I felt as if an enormous weight had been lifted from my shoulders. “You mean she’s all right?”
Wyckoff turned to me. It was obviously an immense effort for him to concentrate on what I said. I think he even had trouble remembering who I was. Enunciating each word separately in a travesty of a professional voice, he muttered, “There are no broken bones. I do not believe there are any internal injuries. There are bruises, cuts. She’s unconscious. She—”
He stopped then and threw his hands up to cover his face.
I could tell he had used up all his reserves of strength getting himself prepared to find her dead. Now that she was miraculously alive, there was nothing left in him to cope with good fortune.
A voice above us shouted, “Rope, Lieutenant.”
I looked up to see Laguno dangling a long rope down the slope to us. He had harnessed one end to a small mountain mahogany. The three of us with the help of the rope managed to carry Fleur up to the drive. Once we were there, Wyckoff didn’t speak a word to anyone. He just picked his wife up in his arms and started to walk back to the house.
The rest of us trooped after him. Mimi in her sham medieval get-up was still snivelling. Iris walked with her, her arm around her waist, trying to encourage her. Lorraine and the Count Laguno, chillily ignoring each other, followed. Lover and I came last.
Although he trundled along in silence, I could tell from his face that Lover was still struggling with uneasy deductions. After a while he turned to stare at me as if trying to make up his mind whether or not I was a dependable confidant. I must have passed the test for he said, “I’m worried. I’ve been worried for some time. I haven’t wanted to say anything. Poor Mimi’s so highly strung, so sensitive. I’d cut my finger off before I’d upset her and everyone without a good reason. But now—Lieutenant, I’m sure that car was tampered with.”
I made a noncommittal sound.
“Maybe,” he continued, “if Mimi and I hadn’t actually been there, hadn’t actually seen it happen, people might have just figured it was an accident. Another accident.” He stressed the word another ironically. “But I know that old station wagon. I’ve been driving it for Lorraine for weeks now. It wouldn’t have come down the hill like that—not unless the brakes had been fooled with.” He moistened his lips. “It’s an old model with a cable brake. It would have been easy for someone to sneak into the garage and file half way through the cable. Just coming down that steep, winding drive would do the rest.”
I had been thinking that, too. There would have been time enough for someone, to have filed through the cable between the time Fleur expressed her intention of driving to Reno and the time she actually left. But who?
Voicing my thoughts, Lover said, “I wonder whether Fleur got it out of the garage herself.”
“Laguno got it out for her,” I said.
“Laguno?” Lover walked on, his pudgy face pale. Impulsively he added, “Dorothy died of a weak heart. Janet was drowned. And yet Wyckoff, Chuck, and everyone took it in their stride. None of them seemed to think it was odd, two women dying like that in two days. I’ve been trying to tell myself I was just imagining things. But now—” He lowered his voice although there was no chance of the others ahead overhearing him. “I think something’s wrong, Lieutenant, badly wrong.”
It was a relief, after the zany optimism to which I had been submitted for so long, to hear someone taking a reasonable and gloomy view of the situation. Until then I’d always thought of Lover as just a stooge for Mimi. His stock was beginning to rise.
I looked back at him and said, “Sure something’s wrong. Two murders and one attempted murder—that’s quite wrong enough for me. Three wives in three days. If this keeps up, we’ll all be widowers soon.”
I had meant that to be funny, something to ease the tension.
But once I’d said it, it didn’t sound funny at all.
XIII
When we reached the house, Wyckoff had carried his wife upstairs. Only Bill Flanders was in the great hall, standing propped on his crutch below a huge, flagrantly indecent canvas which one of the “divine little artists” of Lorraine’s art-crazy epoch had done in Mexico and was “really so attractive, my dear.” Flanders hadn’t turned on any lights. As we entered, there seemed to be a blight on that high, shadowy room.
