The Case of the Weird Sisters

by Charlotte Armstrong

  "What on earth"—Gertrude was holding her hand to her heart in the dooray—"crashed so? Innes, are you there?" She seemed to have lost her sure sense of her surroundings in the excitement.

  "It was the lamp falling," Alice said. "It's all right. No one was hurt. Miss Whitlock."

  "What a dreadful crash!" she said.

  "The lamp's broken." Isabel stood beside her, edging, with her tendency to go sidewise, through ahead of her. Her complaining voice seemed to hold a little anger. "Mama's big lamp from the upstairs table. I was in the kitchen. Josephine has gone out!"—as if this were outrage. "What happened, Alice?"

  "I really don't know. Miss Isabel," Alice said shortly.

  "Innes . . . ?"

  Innes said, "It didn't hit me. So it's aU right."

  "What's going on?" Maud's masculine tones broke in upon them. "Say, who busted the lamp? It's all over the floor."

  Everybody shrugged.

  Maud looked at Innes with her sly little eyes. "You feeling better?" she said.

  "I feel much better," Innes said vigorously. "A little shock like that seems to have been just what I needed. Where's Fred? I feel much stronger. We must go."

  "He . . ." Alice began and stopped, for Fred was back; and since he told her with a glance that he had missed the Doctor, she saw no reason to upset the Misses Whitlock again. "Here he is, now. But are you sure you're all right, Innes?"

  "Yes," said Innes, "I'm all right."

  Josephine came into view in the hall, wearing her coat, with a newspaper-wrapped package held across her body like a shield. Stie looked dazed.

  "Where have you been?" wailed Isabel.

  But Innes got jerkily up and blundered across the room.

  ''Good-by, Gertrude, Maud, Isabel. Thanks for everything. I'll write you. But remember"—he spoke rapidly as that he can be quite comfortable at this camp. And you will be with him, Miss Brennan."

  "Yes," said Alice doubtfully. She felt unselfish devotion was being put upon her.

  if to get this said before his strength failed—"about the accounts. I meant that. I'll send a man up from the office. He'll go over everything with you. Mind you show him everything. And I must have your powers of attorney. Thanks, agam. Good-by."

  Alice said, "Good-by." She smiled valiantly at Isabel and Maud. Gertrude's hand she pressed briefly. It was a sketchy leave-taking on her part, and although she seemed caught up in Innes's fervor to get away and therefore rushed and pressed by his hurry, the brevity of her farewells was her own idea.

  She felt she'd had enough of the Whitlock sisters.

  The Whitlock girls did not stand on the doorstep to wish their guests Godspeed. The tall front doors closed. The tall facade was a pale mask in the dark. Fred helped Innes into the tonneau and wrapped him well.

  "The air in your face, sir?"

  "Yes, that would be good."

  Fred turned down the window. Alice felt rather useless. ''Shall I sit in front?" she said, "You want to be quiet, don't you, Innes?"

  Innes seemed too exhatisted to do more than murmur consent. But it was consent. He seemed more himself, even in this collapsed state, than he had seemed at any time in his sisters' house. At least he was Innes Whitlock, who knew he didn't want to talk. There he had not been himself nor anything else, but a man looking for a role to act and not finding it.

  The car moved away softly, a cradle on wheels for its master.

  "She seems to be running sweet again," Alice said. "What was the matter with her, Fred?"

  "You wouldn't know if I told you.''

  "No. I suppose I wouldn't." Her mind was somewhere else already. "Do you know, Fred, you moved awful fast in there. You were quite a hero."

  "Nuts," he said.

  "Maybe you saved his life."

  "Look," he said, "if you see something's going to faU on somebody unless you push them, you push them. It's a reflex."

  "A what?"

  "What the hell?" Fred said. Alice wiggled herself back in the seat as they drifted gently down the hilL

  "How do we go? Over that pit?"

  "Yup. Have to, to get on number six."

  "I hope we go over it faster than we came." Alice shivered.

  The car answered her, picking up speed. Ogaunee street lights were few and far between, and dim at that. They turned left, away from Main Street, where they had never yet been. Innes was a limp bimdle behind them. Alice felt a pricking of her nerves and a wish to get over the pit and on the highway, settled into their pace and done with Ogaunee. She scarcely saw what they were passing. She was listening for the hum of power, trying to recapture the mood for distance and the free feeling of being on the way to somewhere else.

