Yesterday's Murder

by Craig Rice

  And then there was another sound, so low that if he had not been listening for it he would not have heard it at all—slow, measured footsteps on the great stair, Philip Telefair’s and some other’s, lighter, softer.

  David heard himself whisper, “Edris!” and in his mind it seemed to him that he had shouted it, or perhaps it was that he had not actually spoken at all. Whichever it was, no one heard.

  For it was not Edris who came down the stair on old Philip Telefair’s arm, her eyelids closing over and over again to shut out the unaccustomed light.

  He heard a sharp, anguished cry from Edmund, yet the cripple stayed at his post by the door, not moving. “I haven’t been in love since I was ten … a little thing, delicate and fragile, and very pale. I don’t think, now, that she was real. Still, I worshiped her for all one summer, and then I never saw her again.…”

  There is a color that young plants take on when they are grown in darkness, buried away from the light. That was the color of her face, her hair, her tiny hands. Yet she was so lovely, so exquisite, that David felt the breath fail in his throat.

  There were still bars on the windows of the old wing, dark and ugly against the great pale house.… “My wife is not buried on the island.” … Sometimes in the night, the sound of a woman weeping.… Old Philip Telefair had said, “I could not have endured to see her die.”

  Philip Telefair turned to the woman on his arm with a beautiful and courteous gesture, and said, “This is our guest, young David Telefair.” He looked at David and said, pleasantly, “Angeline, my wife.”

  There was a little, whispered sound from the Reverend Arthur Stone, almost a moan.

  Then, while they watched, old Philip Telefair placed a gentle arm about his wife’s waist and led her down the few last steps, across the great hall, and into the library. There was a moment of silence, and then the light that came through the library door began to fade, as though a candle were being carried away.

  Not a word was spoken, but they followed, Edmund abruptly leaving his post by the door and pushing ahead, as though in a sudden fury; David following, with Laurel’s cool fingers resting lightly on his wrist; the Reverend Arthur Stone stumbling, as though blindly, a few steps behind.

  David felt a curious, mounting excitement in his brain, as though he had been traveling a long and painful journey toward a closed door, and now was about to see it opened before his eyes. There was the old library, with the dimly glowing firelight reflecting on the polished paneling, and the carved desk; he had forgotten now the errand that had brought him into that room before. It was an empty room, save for Edmund just ahead of him; old Philip Telefair and the lovely Angeline were gone.

  Surely though, there had been a tiny jeweled desk ornament there (or had it been a jeweled-handled knife, wonderfully made, with a deeply etched sharp blade?). Old Philip Telefair had played with it in his slender, graceful hands as he spoke. It had surely been there, and yet now it was gone; and now too, a drawer of the beautiful desk was open that had always been closed.

  Was it that he saw these things, or that he seemed to see them? For a moment it was as though he were being told of them, by some voice that he could scarcely hear, speaking in a language that he could barely understand.

  A door stood open, and beyond it there was a faint, yellow glow. It came from the hall past the library, it came from a doorway that opened out of the hall, it came from the vast and dusty ballroom in whose center stood old Philip Telefair, the deathly white and silent Angeline still on his arm.

  They paused there at the door. It was not a candle old Philip Telefair had carried with him from the library but a lamp. Now it lighted up the tarnished and discolored mirrors with a thousand radiant gleams repeating themselves to infinity; it shone and reflected on the great chandelier despite the accumulated cobwebs; it showed vast shadowy figures moving on the ceiling. It created Telefair, its beauty and its terror, its age and its secrets, its darkness and its dream.

  “It is all yours, now,” old Philip Telefair said to David, his face twisted into a smile. “I leave you Telefair. But only I know its vulnerable heart.”

  It seemed to David then that he had always known what would come, that he knew what Philip Telefair intended to do before he knew it himself. He saw the flash of the little pearl-handled pistol in Philip Telefair’s hand as it aimed at the very apex of the great domed ceiling, the point from which the swaying chandelier hung. His nerves braced for the sound of the shot. It seemed to him then that he must have known all along that old Philip Telefair and the old house must destroy each other at the end.

