Berg gave me a crooked smile. "Association with a bunch of loopy Ballingers is spoiling your disposition."
"Leigh," said Richard suddenly, "did you ever hear that noise before we came?"
"Just once," I said slowly, and told them of the time Mrs. Ballinger and I had heard it. I told them, too, about the footsteps that had gone down the stairs and out the front door.
That interested them, as I knew it would, and in the end I broke my promise to Freda and told them her story of having seen who had moved John. They got quite excited about that, but I was firm about making them promise not to mention it to her.
"If we can get together on all this," Berg said, rumpling his hair, "Joe has a couple of deputies, and I think they intend to keep an eye on things, but I'm uneasy. I suggest we snoop around a bit and if we haven't uncovered anything by tomorrow night, I believe we should send for a private detective. I know you two haven't anything to do with all this, but I—well, I ask you as my friends, to help me."
Richard and I agreed at once to do anything that we could, and Berg turned to me.
"Then I'd like you to get after Freda and see of you can force her to tell who it was she saw moving John."
Richard opened the lid of the piano and stared absently at the dusty, discolored keys. "I shouldn't bank too strongly on that angle, Berg," he said, without looking up. "Remember, her accusation of Amy was pretty twisted."
"I know—but it was true up to a point. She had seen Amy cutting a rope." He reflected for a moment and turned to me again. "Another thing, Leigh. Try and find out what Amy and Freda are at each other's throats about."
I nodded, and we both looked at Richard, who was picking out "America" with one finger on the piano.
"Dick!" Berg said sharply.
"Hmm?"
"I'd like you to follow Joe and his henchmen around and keep abreast of anything new that they may pick up. I'm going to study that noise in the attic. If I have to sit up all night and every night I'm going to get to the bottom of it."
Richard closed the piano. "You have one thing to start on there," he suggested. Berg and I stared at him, and he went on slowly, "The two times we heard that noise the wind has been blowing a gale and howling around the house. There may be some connection."
Berg considered it, and I said eagerly, "I remember, now, that the night Mrs. Ballinger and I heard it, before you all came, there was a high wind blowing."
"Perhaps there is some connection," Berg admitted, and he left the room rather suddenly with a purposeful look on his face. I started to rise from the small settee where I had been curled up, but Richard came and lowered himself into it and pulled me back beside him.
"One moment," he said. "I have a bone to pick with you."
"I didn't know there was that much food in the house," I said brightly.
He rather absently possessed himself of my hand, and spreading it out on his own, regarded it thoughtfully.
"No amount of wit and airy persiflage is going to save you from facing the issue. I want to know—in fact, I damn well demand to know—why you brought Rhynda along on our date this afternoon. Could you have been feeling the need of a chaperon?"
"You flatter yourself," I said bitterly. "I didn't want Rhynda along at all. But she asked me point-blank where you were, and when I explained, she said she'd go too. She even beat me to the front seat."
He chuckled and closed his hand up, with mine inside it.
"You talk too much, Smithy. Explanations and alibis are feeble stuff, and people are apt to judge by results. Had you been smart enough, you could have saved the occasion somehow."
"The occasion really wasn't worth struggling for," I said, trying to draw my hand away.
But he tightened his hold and murmured, "Thanks, Smithy, thanks. And now for a few girlish confidences. I aim to get married some time this year."
I felt suddenly cold and remote. I stared at the opposite wall and said flippantly, "You'll have to hurry it up, then. You've only a few days left."
"You're so literal," he sighed. "Next year, then."
"What is she like?" I asked, trying to be casual.
"I really couldn't say."
I turned and looked at him. "You don't know what she's like, and yet you've made up your mind to marry her? In that case, she must be rich."
"A dirty crack," he decided, after a moment's thought, "and quite uncalled for." He turned his hand over, and mine with it, and seemed to be studying my fingernails. "To clear up a possible misunderstanding, I have not yet decided on my future bride."
