Enemy in the House

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  “Simon—”

  “Wait. She said ‘there’s always a way,’ didn’t she? That means she suspects and she’s going to try to keep it quiet—”

  “Simon, you won’t listen! Someone was here, in this room, I saw the axe—”

  She told him quickly, words stumbling over each other. “Who was it, Simon? He meant to kill me! I know he meant to, but he didn’t. I threw the wigstand, you see, so he’d think I was at the window, and then I ran to China’s room—”

  “Get a candle—”

  She ran to China’s room, snatched a candle and ran back, the candle flame streaming and smoking. He took it to the window. “There’s the wigstand,” he said, looking down. He held the candle over the ledge. “This window is so easy to get in and out of, it’s like a door. The jalousies were open when I came in. I didn’t see anyone, but the shrubbery is thick. I couldn’t have heard anyone in all this hellish racket outside. That was an easy way of escape. But why try to murder you? It doesn’t fit—”

  “Doesn’t fit what?”

  “The link—the link! It doesn’t fit—Yes! Yes, it does fit! You refused to wed Neville. They are all sure that I’m here somewhere and that I’ll be found and hanged so—”

  He broke off, for the door to the hall flung open and Grappit stood on the threshold for a second, utterly still. A triumphant light flamed into his eyes. One bony hand went out slowly to close the door behind him. “I knew it! So I’ve got you. And you’ll hang—and Mallam Penn, why, Mallam Penn and your wife—your widow, Simon—” His greedy hands opened and closed as if already he felt the touch of money in them.

  But he resorted swiftly to a new move. “However, I can offer you both a bargain. I’ll protect you. I’ll save you from hanging, Simon. One word from you, Niece, that’s all. You’re a stubborn wench, otherwise I’d offer no bargain. But you’re honest. You’ll keep your word. One word from you and I’ll see that Simon goes free.”

  “And what is that word, sir?” Simon said.

  “I have only to raise my voice, remember, and you’ll hang. But I’m a merciful man. I’m kind and—We’ll arrange an annulment, something to salve your wife’s tender conscience. Give me your word, Niece. You’ll wed Neville and this man goes free.”

  There was no way out of the trap. He was too near the door, he had only to shout. She had no weapon. Simon had no weapon.

  “I’ll wed Neville,” she said.

  Simon flung the wigstand at him.

  20

  HE FLUNG IT AS accurately as he had flung stones when a boy and very hard. Grappit looked vaguely surprised, slid to his knees and then, quietly, into an awkward huddle on the floor.

  Simon came to bend over him. “He’s not dead. But he’ll be quiet for a while.”

  “You’ve got to leave now! They’ll look for him, they’ll find you. They’re all there, in the lounge, the soldiers and Squire Wickes and—”

  “Who’s guarding Boyce, then?”

  “I don’t know—they’ll come—Simon, I beg you—”

  “Do you still have the gold I gave you in Savannah?”

  “The—oh, for your passage on the boat! Yes!” She flung herself down at her trunk. “Here—take it—”

  Simon weighed the little roll, still tied in his laced handkerchief, a curious relic of other days. “It may not be enough but I’ll try.”

  “Enough! Enough for what?”

  “To bribe Boyce, of course. I’ve got to know what he knows of Hester—”

  She stumbled up and toward him. “No! You must get away, hurry!”

  “Why, you little ninny, do you think I’d leave you like this—in danger? Good God, don’t you see that after me you own Mallam Penn! Why else would anyone try to murder you! Give me some towels—a sash, anything. I’d better see that Grappit stays quiet.”

  She snatched towels, the emerald velvet ribbons for her pink muslin dress, and watched as Simon swiftly trussed up Grappit’s flaccid body. “Just for good measure I’ll gag him,” Simon said working busily. “There. That’ll put him hors de combat.” He grinned a little as he rose. “Looks like a pretty lean old rooster ready for the oven. … Take it easy now.”

  He ran lightly to the window and she ran after him. “What are you going to do? Simon, I don’t understand. This link? What link? Who tried to murder me?”

  “Stay here. If Grappit does make a move hit him over the head again—”

  He swung himself out the window. His red hair caught lights from the candle. Then he dropped out of sight.

