Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense

by Unknown

  “Sorry!” he said, and the young man turned. “My daughter’s not seeing anyone just now.”

  “Oh. . . . May I leave a note, sir?”

  “If you like,” said Charleroy reluctantly.

  The young man came forward; he took an envelope out of his pocket and a fountain pen; he began to write, holding the paper flat against the wall of the house. He doubled it over, and handed it up to Charleroy, who stood at the head of the steps.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir,” he said, smiling. It was a gay smile, but the long creases in his lean cheeks, the lines at the corners of his eyes gave him a battered look.

  “Walking back to the station?” Charleroy asked.

  “Well, no, sir. I’ve got a room here, at Glazener’s Hotel,” Winter answered. “Thank you, sir.”

  He turned away then, and Charleroy watched him all the way down the drive, with profound uneasiness and mounting anger. “That fellow’s going to try again to see Julia,” he thought. “That’s why he’s staying here. Very well, we’ll cope with him.”

  • • •

  He wanted to go up to Julia again, but in the hall he met Miss Ewing, coming through the swing door that led from the kitchen. She was wearing a smock over her dress and a towel pinned over her hair.

  “Cooking!” she cried. “I’ve got a really-truly Italian dinner for you, Mr. Charleroy! I went to the village myself and got the things.”

  “Very nice,” said Charleroy.

  He felt sorry for her, seeing how pleased she looked; for the first time he noticed dimples in her weather-beaten cheeks. “Lonely,” he thought. “She’d like a home of her own, poor woman. And she’s not likely to get one.”

  Then he heard a step on the stairs, and turned, to see Julia coming down. Her eye was still discolored and half closed; she moved more slowly than was usual with her; she was pale; ill, he thought.

  “Julia!” cried Miss Ewing. “You naughty girl! Go back!”

  “I think I’ll come down to dinner.”

  “No!” cried Miss Ewing. “You can’t! Get right back to bed, darling, and I’ll send you the nicest little tray you ever saw.”

  “I’d rather come down,” said Julia.

  “Julia, no!” said Miss Ewing, her voice unsteady. “You said you’d let me look after you. You know how good I am about looking after people. You’ll just undo all the good I’ve done.”

  “The house is nice and warm,” said Charleroy in protest. “If Julia gets to bed right after dinner, I don’t see what harm—”

  “No!” said Miss Ewing, in a high, trembling voice. “If I’m here to look after Julia, the least she can do—” A sob stopped her, and Charleroy looked hastily away.

  “All right!” said Julia, and turned back, up the stairs.

  Charleroy followed her halfway. “Julia,” he said, very low, “the fellow’s left a note for you.”

  “I don’t want it, Father.”

  “Julia,” he said, “that won’t do. Here! Take it!”

  She looked down at him, over her shoulder; then she reached her hand behind her and he put the envelope into it.

  “If you find anything in it that—bothers you,” he said, “anything you’d like to discuss—I’ll come up later.”

  She went on up the stairs then, her shoulders rigid, and Charleroy went back to the hall. “She says she doesn’t know Winter, but she must know something about him, or she wouldn’t have wanted to refuse the note. She’s nervous, very nervous. She shouldn’t be up there by herself. She ought to be down here, with me.”

  He sighed at the thought of a dinner alone with Miss Ewing, and went into the dining-room to mix himself a drink; he was still there, standing by the sideboard, when she reappeared, in a lightning change of costume, a long dress of dark-red satin, with long, tight-fitting sleeves and a small white fur collar, very crooked. She lit the candles on the table and sat down, in Helen’s place, smiling anxiously. Mrs. Brady brought in two plates of soup, thin and watery, with bits of sausage and cabbage floating in it.

  “I made it!” said Miss Ewing. “Minestrone.”

  “Very nice,” said Charleroy.