  Fred's arm went across in front of her like an iron bar.

  "Watchit!" With his other hand he spun the wheel. The car's nose turned and tilted. They were headed for the stars. The brakes screamed. Only Fred's arm kept Alice out of the windshield. The car stalled, shivered. Something hit Alice on the back of her head. She heard a crash, like an echo, without any sense of pressure. Then the night was still, for a moment.

  People's voices. Feet running. Weight on her back. Fred was swearing monotonously. Alice reahzed that she wasn't hurt, that the weight on her back was Innes, flung like a sack over the back of the front seat. He had been lying limp, and the sudden stop had flung him forward like a stone out of a sling. Fred was lifting him away.

  Somehow or other Alice found herself kneeling on the tilted floor of the tonneau, wiping a trickle of blood from

  Innes's chin. His eyes were open, but he didn't speak and seemed nearly unconscious. People had come out of the quiet town like worms out of the ground after a rain. They were milling around the car. Out of all their voices Alice heard one thread of talk, loud and clear, as if the audible equivalent of a spotlight were on it

  A man said, "How'd they miss the turn? Musta missed the turn, didn't they?"

  "Say, you shouldn't come down here, driver. This road's been closed off."

  Fred's angry voice: "Why in hell don't you put up a sign, then?"

  "Whatdya mean? There's a sawhorse across the end."

  "There is, eh?"

  "Detour. That's what it says."

  "Yeah?"

  ''This road goes off into the pit."

  Fred said sarcastically, "That's why I stopped, bud."

  "Good thing you stopped," somebody said.

  "Show me that sign."

  A woman said in Alice's ear, "Is he hurt, dear? Are you hurt, dear? The doctor's coming. How do you feel dear?" Alice shook her head. The voice receded.

  Some man said in an excited way, "Say, the sawhorse ain't across the road now."

  "Where is it?"

  "It's across the main road!"

  "What? What did he say?"

  "Somebody moved the sign."

  "The detour sign?"

  "Yeah, moved it. Put it across the main road."

  "For God's sake! Who done that?"

  "Some fool kids ..."

  "Say, that's dangerous!"

  "Who'd do a thing like that?"

  "They mighta been killed!"

  "Yessir, that's dangerous."

  "Might have gone right over."

  "He don't know the road."

  "Pretty near did."

  "Might have been killed!"

  "Whoever done a thing like that?"

  "What was they trying to do?" somebody said in a high indignant voice, "kill somebody?"

  Alice looked up. Fred was standing silently beside the car. She felt as if she had a hmidred things to say to him, and none of them were necessary. She smiled feebly. The world shook down, became a litde less chaotic. Soon the doctor came.

  Innes was damaged—three ribs. The car was not, except for a crumpled fender that had touched a fence. Fred maneuvered it away from the pit, on the brink of which it hung. And it went back up the hill to the Whitlock house, carrying Innes, carrying Alice, back again.

  Inside, the Whitlock girls were
sitting in the parlor. Josephine, who was sweeping up the last of the glass fragments from the hall, sent curious glances in their direction. It was not then- custom to sit together in the evening. It was unusual to see all three of them sitting together Hke that, unless there was an argument or something. She guessed they were still thinking about Mr. Innes's being here and the doctor and all. Because they weren't talking. They never did talk much to each other. It took somebody from outside to start their tongues. Usually, the minute the outsider was gone, they fell apart, each sister into her own mind, kind of. They were apart now, but it was funny the way they kept on sitting in there, all three of them. Josephine felt puzzled and groped for what puzzled her.

  When the two cars came. Dr. Follett's following, Gertrude heard them first.

  She said, "Is that the car?" Her voice lilted. Josephine sat back on her haunches, turning her round eyes toward the door.

  Isabel said, with quick, nervous attention, "That sounds like Innes!"

  Maud's eyes ran from one to the other and then to Josephine's listening pose in the hall.

  "What's the matter? Anything happen?" she said. Her tongue came out to touch her lower lip.

