The Case of the Weird Sisters

by Charlotte Armstrong

  The mantel held three cracker boxes, unclosed, an empty Coca-Cola botde and an imwa&hed glass. The grate was full of trash, mcluding orange peel dry and stiff with age. The ruffled curtains at the windows were fairly clean, but the tie-back was gone from one of them and it sagged from the rod. Its ruffle drooped. A pint milk bottle stood on another sill, and the comic section of an old newspaper had been stuffed haphazardly in the crack at the side of the lower pane.

  An apple core lay near a dirty hairbrush on the dresser, and hairpins mixed with face powder in the pin tray. Alice shuddered. Sound, she thought. Something to hear. She looked for an alarm clock. There was a clock on the dresser, but it had no hand to set for any alarm. No phonograph here. A pile of magazines, three novels with a pair of lovers embracing each other on each jacket, pictures. A calendar print of "The Horsefair" with a mustache penciled on one of the horses! The mirror was smudged and streaked and reflected crookedly, as if the composition of the glass was muddled.

  Meanwhile, Maud hooked with her toe a footstool with a tapestry cover that was frayed and soiled, and put her feet up on it. She was watching them rather maliciously. Alice bit her Up. The atmosphere in this room reeked of Maud.

  "Write," said Duff, "that you thought you heard somebody in the house last night. Ask if tiiere's room for me to stay here. Say you think there ought to be another mail."

  Alice wrote.

  Maud spoke. She knew perfectly well that something was being prepared for her to consider, but she chose to speak and upset the order of communications. "What do you want to know about early history?"

  Now Alice's note was irrelevant. "This is the devil of an interview," said Duff. "Show it to her."

  "No room," croaked Maud, having read. "What do you mean, another man? There's three abeady. If you count Innes. Two and a half, say." She roared.

  Alice looked helpless. Maud stopped laughing and took another piece of Melba toast.

  "She won't take the bait, will she?" said Duff without moving his lips much, though his voice was clear and penetrating. "Stubborn old owl, I'd say."

  Maud chewed on.

  Duff's voice dropped to a near whisper. "Shall we tell her?"

  "What?" whispered Alice.

  Maud's finger investigated a tooth.

  "About the telephone call in the night," Duff said very quiedy.

  Maud's light-colored eyes rested vacantly on the wall.

  "I don't know." Alice tried to think up some embroidery of her own. "Do you think it's safe?"

  Duff said, "Write and ask her if she knows anything about what happened last night."

  Maud said, in the middle of his last word, "Say, nobody was in this house last night, were they?"

  "Write, yes, you think so. Write that Innes thinks so."

  Maud snorted as she read. "Innes is a fraidy cat, always was. Jump at his shadow."

  Alice wrote, "Did you see or hear anything?"

  "Well, I was reading a book. Ehdn't see anything. Can't hear, you know. Rained, though, didn't it? Lemme see. Isabel went through."

  "Isabel!" Duff looked at a door m the far wall. "That communicates with Isabel's room?"

  "It must, I guess," said Alice. "We didn't know that, did we?"

  "I must have the time. Isabel was the last one to be out of her room. She answered the phone. Ask her the time."

  "The time? But Gertrude says she went upstairs right after being in to see her, so we know the time, don't we?"

  "Do we?" said Duff.

  "Of course. If Susan knows what time she called up."

  "She says she called about eleven."

  "Well, tiien, Isabel came upstairs just after eleven. That would be just before Fred left Innes's room. Or just after.

  If she came through this way he wouldn't have seen her. It must have been about then."

  "Ask Maud," said Duff.

  "She won't know," said Alice. "Why should she care what time it is. Look at her."

  Maud lay in her chair as if it were a hammock. Her feet fell sidewise balanced on their heels, the two of them looking like a flipper at the end of her legs. She was frankly appraising Alice's clothes and figure. Or seemed to be.

  "But ask her," said Duff. "And ask her which way Isabel went through."

  Maud sent them a suspicious glance before she read the newest note. "Say, what is all this? Isabel was coming up. She didn't want to go past the boy in the hall. She had her kimono on."

  "What time?" said Duff with his lips. He tapped his wrist watch.

  "Eh? What time, you mean? Oh, about eleven," said Maud sullenly.