I relaxed against the back of the settee and said piously, "Then there's hope for all of us. Incidentally, what's your hurry?"
His eyes wandered to my hair and he stretched a lazy arm and wound a strand around his finger. "It's my mother, you know. She'd like to see me safely married. She's afraid I'll be an old maid if it goes on much longer."
I nodded sympathetically, and he went on, laughing a little. "Will you come and visit my family sometime, Smithy, to see if they approve, in case I decide on you?"
"No," I said primly. "If you decide on me, they'll have to take me blind."
"That's hardly fair, Smithy."
Before I could reply, Mrs. Ballinger burst into the room like a whirlwind.
"Leigh!" she shrieked. "What do you mean by sitting here calmly, when Freda has completely disappeared?"
CHAPTER 12
We both sprang up and I felt the weight of the house drop heavily over me again.
"How long have you missed her?" Richard asked
"I don't know," she wailed, wringing her hands. "Berg just told me. He's looked everywhere."
We went out into the hall, Mrs. Ballinger talking excitedly all the time. I managed to gather from her that Rhynda and Berg were both searching, that dinner was ready, and that Amy and Donald were drinking firewater of some sort in the living room. Mrs. Ballinger and Richard disappeared towards the rear of the house, and I went directly to the living room, where Amy and her boy friend were sitting cozily over their cocktails.
Amy gave me a dirty look, but Donald Tait rose and asked courteously, "May I pour you one, Miss Smith?"
Amy and I spoke together. I said, "Thanks," and Amy said there was enough only for two, and it was their own liquor.
Donald murmured, "Don't be crude, darling," and I finished the drink in one gulp. I had a hazy idea that if Freda were in the house at all she would be somewhere close to Donald and Amy, and I began to move slowly around the shadowy room, looking to see if she were curled up in any of the large chairs.
"What are you doing now?" Amy asked irritably, obviously anxious to hound me out of the room.
"Looking for Freda," I said amiably and peered behind the heavy drapes at one of the windows.
Donald looked up quickly and asked, "What's happened to Freda?"
"Disappeared," I said briefly.
Amy was pouring the last drops of the cocktail mixture into her glass. "You're crazy to bother," she said. "You know Freda—she's hiding out just to annoy us."
Donald looked full at her. "You should have told me. Whether she's hiding on purpose or not, she must be found. You shouldn't be so obvious in your method, Amy."
He left the room, and I was aching to see Amy's face, but I had my back to her, and I did not want to be obvious in my method either. I think she finished her drink first, and then I heard her flounce out after him. She never left him alone for very long.
Most of the rooms in the house had large closets, and the living room had a super closet. It was cluttered with odds and ends and coated over with dust, and I had long suspected it of housing a thriving colony of mice. I had left it until the last because of the mice, but it was there I found Freda. I thought she looked a bit wild-eyed, and she would not come out until I had assured her that there was no one around.
"What were you doing in there?" I asked curiously.
She brushed ineffectively at the dust in her clothes and blinked owlishly in the l
ight. "I heard them make a date for cocktails before dinner, just the two of them, so I planted myself in the closet to hear what they had to say. I would have heard something, too, only you had to come in and spoil things."
"Something about John's death?" I said quickly.
"John's death?" she repeated vaguely. "Oh, yes. Of course."
She was obviously lying, but before I could pump her further, Mrs. Ballinger burst into the room and fell on her neck. Freda disentangled herself, and in answer to her aunt's questions and reproaches denied that she had been missing, refused an explanation, and gave it as her opinion that it was a pity a person could not be alone for a while without the whole household making a fuss. Mrs. Ballinger had to let it go at that and presently went off to send the word about that Freda had been found, and we were all to go in to dinner.
Dinner was more strained and unpleasant than usual that night, because Joe was with us. I don't know what right he had to be there, if any, and I think Mrs. Ballinger was on the verge of ordering him out. But I believe she was a little in awe of Joe, in spite of herself, and after directing a couple of long black looks at him, she left him in peace and turned her attention to other matters.
