Hasty Wedding (9 page)

In an instant’s flash of memory Dorcas thought back to the fatally observant doorman. She had seen nothing of him, had been conscious of him only as a dark, suitably uniformed figure, opening the car door and vanishing; unimportant, of no significance whatever. Yet he had seen what she wore, had noted it so exactly that the detective had now this terrifyingly accurate description of it. Had he seen her face? Could he identify her?

Jevan made a motion to speak. But Sophie was replying smoothly, without a flicker of her thin white eyelids:

“Mrs Locke has no such suit as the one you describe. At least I can’t remember it. Do you possess such a suit, Dorcas?”

She said it coolly and looked at Dorcas and the wary, communicative look in her hazel eyes reminded Dorcas that, in truth, she had given the thing to Sophie.

But the detective did not wait to question her further. He looked at his watch, said briefly: “It really doesn’t matter. The woman who wore the green suit was seen and can be identified,” and walked out of the room—lightly, exactly like a cat. The two men with him jerked around, as if his action had taken them by surprise, and then followed him, their footsteps heavy on the thin rugs and polished old floors where Jacob Wait’s had been almost inaudible. Through the open door came distant strains of a popular dance tune, light and soft with delicately marked rhythm, “She shall have music … wherever she goes…”

Sophie put out a smartly gloved hand and closed the door.

“Pray heaven they don’t get hold of Cary,” she said coolly. “Don’t tell me now, Dorcas; there isn’t time. Although what that green tweed suit of yours has to do with the police! Of course they were questioning you about Ronald?”

“Yes.” Jevan got out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead.

“So it was murder,” said Sophie. “Well … Dorcas, you must get out there. Behave as if nothing had occurred. Here, let me fix your veil. You look like death.”

Jevan was staring rather grimly at the blank, dark panels of the door.

“How did they know it was murder?” he said. “I can’t remember anything——” He stopped abruptly. Sophie gave a last touch to Dorcas’ veil and handed her her gloves and opened the door.

In the hall, facing them, was another large, gilt-framed mirror and again Dorcas saw her white image advancing mistily in it. Jevan was beside her, Sophie at one side. The gay little dance tune floated around them. “…She shall go marching …to honeymoon time…”

Dorcas thought of the mirrors in Ronald’s apartment; so many of them that they had seemed to store up a secret record of their own. Had they, she wondered, stored up also her own reflection to reveal at their will? But she hadn’t murdered Ronald. Who, then, had?

T
HE WEDDING RECEPTION WAS
actually a success. Its success, however, was due to really heroic heights of habit and convention attained not only by those most directly concerned but also by the guests. Probably there was not a soul there who did not know, or did not learn within five minutes of his arrival, about the murder. There had been the papers as they came out of church; the news had gone like quicksilver—whispered, speculated upon in italics. But once in the Whipple house there was an instant agreement, the more loyal for its being unspoken, the more friendly for its being so desperately needed by Dorcas and her mother, to behave exactly as if nothing had occurred. Support Cary Whipple. Support Dorcas. Indicate by no glance, no whispered word, no hint of sympathy, even, that there was a murder.

There was, however, a feverishness about the determined gayety of the afternoon. Excitement ran like a darting, taut little thread everywhere through the crowded, brilliantly lighted rooms.

Furs and faint perfumes and flowers and faces. Gloved hands and murmured words and faces. Silks and morning coats and faces. Music always in the background and now and then the yellow chiffon of some bridesmaid flashing somewhere through the moving, overlapping circles. And faces. All of them kind, all of them producing complimentary, pleasant words, all of them reserving a secret thought. Ronald Drew was murdered; is there something back of this?

Afterward the thing resolved itself in Dorcas’ memory to a series of pictures. Herself in heavy white satin, her train curving in heavy, shimmering bluish folds below, her white veil flung back. Her mother in gray chiffons and a spray of orchids, smiling a little tautly, a little desperately, altogether gallantly. Conventions are made for emergencies; it was one of the rules Cary Whipple had impressed upon Dorcas all her life and now that it was an emergency and a dreadful one Cary had quite simply resorted to a rule.

Marcus Pett, beaming falsely, anxiously hovering over Cary, retiring now and then to the dining room and coming back with his face successively more and more flushed and the flustered anxiety in his eyes more and more apparent.