  Duff looked at the clock which stood behind Maud on the dresser. He compared it with his own watch. "Ask her how late she was awake. Did Isabel go through here again?"

  "She did not," said Maud crossly. "Say, look, who told you to ask questions?"

  Duff seized the pad and wrote himself. "Why were you outdoors about eight o'clock, night before last?"

  Maud took the pad and grinned evilly. "Innes's puking all over the place nearly made me throw up myself. What of it? Listen, Innes has got some bee m his bonnet What does he think I was doing outside? What the hell difference does it make what time Isabel went to bed last night or me or Gert, either? What's the matter with Innes? Does he think one of us is trying to murder him?"

  Alice gasped.

  Duff met Maud's bright eyes. He nodded his head. "Yes, he does," he said with his nps.

  "What for?" said Maud. She looked interested. Her fat little body became more alert, less limp.

  Duff took the pad. "It seems quite certain that someone did try," he wrote. And added, "Mr. Johnson?" with a big question mark.

  Maud read it and began to laugh. "You're crazy," she said with rude conviction. "You go tell Innes he's crazy as a bedbug. Say, why should we kill the goose that lays the golden cggl Hey?"

  'To get the golden egg," said Duff clearly.

  Maud's eyes narrowed. "Aw, life's too short," she said. "You tell him."

  She bit into her toast, and Isabel came in at the door without knocking.

  19

  "Oh, there you are," said Isabel.

  Alice and Mr. Duff rose politely. "Miss Isabel, this is Professor Duff. He's an old friend of mine. He . . ."

  "How do you do?" said IsabeL Her lips made a semicircle.

  Her sharp chin tilted. The eyes were arch.

  Alice opened her mouth to explain further, but Isabel did the brushing-off trick. Her eyes wavered away from Duff as if her mind was too busy to consider him. "Innes wants us all to come to his room." She spoke on the fingers of her small left hand. Maud grunted and began to struggle in her chair.

  "I can wait, perhaps," said Duff swiftly.

  "Perhaps he means you, too," said Alice. She didn't know what Duff wanted.

  "I really don't know," said Isabel, complaining of her own uncertainty. Her hand gathered her dress in folds at her bosom. She held her head sidewise, as if she had been interrupted in the act of tossing it. Her strange eyes watched Duff and yet did not watch him. "He mentioned Alice. But he did not mention you, Mr. Duff." Her manner was a bright rebuff.

  "Fella's been asking questions," said Maud. "Say!"

  The way Isabel's old-fashioned coiffure tilted as she moved her head, and her smile cut across her face, had a quaUty of Victorian gaiety or coquetry about it

  Duff said, "Yes, a question or two. What time did the telephone ring last night. Miss Isabel?"

  Isabel said, "Why, really, I don't think I can tell you.

  Innes is ill, you know. Poor boy. We humor him,. 11 you will excuse us?"

  "I shall be happy to wait downstairs," Duff said. "But perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me where I can wash?"

  The meaty color of Isabel's jowls brightened. Perhaps she blushed. She turned, and they all went out into the hall. Alice showed Duff the bathroom door.

  Alice said, "If Innes does want you, shall I call?"

  "Please," he said. Something in the quality of his tone told h
er that he would just as soon be left out of this conference. She understood. He woiild be looking at Isabel's sleeves.

  The fat was in the fire anyway. Surely it wouldn't take Maud long to broadcast Innes's suspicions. But Maud waddled into Papa's room without any more talk.

  Innes was enthroned on pillows. He looked around at his assembled audience. His three sisters in a row. His henchmen, Fred and Killeen, on either hand. Alice, seated docilely at his left.

  "Take down what I say, please, Alice. You can type it out for Maud. Use Killeen's portable." Innes had an air of having thought of everything.

  "Very well," said Alice.

  "Now, Gertrude, Maud, Isabel, I want you to know that I have arranged to send each of you a certain amount of money every month." Innes looked terribly pompous. Someone had combed his hair, and his mustache was smooth again. He was full of confidence.

  "What's he say?" said Maud. "Oh, she's writing it down, is she?" Maud picked her front teeth with her fingernail. But she kept her shrewd eyes on Innes's face. Lip reading? Alice wondered.

