Merchants of Menace

by Joan Aiken

  There were things about Caroline, of course, that Harriet de­plored; chiefly her insensitivity to music—some of the dreadful noises that Caroline permitted to pour from the radio made her sister dash to her own room in dismay. Caroline was so set in her ways, too—always the same habits at the same hours, hardly ever leaving the house, having no life or interests out­side of her home and her family; really, she was an old woman at sixty, whereas Harriet, only a year younger, still felt quite brisk and youthful. But take it all in all, Caroline was a darling, and Harriet was very happy with her.

  Philip, their junior by sixteen and seventeen years respectively, seemed more like a nephew than a brother. He had been one of those unexpected babies who sometimes arrive long after the family is considered complete. Their mother had paid for his birth with her life, and three years later their father had followed her. Caroline and Harriet had devoted their youth to raising their young brother. And they had made a good job of it, Harriet reflected.

  It hadn’t been easy, in the early years. Philip had been a rebellious child, resenting discipline. And as a youth he had had wild ideas. That dreadful ambition to go on the stage, for example; and that awful episode during his college days with that impossible girl, Mary Dwight, he had wanted to marry! But they had been firm, and the money was all theirs till Philip came of age, so in the end they had won. They had made Philip into a lawyer, as they had always intended to do. As for the girl—

  Harriet shuddered slightly as an unwelcome memory assailed her—the only time she and Caroline had seen the person who for nearly twenty years had been known to them only as “that woman.” Philip had dared to bring her home with him to meet his sisters. They had seen at once that she would never do. Tall, aggressive, brassy, with a strident voice—the last person in the world to take into their home—and of course they had never dreamt that Philip would leave the house. They had been so cool that the girl, for all her aplomb, had burst into tears, and Philip had taken her away. That night they had made him promise on their mother’s Bible that he would not see her again.

  And then—why was she thinking of all those unpleasant things? The music must have stirred her more than she realized. Then, when Philip had been admitted to the bar, at twenty-five, be had floored them with the revelation that he had broken his solemn vow and married that woman—worse, that he had bought a house—in Woodacre, fortunately, not in the city—and intended to live there with her, and his sisters could like it or lump it

  Things had finally adjusted themselves, of course. Blood is thicker than water, after all. Philip kept his old room, and after a few years he spent half his time at home, leaving that creature alone in Woodacre, whether she liked it or not. Her name was never mentioned in the Faulkner house on Pacific Avenue, and of course they had never seen her again. It was a silent compromise, with Philip forgiven on strict conditions.

  Except for that one lapse, he was a model brother now, and most dependable. For years they had not even had to worry about investment of their property. Philip, whose legal practice took up little of his time—he accepted nothing but civil suits and was fussy about those—managed everything for all of them.

  The money, quite a sizable fortune, though nothing stupendous, had been left by their father’s will to his three children equally. Until Caroline became twenty-one, a bank had been the trustee. Then Caroline had the management, with the bank’s guidance, for another year; after which Harriet came into her share, and they had managed Philip’s property jointly for sixteen years more. As soon as Philip had been admitted to the bar, the whole business had been put in his hands by his sisters, who were glad to be rid of the worry of it. Since bills were always paid and there was always plenty in their drawing-accounts, they had discouraged Philip from even making annual reports. What was the use, when it really belonged to all of them, and they all lived together?

  Thinking idly of these matters, Harriet reached the big wooden gingerbread house on Pacific Avenue. Taxis drew up to the front door, of course; but when they used their own car, they drove it by the side-path to the rear garage, once a stable.