  The din and hum of the night throbbed through the room. The flame of the candle near the window wavered and smoked. Grappit didn’t even gurgle and she was going to follow Simon, willy-nilly.

  Her dress was light; it would show up in the night. She snatched up her only dark garment, her red cloak.

  She glanced around the room and saw her mother’s miniature. The diamonds might help bribe Captain Boyce; she would slip the tiny lovely portrait out before she gave it to him; she thrust it in her pocket and got out the window, carefully. It had been easy with Dolcy’s hand helping her. It was easy now; she landed with only a scratched arm and a crackling and rustle of twigs.

  The men had taken Squire Wickes along the path toward the sugar house—and toward McWhinn’s house. After she passed the whitewashed bulk of the sugar house, she saw another small house snuggled amid trees. A light shone from an open door.

  Great clusters of bamboos rustled around her as if whispering together. The moon was coming up, full and white, making sharp black shadows of trees and shrubbery. As she neared the light from what must be McWhinn’s house, she moved cautiously from one patch of shadow to another and waited to listen before she slid across the open patches of moonlight. At last she could see the house clearly amid its vines and trees; it was whitewashed, with two rooms apparently, a back door and a front door, and a little roof over the front step.

  They wouldn’t have left Captain Boyce without a guard. How did Simon propose to offer his bribe to him? If there were any sound at all from the little house, standing there half in the gloom of shade from the trees, half in the moonlight, she could not hear it.

  She waited a few moments then, for she didn’t know what to do. Her thoughts darted in and out like little birds, darting in to peck at an apple, darting away again, fluttering back for another peck.

  Simon had said that Aunt Grappit told her the truth about her reason for searching Hester’s effects—but not quite all the truth. Then what was the rest of it? He had also said that Aunt Grappit had just then guessed the link—Hester and Shincok and Benfit—that he should have guessed it. What was the link, then?

  Simon believed that the abortive attempt to murder Amity herself didn’t fit—and then suddenly he had said, yes, it did fit, because Amity had refused to wed Neville and because all of them expected Simon to be found, and hanged.

  She could find no link, no answer. All the time she and Simon and Selene and Charles, too, had assumed that the motive for Shincok’s and Benfit’s murder had been to get rid of a witness to Amity’s marriage. If not that, then what? Certainly her marriage had seemed like touching a tinder to a fuse, setting off a trail of cause and effect.

  At the back of McWhinn’s house a shadow seemed to detach itself from other shadows. It flickered put of sight again like a ghost—like Jamey’s duppy all in white! Uncle Grappit’s a duppy, Jamey had chanted. She thought, oddly, of Selene in her ceremonial white robe, with flowers above her ears and her black hair down, and the palely moving cloud of China’s silk dress, in the darkness of the corridor. Charles always wore clothes of a somber dignified color. Charles had saved Amity’s life once; he wouldn’t have tried to kill her that very night. But Charles had come, hurrying, to Hester’s room actually before the second shock of the earthquake! His real purpose might have been to hunt out and secure the papers tied with blue ribbon. Certainly Hester’s murderer wanted those papers. It seemed remarkable that she, all of them, had overlooked th
at. She had assumed that Charles’ only concern was for her and Jamey.

  And then suddenly, as if she had seen a picture, she knew who had taken the axe. In the same revealing flash she understood the sense of a deliberating but dangerous balance in the darkness of her room and a driven, reluctant decision to kill her. But she didn’t know why, she couldn’t guess why. And she could still see no link between murder and Hester, murder and Shincok, murder and Benfit.

  She could see no link at all. At the same time some small memory began to stir. Amity was uneasily aware of a kind of lode of truth, a deep vein, small yet significant. She felt that if she could dig fast enough and hard enough she could bring it out and explore it—as Simon had done.

  There hadn’t been time for Simon to tell her the result of his own swift exploration. She now felt urgently herself the pressure of time. She had to know what was going on in McWhinn’s house. She slid lightly across the open area before the house, into the shelter of the roof of the tiny porch, and close to the door. Captain Boyce’s rough voice boomed out, “—you wouldn’t kill a defenseless man.”

  There was a little silence which seemed to convince Captain Boyce that defenseless or not, killing was a very likely possibility. He said, whining now, “Well, then give me gold—money—give me a ship—no, no, forget the ship. Just give me money and I’ll not tell them that I know”—the whining changed to a show of strength—“I know who Hester was and why she came here, and I can guess why she was killed. You couldn’t wed two wives, now, could you?”