  “But it’s not hot!” cried Miss Ewing, as she tasted it. “I’ll tell Mrs. Brady—”

  “No, no! Don’t bother! I like it this way,” said Charleroy. For he had noticed a look on Mrs. Brady’s face, he had felt an indefinable chill in the atmosphere, and he wanted no domestic trouble. He obliged himself to swallow all of the unpalatable soup; he praised the chicken and the salad that followed; he responded as best he could to Miss Ewing’s sprightly conversation; he had a cup of coffee with her and a cigarette in the sitting-room before he went up to Julia.

  • • •

  He found her reading in bed, with a tray on the table beside her.

  “Did you eat a good dinner?” he asked.

  “No,” she answered. “I hate garlic. Father . . .”

  “Yes, Julia?”

  “Father, he’s the one. He’s the man.”

  Charleroy was silent for a moment. “The man—who brought you home Wednesday night?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Look!”

  He rose and took the note from her.

  “Dear Mlle. J. C.,

  “I’ve tried a couple of times to see you, but no luck. Didn’t want to telephone. Don’t worry about Wednesday night. I was your lucky escort. In case you want to talk it over, I’m at Glazener’s Hotel here, and entirely at your disposal.

  “Leonard Winter”

  “Yes . . . I see,” said Charleroy.

  Julia lit a cigarette and leaned back on the pillows. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “that it could be blackmail?”

  That had been Charleroy’s first thought, but he was sorry it had occurred to Julia. “I’ll deal with him,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  “I want to see him for myself,” said Julia. “I—in a way, I’ve got to see him. I’ll call him up now and tell him to come over.”

  “Tell him to come tomorrow morning.”

  “I’d rather see him tonight.”

  “No. Tomorrow morning,” said Charleroy. “I have reasons.”

  His only reason was that he wanted time to think, to examine the situation suddenly so changed for him. He could admit to himself now that he had believed Winter was the man who had been with Julia Wednesday night. But if he had not been . . .?

  “Suppose I’ve been wrong all along?” he thought. “Suppose those clothes of his were old things he’d left here, maybe months ago? He may have got a new driving license. I don’t remember the date on the one I saw. Maybe nothing happened. Not here. He was shot outside, on the road. Blackmail, murder, drugs, all a nightmare. Let it be nothing.”

  “I’m going to Chicago Monday, Julia,” he said, “and I’m going to take you along.”

  “I couldn’t go, Father.”

  “Certainly you can,” he said. “Nice little change for you.”

  “I can’t possibly,” she said. “You ought to understand.”

  He leaned forward to look at her, and regretted it. In spite of her half-closed and stained eye, her glance was steady and somber, infinitely disturbing. With both hands on the arms of the chair, he hoisted himself to his feet.

  “We’ll discuss it tomorrow,” he said. . . .

  • • •

  Charleroy was not accustomed to lying awake. But tonight he could not sleep. He could not plan a clear course of action. He could not state his problem; he did not know with what, with whom he had to deal. “You ought to understand,” Julia had said. Understand what? What did she think he knew? He flounced, angrily and wretchedly, in bed. He wanted to do something, to take some steps. But, in a horrible fog, he dared not move, for fear of hurting the ones he was determined to protect. He thought of the clear, quiet, untarnished Helen. Scandal, blackmail, murder
. . . .

  When he opened his eyes, there was a pale light in the room, and he thought that perhaps it was snowing. He rose and looked out of the window. But it was only a gray day; his watch showed half past eight. “That Winter fellow will be coming,” he thought. “I want to be ready.”

  He took a bath and shaved and dressed, and then he felt like Carrol Charleroy again. He went downstairs, portly and handsome, and in the hall below he met Julia. She was wearing a blue dress, and her hair was tied back with a bit of blue ribbon. The black eye was little improved, but there was a change in her that gave him heart. She did not look sullen now, but resolute; she had something of her old air of assurance.

  “I telephoned to that Leonard Winter man last night,” she said. “He’s coming this morning, at ten.”

  “I’ll deal with him,” said Charleroy.

