Turret Room

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Edie said, in quick desperation, loudly, “Mr. Tyler, this man is wearing a gun. Is that all right?”

  “Certainly he has a gun,” said Cousin Ted furiously. “How else can he protect us?”

  “And Cousin Ted has a gun too,” cried Edie. “What if they shoot the wrong person? I think it’s terribly dangerous.”

  Granny made one of her remarks that was either silly panic or brave comedy. “I shall turn off my hearing aid. I cannot abide the noise of guns.” Then she took the tea.

  But Tyler had lifted his heavy head. “You’ve got three qualified men for this job, Conrad?”

  “Yes, sir.” The man in the blue suit was intent upon proving his answer. He came down the one step, he crossed the balcony, where Edie was shrinking against her door, he thumped his wide feet on the lower treads. The wood of the door at her back was solid and opaque and she let it hold her up.

  Tyler and the man exchanged a few low sentences, with the effect of using an inside language, unintelligible to the ordinary public. Then Tyler turned on Cousin Ted, who stood there, goggling. “You’d better not carry a gun, Ted.” The Chief’s choice of words was milder than his tone.

  “I tell you, Charles, if this escaped madman shows himself on my property, I have the right …”

  Tyler said, brushing him off again, “Not you. Trained people. Put it away.”

  So Edie thought she saw her solution. Trained people, of course. It was Charles Tyler to whom she must appeal, just as soon as Cousin Ted, who really was a stupid man, had put away his gun. Or perhaps she could manage to speak to Mr. Tyler alone, and that would be even better. She perceived that Mrs. Beck was standing, stranded, with the other glass of iced tea on the tray. Edie did not want to move away from the turret room door. Not yet. So she said, “Put it on the table, please, Mrs. Beck?”

  Cousin Ted had bounced back and was protesting. “Now, look here, Charles, I am not an athlete. And I do not care to leave a loaded gun where this madman might get hold of it. I won’t take that risk.”

  Tyler said, wearily, “Leave it empty.”

  Up on the balcony, Edie closed her eyes. A stupid man is a very dangerous man, she thought. How can Cousin Ted be so stupid? She began to feel helplessly angry.

  The guard said, “Where now, Mr. Whitman?”

  “Oh. Yes. Mrs. Beck, take this man with you, please. I want him to close and lock whatever can be closed and locked. And don’t forget the cellar.” Cousin Ted, inflated again, gave orders.

  The tall housekeeper disappeared from Edie’s view, and the guard followed her. Edie heard her say, “This is the cellar door.” The only cellar to the house was beneath the turret. The door to the stairs, leading down, was well around the curve of the turret wall.

  Edie was not only angry, she was beginning to realize what was happening here; she was frightened. But her anger spoke. She took three steps to the balcony rail and called down. “Cousin Ted, don’t you know that he didn’t ‘escape’?”

  “He’s out! He’s loose!”

  “He was discharged.”

  “That’s what I said. He’s out! We know that.”

  Edie began to shake her head and she started down, to do battle with unreason. Granny’s voice caught her and stopped her feet.

  “Mercy! You’re not thinking that he might have gotten in,” said Granny. “You mean while we were all away? Oh mercy!”

  So the steam went out of Edie’s anger.

  “But I was here,” she said, “and so was Mrs. Beck.” Was she sounding nervous?

  Granny was twisting around to peer at the housekeeper. “You didn’t hear anything? In the shrubbery?”

  Mrs. Beck said, “No, ma’am. Of course, I would only hear something at the back. Oh, I did hear the front doorbell. Miss Edith must have answered it.”

  Now was the time for Edie to say flatly, “Yes. It was Harold Page. I let him in. He’s in my room.” But she seemed to have lied, already. It was not the time for the truth. She set her legs to moving and sauntered down the remaining stairs. “Bell? Oh yes, just somebody … wanted something.”

  Cousin Ted turned with a shuffle of his small feet. “Get along,” he snapped, over his shoulder. “Take him along, please.”

