Enemy in the House

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  “We haven’t heard from the ladies,” McWhinn said flatly.

  “The ladies!” China squealed but Aunt Grappit turned a deep mauve below her paint.

  “I daresay you’ll search my trunk!” she said angrily. “I’ll save you the trouble. I have a small pocket pistol. My—my husband thought it as well—highwaymen or—I have never, thank heaven, had occasion to use it, but I’m not going to give it up to McWhinn or anybody, if that’s your meaning! Why don’t you question McWhinn about murder? He wasn’t with the rest of the people and the obeah woman during the earthquake, was he? He certainly was not in the house when Hester was killed! He’s the only person on this place unaccounted for at the time of the murder! Question him!” She shot it all out as violently as bullets from her pocket pistol, and took a gasping breath.

  She was angry but it was true and had the impact of truth. In all her raking over of possible suspects Amity had never once thought of the stony-faced little overseer. Even Grappit had a thoughtful indecision in his pale stare.

  A maid, behind Madam Grappit, had heard. She suddenly bobbed her yellow-turbaned head, said, “Busha in the house, time of earthquake, I see him,” and smiled placatingly.

  McWhinn, though, gave her a look of grim disapproval. “Don’t try to curry favor with me, lass. I know you broke three crystal glasses last night—I was not in my house, Squire. I was where my duties took me, in the stillhouse. Shall I take up these deadly weapons and lock them away, sir?”

  Squire Wickes’ wig, remarkably, happened to be straight; he pulled it crooked in a perplexed way. “Well, now, I’m not sure—this axe roaming around—”

  “Axes don’t move themselves, sir,” McWhinn said.

  “No—no—but I was thinking of self-defense. Yes. Should the occasion arise—”

  China moaned, her face tallow-white. “Axe—self-defense—you’ve got to protect us—”

  Nobody listened, for Grappit made up his mind and Simon remained his choice as murderer. “There is no reason to suspect McWhinn,” he said loudly. “Simon Mallam killed that girl and as soon as the men get here with Captain Boyce we’ll prove it.”

  McWhinn said flatly, “They’re here now, Squire,” and started for the door. Amity heard it then, too, the weary slow trot of horses, crunching along the shells in the driveway.

  19

  SQUIRE WICKES JUMPED UP, spry as a boy. “Take them to your house, McWhinn. I’ll talk to Captain Boyce there. Your pardon, madam.” He bowed politely to Aunt Grappit.

  Grappit shoved his chair from the table. “I’ll go with you—”

  “No,” Squire Wickes said.

  McWhinn had already disappeared. The horses came to a stop.

  “Certainly this is—why, I wish to hear—it’s my place to hear—”

  “Not at the moment, sir,” Squire Wickes said firmly and trotted jauntily out of the room.

  So the hunt was on—or would be in a matter of moments. Amity could almost feel every tinge of color drain from her face. Why, if anybody so much as glanced at her, her face would betray terror—and Simon.

  No one did look at her. They clustered curiously around the door and out onto the veranda, even China, and Amity fled for her room, her skirts whispering along the corridor.

  Jamey was quietly lying there asleep. She sent Dolcy to rest and went to the window. There was a group of men beside the sweating horses. Captain Boyce’s stay in prison had not improved his appearance; his linen was soiled, his clothes wrinkled, his little eyes ugly. The two red coats of the soldiers were bright scarlet in the sun. As she watched, Squire Wickes seemed to give some direction and led the way, beside McWhinn, along the path directly below Amity’s window. Captain Boyce, between the two soldiers, trudged after them. They passed so close that. Amity could hear the faint creak of the two soldiers’ mudstained boots. They turned around the corner of the house and vanished.

  Jamey slept and time went on. Still they did not return. No hours in all time’s history trudged so slowly—yet every second gave Simon an added hope of escape.

  The sun’s shadows were beginning to slant and turn blue when at last she heard voices below the window and ran to look. Squire Wickes and Grappit stood in the path. Squire Wickes looked as fresh as a little brown daisy and Grappit was angry. “You should make him talk! There are ways—”

  “This is a British colony, sir. We don’t torture, if that’s what you mean.”

