The Door Between (19 page)

“I – I’m not a criminal lawyer,” stuttered Morel.

“Well,” said Inspector Queen dryly, “Henry Sampson is – and he’s the smartest D.A. this town ever had. And Sampson thinks he’s got something to work on.”

There was a profound silence, punctuated rather than broken by Eva’s exhausted sobbing on Dr. MacClure’s breast.

“Excuse me for butting in,” said Terry Ring in the silence, “but what about the blonde dame from the attic?”

The Inspector blinked. Then he went over to his desk and sat down. “Oh, yes. The blonde woman. Karen Leith’s sister.”

“Yeah, her sister. What about her?”

“What about her?”

“Don’t you think you might clear that up before you go putting the finger on this poor kid? You know that Karen Leith kept that woman practically a prisoner for nine years in that room. You know she escaped. You know she had a damned good reason to hate her sister’s guts – with the little one stealing her stuff and taking credit for it. You know she had a way to come down and a way to get out. You know the scissors came from the attic, where she lived!”

“Karen Leith’s sister,” murmured the Inspector. “Yes, indeed, Doctor, we’ve traced that suicide business.”

“You listen to me!” shouted Terry.

“The body was never found in the sea. She just disappeared. We also found out that when Karen Leith came over from Japan, she traveled with
two
people – this Kinumé and a blonde woman who kept to their cabin all through the voyage and was listed under an obviously false name. That’s why Miss Leith didn’t let you know she was coming – she wanted to get settled and her sister hidden away before anyone from her old life found out.”

“Then it
is
true,” mumbled Dr. Scott unexpectedly. “That woman – the one who murdered Dr. MacClure’s brother –”

“That’s a damnable lie!” thundered the doctor. His light blue eyes flamed so dangerously Dr. Scott paled still more.

“I think,” said Ellery from the window in a cold tone, “that we’re beginning to divagate. You mentioned something about a case.” Father and son eyed each other. “I haven’t heard a whisper about motive.”

“The State doesn’t have to prove motive,” snapped the old man.

“But it comes in handy when you’re trying to convince a jury that a harmless young woman of spotless reputation and no previous criminal record stabbed her father’s
fiancée
to death with murderous intent.”

“The funny part of it is,” said the Inspector, teetering in his chair, “that I was puzzled at first about the motive, too. I couldn’t figure why a girl of Miss MacClure’s bringing-up and family should turn killer. It’s one reason I held back. But all of a sudden I find a motive – a motive any jury will understand, even sympathize with.” He shrugged. “But that’s out of my line.”

“Motive?” Eva raised her head from the arm of her chair. “I had a motive to kill Karen?” She laughed wildly.

“Morel.” The Inspector swiveled. “What did you tell me to-day?”

Morel struggled as he felt cold eyes on him; it was apparent he would have welcomed escape with open arms. He dabbed at his forehead with an already wet handkerchief. “I – Please understand, Dr. MacClure. It was pure accident. I mean I didn’t intend to meddle. But when I found out – naturally, my duty to the law –”

“Cut the baloney,” growled Terry Ring.

The lawyer did not seem to know what to do with the handkerchief. “Years ago Miss Leith left a certain – well, large envelope in my care with instructions to – well, open it on her death. I’d – well, completely forgotten about it until this morning. Then I opened it, and the papers in it all related to Esther Leith MacClure – old letters between Dr. MacClure and Miss Leith dated 1919, a written statement by Miss Leith making certain arrangements for the disposition of her sister – in case of her own death – to send her back to Japan secretly –”

“They’re all here,” said the old man, patting his desk. And now, as he looked at Dr. MacClure, there was pity in his eyes. “You’ve kept the secret well, Doctor. I know why you did. But I’m sorry – I’ve got to reveal it.”

“Don’t tell her. Let that one – thing – be,” whispered Dr. MacClure. He hovered over the Inspector, his hands shaking.

“I’m sorry. It’s a good show you’re putting on, Doctor, but the girl knows. Even if you don’t think she knows, I tell you she does.” He took a long document from a basket on his desk and caught Eva’s eye. He cleared his throat. “I have here, Miss MacClure, a warrant for your arrest, charging you with the murder of Karen Leith.”

