Hangman's Whip

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  When she put out her light again the moonlight lay, white and eerie, upon the lawn and the lake below. But there was no sound and no motion anywhere!

  Morning was bright and cloudless with the lake a brazen sheet and the sky brilliant. That was Sunday; it began quietly, although from the first there was a singular sense of climax in the air, and the sound of the church bells from the village, tranquil and serene, struck strangely upon their ears, as if it came from an unknown and distant world.

  Breakfast was late and unexpectedly lively, for Ludmilla was irritable and snapped at Bea, and Bea burst into sobs in the middle of the dining-room floor, pulled off her cap and flung it at Diana and declared that she wouldn’t stay in that house another hour.

  “You’ll stay till I can get someone to take your place,” said Diana. “Or I’ll see to it you never get another job.”

  In the end it was Calvin who picked up her cap, patted her heaving back and told her to cheer up and run along.

  “Very magnanimous,” said Diana dryly, “considering what she did to you yesterday.”

  “She’s a vote,” said Ludmilla, still irritably, and gave her knotted-up hair, already a little on one side, another push so she looked quite distracted.

  So far as Search could discover, no one knew of Richard’s absence, so she concluded that the deputy in his room was playing his role successfully. Calvin was indignant because he had not been permitted to see Richard, and there was considerable talk that morning of the best criminal lawyer they could get to defend him (working with Howland) at the trial. Search listened, hoping there would be no trial. Waiting, in spite of herself (too soon, too hopefully), for news.

  Two things, however, developed quite early in the day, although neither was in itself revealing. Ludmilla drew Search into her room just after breakfast and told her that sometime during the past twenty-four hours her room had been ransacked and searched. She hadn’t known it until she went to her desk that morning and found it unlocked and, on opening the lid, all the papers in wild confusion.

  “Whoever looked in it must have heard somebody coming and simply shut the lid and hurried away. So when I saw that I looked around, and every drawer in that chest and in the chest in my dressing room had been rummaged.”

  But up to then she had found nothing missing. And she knew of nothing anybody could possibly want.

  “The doctor’s report,” suggested Search. But it was still there, for after a while Ludmilla found it among a stack of tossed letters in the bulging little desk.

  And half an hour later Howland arrived, cutting hurriedly across the lawn. He was pale and angry and looked a little frightened too. He had a revolver in the pocket of his coat and patted it, telling them the story, and he wanted to see the sheriff. For someone, in the night, had entered his house and had tried to enter his room. Only a few rooms of the big house had been opened for his visit, and the caretaker’s wife was cooking for him. But whoever was there must have known what bedroom he was occupying. He had roused and heard someone at the door and had grabbed his revolver and got out of bed. And whoever it was had got clean away. “I searched the house,” he said. “Found nothing. Where’s the sheriff? I thought he’d be here. He’s not in his office. I telephoned early this morning.”

  “Well, he’s not here,” said Diana. “And they won’t let any of us see Richard.”

  So she had tried to see Richard too. Search looked at her pale, enigmatic face; she was still a puzzle, yet that morning there was something different about Diana. She looked tired and there were taut lines in her face and she had developed, overnight apparently, an odd way of staring silently into space. As if she saw something no one else saw.

  Search noted it then as, sitting on the porch, she and Diana and Calvin heard Howland’s story. And then forgot it.

  For Howland went away again, still angry, still with that curious look of alarm in his face, and Diana, her fine smooth hair drawn high so it looked cool, her light eyes abstracted under her thick straight blond eyebrows, went down the steps to the lake with him, where they walked slowly along the lake path but did not appear to be talking. Calvin went into the house to telephone for newspapers, and Search followed him into the cooler depths of the hall. And then, listening with half an ear to his voice over the telephone, she drifted without intention or purpose along the hall, thinking of the night Eve was murdered and of her own exit by the door at the end of the little bisecting passage and, when she reached it, turned in that direction.