  Their words floated up clearly to Amity’s ears through the increasing dusk. Grappit said harshly, “But he must know that Simon Mallam was on board that ship. Boyce is a prisoner, he’s under arrest. He’s in no position to bargain!”

  “He feels that he is. He says he’ll tell us anything he knows, gladly, if we’ll promise to release him—and his ship.”

  “Well, then, give him his release. Give him his ship. But make him tell you the truth about this man, this spy, Simon. This is murder, sir—”

  “I represent the law,” Squire Wickes said. “We have no proof that Simon Mallam is a spy—”

  “You will have! Why else would he be here?”

  “Be that as it may, I intend to give Captain Boyce time to think it over. He’s in a weak position, yes—but he’s not a man to overwork a chance to bargain. It’s merely a question of time—”

  “Time!” Grappit snarled. “Time for a traitor to escape hanging—”

  Their voices dwindled as they walked together toward the steps. Amity’s heart began to beat again. Simon had said that Captain Boyce might try to bargain; it was his nature. Another twelve hours and Simon would be far from Mallam Penn—perhaps, even, far from Jamaica.

  The tropic night dropped like a curtain. Jamey awoke and she was washing his face when Grappit knocked and without waiting for a reply came into the room.

  He was still livid with rage. “Where is Simon Mallam? I’ll have no lies, Niece. I know he’s somewhere here—”

  “You are wrong,” Amity said.

  “Don’t lie!”

  Jamey squirmed out from her hands. “Why did you take that axe, Uncle Grappit?” he asked.

  “Axe!”

  “I saw you. Last night. I was at the window. It was dark, close to the house. Somebody ran past, all light and quick. First, I thought it was a duppy because a duppy wears white, you see,” Jamey said pleasantly.

  “Duppy! Axe—” Color came into Grappit’s cheeks. “Why, you little—” His hands reached out for the child.

  “Duppy!” Jamey yelled with sudden antic glee. “Duppy, duppy, duppy! Uncle Grappit’s a duppy—”

  He shot out from under Grappit’s bony, clutching hands, into the corridor. Apparently he met Dolcy for he chanted, “Supper, Dolcy! Duppy, duppy, duppy!”

  Grappit’s pale eyes shot fire. “That boy needs discipline and he’ll get it, too, when I have him in charge. You’ve already taught him to lie! I’m going to find Simon Mallam and see him hanged. And then my fine lady, you’ll sing a different tune!” He strode out of the room.

  Amity lighted a candle and told herself that Captain Boyce must remain adamant in his decision, at least for another night. And then she thought, Jamey could have seen something from the window. Grappit in his flapping white linen suit?

  She took the candle and went to the room that had been Hester’s. Dolcy was brushing Jamey’s red curls and he was holding the little green lizard in one hand, talking to it. “Jamey, did you really see Uncle Grappit with an axe last night?”

  “Yes,” Jamey said. “Hurry up, Dolcy. I want supper.”

  “Jamey, are you sure?”

  He looked up at her. “Well—it was somebody like a duppy. Uncle Grappit wears white.”

  “Did you actually see him? His face? Or—or an axe?”

  “I saw an axe,” Jamey said firmly. “I know I saw it, moving along, right in the moonlight. So somebody carried it! And I saw something white—”

  “Did you see Uncle Grappit’s face?”

  Jamey wriggled. “Well, no. I didn’t reall
y see anybody’s face but—” He grinned mischievously. “He didn’t like it when I said I saw him, did he? I don’t like him, either. Come on, Dolcy—supper—”

  China said from the doorway, “Jamey, you are a very naughty boy. You made your uncle very angry. I heard you shouting, calling him a duppy! What on earth’s a duppy?”

  “Ghost!” Jamey said. “Are you afraid of ghosts? I’m not. Come on, Dolcy.”

  China blinked. “Well, it was very naughty. Next time he’ll cane you and you deserve it. Amity, it’s almost time for supper —come and fasten me up, will you?”

  “Take care of him, Dolcy,” Amity whispered as China swept away. “He’s—such a little boy.”

