House Of Storm (15 page)

“Oh, yes!”

Major Wells said quietly: “He seems rather broken up by this. What exactly was the situation there?”

“Oh, that’s ancient history. Dick came out here after the first war. Went to work for Hermy. Fell in love with her. She refused him. He stayed on, hoping, I suppose. But that was years ago. They had their rows, of course; she’d fire him once in awhile. Then it would blow over. If you are thinking he might have shot her, that’s out, because he was here …”

“I know. What about other people? Anybody else she might have had a deadly quarrel with?”

Roy shrugged. “That’s a tough question, Major. The literal answer is that Hermione might have driven almost anybody to kill her; but actually if she did, I don’t know who it was or why.”

Major Wells said nothing for a moment. Then he went to the French windows and looked out. He said over his shoulder: “The storm is not too far away. I’ll have to get back to Port Iles pretty quickly. I don’t know just what more I can do here right now. I want Fenby to get hold of the gun that killed her, if it’s humanly possible. That means round up every gun he can in order to check them against the slug that killed her. Routine work, really, dull and tiresome and it takes time and is important but it’s routine. I want Riordan to extract that slug as soon as he can, by the way. I want Jenkins to go through her papers. He was her lawyer, he ought to know about her business affairs. But that’s another routine job. Right now I’m nearly at a standstill. Do you think that Dick Fenby is capable of carrying on here?”

“Not without your help certainly. But as to routine work, yes. We can all do that.”

“You can probably do it better than I,” Major Wells said with sudden and disarming frankness. “You know your own people. They’ll answer your questions where they wouldn’t answer mine. If they know anything—and somebody must know something—you’re more likely to get at it than I. All right.” He seemed to make up his mind. “We’ll go back to Middle Road and finish what we can do there. I’ll set a coroner’s inquest for, say, three or four days from now.” The police commissioner hesitated. Then he turned to Nonie. “Are you perfectly sure that the fright you had just now was in no sense a product of your own imagination?”

“How about the machete?” Roy said.

“I know. That machete. But that could have been an accident. What’s your opinion, Miss Hovenden?”

Nonie replied: “I was sure that someone was there. I was frightened. But there was certainly no attempt to hurt me.”

He waited a moment, looking at her steadily with those bright, sharp eyes. Finally he bowed shortly. “Thank you.” He turned to Roy. “I don’t want to act precipitately in arresting young Shaw. Miss Hovenden’s obviously frightening experience ought to be investigated fully and all possible inquiries made. But I don’t want Shaw to be permitted to leave the island.”

Roy’s face cleared. “Take my word for it, Major, Jim Shaw’s not the kind to do murder and you’ll find out I’m right. Now then, I expect you’ll want to go back to Middle Road. Nonie, my dear,” Roy’s hand came down lightly and affectionately on her shoulder, “I’ve sent for Riordan to see you. Tell him to give you a sedative. Ready, Major?” He leaned over to kiss her lightly on the cheek. The wiry red-haired little police commissioner waited for him at the door and they went away together.

They stopped on their way along the drive to speak to Smithson; she could hear the murmur of their voices. Apparently Smithson and his men had found nothing and no one on the grounds who was in any way suspicious or had no right to be there. She listened as the car went on, through the gates and back toward Middle Road, where Jim waited.

Had the commissioner believed her story? She was inclined to think that the reality of her fear had gone far to convince him, at least, that it was not fancy. And, oddly enough, his questions had confirmed rather than shaken her own conviction. It had not been imagination that sent her running, in terror, to the house. She knew nothing of Hermione’s murderer; so there was no motive such as the commissioner had suggested for anyone to threaten her life. But there was always the possibility of a homicidal maniac, someone, as Roy had said, gone berserk. Someone who had turned suddenly into a dangerous animal—the more dangerous now, if he knew what he had done, and knew that the whole island was to be combed for him.

There was always on the island, since the long-ago, bloody days of the brutalities of slavery, an almost forgotten contingency, but still a contingency, of a possible, revengeful force with which to reckon. Yet it struck Nonie then that that contingency could have been taken into account too, by a cool and ruthless murderer. How easy for such a one to escape if the hunt could be diverted with unjust and dreadful ease to the quiet, flower-bordered houses of the village, to the little cabins through the hills, the scattered small acreages dotted here and there among the woods—to the woods themselves, the matted, tangled brush, the hidden caves and coverts in the hills!