  She strolled idly along it, remembering how she had gone that night to meet Richard. Remembering too well what she had found. Thinking, as she had thought so many times, of the scenes of that night—her return, Diana’s voice, Richard, the telephone calls to the coroner, the frenzied hunt for flashlights and raincoats, the wait while rain poured against black windowpanes. She reached the little side door which was open. It was as much accident as association of ideas that made her, idly, without intention really, lean over and pull up the lid of the long walnut chest that stood there against the wall.

  And so it was that she saw—gleaming green and silky and sinuous among the accumulation of rubbers and tennis net and old rackets and a couple of broken victrola records—a bright slim green cord.

  She stared at it. She leaned over slowly and drew it out and held it in her fingers. A slender silken cord, bright green, with a green celluloid ball, about the size of a ping-pong ball, on the end of it and a green silk tassel. And a memory that had vanished as completely from the crowd of more urgent and ugly memories that night had brought, as if a sponge had wiped across a slate on which it was written, came back to her. A toy. Flung carelessly down on a table beside two glasses. And then—when she went back to the cottage the next day with the sheriff it had not been there.

  She remembered it had not been there then. Yet at this time, caught in the overpowering surge of events and memories, she had forgotten it. And as suddenly she remembered a dream of the cottage; there had been something wrong, something different; yet in her dream she could not discover that difference. Was it this, then?

  Moments passed.

  The green silk cord was thin enough and tough enough to do what something very thin and very strong had done. Her fingers shrank away from it. Yet she clung to it too. This, then, was a clue. A real clue.

  Perhaps.

  Doubt struck her coldly; she examined the thing again. And on the green ball found part of a small paper price tag, glued to the celluloid, half torn off, showing part of an address in tiny blue letters; three hundred something Pear—That was all. And Calvin’s footsteps left the telephone and came across the main hall and turned into the small passage at the end of which she stood.

  Instinctively she thrust the thing into the pocket of her pale yellow sports dress. She had not time to close the lid of the low chest, and Calvin came, curious as a cat, and looked into the chest and looked at her.

  “Prowling?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh,” said Calvin and glanced again at the rubbish in the chest and then closed it. “God, it’s hot,” he said and got out a handkerchief and wiped his glistening forehead and looked earnestly at Search. “That was a funny story of Howland’s this morning. Funnier because he’s not the nervous kind. Well …” He sighed. “Search, you don’t believe Richard killed her. But what do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  His gray keen eyes searched her own. “Did you …” He hesitated. “Well, that candy, you know, that they say had poison in it. Where’d you get it?”

  She told him. “The sheriff questioned me; I told him everything I know about it.”

  “Was it out of your hands at all after you bought it?”

  “Yes. It was gone from my dressing table. I thought the maid mislaid it.”

  “Yes, yes, I know all that. Looks as if it has to be somebody here in this house. Everybody knows that Ludmilla loves rum-butter toffee.”

  “Yes. I bought the candy th
at morning, as soon as I knew I was coming. I took it straight to my apartment and left it on the table there while I packed. Howland came about three; I was all ready except I had to write a note to the milkman and put on my hat. We talked a little and then we left.”

  Calvin thought for a second or two and then grinned a little. “I guess I’ve reached the point where I’d suspect”—he laughed—“where I’d suspect Ludmilla. But it’s funny the sheriff doesn’t turn up. I wonder how long he’s going to leave Richard here. I asked Jonas if the mob had materialized last night, and he said no.”

  Carter, coming quietly along the hall, said coldly, when Calvin whirled in a rather startled way toward her, that lunch was served.

  At three o’clock Search had a message from Richard. It was a telegram, telephoned out from the village, asking her to meet him at her apartment in Chicago that night at eight.

  She asked the girl to repeat it, and she did so. “Meet me your apartment Chicago tonight eight o’clock all clear love R.”

  Eight o’clock.