  China had already lighted candles at her dressing table and was pulling off her thin muslin. “I’ll wear my yellow silk tonight. It’s lucky I brought it—”

  “But that’s a ball gown—”

  “My hair—my stays—my rouge—my patch box—”

  She sat down at the mirror, took a tiny black star from her gold patch box and tried it at one side of her smiling lips. “There!” She eyed herself. “Or there?” She moved the little star to a coquettish angle just below one sparkling blue eye. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re going to be very hot and uncomfortable,” Amity said, looking at the yellow silk dress with its low-cut bodice and a fall of lace at breast and arms.

  “La, Amity. His father is an earl and he’s very old and—”

  “Whose father?”

  “Why, the leftenant’s father! The militia leftenant. Squire Wickes told me. And the leftenant and the captain of the militia, too, of course, are to come to supper.” She giggled. “Perhaps I shan’t have to go to London to make a good match—” She leaned over to the mirror, looked at her reflection and said softly, “Countess … Shut the door, Amity. Pull in my stays tight—tighter! Lud, I shan’t be able to eat a bite of supper!”

  When she was dressed, to the last frosting of perfumed French powder on her pretty hair, she looked beautiful—and vaguely troubled. “Amity, I’ve got something to ask you. It’s about Jamey. When the war is over, you’ll go back to America, you’ll not go to England. And—well—you did promise to see to Jamey.”

  Amity stared at her. “Do you mean you want me to take Jamey to America?”

  “You did promise your father. Oh, heavens, can’t you see I’d have a far better chance! Who wants a ready-made family? Oh, I’d want to see him, of course, later when—but in the meantime you’d take care of him. And—and I really don’t want Uncle Grappit to be his guardian. I promise to refuse my approval.”

  “If you’ll stick to that, I promise to take care of Jamey.”

  “Then that’s settled,” China said briefly. She swished away toward the lounge, her yellow silk a pale, moving cloud in the dusk, and Amity entered her own room.

  In China’s frank point of view, the bargain was a good one. And surely the court would consider a mother’s wishes—if only China stuck to it. And she would.

  Amity groped her way through the faint lane of light from China’s room to her own dressing table, hunting for a candle. Murder, danger, threats—it all rolled off China’s dimpled white shoulders when she set her sights at what was to her the essential, the important target, a good match. She wished China good luck with the gawky lieutenant whose red face was so young and so honest.

  She then remembered that she had left her candle in China’s room. As she turned, there was the faintest rustle behind her, the barest sense of motion. Something moved in the diffused lane of light from China’s room, it caught the light sharply, it had a shape, it was an axe, held in somebody’s hand.

  She couldn’t see the hand. She couldn’t see anything, for the door was pushed lightly. It closed and cut off even the dim streak of light.

  There was then no sound at all in the room, no motion, no rustle, no stealthy footsteps. The moon had not yet risen so there were only faintly luminous streaks of light through the jalousies. She could not see who stood in the darkness between her and the door.

  The walls were thick. Yet someone must hear her scream. Though no one could hear and come soon enough. Besides, she was instinctively sure that a scream, a move, anything might tilt a strange, precarious balance.

  She waited a second, another, but she knew, too, that that dangerous balance could not endure. She grasped at the dressing table, touched the smooth standard of her father’s heavy wigstand and flung it—not at an axe or the hands that must hold it but across the room.

  It crashed against the jalousies and thudded to the floor. But it was in fact an instinctive, diversionary move. A rush of movement followed it, quick as the wings of a hawk, toward the window. In the same instant she flung herself toward the door, tugged it open and ran to China’s room. She thought only of lights and immediate escape. She barely heard the bang of jalousies against the wall and a kind of scramble and rustle at the window sill.

  China’s bottle of smelling salts stood on the dressing table. She snatched it up and took a stinging, sharp breath from it. She choked, took another breath and was wiping at tears when Aunt Grappit said from the doorway, “What ails you?”

  “Someone was in my room—”

  “What?—Well—” Aunt Grappit rustled away, apparently peered into her room and came back. “Twaddle!”

  “Somebody was there—with the axe.”

  “Amity! You’ve got the vapors, my girl. Take more smelling salts!”

  “There was somebody—”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know—I couldn’t see—except the axe—”

  The yellow candle lights seemed to cast their own color upon Madam Grappit’s face, which looked a little sallow beneath her paint. But she said vigorously, “Did he speak to you? Did he touch you?”

