Hasty Wedding

by Mignon G. Eberhart

  The doorman was angry. He had flushed a deep crimson and was fumbling for his hat.

  “I’m going,” he said. “You can’t keep me here, making a fool of me. I’m going and I won’t say another word.”

  “But you don’t know which woman it was that you saw? Isn’t that right, McFee? Look at them both. Look at them. Now can you swear that it was one or the other?” Dorcas was as still as a doll; she felt as if her very face were wax and had the truth written over it. Sophie, collectedly, swayed a little so McFee saw her profile with the little hat pulled low and the big fur collar pulled high. McFee, angry, looked at her and then at Dorcas and back to Sophie.

  “See, you don’t know! You can’t tell! It might be either of them. It might be a hundred other women. You can’t go into a court and swear a woman’s life away on an identification like that. You——”

  McFee muttered something, gave a bitter glance at the hundred-dollar bill and started for the door.

  “I’m going,” he said. “You’re making a fool of me. I’m going——”

  “Nobody can make a fool of you,” said Jacob Wait neatly.

  “Keep your hundred dollars, Locke.”

  He pushed the bill toward Jevan, who made no move to take it, and Wait, having no use apparently for the small amenity of leave-taking, vanished instantly in the wake of an already sullenly vanished McFee.

  Sophie reached under her coat and unfastened her tight skirt and sighed.

  “How much do you weigh, Dorcas?” she said. “I can’t take a deep breath with this skirt fastened!”

  “Sophie, you shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Why not? It worked, didn’t it? And I wasn’t in any danger, for I wasn’t at the apartment house and nobody could possibly prove that I was.”

  “You did it in the very nick of time, Sophie.” Jevan picked up the hundred-dollar bill, smoothed it in his fingers and laughed shortly. “Like Willy, wasn’t it, to give it to him in a hundred-dollar bill. Why couldn’t he have made it tens?”

  “Willy——”

  He gave Dorcas an impatient look. “I phoned Willy last night after you told me the doorman actually saw you. Told him to fix the doorman. Told him to write a note on some public typewriter, enclose the money and get it to the fellow. So he did. Except that I didn’t tell him to make it small bills and he just simply put in a hundred-dollar bill.”

  “Then Willy knows too,” said Sophie.

  “Yes,” said Jevan. “Well, there’s nothing we can do. If I only knew why he is concentrating on you, Dorcas. Is there anything that you haven’t told me? Any scrap of evidence, no matter how small?”

  There wasn’t. In the end they were obliged to leave the thing unsolved. And there was nothing they could do.

  The day wore on. There were more telephone calls. Servants finished clearing the house, and restored the spacious rooms to their usual shining, somber order.

  Late in the afternoon Dorcas went to Cary’s room and found her pale and worried with her lovely blue eyes rimmed in pink.

  “If the police would only let you go on your wedding trip,” she said. “I know that everybody’s talking about it.”

  Cary, of course, didn’t know and mustn’t know why the police would not let her leave. Dorcas answered evasively and presently went away.

  Late in the afternoon, too, Willy Devany came. Came with elaborate circumspection so there was actually something like stealth in the way he slid in the front door, startling Bench.

  “The police,” he said breathlessly. “I’m followed. I’ve been grilled, Bench. Grilled.”

  “Your hat, sir.”

  “Grilled,” repeated Willy a trifle wildly and asked for Jevan.

  Their conversation, however, was lengthy and private, with the study door closed.

  Dorcas wandered about the house, listening for their emerging, going from one gray window to another, thinking in circles that had no beginning and no end.

  Yesterday at about this time the wedding guests were beginning to leave. Her wedding seemed as unreal as everything else in that suddenly topsy-turvy world. Unreal and at the same time paradoxically and poignantly real.

  For Jevan was there in the house, in the study which seemed to become his own. How immediately the household had adopted him; how immediately and automatically he had become the head of the house! “It’s good,” Mamie had said, “to have a man in the house.” Her husband. And what did she know of him? What did she know of this marriage she had made except that already she knew that it was not the thing she had expected it to be! For it was different; the calm, smooth, untroubled sea she had expected her marriage to Jevan to float quietly upon was full of hidden, unplumbed depths and sweeping currents. And Jevan himself, mysteriously, was different.