“I think,” began Eva, swaying on her feet, “I think –”

“No. Wait, Inspector.” Terry Ring was in front of the desk, speaking fast. “That deal we spoke about. I’ll make it. Give the kid a chance. She’s no common criminal. Hold off on the pinch. You can’t go off half-cocked with this Esther at large.” The Inspector said nothing. “She could have done it, I tell you! She had
two
motives. One was the dirty deal her sister gave her. The other was the money – the Leith woman’s money coming from her great-aunt.”

“Yes?” said Inspector Queen.

“Morel will tell you! Karen Leith died before forty. The aunt’s fortune then goes to Karen’s nearest blood-relative. But with Esther alive,
she’s
the relative! Her sister! She gets that dough! Morel.”

“Y-yes.”

“How much is involved?”

“Nearly a million and a quarter.”

“There! See, Inspector? That’s dough, isn’t it? She falls into that dough, doesn’t she?” Terry’s gray eyes glittered. “And where’s your motive for this kid here? It can’t stand up against a million and a quarter!”

The Inspector said: “What’s the deal, Terry?”

Terry straightened up. “If you ask me hard enough,” he said coolly, “I think maybe I might be able to find Esther Leith for you.”

The old man smiled. “No dice, Terry. You’re forgetting one thing. Morel, what would have happened to that money if Karen Leith had lived another month?”

“She would have inherited it,” said Morel nervously. “It would have gone to her estate.”

“And she left all her money to charities and institutions, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“In other words, Terry, if Eva MacClure hadn’t killed Karen Leith when she did, she would never have got her hands on that fortune at all – neither she nor Esther Leith.” Terry frowned, puzzled. “And then the fingerprints on the weapon are the girl’s. The handkerchief is the girl’s. And there’s no evidence to show that Esther was even in the house during the commission of the crime. Nothing doing, Terry.” He paused. “But – you say you know where she is? I’ll remember that.”

“Never have got her hands on the fortune!” sneered Terry. “What’s the matter with you, pop – you crazy? How could Eva ever get her hands on it? It could go only to a blood-relative –”

Dr. Scott broke his bonds. He said unsteadily: “Inspector Queen. Was that the motive you mentioned – I mean, my
fiancée
committed murder for
money
?”

“That,” said Inspector Queen, waving the warrant, “and revenge.”

“Daddy,” said Eva. “Did you hear what he said? Revenge!”

“Stop acting!” said the Inspector sternly. “Dr. MacClure’s no more your father than I am!”

“Not – Eva’s – father –” said Dr. Scott, dazedly.

“Revenge?” repeated Eva, swaying a little more.

“Revenge for what Karen Leith did to Esther – keeping her prisoner for nine years, stealing her work, her life, her family, her happiness.”

“I think,” said Eva faintly, “I think I’ll go mad if someone doesn’t – tell – me – what …”

“What the hell difference could it make to
her
,” demanded Terry fiercely, “what Karen Leith did to her sister Esther? You little dumb-bell!”

The Inspector replied: “What difference? Oh, I don’t know. Mightn’t it possibly make you boil a little if a woman like Karen Leith did what she did to your own mother?”

“Her – mother –” gasped Dr. Scott.

“Yes, Dr. Scott. Esther Leith MacClure is your
fiancée
’s mother.”

Eva gaped. Then she screamed in an unrecognizable voice: “
My mother
!”

Terry Ring and Ellery Queen jumped for her as she tottered, but it was the brown man who got there first.

“I’m all right,” said Eva, pushing him away. “Just let me alone, please.” She felt for the back of a chair.

“I’m telling you she didn’t know,” said Dr. MacClure to Inspector Queen. “I tell you I’ve kept it from her …” But there was no belief in the Inspector’s face, and the doctor made a gesture of despair. “Eva. Eva, honey.”

“Did you say my
mother
?” asked Eva, looking at the Inspector in a very strange way. She seemed quite calm.

But Dr. MacClure saw her eyes, and he brushed aside Dr. Scott, who was standing helplessly by, and took Eva’s elbow and led her like a child to the Inspector’s leather settee. “Get me some water.”

Terry was out and back in a matter of strides with a brimming paper-cup from the cooler in the outer office. The big man chafed Eva’s arms and legs, put water to her lips. And Eva’s eyes filled with awareness, and pain.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, hiding her face in the doctor’s coat.

“There, honey. It’s all right. It’s my fault for keeping it from you. Cry, honey –”

“He said … Then Karen was my aunt. You’re my uncle. She – she’s my mother!”

