Turret Room

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Then they were trying to put her on a stretcher, but she fought that. She didn’t want to be lying down, flat. She wanted to see. So they finally had her on her feet, the two of them practically carrying her. One of them had done something, so her arm wasn’t quite so draggy on the pain.

  She tried to look, to see what was what. Wendy wasn’t here. She knew that. Which was good, probably. It was Wendy who mattered. Mrs. Beck could handle all the rest of them. Easily, she thought, with contempt.

  Now, she could see the madman, over there. He had his eyes shut. So they had him. The old lady had screamed; now she just sat and trembled. Let her. She didn’t matter much. Mr. Whitman was there, looking as if he didn’t know enough to come in out of the rain, which he didn’t, in her opinion. He didn’t count. There was Edith, and Edith said, “Mrs. Beck, it was Wendy who fought Myra. Wasn’t it? Please, say so.”

  Then Myra’s brother yelled, “I’m in charge here.”

  Mrs. Beck thought, They don’t know a thing.

  “We’ll get you to the hospital and you’ll be looked after, right away,” the Chief of Police was saying, in a stern, but respectful manner. “But do you think you could answer a question or two?”

  Mrs. Beck had had her clue and wanted nothing better. “I can answer,” she said stolidly. (After all, there was only one thing to say.)

  Tyler said, “Did you fall, Mrs. Beck?”

  “I was pushed,” she said.

  “How did it happen?”

  “I thought I heard something.” (She’d keep Wendy all the way out) “So I went to see. But I made a mistake.” (That’s right, she had—but all was not lost yet) “The madman was in the house, all right. But he was behind me.”

  “He pushed you?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  (Mrs. Beck saw Edith sit down on the ottoman with a kind of funny smile on her face. Well, pooh to her, thought the housekeeper.)

  The other man (one of the guards, she remembered) said, “That cellar door was locked, sir. Unlocked it myself, with Mr. Whitman’s key. She couldn’t …”

  “Lock it from the outside,” said Tyler. “Right.” He began to clear a way, until Mrs. Beck could plainly see the madman, who opened his eyes and looked up at her with a funny expression. Kind of a steady, sad look.

  “Do you know this man?” barked Tyler.

  “Yes, sir. That’s him. That’s Harold Page.” And the madman tipped his head, like he was listening hard for something she wasn’t saying.

  The guard said, “Excuse me. Mr. Whitman’s gun is down there. Cellar floor.”

  “Why is that?” Tyler said.

  (But this was easy.) “Well, sir, I took it, because we all knew how dangerous he was. But he got at me from behind. Tried to kill me, I guess.” She played fading out weakly. (But I don’t kill so easy as some, she thought to herself.)

  “All right. Now, we’ll get you taken care of.”

  Tyler was in charge. The men wanted her on the stretcher. So Mr. Mungo and the guard fellow were holding it. Mrs. Beck let herself be tilted and lifted up. All right, she was hurt. Let them make a fuss over her.

  Oh, Mrs. Beck knew she was riding on the wind. It all depended on whether Wendy would keep her mouth shut. But one thing, for sure, they were both in it, and if one told, the other had something to tell, too. Mrs. Beck was not consciously a philosopher, but a principle that she believed appeared (although not as such) in her mind. Everybody looked out for himself first. Naturally. So that was what Wendy would do. Barring one of her fits, that is. But Mrs. Beck had hope that all would be well. She would get back as soon as she could. Who knows? Maybe right away, with a cast on. The old lady never listened to anybody. Mr. Whitman never did anything. They’d probably dope Wendy up, or get the doctor to do it. It would be all right. She was feeling lucky.

  She saw one thing, as she was sinking down. The madman was looking sorry for her. Well, he better be sorry for himself, she thought. And put him out of her mind. He was mad. He didn’t count. Nobody would listen to him.

  But when she saw Mr. Mungo’s face, right close, she couldn’t help murmuring to him, “Tell Miss Wendy not to be afraid. Be sure? Becky will be back to take care … Tell her? Poor lamb.”

  Mr. Mungo ducked away and said to the men, like the gentleman he was, “Easy. Easy. Here, let me open the door for you.”