  So the housekeeper made a pointing gesture and the guard, who had evidently been down cellar, now closed the cellar door, turned the key in its lock, made an “after you” kind of gesture and followed her to the dining room.

  Cousin Ted now came to Edie. He stood close and spoke low and his brown eyes behind his glasses were suspicious. “Edie, did you talk to the press?” he breathed at her.

  “No, Cousin Ted, I did not,” she said indignantly.

  “For Wendy’s sake, for all our sakes,” he went on in the same ridiculously portentious manner, “we do not want scare headlines.”

  Edie shook her shoulders. “Mr. Tyler,” she said boldly, “there will be headlines, if Cousin Ted shoots anybody.”

  Tyler’s voice had a weary authority. “She’s right, Ted. Come on, now. Put the toy away.”

  “Actually, Ted,” said Granny, “I don’t believe you have fired a gun since you’ve had bifocals.”

  “Oh, Mother …”

  Edie breathed in deeply. He was deflated. He took the very small handgun out of his jacket pocket and trotted reluctantly toward the big carved chest that stood under the balcony. He was going to put it away. Edie simply could not tell whether his mother had deliberately deflated him, as a means of control, or had done nothing at all but utter a stray thought that had crossed her mind.

  Edie’s hope was not in them. She turned to Tyler. “Could I please speak to you, sir?”

  “Go ahead.” He did not budge.

  “About Harold Page. Could I speak to you, alone?”

  Charles Tyler took her in, with cold eyes. He knew who she was. A grand-niece. A social worker. He’d met social workers. He supposed they were earnest decent people; he didn’t care for their bleeding hearts. This was a young one. He knew right away that she was going to defend the accused. And nuts to that.

  “You know this man?” he said coldly. Her throat moved; her eyes winced. She didn’t know the man. “You were here last night when this happened?” She’d been at some concert; she hadn’t been here, last night, when it happened.

  “Go ahead,” he invited grimly. She didn’t know anything.

  Long ago, Charles Tyler had figured out a clear direction for himself. It was his business to apprehend a lawbreaker. What society then chose to do with same was not his business. Sometimes he felt like whoever it was that had to push some boulder up a hill forever. Or a housekeeper sweeping the dust with an old broom and watching the dust settle back again. They kept letting these kooks out. He’d pick them up and put them in and then they’d soon be out again. Look at this one, this kookie Harold Page. They’d had him in. By what kind of guess and gamble they’d let him loose, Charles Tyer did not know. Long ago, he had stopped trying to figure out the “whys” of this world. He was supposed to keep law and order. A man who got into a house that wasn’t his, and beat up a woman, was a criminal. Whatever else he might be was not Charles Tyler’s concern. He told himself all this quite often.

  “I know,” said the girl, “you want to pick him up.” She smiled nervously.

  Tyler didn’t smile and didn’t even answer. Good for her, he thought, if she knows that much.

  “What will happen to him if you do?” she went on.

  A blast of rage happened invisibly within Charles Tyler.

  Ted Whitman, busily taking the ammunition out of his little gun, turned around to face them and puffed himself up. “Oh, he’ll be put away, at least. Myra Whitman …”

  That did it, for Tyler. How he wished to hell his sister had never mixed herself up with this bunch! She’d married the Whitman name, the house on the hill, the status and the money—and in the bargain had taken that spoiled kid, the stepdaughter, and her kookie ex. And now she was lying in the hospital. Why? No reason. And all
her brother could do was sweep up this kook, not because his violence was senseless but because it was against the law. Put him in, again. And not because she was Myra Whitman.

  “Myra Tyler Whitman,” he said between his teeth. He gave Edie a glance like a knife to cut her head off. She’d be of the school that pleaded for the poor criminal who “hadn’t known what he was doing.” Charles Tyler didn’t care whether he knew. Charles Tyler cared whether he had done it.

  “I don’t think you need to worry, Edith,” he said bitterly. “When I pick him up, he’ll tell me everything he knows about what happened to my sister.” If it takes a month, he was thinking. Oh, he’d sweep this one back into the dustbin. But good. He turned his back and gazed gloomily at the big tree.

