The Classic Mystery Novel

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  I had a plan of sorts. As I have said, Laura Twining was an omnivorous reader and I had often heard her mention the “lovely qualities” of the town librarian. She and “dear sweet” Anna McCall were friends, if you stretched the term. I had guessed in advance the pallidness of the relationship; by reason of visits to city tea rooms I had identified it. A camaraderie built on air, the sort that exists between women unattached and insecure. Bloodless, feeding itself on little gossips, trips to the movies, a rare, shared dinner. Laura Twining had lived a life so solitary that I knew no better place to go for information.

  Anna McCall had the pale, bespectacled look common to librarians. Neat head bent, she was addressing notices when I stepped inside. She saw me. Her facial muscles stiffened. I walked firmly to the desk. Anna McCall informed me promptly that I hadn’t lived in Crockford a sufficient time to be eligible for a card. Her tone dismissed me. She addressed another envelope.

  I mapped out a quick campaign. “I don’t want a card. I have a message for you.”

  She laid down her pen and frowned. “For me?”

  “I had a letter from Laura Twining this morning and she asked me to give you her regards.”

  “So she wrote to you!”

  The implication was unmistakable. I read both jealousy and irritation. I followed up. “Hasn’t she written you?”

  “Not a line.” Indicating a lack of interest, the librarian poured the notices into a basket and started to carry them away.

  I hurriedly intervened. “Just a minute, Miss McCall. You’re a friend of Laura’s, and I would like to talk to you. The letter bothered me—it sounded strange, unhappy—as though Laura were afraid of something, or terribly worried. I thought she seemed changed in February, before she started on her trip. What did you think?”

  Like many lonely people, Anna prided herself upon imagined talents in reading human character. Torn two ways, she hesitated long enough to say, “Laura isn’t exactly a happy person. But then, who is? I must say I’ve never known her to be afraid of anything, except being old and dependent. Maybe you got the wrong idea. Things look different written.”

  “Then she didn’t seem strange to you—when she called to say good-bye?”

  The other woman stiffened. “As it happens, she didn’t say good-bye to me. Too busy, I suppose.” Miss McCall sniffed. “If Laura needs help she knows where to write. Furthermore, she should write.”

  Rising with the notice-basket, she marched to the letter box. I pursued her. “Please, Miss McCall, this is more important than you realize. Important to Laura and to others, too. What did you mean—she should write? Is there a reason she should write you? A special reason?”

  Anna McCall displayed a flash of involuntary aggravation. “She always wrote before. It’s inconsiderate of her not to now. She walked off with a library book that’s weeks overdue. I’ve sent her several notices. Not a word in reply.”

  Slight material for the imagination, this minute variation from the ordered pattern that had used to govern Laura Twining’s life. Still—odd. Laura had been fussy in social duties, punctilious, yet she had neglected to bid a friend good-bye and had failed to return a borrowed book.

  I said politely, “I hope it hasn’t caused you trouble.”

  As if regretting the momentary confidence, Anna McCall withdrew into her shell. “We’ve had no calls for it, but any missing volume breaks up our files, and Laura knows it does.”

  I felt an idle curiosity. “What was the book?”

  “One of the Crockford high-school annuals.”

  “A high-school annual!”

  “Curious, isn’t it?” My surprise apparently echoed a similar surprise in the other’s mind. “What Laura wanted with a nine-teen-twenty high-school annual I can’t imagine, but she should certainly see to getting it back.”

  Since I believed that never again would Laura Twining stroll through a sunny day, stop for a sundae, pause later at the library to exchange a book, I made no reply. Anna McCall studied me closely. “You said this was important, Mrs. Storm. In what way? How? Is Laura sick? Is she in serious trouble? Is that why I haven’t heard?”

  My fancy was running thin. “It’s nothing definite. It may be just a case of writer’s imagination. I thought—I think she is unhappy, disturbed. More than ordinarily.”

  “You aren’t,” Anna McCall said suddenly, and definite hostility crept into her voice, “thinking Laura is concerned with your own difficulties?”

  “No, indeed!”

  My haste failed to carry conviction. “May I see your letter. Mrs. Storm?”