More people; more music; the soft clatter of cups and glasses from the huge dining room, unused as a rule, for the three women usually had their meals in a small and friendlier sunroom at the back of the house. Dancing, too, in the library with the rugs removed, leaving bare and perilously polished floors. The scent of gardenias. The heat in the rooms; the sense of the front door continually opening and closing.

And Jevan always beside her. Talking. Fending off prolonged conversations.

It went on and on; sometime the little receiving line dissolved, leaving the flower-banked fireplace. Dorcas found herself in a chair with a plate and cup in her hand.

It was desperately hot. Surely the people were thinning. Anyway, it would soon be time to dress for the train. But they were not to go away!

“Dorcas——”

It was Willy Devany, bowing, taking her hand.

“I’m late,” he said and bent and kissed her cheek lightly. “Good wishes, my dear.”

He was as usual perfectly turned out and as usual he looked thin and pale and extremely unimportant. Years ago at dancing school, clad in the ridiculously affected clothes his mother insisted upon, he had bowed to her exactly the same way, a little diffidently, a little shyly, a little uncertainly, as if he knew beforehand that he would step on her little pumps and guide her into other dancers.

There was now something a little wistful in his pale blue eyes as he kissed Dorcas.

“Good wishes,” he said again. “Where’s Jevan? … Oh, there you are.” Jevan was beside her at once. Curious how he’d managed all that afternoon to be close beside her when anyone lingered to talk to her and it was necessary for her to reply at length.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks, Willy.”

Willy touched his collar, moved his elbows uneasily in his smoothly tailored coat and sent a hunted blue glance about them before he leaned toward Jevan and said: “You’ve seen the——”

“Yes. They were here when we got back from the church.”

“Oh. Then they know——”

“I’m afraid so.”

“My God,” said Willy in a desperate kind of whisper. “My God.” His small fair face looked white and worried again as it had looked when he held the door for them at the church.

“They were here,” said Jevan. “They’ll probably be around to you to substantiate my alibi.”

“Oh, my God,” said Willy again hopelessly. “How did they know? Was there—evidence?”

Jevan shrugged a little. “I don’t know. Mere supposition, I think. No evidence unless somebody saw——”

Somebody—that meant the doorman. And evidence? What did he mean by evidence? Fingerprints and things like that? Had she left fingerprints? Had she left traces of having been in the apartment other than those intangible traces in the mirror’s records? Fingerprints—good heavens, the glass of whisky and soda! The mirrored cigarette box; had she touched it? Her cigarette. But fingerprints couldn’t be taken from a cigarette. Or could they? The door then—what else?

Willy was talking.

“But good God, Jevan, how did they know it was murder? What was left? What did you——”

“I don’t know. Something.”

Somebody came and joined the little group; somebody else drifted to them. Presently Willy was gone.

And it was time to dress for the train. Sophie said so, and Cary.

“But we aren’t,” began Dorcas helplessly and Jevan again was at her side and fending it off.

“Right you are, Mother Cary,” he said and Cary blushed a little and smiled, though the fixed bright look of determination in her lovely blue eyes did not relax. “Come, Dorcas,” he said.

But before they went upstairs they danced. Around the full circle of the huge library with Jevan’s arm holding her tight against him. Somebody held her bouquet and she clutched her train in her left hand and Jevan danced smoothly and they moved as evenly and rhythmically as if they had been of one piece. This way, that way, her soft veil floating backward, her silver slippers light. Her head was on a level with his shoulder and so close to it she could have leaned her head upon it. Once she looked up and he was looking down at her.

The look held her, plunging down into her own for a significant moment as if he said things to her and, actually, as if she replied. Then he smiled a little and his eyes became merely pleasant and friendly and he said briskly: “Nice music, isn’t it? You dance very well, Dorcas. Remember dancing school and Mademoiselle?”

She did remember. Mademoiselle always had a cold and suffered from chilblains and was like a feather once she started to dance.

“… if you can imagine,” said Dorcas, finishing the thought aloud, “a feather in tight black curls and black wool dress.”

“…and thick black stockings. I’m proud of you, Dorcas; I didn’t realize you had so much stamina. Or Cary either, for that matter…Let’s dance around again. The orchestra will do an encore.”

