I FLUNG MYSELF off the couch, half fell onto the floor, and stumbled to my feet. I tried to call Lucy, but my throat seemed to have closed up, and I made only an odd croaking sound. Somehow I found myself at the door, but I was afraid to go out into the dark hall—and then quite suddenly my voice came back, and I let out a scream that chilled me to the bone.
It must have scared the others, too, because Lucy gave forth a terrified yell not three seconds later, and Mary and Ken were in the room with us before the echoes had died away. My own scream seemed to have calmed me a little, and I was able to pat Lucy's quivering shoulder while I told the others, almost steadily, to look behind the couch.
Mary, quite automatically, had started to push the couch back against the wall, but as I spoke she stopped and looked down at it as though seeing it for the first time. Ken was already looking behind it, but he said nothing and made no exclamation of any kind, and I had a sudden cold fear that he found nothing—that the dreadful thing was gone again.
But Mary peered around his shoulder and immediately began to moan, "Oh, God! Oh, God! What is it—who is it? Quickly, Ken—see what it is."
Lucy got up and went over to take a look, although I tried to hold her back. After one glance she went off into her own peculiar brand of hysterics, but this time it didn't last very long. Ken picked up a glass of water, and his obvious intention of flinging it at her startled her into silence. He took the opportunity to tell her that she'd get it right in the face if she didn't keep quiet.
She said, "All right, all right—but get the police quickly."
Ken nodded and went off to the telephone, and Mary turned to me with a look of agonizing fear on her face. She's afraid it's Homer, I thought, and it is, too—it must be.
I took her arm firmly and urged her from the room, while Lucy followed so closely that she was treading on our heels.
In the hall Mary stopped, swung around on Lucy, and cried hysterically, "If you go out into the kitchen and start making something I'll scream."
I said, "Nonsense! A good hot cup of coffee is what you need."
But Lucy had no intention of leaving us, and we went on to the living room, where I established Mary in a chair.
"But we ought to go back there," she whispered. "We must find out what it is—who it is. Oh, God! Eugenia, it can't be—"
"You stay where you are," I said firmly. "You'll do no good by running around and getting in Egbert's way. He'll be here soon, and then we'll find out what it is."
"You mean who," Lucy shrilled. "Who it is. My God! What's going here anyway!"
"Shut up, Lucy," I said out of the corner of my mouth. "If I have to throw I water on you it'll be a pailful."
She subsided sulkily into a chair and looked at Mary, who lay with her head dropped back and her, eyes closed.
"I'm leaving here," Lucy muttered. "First thing in the morning
Mary opened her eyes. "Why not now? The sooner the better
They started to quarrel, and I decided that it would do them both good and slipped out into the hall.
Ken was standing near the front door, smoking a cigarette and dropping ashes onto the rug, and I went up and joined him.
"It must be Homer—in there?"
He nodded rather absently.
"Have you looked?"
"Nope. Instructions were to touch nothing."
He handed me a cigarette, and we fell silent, smoking and dropping ashes onto the rug until we heard the clang of the elevator door out in the hall. Ken opened the door, then, and Egbert marched in.
He nodded at us briefly, but when his eye fell on me he started back and blushed all over his face. I looked down at myself in some perplexity, then realized, with dawning shame, that I had forgotten to put on my dressing gown and was standing before the two of them in a not quite knee-length pajama top.
In my confusion I turned on Ken. "You might have told me—naturally I was too upset to notice."
Ken merely stared at me and asked, "What in hell are you talking?" and I flew into my room and jammed my arms into the robe.
Egbert and Ken followed me and proceeded to pull the couch farther from the wall. I caught a glimpse of the wrapped form and the pinkish material before I turned my eyes away, feeling a little sick.
"I told you to look for him, earlier," I muttered to Egbert. "'I told you it must be around somewhere, but you wouldn't believe me."
"I'm sorry," Egbert said formally. "I did try to check up on your statement, but you will remember that you were receiving medical attention in this room, and I did not want to disturb you."
"Very proper," I murmured. "After all, I'm perishable, but he'll keep.