  “I didn’t bring it down.”

  The librarian said almost angrily, “I’m sorry I ever spoke about the book. It simply slipped Laura’s mind, but in a town the size of Crockford people will talk about and twist anything.”

  “I won’t mention it.”

  A nod, not quite relieved, and Anna McCall was gone. Far too restless to turn the pages of a magazine, I occupied myself with the provoking problem of the missing book. A seed catalogue would have been a less unusual choice of reading matter. Except to members of a graduating class or to their families, a high-school annual is the dullest form of literature. I recalled the volume I had edited in student days. A medley of silly personal jokes and youthful prophecies, a lengthy, detailed account of dinners, picnics, dances, pages of photographs. Why had Laura Twining concerned herself with the absurd activities of the Crockford high school class of 1920?

  Absently I traced the figures—1920. Women wore long tight skirts in 1920 and began to bob their hair; men predicted widespread use of the radio and tinkered with crystal sets; an Ohio Senator ran for President. 1920—sixteen crowded years ago. Suddenly like a bell, the year rang in my mind, became particular, distinct from 1919, distinct from 1921. In June of 1920, Jane Coatesnash had been graduated from the local high school. In September of 1920, she had gone off to college and to death.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A Lady of Mystery

  The missing high-school annual revived my thirst for information. I wanted to learn more about Jane Coatesnash, a good deal more. Beyond vague gossip I had little positive knowledge of the girl, her death and disappearance. I determined to adopt Harkway’s suggestion and to consult the newspaper files.

  The Crockford public library was not citified enough to boast a periodical room. Outdated publications were stored in the attic. I climbed a flight of stairs to a musty, dusty space lost beneath a maze of overhanging eaves. Stack after stack of yellowing newspapers climbed to the sloping room. They gave forth an odor of dry rot and decay. A heap of magazines, fallen, spread like a pack of cards, strengthened the illusion of neglect and disuse.

  In the wan illumination I saw two things. The dust on the floor was marked by footprints where someone had walked; a round smudge before one of the newspaper stacks indicated that someone had sat or knelt there a short time previously. I approached the newspapers. I simultaneously discovered that each stack contained issues of the Crockford Blade for a particular year, and that directly before the 1920 stack was the smudge on the floor. Wondering who else had possessed an interest strangely like my own, I briefly studied the smudge, then spread a handkerchief, dropped to my knees and pulled out a bundle of papers.

  Except as to year, the issues of the Crockford Blade were not chronologically arranged. I desired reports for two months only. February 1920, June 1920. These eight weeks covered the disappearance and search, the sad conclusion of the mystery.

  The task I set myself was dull and tedious. Beside me mounted a discard pile. I paused once to read the society notes of January 2, 1920. On January 2, fifteen years before, Jane Coatesnash had entertained at luncheon. She received her “many friends in the lovely Coatesnash drawing-room”; she presided at a table “bedecked in larkspur and delphinium”; she wore a “Paris frock, taffeta in the new apple green.” With my knowl
edge of her death falling like a shadow across the printed page, Jane Coatesnash clothed herself in vividness and life. I saw her in the apple green; I saw the Coatesnash drawing-room in a different light; I grasped at and dimly understood an old woman’s overwhelming, uncomprehending grief.

  I resumed my labors. Perhaps fifteen minutes later I paused, listened. Someone had come into the attic. I was quite sure of it. Someone had quietly climbed the stairs and stood now, watching me. I turned.

  Annabelle Bayne and I stared at each other from opposite corners of the dusky room. A smile curved her lips. I spoke first.

  “Good heavens! How you startled me. Why didn’t you speak?”

  Her hand sketched an airy gesture. “I hated to interrupt. You were so intensely occupied.” Her bright, quick glance included me, the papers on my lap, the papers on the floor. “What on earth are you doing?”

  I didn’t propose to say. Her smile deepened, and she passed the silence negligently. “Never mind, Mrs. Storm. I can guess what you’re hunting and you’re simply wasting time. Those months are gone.”

  “What months?”

  “February and June of 1920. The months that carried Jane’s story. They’ve disappeared. I know. I looked this morning.”

