“They’re all cozy in the cottage,” he said, “or back in their barracks. What’s the matter with you? You’re not easily scared.”
We reached the stables at last, and once inside, Bill produced a flashlight. He caught a glimpse of me then, and serious as he had been he laughed.
“I wish O’Brien could see you now,” he said. “You look as though you’d been dumped in the pool.”
“He has seen me exactly like that,” I said sourly.
He was not listening. He had located a ladder; not the one he remembered but a heavy pruning one, with an extension to reach the upper branches of trees or to clear the gutters on the roof when falling leaves cluttered them in the autumn. But somehow we got hold of it and started back to the house. It seemed miles to me. I lost a bedroom slipper and could not stop to find it, and once Bill fell and the whole end cracked down on him.
The rain was slackening by that time. I could see a flashlight or two in the shrubbery by the pool, but Bill kept doggedly on, and I had no choice but to follow him. The expedition seemed more and more absurd as we reached the house.
The two windows at the side of Judith’s room were almost dark, except for a faint light from somewhere which outlined them, and since one of them was open, it was there we placed the ladder. It made a small scraping sound, but nothing followed. No Judith appeared, no light went on, and Bill suddenly went shy on me.
“You’d better go first,” he whispered. “She’d have a fit if she saw a man in her room after what she says about one trying to kill her. Or maybe she sleeps raw. Not afraid, are you?”
I looked up. The ceilings at The Birches are high, and the windows looked fifty feet above me. Nevertheless, the fact that she had not heard the ladder worried me. I tucked up my dressing-gown and having lost my bedroom slipper, put a bare foot on the lowest round.
“Hold it steady,” I said, “and don’t you dare leave. If she’s all right I’ll come down in a hurry.”
No police had shown any interest in us so far, and the climb was easier than I expected. At the top I stopped and looked into the room. The faint light was coming from the bathroom, the door of which was partly open. There was enough for me to see that Judith was not in her bed but it was mussed as though she had been, and her dressing-gown was thrown over a chair.
I threw a leg over the sill, and immediately a tin tray, balanced lightly on the upturned legs of a chair, fell with a deadly racket. I realized I had walked into a booby trap of no mean proportions, and I waited for Judith to scream. But nothing happened. There was no sound, not even any movement, and I think that was when I became alarmed. The racket had been enough to wake the dead, but no Judith had appeared at the bathroom door. At first I thought she might be out somewhere, and not until I had seen the bolt shot on her door and the chain on did I realize she must be where I found her.
I found her in the bathtub. She had cut both her wrists, and I was certain she was dead. Not that there was much blood in the tub, but because she felt cold when I bent over and touched her. She was wearing a thin nightdress, and her lips without makeup looked blue and thin.
I was still staring at her, unable to move, when I heard a man’s voice behind me. I jumped and turned, to find Fowler in the middle of her room, his eyes hard and a gun in his hand.
“What’s all this about?” he demanded. “Why the hell are you breaking into your own house?”
I moved then and he saw Judith. He simply stared, as if he could not believe it.
“It’s—your sister, isn’t it? Is she dead?”
“I’m afraid so,” I stammered. “She feels cold.”
He pushed me aside and bent over the tub. Then he strode out of the bathroom and to the window.
“Get Jenkins up here,” he called, “and bring that boy up, too. Then someone get a doctor. Break in the house if you have to, but hurry. Find a telephone.”
A uniformed state policeman came up the ladder. He almost fell over Judith’s booby trap and looked unhappy as Fowler gave him a nasty look.
“Help me get this woman out of the tub here and put her to bed,” he said sharply. “Then wake the servants and tell them to find some hot-water bottles and some bandages. All right. Take her feet.”
I was shaking all over, but I managed to speak.
“Is she dead?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Pretty close to it, anyhow. Who is your family doctor? Or maybe she’d better go to the hospital.”
“She’d rather stay here. I’m sure of that. Of course, it’s up to you, but Doctor Christy—”
He nodded and together they carried Judith to her bed and covered her.
“Get Christy,” he said to the trooper. “Tell him it’s an emergency. Then tell the fellows down the drive to pass him.” He looked at me, wet and bedraggled as I was, and he almost smiled.
“If some of these would-be suicides would fill the tub first with warm water they might get away with it. This way the blood coagulates. That’s not what’s wrong with her. She’s taken something.”
“What? What do you think she took?”
“Sleeping-pills, at a guess,” he said dryly. “Why did you break in? You made a pretty poor job of it, you know. That racket—”
They brought Bill up the ladder just then. He took one look at Judith and collapsed.
“Oh, God!” he said. “So I was right, after all.”
Fowler sent us both out of the room. The house downstairs was already crowded with the local police and a couple of state troopers who had been on the grounds and who, until they saw me, were smoking surreptitious cigarettes. The screaming of tires announced Doctor Christy and his nurse, who disappeared up the stairs, and after a time Fowler came down. He found us in the hall. I had pinned back my hair, but Bill still looked completely demoralized. It was Bill that Fowler spoke to.
“You say this was your idea?” he said. “Why? How did you know she was going to try to kill herself?”