But Egbert had stopped listening to me and was busy unwinding yards of pinkish material.
I had just caught a view of Homer's face when I heard a stirring behind me and turned to find Mary and Lucy in the room. I took a quick step toward I Mary, but I was too late—she had already seen. Her face looked pinched and frozen, and somehow unbelieving. Lucy, with no sign of her usual hysterics, tried to urge her from the room, but Mary shook her off without being aware her and whispered, "Homer."
Ken turned his head and saw us. "Here!" he said sharply. "Take Mary out of this."
He came toward us as Mary darted forward, crying, "Homer, Homer—he can't be dead—he isn't. Why don't you get a doctor—quickly !"
Egbert barred her way with an outstretched arm and gave us an appealing look, and Lucy and I went over and led her away. She must have realized, then, that Homer was dead, for she came with us without further protest.
But she would not go to bed. She said excitedly, "Don't be silly—I shall have to see to things. There's so much to be done. It's so dreadful. Homer never hurt a living soul. . . . Dreadful. ... I can't face it. And I thought he had come back. He was here—right here on Tuesday—don't you remember?"
She sat down on the antique couch in the hall and began to cry quietly. After a while she gave a vague glance at the couch, got up immediately and smoothed the cushion, and then made for the living room. Lucy and I followed watchfully, and when she flung herself into a chair and abandoned herself to hysterical weeping we sat down on each side of her.
Ken presently came and looked in at us. He said that Egbert would like to ask some questions, and Lucy shrugged.
"He can have Gene and me, if he wants us, but he'll have to let Mary alone. Look at her."
Ken went and leaned over Mary and talked gently to her, but she seemed hardly conscious of him, so he patted her shoulder and went away again.
I glanced at Lucy, who was running her thumbnail back and forth across the arm of her chair, and then at Mary, who was still drowned in tears, and I stood up abruptly.
"Go and make some coffee, Lucy. I'll stay here with her. She ought to be to cry it out—it's the best thing she can do."
Lucy gave me a look of gratitude and relief and hurried off to the kitchen, and I began to pace the room. It was quite light outside now, and I had to suppress a longing that was almost a physical pain to go out into the sunshine and never come back. I glanced at Mary and was shocked by a sudden desire to scream out at her to shut up. To make up for the ugly impulse I went over and tried to offer her some sympathy, but she shook me off, so I went to her bedroom and got her a couple of clean handkerchiefs, because it was the only thing I could think of.
When I got back I was a bit startled by her appearance. She had thrown her head back and her face was ghastly pale. The tears still slid over her cheeks but she no longer made any effort to wipe them away.
I went back to my room, where I found Ken and Egbert talking in low voices, while the body of Homer lay covered with a sheet. I kept my eyes away from it while I told Ken about Mary. He nodded, said something to Egbert in an undertone, and accompanied me back to the living room. He looked Mary over and then decided, "I'll give her a sedative."
He prepared a concoction from the prescription he had brought for me and forced Mary to take it by sheer powe
r of will. He raised her from the chair and half carried her to a couch, where he made her lie down, despite a faint, involuntary protest. She did give me a glance of appeal and indicated her slippers, and I hastily removed them, because I knew she'd never rest if they were messing up the cushions. I covered her with a light blanket, and she settled down and seemed to go to sleep almost at once.
I gave Ken a doubtful look and said, "That must have been a pretty powerful sedative," but he shook his head.
"It was only something to relax her—wouldn't even have put her to sleep. She's been under a terrific strain since Homer disappeared—and now she knows where he is, even if he's dead. I expect she'll sleep for a long time."
"Yes," I muttered, "I see. The medical corps really did a job on you, didn't it?"
Lucy came in bearing a large tray, and we silently steered her back into the dining room, where we sat down at the table. I felt that I had never wanted coffee so much before in my life, and I was well into my second cup when Egbert drifted in.
He looked us over with a certain amount of perplexity and asked, "Were any of you playing a practical joke on Tuesday, when Mr. Fredon's pipe was found smoking, and when his things appeared here and there—with Suzy saying he was out in the kitchen?"