  There was a four-thirty-five train in to Chicago on Sundays. She remembered it well.

  All clear. That meant—it must mean—that he was free. All clear.

  Her heart was like a frantic little drum in her breast. She turned from the telephone and ran upstairs.

  Chapter 21

  SHE WOULD ASK JONAS to take her into town in Diana’s car. From the first, although there was a strong sense of being under close guard, it was not literally true. There were no guards set upon them; possibly because Richard had been the prime suspect from the beginning; possibly simply because the sheriff did not consider it necessary—having already extracted all the information he could extract from them. In any case no one would stop her.

  All clear.

  She looked at her watch again to make sure of the time. She got out her big handbag and took the green cord and green celluloid ball (they might need that, Richard and the sheriff, later) and put it in the capacious blue leather bag. She changed to the cool printed silk she’d worn on the train. She took her hat. She’d better go first to the barn and find Jonas and explain and leave the handbag and her hat there in case, later, she couldn’t smuggle them unobserved out of the house.

  She had a strong sense of secrecy about it although Richard had not said to tell no one. But there was no need to tell her that. If he had wanted the others to know he would have said so; he wouldn’t have told her to come to Chicago. Probably the sheriff was with him.

  She had taken the message over the telephone in the hall. No one else had been about, and she did not know where the others were. To be safe she went down the back stairs and slipped quietly out the kitchen door. No one was in sight. She hurried along the driveway toward the garage.

  Jonas was not in the garage; he was not in the tool shed. Time was passing, and she went at last to the cottage because there was no other place to look. She went through the woods as she had done that night before the rain. Now sunlight filtered down through the leaves, making dappled lights and shadows. And when she reached the cottage Jonas was there and heard her approach, for he came quickly out upon the little step.

  “Looking for me?” he said. “First time I’ve had a chance to take a good look at the cottage; always some pudding-headed sheriff’s assistant poking around.” He jerked his hat further over his eyes. “Want me?”

  She told him quickly. There was instant comprehension in his suspicious little eyes and gnarled brown face. “Knew Mr Dick wasn’t in the house,” he said. “I’ve been around the place all morning and didn’t see him at the window. What’s that Pete Donny up to?”

  “I don’t know. Is there a car we can take to town? I must get the train—”

  “Sure. We’d better leave here a little before four, so as to be sure to get away before anybody—” His eyes shifted to something behind her and fixed and he said abruptly: “All right, Miss Search. Want me, Miss Diana?”

  Search turned too; Diana was just emerging from the path through the woods, the sun on her fair smooth hair and in her eyes so she was squinting nervously. She crossed the little open space.

  “Nothing, Jonas, except you’d better go home now; this is your half day off, you know.” It was a tone of dismissal.

  “What time is it?” said Jonas sourly, speaking to Search.

  Diana frowned and looked at her wrist watch. “Nearly half-past three.”

  Jonas glanced at Search and went away, taking his time.

  Diana said sharply, watching him go: “He’s getting too old and cranky for his job. I’ll have to get rid of him before next summer.” She looked fully at Search and saw her hat and handbag. Her thick eyebrows lifted. “Where are you going?”

  “I—thought I might go in to Kentigern. Later. Were you looking for me, Diana?”

  “You don’t exactly need your hat just to go in to Kentigern. …Yes, I do want to see you. Listen, Search—sit down here on the step. I want to talk to you.”

  She sat down and made a little gesture with her hand, and Search (thinking again of the passing of time and the train) sat down beside her. Diana stared for a moment toward the delicate lights and shadows in the green woods opposite. Then she said abruptly: “Do you remember the night you came? I met you on the driveway and we talked a little?”

  “Naturally. It wasn’t very long ago.”

  “Wasn’t it?” Diana’s tone was thin and flat. “It seems a long time. I—I think we’d better have a showdown, Search,” she said coolly, “about Richard. I’m going to divorce Calvin. I’ve made up my mind.”

  “Divorce Calvin!”

