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

by Unknown

  He felt cold now, chilled to the bone; he opened the door and re-entered the house. The sound of Winter’s voice made him scowl; he went to the door of the sitting-room, and from there he could see the young man standing with one arm along the mantelpiece, talking to Miss Ewing, who sat on the sofa beside Julia.

  “I thought you’d gone, Winter,” he said.

  “Miss Ewing asked me to wait, sir,” said Winter uncomfortably.

  “She made him wait,” Julia said.

  “To market, to market, to buy a fat pig!” Miss Ewing chanted gaily. “Brady’s driving me in to the village in a few moments, and I’ve offered Mr. Winter a lift.”

  “I’ll go, too,” said Julia.

  “I don’t want you!” said Miss Ewing, with a little pout. “I’m going to get surprises. I’m going to cook a real French dinner tonight.”

  “I’ve got things to get in the village,” said Julia.

  “No!” said Miss Ewing, with a little stamp of her foot. “You can’t spoil all my little surprises!”

  “Julia doesn’t want to leave her alone with Winter,” thought Charleroy. “Afraid she’ll talk too much, make some slip. Although I can’t see how it can matter now. He’ll go to the police; he’s obliged to. And then . . .”

  He glanced at Winter’s tired, amiable face, and he could not read it. “He’s a dark horse,” Charleroy thought, angry and alarmed. “By heaven, it would be a relief if he’d come out in the open and ask for money to hold his tongue! I could deal with him then. But when he hangs around, grinning—I don’t know whether he’s a fool or a knave.”

  There was a car coming up the drive. “It’s Levy,” Charleroy thought. “I knew it would have to be this way. This is the payoff. This is it.”

  He went to the door himself; he opened it before the bell was rung.

  “Helen!” he cried.

  • • •

  She stood there, pretty in her gray fur jacket and a small hat to match, calm, impeccable, finely finished.

  “Helen!”

  “Let me in, Carrol! It’s chilly.”

  He stepped back, and she entered the hall.

  “Mother!” cried Julia, in just the tone her father had used, shocked, indignant.

  “I thought I’d surprise you,” said Helen. “Dr. Marcher got me a nice car—heated—and a good driver. I told the doctor I couldn’t stay another minute in his hospital.”

  “You shouldn’t—” Charleroy began.

  “Don’t worry!” called Miss Ewing, halfway up the stairs. “We’ll get you right to bed, Mrs. Charleroy.”

  “No, thanks,” said Helen.

  “Now, do what Nurse Ewing says! I really am good at looking after sick people.”

  “I’m not sick, thanks, Miss Ewing. I’ll just step into the kitchen and speak to Mrs. Brady about lunch.”

  “No! I’ll do that, Mrs. Charleroy! I was just going down to the village to get things.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Brady has things in the house,” said Helen, and went off along the hall.

  “Delirious,” said Miss Ewing, in a low voice.

  “Nonsense!” said Charleroy, frowning.

  He had not recovered from his shock. “Nothing,” he thought, “could be worse than for Helen to come here now, just when the situation is building up to some unimaginable climax. Winter here in the house . . .”

  They all waited in the hall until Helen returned to them, followed by Brady carrying a suitcase.

  “Mrs. Brady says she’ll get us a nice little lunch by half past twelve,” she said.

  “But I asked Leonard to lunch!” said Miss Ewing. “I promised him a French casserole!”

  “Leonard?”

  “He’s a man I met,” said Julia.

  “I’ll just go up and leave my things,” said Helen.

  “Let me be sure everything is comfy!” said Miss Ewing, and went scampering up the stairs.

  Helen went after her, then Brady with the bag, and Charleroy and his daughter stood side by side, looking after them.

  “She never said a thing about my eye,” said Julia.

  “No,” said Charleroy. It was queer that Helen had said nothing about that, but everything in the situation was queer and dreadful. “Possibly we’d better—” he began, and stopped as Brady came down and went past them to the kitchen.