She entered into a minor skirmish with Amy and was finally victorious in making Amy sit nearly the table length away from Donald Tait. She directed me to go and get a sofa pillow, and when I returned with it, she insisted on stuffing it behind Rhynda. Rhynda protested to no purpose and was forced to finish her meal sitting on a bias, but Mrs Ballinger beamed at her and seemed to feel that her delicate condition had been suitably provided for.
We were all rather silent, which was a mistake, because when Joe was eating one heard the whole process quite clearly. I was considering excusing myself when Joe pushed his plate away, produced a toothpick, and announced that he'd heard Miss Ballinger had disappeared and been found again. He wanted to know where she'd been, and why.
Freda refused to answer, and Mrs. Ballinger said quickly, "It was all a mistake. We thought she had disappeared, but she had not."
Berg and Rosalie Hannahs supported this statement in chorus, and Joe looked us all over with an expression that assured us he was on to the fact that we were merely trying to avoid further questioning. But he grunted and let the matter rest.
We sat around in the living room after dinner and gave an involuntary but very good imitation of people in a dentist's waiting room. I asked Freda to come up to my bedroom for a chat, but she gave me a sidelong look and refused.
Mrs. Ballinger talked about the funeral that was to be held in the morning, but no one seemed to be listening. At about nine o'clock Richard and Berg went out, and I supposed that they were getting on with the investigation business. Rhynda left soon afterwards, and I felt sure she had gone after Richard and found myself sniffing.
I changed the direction of my thoughts and determined to get after Freda and make her talk. She was sitting in a straight chair, with her hands folded, staring at nothing. I edged over to her and said softly, "Wouldn't you like to sleep with me tonight, Freda?"
She looked up quickly and said almost breathlessly, "Yes, I would. It's kind of you."
"Then let's go up now. Tomorrow won't be easy, and we'd better get as much sleep as we can."
She assented listlessly, and we said good night to the others. Mrs. Hannahs was busy with some complicated knitting, Mrs. Ballinger was still droning on about the funeral, and Amy had picked up a magazine and was bent over it, studying it closely. Donald Tait sat apart, staring at the window and smoking innumerable cigarettes.
As we went upstairs, I thought with regret of my comfortable double bed. I hated having to share it with Freda, but I felt that it was all in the line of duty. I was confident that I could get her to talk, sooner or later.
As we undressed, I started to pump her, but it was like hitting against a stone wall. She sidestepped me every time, and at last she began to talk about a red sweater that she planned to knit for herself when and if she got back to town. She seemed to think that with the red sweater to set her off, she would look so attractive that certain troubles she had had would be smoothed away.
"What kind of trouble?" I asked.
"Oh well, not real trouble. But I haven't been looking as well as I might, and I intend to do something about it."
I was diverted, in spite of myself, and started to tell her delicately just how to improve her dressing and her general appearance. She brushed me and my ideas aside impatiently. "You don't understand my type," she said with finality.
I gave it up and let her prattle on. She seemed to have cheered up considerably, and I supposed it was because she did not have to face sleeping alone.
From time to time I heard sounds of the others coming up and going to their rooms, and after a while the house settled into silence. The wind dropped, and I glanced behind the drawn shade at the window and saw that there was a bright moon. Freda said suddenly,
70
THE BLACK-HEADED PINS
"I'm tired. Let's put out the light and go to sleep. We'll go to the bathroom first, though. If we go together it won't be so scary."
I agreed, and we went out and down the hall, but when we got to the bathroom door, she came over modest and said, "You wait here until I come out—or would you rather go in first?"
"Go ahead," I said resignedly, and she slipped in. I heard her lock the door and reflected, with faint amusement, that she probably would not use a bathroom that could not be properly locked. I heard her turn on the basin faucet, and I scuffed around impatiently and hoped that she would not take the time to brush her teeth.