“It was just a hunch. She wouldn’t open her door, or speak to me. I got scared.”
“Why did she have a booby trap under her window? What was she afraid of?”
“Wouldn’t you be afraid?” I said, putting in my two cents’ worth. “She says—she has said all along that someone wanted to kill her. You know we’ve had a man around the place at night trying to get in touch with her. I told me district attorney about him. She believed he mistook the Benjamin woman for her.”
He gave me a not-unfriendly grin.
“So she tries to kill herself!” he said. “That’s jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire with a vengeance. I’ve been in this business a long time, Miss Maynard. I’ve seen a lot of death and some suicides. But I never heard of killing yourself to avoid being killed.”
Chapter 21
DOCTOR CHRISTY WAS STILL in Judith’s room when Phil arrived, looking half dead. He found me in the kitchen helping Helga make huge amounts of coffee. I was still in my pajamas and the old dressing-gown, with one foot bare.
“You’re a sight,” he said. “What in the name of heaven is going on? What are all these police doing here?”
“Swilling coffee,” I told him. “And if you can stand another shock—and I mean shock—Judith tried to kill herself tonight.”
He looked at me incredulously.
“Kill herself!” he said. “They only told me she was hurt. I don’t believe it, Lois. Not Judith.”
“I’ve told you all along there was something wrong with her,” I said tiredly. “She tried it all right, Phil, believe it or not. I found her.”
I told him my story as best I could with police wandering in and out for coffee, with Helga listening and Jennie having hysterics in the pantry. He still looked stunned.
“But why?” he said. “She’s been taking precious good care that nobody got at her. Then all at once this! I don’t get it.”
Well, of course nobody did. Not then, anyhow. I got him some whisky, after which he looked better. He reported that O’Brien was
badly hurt but not fatally, and as by that time the police had gradually drifted away, we went into the living-room and Phil lit a fire.
He stood in front of it, looking up at Mother’s portrait and evidently making up his mind about something. Then he lit a cigarette and turned to face me.
“It’s a bad time to come out with this, Lois,” he said tiredly. “You’ve had enough today. More than enough. But you’ll have to know sooner or later.”
“It’s the golf club, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s mine. It hadn’t even been cleaned. Only wiped off on the grass and stuck back in the bag. They didn’t need a microscope to know it killed the Benjamin woman. Even the scrap of leather fits the grip.”
“It didn’t kill her, Phil. Remember, she was drowned.”
“Why quibble?” he said. “Someone from this house took it and used it. It isn’t hard to guess who, unless you think I did it myself.”
It was fortunate Doctor Christy appeared just then. He wore the smug expression of a man who has just delivered a nine-pound baby, which was as well under the circumstances.
“Glad to say we’ve got the stuff licked,” he said. “The cuts didn’t amount to much. It was the barbiturate that gave the real trouble. She’d had quite a dose of it.”
“Enough to kill her?” Phil asked.
“Well, it’s hard to say. Enough to give her a good long sleep, anyhow.” The chief had come in with him. Now he poured a couple of drinks from the Scotch on a table, and eyed Phil as he gave the doctor one.
“Don’t you believe it was a genuine attempt at suicide?” he asked.
I knew what he meant. Someone from the house had taken Phil’s golf club and used it on the Benjamin woman, which made our story about the man on the grounds look pretty sick. Phil realized it, too. If Judith had been the one she might have been remorseful enough, or frightened enough, to try suicide or at least to fake it. Phil, however, only looked resentful.
“It wasn’t guilt that made her try what she did tonight,” he said stubbornly. “It might be fear. Ever since she came here she has been afraid someone was trying to kill her. She’s been scared for months. That doesn’t spell murder, in my language.”
“You’ve admitted the golf club is yours.”
“What else could I do? My initials are stamped on it.”
“That rather leaves it up to someone here in the house, doesn’t it? And in my language suicide is often a confession of guilt.”
But Phil only looked weary and impatient.
“A long time ago,” he said, “I gave up trying to understand my sister Judith. She never made sense to me, even as a child. My mother spoiled her, of course. She married a good husband, and he spoiled her, too. She’s always had everything she wanted, even a divorce. I’m sorry,” he added. “It’s no way to talk about a sister, but I’ve had about all I can take. The point is that she had no reason to kill that woman. None whatever.”
“What about tonight?”
“If death was something she wanted—”
“We still have the club, Mr. Maynard. If we leave out the servants, only the three of you are likely to have known where it was kept. You must recognize that.”
“Not necessarily,” Phil said irritably. “Anyone could have taken it. The house is open except at night. As for me, I am as much in the dark as you are. I haven’t played golf for weeks. Anytime in the last two months that club could have been taken and never missed.”
Fowler threw up his hands.
“If that’s your story—” he said, and turning on his heel left us abruptly.
By six o’clock when Helga called us to breakfast the house looked as though a cyclone had struck it, but the police had gone. Even Doctor Christy, after a final look at Judith, had departed, although his nurse remained for a few hours.
“Let her sleep it out,” he said. “She’s all right now. Those cuts will heal in a hurry. Perhaps you’d better not talk to her about it. Let her explain if she wants to.”
