The Swimming Pool

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  It was possible, I thought, that the shock—whatever it was—had come, not in her earlier days, but on the train the day she fainted.

  We had coffee as usual on the porch that night, but as the late summer evening turned to night I found myself there alone, Bill announcing that he had to see Janey and would probably propose to her.

  “At your age, Bill!” I said. “Don’t be absurd.”

  He grinned at me.

  “It’s just part of the game,” he explained. “Keeps other fellows away, gives me the right to do a little necking, and lets me in to dinner now and then. They have a damned good cook.” He saw my face and laughed. “Anyhow, I’d better get some influences behind me, such as her father. You see, I’ve been using Phil’s clubs.”

  After he had rattled off, Phil took his briefcase into the library, and with Judith gone to bed I found myself alone.

  I couldn’t decide what to do. O’Brien’s lamp was lighted, and I had plenty to say to him. On the other hand, things seemed to be breaking too fast even for imagination. Sometime, too, during that interval I heard a car pass on the road and stop somewhere beyond. It must have been eleven o’clock by that time, the moon was rising over the trunks of the birch grove, and I was about to light the final cigarette of the day when I saw someone standing there.

  It was a man, and at first I thought it was O’Brien. Then I realized he was not tall enough. Whoever it was, he stood gazing up at the house, his hands apparently in his pockets. One hand was not, however. It was clutching something, and to my shocked surprise it seemed to be a rock.

  It was a rock! After seemingly assuring himself that no one was around he stepped out of the grove onto the drive that led to the stable, and with an easy pitch lobbed it up at one of Judith’s open windows. I heard the distant crash as it hit the floor, and Judith’s faint scream, both almost simultaneous.

  He was gone before I realized it, fading among the trees, and before I could recover from my astonishment, I heard a car start up on the main road. As though that was not sufficient, I saw O’Brien running up from his cottage. As the car started, however, he slowed down to a walk, but he kept on coming. He was almost on the porch when he saw me.

  “Who is it?” he said, peering up.

  “It’s Lois,” I told him. “I’m afraid your friend’s gone. After he heaved a rock through Judith’s window, of course. That’s not mayhem, is it? Mayhem is an attack on the person. But it seems a rather lethal form of amusement.”

  I doubt if he heard my last sentence or two. He was in the house and upstairs banging on Judith’s door almost before I finished. I followed him up as fast as I could, to see him stop at Judith’s door, and to hear him calling her name.

  “Mrs. Chandler!” he said. “Are you all right?”

  She did not answer him at once. When she did her voice was sharp.

  “Of course I’m all right,” she said. “What on earth is the matter?”

  “The rock didn’t hurt you?”

  “What rock? I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. O’Brien.”

  “Didn’t one come through your window just now?”

  “I was taking a bath. I’ll look around.” There was a short silence, while she ostensibly made her search. O’Brien did not look at me. He put a sizable ear close to the door, and I saw he was wearing an army overcoat over his pajamas.

  There was a short silence.

  “There’s no rock here,” she said. “I can’t imagine what all the excitement is about.”

  “Won’t you let me in to look?”

  Then she laughed, the light artificial laugh I knew so well.

  “Really I can’t do it,” she said, her voice close to the door. “I’m just out of the tub. If Lois is around she would call it in puris naturalibus. College, you know. Good night, Mr. O’Brien, and thanks for looking after me.”

  O’Brien turned and looked at me.

  “All right,” I said in a whisper. “I’m a liar. There was no man and no rock, and everything’s nice and friendly in this best of all possible worlds.”

  He grinned.

  “She jumped that hurdle pretty fast,” he said in a low cautious voice. “Had a lot of practice probably. Want to come down and talk about it?”

  I did. I even wanted a drink to settle my nerves. I got two highballs and carried them to the porch. He evidently had his pipe with him—he had dozens all over the place—for when I went out he was smoking. He looked almost complacent. He sampled his drink, stated it was what the doctor ordered, and then told me to go ahead and—as he put it—add a bit.