  What had Jevan found when he came to Ronald’s apartment? Why had he come? What could have happened between the time of her own hurried departure from that mirror-lined apartment, with its dead white and dull blue shadows, and Jevan’s arrival? Or had it happened after Jevan’s arrival? Had Jevan killed Ronald?

  It was not the first or the last time the thing forced its way into her conscious mind: could Jevan have done this thing? Jevan, who had, besides basic common sense, so strong a strain of ruthlessness. Jevan, who hated Ronald and made no bones of it. Jevan, who had had opportunity.

  But if Jevan had killed Ronald he must have had a motive and his motive could not be jealousy.

  And he had said with an effect of truth that he had not killed Ronald. He had said it impatiently, as if, if he had murdered Ronald, he would not have hesitated to admit it. To her at least. His wife. His wife—and yet, in this strangely perplexing, suddenly important thing called marriage, not his wife.

  Willy was leaving. She heard his voice and Jevan’s in the hall and growing nearer; then Jevan said: “All right, Willy.” And Willy said: “See you later,” and came along the hall toward the outside door. As he passed the drawing-room door he looked in and saw her, hesitated and came in.

  “Hello, Dorcas.”

  He was a little pale and excited and breathless. His thin blond hair was ruffled and his blue eyes sought her own anxiously.

  He came closer to her and peered at her worriedly.

  “Now look here, Dorcas. You mustn’t be so—so upset about all this. Brooding around in the dark. Why don’t you turn on some lights?” He peered closer, took one of her hands in his own and patted it.

  “You’re not—not grieving over Ronald, are you?” he said as if struck by the thought suddenly. “He’s not worth grieving over. You—why, Dorcas, I never dreamed you really—cared about him.”

  “I didn’t—that is, I don’t.”

  For a moment he looked deeply into her eyes as if to be sure she had told him the truth. Then he sighed as if with relief.

  “Thank God you weren’t in love with Ronald. He—oh, there’s no use going into the reasons. But—gosh, Dorcas, if you had been in love with him and——”

  “And?”

  “Nothing,” said Willy. “That is, I was only thinking how tough it would be for you. Of course it’s bad enough as it is, but if you’d been in love with him——” He stopped again and looked at her and said unexpectedly: “Listen, dear, if there’s anything troubling you that—I mean if there’s anything I can do for you, you’ll tell me, won’t you? You see,” said Willy simply, “I love you. Too.”

  He meant it. There was no possible doubt of that. He put her hand a little awkwardly to his cheek and looked at her with lighted, purposeful blue eyes and repeated it: “I love you, Dorcas. I’ve always loved you. Since we were kids. Oh, I’ve never had the nerve to tell you; you never needed me before …” He faltered there and then said: “Before this. I knew you didn’t love me.”

  “I’m—sorry…”

  “Oh, it’s all right, Dorcas. You’re in love with Jevan and you’ll be happy.”

  “But——” She checked the denial on her lips and Willy went on: “Jevan knows I love you. He�
�s always known it. That’s why,” said Willy rather wistfully, “he’s so good to me.”

  “Oh, my dear,” cried Dorcas. “Don’t! Jevan is your friend. As I am, Willy.”

  “I know you’re fond of me. I only told you all this because I wanted you to know that I would do anything in the world for you. Anything,” repeated Willy with the deep, fervent flame of a zealot burning in his blue eyes.

  “Willy, I—I can’t tell you what——”

  “Don’t try,” said Willy cheerfully. “I only want you to know you can depend upon me. With my life,” said Willy calmly. “Hello—what’s that?”

  Dorcas heard it too. Someone being let into the hall and speaking to Bench and the door being closed. “Is Mr Devany here?”

  “Yes sir.” That was Bench.

  “It’s Wait,” said Willy. “Again. He’s been after me twice; you’d think I shot Ronald…All right, Bench,” he said in a louder voice, going to the door. “I’m in here. Hello, Wait.”