  Yet he felt a cry bursting from his lips and in the same instant that he heard the terrible, echoing sound he knew that there had truly been a little jeweled-handled knife, since he saw it flash quickly in the hand of Angeline Telefair; since he saw old Philip Telefair crumple and fall, the blood spurting from his throat, in the fraction of a second before the great glittering chandelier began to sway toward its fall, before the crack appeared and then slowly widened in the painted ceiling, before the terrible, unendurable groan began from the agonized timbers that supported the rooms above.

  … it seemed fitting and right that the house, with its incredible beauty, should be ready to crumble into ruins. He felt a sudden awareness of the splendid and magnificent evil of the marvelous house; knew that the rotting of its framework and the hidden disease that ate away its timbers were its very heart … that Telefair must inevitably destroy itself, that the beauty and the evil were one and the same thing and were, at the same time, its self-destruction.…

  Was it that the old timbers, decayed, half-destroyed by time, could not withstand the vibration set up by the shattering of the great chandelier? Was it that a wind had swept up suddenly from the inlet, or was it that this was the moment Telefair had been waiting for in all its nearly two hundred years?

  Its beauty was a malevolent beauty; it had resented the men who had built it and their sons and grandsons, and it would continue to hate them evilly to the end.

  David saw the crystal chandelier sway and then seem to spin, sending out a myriad of tiny, sparkling lights, like iridescent drops of water in a feathery spray; he knew the exact instant when it began to fall; he saw the greenish and shadowy mirror across the vast room crack down its center, splitting a reflected glow in half; he heard the moan of the collapsing timbers swell to a terrible, screaming roar; he knew that the domed ceiling was buckling and beginning to shatter, bringing the rest of the old wing down with it; he thought suddenly, “In another moment, now, I shall wake.”

  There was a hideous confusion about him. He felt Edmund flinging him back toward the door. He caught Laurel Stone up in his arms and, even in that instant, thought her surprisingly light for one so tall. He knew that Edmund was throwing them out of danger and following them. At the same time he knew that the Reverend Arthur Stone, the look of unbearable remorse gone from his old face, his eyes glowing, was rushing into the midst of the destruction. And he knew that neither he David, nor Edmund, nor Laurel his daughter, would try to hold him back.

  The walls of the old library vibrated, the great stair trembled, a lamp on the Sheraton table in the great hall threatened to overturn and did not. There was the doorway to the terrace, and ahead of him the gardens, swimming in mist and shadowy in the twilight of the moon. Behind him he heard a tremendous, thundering sound. It might have been that a last, hideous, half-human scream merged with it or he might have imagined that he heard it; a great cloud of smothering dust rose up about him, blinding him, strangling him.

  He knew the exact moment when the old wing of the house fell; he heard its last, agonized cry. Then it seemed to him that the burden in his arms slipped from him—or was it lifted away? He felt his knees striking sharply on the stones of the terrace before him, and then it was as though the wings of a great dark bird enfolded him, covering him as the last sound of splitting timbers reached his ears and the acrid smell of the ancient, feathery dust choked his nost
rils. Yet in that last instant he heard the gentle, tinkling sound of the little fountain, the feathery spray fading as the drops thinned, one by one, as finally the last drop fell into the shadowed pool with a curious, ringing sound.

  David knew, in the breath of time before the dark pinions covered him, that it was not that he had fallen asleep; it was that the little fountain had ceased to sing.

  21

  The mists that sometimes rose in the morning on Telefair Island had woven a veil over everything.

  Overhead, the sky, seen dimly through the translucent vapor, was faintly gray. In a little while, the sun would rise, and the mist would begin to dissolve and disperse, the Island slowly emerging from it, moist and glistening, and brilliant with color. Now, as David opened his eyes and began slowly to realize and to remember, everything was the pale, grayish shade of the morning fog.