  “No—no—”

  There was a short pause; then Aunt Grappit said, “Somebody was there but you couldn’t see who. Somebody was there but didn’t speak to you or touch you. Yet you saw an axe. Pooh!”

  She swooped to Amity, snatched the filigreed bottle out of her hand and held it firmly to Amity’s nose until she choked and gasped and her eyes streamed. She pushed it away and Aunt Grappit said, “That’ll bring you to your senses! You’ve been out of your senses, Niece, ever since that silly, secret marriage of yours.”

  “It wasn’t secret!” Amity gulped and wiped her streaming eyes. “It was all legal and proper. Mr. Benfit wrote to Uncle Grappit, explaining it all. He left a letter for him, there on the hall table, marked immediate, telling him about it. It wasn’t secret—”

  “Twaddle,” Aunt Grappit said forcefully again. “If there’d been such a letter I assure you I’d have seen it. I see everything. Here—more salts—”

  “But it was there—no, no, I’ve had enough. I can hardly breathe.”

  “Letter, indeed!” Aunt Grappit snorted. “Next thing I know you’ll be saying I stole—” She stopped with a puff and her green eyes narrowed. “Well, there now—go and get dressed.”

  A curious thought flashed into Amity’s mind. Perhaps Squire Wickes had suggested it. “Aunt Grappit—was Hester—did she have any claim upon us? Upon Mallam Penn?”

  “Upon—Good heavens, child. You don’t mean to say you think she was your natural sister or something!” Aunt Grappit gave a hoarse cackle of laughter but eyed Amity narrowly just the same. “No. She wasn’t. Now forget this nonsense—”

  “You searched her room. After you’d given China all that rum and—you searched her room. Dolcy told me.”

  “Suppose I did. It was my duty.”

  “Uncle Grappit searched it, too, but that was later. You didn’t tell him you had already searched it. Why not?”

  “Well, I—I—” Suddenly she smiled, all frankness and friendliness, but her eyes twinkled strangely from her mask of paint. “My dear child, I rather feared—that is, for all I know—well, young men will be young men. Neville might have written her some note or—or some fashionable
little catch of verse or something silly and imprudent which I didn’t want—Mr. Grappit to see.”

  “Or anyone,” Amity said.

  “Or anyone, naturally. Imprudent. But I was overanxious. There was nothing at all.” She was very forceful indeed and she sniffed the smelling salts herself, got too much, sputtered, and said unexpectedly, “You are very like your mother. Black hair, skin like apple blossoms. She had an air about her—yet she could laugh and—not that we ever got along too well. But then I was married to Grappit young and—I had no beauty, of course, but I always had brains.” She put down the little bottle. “Yes—there’s always a way—”

  The paint on her face looked suddenly shriveled in the candlelight but her green eyes were hard.

  Amity whispered, “What do you mean? There’s always a way to do what? Do you mean—did Uncle Grappit kill Hester?”

  “What!” Aunt Grappit snatched up a lace handkerchief of China’s, dabbed at her face, dropped it, cried shrilly, “That’s a wicked, wicked thing to say, go and get yourself dressed decently,” and swept out of the room.

  The tap of her slippers with their high red heels, and the rustle of her silk skirts, had barely died away when Simon called, low, from Amity’s room, “Amy—”

  Simon! She held her own skirts so she made no rustle, tiptoed but ran, and closed the door behind her before she flung herself into his arms. “I thought you’d gone!”

  “I told you I’d see you before I go.”

  “Captain Boyce hasn’t told them! He’s trying to bargain—”

  “I know. Selene told me.”

  “Selene!” She pulled back, trying to see Simon’s face.

  “No, she didn’t relent. She just wants to get rid of me, get me off the island. She’s got a boat for me. Some fishing boat, due to leave a cove not far from here, tonight. Amy, I heard everything Madam Grappit said. I think she told the truth about why she searched Hester’s room but not quite all the truth. The link between Hester and Shincok and Benfit—yes, that could be it! I should have guessed. Your aunt guessed, I’m sure of it, just now while she talked to you.”