  Dorcas turned on lights as Wait entered the room. He blinked.

  “Don’t go, Mrs Locke,” he said quickly as Dorcas moved toward the door. “I only want to talk to Devany a moment or two.”

  Dorcas sank into a chair and Willy looked at Wait and said irritably: “All right. Shoot. What is it?”

  “What car were you driving Wednesday night when you say you picked up Locke at the club and took him home?”

  “What car?” Willy’s light eyebrows lifted. “Why, I think the Cadillac sedan. Why?”

  “Tell me again exactly what you did, say, from seven o’clock on.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Willy. “At seven o’clock I was home. At seven-thirty—no, perhaps a little earlier, I had dinner. Ask my servants and——”

  “I have. Go on. You had finished dinner by a quarter to eight.”

  “Yes. Then I had the car brought round and dismissed the chauffeur.”

  “Right. At ten minutes to eight, your chauffeur says: he got to the eight o’clock movie over on Sixty-third.”

  “Did he? Well—well, then I just drove around a little.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know—oh yes, I went through the Midway, I think, and then I went to see Jevan.”

  “What time exactly did you reach the Locke place?”

  Willy said, blue eyes rather narrow, that he didn’t know. “Jevan wasn’t there. He is closing the old place, intending to sell it; nobody was there but the cook and a maid. They didn’t know where he was——”

  “The maid who answered the door said it was about a quarter to nine when you came.”

  “Did she? Well, perhaps it was. Naturally I didn’t notice particularly.”

  “Then you had no appointment with Locke?”

  “No. That is, I just—wanted to see him. Had nothing else to do. Was to be his best man, you know, next day, so I——”

  Willy’s eyes brightened and he said quickly: “I wanted to be sure everything was set. That’s all.”

  “So you went to the Locke house. You reached the house at a quarter to nine, having left your own house at ten minutes to eight. That’s quite a gap in time. Were you here at this house in the interval?”

  “You mean here? At this house? Why, no. Certainly not,” said Willy sweepingly.

  “How about that, Mrs Locke?” Wait turned quickly to Dorcas.

  “No, Willy wasn’t here,” she said hurriedly. And remembered the long car which had passed so slowly during the moment she had met Ronald, spoken to him, permitted him—so foolishly and mistakenly—to lead her to the taxi he had waiting. Could it have been Willy driving the car? But if it had been it meant nothing. Only that he might have seen them together.

  “A Cadillac sedan,” said Wait thoughtfully. “Did you drive to Drew’s apartment, Devany?”

  “Why would I go there? Certainly not.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Wait. “You see, a Cadillac sedan drew up and stopped just behind the taxi in which Drew and his woman companion arrived at the apartment house Wednesday night. The doorman went from Drew’s taxi to open the door for the driver of the sedan, who, however, did not get out of the car just then. The doorman waited and then heard the telephone ring and had to go inside. The car had gone when he returned.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Wait. I can’t be held responsible for every Cadillac sedan in the city.”

  “I think,” said Wait, “that this was your car. And I think it was your Cadillac sedan that later on, according to the doorman, was parked across the street from the apartment building for at least half an hour—between nine-thirty and ten. Was it?”

  “Ah,” said Willy” pleasantly. “That’s the time for which I have an alibi. I picked up Locke at the club at nine-thirty and was with him from then on till about eleven.”

  “Drew,” said Wait, “could have been murdered any time after eight-fifteen when the doorman saw him alive…Why were you following Drew?”

  “I was not,” said Willy flatly, with his pointed, delicate chin up.

  “Who was the woman with him?”

  “I don’t—I tell you I wasn’t there.”

  “You’re lying,” said Wait and, as appeared to be his customary manner of departure, went away without another word.

  “Gosh,” said Willy and touched his forehead with a handkerchief. “Gosh…Well, there’s no talk of license numbers. Good night, Dorcas.” He went away as abruptly as Wait had done.

  And Dorcas sat in the twilight, staring at the glow of light from the lamp upon an old rug, and not seeing it. Willy—but Willy wouldn’t kill a mouse. And Jevan, who had force that Willy lacked, had actually been in Ronald’s apartment and coolly admitted it.

