The Case of the Weird Sisters

by Charlotte Armstrong

  "Damn it. Listen, the only reason I give a damn . . . It's my fault you're here. I faked that breakdown with the car. I thought . . ."

  "Oh, you did. What did you think?"

  "I thought rd help you out."

  "Oh, you did?"

  "Yeah, sure. Thought if he hadda drag you in to meet his family it'd put you on the right basis. You wanted to marry him, then, remember? I didn't know you'd hooked him already."

  "Never mind," she said. "Just the same, how can I run away? This is bad and rotten."

  "Go onr he said.

  "You said so yourself. You know we have to see it througji. And we have to help Mr. Duff, and we have to take ttie risk! Because we can't help it, either of us. Murder just happens to be against our principles."

  "Principles!"

  "We didn't think we had any," she said. "Isn't it funny?"

  "It's a scream." Fred regarded her with level eyes, remote, speculative. "Why won't you go on that train with KiUeen?" Then, with anger breaking through, "You're in love mth him, aren't you?"

  Alice nipped around on her heel and started down the hall. He ran after her and turned her around. "You're bound and determined to risk your life in this madhouse?" He was watching her face. What he said lacked steam.

  Alice raised her eyes, round and innocent. "Why, you will protect me, Fred," she said demurely.

  "How do you know!" He was furious.

  "I don't know how I know, but I do know," said Alice childishly.

  "I sure as hell will," he said through his teeth. "Fll protect you, never fear." He put his hand on her shoulder and spun her around. "And if you don't spend the most im-comfortable night you ever spent in your life . . . Go on, get in there."

  Alice let him shove her back into Imies's room. Why, she wondered for a fleeting second, does it make me happy when Fred gets angry?

  Killeen came swiftly to her. "I've got to go in a minute. Alice, I'm coming back, you know. Don't be too frightened."

  "Fm not afraid at all," she said, and saw Fred's scowl and felt delighted.

  "I've been thinking, Mr. Duff." Alice looked at him sharply. He was so grave and quietly concerned and the well-bred servant, suddenly. "Miss Brennan will have to be in here with me. You see, I'm supposed to be Mr, Whidock, and they ought to seem to be together. You know, because the whole point is to kill them off in succession, isn't it? She can get in there behind that headboard. She's skinny."

  "Thanks," said Alice. "Don't you mean slender?"

  "Then I can be sure she's not roaming around some place," Fred went on serenely. "She might get some crazy idea. Of course, it'll be more or less uncomfortable ... But don't you get my point, sir?"

  "I do," said Duff, veiling his eyes and pulling his long upper lip down. "I see your point, I think."

  Killeen looked about to protest. Innes looked startled. But Duff took charge.

  "Mr. Killeen, you must leave this house now. Your train is nearly due. I -shall leave at the same time. These ar- : rangements stand. Be very careful and very quiet about shifting around up here."

  "Yes, sir," said Fred.

  "Alice, is there a key in your door?"

  "Yes, sir," she said.

  "Lock it, then. Better if they can't discover too easily that you're not there."

  "I see."

  "Mr. Killeen will return by this window as soon as this room dims to a night light."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Mind the pillboxes. If they come in here. Watch. You know, they may decide to give it up and remove that dangerous piU and unmurder him, after all."

  "I know. Sure."

  "Keep an eye on Alice, always. Stay in here until Mr Whitlock's normal bedtime."

  "Yes, sir."

  ''Then dim these lights."

  "What about me?" said Innes. "What about me? How can I get. . .?"

  "Oh, we'll carry you, sir. It'll be easy."

  "Where will you be, Mr. Duff?" asked Innes. "Don'

  leave us. I... I'm very nervous."

  "I shall be lying in ambush," said Duff, ''with an eye on the noble red man. Of course, you realize that nothiiig at all may happen." Their faces looked grave and a Utde disappointed. "But if it does," he said, "it'll be something you don't expect, so expect that."

  He put his hand on Fred's shoulder for a minute, smiled at Alice, and went away, taking Killeen with him.

  After that, for an hour, Innes took out his nervousness in half-whispered chatter, while Alice said "yes," "no," and "of course not."

  Nobody came to bid him good night.

