“It doesn’t help, Jed. They didn’t believe you.” The room seemed very quiet after Camilla’s exit. The dance was still going on; music drifted lightly through the windows. “Wat?” Sue thought. Would any man sacrifice his father for his wife? A terrible choice, Dr. Luddington had said. Had Wat had an even more terrible choice? Jed was staring at the floor, his head bent, but his scarlet-clad shoulders square. Sue sat down, slowly, leaning her head on her hand.
The door opened and Wat came in. His hatchet face was a grim and dreadful mask. “They said to tell you I’d parked outside on the road, at Duval Hall, to wait for Ruby. I was going to try to stop her. She’d said she was going to see Ernestine but I never thought she’d ride. I started to walk to the house finally and then I saw Jed’s car and got in it to wait. I saw you at the door and I left. I didn’t hear the shot; I left because you were there. If Ruby was already in the house, you’d stop anything. And then later I didn’t tell it—I didn’t want to get Ruby mixed up in it or myself—and hell, I didn’t really know who did it. But then after my father—I’ve been in hell—if I told the truth they’d say Ruby did it. And now I …” Wat seemed to hear something in the hall. He cast a nervous glance over his shoulder and backed toward the door and said, “I was the man in the car.”
She didn’t understand him, yet she did, for she got up, stumbling in her long skirt. “Wat …”
Wat was in the hall. He closed the door. Jed’s eyes were blazing. “Stick to it, Sue. You’ve done it so far. You’ve been a wonder. Stick to it …”
She was standing, leaning over the table. “Jed—you were in the car.”
Jed smiled. His face lighted, yet there was something watchful in it, too. She saw that and cried wildly, “But it’s the truth—I saw you …”
Jed said, smiling, “That’s my girl. I knew you’d never give me away. You had me scared there for a while—when you acted as if you’d got over liking me. When you said you wouldn’t marry me you had me scared. I thought you were going to admit that you made up that alibi. That was so smart of you and so quick—and damned loyal, my dear. I knew I could count on you …”
“You—you …”
“You had me scared, but I needn’t have been; I ought to have known I could count on you. I was sorry about Dr. Luddington but as I told you then, you must see how necessary it was. Why, Sue …” Triumph was agleam in his face; he laughed softly, “Why, Sue, do you know when I began to make love to you I didn’t mean it for a minute—oh, it wasn’t hard, you’re cute and attractive—but I really only wanted to get even with Ernestine. I knew she was seeing somebody and—but I’ll be damned, Sue, you’ve been so sweet and loyal and lying like that for me and so quick about it, too—why, you’d lie for me till hell freezes over. What more could I want of a woman?” He moved toward her. Sue cried, “I wasn’t lying! I believed it! If it was Wat in the car—where were you?”
Jed stopped. A look of deep wonder came into his face. He made a sudden motion with his hand and knocked against the steward’s desk; he gave it an impatient glance and saw the telephone. It stood, black and efficient, on the steward’s desk.
His lips drew back. Fury surged into his face like a blast. (Had he looked at Ernestine like that?)
“Why, you lying, little … This is a trap!… But they won’t get away with it. I ought to have got you before; I tried to. You can’t get away this time—you …”
He lunged toward her, his hands reaching for her throat.
Wilkins was quicker than anybody and got through the window first. He had planned it all swiftly, the instant he had caught a glimpse of the possible identity of the central figure in the picture Fitz had drawn. Outside he had questioned Wat and then sent him back to tell Sue the truth—that the man dressed as Jed was dressed, in Jed’s car, was not Jed. Then Wilkins stationed himself and Fitz so they could hear what was said between Jed and Sue, knowing that Sue would realize her mistake, would question Jed and that Jed’s reply would either convict or clear him.
There was, for Sue, a chaotic moment of sound and motion and then suddenly of quiet. She was in the corridor; Woody was with her. The hot, steamy air of the clattering kitchen struck her face. A frenzied chef did not look up, a hurrying waiter brushed her elbow; they were out another door and on the veranda. Woody was talking: “… downstairs bar—nobody’s there …”
They went down stone steps, into a tiny bar. A white-jacketed waiter leaned, lonely, against it whistling. Woody said, “Give us two brandies. And they want you upstairs.”
“Yes, suh!” The waiter’s face lighted. Glasses clicked as they were put on the table. The waiter whisked away. Woody said, “It’s all right, Sue. He’d have …”
“Don’t …”
“Well, but—do you understand?”
“Oh, yes. Oh, yes.” She was beginning to understand many things but chiefly how fear may be a terrible black horse taking his rider into a dark abyss from which there is no retreat.
“Jed thought you made up his alibi. He thought you lied because you were in love with him. Then when you said you didn’t love him and you wouldn’t promise to marry him, he was afraid he couldn’t trust you—he was afraid you’d tell the truth and from that minute on he was determined to eliminate you.”