  Too taken aback to question her sudden interest in the fifteen-year-old tragedy, I heard her question mine.

  “What did you expect to find in the stories? What put them in your mind?” I said nothing. She paused. “Did you decide to come here after you learned Laura Twining hadn’t returned the high-school annual?”

  “So you knew that, too!”

  She nodded, crossed the room. Planting an elbow on the adjoining stack, she leaned there, languid and yet alert, in her way. “Are we friends or aren’t we? Didn’t we agree to work together, you and I? How can we, if you make a mystery out of everything?”

  Incomprehensible, that woman with her calm assumption that she and I were allies. How like her to demand my confidence, when as recently as yesterday she had fobbed me off with unblushing lies! She was waiting—a reply was indicated.

  I said coldly, “There’s no mystery. I’ve heard a lot about Jane Coatesnash and I was curious.”

  “Which means you refuse to say why you wanted to read the papers.”

  “Will you say why you did?”

  “I didn’t want to read them,” was the provoking answer. “I only wanted to see if they were here, I thought they might not be”

  “Why should you think that?” I demanded irritably. “If you are sick of mysteries, so am I! How could you possibly suspect newspapers fifteen years old had disappeared?”

  Annabelle shifted the elbow. “My reason wasn’t logical; it was just a hunch I had. After learning yesterday about the high-school annual, I remembered the articles in the Blade. I thought Laura might have carried off the newspapers; so this morning I dropped by to see. I’m convinced now she took them. They’re gone.”

  “Laura! But why?”

  “She took the annual.”

  “Where did you find out? From Miss McCall?”

  She shook her head. Again she smiled, and dropped a bombshell in my lap. “The high-school annual isn’t really missing. I have it.”

  “You have it! Where?”

  “At home.”

  I was amazed and silent. Also I daresay I looked skeptical. She studied my face. “You don’t believe me, do you? Why don’t you come to the house and see for yourself? I’ll gladly show the thing.”

  “How does it happen to be there?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll explain at lunch.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s past twelve. Suppose you postpone your researches and lunch with me. Then we can talk.”

  I recalled an old saw to the effect that one should beware the Greeks bearing gifts. Annabelle Bayne was an opportunist, a born trader, a glib and talented liar. Obviously there was a joker in the invitation. In some unknown fashion, what I knew or what she suspected that I knew must be important to her. On the other hand, she knew certain things I needed to know. Facts important to me. I badly wanted an explanation of the high-school annual. Unless I went, it was evident she would not explain.

  I accepted.

  The Bayne home, a spacious colonial dwelling which I had viewed only from the beach, bore throughout its interior the imprint of Annabelle’s personality. She lived there alone, and she had made restless and like herself a serene landmark of the past. Pine-paneled walls were hung with startling black and whites, and garish lithographs. Copies of Spur and The New Yorker spilled from a Sheraton table; a square cushion-like contraption, more comfortable to look at than to sit on, unfolded beside a Chippendale sofa; a smart portable typewriter, painted red, struck an anachronistic note on a seventeenth-century desk. Bakelite bowls of flowers, oddly shaped, mingled the deep blue of bachelor buttons with the raw disturbing orange of marigolds.

  Annabelle flung off her hat, sank to the cushion-like contraption, rang for lunch. Rummaging in an open bookcase partially hidden by the cushion back, she selected a volume, tossed it to me. “Here’s the annual. Are you convinced?”

  “Won’t you tell me where you got it?”

  A stout-waisted village girl, absurd in a frilly cap and apron, entered and began to set the table. Annabelle nodded at her.

  “Velva turned it up.” To the girl she said, “What became of the wrappings?”

  Velva produced a square of thick brown wrapping paper, creased in the shape of a book, and a length of cotton string. She gave me a dully curious look. Her mistress spoke.

  “Now about your finding the book. Tell it just as you told me.”

  The girl assembled labored phrases. “I was dusting yesterday around ten o’clock, or maybe earlier. I took out the books. This one had been pushed behind the others, stuck against the wall. It was wrapped—I thought it was a package, a box of stockings maybe. Soon as I seen it, I gave it to you.”

