Escape the Night (17 page)

“Don’t mention it,” said Bill with elaborate irony and sat down on the great footstool near Serena. Dave lighted a cigarette. Amanda’s wide, dark eyes were still upon Bill as if fascinated. Her face was very pale and had unexpected hollows in it. Obviously, too obviously, Amanda was actually and really afraid of Bill.

Sutton went to the mantel and stood with his elbow upon it. “The way I look at it is this,” he said quietly. “They’re going to say now, of course, that Luisa was murdered too. Since murder is not in the usual routine of life, and murderers don’t really flourish in numbers, they are likely to say that Luisa’s murder and Leda’s are hooked up. We are—the five of us, six with Serena—the closest friends Leda and Johnny have. And naturally Amanda and I were closest to Luisa. So we may as well have our stories ready for the police.”

There was a short and rather startled silence. Then Alice Lanier leaned forward. “You can’t possibly mean, Sutton Condit, that they’ll think I murdered her!” she cried. “Because I didn’t and I can prove it. I was at the hospital all afternoon doing nurses’ aid. I couldn’t have done it even if … And I didn’t.”

Amanda finally looked away from Bill Lanier. She had changed from her suit to a long, crimson housegown of silk jersey with long tight sleeves. It was a beautiful dress which clung in artful folds to Amanda’s tall, lovely figure. Tonight though, she wore no bracelet. Serena thought briefly of that. But she thought no more of it because of what Amanda, incredibly, and quite seriously was saying, for she was speaking to Serena. “Serena,” she said, using Serena’s name for probably the first time in her life, “you’d better tell us the truth. Either you know who killed Leda, or you did it yourself. But if you’ll tell us the truth, we’ll protect you. I promise you that.”

Alice gave a short scream. Bill said: “Shut up, Alice.” And Amanda said: “You see, Serena, Jem said, over the telephone that a scarf belonging to me was found. The police believe it was what Leda was strangled with. I didn’t have my scarf there. I wasn’t near Casa Madrone this afternoon and I can prove it. But you were there. As Sutton says, we’ve got to have our stories ready.”

N
O ONE SPOKE FOR
a moment. Then Dave leaned over and put his hand upon Serena’s. He said to Amanda, still so sharply and sternly that it didn’t sound like Dave: “You’d better take that back, Amanda. Right now. Publicly.”

Astonishment crossed Amanda’s face. “Really, Dave! Do you consider this public?”

Dave’s eyes flashed. His quiet, scholarly face was pale and angry. He said, still in that stern and unexpectedly angry voice, “If you said that to one person only it would still be too public. Take it back, Amanda. Apologize, if you’re capable of it.”

“Why,
Dave!”
cried Amanda, her eyes widening.

Sutton from the mantel said: “Dave’s right. You don’t realize what you’ve just said, Amanda. You don’t realize how serious this is. You didn’t mean to, I know, but you’ve practically accused Sissy of murder.” And Serena, at last, found her voice, and stopped being a paralyzed observer, which up to then she had been, quite as if none of the things they were saying concerned her, Serena March.

Yet actually she was incredulous. She was grateful to Dave for defending her, and to Sutton. But she didn’t even for an instant think that Amanda meant what she said.

“Amanda, you’re being very silly,” she said, and then was surprised to find that she’d thought she was quite calm and cool, but that her voice was unsteady and high. She went on, however: “You know perfectly well that you don’t mean that you think I killed”—her voice wavered again but she finished—“anybody. You just can’t realize that it’s true and Leda really was murdered.” Amanda was staring at her blankly, the whites showing beneath the brown irises in her eyes. How could she make Amanda or the others understand Amanda’s fatal faculty for avoiding plain facts when she chose to do so. It meant, really, nothing.

“Oh, all right,” said Amanda. “I apologize, Serena.”

“You needn’t apologize,” said Serena wearily.

“Maybe you don’t realize how serious this is, Amanda,” said Dave. “But try to. It’s murder. The murder of one of your closest friends and one of mine and—of all of us. It means a murder investigation; it means a trial; it means … The point is, you’ve got to consider somebody besides yourself. You can’t play-act. Understand?”

Sutton said again, placatively: “She’s only upset. She didn’t realize …”

Amanda said sullenly: “Oh, all right, Dave. Forget it. All of you forget it. Not,” she added, “that the police will. You’ll see. They’ll say it’s queer that all these things happened right after Sissy got home. Yes, and after you got back, too, Bill Lanier. Don’t forget that.”

