Wall (19 page)

The weather had changed. There was a threat of storm in the air, and so I closed the doors onto the upper porch before I went to bed. It was a shock, therefore, to be aroused by cold air roaring over me, and to my horror to see a white-clad figure on the porch itself.

I could scarcely move, but at last I raised myself on my elbow, and at that the figure turned and came inside, closing the door carefully. Not until the dim hall light fell on her face did I see that it was Maggie.

I sat up and watched her, and she did a curious thing. After the sheriff’s last visit to the hospital suite I had placed the key in the bureau drawer, where I had always kept it. Now she opened the drawer and took it out.

I could see her plainly. The room was quiet, except for the wind outside and the small friendly thud of Chu-Chu’s tail on the floor. She stood still for a moment, with the key in her hand. Then she moved slowly into the hall. Following her to the door I saw her go to the foot of the stairs to the hospital rooms and stand there, looking up.

Perhaps I roused her. Perhaps she wakened herself. In any event the next moment she started back, and without seeing me went quickly to her own room and closed the door.

I found the key on the floor of the hall the next morning, and I have wondered since. Suppose she had gone on up that night and I had followed her? Would we have solved our mystery then? Would that buried memory of Maggie’s have helped us? I do not know, but weeks later I was to see the rusty old cage where Arthur once had kept his white mice, and to remember what Maggie had forgotten.

T
HE DISCOVERY OF JORDAN’S
body had started a sort of reign of terror on the island. The story of an unknown killer spread everywhere, and women refused to leave their houses at night unaccompanied, or to allow children on the streets after dark. Nor was it only the townspeople who were affected. Most of the summer places at once employed guards, and one reporter, trying to climb over our gates, narrowly escaped a load of buckshot from Mike.

For once more reporters were pouring into the town. We were a major sensation now, with all that that implies. There was nothing we could do about it.

Arthur told me his story the morning after that long interrogation; told it briefly and clearly. It had not been too bad, he said. At least they had used no third-degree methods on him. When he wanted water he got it. There was no blazing light in his eyes. He could smoke, and did. But he was not too optimistic.

“Bullard’s determined to get me,” he said. “Unless they get somebody else first. Better carry on as usual,” he added. “The more normal we are the better. There may be some bad days ahead.”

I had a visit from Mrs. Pendexter that day. Acting on Arthur’s suggestion, I had played eighteen holes of golf with Lucy, and we had resolutely said nothing about the situation. When I came back, anxious for a bath and change, I found Mrs. Pendexter’s old Rolls in the driveway, and she herself in the drawing room, having tea and in deep conversation with William.

“Smart man, William,” she observed after he had taken an uncomfortable departure. “Wouldn’t put it past him to have done away with the Jordan woman himself. Hated her like poison, of course.” She looked at me with her sharp old eyes. “Police pinning that on Arthur too, I suppose?”

“I don’t see why they should,” I said defensively.

She chuckled.

“Why not?” she demanded. “She knew a lot. She knew all that Juliette knew; you can bet your bottom dollar on that. Why she came, what she was afraid of, what she was looking for up in those rooms, everything.”

She moved, and all her chains and bangles clinked.

“Birds of a feather,” she said. “I told you you were a fool, Marcia, to let them stay here. Whoever did away with one did away with the other, and I’m not sure my own Marjorie doesn’t know something about it.”

“Marjorie! You can’t mean that, Mrs. Pendexter.”

“Oh, I don’t think she’s done any killing,” she said cheerfully. “But she knew Juliette. So did Howard Brooks. And for an engaged pair they’ve acted mighty queer the last week or two. Maybe that girl of mine will talk to you. I can’t get a word out of her.”

She went away soon after that, leaving me in a state bordering on stupefaction. But I dismissed it from my mind. The whole island was rife with suspicion by that time, for every attractive man about had at one time or another been attentive to Juliette, and as the days went on old jealousies were renewed, old fears.

Nor did the inquest help the situation when it took place. It left us precisely where we had been before.