  Nevertheless, he was serious enough as I told him what had happened: the man’s approach by way of the grove, the crash of the rock, Judith’s scream, and then the car and the unknown’s flight presumably in it. He did not speak until I had finished. Then he told me to stay where I was, and went down the steps and around the corner of the house.

  When he came back he was holding a sizable stone in his hand.

  “She threw it out the window after we got there,” he said. “Notice anything about it?”

  “It’s just a piece of rock, isn’t it?”

  “It’s rough, and it’s squarish. You can tie things to a shape like this. I’m not psychic, but I can tell you what your sister is doing right now. She’s either burning the note this carried, or she’s flushing it down the toilet.” He thrust a big hand into a pocket. “She’s pretty thorough, you know, but she slipped up in one thing. She threw the cord, too.”

  He produced it and handed it to me. It was an ordinary piece of white string, not too clean, and O’Brien took it back and put it in the pocket of his overcoat again.

  “People get excited and slip up on some little thing,” he said. “That’s where the police step in. They’re looking for the slip.”

  “I still don’t understand,” I said blankly. “Why not write her a letter?”

  He smiled.

  “Well, there’s a bit of drama in this sort of delivery,” he said indulgently. “Makes her read it, for one thing. No human being could resist a note tied to a rock and flung, so to speak, at one’s feet.”

  He was not so complacent as he sounded, however. He had been taking a shower when the car drove past and he had not heard it. He had seen it later in the Adrians’ drive, and started at once for the house, only to be too late.

  “But what’s it all about?” I wailed. “Who is he? It wasn’t Ridge Chandler. He was bigger than Ridge. If he has to see her or communicate with her, why not simply ring the doorbell?”

  “Maybe he has his own reasons,” he said evasively. “I told you once even a smart cop could lay an egg now and then. Maybe I’m not smart, for I think I may have laid one here. Only, damn it all, I can’t get in touch with the fellow.”

  “You know who it is, don’t you?”

  “Look, sister,” he said. “A lot of things have been going on around here. Some I understand, some I don’t. The hell of a lot I don’t. And I won’t have you involved. Think that over, my dear.”

  He got up abruptly, stood undecided for a minute, and then stooped quickly and kissed me.

  “Been wanting to do that for a long time,” he said, and departed.

  I was still sitting there in stunned amazement when Phil came out. O’Brien had taken the stone with him, so I could not show it, but he listened to my story with only a mild interest.

  “She denied it, did she?” he asked when I had finished.

  “Yes. Absolutely. She even laughed. Through the door, of course. She wouldn’t open it.”

  “Well, don’t let her get you, kid. She’s doing all right They say lunatics are always happy—in their own way, of course.”

  “Doctor Townsend says she’s sane enough. He thinks she’s had a psychic shock of some sort. And certainly she didn’t stand on the drive and sling a stone at herself, Phil.”

  “Probably another lunatic,” he said, and yawned. “Maybe they like company.”

  Perhaps I was on the
verge of a good crying spell or perhaps he merely realized I was considerably unstrung. He lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair.

  “All right,” he said, “I’m sorry. Only I don’t like to see you losing weight and worrying. Let’s look at this thing. If ever a woman was petted and coddled all her life it’s Judith. She’s what she’s always been, spoiled and a trifle off center. Probably the shock was when someone took her rattle away when she was a baby!”

  “That wouldn’t make her terrified now. And she is. She’s really afraid. That man tonight—”

  He moved impatiently.

  “I don’t know anything about her private affairs. Maybe she has a lover. Who knows? Only remember this, Lois. You say she thinks someone wants to kill her. Well, maybe so, but look at the facts. She’s been the beautiful Judith Chandler for twenty years, and she’s still something to look at. Maybe when she left Ridge she meant to marry someone else, but he hasn’t come through. Or maybe she changed her mind. She doesn’t want him, after all. So she not only hides from him, she dramatizes the affair. Either she’s his or nobody’s. He may even be desperate enough to kill her. Second-act curtain.”