  “I want to see him myself,” said Julia. “And if he’s got any ideas about blackmail, all right. I’ll just tell him to talk—as much as he wants, to anyone he wants. Let him spread the tale all over New York. I don’t care.”

  “That’s the way I like to hear her talk,” thought Charleroy. “But it wouldn’t do. Not with the other affair in the background.”

  “You’ve got to think of your mother,” he said.

  “Mother’s the most sensible person I know,” Julia said. “I’m just beginning to realize what a wonderful break it’s been for all of us to have such a sensible mother. When you come to think of it, she’s practically never wrong.”

  “No,” said Charleroy judiciously. “And how about me?” he thought. He would very much have liked a word of praise from Julia, but it was not in his nature to hint for it. “Wonderful woman,” he said. “But any scandal about you would upset her very much.”

  “I don’t know . . .” said Julia. “Let’s have breakfast, Father.”

  “Where’s Miss Ewing?”

  “Still asleep. And I hope she stays asleep for hours.”

  • • •

  They sat at the table together, with Mrs. Brady waiting on them; the dining-room was warm, pleasantly redolent of coffee and bacon; the wall sconces were turned on, making the glass and silver twinkle. And for a moment Charleroy could tell himself that perhaps nothing had happened, that this was no more or less than a cozy, happy breakfast of father and daughter, safe under their own roof.

  They heard a car coming up the drive; they heard the doorbell ring.

  “Mr. Winter’s here,” said Mrs. Brady.

  “Bring him in!” said Charleroy. “Sit down again, Julia. We’ll give him a cup of coffee.”

  But Julia remained standing, and, looking at her, Charleroy felt a sharp stab of pain. He could imagine what it must be to her, to face this man, this stranger with whom she had passed those lost hours; he felt an anger against Winter that turned him pale.

  “’Morning, sir!” said Winter joyously.

  He looked almost handsome in his well-cut dark suit; but why so gay?

  “Miss Charleroy?” he said, and held out his hand.

  “Good morning,” said Julia, making no move to take his outstretched hand.

  “A fellow I know borrowed my car, the day before yesterday,” he said. “He left me a note, to say he was driving out here to see you. And he and the car have both disappeared. I wondered if you’d have any idea where he went, after he left here?”

  “Sit down!” said Charleroy, so loudly, so imperiously that Mrs. Brady was startled, and dropped a spoon on a plate, with a little clatter.

  The swing door into the kitchen was open and Brady was in there. He and his wife heard what Winter said. They would, they must, surmise who the missing friend was. Had Winter meant them to hear?

  Winter was holding Julia’s chair, and when she was seated, he sat down across the table from her.

  “Oh, thanks!” he said, looking pleased by the cup of coffee Mrs. Brady set before him.

  “Nice little village here,” he observed.

  Everything he said had for Charleroy an undertone of ugly and dangerous meaning; his debonair cheerfulness was ominous.

  “How long do you intend to stay out here?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t know, sir. My plans are flexible.”

  “What about your dancing lessons?” Charleroy asked, with scorn.

  “Oh, they’ll keep,” said young Winter. “Might I have another cup of coffee, please?”

  “I think your friend was killed,” Julia said suddenly.

  “What?” asked Winter. “I beg your pardon? What did you say?”

  She had grown very pale, but her voice was steady, and her glance, fixed on his face. “The police found a man in a car, just outside our grounds,” she said. “The car was registered in your name.”

  “Lord!” said Winter. “A smash-up?”

  “No,” she said. “He was shot. You’d better go to the police at once. They think it was you who was killed.”

  She rose; they stood facing each other. “She’s superb!” thought Charleroy. “She knows Winter’s bound to find out the whole thing—and she’s simply telling him to go to the police—and to hell with him.”

  “You’d better go, right away,” she said, and turned and went out of the room, straight and easy. And, for all this great dread and fear, Charleroy felt an immense pride in her.

  “You’d better go,” he repeated to Winter.