  Two wives? Simon? No, no, Amity was his wife. No one else. But her heart thudded so that she could hear nothing else until Captain Boyce’s voice rose in a terrified shout. “Now—now—wait—I mean no harm! Hester told me the truth, before I let her come aboard and got her a post as nursemaid.”

  Hester! Amity almost cried it aloud. Hester? Simon had never married Hester.

  Captain Boyce went on. “She told me all about it. She showed me some papers, all tied up in blue ribbon they were—like love letters—” He laughed, overly boisterous, frightened. “She said it was her marriage certification. She told me you were coming to Jamaica, her fine husband! You had seen her and told her you were coming here to make your fortune and tried to put her off again with promises.” There was a jocular, man-to-man confidence now in Captain Boyce’s voice. “You were lucky. Why, she said she’d even tracked you down, written to some parson, and he’d told her to write to a lawyer and enlist his help to establish her marriage rights. Is that the same lawyer they tell me was shot? Oh, very lucky for you!” He chuckled grossly and then grunted in terror, “Here now—now—don’t do that! Wait, I haven’t told anyone! I can see how Hester had coaxed you into a secret marriage, a girl far below your station in life! You’re not the first fine gentleman caught in that trap and sorry for it later! I don’t blame you. But I meant no harm. I’ll keep it a secret, give me gold. Why, I only wanted to help the girl. I told her a nursemaid was needed. Smart, she was. It gave her what the French call an ontray to Mallam Penn. So she could force you to acknowledge her—Don’t come near me with that—”

  There was a terrific clash and clatter, a chair fell over, footsteps thudded on bare floors, a heavy object thumped with an enormous crash almost at Amity’s feet, there in the lighted doorway. It was an axe with a glittering sharp edge.

  “I’ll give you your gold—I’ll cut the ropes—” Simon said.

  She’d have known his voice, anywhere. She saw his hand, the hand that had worn the carnelian ring so many years before he placed it on her hand, come out and grasp the handle of the axe.

  She heard chopping sounds and Captain Boyce’s grunts “—my feet first—I can run with my hands tied—good—now my hands—”

  Simon panted. “Find one of your smuggler friends—get yourself off the island—”

  “Give me the gold—”

  Amity moved so she could now see the lighted room. Captain Boyce was on his feet, stamping them up and down as if he were numb from being tied. A chair lay on its side with hacked-out lengths of rope around it. Captain Boyce’s thick hand clutched the roll of gold; the laced handkerchief looked strange and incongruous in that ugly grip. Simon put down the axe, went to a table where there was paper and an ink horn, sat down and began to write. Captain Boyce gave Simon a swift glance and sidled out a door at the end of the room like a gigantic crab.

  Amity heard no sound beside her; she sensed no presence but suddenly Squire Wickes stood at her elbow and said mildly, “I rather fancied something like this would happen if we left the good captain without a guard.” He limped past Amity into the house. So he’d been waiting in the shadows, too, watching like a wily old brown spider having woven his web.

  Simon’s red head went up. Squire Wickes said, “Mr. Mallam, isn’t it? I have to arrest you, sir, for murder. I heard Boyce, not all he told but enough. It seems clear that you found yourself with one too many wives. Your first, indeed your only legal wife, Hester, followed you. She was determined to establish her place and her secret marriage to you, sir. Since she recognized you on the smuggler, and knew that you were an officer in the Continental Army, she was in a position to force you to admit your prior marriage to her.” Squire Wickes said sternly, “I arrest you, sir, in His Majesty’s name.”

  Amity flashed into the room. “No! No, it wasn’t Simon! He was not wed to Hester. I know now! I know the link. I can prove it—”

  Simon rose. “I’m not sure we can prove it, Amy.” He addressed Squire Wickes. “The day Amity and I were wed, sir, Lawyer Benfit objected on the score that it was a secret wedding. He said that only that day he had had a letter from some poor girl, secretly married and unable to establish her marriage. She had written first to Shincok, a parson whose name she could easily discover. He had referred her to a lawyer Benfit. Both men were of Blackstable, so Hester had traced her husband to Blackstable, and was obviously determined to force his recognition of their marriage. Benfit’s house was said to be ransacked and presumably nothing taken, but Hester’s letter was obviously missing. No, I doubt if there’ll ever be proof of that.”