  Edie Thompson took a step backward. Dismayed. The Chief of Police had been coldly angry last night, but he had been giving orders, very busy, and the anger had seemed no more than natural, and well-controlled for what it was. It had blended with the confusion and everyone’s consternation. But she couldn’t talk to him, not now. She didn’t dare. She thought he was in the clutches of a deep personal rage, an outrage. Whoever was suspected of having hurt his sister was going to be in for a very rough time. He had the power. And a suspect like Harold Page, so fitted to the crime, and so defenseless … No, she couldn’t talk to the big policeman, now. And maybe never.

  Not she. Edie knew that, somehow, the man was closed against her in particular. She sensed that. Couldn’t think why. But it was paralyzing.

  The big man turned again, his face fallen into an impassive gloom. “I’ll get along now, Ted. I’ll have a couple of men check the grounds, Mrs. Whitman.”

  He nodded, and started for the foyer.

  Granny called after him, “Charles, you are very kind.”

  And Edie let him go. She went over to the table beyond the sofa where Mrs. Beck had put her tea. She sipped and found it hard to swallow. She didn’t know what she was going to do.

  She didn’t follow Tyler out, to catch him in the driveway, to beg his objectivity as she confessed. She was afraid.

  Wait. Think. Maybe … Edie now saw her project stretching out in time beyond her anticipation. Maybe—keep the boy hidden and safe while time worked and they all cooled off?

  But how could she do that?

  How could she do otherwise?

  Chapter Four

  THE guard came back from the dining room-kitchen wing of the house, and Cousin Ted prepared to usher him to the east wing. This was the newer part of the house, in which Granny had her large and comfortable quarters and Ted and Myra the master bedroom, and Ted, his study.

  Granny was stirring. “If he is going into my room,” she announced, getting up in her spry way, “then so am I. I want him to look under the bed, quite thoroughly. I don’t care for this idea that someone may be lurking. You have given me a very unpleasant picture, Ted, and I don’t think it was very kind of you.”

  “Oh, Mother …”

  Edie almost echoed him. It was a “Granny” speech, and unfathomable. She took a strong swallow of the cold tea. If they would only leave her alone in this room, now.

  In fact, this room was often deserted. Perhaps because of the stairs, and the turret, this room was a kind of overgrown passageway. Nobody lived in it. Granny was in the habit of keeping to her own place where she had surrounded herself with an elegant clutter. Ted and Myra tended to use the solarium, incongruously so named, for it looked northerly, down the other side of the knoll and off to the sea. Wendy lived upstairs. That was her nest. It was usually some unhappy house guest, like Edie, who sat uncomfortably in this big cold place and wished she could find a book to read. There were no books in this room. There was no clutter, either. Sometimes there was a gathering here, before dinner, when there were dinner guests. The family did not gather here. In fact, the family did not gather.

  So Edie had hopes that they would all vanish and she would have her chance. Maybe she could get the boy out—immediately.

  But Cousin Ted was not vanishing, yet. He dawdled and turned back. He went trotting to the big carved chest and, while Edie watched him in dismay, he yanked open the top drawer and took out his beloved gun.

  “Cousin Ted?” she croaked.

  He turned and glared. He was going to reload. “If I see Harold Page, I do not intend to be helpless. I may not be as incompetent with a weapon as people think. Well?”

  Well, she couldn’t stop him. She said meekly, “I only wanted to ask you if you would please cash a check for me.”

  “Oh, Edie,” on the puff of a sigh. “Not now.”

  “Then may I please borrow Myra’s car?” (If Edie had a car, maybe she could get the boy into the car, somehow.)

  “I am very sorry, Edie, but that car is quite new and Myra hates other people to drive it.”

  (Myra’s in the hospital, thought Edie. She won’t know. She can’t care. I need a car.) “Then Wendy’s?” she said. “Do you know where her keys are?” (Wendy was off with Ronnie Mungo. Wendy didn’t need a car.)

  “No, I surely do not,” said Cousin Ted, and then virtuously, “You must take that up with Wendy herself. Where do you want to go? I’m off to the hospital again in a few minutes. Drop you? If it’s convenient.”