We stared at him in dead silence, and he added mildly, "Because he's been dead for quite some time."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
"DO YOU MEAN HE—he was dead before Tuesday?" Lucy whispered.
Egbert nodded and moved in on us. He sat down at the table and put his elbows on it, while Lucy offered him coffee.
"Somebody was deliberately trying to give the impression that Mr. Fredon was still alive—after he had been killed."
"I can't see any reason for that," Ken muttered.
Egbert glanced around at us and asked, "Any of you have an idea?"
We had none, so he went on, "Suzy must have been in on it, since she came and announced that Mr. Fredon was out there."
"Why, yes," I agreed slowly, "but when we couldn't find him she seemed anxious that we search the place, and said something about looking under things—which was peculiar when you come to think of it. Maybe she had found him dead, I mean—and wanted someone else to make the discovery."
Egbert, with a patient sigh for my lame brain, asked, "Then why did she light his pipe and pretend that he had been smoking it?"
"Well, maybe she didn't," I protested. "After all, she was killed herself—that same night, too. Someone else probably heard Suzy say that Homer was out in the kitchen and then lit up the pipe to—to give some atmosphere."
Egbert, still patient, shook his head. "Before all that a pair of Mr. Fredon's shoes was found in the hall. The idea that he was still alive was presented long before Suzy said he was in the kitchen."
Ken stirred, rumpled his hair, and gave his head a shake. "All right," he said, "how's this? Suzy had stumbled across the body at some time and figured she knew who had done it—only she was afraid to say anything. She thought it over and decided somebody ought to know, so she set about giving the impression that he had returned in order that people would start looking for him. She started with the shoes and, when that didn't work, tried the pipe and saying he was there, so that the place would surely be searched."
"Yes, that's it," I said eagerly. "Because when she told us he was there she kept looking up the hall at the front door, so that we wouldn't think he was slipping out while she was talking to us. Then there were those busts out in the hall—I suppose she turned them around the way Homer liked them— and when we finally decided that he had played hide-and-seek with us and got out she told us we'd better search under things, and Mrs. Budd asked her not to be ridiculous."
Egbert sighed. "In the end I suppose she put those things on the couch, to give the impression that Mr. Fredon had slept there—and that was when she was murdered—somehow made to take poison. The couch was left that way, and of course it looked as though Mr. Fredon had done the murder. Apparently there was some imperative reason for keeping his body hidden."
"Betty was hidden too," Lucy said with a shiver.
Egbert nodded. "But even after she was found there seemed to be a frantic effort to keep the other one hidden."
Ken, who had been making patterns on the tablecloth with his coffee spoon, looked up and said, "That's simple enough. After Suzy had made it appear that Homer was in and out of the place it was important to keep him hidden so that everyone would think he had done the murders."
I glanced at Egbert's impassive face and knew that he was trying to get something out of us—some faint suggestion of a motive, probably—because after all, what reason had anyone to kill Betty and Homer? I was pretty sure that John had been fooling around with poor little Suzy, and perhaps she had thought John had done the murders. So she kept quiet about it, but her conscience troubled her, and she tried to get us to search the place. I wondered if Homer's body had been in the drawer with Betty's—and if so, why it had been removed to the bin.
"What about those vegetables?" I asked suddenly. "The stuff that was in the storage bin in the kitchen. Where is it now?"
"Oh, those were all radishes," Lucy said. "Seems it's been a good year for radishes, or something, and everybody's been growing the things. Mary didn't grow any, but her neighbors kept giving her radishes, and she brought them all down, because she hates to waste anything. There were so many that she put them into the bin, but she said she was going to clear them out of there today. As a matter of fact I helped her take them out tonight—we put them in a box."
"Was the freezing unit on?" Egbert asked. Lucy shook her head. "Why not?"
"Mary said it wasn't necessary—said we'd eat the radishes up quickly— and I've been using them at every meal, but there's an awful wad of them." She paused to swallow down a yawn and then asked with a little shudder, "Was he under those radishes?"