  “Sir—” Squire Wickes began.

  “A moment, sir,” Simon said. “Immediately after our marriage Mr. Benfit wrote a note and left it for Mr. Grappit. We took it that in the note Benfit was explaining our own marriage. But that letter, too, disappeared. I believe he actually reported Hester’s secret marriage and demanded Hester’s rights. Neville arrived home first. He saw a letter addressed Mr. Grappit, Immediate—”

  Amity cried, “Neville saw it first. He took it. It was addressed Mr. Grappit, Immediate. He is Mr. Grappit, too. Uncle Grappit and my aunt both said there was no letter. Yes, Neville had to take it and then—then he knew that both Parson Shincok and Lawyer Benfit knew of his marriage to Hester and he knew that Benfit would insist upon Uncle Grappit knowing and—and God knows how he killed poor Shincok, but it would have been easy. Benfit—how Neville must have hated to kill him. But Neville was terrified, out of his head with fright. He thought he had to kill him. That’s the link. That was the link all the time. It was Hester’s secret marriage to Neville that both Shincok and Benfit knew about. And then—then Hester herself—”

  “My dear child—my dear child—” But Squire Wickes’ intelligent old eyes were snapping. “Go on,” he said.

  “Well, well, then Neville must have told Hester he was coming to Jamaica. Captain Boyce said he tried to put Hester off with promises. But she wouldn’t believe him. So she hurried to Savannah, got a passage on the ship, came here to Mallam Penn—why, when Neville saw her, I ought to have guessed then that he knew her! He was stunned—but he made the best of it. He tried to cajole Hester, promise anything to keep her quiet. When my uncle told Hester she had to leave, Neville was terrified for fear she’d come out with the truth then and there. I see that now. So the next day he thought there was only one final, safe way out for him. He killed her but he hated it, he hated violence, he really did. He insisted upon he
r burial in the family lot—he’d killed her but still she was his wife. It’s so—so like Neville, inconsistent, scared, weak—”

  “He tried to kill you,” Simon said. “He took that axe—”

  “Why an axe?” Squire Wickes said. “He had a gun and a sword. No, no—”

  “For that very reason,” Simon replied gravely. “Strangling, an axe—would anyone suspect him when a gun would have been easier? He was sure that I was here and would be found and hanged. He knew that my wife would inherit from me, you told him that, sir. He knew she would never marry him but if she were dead then Mallam Penn would go to Jamey, a child, and—”

  “Yes!” Amity cried. “Yes. That’s the reason! I refused to wed him. He knew I meant it. But after me Jamey would own Mallam Penn. They could do anything with a five-year-old child.”

  Squire Wickes said slowly, “Yes—yes. All this does seem very reasonable. But it is based upon a letter which only you two claim ever existed. You said it yourself, sir. There is no proof—”

  Selene came into the room, from the back. She wore her long, white dress which Amity had glimpsed in the shadows; she wore red hibiscus flowers, bracelets to her elbow, like marks of authority. “They are telling the truth, sir,” she said to Squire Wickes. “I was in the back room. Mr. Simon was there with me. We both heard. Captain Boyce was talking to Neville, not to Mr. Simon. Then Mr. Simon took the axe from Neville as he was about to kill the captain. Neville was Hester’s husband. But he was driven to kill her—”

  Amity said, “I knew. All at once I knew that Neville had taken the axe! Jamey said it was a duppy with the axe—light clothes like Uncle Grappit’s—and Neville wore pale yellow velvet that night. He didn’t want to kill me tonight—he tried, but he couldn’t nerve himself. He told my aunt to look for some love note he’d written Hester. There was no love note. He wanted the papers Hester claimed she had—she must have said those papers were evidence of their marriage. Neville didn’t dare go to Hester’s room himself and search. Besides he and Charles were sent to Punt Town—so he told Aunt Grappit to search, telling her there might be a love note, and she did. And he questioned us, Charles and me, when we saw him with Hester! He asked me point-blank if she had told me why she came to Jamaica. He pretended it was only a little flirtation with Hester because he had to have some excuse for seeing her, talking to her. … Oh, poor Neville.”