There was no difficulty about identifying the body. Swollen and hideous as it was, Jordan’s large teeth, her hair and a ring she wore were undeniable. Also both Ellen and I were able to recognize her clothing, Ellen of course in a state of semihysteria. After that the fisherman, a laconic individual who might have been describing the hooking of a halibut, told about finding her.

“I saw something bobbing about,” he said, “and ran over to see what it was. It was her, all right.”

The injury was described, a jagged fracture at the back of the skull; the rope which had been cut from the neck was produced, and some time during the proceedings the butler, Sutton, told about finding the bag on the rocks.

“I opened it,” he stated, “and that letter was inside. I read it and—”

But it was evidently no part of the police program to introduce Arthur’s note, and he was sharply shut off. One thing came out in his testimony, however. The place where the bag was found was where the bloodhounds had lost the scent.

Later on that location, presumably now the scene of the murder, was carefully described. Nothing else had been discovered there, however, either on the path or on the rocks below.

So far all was well, or as well as it could be. It was after Sutton had been excused that I had what amounted to a shock.

Allen Pell was called!

He came forward, tall and sober, and as he faced about I thought he glanced at me. That was only momentary. He did not look in my direction again for some time. It was evident that he had been interrogated before and that he expected to be called; for he had abandoned his usual slacks for a dark suit which made him look strange to me.

“Mr. Pell, you are an artist, I believe?”

“I paint pictures. There is a difference.”

“Where do you live?”

“I have a trailer at the camp on Pine Hill.”

“Any permanent home?”

“None at present.”

“Now, Mr. Pell, I believe you have rented a small motorboat here. When did you do that?”

“Three weeks ago.”

“Will you tell us the purpose of that boat?”

“I have used it to go along the shore or among the islands, and to paint what I see. Sometimes for fishing too.”

“Can you tell us where that boat was on the night of the fifth of July?”

“So far as I know, it was anchored off the small dock at the foot of Cooper Lane.”

“When did you take it out after that?”

“A few days. I don’t remember exactly.”

“Did you notice any change in it?”

“The rope was gone. That is, it had been cut off. There was an end of it still fastened to the boat.”

“When did you make that discovery?”

“I had gone out to one of the islands. When I tried to tie up the boat the rope was too short.”

“Did you later on buy another rope?”

“I did.”

“Have you any explanation as to what happened to the original one?”

I thought he hesitated.

“I could guess,” he said finally. “That looks like it on the table.”

“Did the boat show anything else? I mean, had it been used since you last took it out?”

“I’m not certain. It had less gas than I expected. I may be wrong about that.”

“There was nothing else disturbed? No blood? No signs of a struggle?”

“None whatever.”

There was a pause. Doctor Jamieson glanced over some notes on his desk.

“Now, Mr. Pell, think carefully over this. Did you see the deceased at any time during her stay here?”

“No. So far as I know I never saw her.”

“Have you ever known her?”

“No. Never.”

I had been frightened by these last questions, and I thought his eyes rested on me reassuringly. It developed, however, that he had a complete alibi for the night of Jordan’s disappearance. From eight to eleven o’clock he had sat on the step of his trailer and talked politics with one of the men at the camp. Nevertheless, although it was a cool day, I saw him wiping his hands on his handkerchief when he left the stand, and I suspected that he had not told all he knew.

Little more was developed after that. Jordan had eaten her evening meal at Eliza Edwards’s, had gone upstairs and locked her room, giving the key to Eliza when she left the house.

At the corner drugstore she had been seen going into a telephone booth. There had been a number of calls from the booth that night and this call could not be traced. After that she had not been seen again. How and when she reached the bay path and whom she met there remained a part of the mystery.

Some rumor of that letter of Arthur’s had gone about, and certainly the crowd was disappointed when it was not introduced. I gathered that the police had their own reasons for suppressing it. Nor was Arthur called. Except for that interrogation of Allen Pell, the inquest limited itself to the identification of the body, a description of the injury, and an attempt to trace Jordan’s movements after she left the Edwards house.

