The Black-Headed Pins
Constance and Gwenyth Little
From The Black-Headed Pins
We finished our coffee, and Doris stood up. "Well—don't you be scared, dearie. You just make a dash upstairs to your bedroom, and it'll all be over in a minute."
I thought of Rhynda and immediately convinced myself that she would be back in her bed by this time and that I had better take Doris's advice.
She announced that she was going to leave the kitchen light on, said good night to me, and went off to her room.
I started into the back hall and then realized that the downstairs hall light had either gone out or been switched off.
I backed into the kitchen again, relieved myself by swearing softly but luridly, and controlled a strong desire to cry.
I decided to go around by the butler's pantry, dining room, and the large drawing room, where I could turn on the lights as I went along.
I got through the butler's pantry, and leaving the door wide, found my way easily to the dining-room switch. With the dining room comfortably flooded with light, I started back to turn off the switch in the butler's pantry.
Something odd about the dining-room table caught my attention, and I turned to look. It was the telephone that I had last seen on the bedside table in my old room. I stared at it and then bent down to look at it more closely.
The mouthpiece was stained with blood.
Books by Constance & Gwenyth Little
The Grey Mist Murders (1938)
The Black-Headed Pins (1938)
The Black Gloves (1939)
Black Corridors (1940)
The Black Paw (1941)
The Black Shrouds (1941)
The Black Thumb (1942)
The Black Rustle (1943)
The Black Honeymoon (1944)
Great Black Kanba (1944)
The Black Eye (1945)
The Black Stocking (1946)
The Black Goatee (1947)
The Black Coat (1948)
The Black Piano (1948)
The Black Smith (1950)
The Black House (1950)
The Blackout (1951)
The Black Dream (1952)
The Black Curl (1953)
The Black Iris (1953)
The
Black-Headed Pins
By Constance 8c Gwenyth Little
The Rue Morgue Press
Boulder, Colorado
The Black-Headed Pins Copyright© 1938, 1966
New material © 1999 by The Rue Morgue Press
0-915230-25-9
Reprinted with the permission of the authors' estate.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Although all but one of their books had "black" in the title, the 21 mysteries of Constance (1899-1980) and Gwenyth (1903-1985) Little were far from somber affairs. The two Australian-born sisters from East Orange, New Jersey, were far more interested in coaxing chuckles than in inducing chills from their readers.
Indeed, after their first book, The Grey Mist Murders, appeared in 1938, Constance rebuked an interviewer for suggesting that their murders weren't realistic by saying, "Our murderers strangle. We have no sliced-up corpses in our books." However, as the books mounted, the Littles did go for all sorts of gruesome murder methods—"horrible," was the way their own mother described them—which included the occasional sliced-up corpse. But the murders were always off stage and tempered by comic scenes in which bodies and other objects, including swimming pools, are constantly disappearing and reappearing. The action took place in large old mansions, boarding houses, hospitals, hotels, or on trains or ocean liners, anywhere the Littles could gather together a large cast of eccentric characters, many of whom seemed to have escaped from a Kaufman play or a Capra movie. The typical Little heroine—each book was a stand-alone—often fell under suspicion herself and turned detective to keep the police from slapping the cuffs on. Whether she was a working woman or a spoiled little rich brat, she always spoke her mind, kept her sense of humor, and got her man, both murderer and husband, But if marriage was in the offing, it was always on her terms and the vows were taken with more than a touch of cynicism. Love was grand, but it was even grander if the husband could either pitch in with the cooking and cleaning or was wealthy enough to hire household help.
The Littles wrote all their books in bed—"Chairs give one backaches," Gwenyth complained—with Constance providing detailed plot outlines while Gwenyth did the final drafts. Over the years that pattern changed somewhat but Constance always insisted that Gwen "not mess up my clues." Those clues were everywhere and the Littles made sure there were no loose ends. Seemingly irrelevant events were revealed to be of major significance in the final summation.
The Littles published their two final novels, The Black Curl and The Black Iris, in 1953, and if they missed writing after that, they were at least able to devote more time to their real passion—traveling. The two made at least three trips around the world at a time when that would have been a major expedition. For more information on the Littles and their books, see the introductions by Tom & Enid Schantz to The Rue Morgue Press editions of The Black Cloves and The Black Honeymoon.
CHAPTER 1
I hate old houses—and I have a special hatred for large old houses. As far as I am concerned, "old-world" and "antique" mean cracks that conceal spiders and roaches, holes that are nothing more than doorways for mice, and insecurely fitted windows that let in just enough wind to sway portieres and drapes. I shall never again live in a house that is not absolutely new, with varnished floors and clean, bright paper on the walls.
I don't think Mrs. Ballinger liked the house either. It was a great rambling barn of a place in the wilds of Sussex County, New Jersey, and had belonged to her husband before he died, but they had never lived in it. Mrs. Ballinger paid taxes on it for a year or two, but nobody would rent or buy it, and at last she couldn't stand it any longer—taxes going out, and nothing coming in—so she moved in herself. The place was filled with dusty, dreary old furniture, and Mrs. Ballinger hired a cook, who had regular days off, and me, as general slave, and set us to work dusting and cleaning up.