From the moment Jed began to believe her—scarcely two hours later a shot had come from the pine woods.
Woody said, “Maybe you don’t want to talk.”
They sat in silence for a long time while the waltz overhead stopped. There was the pattering of applause and then the music began again, with somebody singing. But the song had ended and another and another when Fitz finally came.
“Have this,” Woody said, offering his untouched brandy. Fitz sat down. He looked at Sue and put his hand hard over her own.
Woody burst out, “Oh, for gosh sake, Sue, you weren’t in love with him. You never were! He’s a heel and a …”
“She’s sorry for him,” Fitz said.
“Sorry for him!” Woody’s cry was like a howl of anguish. Fitz gave him a warning look. Woody subsided but said still wrathfully: “By golly, when I think he nearly killed her …”
Fitz said, “Ruby and Wat took Camilla home.”
“Poor old Wat; he must have gone through hell thinking if he’d told the truth in the first place his father …”
“Well,” Fitz said, “it might not have helped. And he wasn’t sure it was Jed. He was only sure that the alibi Sue gave Jed was mistaken.”
“Fitz.” Woody leaned over the table, his face eager and very young. “The rider that afternoon …”
“Jed.”
“Wait a minute. The doctor phoned to him. He believed Jed was innocent and Ruby did it …”
“And he believed Jed was sincerely in love with Sue and that he ought to know.”
“But Jed took it as a threat—got into riding clothes, took back roads, yes, he would have to! Phoned for Sue, disguising his voice and pretending to be a patient, waited to be sure she came—damned near waited too long …”
“I expect he thought she’d drive.”
“… and went hell for leather home, changed—there was time for all that, and came back …” Woody stopped. “Why?—Oh, I see. He was scared Sue wouldn’t hold out for him when it was the doctor. He wanted to involve her, fix it so she’d feel she had to stick with him.”
“Jed was in a dangerous spot; he needed wily tactics. He had to bind her to him, by marriage or heroics or in any way he could. Failing that … And after the unsuccessful shot he was terrified for fear she saw him, or guessed. But then she didn’t. She was just the same. He suggested Sam Bronson, he tried to avert any possible suspicion—
“The pantry window! Jeremy! The letter! Gosh, he must have thought Sue was really so much in love that she’d never dream …”
“I told him I wasn’t. I …” Sue stopped.
“But still you tried to make him leave the Luddington house. It was to him a continued resolve to shield him.”
“Dr. Luddington!” Woody said. “Well, then he drove back, quietly by the lane behind the house to find out what had happened. He saw Jeremy and untied him, hit him a lick with—oh, anything. Something out of his car—so as to make it look as if somebody had ridden him. Then he drove the car right up to the door and came in.… Fitz, did you suspect Jed?”
“No, I didn’t at first, at least not until the shot. And then I only began to question.”
“Question?”
“To whom would it make the most difference if Sue’s testimony changed in any way. To whom would it make the most difference if Sue herself had changed. So I saw how important it would be to Jed—if he were the murderer—to get Sue to marry him. But from there …”
“From there, there were some high fences. Bronson threatened him.”
“Probably.”
Sue said all at once, “Was that Jed in the woods this afternoon?”
“I think so, yes. I couldn’t see enough of him to identify him.”
“What …” began Woody and Fitz said, “Listen, Woody, there are many things we may never know. I think Wilkins and Henley will clear up the main points; they’ve got enough now. Better not talk about it now—Sue …”
Sue lifted her eyes. Fitz said, “We’re over the hill, Sue—and through the woods …”
Woody wriggled. “Oh, look here. If you’d rather be alone …”
“We’ll be alone as much as we want to be for the rest of our lives,” Fitz said.
Woody became instantly and sincerely formal—and very young. “You have my consent, Sue. We’ll get out Uncle Willie’s port as soon as we get home.”
“Caroline …” Sue cried and got up.
“I’ll see to her.” Woody jumped up, too.
But Fitz said quietly, looking at Sue, “We’ll all go,” and Sue led the way, her white skirt flowing around her, her red slippers tapping softly up the steps, with Woody and Fitz coming behind.
They reached the floor above; the scene struck them all perhaps with bewilderment because it had not changed. Dancers whirled past, scarlet and black coats and women’s white shoulders and gay dresses. Caroline danced past—Caroline, who danced as well as she rode, and whose partner was a boy of twenty who looked as if he liked his partner and the dance. Caroline saw them and gave them a happy little wave and went on. “Let’s not tell her now. Let’s …” Fitz looked at Sue. “Can you do it, Sue—for her?”
She lifted her arms and Fitz took her lightly in his own. They moved out onto the dance floor.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1950 by Mignon G. Eberhart
Copyright renewed 1978 by Mignon G. Eberhart
Cover design by Michael Slavin
ISBN: 978-1-4976-5550-8
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Hunt with the Hounds Page 24