I had an idea Judith would do no explaining, but I let that go. Helga was a different matter, however. She stood in the kitchen and surveyed the place: cups all over it, the heel of a loaf of bread, the disconsolate bone of what had been a baked ham, and her clean linoleum covered with muddy footprints. Jennie had retired to her room with a headache, so she was alone when I went in.
“Are you trying to tell me Judith meant to kill herself tonight?” she said aggressively. “Because I won’t believe it. Not Judith. Never.”
“I’m afraid she did Helga. It wasn’t an act. Her door was locked. So was the one from the bathroom into the hall.”
Helga sat down, as though her old legs would no longer hold her.
“It doesn’t sound like her,” she said slowly. “She was no angel. Heaven knows there were a good many times in the early days when I wanted to smack her good. But what would drive her to a thing like that?”
“I have an idea she thought O’Brien was dead, or dying. It may have been the last straw. I’m sure she felt guilty.”
“The real guilt was years ago,” Helga said somberly. “There is such a thing as the sins of the fathers catching up with the children.”
I must have looked aghast. Certainly she knew she had gone too far, for when I asked her what she meant she clamped her lips shut.
“You must mean something,” I persisted. “What did my father do?”
“I didn’t say it was your father.”
“All right. If you meant Mother, say so,” I said impatiently.
But Helga was on the defensive now.
“I don’t hold anything against her,” she said. “But she was a proud woman, Lois, and pride was her downfall.”
She would not explain. She went doggedly about cleaning her kitchen, and at last I left her there. I was sure she knew or suspected a great many things, but I knew, too, she meant to keep them to herself.
It was afternoon when Anne arrived. To my surprise Ridge was with her, as dapper as ever, and Anne looked like a mourner at a funeral.
“Bill telephoned,” she said. “I can’t believe it, Lois. She’d never do a thing like that. What got into her?”
I had no time to answer. Ridge had brought a huge box of flowers, and after leaving them in the hall he followed us into the living-room. He shook hands with me with his usual formality.
“How is she?” he inquired. “It was an idiotic thing to do. Suppose she hadn’t been found in time!”
“What do you mean?” I said sharply. “She didn’t intend to be found at all.”
He shrugged.
“I hope you don’t mind if I question that, Lois. She’s threatened it before. You might say it’s her way of keeping in the limelight. But she may be disappointed this time. There will be nothing in the gossip columns. I’ve seen to it.”
“So that’s the idea!” I said. “She was putting on an act, was she? Well, she didn’t stage this, Ridge. It was real, and it was damned near fatal.”
Anne was looking bewildered, as well she might, but Ridge was—as usual—the complete gentleman.
“It’s possible, of course,” he said politely. “I’ve suspected for a long time she was manic-depressive. Why don’t you sit down, Lois? I’ve had a long drive. Why keep me standing?”
I was, however, too angry to sit.
“I see,” I said. “On the upcurve for twenty years and on the down one for the last few months! That’s crazy, Ridge.”
Anne had said nothing so far. She had dropped into a chair, and lit a cigarette. Now she spoke.
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said querulously. “Why would she try to kill herself? I thought she wanted to go abroad.”
“Don’t ask me. Ask Ridge. He can explain it!”
“And where’s Bill? I told him I was coming out.”
“Bill’s sleeping,” I said shortly. “He was up all night, like the rest of us.”
“I’m going to take him home, Lois. This is no place for him: a
murder, a shooting, and now this thing about Judith! It’s just too much.”
“Personally,” I said, “I think he’s having the time of his life. Anyhow I don’t believe the police will let him go—not yet”
“The police! Don’t tell me they suspect him!”
I had no time to answer. The nurse appeared in the doorway. She wore a coat over her uniform, and she said Judith was awake and had told her she could go.
Anne bounced out of her chair.
“That’s simply idiotic,” she said. “I’ll go up and talk to her.”
“I don’t think I would,” said the nurse. “She’s all right, but she’s still very nervous. I couldn’t stay, anyhow. Doctor Christy needs me. He took me off another case last night.”
I don’t think Anne even heard her. She bolted out and up the stairs, leaving the young woman staring after her.
“I hope she doesn’t tell Mrs. Chandler about the police,” she said. “She doesn’t know they were here. It might upset her.”
Ridge eyed her thoughtfully.
“Has she said why she did it?” he inquired. “She must have given some reason.”
The nurse looked uncertain, as though she had been told not to talk.
“She says she doesn’t remember much,” she said. “She admits she took too many pills, but only because she needed sleep.” She glanced at me. “She’ll be all right, you know, Miss Maynard. She’s not sick. Only the wrists may bother her for a while. Not for long. The cuts aren’t deep.”
She left then, saying she had brought her own car, and I was alone with Ridge. He sat down and stretched his legs out.
“Sorry if I annoyed you, Lois,” he said. “I thought it was merely another bit of self-dramatization on Judith’s part. God knows I’ve had plenty of them. That’s why I brought the flowers, to add my bit to the stage setting.”
I nodded. There wasn’t much I could say, but I could and did mix him a whisky and soda. He watched me while I did it, as though he was making up his mind to something. It came when I handed him the glass.
The Swimming Pool Page 20