She had got me in one of my weak moments. I had recovered from my father's death to find that there simply wasn't any money, and my sister-in-law had come forward and very graciously offered me a home.
Mabel Ballinger was living in the apartment above me at the time, and it wasn't an hour after my sister-in-law had finished being gracious that she came down and offered me a job as companion in her lovely old country place in New Jersey. I accepted thankfully, and by the time I found out that the country place was a dilapidated, creepy old barn, and that Mrs. Ballinger put every penny through a mangle before parting with it, my sister-in-law was miffed and had stopped being gracious.
We moved out to Sussex County in April, and by December I was frantically saving my salary so that I could get a bit ahead and find myself a decent job back in civilization. In the meantime, I took almost fanatical care of the few nice clothes left over from the prosperous days with my father.
Late in the summer, Mrs. Ballinger had decided to ask her nieces and nephews for a Christmas houseparty. It was a mixture of duty and business that had prompted her. She knew she would not see much of them in the winter, and then, one of the nephews, John Ballinger, liked puttering around with tools and always did a great deal of free repair work for her.
One evening a week before Christmas, she sat down in the great drafty old living room with pad and pencil and began solemnly to make out her list of guests.
I sat huddled in an armchair, trying to keep warm and wondering idly whether to waste my breath on a suggestion th
at we build a wood fire in the fireplace. I knew there were some logs in the cellar, but she had said firmly, at the beginning of the cold weather, that they were to be saved in case something went wrong with the furnace.
I watched her poring over the list and laughed silently. She and I both knew that list by heart. She had no friends of her own age, and she would not have dreamed of wasting money on an outsider in any case. Several times as she sat there she glanced uneasily over her shoulder, not at me, but into the dim corners of the large shadowy room.
After the third time, I said uncomfortably, "Why do you keep looking behind you? Are you— expecting anyone?"
She grew quite irritable. "What on earth do you mean? I'm not looking behind me. Do you think I have eyes in the back of my head?"
I passed it up and asked pacifically, "Have you finished your list?"
"It's almost complete." She hesitated and added wistfully, "I wish I didn't have to include Rhynda."
Rhynda was John's wife, and I raised my eyebrows. "But of course you can't leave her out."
She made no reply and bent over the pad again, and I stared at the empty fireplace and tried to forget about the logs in the cellar. Presently, she stirred and turned around. "There—it's finished. You take it, my dear, and arrange bedrooms for them while I make out the grocery list."
I took the slip of paper and glanced over it briefly. It was just as I had expected—no extras. John and Rhynda, Berg and Freda Ballinger, John's brother and sister, and Mrs. Ballinger's own personal niece, Amy Perrin. Arranging the rooms was no problem. There were plenty of them; and I simply said eeny, meeny, miney, mo, and got everybody bedded down somewhere. I was pleased to note that Amy had drawn a room that was well away from the bathroom. She was apt to monopolize the bathroom, and there was only one. Mrs. Ballinger would not go to the expense of installing any more, although she could have done it cheaply, had she wanted, by making three modern bathrooms out of the old one.
I stood up and cleared my throat. "May I make a suggestion?"
She swung around and peered at me. "Why, certainly."
"Don't you think you might invite a couple of men friends for your nieces? And perhaps a girl for Berg? It would be more fun for them."
I knew she would refuse, of course. It was as hopeless as asking for the logs would have been, and I merely wondered idly what form her refusal would take.
She tapped her pencil on the desk for a moment, and then shook her head.
"No, I think not. After all, it's just a family party, and in any case, Freda has no men friends."
"I expect Amy would have enough for two," I said mildly.
"I won't have any of Amy's friends coming up here," she retorted sharply.
I gave it up. Even if she had doted on Amy's friends it would mean extra mouths to feed and extra gifts on Christmas. I wondered if she was planning a gift for me and decided that, in any case, I had better get her something that would be appropriate from slave to mistress.
"Have you arranged their bedrooms?" she asked abruptly.
I gave her my plan, and she considered it, foot tapping, and brows drawn together. "Well," she said at last, "I think I'll change that just a little."
She changed it completely, and I was grimly satisfied that Amy's room was still a considerable distance from the bathroom. When that was settled to her satisfaction, she showed me the menu for the Christmas dinner and a neat list of the food she'd have to buy.
I was appalled. The list was about the same as those she had made out for the summer weekends when she had never had more than two of them down at a time.
I pulled myself together and determined to make a stand of some sort. I thought it over for a moment and then said firmly, "Mrs. Ballinger, this is really a very extravagant list."
Her cheeks mottled over with angry red. She knew it was as stingy as she had dared to make it.
"Explain yourself," she said shortly.
I took a long breath, and had time to hope feverishly that I sounded plausible.