The homicide man from Clinton was present, with the usual photographs, and the jury eyed these macabre exhibits as they were handed to them, taking them gingerly. Then they went out, into what was the office of the school, and brought in their verdict soon after.

Helen Jordan had been murdered by some person or persons unknown.

I was slightly dazed as I stepped out of the schoolhouse into the summer sunshine again. Allen Pell was not in sight, but the sheriff was waiting for me on the pavement.

“Well, that’s that,” he said, looking not unpleased. “Busy, Marcia? If not, how about taking a little drive with me? Send Arthur home. He looks as though he needed it. And I’d like a quiet place to talk. That office I’ve borrowed is as private as a canary’s cage.”

He turned his old car back into the hills, and he was rather taciturn as we climbed. When we reached the top of Pine Hill he stopped the car, and looked down to where Loon Lake, long and quiet and blue, lay beneath us.

“What I’m wondering,” he said somberly, “is whether we’re through or not.”

“Through?”

“That’s what I said. Two women are dead. Maybe one deserved it. That’s not for us to say. The other one died because she knew something. How many people do you think may know what she knew?”

It was a sickening idea, and he made a slight movement, as though putting it out of his mind.

“All right,” he said. “Now let’s get down to business. Who gets Mrs. Ransom’s estate, if any? What about her family?”

“I don’t know,” I said vaguely. “She came from somewhere in the Middle West.”

“That all you know?”

“Yes.”

“Queer,” he said. “Doesn’t Arthur know? He married her.”

“She said she had no people.”

“She had to have a couple of parents. That is, it’s usual.”

“She never mentioned them, except to say that they were both dead. She was raised by an aunt. I don’t remember her last name. She called her Aunt Delia, when she spoke of her at all—which wasn’t often.”

He turned that over in his mind for some little time. Then:

“What about her apartment in New York? Ever been there?”

“No.”

“I suppose her furniture goes to somebody? And that jewelry of hers.”

“I imagine her creditors will claim it,” I said. “I suppose she owed everybody. She always did.”

He was silent again, staring down at Loon Lake. He took out his pipe, filled and lit it before he spoke again.

“Here’s the way it is,” he said. “Bullard’s hell-bent on getting Arthur. Me, I’m not so sure. Seven years is a long time to hate any woman. I’m inclined to believe that it’s too long. And I’d like to see that apartment of hers. Unofficially. Just slip in and look around. We got the New York fellows to take a look-see after she disappeared, but they didn’t find anything.”

“I have her keys,” I said doubtfully. “I could send her trunks down and be on hand to receive them. I’ve thought of doing that. The superintendent of the building would probably let me in. I shall have to send them somewhere anyhow. If you went with me—”

“Fine,” he said, and gave me a vigorous pat on the knee. “Get off as soon as you can, and I’ll follow you. No need to go together. This darned place would think we had eloped!”

Which, considering his age and his matronly wife—not to mention half a dozen children—seemed to strike him as highly humorous, for he chuckled at intervals all the way back to the house.

I told Arthur the sheriff’s plan that same day, and he seemed dubious.

“Not that I want the stuff,” he said, “or you either. You’ll probably find that her creditors own it anyhow. They’ll have had an administrator appointed to take it over probably. But I don’t like you mixed up in this.”

He agreed finally, and Maggie and I spent the afternoon in packing. It was rather a nuisance that Mary Lou chose that particular time to come over, although I knew she hated Millbank and was lonely there.

She watched us jealously as we packed those fineries she herself could not afford, and which Juliette would never use again: the evening dresses, the expensive sports clothes, the vast array of spike-heeled shoes and slippers, the pillows and elaborate sheets, the blanket covers edged with heavy lace, and the diaphanous underwear with which she had more or less covered her body. She had an elaborate gold-fitted dressing case, and another with straps to hold her endless bottles and cosmetic jars. It seemed to me impossible to have achieved all this on what was a substantial but not princely sum, and as I packed in the heat of that July day I found myself wondering where it had all come from.

Mary Lou was in no doubt, however.