  “No!” came Miss Ewing’s voice from above. “I won’t do it, Mrs. Charleroy!”

  Helen’s voice was inaudible.

  “No!” cried Miss Ewing again. “Don’t ask me, Mrs. Charleroy!”

  “That’s going too far!” said Charleroy. “She can’t be allowed to upset your mother like that.”

  • • •

  He started up the stairs, so fast that he was a little out of breath when he reached the top. The two women were in his bedroom, Helen sitting in the basket chair, Miss Ewing standing near the open door.

  “You have no right to ask me!” she said. “It’s—cruel!”

  “What’s all this?” Charleroy demanded, and Miss Ewing turned to him.

  “Mr. Charleroy,” she said, “your wife is trying to drive me away. She’s trying to get rid of me.”

  “I’ve found a very nice position for Miss Ewing,” said Helen. She was leaning back in the basket chair, her hands on the arms, her ankles crossed; a characteristic attitude, relaxed but formal. “I spoke to Olive on the telephone, and there’s a very nice position for Miss Ewing, teaching music in a private school.”

  “In Seattle!” said Miss Ewing. “I won’t go to Seattle!”

  “It’s a charming city,” said Helen. “Leon can drive you in to New York after lunch, and you can get a plane tomorrow. . . . Carrol, if you’ll write a check for Miss Ewing—”

  “I don’t want a check! I won’t go to Seattle.”

  “Mother!” said Julia’s voice behind Charleroy. “Miss Ewing’s done a lot for us.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she has,” said Helen pleasantly. “And I’m sure she’ll like this new position.”

  “Mother, if she doesn’t want to go to Seattle—”

  “You see, her friends are here,” said Charleroy, surprised and shocked, as he was sure Julia was, by Helen’s attack.

  “I think it would be better for all of us if Miss Ewing leaves this afternoon,” said Helen.

  “After all I’ve done,” cried Miss Ewing, “you’re driving me away!”

  Tears were raining down her face; she put her hands to her temples, pushing up the petallike, dry hair into two grotesque and pitiable horns.

  “Helen,” said Charleroy, “Miss Ewing’s done—”

  “Mother,” said Julia, “you don’t realize all Miss Ewing’s done.”

  “I’m sure we all appreciate what Miss Ewing’s done,” said Helen, with a rather alarming social smile. “But I think she ought to leave, this afternoon.”

  “No!” said Miss Ewing, in something like a scream. “I won’t! You don’t know what I’ve done for you and yours!”

  “Perhaps not. But I’d like to know,” Helen said, in her clear, rather flat voice. “What is it that Miss Ewing has done for Julia?”

  “Mother,” said Julia, “let’s drop it.”

  “I won’t drop it!” cried Miss Ewing. “I’ve killed a man—”

  From the pocket of her smock she brought a small automatic. “With this!” she said. “I had it in Italy—to protect myself.”

  “Give it to me,” said Charleroy, as casually as he could, and without hesitation she gave him the gun and he dropped it into his pocket.

  “I killed him,” she said. “To save your child.” She looked up at Charleroy, her blue eyes swimming, “Now!” she said. “Now you see!”

  With a thin hand, she pushed him out of the way and ran out of the room.

  • • •

  “Ju
lia,” said Charleroy, “is there any truth in this?”

  “Yes,” Julia answered. “It’s true.” She went over to the bed and sat down. “Have you got a cigarette, Daddy? Thanks.”

  She drew on the cigarette for a moment.

  “It’s—here’s how it was,” she said. “When we got here Thursday, Miss Ewing kept at me to go upstairs and lie down and she’d make me some tea. I went, just to keep her quiet. I heard a car drive up to the door, but it didn’t interest me; I thought it was a tradesman, or the Bradys coming back. I was lying down, reading, when I heard them. Heard her, rather. She was almost screaming. ‘No! No! you can’t see her! I won’t let you go up!’

  “That worried me, and I got up and opened my door. She was standing halfway up the stairs, with her arms stretched out, and he—that man—was standing a few steps below her. He looked horrible. He looked—foxy and—horrible.”