  He put the gun into his pocket. Edie said quietly, “Thank you, but it’s not that important.”

  He started across the room to the east wing but something must have pinked him. He said to her, “How you can think of your own little concerns at all! Don’t you realize what a terrible thing has occurred? Don’t you understand that we are in great danger until this vicious madman is recaptured?”

  Edie thought she could spit at him. “So is the whole population, too,” she cried.

  “What? What?”

  “If we are,” she raged, “if there is a vicious madman loose, then there should be scare headlines.”

  Cousin Ted raised his brows. “I will not be hounded by newspaper people. Really.”

  They stared at each other. It was Cousin Ted who said it. “Aren’t you being rather stupid?” he said.

  Somebody was shaking him by his shoulder, so he woke out of what was not quite sleep. It was that girl who wasn’t Wendy. She was talking to him in a low angry voice; he could tell that she was not angry at him. She wanted him to sit up, put on his shoes, go somewhere with her. So he turned his legs, he pushed his torso, he sat on the edge of the bed with his feet to the floor, trying to banish those dizzying dreams or visions, those disconnected pictures, trying to see where he was and what was going on.

  “It’s the only chance,” Edie was saying. “Right now. Quickly. Hurry. Before there is a guard out there. I’m going with you. I’ll walk you out of here. If the police see the two of us walking together they won’t think it’s you. We can get out the front door right now. If you’ll hurry …”

  She went springing across the round room to her dresser; she seemed to be putting things into her purse. She had left his shoes on the floor, right under his eyes.

  Harold looked down at four objects. Two shoes, two feet in gray socks. He closed his eyes and stretched up his brows and opened his eyes again. This was the turret room, that’s right. The furniture looked as if it had been tossed in here, because it could not stand snug to the round. The strange tall narrow windows had blinds on them, against the glass, but there were no curtains. The glass was too far within the thickness of the wall. A crazy place.

  He could hear her going on, in that low and furious voice, “No way to make them listen to anything. They are impossible. The only thing to do is get you away from here. Could you hurry?”

  He looked down at his shoes and his feet. He reached for one of the shoes, but his hand fell. It wasn’t necessary to try. He looked at the four objects. Two shoes, the same size. His left foot, looking a little larger. The right foot, outsized and impossible.

  She said, close to his ear, “What’s the matter?”

  His hand swung, trying to point. “I can’t …”
>
  Her hand came down on his shoulder.

  “I can’t,” he said. “My broken foot. I’ll never …”

  He felt her urgency die. Her hand began to press him back and he let it. He lay back. “I see,” she said softly. “All right.”

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t.” He was very sorry that he couldn’t do what she wanted him to do and put his shoes on.

  She was like a nurse, now, or maybe his mother. She was helping him lift his legs back to the bed. She was pulling up the cover. She touched his forehead with a corner of the sheet, to wipe the perspiration away. “Never mind,” she said. “How do you feel?”

  “Oh, I’m better,” he told her. “Much better. I feel a little woozy but I’m much, much better.”

  “Are you hungry? Are you thirsty?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She sat down on the edge of the bed. This was a cool and quiet crazy place. They were lost in there—out of the world. But a sound came. The thin high ringing of a telephone bell, far far away.

  “That’s the telephone,” she said quickly, as if she thought it might have frightened him. He lay looking at her profile, at the head held tensely on the twist of her neck. He could see the strain. He remembered her name, now. He was sorry to see her so strained and worried.

  “You had better tell them where I am,” he said calmly. “This isn’t your trouble. You don’t want to be in the middle, Edie.”

  Her head turned and she looked at him as if she marveled. Then, she smiled. “Oh, I’m not in the middle. I’m on your side.”

  He smiled up at her. He could see everything very clearly now, at least in his mind. “Just the same …”

  “All right.” She sighed. “But rest. Will you rest, a little while? Will you promise me? Don’t make any noise? Don’t stand too close to the windows? Then, I’ll promise you that if I have to tell them, I’ll give you warning first. Is that all right? A deal?”