She went to the balcony and looked out toward Middle Road plantation and could, of course, see only the green tops of the trees. The sky was so low she felt she could almost touch it with her hands and it was extraordinarily still. Not a leaf moved; not a bird sang; even the constant drone and hum of the insects had muted. All creation seemed to be aware of the approaching storm and battening itself down.

How easy it would be for a man to approach the house, creeping through the broad concealing leaves of the banana plantation, beneath the spiky palmettoes, under the glossy green cover of the mangroves!

She’d rest as Aurelia had told her to; she’d try to sleep.

Three hours later when Aurelia came softly to the door and called her name she was still wide awake, staring at the low gray sky and the motionless fronds of palm outlined against it. Aurelia brought the doctor who came in briskly.

“Roy says you had a bad fright,” he said. “He told me to take a look at you.”

Dr. Riordan was a slight, youngish man, with a brown thin face and tired eyes. He worked too hard and had a touch of malaria. He lived alone in the house which was also his office, his dispensary and his laboratory. He played bridge for diversion and never refused any call upon his services. He was, she saw at once, worried and tense. He put his fingers on her pulse.

“It was only a fright,” she said.

His face darkened. “I hope that was all, I’m sure. Still you don’t strike me as a hysterical young woman!”

“She’s not at all a hysterical young woman!” Aurelia said. She had dressed and looked composed and rather handsome in her beige shantung dress, with her gray hair neatly coiled, pearls in her ears and old-fashioned garnet rings on her fingers. “This is a terrible thing.”

He nodded shortly. Aurelia said: “What are they doing at Middle Road?”

“I don’t know. I had to leave in order to make some sick calls.” He released Nonie’s wrist and opened his bag.

Aurelia moistened her lips. “Did you—do what was necessary about Hermione?”

He glanced at her over the open bag. “I extracted the slug that killed her, if that’s what you mean.”

“Slug? Oh, bullet! Do you …? What kind of gun did it come from?”

“That I can’t tell you. I’m not much of an expert on guns. Here, Miss Hovenden, I’m going to leave you a sedative.”

“Have you given the bullet to the commissioner?” Aurelia asked.

“Not yet. I saw him, went on my rounds, got back as soon as I could and got out the slug. Then I came here.” He sighed wearily. “Of course the problem will be to find the gun that fired it.”

“You examined Hermione, didn’t you? Are you sure it was murder? Couldn’t it have been suicide?”

He shook his head decisively. “Not that wound. Besides, I don’t think she was the kind of woman to shoot herself. When I saw her yesterday afternoon she was in perfectly good health and seemed quite herself.”

“
You saw her!
” Aurelia exclaimed.

He put a small envelope on the table and closed his bag. “Certainly. Lydia Bassett rode up from the village with me. I dropped her at the gates here.”

“Was Hermione sick?”

“Oh, no. It was for one of her boys.” He stopped, staring down at the floor with a perplexed look as if a disturbing thought had struck him; if so, however, he dismissed it at once. “He’d had a fall; slight concussion, as a matter of fact. He’ll be all right but it’ll take some time. Well, take one of these now, Miss Hovenden. Another about dinner time.” Suddenly he put out his hand. “You’re a very lucky woman if that machete means anything. You might have been killed.”

Nonie thought, this monstrous, fantastic thing cannot have happened, not to me! She put her hand in the doctor’s cool thin clasp. “But there’s no reason—no cause for anyone to try—to murder me …” Even the word had a monstrous sort of unreality.

Dr. Riordan frowned. “Sometimes no reason is needed. The whole point is the unreason—the lack of cause, the …” He broke off to listen.

A car was coming up the drive. “That sounds like Roy, now,” he said.

Aurelia went to the balcony and looked down. “Yes, it is.” She turned back into the room. “The men from Port Iles are with him. I’d better go down; they’ve had no lunch.”

The doctor sighed as Aurelia went away and fastened the lock on his bag. “The slug’s in my bag right now,” he said with candid ruefulness. “To tell you the truth I want to get rid of it. A man’s life depends on it. It’s jury evidence, factual evidence.”

Someone was running up the stairs. Nonie knew it was Jim even before he came to the door.