  “Take it easy, Julia.”

  “I will, Father. He started to come up, and then he saw me, and he smiled. He said, ‘I’m here to take orders for more goof balls, Miss Charleroy.’ He pushed Miss Ewing aside and came up the stairs past her. I was going to ask him what he was talking about, when—the shot came. I didn’t know what it was. He was still looking up at me—as if he was astonished. And then he fell backward—down the stairs—with a crash. And then I saw Miss Ewing, with the gun in her hand.”

  “Take it easy, Julia.”

  “Yes, I will. By the way he was lying, by the way he looked, I felt pretty sure he was dead. I wanted to get a doctor, but Miss Ewing kept saying, no, get the police. After a while I realized what she was saying. She was saying, get the police and they’ll bring a doctor, and I’ll tell them I shot that man because he was attacking you.”

  “Attacking you?” said Helen.

  “But, you see, he wasn’t! I couldn’t tell the police that. I thought—maybe he had a wife. Anyhow, I couldn’t tell a horrible lie like that about him—when he was dead. But Miss Ewing was so sure she’d saved me. She said the police would let her go at once when they heard why she’d shot him. I had to fight with her, to keep her away from the telephone. In the end, I gave her some of Father’s whisky and she sort of pulled herself together.”

  “Then what did you do, dear?” Helen asked.

  “I drove his car under the window and we got him out and into the car. I drove him to the lane. It was beginning to get dark then. I took off my sunglasses and hung them on a bush. Then, later, I couldn’t find them.”

  • • •

  She dropped her cigarette on the floor, and Charleroy picked it up and stubbed it out in an ash tray.

  “We fixed up the hall,” she said, “and we found his coat and his hat on a chair. But she took them away. She said she put them in the closet of Father’s room, but I looked the next morning, and I couldn’t find them.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Charleroy.

  Helen rose and crossed the room; she sat down on the bed beside Julia. “My dear,” she said. “My baby.”

  “Mother! You see I couldn’t let her go to the police. Not when she did it—for me.”

  “I see, my dear,” Helen said.

  There was a sound of footsteps in the hall, and in a moment Mrs. Brady came to the door. “Lunch is served, ma’am,” she said.

  “We’ll be down in a few moments,” said Helen.

  They were silent, listening to Mrs. Brady’s brisk footsteps descending the stairs.

  “Julia,” said Charleroy, “where did you get that pill?”

  “What pill?” she asked, looking up at him.

  “That—drug,” he said reluctantly. “That—goof ball.”

  “What drug, Father?”

  “That pill you had in your evening bag.”

  “Oh, that? That wasn’t a ‘drug,’ Daddy. It was just some medicine to break up a cold I thought I was starting.”

  “You’d taken some of this stuff?”

  “Why, yes. I took a couple when I was in the Brocade Room.”

  “Where did you get them, Julia?”

  “Miss Ewing gave them to me. Daddy, d’you think they were something else? Not a medicine for colds?”

  “Never mind, my dear,” he said, laying his hand on her shoulder. “When did she give them to you?”

  “That night, before dinner. She gave me three of them. She said a doctor had prescribed them for her and they always helped. She told me to take one or two right after dinner and then lie down for a while. You see, I wasn’t expecting then to go out. Only, when Sylvie telephoned, I’d thought I’d better go. Dancing does you a lot of good, sometimes.”

  “Yes.”

  “I put the pills into my bag, and I took one in the powder-room when I first got there. Then I began to feel worse and worse, and I took another. Father, do you think that’s what made me pass out?”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “But why, why should Miss Ewing do a thing like that?”

  “I imagine she didn’t realize,” he said.

  There was another silence.

  “Now, wash your face in cold water, pet,” said Helen, “and we’ll have lunch.”

  “Mother, I couldn’t!”

  “You can,” said Helen. “For the sake of all of us, you can. Go on, Julia.”