  Dinner that night was served, without orders to that effect, in the big dining room. It was another note of recognition to Jevan’s presence. A man in the house, occupying a high-backed armchair at the head of the table.

  Dorcas wore one of her trousseau gowns, a misty gray chiffon, as lovely as a foggy sea. She wore an emerald at her throat and her hair shone gold in the mellow glow from candles. But if Jevan had eyes for the gown—or for her—she did not perceive it. He talked coolly and abstractedly to Sophie about European travel and war in Spain.

  Later over coffee in the long library she looked at him and thought of dancing around that library only twenty-four hours ago, dancing over bare and polished floors in her white satin with his arm tight around her, holding her to him.

  Now Jevan was remote, impersonal, looking at magazines, getting a foreign news bulletin on the radio and commenting upon it. About eleven Bench came into the room, spoke to Jevan quietly and he rose, said something vague and followed Bench out of the room.

  Sophie, hazel eyes curious, got up presently and went away, her suavely fitted, flesh-colored lace trailing gracefully behind her. She came back almost at once with a newspaper under her arm.

  “He’s seeing to the locks—windows, doors, everywhere. The paper was in the butler’s pantry.” She opened it across a table and Dorcas came to stand beside her.

  There were several columns. The headlines shouted murder and Ronald Drew. At the end of the second column Dorcas’ name appeared.

  “It’s his telephone call to you,” said Sophie and pointed with her unexpectedly blunt forefinger.

  Perhaps after a while I shall get hardened to it, thought Dorcas, aware again of that sickening wince inside her as she saw her own name.

  The murdered man had put in a telephone call to Mrs Locke a short time before his murder. Up to the time of the announcement of Mrs Locke’s engagement to Jevan Locke (young broker and son of the late Jevan A. Locke, of the Stock Exchange) she had been seen frequently in the company of Ronald Drew and there was an apparently well-authenticated rumor that she and Drew were to marry.

  Cringing and hating herself for cringing, Dorcas read on.

  The Whipple family; the Lockes; Drew’s death at first supposed a suicide due to despondency; inquiry in the
hands of Jacob Wait, new to the city staff (here followed a brief but pungent account of Wait’s activities in Wrexe County); and Mr and Mrs Locke had not yet gone on their wedding trip but were being detained for questioning.

  “It could be worse,” said Sophie. “But we’d better not let your mother see the papers…I’m going to bed.”

  Dorcas followed, thinking in spite of herself of the white divan in Ronald’s apartment, the look on his face as he had flung the telephone to the floor, the way the taxi driver had scrutinized her when she hailed him. The taxi driver!

  She’d forgotten him.

  Her hands, busy with the fastenings of the gray chiffon, were suddenly cold and clumsy. She was becoming acquainted, she thought fantastically, with fear. But the taxi driver wouldn’t remember her. How could he? So many fares, so many faces, so many addresses.

  It was close to midnight when Jevan knocked at the door leading into his room and, as she replied, came in. He wore a brown dressing gown over his pajamas and went to the door which led into the hall.

  “Does this lock?”

  She put aside the book she had been trying to read and sat up. “I don’t know. Why?”

  “No reason,” said Jevan and found an old-fashioned bolt let into the casing and turned it. “You all right, Dorcas?” he said then, glancing at her.

  “Quite.”

  “That’s good,” said Jevan coolly. “Good night.” The door closed again behind him and after a long time Dorcas picked up her book. But she couldn’t read and presently she put out the lamp beside her. She wished he hadn’t thought it was necessary to lock the door. And she wondered what he was thinking of in the silence and darkness of the room adjoining her own.

  Outside the night darkened. Shrubbery huddled closer in the corners of the gaunt fence. Gradually the few remaining lights in the house vanished. In the hall the bronze boy still held a faint, amber light which left the corners and the open doors leading to other rooms crowded and suffused with deep, cavernous shadows.

  It must have been about three o’clock when Dorcas roused to hear the telephone ringing, faint and distant and imperious in the silent black depths of the house.