She started to the door to meet him and Dr. Riordan was beside her, his bag in his hand. In the same instant she was aware of a subtle change outside, a kind of stir and movement, a hot strong puff of wind sifting through the room. The light was different, too—there was a darkening, an eeriness, so the shape of things seemed different also, distorted and wrong.

But Jim stood in the doorway, unchanged, except his face was very white against the suddenly shadowy hall behind him. The doctor whirled around to give a quick look toward the balcony. The palm trees clattered and shook. He said: “The storm’s here!”

J
IM CAME QUICKLY INTO
the room. “Nonie, what happened? They told me …”

“She’s all right,” Dr. Riordan said. “She’s only had a scare.” Jim did not look at the doctor. “
That machete …
” The doctor replied again, quickly. “That could be accident. It could be an attempt at murder. It could be anything. But in any case, she escaped.”

Another hot strong puff of wind swished across the palms outside the French windows, swept through the room. But Jim, solid and real, seemed to steady the whole world; nightmares, terror, furtive footsteps beyond a hedge had no place in the sane and normal fortress his very presence seemed to build up around her. It was so strong and welcome a fortress that for an instant she questioned her instinctive fear of the morning.

She said abruptly: “It was silly of me to run like that; not to wait and see …”

His gray eyes deepened. “It was the most sensible thing you ever did in your life,” he said tersely.

Dr. Riordan said: “Well, there’s a bright side to it. Whether it was just some stupid and scared field hand, caught where he ought not to be and afraid, now, to admit it, or whether it was actually the fellow that shot Hermione, it may work out to your advantage, Jim. As long as there is any possibility that he meant mischief, it ought to clear you.”

Jim glanced at the doctor, and some of the drawn and tense look went out of his face. “Thanks, Riordan. I’m beginning to find that the position of prime suspect is not a very pleasant one. Oh, I’ve got to wade through the inquiry. With luck, we’ll find out who killed her. I’ve got to live on this island.”

Dr. Riordan’s thin face tightened; he lifted one narrow black eyebrow. “You’ve got to
live
! That comes first. Clearing yourself of suspicion, by discovering who actually shot Hermione, would rate second if I were you, Jim. First thing to do is save your own neck. And that,” he said rather grimly, “is exactly what I mean.”

“The slug will do that,” Jim said.

Dr. Riordan’s face still had a grim and taciturn expression. “It’ll help by proving it wasn’t fired from your gun, if that’s what you mean. It won’t prove that you didn’t hold the gun that fired it.”

“It might,” Jim said. “It might, if we can find the gun.”

“They haven’t succeeded in doing that yet?”

Jim shrugged wearily. “It’s too easy to get rid of a gun. But they’ve started the search. It’ll turn up somewhere.”

He was saying that of course to give her hope. Dr. Riordan said: “Don’t count too much on that, Jim. If I wanted to get rid of anything like a gun all I’d have to do would be to toss it into the sea, throw it in some swamp! Shove the thing under a mangrove thicket! Who’s ever to find it?”

“We can find out whether or not somebody’s gun is missing.”

Dr. Riordan considered it for a moment; then he shook his head. “Maybe, maybe. It would be a stroke of luck. And even if you find the gun you’ve still got to find the hand that held it.”

Jim nodded and gave Nonie a sudden smile. “We’ll get some clues. There must be something, somewhere. There’s got to be.”

She smiled too, wanting to give him encouragement, hoping her lips denied the fear in her heart. The doctor said briefly: “I’m sure I hope so, for your sake, Jim. Do you want to see the slug? I’ve got to turn it over to Major Wells.…”

“Have you got it? He thought you hadn’t had time to extract it. He …Look here, he’s gone!”

“
Gone! Already?
”

“Back to Port Iles. Just now. Trying to beat the storm. At least he was about to leave when I came upstairs. We’d better get down there and try to stop him. He may not actually have got off yet. He’ll want that slug!”

He went quickly into the hall, and Dr. Riordan, giving a startled exclamation, ran after him. But Jim came back, running, to the doorway. The doctor had gone on; they could hear him hurrying down the stairs. Jim caught her hands. “
Nonie, you are all right?
”

“Oh, yes—yes! That bullet may mean everything. Stop him …”