Egbert shrugged, frowned, and got to his feet.
"I must speak to Mrs. Fredon as soon as she wakes."
He went off and left us looking at one another without much to say.
"Oh, God!" I muttered after a while. "I can't stay here. I'd rather go to jail."
"I'll gladly share a cell with you," Lucy moaned.
Ken divided a glance of utter disgust between us. "Shut up! Both of you! You're not helping anyone by going on like that—and why don't you think of Mary? She'll need all we can give her when she wakes up."
Lucy and I looked suitably ashamed and began meekly to shift the dishes into the kitchen. When we had washed them and put them away; Ken suggested that we take a nap, and offered to keep an eye on Mary while we rested.
"You needn't think I'm ever going to lie on that couch again," Lucy declared, with a shudder so violent that she had to pull her girdle down after it. I agreed to lie on the couch but insisted that it would have to be moved to another part of the room, and Ken said impatiently, "All right, come on and I'll help you to move the thing."
In the hall we came upon Egbert, slinking around with a carrot in his hand.
"What on earth is he doing now?" Lucy bawled. "I declare, I think the man's touched."
"You can't touch pitch without being defiled," Egbert observed bitterly and somewhat obscurely. "I'm trying to decide why there should be a carrot in the desk here."
"People chew on them, sometimes, when they are writing out checks." I murmured, trying to look innocent. "It has a calming effect."
Lucy giggled, and Egbert gave me a narrow, cold, calculating glance that scared me straight into my room. Lucy followed at my heels, but Ken apparently forgot about helping me to move the couch, for he stayed out in the hall.
I heard him start on Egbert, using his sergeant's voice.
"I'd like to know just what progress you've made. For instance, why did Mrs. Emerson and Mr. Fredon spend a night in Binghamton?"
Egbert, evidently impressed by Ken's rather obvious sergeant tactics, answered quite mildly that he did not know. He had made every possible effort t
o clear up their movements there and had failed. If he could solve that one little thing, he added plaintively, he could break the case without delay.
"They had a late lunch and then went out in the car and were gone for over four hours before they returned to the hotel. There is absolutely no trace of where they went or what they did. I cannot find that either of them had any friends in the vicinity—or any business associates—and yet, there it is."
"Can't Emerson throw any light on it?" Ken demanded.
"He insists he knows nothing about it, and Mrs. Budd backs him up. They declare that they cannot imagine what Mrs. Emerson went for—except that it was not to elope with Fredon."
"What about the friend in New York that Betty was supposed to be visiting?"
"She was not expecting her that weekend and insists that Mrs. Emerson would certainly have made arrangements beforehand if she had planned to come."
The inspector sounded like Pfc. Egbert by this time, and Ken was thundering his questions.
He was silent for a moment, and then he asked, "What about Mary? Are you quite sure she can't explain the Binghamton trip?"
"She continues to insist that her husband never went there at all. Says the woman in the apartment below heard him walking around; he would certainly never have made such a trip without letting her know; and what possible reason would he have had for accompanying Mrs. Emerson to Binghamton anyway?"
"Have you made any effort to find out who was walking around the apartment?" Ken roared.
"Oh yes," said Egbert in the too quiet voice of one about to score a point. "I know who was here, of course, but it is not very enlightening. It was merely Mrs. Budd doing a little prying."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
LUCY RAISED HER EYEBROWS at me, and I thought of John losing his eye in that drawer.
"Mrs. Emerson," Egbert was saying, "told her mother that Mr. Fredon was driving to Binghamton and had offered her a lift as far as New York, so that Mrs. Budd knew the apartment was empty, and she was in here both Saturday and Sunday. She saves her face by explaining that she thought she heard a noise, and since Mr. Fredon had carelessly left the balcony doors unlocked, he might just as easily have left the front door unlocked, or the gas turned on, or something of that sort. So she went in to check up. She says. However, she was there on Sunday only until one o'clock—when her dinner was ready—and she did not go back in the afternoon."
The Black Dream_Rue Morgue Vintage Mysteries Page 16