There was no sound from any of the rooms, and the house was oppressively quiet. I thought of the noise in the attic and shivered nervously. I was about to call through the door and tell Freda to hurry when I heard a faucet jerked on, and water running into the bathtub.
I was instantly furious. She had no right to expect me to kick around in the hall while she took a bath! I marched back to my room indignantly, flung myself on the bed, and lit a cigarette.
I was far from relaxed, however. I kept glancing uneasily at the door, half-afraid that something or somebody would come creeping through. The dead silence seemed to press heavily on my ears, and at last I crushed out my cigarette and got up from the bed, because I had to do something.
I went out into the hall again and walked quickly down to the bathroom. I listened at the door, but there was no sound of any kind. I was conscious of my quickened breathing, and my hands were clammy. There should be some sort of movement! My fears started to rush up in a panic, and I had to stand still for a moment and whisper fiercely, "Don't be a fool! Don't be a fool!"
I took a long breath, tapped on the door, and called softly. "Freda."
There was no answer and no sound. I had been vaguely conscious that the light was still on in the bathroom, because I could see the glow at the end of the door. It dawned on me now, rather suddenly, that the door could no longer be locked, or even properly closed, since I knew that it fitted well and had no cracks.
Then Freda had probably left, perhaps gone to her room for something she had forgotten.
I put my hand on the door and gave it a tentative push, and it swung back far enough to reveal a chair. Freda's nightgown and dressing gown had been thrown over its back. I gripped the doorknob and felt panic stir in me again. She was still here, then—still in her bath—and when she had locked the door, it had not caught properly. I pushed the door wide and stepped into the room.
The bathtub was half-filled with water, and Freda lay in it, face down.
CHAPTER 13
I stood gaping foolishly at the still body and thinking helplessly that Freda would hate to have me see her in the nude.
As sense came back to me, I felt a scream coming on, but I managed to bottle it. I wheeled about, fled into the hall, and banged wildly on several of the closed doors. I leaned against the wall for a moment, panting, and was thrown into action again by the sudden tho
ught that Freda might still be alive. It had not been so long— . I raced back to the bathroom and began to tug frantically at Freda's shoulders, but I could not raise her. I shuddered and let her go, and at the same minute, I thought of the drain. I opened it and realized bitterly that it was the first thing I should have done.
Several people crowded into the bathroom then, and I gladly faded into the background. Richard and Donald Tait lifted her out of the bathtub and laid her on the floor. They tried resuscitation of some sort, but I did not stay to watch.
I hurried downstairs to telephone for the doctor. On the way down, and while I gave the number to the operator, I thought only of what I had to do, but while I waited for my connection I glanced around at all the dark empty rooms that yawned away from the hall and was suddenly hanging on desperately to what little control I had left.
Dr. O'Beirne promised to come at once, and I hung up, opened the front door and left it ajar, and flew up the stairs, all well within a minute.
They had carried Freda to her bedroom, and Rhynda told me they had found a nasty wound on her head. Rhynda looked near to collapse. She told me, not once but several times, that Freda must have slipped while she was getting into the bath.
I agreed with her at last. "Of course that's what happened," I said soothingly. "She slipped and hit her head and fainted."
Rhynda sighed and seemed to relax a little, and I put an arm around her and urged her towards her bedroom. She came quietly enough, and I helped her into bed and gave her one of Mrs. Ballinger's sleeping tablets. I went straight back to the bathroom, where I found Richard on his hands and knees beside the bathtub.
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
He raised his head and said in a preoccupied voice, "I was looking for some marks of where she hit her head when she slipped."
"Don't waste your time," I said and was duly surprised to hear that my voice was unnaturally high and loud. "If you want to get anywhere with your little magnifying glass and cloth cap act, then you'd better look for a weapon." Unexpectedly, even to myself, I followed this statement with a shrill giggle.
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