  Josephine couldn't help feeling that something, somehow, had taken the edge off the surprise.

  Fred and the doctor got Innes upstairs. The upper hall of the Whitlock house ran around two sides of the stairwell, and another branch went toward the front of the house near the bathroom door. K you turned to the left at the top of the stairs, passed a door, then an old-fashioned mahogany chest of drawers against the wall, you came to a second door which led to a room over the kitchen wing, a large room with tliree sides to the weather, that had been Stephen Whitlock's own. Papa's room, they called it. It was furnished as it had been for him, full of enormous pieces. The big bed was mahogany, with solid ends. The curviQg headboard towered high. Here they put Innes. The room was chilly. Isabel sent Mr. Johnson to do something about the heat. She, herself, kicked open the register in the floor.

  Dr. Follett paid no attention to the three sisters. Isabel was twittering, Gertrude stiff, Maud a solid lump in the door. He set to work on his patient. Alice found herself trembling in reaction. She asked if they shouldn't send for his mother.

  Gertrude said, "Yes, of course. The telephone is in the hall, my dear. Tell me, Alice, does he look bad?"

  "Yes. He looks dreadful," Alice said with a mean desire to shock her. The pale woman closed her colorless eyes. Alice passed Maud in the doorway. Maud was watching the doctor. Her gaze licked at his busy back. She was grinning.

  AMce went down stairs, clinging to the railing. Josephine was on her way from the fitchen with a kettle and a basin. She told Ahce one had only to ask the operator. So Alice asked. After she had spoken to Susan Innes, she sat down on the bottom step. What a mess! Fred passed her, coming down. He put his hand on her shoulder for a second.

  "O.K?"

  "I'm shaking like a leaf," she said. "Where are you going?"

  "Doc wants his bag."

  "I guess we'll stay here, won't we?"

  "Looks like it."

  "It's funny," Alice said "I had a premonition."

  "Yeah. So did I."

  Alice rested her head against the banister while he was briefly gone. She thought to herself that Innes, ill,

  belonged to his family. After all, she had contracted for an Innes in full health. It was annoying of him to keep getting hurt, one way or another. Innes was a nuisance. When Fred came in with the doctor's bag, the doctor's voice at the head of the stairs called down.

  "Can you run down to my office and get a few things my wife will have ready?"

  "Sure." Fred was cheerful and unshaken enough to run errands.

  "Tell her the bottom drawer. Ask anybody where I Hve."

  "I'll find it. You want diis, don't you?"

  "I'll take the bag up," Alice said crossly, dragging herself to her feet She thought angrily: Well, if I have to be cheerful and a pillar of strength, O.K., O.K.

  'Thanks," Fred said carelessly. He put the bag down and went off. He didn't see why she shouldn't be cheerful and strong. That was annoying, too. People of his class, Alice thought meanly, have no nerves.

  Then Susan Innes came panting in. She was an old lady, and she'd climbed the hill too fast. Her face was pinker than ever. She was all hot and upset. She was an old darling, AHoe thought, poor lamb, all hot and bothered. So Alice found herself saying soothing words and helping her upstairs. As the old lady's weight fell on her arm, Alice felt cool and strong. Well, I'm young, she thought, damn it.

  They mounted into what seemed like a crowd, through which the doctor came directly to Susan. "He's going to be aU right. Nothing to worry about. He's very nervous, of course. I'll soon strap him up and hell have a little phenobarbital and go off to sleep. Be feeling much better by tomorrow. Now, Susan . . ."

  Susan said, "Where is he, doctor?''

  She went with him to her son.

  Alice found herself facing the Whitlock girls, who stood almost in a line. There was Isabel, fumbling at the neck of her dress with her sharp-nailed left hand. There was Gertrude, stiff and tall, locked in her colorless world of sound. There was Maud, fat ankles wide apart, her mad garment hanging every which way, her eyes shifting busily from Alice to her sisters. She looked as if thought were running

  in her head like a squirrel in its cage. Alice tossed her own head and marched mto the bedroom. She crossed toward the big bed. Susan was bending there. Her voice murmured like a lullaby.

  The doctor said, "My bag?"

  "Oh, gosh," said AUce. "I forgot. YU. get it."