  He yawned again and got up.

  “That poor creature in the pool played right into her hands,” he said. “Same color of hair and same build, so she insists the fellow meant to kill her and got the wrong woman. Better get to bed, Lois, and stop fussing. She’s having the time of her life.”

  I did not believe him. I was sure he did not believe himself. And when later events proved how wrong he had been I was too busy to remind him. I was, at different times of course, to be visiting Judith, and of all places in the world, in the local hospital.

  Chapter 14

  BILL HAD NOT COME in by midnight. As he seldom did I was not uneasy. But I was not Phil, with his humor and his factual mind. I knew I would not sleep until O’Brien had explained just why he had run up the drive, or what warning he had had of trouble. He could not have heard Judith’s scream, yet he had come pelting along as though all the fiends of hell were after him.

  I wasn’t a child, to be put off with a pat and a kiss, I thought indignantly. Or to be shown up as a liar at the inquest. He owed me something, and I intended to collect it.

  His light was still on, and after an uneasy moment when I remembered the man with the rock, I decided to go down to the cottage. As an afterthought I took one of Father’s old canes from the umbrella stand in the hall, and cautiously made my way down the drive.

  I think the cane amused him.

  “All armed for an attack, aren’t you?” he said. “Well, come in. I’m not going to apologize for that impulsive act on the porch, if that’s what you’re after.”

  I took a leaf from Judith’s bag of tricks.

  “What impulsive act?” I said coolly.

  He stared at me. Then he laughed.

  “All right,” he said. “Just the way no stone was fired through your sister’s window, isn’t it? Only you might remember there was a stone, and I found it.”

  “I didn’t come down for double talk. I want to know how that man got to the house tonight.”

  “Easy. His car was parked in the Adrian drive. I saw it there.”

  “Then you know who it was, don’t you?”

  “Let’s say I have a theory about it. Remember Jennie’s man, and a few other things. All I want is to lay hands on the fellow.”

  “You know that woman was murdered, don’t you?”

  He did not answer at once. He closed the two windows and drew my chintz curtains across them, picked up a pipe, and gave me a cigarette and lit it before he sat down.

  “She was, yes,” he said. “But I wasn’t thinking only of her. Someone else may be in danger.”

  “You mean Judith?”

  “Possibly. Certainly she believes it. I’m not sure.”

  “Doctor Townsend explains her state of mind as the result of a psychic shock, perhaps years ago. I can’t think of anything of the sort. I can only remember how carefully she was raised. Until she made her debut she hardly moved without Mother or a nurse or a governess. She went to a private school in town, but the car took her and called for her. Mother had a sort of fixation about her, and when she was dying, although I was only a youngster, she made me promise to look after her. Judith knows that. I think that’s why she came here to The Birches.”

  “Any idea what your mother was afraid of?”

  “She wasn’t afraid exactly, but Judith was the family beauty. Then, too, she had been a difficult child. Mother might have been afraid she’d go off the rails somehow. As she has.”

  “The divorce, you mean?”

  “That didn’t bother Jude. She never really cared for Ridge Chandler. No. I think she was glad to be free. She was practically normal until we started east. She was going abroad as soon as she could book passage.”

  He thought that over for a moment or two, knocking out his pipe and refilling it. When he spoke again it was about the inquest.

  “Sorry I let you in for that. Of course, I didn’t know they had your prints. How did that happen?”

  “I was an air-raid warden during the war. The police took all our fingerprints.”

  He nodded. It was very quiet. The only sounds were when once a sleepy hen gave a faint cluck in the chicken house or when now and then a car passed along the road. For there were a few cars now. Summer had come, and here and there a summer place had been opened. But O’Brien was not listening. He was still fiddling with his pipe, and his face looked unhappy.

  “I’ve about reached the end of my rope,” he said finally. “I need some help, and I think perhaps you can give it to me. Only I’ll have to tell you a story, and go back a long way to do it.”