Dave gave a kind of sigh and went over to stand beside Sutton. Bill cried: “So it’s me you’re going to work on now, Amanda. Well, I’ll get ahead of you. I’ll tell the police you’d like to have me arrested for murder. That’d just suit you, wouldn’t it, Amanda? But the catch is I didn’t do it.”

“Nobody ever said you did,” flashed Alice.

“She’ll say it if she gets half a chance,” said Bill, jerking his dark head toward Amanda. “Look what she’s just done for Sissy. Or tried to do. I still want to know, Amanda, why you’re so scared.”

“You’re scared too,” said Amanda angrily. “It’s as Dave says. We knew her better than anybody. If it wasn’t a—a tramp or somebody like that, they’ll try to say we did it. One of us—or Johnny Blagden, maybe,” she added with a suddenly thoughtful look. “He’s her husband, of course, and—yes, maybe Johnny …”

Dave turned quickly toward her again, but Sutton said before Dave could speak: “For God’s sake, Amanda, don’t accuse Johnny, too. Or anybody. If there must be suspicion let it come from the police.”

“And it will come,” said Bill Lanier almost gleefully. “It will come.” There was a distant peal of a bell, and he added with a chuckle, “Here they are now.”

But it wasn’t the police.

It was Jem.

If there had been among any of them any lingering feeling of unreality, of incredulity, of inability to comprehend the truth and that the truth was murder, it vanished when Jem came. Probably, thought Serena suddenly, because he looked so tired. Sutton went to take his coat. Jem’s eyes went around the room until he saw Serena. “Hello,” he said quietly. “Dave found you at Sade’s, Serena? The fire looks good.” The whole atmosphere of the room changed subtly as he came forward and sank into a chair while Sutton brought him a drink. It became very quiet and yet full of question. Every face there reflected all at once as in an unquiet mirror something of Jem’s own face—very white, terribly tired. And with a queer, tense something in it that more than anything else was convincing. It had really happened—murder.

Nobody asked a question, however. Jem said: “I’ve been with Johnny. Police are on their way. Thanks, Sutton.”

Bill said: “It’s all true, then.”

“True?” said Jem.

“I mean—well, it’s so incredible. Leda.”

Jem drank slowly and put the glass down. His failure to reply to Bill was itself a reply. “Got anything over there to eat?” he said.

Amanda got up and went to the narrow table at the other end of the room and put sandwiches on a plate. Sutton said: “You’re done up, Jem. How’d Johnny take it? Do they know who killed her or anything about what really happened?”

Jem took a cigarette. “No. They took Leda over to Monterey. For the medical examiner. After taking pictures and fingerprints all over the house—all that. Nobody was hiding anywhere around. It was pretty dark, but the place was deserted. They got Johnny. I went with the fellow that went for him. Johnny’s stunned, I think. Didn’t seem to take it in for awhile. He didn’t go to pieces. Johnny’s got a lot of nerve, you know. Courage. Thanks, Amanda.”

She put down the plate at his elbow.

“Where’s Johnny now?” asked Dave.

“At the police station.”

“Police …” began Amanda and caught her breath sharply.

“Yes. They were only questioning him. He’s not under arrest.”

There was a silence. Again, and with every word he said, the truth was being brought home to them. “Arrest …” began Alice blankly and stopped. Bald-headed, jovial Johnny Blagden whom they’d known all their lives, questioned about the murder of his wife but not under arrest.

Bill Lanier said: “Do they think he did it?”

It was again like Bill, brutally direct.

Jem shook his head. “I don’t know. No, I don’t think so.”

“I suppose they wanted to question him before they gave him a chance to get over the shock,” said Bill. “Still, of course, if he really did it, it wouldn’t be exactly a shock to hear about it.”

“Bill!” cried Alice: “You make it sound so—so horrible.”

“Well, that’s the way it is,” said Bill, and went over to her. “I’m going to take you home, Alice. Come on.”

“No, I …”

“I said, come on,” said Bill, his face darkening. And quite suddenly Alice gave in. “Yes,” she said. “It’s better. Yes. I’ve got my car here. You can drive me home, Bill. But you can’t stay.”

“Good God, I don’t want to stay,” said Bill. “We’re divorced. Remember? See you later, Jem. Probably we’ll all see a lot of each other in the police station.”

Alice said rather faintly: “Good night. It’s all so horrible, I won’t sleep a wink. And I’m on duty at the hospital again tomorrow.”