  He discovered that he was lying where he had fallen, on the cold stone of the terrace, near to the steps that led to the garden. There was a strange and unfamiliar odor heavy on the mist, not so much the still settling dust as the odor the dust had left on the damp air.

  David rose slowly and painfully, first lifting himself on one elbow to peer searchingly through the veiling fog at the scattered rubble and splintered wood that had fallen over the terrace, then gathering his legs under him and pushing himself up to his knees, swaying a little, his head reeling for an instant, and at last, with a final impetus given with one hand shoving him up from the stone terrace, coming uncertainly to his feet.

  Surely the Island had never been as silent. The ruins of the old wing had settled now, and were still. The little fountain, the artery leading to it destroyed in the fall of the house, was a fountain no longer, but only a series of basins, narrowing toward its apex, quiet and colorless. Not one leaf stirred on one single bush or branch or tree, nor did even one petal fall in the gardens.

  Was he alone on the Island? David stumbled down one step from the terrace, paused there, and tried to remember … old Philip Telefair … the lovely Angeline … And Arthur Stone, who had rushed into the center of the destruction—had it been to save, or try to save, his brother?—or his brother’s wife? David knew that he had carried Laurel beyond the reach of the crashing walls, but Laurel had vanished now.

  The moist, heady fragrance of the Telefair gardens swept up to him; he drew one long, quivering breath and plunged into the shifting vapor that covered the Island. One step, and then another, and then the path beneath his feet.

  The mist was thin, semi-transparent, and the gardens formed themselves before his eyes as he drew near. Here was that flower bed, there another one; here was the point where the path widened; and there, ahead of him, was the silenced fountain, a shadow on the fog.

  There was a darker shadow on that fog, a taller one. David went on a little farther and saw the shadow take on form and shape; came still nearer and knew that someone was standing beside the quiet pool; took two more steps and recognized Edmund.

  The tall cripple was pale under his deep brown; his light hair was mussed and rumpled; there was a bruise on his face left there by some falling timber. He was leaning heavily on his cane.

  David paused, looking at him, unable to speak. Then he saw that Edmund was not alone.

  She might have been a wisp of the fog left there on the grass beside the pool, or a pale shadow, or one dying petal fallen from some bursting bloom. Her silver-gold hair was strewn over the grass; one frail, delicate arm curved about her head; her little white face was still.

  “She is asleep,” Edmund said, very quietly.

  “Edris!” It seemed to David that the word half-choked him. He remembered then, suddenly, and for the first time. Old Philip Telefair was dead, but he had not killed old Philip Telefair. And now Edris—

  “She was not in the house?” David whispered.

  “No,” Edmund said, “no, she was not in the house.” He looked down at her for a moment. “I found her in one of the tiny caves along the bay shore of the Island. Laurel and I searched for her, after we knew that you were safe. She had been there since the afternoon. Something, I think, must have frightened her.”

  “Then it wasn’t real,” David thought. “Then it was part of the dream.” He waited for Edmund to answer before he realized that he hadn’t spoken aloud.

  “She knows nothing of what has taken place,” Edmund said. He knelt for a moment to draw a fold of his cloak over the sleeping girl, then rose again. “Indeed”—something like the reflection of a smile ran over his face—“she remembers nothing at all.” He drew a long, sighing breath. “I knew that she would be somewhere there, along the shore. Because that was where she played, as a child.”

  “But that was where—” David paused suddenly, and the day he had spent with Edris flashed before the eyes of his mind. “She still played there along the shore, as a child.”

  “Edris was never anything more,” Edmund said softly. “Nor will ever be. I can at least see that she is a happy child. Oh yes, she has been happy, in her own way. She feared and hated Philip Telefair, instinctively and without understanding, yet all the time she had her own, secret, happy life.”

  David whispered, “And now—”

  “I can give her gardens and sunshine and playthings,” the cripple whispered back. “And keep the world away from her.” Suddenly his fingers tightened on the handle of his cane. “He—” and David knew who was meant—“tried to use her in—what he planned.”