  "I am doing this because I have changed my will, and I think it is therefore only fair to make it up to you while I am still alive." Innes was being wily. Smooth. How much of this was Killeen's touch? To seem, and not to seem . .. "I am leaving my estate to Alice, of course."

  "What? All?" said Isabel. The two syllables came out without any inflection, abruptly. Gertrude's Hps jerked, but she said nothing. Maud looked at the tip of her finger and put it back into her mouth.

  ''It may seem strange," Imies went on, "but it really isn't. She's yooing, you see. And I, myself, am younger than any of you. Therefore, your share in my estate is of pretty doubtful value to you, since it is likely that I shall survive you. But"—Innes waved his pudgy hand—''let's not speak of such unpleasant things." He smiled fatuously. "I do feel I've been selfish. I have complained about straightening out your affairs from time to time. But after all, lying here, I began to say to myself that you are my family, and I do have a responsibility in your support and comfort. You are," said Innes sentimentally, "my sisters."

  "Therefore, as I say I have arranged for these allowances. They are generous, I thiok. I am dividing ten thousand a year among you. With your own holdings, you will be well off."

  Innes paused for applause. There was none. The sisters sat in stony silence.

  "Let me tell you just what I have done in my will." Killeen handed Innes" a docmnent. "This is a copy," said Innes airily, but the warning was clear. "Mr. Killeen has mailed the signed original back to his office in the city. Now, of course, I have a few charities here. Erhem, the entire residue goes to Alice Brennan." He tossed a forgiving smile at Alice, hurried his eyes back to the paper and kept them there. "At my death, the allowances I have fixed on you will naturally stop. But I have stated here in the will that Alice Brennan, designated herein as heiress to the bulk of my estate, is hereby eamestiy requested to use her own judgment as to whether she wishes to continue them in whole, in part, or at all. Do you," said Innes, putting the paper down, "understand?"

  "My dear Innes," said Gertrude, "isn't that rather peculiar? After all, while we hope to become better acquainted with your charming Alice . . ."

  Isabel said, "I'm afraid I don't understand, either." Her forehead wore a frown, not so much of disapproval as of anxious stupidity.

  "Surely you can see why I had to do that!" said Innes, raising his eyebrows. "My dears, who knows what is going to happen to my money? The whole world is aflame." Innes dramatized it. "Why, by the time I die, the estate may have shrunk to almost nothing."

  Alice thought: He doesn't really believe it. He's too smug. Neither did Killeen believe it. He caught Alice's eye and smiled at her.

  "Now," said Innes with false patience, "I can't obligate Alice to continue a rather large allowance regardless of what proportion it turns out to be of her own income. So you see, it's merely fair."

  He folded the paper and waited for the reaction.

  Isabel's eyes sUd sidewise in the evasive way she had. "Is that all, then, Innes?" she said, plaintively, as if it hadn't amounted to much. "I do have some things to attend to."

  BUked of a sensation, Innes said sulkily, "That's all."

  Gertrude rose and said the proper thing, gracefully. "We do thank you, Innes. Of course. You are very good. We shall have no financial worries any more." Her affected voice was sweet "I think you are very good to work this all out while you are so ill." Her voice faded. She moved away.

  Maud grunted, heaving herself up. She waddled over and peered at Alice's notes over her shrinking shoulder. "Some hieroglyphics," she said cheerfully. "Eton't make any sense to me."

  "You'll understand . . ." began Alice.

  Maud yawned. But her eyes glittered. She'd understood enough to be curious. Or she'd heard it all, and imder-stood plenty.

  MacDougal Duff, meanwhile, went quietly into Isabel's room. It, too was large, an oblong ratiier than a square, with a mantel corresponding to the one in the sitting „ room below. He did not make for the clothes closet immediately. He stood just within the door and looked around,

  Isabel's room was crowded. Furniture Uned the walls almost solidly. It looked more like a shop than a place to live. One had to thread one's way through aislelike spaces. There were also many shelves, and each shelf was full. Duff pulled at his chin. He opened a drawer. The drawer was full almost to overflowing. A search here would be quite a chore. There were quantities of things, all sorts of things, clothing, china, bric-a-brac, boxes, bottles, shawls, laces.