  The house was an anomaly. Three stories, basement, and attic, with turrets and cupolas and stained-glass windows, it was in the best style of the 1880s and still stood in its own garden. The saplings dear father had planted were big shady trees now. On either side rose tall modernistic apartment houses. When the last Faulkner was gone, their house too would be torn down and another apartment house would take its place; but that would be a long time yet. Meanwhile, they were fortunate in still having their privacy. In both cases the sides of the apartment houses looking down upon them were pierced only by airshafts and narrow lead-glassed bathroom windows: they could pretend at least that they lived in their own exclusive world

  The only difficulty nowadays was that servants balked at work­ing in a house lacking so many modem improvements. But even so, they managed. They still had old William, who came daily to tend the garden and do the heavy work; and after a difficult interregnum they had Mamie back again. Mamie had come to them as cook after mother died. Then she had married. Caroline had offered to raise her pay to fantastic heights to dissuade her, but it had been useless. In the face of argument and prophecy, Mamie had insisted on abandoning them for her young police­man.

  It was Harriet, worn out by an endless succession of surly and inefficient servants, who had traveled all the way to the Mission District and persuaded Mamie to come back to them. Caroline could never have accomplished it, Harriet sometimes thought smugly. When she was twenty-two, Harriet had been courted and proposed to. Her suitor had been rejected, of course; but since then Harriet had felt herself an authority on men. She had known, as Caroline would not have known, that Fred Mullins, not Mamie, was the stumbling-block. Mullins had just been promoted to the detective force, and he didn’t want his wife working in another woman’s kitchen. But he was a soft-hearted Irishman, and Harriet—small, fragile, and appealing for all her dignity—had won him over. Mamie could no longer ’’live in,” naturally—she arrived at eight and left after preparing their dinner—but figuratively Harriet bore her home in triumph; and she was still with them, even though Fred Mullins by now was a full-fledged inspector on the homicide squad—indeed, a senior inspector, and very near the retirement age.

  Yes, they managed very well. They never had guests, they seldom went out, and there were rooms they never went near except to dust them. Of late years Philip was there more than he had been at first. Harriet and Caroline could not imagine what he did in that ridiculous cottage in Woodacre, especially on weekends. Surely that woman’s company could not be very entertaining. In college he had been something of an athlete, but though he was tall and strong still, he had never been one for hunting or fishing. Oh well, as long as he kept his two lives separate, and was there when his sisters wanted him, Harriet could not complain.

  “After all—men!” she sighed philosophically as the taxi came to a stop.

  She paid the driver crisply, carefully adding an exact ten percent tip, and as he drove away, reached into her handbag for the door key.

  It was nearly half-past eleven, yet there were lights in the front windows, upstairs and down, as she could see well, even though the shades were drawn. Through the closed door she could hear a raucous female voice singing something horrible on Caroline’s radio. What on earth had got into her sister? Usually she was sound asleep by the time Harriet came back from the symphony.

  Annoyed, Harriet inserted the key. It did not turn. She took it out and tried again. On an impulse, she turned the knob. It yielded: the door was unlocked, This was really too bad of Caroline—inexcusably careless.

  Crossly, Harriet marched into the living room and snapped off the radio abruptly. In the sudden silence she called: “Caroline! Where are you, Caroline?” There was no answer.

  Caroline’s favorite chair was drawn up to the fireplace, as usual; her interminable knitting lay on the little table beside it. A book she had been r
eading—Caroline could knit and read at the same time—lay face down on the seat of the chair. Harriet sniffed. Something was burning. She hurried out to the lighted kitchen. Smoke was coming from a saucepan on the stove. Hastily Harriet turned off the gas and with a holder carried the hot saucepan to the sink. It contained the scorched residue of milk—Caroline’s nightly boiled milk, which she drank every evening at nine-thirty.

  Alarmed now, Harriet ran upstairs to her sister’s room. It too was brightly-lit. Caroline’s bed was turned down; her night­gown and dressing gown lay across it, her woolly slippers at its foot. But Caroline was not there.

  A thought struck Harriet. She ran back to the kitchen. Flopsy’s bed was empty. Could Caroline have left the house to take Flopsy for his walk? It was Harriet’s nightly task, but this eve­ning it had been hard to find a taxi, and she had been later than usual. But would Caroline have left the radio going and the milk cooking? Anyway, there was a faint yapping outside the kitchen door. Harriet opened it—it too was unlocked—and let in a cold and shivering poodle, quite alone.