  “She is asleep,” Edmund said, very quietly.

  There was a little silence. The two men looked toward the old, half-ruined house, still almost hidden by the mist.

  “He murdered your father,” Edmund said in that same, quiet voice, “who had taken Angeline from him, and buried him with his own hands and with the help of Arthur Stone. But it was not enough.”

  The first morning wind from the inlet moaned softly through the trees of the old grove. The sky overhead was growing lighter now.

  “He planned it from the time you were a very little child,” Edmund said. “He planned every detail of your childhood and your education, so that you would love no one but himself. He did that so, when you had murdered him, you would spend your life in the shadow of the crime you had done. His revenge was to be your lifetime of remorse, and sorrow.”

  One leaf detached itself from a tree above them and fell, in a graceful little spiral, to the grass at their feet. They watched it until it came to rest.

  “He knew that the law would never touch you for his murder,” Edmund whispered. “He knew that all of us, who hated him, and were powerless to hinder his plan, would protect you. And the servants were all deaf-mutes.”

  “Angeline—” David said.

  The muscles of Edmund’s jaw tightened. “We didn’t know. Zenobie knew, and Doctor von Berger. Perhaps a few of the servants. But no one else. The rest of us never knew what had become of her—and could not ask.”

  David closed his eyes for an instant. “It has all seemed to be a dream.”

  Edmund said, “It was all a dream. One of his creating, one that he had been planting in your mind all the days of your life. But it was the dream that defeated him in the end. He planned that you should kill him. Instead, you killed him in a dream.”

  Suddenly he picked Edris up from the grass, holding her with one strong arm, while the other hand held to his cane.

  “My boat is waiting now, in the inlet,” he said.

  For a moment David longed to cry out, “Take me away with you, take me away from the Island.”

  The words were never spoken. He knew that he must remain at Telefair; knew, indeed, that he would never leave it again.

  But he followed Edmund down the narrowing path, past the quiet trees of the old grove, across the tiny meadow, and at last down to the sandy point of the Island, where the scrub pines grew among the rocks of the shore.

  There was no landing here, but the graceful little dark boat was riding as close as it could get to the shore. Edmund
paused, not far from the water’s edge, and David came up beside him.

  From the strange, secret places of this farthest end of the Island, from the little caves, from behind the stone, from the shadows of the shore, figures were rising in the mist, dark, silent figures.

  They came near, but not too near, and stood watching David, waiting for some sign from him, and he recognized the house servants of Telefair.

  “Old Jonas is dead,” Edmund whispered. “He died here on the shore in the night. It might have been from old age.”

  There was a little rustling sound as the Negro deaf-mutes moved through the sand and paused at a respectful distance.

  “They are waiting for some sign from you,” Edmund said. “Even no more than a nod. Remember, they have nowhere else to go.”

  After all … you are heir to Telefair.

  David realized that they were all looking at him, watching him. He felt the stiff muscles of his spine loosen momentarily and knew that he had nodded to them; felt some motion in his face and knew that he had smiled.

  Then he turned once more to Edmund. The tall cripple’s face was smiling; he was saying farewell. He did not speak.

  David watched them go, through the gray and fading mist, out to where the little boat rode on the quiet inlet; Edmund limping into the water and Edris lying motionless against his shoulder—farther, farther out into its hazy shadow, the water rising to Edmund’s knee and above it, as the boat moved a bit nearer to the shore. One unexpected shaft of early morning light broke momentarily through the mist, catching in Edris’ hair as it fell over Edmund’s arm, a rippling, sparkling, almost fluid light, like a feathering spray of falling water.

  Then it was gone, and the fog began to close around them in a great gray veil.

  He knew that he would never see them again.

  The little boat faded into the mist; only a faint movement of the waves remained to mark where it had been. The mists encircled the Island, cutting it off not only from the inlet and the mainland, but from all the world.