  “Yes, sir,” said Winter. “Any way you say. But first I’d like to speak to you about Wednesday night. To you, or to Miss Charleroy.”

  “This is it,” thought Charleroy. “This is blackmail.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “On Wednesday night I was wandering around in the St. Pol, and I saw Ivan Barlow at a table with two girls.”

  “Where did you first meet Ivan?”

  “In North Africa, sir, in an officer’s mess. He was there—”

  “Very well. Get on with it.”

  “Well, Ivan gave me a sign to join them, and I did. He and his wife got up to dance and I sat at the table with your daughter. She said she wasn’t feeling so well, and she asked me to take her out for a little walk in the fresh air. We got our coats and we left, but after half a block she couldn’t navigate. She fell and hit her head on the pavement, which accounts for her black eye. I didn’t think she’d want to go back to Sylvie and Ivan, so I got a taxi. I thought I’d take her home. But she passed out before I could get the address, and I hadn’t caught her name when we were introduced. I took her to my apartment. Couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

  “Go on,” said Charleroy.

  • • •

  “There’s an automatic elevator in the house. I’m pretty sure no one else saw her, either coming in or going out. Except Hinds.”

  “Who’s Hinds?”

  “He’s the fellow I share—was sharing an apartment with. The one who came out here.”

  “Go on.”

  “He came in, soon after we got there. Let himself in with his key. She was on the couch in the sitting-room, out cold. I told him it was a cousin of mine who’d never had a drink before. But when I went out of the room for a moment he opened her evening bag, and he must have found something in it that gave him her name. Anyway, when I came back, he showed me a pill he’d found in her bag.”

  “What pill?”

  “Hinds knew what it was, right off. I’ve forgotten the name, but it was some sort of drug. A goof ball.”

  “No,” said Charleroy.

  “Well, that’s what Hinds said it was, sir. Plenty of people take them, when they can’t sleep.”

  “My daughter doesn’t.”

  “Maybe it belonged to someone else,” said Winter politely. “Anyhow, I was sorry he’d found it. I’d only known Hinds a couple of weeks, but I’d got a pretty good idea of what he was like. I didn’t think he knew who s
he was, though, so I didn’t worry too much. Well, when she came to, I took her home. The next day I had to go to Boston, and when I got back this morning I found a note from Hinds. He said he’d called up your house in New York, and the maid told him your daughter had come out here. He said he was borrowing my car, to drive out and see her. And that—well, that had me worried.”

  “Why?”

  • • •

  Winter was silent for a moment. “Well, personally, sir,” he said, “I’d rather speak ill of the dead than the living. Makes less trouble, don’t you think?”

  “Get on with it,” said Charleroy.

  “Well, I was afraid he might try to—worry your daughter. About the pill and the rest of it.”

  “Blackmail?” Charleroy asked evenly.

  “Something along that line, sir. Hinds was broke. And plenty tough.”

  “You believe that this friend you lived with was a criminal?”

  “We weren’t what you’d call friends, sir. We’d never set eyes on each other until about three weeks ago. Hinds advertised that he had an apartment to share, and I went to look at it. I liked it, clean, plenty of light and air, a room to myself, and it didn’t cost too much. We were both out a lot of the time, only now and then, when we happened to be home together, he’d get talking. He told me some things about himself that I didn’t much like, but, after all . . . Well, you know what it’s like these days, sir, to find a decent place to live.”

  “Yes,” said Charleroy. “You’d better see the police now. They’re anxious to identify the body.”

  He could stand no more then, and he went out of the room.

  He went out on the veranda and paced up and down, with rain blowing cold in his face.

  Long ago, when he had been a proud and rather pompous little boy, he had heard in Sunday school about Abraham and Isaac; he could still remember the picture he had seen, of a thin and resigned young Isaac lying on the sacrificial stone while his bearded father stood over him with a knife. “All right!” he thought. “I’ll admit that we owe a duty to society, civilization, law, and so on. But personally, I’ll put my own people first. The people who trust me. I’ll do anything for them.”