It wasn’t just the gloomy twilight. Houses are funny. They absorb the mood of their occupants like blotting paper absorbs ink. We were all slightly afraid now. There was no getting around it. Even the prosaic Lover had come out and admitted that murder, cunningly disguised as Chance, had struck three times in three days. Our fear was mirrored by the house. The doors which led to the dining-room and the library loomed like flimsy barricades against nameless terrors. And the great staircase, which had been merely something to go upstairs by, now led upward to a realm of impalpable dangers.
Lorraine shivered and said, “Let’s have some light. It’s a tomb here.” She trailed around in black, raspberry taffeta, tugging at lamp chains. As the light came, she exclaimed, “My dears, what a dishevelled spectacle we are.” Her eyes focused on Mimi, narrowing into the malice which seemed reserved exclusively for her half-brother’s fiancée. “Mimi, my pet, you look as if you’d been ravished by the Paiutes. Come on upstairs and patch yourself up.”
Lorraine, Mimi, and Iris went upstairs. Laguno sidled off into the living-room after a drink. Bill Flanders hobbled up to Lover and me and started shooting questions at us about what had happened to Fleur. I told him the story, but I wasn’t really listening to myself. Things were getting so hopelessly out of control. Dorothy’s murder had been reasonable enough. Anyone in his right mind might have wanted to murder Dorothy. Even for Janet’s death there had been some shred of motive. But why on earth should anyone want to kill little Fleur Wyckoff?
Perhaps when she rifled Dorothy’s belongings she had found something we did not know about, something that, maybe, hadn’t seemed important to her but which was vitally important to the murderer. There was a germ of sanity to that theory. But, infected by the insidious atmosphere of the house, I was beginning to abandon any attempt at a sane solution.
Three wives had been about to divorce three husbands. Two of those wives were now dead and the third had avoided death only by a miracle.
It was as if some strange power was loose in Lorraine’s chilly mansion, dispensing death to divorcees.
I wanted a drink much more than I wanted to satisfy Bill Flanders’ curiosity. I left him and followed the Count into the living-room. Stefano Laguno had withdrawn into a corner with his highball. He was looking both uneasy and self-righteous.
As I poured myself a straight Scotch from a decanter which stood on a Queen Anne buffet at the far end of the room, Lover French joined me and made a drink for himself. Casting a conspiratorial glance over his plump shoulder in the direction of the Count Laguno, he breathed, “You weren’t kidding, Lieutenant? You mean what you said just now? You do think Dorothy and Janet were murdered?”
I was in no mood to pull punches and I needed all the allies I could get. I told him exactly what I knew and what I suspected. He seemed more relieved than surprised. He’d been feeling much the same way himself, he said, only he’d figured he must be crazy. It was nice knowing he wasn’t crazy. He was eager for action. In spite of the spectacles and the greying hair, he looked absurdly like a little boy all agog over a game of Cops and Robbers.
“We’ve got to call the police right away,” he said. “And this time you and me are doing the talking, not Chuck and Wyckoff.”
That was just what I had planned, only I wanted Wyckoff to be in on it too. I explained it to Lover by saying that, as Dorothy’s physician, he was the correct person to demand an autopsy. I also said that we should warn Lorraine before we plunged her household into a triple murder investigation. Lover seemed doubtful when I mentioned Wyckoff. It obviously wasn’t his idea of Cops and Robbers for the Cops to take one of the potential Robbers into their confidence. But he raised no
objections. In fact, he seemed relieved that I was willing to take the responsibility. It would give him more time for Mimi. Poor Mimi, he said. It was going to be a terrible shock for her sensitive nature when she heard there was a murderer at large.
Personally, I felt that at this stage of the game even a moron would realize a murderer was at large without having to be told, and Mimi Burnett, for all her airy-fairy posturing, was about as sensitive as a bar of pig iron.
But then I wasn’t blinded by love.
Lorraine, Mimi, and Iris came in, resplendent again after sessions with their individual mirrors. They all got drinks, but two deaths and a narrowly averted third were enough, apparently, to snuff out even Lorraine’s vivacity. The three women sat around looking much too dressed up. Laguno and Bill Flanders each sulked in his own particular fashion, while Lover hovered solicitously around his fiancée, who had decorated her medieval bosom with a solitary white rose.
