost my reason,” she said, “but if I have it will be best for me to know it. Do you want me to go now, sir? May I get my toothbrush?”

  Maxwell stood rocking, heel to toe. He said, “I am inclined to agree that some lies have been told. However …”

  David said, “I think a doctor …” To rush this, to get it over before she tore his heart out, this little blonde girl.

  Malvina whimpered, “Grandfather … Oh, Grandfather … Oh no … He has had so many blows. Fire. Edgar’s accident … death. If you arrest Sarah for murder, if you take her away, I think he will die.”

  Sarah said, “That’s true,” and she brought two trembling hands together.

  Maxwell said, “Now, I haven’t said I would arrest Miss Shepherd.”

  “Don’t, then,” said David sharply. “But surely the hospital … Why not tell Mr. Fox she isn’t well?”

  Maxwell said, “I’ve been to the hospital. You forget that.” He rocked. “I am aware of the fact that the keys were in Dr. Perrott’s pocket when he was brought in there. I know to whom they were given and when.”

  The wind went out of David Wakeley. He saw Sarah’s proud little face.

  Maxwell frowned at them all. “I know Wakeley was lying. I don’t know whether Miss Lupino was lying. I don’t know whether Miss Shepherd’s emotional stability is all it ought to be. But damned if I don’t think she’s got guts,” said the Deputy.

  Sarah said, “Thank you,” in that breaking voice. “But I don’t think I can stand any more. If I could go to my room … I will be there if you want me.”

  “Lo
ck your door,” said David. She looked at him as if he were a mote of dust. Maxwell nodded and Sarah walked across the carpet and into the corridor.

  David said harshly, “I want that girl in the hospital.”

  “Why?” said Maxwell, eying him. “It wasn’t very safe for Dr. Perrott.”

  “With a police guard. With every protection.” David felt frantic.

  “I’m leaving a man on the gate here,” Maxwell said. “Miss Shepherd won’t go anywhere that I don’t know. Nor will the rest of you.”

  Malvina said, “I don’t think anything more can happen. For my grandfather’s sake, I’m grateful. All so terrible …”

  “May I see the old gentleman?”

  Her eyes came up, frank and wide. “He is very much disturbed. He is resting. I wish you could wait until another time.”

  “Don’t want to injure him in any way,” the Deputy muttered.

  “Thank you.”

  “We will need a little more light on this affair, which I intend to get. I’m not satisfied with any of you people. Goodbye, for now.” Maxwell was leaving.

  David cast one black look at Malvina and raced after him.

  “For God’s sake!” he cried, in the garden.

  “Keep your shirt on,” Maxwell said.

  “You can’t leave her here, I tell you. I told you before. The whole thing is a plot against her.”

  “I don’t get that,” Maxwell said. He paused, his strong beefy legs apart, and looked off over the wall at the view. “Sarah Shepherd didn’t get poisoned. Perrott got poisoned. It’s Perrott who is dead.”

  “Sarah Shepherd will be dead for all you …”

  “Now hold it. Hold it. I’m not going to arrest anybody on the strength of a lie outa you, Wakeley. Especially when I happen to know it is a lie. I know why you did it. Of course. And love is a wonderful thing but never lie to a cop, Wakeley.” Maxwell’s face was a rock.

  “I would have told you once she was out of here.”

  “You tell me the truth and all of the truth and no more, ever.”

  “That was her car that went off the road and it must have been fixed. I’m positive that somebody wanted her to die in it.”

  “She didn’t,” said Maxwell, “and we won’t know anything about the condition of the car until we can raise it.”

  “In the meantime … what about the meantime?”

  Maxwell looked around the garden. “You stick around and keep an eye on her, why don’t you? I’m putting a man handy. I’ve got digging to do.”

  “Malvina is a liar,” raved David. “She’d rather lie …”

  “That’s impossible. Lots of people are liars. I’ve met a lot of them. But I’m not going to get into any deal where I’m responsible if the old boy dies. Or is Malvina lying about that, too? What’s the state of his health? Do you know?”

  “Perrott was his doctor.” David felt as if he had run into a wall. “The whole house runs on the assumption that he can drop dead. But I don’t know.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Maxwell. “Now, you don’t want me to drag your Sarah off to jail or its equivalent and have the old man die of the disgrace when you, yourself, don’t believe for one minute that the kid is guilty of anything? Or do you?”

  “Malvina is guilty. Take her, then. If you want to take the one who poisoned Edgar, take her,” begged David. “She did it.”

  “Did?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Why does she lie? Why does she try to put it on Sarah?”

  “Well, some people don’t think of it as lying when they add on a little bit to bolster up what they’ve already decided is the truth. Now listen, Wakeley. You don’t know everything. What if it’s like this? Those two girls go there. His only two visitors. Neither of them did it. So each of them is sure the other one did. They believe that.”

  “Neither of them did it! What …?”

  “Ever think maybe Perrott did it himself?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “So the car might have been deliberately steered off the road by him, for all we know. So the poison belongs to him, don’t it? He had access. He must have known it was in that glass. In the last analysis he took it. Couldn’t have drunk it unaware. Well? Could be he had some hidden in his clothes. Could be he got out of bed and got to it. This is one thing I’ll try to check.”

  “Why would he?”