  Duff shook his head and moved toward the closet. The door burst open. It was stuffed with clothes. He examined the sleeves of all the dresses hanging there, working rapidly. Nothing significant appeared. He hesitated over the dresser drawers, then glanced quickly into each, finding no outer garments, but heaps of silk lingerie, scarves, handkerchiefs, handbags, some of them well worn, and a box full of keys. He pulled open the top of a cedar chest. It smelled violently of antimoth flakes. Woolens in there.

  For all its multitude of things, this room had order. He saw that things were classified, not piled helter skelter. These shelves in the comer held vases and china boxes. The shelves beyond the mantel held books and magazines. The chest beside the bed was full of linens. The chest beneath the window was for blankets and blankets only. If a stained sleeve was in this room, it was hidden.

  Duff sighed. He opened the door to the hall a crack. The conference was stiU in session. He went to work with furious and perfectly methodical speed, then. Every drawer, every cupboard, the bed, the mattress, got a lightning glance. With utter concentration and not one wasted second glance, he searched the room.

  There was no garment with a stained sleeve. Nor any sleeve that seemed to have been secretly washed. No signs at all.

  Duff finished. He paused for just a moment over the book shelves. Harold McGrath. George Barr McCutch-eon, E. P. Roe. He ran his finger down the back of a pile of magazines. The complete issues, dating from 1939.

  Duff went out of Isabel's room and wandered downstairs.

  Mr. Johnson, the Indian, was brushing the stair carpet with a whiskbroom. When Duff stopped a step above, he looked up.

  Dufff was out of tricks. He said rather humbly, "I want to ask another question."

  "Sure," said Mr. Johnson pleasantly.

  "Did you see anyone leave this house, evening before last, between, say a quarter of eight and a quarter of nine?"

  "Just Josephine," said Mr. Johnson.

  "You saw her?"

  "I give a yell and she came out."

  "To the bam?"

  "Sure."

  "Why?"

  "I ripped my pants."

  "Oh?"

  Mr. Johnson began to wield the broom.

  "Why did Josephine come out to the bam?" asked Duff patiently.

  "I give a yell."

  "Yes, but . . ."

  "She hadda go down and get these here."

  "What?" Duff clutched th
e banister. "Where?"

  'To my bmdder's."

  ''And you .. . stayed in the bam while she was gone?"

  "Sure," said Mr. Johnson. "I didn't have no pants."

  "She brought these back to you?"

  "That's right."

  "You were marooned in the bam, without your . . ."

  "I was nekkid," said Mr. Johnson. "Got a hole in my underwear, too."

  "Why didn't you tell me!"

  "What do you care!" said Mr. Johnson, as close as he ever came to astonishment.

  "It makes a difference," fumed Duff. "Don't you see?"

  "What the hell difference does it make, so long as I got a pair of pants on?"

  "What?"

  "I say, what's the difference if I gotta hole," shouted Mr. Johnson. "It's spring, aint it? I'm gointa leave off my imderwear in another month!"

  Duff stared at him.

  The Indian took up the whiskbroom and began to brush the steps, muttering.

  Duff went down and sat beside the window in the sitting room and fell into brooding silence.

  Alice came tripping in, carrying the portable typewriter. He lifted an eyebrow. "You wait," she said grimly. She began to type.

  Isabel came in sidewise, in her diffident manner. "Oh, Mr. Duff," she said, "you are still here? How nice of you to wait." Was this a touch of malice? "Gertmde begs me

  to ask you for dinner. Will you stay?"

  Duff smiled. "I should be very happy to stay," he said. "Thank you. Miss Gertrude has been very kind."

  But Isabel looked amdous. "Alice ... I beg your pardon, my dear. Do I interrupt?" She put her claw on Alice's shoulder, and Alice turned her face, her fingers still. "Alice, dear, has the doctor been here today?"

  "Not since this morning."

  "Is he coming?"

  "I don't know."

  "Innes worries me," said Isabel. "He does, really. Don't you think his manner is rather strange?"

  "Mr. Whitlock has a nervous temperament," suggested Duff.

  "Yes," said Isabel, "yes, he has."

  "He thinks the house was entered last night," said Duff. "I wonder . . ."

  Isabel said, "Tramps are on the decrease, don't you find? My mother often used to feed them at the kitchen door."