Better to Eat You (16 page)

“Marry me,” he blurted. “Sarah, throw the world over and come away with me,
now.
”

Her face wrung his heart. It was shocked and in the shock was joy. Deep in the eyes the confession lay open. But Sarah said quietly, “Why, David?”

He groaned. “Sarah, they are trying to kill you.”

The eyes winced. “Malvina?”

“Yes, Malvina.” (Anything, anything, to get her away.)

“But then I can't leave Grandfather,” she stammered.

“Yes you can. Safer. Just let me take you where you will be safe. Sarah, run away with me.” Her lips parted. She seemed to rise on her toes, to be falling toward him. “Gamble,” he said, keping his arms from reaching for her lest he hurt her. “Do it. Jump off into the blue.…” While their eyes clung, he said gently, “We may be in love with each other.” Her mouth trembled. He bent to kiss it. Consuelo was right. If only once his mouth were to touch Sarah's beautiful mouth, everything would be better, and he would know what truth to tell her.

But she swayed away and he saw by her eyes that Malvina was standing close behind him. He half turned. He knew at once what Malvina must have only just heard on the phone. It was impossible for him not to meet Malvina's eyes and confirm the news, even though he could have wished that this knowing glance did not have to pass between them in front of Sarah.

Malvina said with a grisly smile, “Did you see Edgar?”

David shook his head. “Too late.”

Sarah said, “What are you talking about, please?”

But Malvina staggered, “Grandfather,” she cried. “We must think of his poor old heart … and take care …”

Sarah caught her breath. David told her. “Edgar is dead.”

David stood between them and it was Malvina who started to fall so it had to be Malvina he supported with a quick arm. “How can we tell him?” she mourned.

“I can tell him,” Sarah said quietly.

“Eh?” said Grandfather. “Oh, there you are, David.” He began to trot toward them. “Dear chap, aren't you going to catch a chill? Look at your clothing! Come now, what's the matter?”

Sarah gathered her control but Malvina was quicker. It was Malvina who said, “Grandfather, we have had some news. I'm afraid it isn't pleasant at all.” Her voice was the old purr. Indeed, it was almost cheerful.

Sarah moved quietly near the little old man and put her hand on his arm. His fingers scrambled for hers and David Wakeley watched it. Watched her face, which was all tender anxiety, watched the old man, who was anxious, too. “I am ready,” Grandfather said and the old lids guarded the eyes.

“Soon after we saw Edgar, he died, in the hospital.”

“Ah …” The old man's head bent toward his chest. “Many have died. So many. Eh, Sarah?” Sarah had her arm under his, now, and he leaned upon her. “So many I have known. And I am an old, old man and I do not die.”

They helped him toward a chair.

“They are saying a very terrible thing,” Malvina said. “Grandfather, I am afraid you must know.… They say Edgar has died of poison.”

David watched Sarah's whole body take this shock. Her eyes came to his, stunned, unbelieving. He watched her, and not the old man. He watched her control any cry, any terror, and heard the old man say, “I don't wish to hear any more. Edgar is dead. That's what you say? Then, that is enough to hear in one morning.”

“Of course it is. You must lie down, Grandfather.”

“Yes, I …”

“Shall I call Mrs. Monteeth?”

“Yes, do, dearie.”

“Yes, we had better,” Malvina said. Both Monteeths came and the old man was led gently away.

David, waiting in the big room alone, moved to the sea side and looked out upon the scene. But he did not see it. He was seeing the lift of Sarah's head, the brace of her shoulders, the proud bone driven by the courageous heart. He knew that if he could he was going to marry Sarah Shepherd.

He also knew it was too late, now, to run away.

An official-looking car was threading swiftly through the houses in the cove.

Chapter 14

They had taken chairs near the glass in the big room, Malvina, David, Sarah. The Sheriff's Deputy, Thomas Maxwell, who had come himself, had his own back to the light. The sense of being on an edge was here, as it was in so much of this house. Beyond the glass there seemed to be nothing, nothing at all but empty air.