  Mrs. Beck lay back, cozy to the pain.

  Edie watched them go, without having said a word.

  She had just heard an enormous lie. She knew, of her own sure knowledge, that Harold hadn’t pushed the housekeeper down the cellar stairs. She, herself, had left Mrs. Beck in the kitchen and gone to him.

  She guessed she knew who had done it. (Screaming and shaking and crying that somebody was in the tree!) Wendy must have done it. Just then. No wonder, that shaking! But why Wendy had tried to kill her slave and worshiper, Edie could not imagine.

  She had given up any more screaming—for herself. She felt stunned by the weight of the truth of this house, that must fall. Must fall.

  She realized that Tyler had his eye on her. He said crisply, “I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do.”

  “I know.” She knew. Another accusation against Harold Page. Enough and more, to hold him. She would give her testimony later, in due course, in good time, and proper order. It would still be her word against Mrs. Beck’s. No proof. Her word and Harold’s, if his could only count.

  Tyler seemed to flush. Did he want her to fight, now? “I’m holding him for Myra, too,” he said. “Suspicion of murder. There’s a hole in his alibi.”

  “No,” she said, wonderingly.

  “You proved he was inside, all right,” Tyler said, almost angrily, “in time to have a go at Mrs. Beck. But last night, the guard came off the front door and searched your room. Did you let Page in then? After he’d been busy in the hospital?”

  (Damn it, thought Tyler, I’m playing the game. The timetables, the loopholes, the ins-and-outs of opportunities. And it’s flimsy. The truth is, and always was, some people wouldn’t do some things. Which is not evidence.)

  Edie said, “No, sir, I did not.”

  Her passivity annoyed him. He said, “We’ll take a chance and let the patrol car get Page where he’s going.”

  “That’s okay,” said Harold Page, almost eagerly.

  But Tyler went to the mantel and stared at the water glass. He snapped at the other uniformed man, who had reappeared from the east wing at last. “Go get Jansen. Then take Page. And I want Edith Thompson down at the station for further interrogation. Now. And I want Mungo, too.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tyler turned and snarled at Edie. “No more questions?”

  “Well, there’s one,” said Edie, almost listlessly. “May Harold please have his shoes on? Cousin Ted, you know where his shoes are.” She saw Tyler blink surprise.

  “Shoes?” said Cousin Ted. “Oh. Yes. Certainly.” He wiggled to his feet. “Oh dear, I forgot, Charles. Found them in the turret room. And that’s how we knew … er, something. I—I forget. But I do know exactly where I put them. Yes. I’m sure I do.”

  Cousin Ted went off to his own quarters. Granny, outraged by all these indignities, had obviously turned off her hearing aid again and was stony in her chair.

  “I’ll get my things?” said Edie to the Chief, half-question, half-announcement.

  He nodded, gloomily. As she started up the stairs, she saw him turn and stare again at the water glass.

  Doesn’t mean a thing, Edie conceded. Not now, when they have discovered a time when Harold could have come in, and then put his prints on the glass, or anywhere else, at any time between midnight and morning.

  She didn’t get it, Tyler was thinking. She missed that one. She missed two points about the shoes. One, we searched, after Myra was found, and they sure weren’t here then. Two … Augh! He shook his big head. Order, he had to have. And would. Order and reason he would have and reason would go to work.

  He supposed h
e’d take the glass. He didn’t need it.

  He thought, A glass of cold water she gave a hot and thirsty boy, on a hot day—because it figures. There are some things that some people will do. And you know it, but it’s not evidence.

  Well, get on with it. Better tell the old lady what’s up. He crossed swiftly.

  Edie saw him cross and heard Granny say, “I will not listen, Charles. I cannot and I will not budge, either.”

  I guess you can’t, thought Edie sadly.

  She went into the turret room to get her things. What things? Couldn’t think. Purse? Wrap? Toothbrush? Nightwear? Anyway, she was leaving.

  It was sad, in a way. These people were the only ones of her blood in the world. But she had put herself against them and there she would always be, even when the truth came out.

  Oh, it would come out. In questions and answers. In long ordeal. The newspapers. The time it would take. The torment. The tarnish. And now another charge. Edie’s word and Harold’s word against Mrs. Beck’s, now. Against the victim’s word? Who protected Wendy?