  Her daughter responded to the challenge; she rose and went off to the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

  “Carrol,” said Helen, “what can we do about that wretched woman?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to her.”

  “Carrol, let’s help her to get away. Anywhere she wants.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll talk to her, later. I’ll see.”

  “But let’s not waste time, Carrol. Let’s get her safely away now, while there’s time.”

  “Later,” he said.

  He was steady on his feet, but he felt as if he were reeling. He felt as if he were deaf and blind and must be left alone in this blank world until he could recover.

  When Julia rejoined them they started for the dining-room and lunch, and found that they had forgotten Leonard Winter, waiting with amiable patience in the sitting-room.

  “Mother, this is Leonard Winter,” said Julia curtly.

  Helen smiled at him and held out her hand. She was, Charleroy thought, unnecessarily friendly to the fellow.

  “We’ll wait a few moments for Miss Ewing,” she said. “Mrs. Brady, will you go upstairs, please, and tell her we’re waiting?”

  “Good heavens!” thought Charleroy. “Does she really expect that wretched woman to come down to lunch, to sit at the table, chat? It’s ghastly!” Turning his head, he could look into the hall, where Hinds had died. Julia, witness of the killing, sat beside her father, pale and silent, but in no way distraught. Upstairs, alone, was the woman who had killed Hinds. Ghastly, to be sitting here, talking, smiling, waiting for lunch.

  • • •

  Helen was talking to young Winter, and he responded to her warmly; he seemed somehow different. “But Helen does that,” Charleroy thought. “She brings people out, does something to them.”

  “Well, no,” Winter was saying. “I was graduated from an engineering school the week before I enlisted, and there are a couple of jobs, pretty good jobs, I could get now. But I was more than three years in the Navy Air Force, and I made up my mind that if”—he checked himself—“when I got back, I wouldn’t take a job; I wouldn’t settle down until I’d spent my last penny.”

  “Are you doing that?” Helen asked.

  “Nearly there now,” he answered.

  “So he was one of those boys,” Charleroy thought. “Battered and tired by that inhuman stress and effort. Not a playboy, not a whippersnapper. Not a blackmailer. Maybe he had come, honestly, to reassure Julia, in his own way, a
bout that evening. And maybe Julia and I didn’t receive him very well. We haven’t got Helen’s diplomacy. She brings people out.”

  “Miss Ewing isn’t in her room, ma’am,” said Mrs. Brady.

  “She must have gone out,” said Helen. “Well, we won’t wait any longer.”

  “I think I’ll take a look,” said Charleroy.

  “I’ll go,” said Helen.

  “No. Don’t climb the stairs again!” he said.

  But she was quicker than he; she was coming out of their bedroom when he reached the upper hall.

  “Carrol, let’s have lunch, please!” she said. “She must have gone away, and it’s the best thing that could happen.”

  He went down to lunch; he sat at the table, but he could eat nothing. They went into the sitting-room after the meal, and he sat, silent and intolerably oppressed, trying to think, to clear from his mind the intolerable dread that clouded it.

  “I think I’ll lie down for a while,” Helen said.

  “Good idea,” he said. “Excellent!”

  But she came down again, almost at once. “Carrol,” she said, from the hall; and when he went to her there she handed him an envelope addressed to him. “It was under the chest of drawers,” she said. “It must have blown down.”

  With all the windows closed against the raw day? He tore open the envelope and glanced at the note inside; he moved nearer to the door, to get more light through the glass. He looked and looked, at the little sheet of paper.

  “Carrol?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “You’d better go up and lie down, Helen. Take it easy.”

  • • •

  He waited until she was gone; then he went out of the house by the side door, hatless, coatless, in the sharp wind.

  The light was on in the station wagon; it looked like a fine, royal coach in the dark garage. Miss Ewing was stretched out on the seat, her eyes closed, her lips parted, a little empty bottle beside her. Charleroy lifted her in his arms, surprised to find her light as a bird; he carried her back to the house, but she was dead when the doctor came.