  Systematically, Harriet searched the house. Somewhere Caro­line must be lying ill. But the unlocked doors? As she searched she called, but no answer came. She entered every room, opened every closet, forced herself to the attic, the basement, the garden, with a flashlight. Still no Caroline.

  Panic-stricken, back in the living room, Harriet threw herself into a chair and tried to think. Had Caroline suddenly gone insane and rushed out of the house? Had robbers broken in and kidnapped her? She ran to the front door again and looked wildly up and down the street. It was after midnight by now, and neither pedestrian nor car was in sight. It was a foggy, windy night, and very dark. Harriet shuddered at the thought of running about those silent streets, not knowing where to go or what to do. For a moment she even meditated phoning the police. But that was only a sign of terror. If something dreadful had happened to one of the Faulkners, it must be kept strictly to the Faulkners. No Faulkner yet had ever provided entertainment for the public on the front page of a newspaper.

  There was only one thing left to do. Thank heaven Philip had a telephone in that Godforsaken cottage of his. She hated waking him, and dreaded hearing that woman’s voice—she’d always been lucky so far on the few occasions when she had had to phone Philip there instead of at the office—but the time had come when even Harriet Faulkner could no longer cope with the situation. She needed a man.

  The operator rang and rang, but there was no answer. Harriet nearly collapsed: had something happened to Philip too? And then, just as she was giving up in despair, his voice sounded.

  “Who is it?” he demanded. “For heaven’s sake, Harriet! We were sound asleep! What’s the matter?’’

  She was almost incoherent, but by making her stop and speak slowly in short sentences, Philip finally managed to get the story. At first he made light of it.

  “Good Lord, Harriet, nothing’s wrong. There’s probably some simple explanation. Maybe Caroline took Flopsy out for an airing and met somebody she knew and was detained. She’ll be walking in any minute. What time is it, anyway? I went to bed early.”

  Harriet told him the time, and explained about Flopsy.

  “Well—are you sure she hasn’t fainted—isn’t lying under the couch or something?”

  “I’ve been everywhere! I’ve looked in every corner—the garden too, and the garage. Oh, Philip, do you think I should call the police?”

  Philip showed the instantaneous Faulkner reaction. “No—not yet, anyway. Wait—I tell you what, Harriet, I’ll get dressed and drive down. I can make it in a little over an hour.”

  “I hate to have you do it, dear, but—” In spite of all her efforts, Harriet’s voice quavered.

  “Okay, Harriet. Hold everything. Take a drink of that sherry of yours and keep calm. I’ll be there as fast as I can—and if I find Caroline sitting there safe and sound, I’ll tell her plenty! Chin up, Harriet; we’ll laugh about this, all three of us, in the morn­ing.”

  But they didn’t laugh about it in the morning. All three of them never laughed about anything again. For that was the last of Caroline Faulkner.

  Harriet was prostrated, and glad to leave everything to Philip, who after all was a lawyer. Philip decided that this was not a matter for the police. Caroline, so far as they knew, had not been injured or killed; she had simply disappeared. Time enough for a public scandal if she should be found wandering some­where, suffering from amnesia. The thing to do was to try to find her. He engaged a discreet agency, the Biggs Company, gave them all the data, and told them to spare no energy or cost. They worked hard and sent in a thumping bill; but after two months they had to give up the search. Some dozen wretched women, in no way resembling Caroline, had been tracked down and interviewed by Philip. Of Caroline herself there was no trace.