“We see no reason to believe that the hospital staff is involved,” he told them. His deep voice rumbled out of his chest and set up vibrations. “Dr. Perrott had no connection with the hospital. No one there knew him more than casually. But he had visitors. Miss Lupino, I believe you were one. And Miss Shepherd.”

“Yes, we were both there,” said Sarah tensely. Malvina said nothing. She smiled her false smile.

“Nurse tells me you two had been gone no more than twenty or twenty-five minutes when she discovered the death. Now we know that poison was put in his glass of water. Not the pitcher. The glass. We don't understand how he could have taken it in water and not known. Fact remains, he did. Now, the glass shows fingerprints. Did either of you handle it?”

“Yes. I did,” said Sarah. “My fingerprints will be on it.”

“Did you handle it, Miss Lupino?”

“No, sir.”

“He had no other visitors,” Maxwell said, “but you two young ladies.”

“You are assuming that one of these two young women put poison in that glass?” said David, his hair seeming to stir.

“We have to check,” the Deputy said smoothly. “Now, pending analysis, we have made a good guess as to what the poison was. An alkaloid. What drugs are in the possession of anyone in this house?”

“I don't know,” said Sarah. Her face was cold with her fine control.

“Oh …” Malvina's eyes flickered as if with a sudden memory. “In Edgar's laboratory.”

“Yes?”

“Down at the back of the garage.” Malvina bit her lips and the eyes widened and turned in that hinting manner of hers. “I couldn't say what drugs he might have kept in there.”

“Kept the place locked up, did he?”

“Yes,” Sarah said. “I suppose you will want to look around in there. Here are his keys.” She took Edgar's keys from the pocket of her slacks.

Malvina covered her face. Maxwell handed the bunch of keys to his companion, a man in plain clothes, without comment. The man made a salute indicating understanding and left the room. David sat still and kept quiet and an idea swelled rapidly and occupied his mind.

“Miss Lupino?” Maxwell prodded. “Something's come to your mind?”

Malvina's head went from side to side as if she were in great distress. “I gave her … I asked her to move that glass.” She drew her hands over her mouth.

“So the nurse tells me,” said the Deputy rather dryly. “Miss Shepherd held the water glass in her hands for some minutes. Is that true, Miss Shepherd?”

“Malvina asked me to pick up the glass,” said Sarah, “to make room for the flowers.”

“If you were going to put poison in somebody's glass,” said David in a conversational tone, “it would be rather dumb to put your fingerprints on it.”

“Or would it?” said Maxwell. “Now, as I see it, these two young ladies were there and no other visitors. Either of them could have put the poison in that glass.”

Sarah swallowed. One saw the motion of her throat in this glareless light. “I did not. Whether Malvina did, I don't know. She was with him alone before I came.”

“Yes,” said Malvina, “but there was no poison in the glass before Sarah came.”

“What makes you sure?”

“Why, Edgar drank of it. He was drinking of it, as Sarah came in.”

“Is that true, Miss Shepherd?”

“No,” said Sarah. “I don't think so. I don't remember that he was drinking out of the glass until just as we left.”

“I remember it clearly,” Malvina said.

The Deputy had a mouth that lay in a sour arc across the fleshy lower part of his face. He said, “I'm checking for opportunity.…” The other man came back at this point and said, “It's there, all right. Just about anything you'd want.”

Maxwell nodded. “Now, since I'm looking for opportunity and there seems to be a supply of the poison here, let's see who had a chance to get at it.”

Malvina said, “I'm sorry. I'd better tell you.” She lifted her face and stared beyond the Deputy into the sky. “This morning when I came with the news that Edgar had survived his fall and was in the hospital, I went to change … to dress. My room has a window to the garden. Sarah was supposed to be dressing, too. But I saw her come up through the wall where the steps lead to the laboratory. I wondered … but I had to go to Grandfather.”

“That is a lie,” blazed Sarah. Malvina's face did not lose its mask of painful sincerity.

“Just a minute.… Go on, Miss Lupino.”

“Grandfather said, and he will remember this and I think Mrs. Monteeth will remember it, too. He said to Sarah that she must take the flowers. That Gust would drive us. And Sarah said, ‘Where am I going?' And Grandfather told her she was going to the hospital. And she said, ‘Yes.
I do very much want to see Edgar.
' It was a very sudden and vehement thing … the way she said it.”