  The house was quiet. In time it became evident that the Whidock girls had gone to bed.

  Fred dimmed the light at eleven o'clock.

  Nobody, so far, had bothered to unmurder Innes.

  24

  Alice was sitting on a pillow on the floor. She had to keep her shoulders parallel to the wall and her legs stretched pretty tight, that it would be more than the work of a moment to get out of there. In fact, she was a prisoner. She thought: I might better be in a straight jacket. But she was hidden. That was her advantage. That and Fred.

  After Killeen had come silently up a ladder, after Innes had been borne stealthily through the hall while Alice kept guard at the top of the stairs, Fred had herded her into this big silent room with its elephantine furniture and its ridiculous dignity. "Well, let me get into my nightcap," he'd said, and peeled off his coat and shirt and put on the top of Innes's pajamas. Alice helpfully stuffed his own things behind a cushion.

  "Get your slender frame in there," he'd commanded, "and let me see how it works."

  Obediently, she had tucked herself between the bed and the wall, under the giant curve of the towering headboard.

  "Do I show?"

  "Nope," he said. "I didn't think you would. Well . . ." he sounded a little contrite.

  "Oh, get in," said Alice, wildly exhilarated. She'd

  wanted to scream with laughter. The bed springs creaked. "Stick your hand around here." He'd fastened on her wrist. "I hope you get a stiff neck."

  "Don't worry. I will," she'd said without rancor. "Better not talk."

  He hadn't talked, after that.

  She tried to relax and make herself better able to bear the awkward position in which she would have to remain for no one knew how long. She was able to draw her legs up a little, bending them slightly at the knee. Her wrist was going to ache from stretching around the comer of the headboard. But she wouldn't withdraw it. Not yet

  She could see along the wall, not much, not a very large portion of the room. One window. Not the door. There was the night light burning on the table at the other side of the bed, so it wasn't dark. Dust rose in her nostrils. Don't sneeze, she thought. What if a mouse ... Well, I must be brave, that's all. .

  Fred was lying very quietly. Alice thought: Fm safe, and if Fm safe he's safe. I wonder how Innes is bearing up? Art Killeen had given her a queer, intense look before he'd closed the lumber-room door. "If you call, 111 come running," he'd said. Jealousy, thought AJice, is a very human failing. She began to feel a litde drowsy. Her right arm was getting numb.

  The light went out.

  Fred exdaimed under his breath and let go her wrist She heard him click the switch and lean over the other side of the bed to examine the cord and the plug that went into the baseboard.

  ''What the hell?" she heard him whisper.

  Their hands groped for each other. She could sec nothing at all, now. The darkness was like a wall in front of her nose. The country darkness. No street light, no electric signs outside, to send a glow or to outline the window frames. It was pitch dark. The darkness was so thick it seemed to have body and press down.

  Alice felt her ears growing in the dark. They seemed to strain to stand out from her head. Her hand, in Fred's hand, was getting a little slippery, a httle clammy, when they heard a distant whisper and creak of feet On the stairs?

  The door next, she thought. It's going to happen. But the door wasn't next.

&nb
sp; Instead, there was a stealthy scraping, a bump or two. Someone was moving something, just outside, in the haU. A metallic sound. Then a hollow thump, like a soft tap on a muffled drum. Was the metallic sound a key turning? Were they locked in? Alice's fingers twitched and grabbed. And Fred's responded.

  Soft whisper of feet on the carpet outside. But going away! Gone!

  Fred moved with infinite care. His breath was in her face, as he leaned around the headboard. "Gone," he whispered. The word was so slight a sound that it was like telepathy.

  "Are . . . we ... locked . . . m?" She breathed the question back.

  He didn't know. The darkness and the silence answered her question as if he had shrugged his shoulders and she had felt the air disturbed and read the meaning. -"Shall ... I... go .. . see?"

  Her hand clutched at his, saying, don't go. "Wait." Lonesome, far away, for all it was her own breath, the word raised tiny echoes in the dust. His hand said he would stay.