Sutton went with them into the hall. Amanda said tensely: “Jem, you’re not telling us everything. Do they suspect anybody? Anybody in particular?”

“I don’t know. They asked me some questions. How Serena happened to find her. How I happened to be there. Whether or not we’d seen anything or heard anything. How Leda got there. I didn’t know …”

Amanda interrupted. “How
did
you happen to go there, Jem? And you, Sissy?”

Jem replied. “Leda had phoned and asked Serena to meet her at Casa Madrone. I followed Serena there.”

Amanda interrupted: “Why?”

“Why?” repeated Jem.

“Why did you follow Serena, of course?” said Amanda impatiently.

“Because I wanted to see her,” said Jem. Amanda’s eyelids came down, straight and ugly. Jem went on quietly: “I’d stopped here. Ramon said she’d taken the station wagon and gone. I guessed she’d gone to take a look at Casa Madrone. Naturally. I got there, saw the station wagon—went in.”

Amanda was angry. It was in her eyes even though her voice remained smooth. “How did you get in? Or did Serena know you were coming and open the door …?”

“I’ve just explained all this to the police, Amanda. But if you want to know, Serena did not know I was coming. I came in the back door, as a matter of fact, but for no special reason except that I knew it was open and thought Serena had probably come in that way and might be anywhere in the house—upstairs, anywhere. But Serena had got there about thirty seconds before I did and found Leda dead. I came in just as Serena found her. That’s all. There wasn’t anything that either of us saw in the way of a clue …”

“What about my scarf? Where was that? How did they know it was mine? Did you tell them?”

“No. It’s that red and white one that has your name written on it. I thought they told you.…”

“Oh, that one. There’s a place that does it, stationery and scarfs and all that. They paint on a special design of your name. Somebody gave it to me for a present one time; they’re quite expensive. I wouldn’t buy anything like that for myself, of course. I haven’t the money for luxuries.”

Sutton entered the room as she spoke and heard what she said. Again a wave of crimson came up into his pleasant face. He said however, quietly: “Yes, what about Amanda’s scarf, Jem? Where did they find it?”

“It was caught on one of the shrubs. Quite near the door. They asked if I remembered having seen it when we left, Serena, but I don’t. Did you see it, then?”

It took Serena back to the wet, shifting madrone trees and the listening shrubs. She shook her head. “I don’t remember seeing it. I’m not sure I’d have noticed.”

Amanda got up with a swift movement. “It’s obviously an attempt to incriminate me! My scarf, with my name on it, caught on one of the shrubs! Don’t you see? Somebody tried to make it look as if
I
…”

“There’s the bell,” said Sutton. “I’ll go.…”

Amanda stopped and turned slowly in her long red gown, to watch Sutton go into the hall. No one in the room spoke or moved. There was the murmur of voices in the hall.

This time it was the police.

Anderson, the tall, bronzed police Lieutenant to whom Serena had talked after Luisa’s death, came in first; with him were Captain Quayle, the head of the village police department, and another man also in uniform whose name was Slader. Quayle much resembled Anderson. He was tall and spare and bronzed, although an older man, his hair white. Slader was very thin and dark and was, it soon developed, able to take shorthand and make the resultant records of the statements which, Quayle said at once, they had come to get.

“I’m sorry to have to come at this time of night,” said Quayle, pleasantly but directly. “We’ve talked to Mr. Blagden and to the servants at the Blagden house and we’re trying to find out as much of Mrs. Blagden’s activities today as possible. I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Condit. The fact is, of course, we’ll have to talk to all of Mrs. Blagden’s closest friends. But I’m sure you want to help.”

“Of course,” said Sutton. Amanda said: “How was Johnny—Mr. Blagden?”

“Well, it was a shock, of course,” said Quayle. There was a quality of strength and dignity about him, something quite marked and solid beneath his rather quiet manner. There was also a reticence; clearly he wasn’t giving anything away, clearly he was shocked by the murder itself and as clearly he was the kind of man to do his duty to the best of his ability. It was in his lean, tanned face, his honest and very intelligent eyes, his solid figure. Amanda said quickly:

“But he has an alibi, you know. I mean if you were thinking of him as a suspect.”

“Why, Amanda, you suggested …” began Dave and then checked himself as Amanda quickly spoke again: “Yes, I know, Dave. But I’d forgotten. The fact is, I was in Johnny’s office at almost the time the murder must have occurred. I expect he told you, though …” She paused, looking at Captain Quayle, who said: “What were you about to say, Mrs. Condit?”