Sarah was sitting high on the edge of her chair. “I did say that. I did say it vehemently. I wanted to find out what had happened, why my car went off the road.” Sarah's chin was up. “The rest is lies,” she stated.

“
Lies,
Miss Shepherd?”

“I did not go to the laboratory. I was not seen coming up those steps because I never went down them. I did not take any poison or have any poison and I did not put any into the glass.”

“Then Miss Lupino did?” said Maxwell rather slyly.

“For all I know,” said Sarah.

Malvina's head went from side to side as if in helpless sorrow.

Maxwell said to his man, “Go ask the servants about this morning.”

“Now,” he turned upon them sharply, “we have to see what there is in the way of a motive. Even if both of you had opportunity, we can't go very far without a possible motive.”

Malvina said drearily, “There wouldn't be any real motive,” and her pose suggested pity and sorrow.

“There may have been a motive,” said Sarah steadily. “I'm sorry for all of this but I must say it.” She was fighting. David watched and admired and lay low. “Something was wrong with my car, I think,” said Sarah. “Something had been fixed, some mechanical thing, so that it would go over as it did.
I
was supposed to go over. I wonder if Edgar could have told too much about that if he had stayed alive to tell.”

“But he didn't tell,” cried Malvina. “He was conscious and he was perfectly well able to tell anything he wished to tell. Why didn't he tell, if there was anything to tell?”

“You were alone with him, Miss Lupino?”

“Yes, yes I was. He … Very well,” said Malvina, “I see it will all have to come out. For a long time we have all been worried about Sarah. Mr. Wakeley knows this.”

“Worried in what way?” asked the Deputy.

“About her mental health,” said Malvina. “She had had a good deal of trouble. It seems,” said Malvina, “that something dreadful happens everywhere she goes.”

Sarah's face was white.

“I guess you've heard this before, Wakeley?”

“Yes, I've heard it before,” David said shortly. Maxwell had heard it before too, but he hadn't listened when David had tried to tell him. David was watching the little white face and he thought, Better she gets out of here, no matter what. No matter how. A quick yank will be the least pain in the end. He said, “I have suggested that perhaps a psychiatrist … But Mr. Fox doesn't seem to think much of the idea.”

“Grandfather hates it,” said Malvina. “It's old-fashioned … but you see, to him it is a disgrace. Yet these things do keep happening. A man was killed in Japan. A date she had. Her husband dropped dead …” Malvina began to pour it all out.

Sarah sat still. She wasn't looking at David. She was watching this other man's face, this ordinary man, a sane, a responsible, an unfanciful man.

“Is all this true, Miss Shepherd?” Maxwell asked her without excitement.

“Those things happened,” Sarah said, and her tongue moistened her lip. “I … don't know why.”

“Then,” said Malvina, leaning, her forearm on her lap, her hand extended as if to plead, “Mr. Wakeley came here to work on his book. We thought she might be better. But the studio caught fire … We don't
know,
” cried Malvina, “we never have known whether these things happened or whether Sarah
wants
them to happen.… Edgar tried so hard to help her.” Now Malvina was weeping and the tears were real. “Edgar did all he could. But maybe she is getting worse. Maybe she doesn't want to be helped.… Maybe …”

Sarah said, “It's true I've been … followed by these strokes of bad luck …” Her voice was about to break and she looked as if she'd crumble.

And David's heart was wrenched to see it but he kept still. He could see something desirable ahead, something looming. Even so, when Sarah pulled herself up and flung back her head, he could have cheered.

Sarah cried out in all their faces, “I would crawl into a hole somewhere and die from the misery of all this, if it wasn't for the lies. When people tell out-and-out lies, I know there's something wrong, and not with me. Miss Lupino is lying to you, sir. And I can prove that.”

Maxwell said, “Go ahead.”

“Those keys,” said Sarah, fighting. “Edgar did keep his lab locked. Since the fire … ask the servants … he's had a new lock and only one key to it.”

“This is the key that was in your pocket?” Maxwell said.