  Wendy was sacred? No law for her? She could push a woman down stone stairs and the woman would protect her? The family would protect her. The money would protect her. Her youth, her looks, her childish will. Her very callousness would protect her.

  No, no. Not forever. Sooner or later, in a courtroom if need be—somewhere—the law must be for Wendy, too. Some law.

  She rummaged in her dresser drawers. What did you take when you didn’t know where you were going, for how long? In fact, she snatched up her purse and took her light coat off its hanger.

  When she stepped out upon the balcony and closed the wooden door softly behind her, she knew that Granny was still haughtily deaf, and silent in the chair. Cousin Ted not there at all, and no cop in uniform, either. Harold waiting, slumped on the chair-arm, heavy of head. Tyler was standing at the steps to the foyer, with his back to the stairs.

  But all of them faded from her attention.

  Wendy was poised, halfway down the lower flight. And in the heaviness of the silent air, Wendy said, in the wheedling, little-girl’s voice she knew how to use when she wanted it, “Who was that, Uncle Charles?”

  Edie saw Tyler turn, with a swift defensive motion, to look at her. He did not speak. (He was no uncle of hers, thank God!)

  Edie had said nothing and made no noise but Wendy suddenly turned her head far around and looked up at her.

  Little Wendy. Her grown body, handsome in the bright blue. Her hand, tight on the iron rail. Her dark hair swirling. Her face, her pretty, vicious face, and her lost and terrible eyes …

  Tyler was thinking, in quick flashes. This kook knew what was down cellar. Jumpy as a cat! Did Mungo know, too? Didn’t he take the trouble to give me his alibi for this pushing? But the point is … my point … did Mungo or the housekeeper do it to Myra? One of them wasn’t going to have Myra telling the truth about Wendy Whitman. Now, why not? And which one? I have to hold the Page kid. In the face of what I’ve got, I have to do that. But this Wendy could tell me what I want to know.

  Will I get at her? Using an assault charge, say? Nope. Let me take one step … and psychiatrists, three deep. Prominent family. They can afford it. The best “understanding” that money can buy. Oh, the headshrinkers may wrap it up some day and give it to me for a lollipop. I don’t want to wait. What’s to be done?

  Then Wendy said, “Why won’t you tell me it was Becky? I saw her. On a stretcher. What’s the matter, Uncle Charles? Please?”

  Tyler kept looking up at her, now very intent and concentrated. Intuitive in spite of himself, he had the inspiration to say nothing.

  So Wendy twisted. Edie looked down into those eyes, calm and intent. There was a sudden bond between her and the big policeman, as strong as iron. He had not spoken. Neither would Edie speak. There was a law.

  Wendy twitched, twisted to look down again. She was pinned in beams of silent deep attention. She drew a nervous breath. “Harold?” she said on a rising whine.

  But it was too late. The boy was half-unconscious. She couldn’t reach him. Not anymore.

  And heavy must fall.

  Wendy pulled herself into a pouting chiding mood. “Oh, Uncle Charles, you’re not believing what she said? Why, she’s just lying!” Tyler did not move an eyelash. “Becky is.”

  Now Wendy fluttered down toward him, and he watched with a cold heart. Sex-kittying will get you nowhere, either, he thought, but it felt sad.

  “I didn’t push her,” cried Wendy, hitting his sad silence like a wall. “Whyever would I push Becky down the cellar stairs?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  SHE was the destroyer. Now, they watched her destroy.

  Wendy went whirling on the carpet to her grandmother. “Granny, you’re not going to believe what some stupid servant says about me?”

  But Granny had one little hand curved to shade her eyes. She made no response. She hadn’t heard a word.

  “But she’s a murderess!” shrieked Wendy. “You can’t believe her.”

  Cousin Ted came out of the east wing, with Harold’s shoes in his right hand. He stopped in his tracks.

  “Daddy!” cried Wendy. “She is. She is. She is. She told me.”

  Ted Whitman, in the limbo of total incomprehension, giggled. It was a terrible sound. Wendy reeled.