  They waited. Alice thought, were they going to set the house on fire? Or would it be coal gas again? Innes couldn't smell. Couldn't smell smoke? She wondered. Her own nose felt keen and sharp as if her breath drew in and examined every least odor and searched the very air for danger. She thought: But Mr. IXiff knows who it is. How does he know? How can he know? She, herself, couldn't separate them any more. The menace was 'they." AH three. Half-crazy, she thought, warped and out of the world and fuU of evil. Prowling the house, for all she knew. Gertrude walking in the dark. Maud's reckless grin. Isabel, nerve driven, creeping in the dark.

  When at last they heard the footsteps coming, it was a rehef. But not for long.

  Now, the door was next. It wasn't locked at aU. It was being gently opened. Fred, who could have seen the door, had there been Ught, could see nothing. It didn't even make a patch in the darkness. But a faint movement of air

  came through. It was open, and there was somebody there.

  Somebody whispered, "Imies?"

  There is no voice in a whisper. All whispers are gray in the dark, like cats, thought Alice.

  Fred was directing his own breathing, making it slow as if he slept. Alice tried not to breathe at all. She found it easy. There seemed to be no breathable air, anyhow. How could they watch the pillboxes in the dark? she thought in dismay.

  The steps crossed toward the bed. Alice felt Fred's fingers loosen. He would be bracing himself. The difference between Fred, awake and strong, and the man this silent creature thought was there, asleep and weak with broken bones bound up and drugs in his brain—that was the difference that would save them. If she ... If she ..,

  What?

  Fred felt a hand groping over his covered body. It found his arm and m,oved gentiy down to his wrist Cold fingers pressed there. He couldn't control his heartbeats. But they were less fast than strong. He devoted himself to slow breathing. Maybe that would make the heart behave.

  The fingers let him go. Air swirled in the wake of the figure as it moved away. Was this aU? Was this aU?

  They heard a breath sharply drawn.

  Then the silence exploded into a thousand pieces. She called out. Lifted up her voice and called into the dark and waiting house. Called, and shivers crawled on the skin at the alarm in it. The warning, the terror of the cry.

  "Alice," she called. "Alice." And again . . . "Alice.'

  Fred's fingernails dug into the flesh of Alice's hand, and the pain was good. She kept quiet

  For the call was going down the silent hall, around the comer, like a hound hunting. It went down the hall to Alice's door.

  "AHce."

  Would Alice come? She, herself, stiff behind the bed, so close, seemed to lose her identity. Surely there was an Alice somewhere else to hear that calling. And to answer. It must be answered. It couldn't be denied.

  "Alice." It grew a litde sharper, that desperate cry. "Alice."

  180

  n

  They heard a door, the faint click of the knob turning, the rustle of its opening. Half-fainting, Alice seemed to see her own ghost. Someone was opening the door of the room where she ought to be. Someone was coming to answer. Alice was comiug. Alice. It must be Alice. But Alice was here. No, Alice was in the hall. One could hear her feet. Reluctant, those feet. Groping, naturally, in the thick darkness. Cautious feet. But coming, answering.

  Alice would come, if one called her in the night like that. Of course she would.

  The voice called no more. But the footsteps . . . Not Alice. Art Killeen. The world tumbled back to another balance as Alice wrenched herself around to a reasonable belief. He'd come, she told herself. He'd come, no matter what, for that name, that wailing Alice!

  There! Did the door click? This door?

  A door opened. The feet. . . . Alice's feet? No, no, Killeen's ... the feet took a step in the dark.

  It screamed. Alice's ghost, whatever it was. A strangling scream as if the throat closed with terror. Screamed, and the scream died away as if in the wind. Died away and was gone, and was out of the house. There was a terrible sound. Not very loud, but hideous, like the pulpy squash of a fly. Mingled with it, they thought they heard the little triumphant croak of evil victory.

  Now the voice said, "Innes? Innes?" Urgendy, anxiously, aloud, with a nervous whine.

  Out in the hall another voice said, "What's the matter? What's the matter?"

  "Gertrude? Is that you, Gertrude?"

  "Isabel?"

  Calling to each other, the two sisters. Isabel in here, Gertrude out there. Which of them had made that litde horrible Well-remembered sound?

  Alice's heart gave a great bound and returned to its work with a swift pounding. She felt her face get hot. Fred's fingers moved on her hand.

  Oh, God, someone was coming in the window! The sash was thrown up, violently, not stealthily at all. They braced themselves again. But Duff's voice came through the dark with quiet authority.