They did, smiling because it was the bride and groom, because they were a handsome, well-mated couple, because it was a wedding, because their day’s work was nearly done, because they were well paid, because there was hot mulled wine and Tom and Jerrys and huge plates of sandwiches and salad waiting for them at Cary’s express order; they prolonged the soft dance tune to a lingering pause.

As the music stopped somebody said: “Have you kissed the bride yet, Jevan?”

“Of course he has,” cried one of the bridesmaids. “In the car.”

Jevan looked down at Dorcas; he was laughing softly but there was a little gleam away back in his eyes. “I’ll kiss her again,” he said and put his hand under Dorcas’ chin and lifted her face and kissed her mouth. It was a firm, deliberate kiss, his mouth warm. Ronald’s face flashed dreadfully across Dorcas’ memory and she pulled sharply away. Jevan’s hand dropped instantly.

“It’s time to go,” he said abruptly, his mouth now rather tight and grim.

Through people again, up the broad, gleaming stairway. Halfway up someone cried, laughing: “Your bouquet, Dorcas,” and she remembered and stopped and tossed the bouquet lightly into the laughing flutter of bridesmaids below. There was a scramble and a shriek. “Ann got it. Ann Watson. Oh, Ann, when?”

Then they were beyond the turn of the stairs. Away below was the hubbub of voices, of departing cars, of the front door constantly opening.

Upstairs it was rather quiet and a little cool after the heat of the rooms below. Mamie met them.

“I’ve fixed the guest suite,” she said. “Miss Sophie told me you wouldn’t be leaving.”

She ushered them into it. There was a fire, flowers on the table, heavy curtains drawn against the sleet and wind and gathering darkness. Jevan closed the door.

“It’s just as well to stay here,” he said. “I was thinking vaguely of a suite in some hotel; this is better. Sit down, Dorcas. I’ll have Mamie bring you something to eat. You scarcely tasted anything.”

He pulled a deep, cushioned chair up to the fire. The big rooms, two of them connecting, with a huge and rather cold bathroom and dressing room between, had been aired hurriedly and warmed but there was still the faint scent of lavender and old wood which rooms acquire when they’ve been unused for a long time. They were not unpleasant rooms, almost exactly alike in mahogany and damask, gilded light brackets and thick carpets, plate-glass mirrors and deep chairs.

She sat down. She must have sighed, for he glanced at her and came to her and said: “I’ll help you with that veil.”

The little circle of twisted satin holding the lace cap in place had been tighter than she realized. He removed it, putting it on the table so the delicate folds of white hung across the polished, massive old mahogany with a strange, almost eerie incongruity. She sighed again and pushed her hair back from her forehead. She looked very small and very pale and a little frightened above her satin finery.

“And that,” she said with a little laugh that caught in her throat, “is my wedding. Police at the door … murder …”

Her head was heavy and tired. She put her face in her hands.

The room was very still except for the small hiss of gas and the swish of wind and rain—or was it now sleet?—against the windows. Jevan seemed to move toward her and then stopped abruptly and went to the bell and put his thumb on it.

“I’ll have Mamie bring food,” he said. “There’s no need in a prolonged family dinner tonight. Your mother ought to be sent to bed anyway…And I’ll have my bags sent here. They’re at the station, I think, in the checkroom. The guests are leaving and I—I think we’ve got to have a talk, Dorcas. Before the detective returns.”

Mamie came to the door and he gave brief directions. Then he closed the door again and came back to her, pulled a chair up near the fire, sat down and took out a cigarette case.

“Cigarette?”

She shook her head. Thinking again, with terrifying clearness, of the night before, of Ronald and the cigarette he’d given her and—what had she done with that cigarette? She tried again desperately to remember and couldn’t. But Jevan had said something about a cigarette. What? She sought back for it, groped for an obscure significance that had seemed to attach itself somehow to whatever it was Jevan had said and failed to recall either. For Jevan was talking, and she must listen.

“Now then, Dorcas. I hate to make you talk of it now. But I’ve got to get things clear. You see …” He paused and watched a wisp of smoke drift lightly toward her and went on: “You see, I know you were there in his apartment. I was there only a little later. Your cigarette was still smoking and I put it out. I wiped off the glass that you had used. There are no fingerprints there. I wiped the door where you might have touched it and also where I touched it myself. I disposed of the cigarette you had smoked. And I—I took the revolver where you—where it had dropped there by the sofa and I wiped it, too, with my handkerchief so as to leave no fingerprints.”