  But Granny had seen her, now, and leaned forward. “Go upstairs to your room,” she said commandingly. “The doctor is coming to see to you.”

  “But she told me,” wailed Wendy, drifting, pleading. “How she got into the hospital, with her white uniform and everything. Becky did.”

  Tyler was pulled a few steps toward the middle of the room. But then he stopped and simply stood and listened. His face accepted nothing. His instinct knew. Edie was frozen on the balcony.

  “She even made a nurse’s cap,” said Wendy, “to fool them. And she did something to Myra. She told me. I didn’t know she was going to do it.”

  Out in the driveway, Dr. Brewster’s car had pulled up. He was in the ambulance where he had taken over and was expertly attending to Mrs. Beck’s arm and shoulder. Ronnie Mungo stood by, as if to be helpful.

  Inside, Wendy Whitman was attending to herself.

  “I didn’t push her. He did. Harold did. He was in the house. Edie let him in, so it’s her fault.”

  Now the girl, in her bright blue, with her hair flying, was turning and turning in the middle of the floor, turning to each person in succession and none of them spoke to her.

  (Harold Page was in a nightmare, he thought, probably.)

  “But Becky didn’t know he was in the house, you see? And that’s why she thought it must be me. That’s why she said that.”

  The housekeeper had not said “that.”

  “What’s the matter?” screeched Wendy at all the silent faces. “I tell you she is lying! She’s a common murderess!”

  Her eyes began to roll. She seemed to grow sly. “Oh, you don’t know, but she was going to kill him. Kill him, too.” Wendy was pointing at Harold Page. “She took Daddy’s gun. And she was going to kill him. She said, ‘Put it on the madman.’ She said ‘Put it on the …’”

  Tyler seemed to sigh. She glanced at him, the wheels whizzed in her pretty head, behind her sick and evil eyes.

  “I didn’t want her,” Wendy said, like the old Wendy, willful and petulant. “I didn’t feel like taking her. What would be the use of going away, if she came, too?” Then her prancing feet were still and she began to shake her head from side to side, and her hair flew. “Oh, she shouldn’t have done that to Myra,” said Wendy with grave disapproval. “I didn’t say she should.”

  She looked up at Edie and stamped her foot. “Don’t you understand? Becky just wants to get out of this whole mess!” cried Wendy. “That’s all she wants. She doesn’t care what she says!”

  It was a nice description of Wendy’s own behavior. But nobody spoke.

  “Look,” the lost girl said, suddenly woeful, “how sh
e beats me. Becky is so mean. You don’t know.” Her right hand went to her left forearm and began to twist at the flesh through the thin blue fabric. “She often beats me. Look at the marks.” The hand clawed under the chin. “See what she does? Daddy, please don’t let her beat me anymore?”

  Harold was closing his ears to echoes, his heart upon the pain he thought he dreamed again.

  Edie thought, Oh no, no more! But was still. It held.

  Until Ronnie Mungo came dashing in; Tyler turned. Ron said, “Excuse me. Dr. Brewster is out there with Mrs.—”

  “Ronnie?” said Wendy. Her voice became gruesomely gay. Her body became seductive. She sidled toward him. Tyler stepped out of the way. (The big man looked ill.) “Ronnie, there you are, darling. Why don’t we just go, now? It’s perfectly all right. Nobody believes what Becky says. She is just a crazy old fool. So we can go to Mexico and be married and go to Paris—and everything?”

  Ronnie Mungo’s foot went back and groped for the step to the foyer.

  “I told you I didn’t care,” said Wendy, walking toward him with her hips swaying. “If you and Myra were shacking up once, why should I care about that? She cared. Myra didn’t want me to have you.” Wendy giggled. “She was stupid.”

  Ronnie was looking down at her as if he saw a serpent. Cousin Ted plopped into a chair. Fallen.

  “But she’s dead, now,” said Wendy gaily.

  Then Wendy seemed to know that this world was not going to be with her. That she was all alone, in some other. “I didn’t mean …” She looked around in terror. “I didn’t mean …” Her arms flew up. “I-never-did-mean-anything,” said Wendy, in a different voice, with a great deadening. And with a seeping out of all her false, bright, desperate force, she began to fall.