  "Stay exactly where you are, everybody."

  Isabel said, rapidly, as if her jaw was oscillating out of her control. "Oh, Mr. Duff, is it you? Mr. Duff, what's happened? The lights. Innes. Something's wrong, I think. I think . . ."

  "Be quiet," said Duff.

  Footsteps in the haU again. But this was Gertrude. This was her firm tread, her unhesitating feet. From the top of the stairs, turning to the left, coming toward the door of Papa's room.

  They stopped. It seemed very abrupt. It seemed like an exclamation of surprise.

  "Isabel," Gertrude's voice was aggreived. "The chest of drawers has been moved. Isabel, Isabel . . ." They heard the woman's breath drawn. "The old porch door . . ."

  "Miss Whidock," said Duff curtly, "come along to this room, please."

  Gertrude's feet came on. She stopped accurately where the door was. They could tell by the heightened sound. She stepped in.

  Duff nad moved near the bed, where Fred maintained his silence. "My flashlight has failed. I'm afraid Mr. Whidock, here, has fainted . . ."

  Gertrude was quivering. Even in the dark silence, they could tell. "Where is Innes?" she said. Her voice went higher, like a frightened child's. "Where is he?"

  It became immediately plain where Innes was. A door burst open down the hall. They could hear his sobbing, his hysteria.

  Duff said, "Perhaps some sedative. If I could make this Ught. . ."

  Gertrude went across the room. "On the mantel," she said. They couldn't see her but they could hear her fingers as they went along the wood. "Mr. Duff .. ." she said as if she held something out to him,

  "Wait a minute. I think . . . yes . . ." His flashhght sprang on. The beam leaped to Gertrude, as she stood beside the mantel with a white pillbox in her hand.

  Isabel was stock still, her Ups drawn back from her teeth in a kind of grisly surprise. She wheeled about, with her jerky manner. "Not those," she said. Her claw took the cover off the blue china box.

  Duff took the box from Isabel.

  Then Mr. Johnson was standing m the door. Duff sent the light glancing across the
dark face. It was calm. "Innes wants you."

  "Not now. Give him one or two of these, if you can." The light danced as Duff shook two pills out into his dirty hand.

  Gertrude's tall body wavered as if she weren't quite steady on her feet. "I don't understand. Mr. Duff?" she said. Her voice began to trail as if she were losing at least a part of her consciousness. Her thumb moved on the pDlbox in her hand. "What pills are these? Mr. Duff, is she dead?"

  "Oh, yes," he said.

  Mr. Johnson spoke. "Broken neck," he said, neither question nor answer. He moved out of the hght, silently.

  "My fault," said Isabel. Her face looked hollowed in the light coming from below. Her eyes seemed wild with sorrow. "My fault, because I called her. I called her name. The lights . . . Innes ... I thought something was wrong. Poor girl. Poor Alice."

  Gertrude said, "Is there light? Mr. Duff, can you see?"

  "I can see," he said.

  "Then why don't you see . . ." Gertrude put out her hand gropingly, for the first time. "I am blind," she said weakly. "Who is in this room? Who is here?"

  The Indian had gone to his master.

  Duff said, "I am here, Miss Whitlock, and your sister Isabel, and . . ."

  "And Fred," said Isabel rather tartly.

  "Is there a chair?" said Gertrude piteously.

  Fred let go of Alice's hand and sat up in bed as if he liad been released. "What happened?" he demanded.

  Duffs voice was drearily cadenced. "I suppose she started down the hall in the dark. She came to the chest of drawers that always stood just before you reached this door. So she opened the door that was next to the chest of drawers and it led out to nowhere."

  "Why wasn't it locked!"

  "Because this is murder."

  "That's impossible," said Gertrude. "I'm . . ."

  "No, it isn't impossible. As a matter of fact, Miss Isabel arranged it"

  Isabel had her lip caught m her teeth. Her queer eyes looked aslant.

  "You killed her. Miss Isabel, just as much as if you'd shot her, you know. That's murder. The law will say so. Premeditated. DeUberate. Planned."

  Isabel shook her head.

  "You tried three times to kill your brother Imies. And failed. Then you tried to kill Alice Brennan."