  “Yes,” said Diana as coolly as if her statement settled it. “In order to—to marry Richard.”

  Search’s cheeks flamed.

  “You are quite mistaken, Diana. Richard loves me and I love him. And we are going to marry as soon as—as we can.”

  “As soon as the lawyer I’m hiring, I’m paying for, gets Richard out of the mess you’ve helped get him into, you mean,” said Diana. She stopped and rose and said: “I suppose there’s no one in the cottage. Still …” Her thin figure, very cool-looking in white, vanished into the cottage; the door swung, and Search could hear her footsteps, quick and decided.

  Then she came back and sat down again beside Search.

  “I don’t like this place,” she said. “Queer that Eve came here. Unless—” Her eyes met Search’s and she caught herself. “But that’s not what I followed you here to say. I saw you start down toward the path through the woods. I thought you were headed for the cottage; I didn’t realize it was only to find Jonas. Well, what I started to say, my dear, is this. You must give up any claim—or any claim you think you have— upon Richard. He’s chivalrous. He won’t break with you; you’ll have to do that.”

  “Diana, I love Richard. He loves me. Can’t you understand?”

  “He loves life and freedom too, Search. And I can give him that.”

  But Richard was already free. He need not be obligated to Diana ever, for anything.

  Diana went on slowly: “I’ll get Artone; he’s the finest criminal lawyer there is. His fees are high, but I’ll make it worth his while to get an acquittal. And that isn’t all. I’m going to put up the money for Richard’s plane; I’ll give him enough to pay these men he owes, to experiment, to correct whatever flaws there are in his plane, to manufacture and put it on the market. I intend to buy whatever stock he’s given the men who advanced him money. I’m going to do all that for Richard.”

  “He’s got—Eve’s money.”

  Diana laughed; it was the first time in several days that she had laughed that silvery, thin little peal. She said: “Eve’s money isn’t enough. He might be able to pay his mechanics. Pay a few of the debts he already owes. It isn’t enough to pay the lawyer. It wouldn’t make a beginning on manufacturing costs. Search—don’t you see what I can do for him?”

  Search rose. “There’s something you’ve forgotten, Diana.”

  “Fo
rgotten?” There was a flicker, as if a shutter opened and closed away back in Diana’s queer light eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Richard,” said Search. “You might buy me, Diana, if it meant Richard’s freedom. But you can’t buy him.”

  Inexplicably her anger evaporated. She said, almost softly: “Richard loves me.”

  And turned away then, as Diana did not speak, and walked toward the path. Diana did not follow, and when she reached the path and glanced back Diana was standing there, thin and pale, watching her fixedly. There was a stillness, a brooding quality, about her regard even at that distance. And a kind of purpose.

  For an instant the two women looked at each other across that patch of grass brilliant with sunlight. The little cottage, with its peaked raftered roof, squatted in the sun, holding within it the secret of Eve’s death. Eve with her golden hair and blue eyes. Search broke the spell. She made some gesture with her hand, turned again and hurried along the path. The first curve would have hidden the cottage from her sight, but she did not look back.

  Better get away before something happened to delay her. She came out presently below the house and glanced up at the blank windows, glittering where the sunlight struck them. If Jonas had guessed that Richard was not actually in that house, in spite of the deputy’s pretense, others might have guessed it.

  She came out on the flagged walk leading to the house. But she was not to leave then, either, for Ludmilla was waiting for her. She saw her from the library window and called to her and then came to the side door to meet her. She was flurried and upset. “I couldn’t find you,” she said. “Search, I’ve been looking through my things and I’ve missed something, but it’s nothing important.”

  She came out the door, and they stood together on the walk. Ludmilla’s plump face was pale and her hair furiously tousled. Her eyes went up and down Search, and she broke off to say: “Where are you going?”

  “Just—to town,” said Search again. She must listen to Ludmilla and get away. There was still plenty of time to make the train.