  “Well … and this is what you don’t know and I do … first words Perrott says when he gets conscious, and the nurse was there … Perrott says he wishes he hadn’t been saved. He’d rather have drowned.”

  David swallowed.

  “If what we’ve got here is a suicide,” said Maxwell, “I’m not going to make a fool of myself.”

  “I hope you’re not,” said David dangerously.

  “You managed to do it,” said Maxwell coldly. “And what’s more, you are going to have a sweet job squaring yourself with that little blonde.” He began to move away.

  “Maxwell, did Consuelo McGhee …?”

  “Talked to her,” Maxwell grunted. “She’s a great old gal, Consuelo. I’ll tell you right here and now, Wakeley, if it weren’t for Consuelo McGhee, I’d crack down on you plenty for lying to me. So you’ve had one favor out of me, which is my limit. So watch it, willya?”

  Chapter 15

  David turned and looked back toward the house. So far in his life he’d had no moment in which he felt so lost, so indecisive, so unfocused upon a course of action. He simply did not know what he was going to do.

  Then he saw Malvina come out of the glass door with a harassed, bustling look to her. She moved swiftly toward him. “The arrangements,” she said. “They want me to choose. Oh David, will you go with me?”

  “Where’s Sarah?” His voice cracked with alarm. I’m too jumpy, he told himself. Surely they haven’t killed her in these four minutes.

  “Sarah’s locked in her room. Ah, don’t worry, David.” Malvina’s eyes glistened. “Surely poor Sarah can’t do anything …” His jaw worked and he stared bleakly down at this liar. “David, I must go to the funeral place. Will you help me?”

  “And your grandfather?” He didn’t hear what she was asking.

  “Resting. I don’t think Sarah would hurt Grandfather, anyhow.”

  He kept looking down at her and controlled his fury. “I want to talk to Sarah.”

  “She won’t let you in,” said Malvina pityingly. “Leave it, David. Mrs. Monteeth is with Grandfather and Gust is here. Won’t you please take me to the village? I can’t do this sad thing alone. Will they let us go?” She peered beyond him.

  David had an idea. He shook himself. He said contritely, “I’m sorry. Of course. I understand. I have to change but first let’s ask.” He took her arm and hurried her toward the place where the gate had been. Maxwell had not gone yet. He was occupied with stowing into his car a boxful of oddments garnered from Edgar’s laboratory. He was instructing his man, who was to remain.

  To him Malvina purred out her problem. Must go and choose among caskets. Poor Edgar. Last thing she could do for him. Malvina was both pitiful and brave. She begged prettily. “May David take me?”

  Maxwell wasn’t charmed and had no pity. He looked sourly at her, as if he were tempted to say “Do it on the phone.” David, behind her back, made an outward scooping motion of his palm, which Maxwell may or may not have seen in the tail of his eye. What the Deputy said, in a manner that admitted no arguing, was, gruffly, “I’ll take you, Miss Lupino.”

  “But how am I to get back? I need … I want someone with me.”

  “I’ll go with you and send you back,” the Deputy said. “Wakeley better change before he gets pneumonia. Also, I want Wakeley to stay put.” His glance flicked at David. Then Malvina might as well have been in custody. She had to go, as this man was taking her. She cast one look back at David, a strange bewildered look, as if she, also, did not know what she would do now, and implored him to wait … to do nothing until s
he was back in the game.

  Jubilant, David raced through the garden and into the guest house, where he changed his clothes in record time. He could break Sarah’s door down if he had to. Somewhat cleaner and drier, he came into the house, this glittering lizard of a house, silent, spacious, with nothing but the sky beyond the glass on the seaward side. He raced into the bedroom corridor.

  Grandfather’s door stood wide open. David was lifting his hand to knock at Sarah’s door when Fox called out querulously, “David?”

  “Yes, sir.” Now he had to turn and concede that Grandfather was there. The old man was not in his bed but ensconced in an easy chair and Mrs. Monteeth was fussing about him. “David, if you please …” said Grandfather. “No more. No more. Let the child be. Let us have peace,” said Grandfather. His head lolled on the chair back. His hand pressed his breast. “A little time,” the old man said, “for all of us to understand and consider our grief. If you please …”

  David saw Mrs. Monteeth, by the stern warning of her frown, fiercely enjoining him to obey. Could this old man’s heart stop? David’s hand fell.

  “Yes, sir, of course,” he said quietly. “I’ll do nothing to upset you.”

  The old man said, “A little peace … a little peace in my house …”

  Back in the big room David chewed his lips. Well, if the old man was watching Sarah’s door so could David watch it, he thought. Stalemate? But he thought, No. Because he could go around to the window where the old man couldn’t hear and wouldn’t see and could talk to Sarah just the same. But how the old man used his health. It lay like a threat behind every request and made a request a command.

  Another idea struck him and he hurried to the phone.

  “Consuelo?” (She was there. How she stood by!)

  “Yes, Davey. I’ve heard about Dr. Perrott. Tell me …”

  “I haven’t time. It’s a mess. Consuelo, do you know a doctor?”

  “Of course.”

  “Send him up to the Nest. Call him in my name. No, in Malvina’s name. Send him up to look at the old man.”

  “Is the old man …?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I want to find out. Tell him the old man’s doctor is dead and that he’s got a wonky heart, had a shock, looks bad. Tell him it’s an emergency.”