“I didn’t think you’d ever find out. And when I learned she was dead – how was I to know, honey? – it did seem wiser not to tell you.”

“Oh, dad! My own mother!”

Dr. MacClure was calmer than Ellery had seen him since Monday afternoon on the
Panthia
’s deck. And he held his shoulders straighter, as if they carried a lesser burden now.

“Take some water, honey.”

The Inspector said: “Very pretty, but I’m afraid I’ll have to ask –”

The big man looked at him, and the Inspector bit the end of his mustache and sat down.

“You’ll want to know about it now, Eva,” said the doctor, stroking her hair. “Yes, she’s your own mother – a beautiful and brilliant person. The sweetest woman I’ve ever known.”

“I want her. I want to see her,” sobbed Eva.

“We’re going to find her for you. Lie down, Eva.” He laid her back on the settee and rose to walk up and down, up and down. “I’ll never forget that cable – when you were born. It was from Floyd, and he was very proud. 1916 – the year your grandfather died … Hugh Leith. Two years later Floyd’s accident occurred, and your mother’s breakdown. Karen” – his face darkened – “Karen wrote me, and I went straight to Japan, dropping everything. This was at the end of 1918, right after the Armistice.”

Eva lay on the settee and saw her mother painted on the ceiling. It was funny, to find out a thing like that, just when … Tall, stately, with her ash-blonde, lovely hair; beautiful, of course, and with that pitiful dragging leg that invested her with a single touch of earth. The picture was so clear …

“Esther was in a sanatorium. Her nerves had completely collapsed as a result of Floyd’s death and the way it happened. For a time she was out of her mind. But she regained her sanity. In the process something happened to her. She lost something vital – I don’t quite know what.”

“Did she remember what had happened?” asked Ellery.

“She could think of nothing else. I saw that the fear that she had murdered Floyd would haunt her to the end of her life. She’s a sensitive creature, a bundle of delicate nerves – in those days a poet of great promise.”

“But why did she insist on harping on that one subject, Doctor? Did she really have a guilty conscience?”

“I tell you I investigated it! It had been sheer accident. But there was something I couldn’t put my finger on. I don’t know what it was. It held her back.”

“What do you mean?”

“I couldn’t do anything with her. It was just as if – well, as if another and inimical force was working outside her, hurting her, delaying her recovery, giving her no rest.”

Poor darling, thought Eva. Poor darling. She had always secretly envied her friends their mothers, even the ones who were cheap and vain and empty. All of them had something to give their daughters that seemed precious, that blotted out the cheapness and vanity and emptiness … Her eyes filled with tears again. And now that she almost had her mother back – what? Scandal. Arrest. Perhaps –

“I stayed in Japan as long as I could. Karen was – helpful. Now that her father was dead, she said, she had her own career to make, and besides she had to take care of Esther. Esther had no aim in life; she needed attention; she was hardly in a condition to bring up her child. Even then,” shouted the doctor, brandishing his fist, “I’ll bet Karen’d concocted her devilish scheme!” His voice sank. “But how was I to know?”

The Inspector stirred uneasily. Morel, he noticed, had taken advantage of the confusion to make his escape. Nothing was working out right, he thought. He pursed his lips.

Dr. MacClure said gently to Eva: “It was Karen who suggested I take you back with me, honey – adopt you. You were less than three then, a skinny little thing with long curls. Of course I knew you would never remember. Well, I did it. We had to do it legally, get Esther’s signature. To my surprise, she gave it. She even insisted on giving you up, and I took you back with me.” He paused. “And here we are.”

And here we are. Eva stared at the ceiling. For the first time the shame of it crept burning over her. Eva MacClure a murderess! Her mother a … They would say it was heredity. That murder, vengeance were in her blood, in Esther’s blood, that was Eva’s. How was she to face them? How was she to face – Dick?

She turned her head slowly. He was standing by the Inspector’s door, shifting from one foot to the other, looking as if he had a bad taste in his mouth and was trying to swallow it. It struck Eva suddenly that her
fiancé
had done nothing, nothing at all. He had been dumb and comfortless. He had been obsessed with thoughts of personal escape.

“Dick. Why don’t you go home? Your work – the hospital –”

She watched him as she had once seen Dr. MacClure watch the writhings of a guinea pig undergoing anaesthesia.

But he said stiffly, “Don’t be silly, Eva. With this insane charge hanging over you –” He came to her then and stooped to kiss her. His lips felt cold against her cheek.