The blight which had been in the hall was spreading here. No one mentioned murder, but you could tell it was the only thing in everyone’s mind.
As they sat there trying to keep up a façade, you could almost see the fear gaining ground in their eyes.
After a while I announced into the sticky silence that I was going upstairs to find out how the Wyckoffs were. Lorraine, in a threadbare attempt at playing hostess, said, “Oh, yes, darling, and do ask them if there’s anything we can do.”
Iris rose and said, “I’ll come with you, Peter.”
My wife followed me into the hall. She was looking very beautiful. Outshining Lorraine’s elaborate gown and Mimi’s Marianna of the Moated Grange creation, she was sheathed in her newest dress, creamy white with long lines, something bought especially for my leave. I could tell she had put it on for morale.
She slipped her hand through my arm. “Peter, it’s been ghastly not knowing. Tell me everything that happened since you left me to talk to Wyckoff.”
As we ascended the stairs, I gave her a general outline of the whole thing.
“And Fleur was driving to Reno in search of the letter we stole from her.” Iris grimaced. “Fine couple we are. Between us we almost managed to do her in.”
“Which is one of the many reasons I’ll have for rejoicing when the police take over.”
Iris paused at the head of the stairs. “Peter, I can’t tell you how glad I am we don’t have to struggle on any more on our own. This thing, it’s like that station wagon, hurtling down the hill, gathering speed all the time.”
I could see from her eyes that she was frightened. I hated having to see her that way. “We were crazy not to pack up and quit yesterday,” I said. “It’s too late now. No one’ll be able to go. I could kick myself for messing up our leave.”
“You didn’t mess it up, darling. I was as determined to stay as you were. And how could it be messed up so long as we’re together anyway?” Iris smiled but the smile faded. “Even the house is beginning to scare me. With a murderer who hides behind sly little accidents, you don’t feel anything’s safe. You feel maybe you’ll be killed walking into a room or lighting a cigarette or—or brushing your teeth.” She gave a harsh little laugh. “He’s run through the discontented wives now, Peter. I only hope he doesn’t start on the contented ones next”
There she was saying the same thing I had said to Lover in a different way. It hadn’t sounded funny when I had said it. It sounded infinitely less funny now.
We went to Fleur’s room. Wyckoff came out when we knocked. He looked blissfully happy. Fleur had regained consciousness, he said. He could still scarcely believe she was uninjured. The sage had broken her fall. If it hadn’t been for Lover calling out, and the sage, she wouldn’t have had a chance. With a shy glance at Iris, he told me he had taken my advice and confessed everything to his wife. She, in turn, had confessed her motive for stealing the letter. Reconciliation, it seemed, was complete.
I told him that I had decided to break the case wide open and give it to the police. I explained. “I want you to be in on it so you can cook up your own story about Dorothy’s death certificate and the autopsy.”
He watched me strangely. “You’re giving me a sporting chance to save my career. I still can’t understand why you’re being so generous.”
I shuffled. “Oh, well, someone might as well try to help someone.”
He said I could talk to Fleur if I didn’t stay too long. She was lying in the bed by the window. I moved to her side while Wyckoff and Iris stood by the door. In spite of the scratches and cuts, Fleur’s face was radiant She gave me a broken little speech of thanks for my part in bringing her and her husband together again. Since I had almost got her murdered, I felt that was big of her.
“And it was so kind of you to give David the letter. I should have destroyed it when I first found it. But somehow I couldn’t bring myself to, not until David had explained everything to me.” She smiled. “We’ve destroyed it now.”
I said, “That station wagon—it had been tampered with, hadn’t it, Fleur?”
The memory of horror showed on her face. “Yes. The moment I swung the car around the first bend in the drive I was sure. The brakes had been all right. And then, suddenly, there were no brakes at all—as if the cable had snapped.”
“Then you’ve got to tell me something. Who knew you were going to Reno? I mean, who had time to file through the cable while you were upstairs talking to Lorraine?”
“Why—I asked the Count to get the car for me.”