  “You don’t,” said Annabelle, “dust half enough, my girl. Else you would have come upon it weeks ago.”

  Velva shuffled her feet. “The book wasn’t hurting no one, the dust neither. They was out of sight.”

  Annabelle laughed. “A new definition of successful housekeeping, not a bad one either. Now run along. Tell Mary we will have sweetbreads and ham—and fresh peas, if she ordered them.”

  The kitchen swallowed Velva. I glanced at Annabelle. “But how came the annual to be in your bookcase?”

  “‘Laura Twining forgot and left it there. On top, of course, but it slipped behind. Nearly two months ago—the day she sailed. February 17th, wasn’t it? That’s the only time she has been here.”

  “She called on you?”

  “Dear me, no.” The brown eyes twinkled. “Laura and I are chronic enemies. She thinks I’m fast; I think she’s a bore. She got out of the car with Mrs. Coatesnash for the usual polite good-byes—they were on their way to New York then.”

  At once the case which Jack and I had patiently evolved developed an annoying flaw. If Laura Twining had stopped at the Bayne house, she had not been murdered on the back road leading from Hilltop House to Crockford—not unless the limousine had retraced its course. There were other back roads, deserted, suited to secret purposes. But a casual farewell call hardly suggested itself as a prelude to murder. Would Mrs. Coatesnash have brought her companion here, paused to chat with a friend, if she had had murder in her mind? Annabelle stirred among her cushions. “Why are you frowning so? Have you thought of something?”

  “Nothing of any consequence.”

  I hurriedly opened the book. Immediately, on page 33, it fell apart. From the center of the page the picture of a dark young girl gazed out with dark, young, uncomplicated eyes. Jane Coatesnash, class of ’20. President of the Sorosis Club, Treasurer of the Quill Club, class historian. Her average for the four-year term was A; her ambition was social service; she w
as bound for Mather. Not a beautiful girl. Instead, deadly serious and a little plain.

  “Oh,” I said. “I imagined she would be pretty.”

  “Jane,” said Annabelle, “was exquisite. More than pretty. Much, much more. She had the virtues that have gone out of fashion. Plus sense and spirit. Plus charm. She wasn’t priggish.” A caption, typical of high school wit, was printed beneath the photograph. I read it: “This is a matter beyond our ken—little Jane craves older men.” A senseless, silly, perplexing rhyme to be associated with the grave young face. I read the couplet a second time.

  “What does it refer to?”

  Annabelle shrugged. “Those kid things always baffle me. No doubt the lack-wit editor was lamenting the fact that Jane preferred study to callow boys.” The subject was distasteful to her, and she briskly changed it. “Did you hear me say we found the annual done up in wrapping paper? This paper. It struck me as curious. Why should Laura wrap a library book?”

  I felt startled. “Perhaps she intended to mail it back.”

  “Why mail it back? The car must have gone directly past the Square. Why didn’t she plan to drop it then? Apparently she didn’t. Furthermore, she must remember where she left the book; it’s long overdue, and yet I haven’t heard from her.” Annabelle’s steady gaze fastened upon me. It was my turn to shift the conversation. “Did you see Laura leave the annual?”

  “Not actually. However, she was sitting in the Windsor chair beside the bookcase, and I’ve a hazy recollection she carried a squarish package. It lay on her lap awhile.”

  Lunch arrived. Perfectly cooked, perfectly served. Annabelle knew wines, herbs and sauces, as her type would, and kept her staff at its culinary best. We ate indifferently, virtually in silence, busy with our separate thoughts. At length my hostess poured coffee, handed me a Wedgwood cup. “I’m certain Laura Twining took those newspapers, stole them in honest fact. I’m equally certain she had no intention of returning the book. But there I stick. I make nothing of it.”

  Suddenly, like the long-sought answer to a riddle, a possible explanation occurred to me. There was a hint of the psychic in Annabelle Bayne, or perhaps she only saw my face and guessed. She straightened. Her eyes grew big and almost frightened. “Good God,” she whispered, “is it possible?” She carefully laid down her spoon. “Suppose Jane were still alive. Suppose Laura Twining knew it.”