  He reached into the drawer and pulled out the clipping from the dead woman’s bag, in its cellophane frame.

  “It has to do with this,” he said. “It doesn’t sound important, does it? Yet it may be. It may mean not only this Madam X of ours was murdered. It may explain why. I’ve tried to trace her and failed. But I need help. In the first place, look at this.”

  He reached into the drawer again and pulled out a yellow scrap of paper. It was the return-trip half of a railroad ticket to a small town up the Hudson! I suppose I looked jolted, for he spoke quickly.

  “Don’t judge me yet, Lois,” he said. “I had a reason, and a damned good one.”

  He gave me no chance to speak. He went right on.

  “I’ve told you I’d always wanted to be a policeman,” he said. “Maybe you think that’s funny, but a lot of kids are like that. Anyhow I stuck. I flunked out of college to do it, and my family was furious, but in the end I got on the force.

  “I guess I was a pretty obnoxious young punk at first. Because my people had some money I had the idea that God had made me a little better than the other men. Then one day a Homicide man twice my age took me around the corner and knocked the hell out of me. I was laying for him after that. I had a Lower East Side district, and I was prepared to shove him into the river whenever I got a chance. His name was Flaherty. Inspector Flaherty.

  “He knew it, too, but he didn’t let it bother him, and when there was an opening, he got me transferred to Centre Street in his department. He grinned when he sent for me.

  “‘I’ll feel safer when I have you where I can see you,’ he said. ‘And you have the brains to make you a good cop, as well as the build of one. That’s why you’re here, O’Brien. I asked for you.’

  “Well, you don’t shove a man into the East River after a thing like that, and after the first few months I guess I would have let Flaherty tramp all over me. Most of what I know he taught me. He was hard as nails outside, but—oh, hell, I don’t want to talk about him. He had only one ambition. He wanted to have a chicken farm when he retired. I guess that’s the reason for the girls out there.

  “I was still with him a year or so later when they found that girl in the clipping you’ve read. It wasn’t my first murder, but it was b
ad enough. She’d been a pretty kid, and she had three or four younger sisters and brothers to support. She worked in a cheap store down there, and maybe she made some money on the side. You couldn’t blame her. They had to eat.

  “The district’s changed since then. Not so many pushcarts on the street, for one thing. They sold everything from hot baked potatoes to men’s pants and shoes. Now the traffic men have moved them back to the pavements or even into small stores. But it’s still a messy place, washing and beddings hanging on fire escapes, and the kids staying out until all hours.

  “The Preston kids—you’ve read that clipping: her name was Mollie Preston—were out until midnight that night. And when they came home she was dead on the floor, strangled. We had the hell of a time getting any story at all, what with the screams and all that. But a girl on the floor below said she saw a young fellow going up the stairs to the Preston flat that night, and that she heard a noisy quarrel. Her name was Kate Henry, and unless I’m crazy she’s the woman your Bill found in the pool.

  “It was Flaherty’s case. I came into it because I’d learned shorthand. And Flaherty took it pretty hard. He’d known the girl since she was a baby.

  “Well, it looked like an open-and-shut case. She’d been seeing a young law student from Columbia named Shannon—Johnny Shannon—and Kate Henry identified him in the lineup and before the grand jury. He admitted he’d been there that night, but only for a few minutes to call off a date. The girl was angry because he wouldn’t stay, and she was pretty noisy about it. He said there was no quarrel and he claimed an alibi, but it didn’t stand up, so he got a life sentence.

  “It killed his mother. Only the funny thing is that Flaherty never believed he was guilty. Up to the time of the trial he kept working on the case. He found homes for the Preston children, but even after the trial he was convinced Kate Henry had lied.

  “Kate had disappeared by that time. Then one day he told me he thought he had located her in a small town up the Hudson. He didn’t tell me its name, except that it wasn’t far from Poughkeepsie, and that he was going there the next day. Only he never got there. He was shot and killed on his way home that night.”