“You didn’t tell anyone else?”
“Why, no. At least, Bill Flanders was there when I spoke to Laguno. He was reading. He didn’t seem to be listening. There wasn’t anyone else. You three were upstairs. Mimi and Lover were out walking. And Chuck was in Reno.”
“Okay,” I said. “And just one thing more. That night when you ransacked Dorothy’s things, did you take anything, else except your husband’s letter?”
“I found that other letter, the one Laguno had written to Dorothy.” Fleur’s eyes were unsteady. “Maybe it was terrible of me to have slipped it under Janet’s door, but—well, it seemed only fair to let her see it.”
“Apart from the two letters, you didn’t take anything?”
“No. Nothing.”
“You’re sure? Not even some little thing, something that seemed of absolutely no significance to you?”
She stirred in the bed. “I’m sure I didn’t, Peter. What are you trying—”
I grinned and patted her small hand. “Never you mind. We don’t want you worrying that pretty bruised head of yours.”
Wyckoff and Iris came over. While Iris spoke a few words to Fleur, Wyckoff took his wife’s hand and gazed down at her with reverent adoration as if he half expected her to sprout a halo and float away up through the ceiling.
We left. Outside in the corridor Iris said, “So only Laguno knew she was going to use the car, Peter.”
“Only Laguno, and maybe Flanders.”
“But it couldn’t have been Bill Flanders. He couldn’t have gone sneaking around poking under cars, with only one leg.”
“No,” I said. “I guess he couldn’t.”
The others were streaming in to dinner when we reached the hall. I spoke to Lover and we decided to break the news to Lorraine after the meal and then call the police.
For some reason it had been decided that we should eat by candlelight that evening. Candlelight is supposed to be intimate and chummy. It wasn’t in that bare, dyspeptically modern room. The cones of flickering light illumined faces with an eerie glow.
It was one of Lorraine’s most elaborate dinners, but that didn’t help. Strangely enough, in spite of the myriad cross-currents of tension, it was the hostility between Lorraine and Mimi that dominated the room. It wasn’t anything they said. In fact, they hardly spoke to each other. But every now and then Lorraine would glance across the table at Mimi, and the candle flames would catch an ominous gleam in her eyes. Mimi was less transparent. The soft light was flattering to h
er. In the low cut maroon gown with the Merovingian sleeves and the white rose at her bosom, she looked almost as picturesque as she thought she did. She took birdlike pecks at her food, stopping occasionally to caress the rose. But there was a smugness about her that could not be missed—a sort of inward triumph.
I assumed it all had something to do with Chuck Dawson, but I didn’t understand. Mimi’s relationship with Chuck was beyond my comprehension.
I glanced at Lover to see whether I could get a clue from him. But he was bumbling unimaginatively through his dinner. He didn’t seem to be noticing anything.
After dinner Lover and I told Lorraine we wanted to talk to her alone, and she took us into a small room off the library which I had never seen before. It was very French, with an Aubusson rug, yellow brocade chairs, and a lot of good Sèvres china. A fire was burning on the hearth. One of Lorraine’s better interior decorators must have thought it up.
Lorraine pulled one of the yellow chairs to the fire and sat down. She looked rather wonderful, with her small, quick hands, her tousled hair, and her black raspberry gown. There was an elegance about her that went with the room. Lover sat down on a couch looking plump and pontifical. I stood by Lorraine at the fire.
“Well, darlings,” she said. “What is it?”
I had a feeling this was going to be difficult. From the beginning Lorraine had given a superb imitation of an ostrich. I didn’t blame her for it. It was just that she had too much money. There had always been Mr. Throckmorton and his minions to keep her from making contact with a world where anything as ugly as murder could flourish. Having to tell her there was a murderer in her house was like having to tell a princess in a fairy story that her godmother’s magic wand was on the blink, and that the toad, instead of turning into a prince as scheduled, would have to go on being a toad.
To my surprise, however, when I started talking about the station wagon, Lorraine took the end of the sentence right out of my mouth.
Puzzle for Wantons Page 12