  The house was confused. Alice was confused. Her mind seemed unable to seize upon and foUow out a thread of action. Susan's coming had made her forget the bag. Now, as she went out of the room again, she forgot the sisters. They were gone. They had melted away like a chorus whose turn was over. But Alice forgot them.

  She paused to try to pull herself together. I might as well, she thought, for all the notice I get. Be cool. Be strong. Perhaps it was a question of doing one thing at a time. First, get the doctor's bag. Then ask what more she could do. Stop floating around like a fool. Stop being batted this way and that. Take stock. What happens next? She put one foot in front of the other, deliberately taking thought to do so. She started for the head of the stairs.

  It was just at that moment that she heard the soimd. The house was full of sound, of course. Behind her, in the sickroom, she could hear the doctor's voice and Susan's. From somewhere came the soimd of running water. There was movement on the floor below, faint sounds of walking. Yet this one new sound seemed to echo alone in the isolated quiet of the hall in which she stood. It came from below, she thought.

  An odd soimd. A queer little chuckle in the throat. A little caw of excitement. It was a sound no one would make on purpose. She felt that it came directly from thought. Spontaneous. Unconscious. There was voice behind it, even though it was less a voice than a stirring in the throat. It was queer.

  Alice came to the head of the stairs and started down. She found nobody there, in the downstairs hall. She picked up the doctor's bag and took it back with her. One thing at a time.

  Innes was talking. He must be in pain. Ifis ribs hurt him. He had come out of the dazed state, and he was talking in a high-pitched, frantic voice. Alice closed the door

  with enough violence to make a noise, and the doctor and Susan looked around at her.

  Innes said, "I mean it, doctor. I'm afraid. Alice, is that Alice? Come here, dear. Don't leave me. Where's Fred?"

  "I don't know," she said. "How do you feel now?"

  "It's not so bad," he said. His face was wet, though. "I don't want to stay here. Tell him to let us go. Alice, tell him."

  "Go!" Alice said, astonished. "Why, Innes, you can't go driving around the country with your ribs broken."

  "I can't stay here. I'm afraid to. Don't you see?"

  "But why?"

  "Because I'm afraid," he said
with shrill stubbornness. "All right, it's silly zmd they're women and I know all that. But I'm afraid and I don't care. I can't help it." His voice cracked and he looked at Alice desperately.

  Susan said, "Could he be moved down to my house, doctor?"

  "Oh, yes," said Alice. "Why didn't we think . . ."

  "You haven't room," Innes said despairingly. "Don't be silly, mother. You know you haven't room."

  "I could make room," Susan said stoutly. "You might have my bed, and my paying guest would just have to go somewhere else. I think he would, Innes. Then Alice could come too, after tomorrow."

  The plan hung in the air and fell through. Alice knew, all of a sudden, that it wouldn't happen. How explain it? How could she stay here in this house one night, and Innes elsewhere? What about Fred? It seemed unreasonable to move Innes now. It was unreasonable. There was no reason for it, just a feeling. A feeling wasn't enough for such a reshuffling of people.

  The doctor said quietly, "You had better stay right in that bed, Whitlock. I wouldn't advise anything else. You're nervous and no wonder. Here, get these down."

  He made Innes swallow two pills and handed the small white pillbox to Alice. "Keep lUm warm. He may have a chill. And give him two of these . . . oh . . . every three hours. Can you attend to that. Miss Brennan?"

  "Of course," Alice said. "Do you mean in the night, too?"

  "No, no; not if he sleeps. If he's awake and restless."

  "ru attend to it," she said.

  Susan said "Now, Innes, if you'd like me to stay here, I will I can make myself comfortable right in that chair."

  "No, thank you, mother.''

  Alice felt the slap as it went to Susan.

  But Susan said cheerfully, "Well, I'm glad you're no worse I'll get along them." She patted his hand and turned toward the door with the doctor.

  Alice sat down in a straight chair beside the bed. She couldn t understand Innes and his mother when they were together. There was something sad and wrong about them.

  "You won't leave me, Alice?"

  He looked ridiculously boyish in his pajamas, like a little old boy with a mustache. He looked weak and scared. Thoroughly scared. He twitched with it.