  Time went on, and somehow Harriet and Philip adjusted them­selves to existence without their sister. Old William, the handy­man, had to be told, of course, and Mamie. But there were few acquaintances and no intimate family friends to worry about. Caroline had lived apart from even the small world of her sister, or the larger world of her brother. To the few casual inquiries, they answered vaguely that Caroline wasn’t very well, or that she was out of town for a rest. Gradually the impression arose among the three or four persons who knew of Caroline’s existence at all that she had probably lost her mind—you know how it is when those old families run to seed, my dear!—and was in a private home somewhere. Perhaps it would be more tactful not to mention her again. Nobody but Harriet and Philip really cared.

  For a while, Philip spent most of his nights with Harriet in the city, presumably leaving that woman to fare for herself in Woodacre. It was Harriet who, in an effort to be fair, suggested that he resume the way of life to which he was accustomed. She herself went out more often now—to the theater and lectures and concerts and the opera—and she had not the slightest nerv­ousness about coming home to an empty house, or spending the night alone in it. Tentatively Philip suggested a companion or secretary; but he might have known Harriet would pooh-pooh such an idea instantly. She wasn’t a helpless old woman! He even broached the idea of asking the Mullinses to give up their flat and move to the big half-used house; but Harriet, as he might have expected, was horrified.

  “What! A stranger—a policeman—living here, in dear father’s house! Why, Philip!”

  Philip made no further recommendations.

  “I’m perfectly all right,” she said brightly over Friday break­fast, some six months later, “run along and come home soon again.”

  Philip looked relieved, in spite of himself. “The place does need some work done on it,” he muttered. Harriet sniffed.

  Since he was forbidden to mention “that woman,” he took refuge in describing the constant improvements he planned on his “estate.” Recently he had had a barbed wire fence put around his twenty acres, and had posted it with signs threatening trespassers. He wanted no hikers or hunters tearing down his bushes or trampling his undergrowth.

  “Lucky to have had the wire for years—couldn’t get it now,” he explained to Harriet.

  “Silly to bother,” she said ungraciously.

  He smiled rather stiffly as he kissed her goodbye. He would take the car downtown and drive straight up from the office, he said. Now that gas was rationed, he used the car very little, keep­ing it in the garage most of the time. And with a thirty-five mile speed limit, it took longer to go and come than it used to.

  But he wanted to get home before dark, to see to that fence. Harriet sniffed again.

  This time it was Mamie who telephoned him, at eight o’clock on Saturday morning.

  Except for changes arising from Harriet’s different habits, the story was repeated. Mamie had come to work as usual to find the front door unlocked and lights on behind drawn shades in the living room and Harriet’s bedroom. Harriet’s reading glasses lay in the open book of Double-Crostics on which she had been working, and beside it st
ood a half-finished glass of sherry. Her bed also had been turned down and her night attire laid on it, but it had not been slept in. Flopsy was whining and scratching at the unlocked kitchen door.

  Harriet herself was gone.

  This was no case for the Biggs Company. Disliking it very much, Philip had to go to the police.

  “And nobody lower than a captain would do him, the desk sergeant told me,” Fred Mullins reported that night to his wife. “Tell your captain that Mr. Philip Faulkner wishes to speak to him,’ says he, high and mighty, to O’Rourke.”

  “Oh, well now, Fred, it’s distracted the poor man is, with the queer things happening to both my poor ladies,” said Mamie pacifically. “And, after all, Mr. Philip’s a big lawyer, and the Faulkners is big people.”

  “You and your Faulkners!” grumbled Fred. “I wonder I’ve let my wife work in someone’s kitchen so long. It was the little one got around me, that time. Don’t cry now, Mamie girl—I don’t blame you for feelin’ bad. I’m sorry meself, and if it turns out to be a matter for the squad, I’ll do everything I can to help.”

  “For the homicide squad! What ever do you mean, Fred? Do you think poor Miss Harriet—and maybe Miss Caroline—was murdered?”

  “And if not, where are they?” asked Mullins practically.

  Which was practically the same thing Captain of Detectives Joyce had been saying to Philip earlier in the day.

  The captain was considerably annoyed. “If you’d come to us six months ago—”