"It's simply that you have no fancy extras—I mean, candy, almonds and raisins, things like that. Now I don't believe in foolish waste, myself, but people expect that sort of thing at Christmas. I'm afraid your relatives will think that you've simply forgotten about those things, and probably they'll go to the grocery and charge all sorts of expensive things to your account, and they'll suppose that they're helping you. If you order them yourself, you can keep the expense down to a minimum."
"Rubbish!" she said promptly. "They would not dare to use my account."
I waited while she turned her pencil nervously in her fingers. Presently, with every sign of weakening, she observed, "They know I would not tolerate such a thing." I continued to wait, and at last she held out her hand and said gloomily, "Give me back the list."
I returned it silently and peering over her shoulder watched her add, "One bag peanuts, one bottle hard candy (small), one packet raisins."
"What about a bottle of inexpensive wine?" I murmured hopefully.
But she had been pushed to the limit. "No," she said with finality. "They are not coming down here to drink."
I thought violently, "What the hell are they coming down for?" and felt somewhat relieved.
She put the pencil and pad away carefully and stood up. "Time for bed," she announced crisply.
I longed to say, "Time to stop burning the living-room lights, you mean," but controlled myself and followed her dutifully out into the hall.
Halfway up the stairs, she said suddenly, "You know, I've a good mind to put the whole thing off."
"You can't!" I said desperately. "I mean, how can you? You told them about it last summer, all of them, and they said it would be lovely, and they're—they must be counting on it. Made their plans, you know."
She continued to mount in grim silence, and I cast about in my mind wildly for something more convincing. I felt that spending Christmas alone with Mabel Ballinger was simply too much to put up with.
"The roof," I said suddenly. "It's leaking badly. And John promised to fix it at Christmas. You can hardly ask him without the others."
"Yes—well, yes, I suppose you're right. I'll have to go through with it."
I sighed with relief and was shortly to regret bitterly that I had ever thought of the roof. She reached the top step with a grunt, and I pressed close behind her. We both stood for a moment, looking down the great shadowy, empty hall, listening to the wind which was now howling around outside the house. Then we started slowly towards our bedrooms, which adjoined.
We had gone about halfway when we heard the noise.
It seemed to be directly over our heads, and it was a sort of dragging sound, as though something heavy and soft were being pulled jerkily along the attic floor.
We waited, petrified, until it had stopped, and then I looked at her fearfully. I decided in a panic that if she told me to go up to the attic and investigate I would refuse point-blank.
She turned her head away from me and shivered and pulled her knitted wool scarf more closely around her. "Rats," she said faintly. "I—we must put traps up there, in the morning."
She laid an unsteady hand on my arm and drew me into her bedroom.
I switched on her bedroom lamp and turned down the bed while she watched me with eyes that didn't really see me. She shivered again, and I said as cheerfully as I could, "How about a hot-water bottle for your feet? It's cold up here."
She shook her head vaguely. "I think it must have been rats, don't you? I mean, old houses always have rats, don't they? And rats can make an astounding noise. Or squirrels. Do you think it might be squirrels?"
I did not think it had been either rats or squirrels—it had sounded much too heavy—but I wanted to be reassuring, for I was afraid she was going to ask me to spend the night in her room. I was shaking slightly with nervousness, myself, but I much preferred my own bed and room.
So I said heartily, "Oh yes, either rats or squirrels. Those things can make an aw
ful racket, and it always sounds louder when the house is quiet."
I decided to get Doris, the cook, who slept on the ground floor, to come up to the attic with me first thing in the morning for an investigation.
Mrs. Ballinger had seated herself on the end of the bed, her fingers gripping the post. There was an interval of uneasy silence, and then I said firmly, "Well, good night, Mrs. Ballinger. I hope you sleep well."
She did not seem to hear, and I started for the door. As my hand fell on the knob, she roused and called sharply, "Wait! Come back."
I turned back reluctantly and stood a few feet from her in an attitude of respectful impatience. She was looking straight ahead of her. "It wasn't rats, and you know it as well as I do. It was the old man."
I felt the prickle of hair along my scalp, and I had to swallow twice before I asked hollowly, "What old man?"
She faced me then and looked at me queerly for a moment. I braced myself and remembered that she was always running to cheap fortune-tellers and sending for her horoscope. She was intensely superstitious.
"Have you never heard the story connected with this house?" she asked slowly.
I said I hadn't—and refrained from adding that I didn't want to hear it. She gripped the mahogany poster of the bed more firmly. "It happened close on a hundred years ago. Edward Ballinger lived here then—he was over ninety—and he lived alone, except for several servants.
"He went up to the attic one day—no one knows why—and while he was up there, he fell off a chair and broke his leg. He apparently called for help but could not make himself heard, and he was there for several hours before he was discovered. A housemaid eventually heard him trying to drag himself across the floor towards the stairs.
"She called the other servants, and they carried him down and put him to bed, but when the doctor arrived, he pronounced him dead. I don't know what room he died in. I wish I did. It might even be this one."
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