Calamity Town (4 page)

She stopped. ‘How about a drink?' asked Ellery.

‘Not now. I don't blame my mother. She's narrow, like the rest of them; her social position is her whole life. But if I'd play according to her rules, she'd still take me back—she's got spunk, I'll give her that. Well, I won't play. It's my life, and to hell with rules! Understand?' She laughed once more. ‘Say you understand. Go on. Say it.'

‘I understand,' Ellery said.

She was quiet. Then she said: ‘I'm boring you. Goodnight.'

‘I want to see you again.'

‘No. Goodbye.'

Her shoes scraped the invisible porch floor. Ellery turned on the light again. She put up her arm to hide her eyes.

‘Well, then, I'll see you home, Miss Wright.'

‘Thanks no. I'm—' She stopped.

Patricia Wright's gay voice called from the darkness below: ‘Ellery? May I come up and have a goodnight cigarette with you? Carter's gone home and I saw your porch light—' Pat stopped, too. The two sisters stared at each other.

‘
Hello
, Lola!' cried Pat. She vaulted up the steps and kissed Lola vigorously. ‘Why didn't you tell me you were coming?'

Mr Queen put the light out again very quickly. But he had time to see how Lola clung—briefly—to her taller, younger sister.

‘Lay off, Snuffles,' he heard Lola say in a muffled voice. ‘You're mussing my hair-do.'

‘And that's a fact,' said Pat cheerfully. ‘You know, Ellery, this sister of mine is the most attractive girl ever to come out of Wrightsville. And she insists on hiding her light under frumpy old slacks!'

‘You're a darling, Pats,' said Lola, ‘but don't try so hard. It's no dice, and you know it.'

Pat said miserably: ‘Lo dear…why don't you come back?'

‘I think,' remarked Mr Queen, ‘I'll walk down to that hydrangea bush and see how it's making out.'

‘Don't,' said Lola. ‘I'm going now. I really am.'

‘Lola!' Pat's voice was damp.

‘You see, Mr Smith? Snuffles. She was always snuffling as a brat. Pat, now stop it. This is old hat for us two.'

‘I'm all right.' Pat blew her nose in the darkness. ‘I'll drive home with you.'

‘No, Patsy. Night, Mr Smith.'

‘Goodnight.'

‘And I've changed my mind. Come over and have a drink with me any time you like. Night, Snuffy!' And Lola was gone.

When the last rattle of Lola's 1932 coupé died, Pat said in a murmur: ‘Lo lives in a two-room hole down in Low Village, near the Machine Shop. She wouldn't take alimony from her husband, who was a rat till the day he died, and she won't accept money from Pop. Those clothes she wears—six years old. Part of her trousseau. She supports herself by giving piano lessons to Low Village hopefuls at fifty cents a throw.'

‘Pat, why does she stay in Wrightsville? What brought her back after her divorce?'

‘Don't salmon or elephants or something come back to their birthplace…to die? Sometimes I think it's almost as if Lola's…hiding.' Pat's silk taffeta rustled suddenly. ‘You make me talk and talk. Good night, Ellery.'

‘Night, Pat.'

Mr Queen stared into the dark for a long time. Yes, it was taking shape. He'd been lucky. The makings were here, rich and bloody. But the crime—the crime. Where was it?
Or had it already occurred?

Ellery went to bed in Calamity House with a sense of events past, present, and future.

On the afternoon of Sunday, August twenty-fifth, nearly three weeks from the day of Ellery's arrival in Wrightsville, he was smoking a postprandial cigarette on his porch and enjoying the improbable sunset when Ed Hotchkiss's taxicab charged up the Hill and squealed to a stop before the Wright house next door. A hatless young man jumped out of the cab. Mr Queen felt a sudden agitation and rose for a better view.

The young man shouted something to Ed Hotchkiss, bounded up the steps, and jabbed at the Wright doorbell. Old Ludie opened the door. Ellery saw her fat arm rise as if to ward off a blow. Then Ludie scuttled back out of sight, and the young man dashed after her. The door banged. Five minutes later it was yanked open; the young man rushed out, stumbled into the waiting cab, and yelled to be driven away.

Ellery sat down slowly. It might be. He would soon know. Pat would come flying across the lawn…There she was…‘Ellery! You'll never guess!'

‘
Jim Haight's come back
,' said Ellery.

Pat stared. ‘You're wonderful. Imagine—after three years! After the way Jim ran out on Nora! I can't believe it yet. He looks so much
older…He
had to see Nora, he yelled. Where was she? Why didn't she come down? Yes, he knew what Muth and Pop thought of him, but that could wait—where was Nora? And all the time he kept shaking his fist in poor Pop's face and hopping up and down on one foot like a maniac!'

‘What happened then?'

‘I ran upstairs to tell Nora. She went deathly pale and plopped down on her bed. She said:
“Jim?”
and started to bawl. Said she'd rather be dead, and why hadn't he stayed away, and she wouldn't see him if he came crawling to her on his hands and knees—the usual feminine tripe. Poor Nora!'

Pat was in tears herself.

‘I knew it was no good arguing with her—Nora's awfully stubborn when she wants to be. So I told Jim, and he got even more excited and wanted to run upstairs, and Pop got mad and waved his best mashie at the foot of the stairs, like Horatius at the bridge, and ordered Jim out of the house, and—well, Jim would have had to knock Pop down to get by him, so he ran out of the house screaming that he'd see Nora if he had to throw bombs to get in. And all of this time I was trying to revive Muth, who conveniently fainted as a sort of strategic diversion…I've got to get back!' Pat ran off. Then she stopped and turned around. ‘Why in heaven's name,' she asked slowly, ‘do I come running to you with the most intimate details of my family's affairs, Mr Ellery Smith?'

‘Maybe,' smiled Ellery, ‘because I have a kind face.'

‘Don't be foul. Do you suppose I'm f—' Pat bit her lip, a faint blush staining her tan. Then she loped away.

Mr Queen lit another cigarette with fingers not quite steady. Despite the heat, he felt chilled suddenly. He threw the unsmoked butt into the grass and went into the house to haul out his typewriter.

5

Lover Come Back

Gabby Warrum, the one-toothed agent at the railroad station, saw Jim Haight get off the train. Gabby told Emmeline DuPré. By the time Ed Hotchkiss dropped Jim off at Upham House, where Ma for old times' sake managed to wangle a bed for him, Emmy DuPré had phoned nearly everyone in town who wasn't picnicking in Pine Grove or swimming in Slocum Lake.

Opinion, as Mr Queen ascertained by prowling around town Monday and keeping his steel-trap ears open, was divided. J. C. Pettigrew, Donald Mackenzie, and the rest of the Rotary bunch, who were half Country Club and half tradespeople, generally opined that Jim Haight ought to be run out on a rail. The ladies were stoutly against this: Jim was a nice young man; whatever'd happened between him and Nora Wright three years ago wasn't
his
fault, you can bet your last year's bonnet!

Frank Lloyd disappeared. Phinny Baker said his boss had gone off on a hunting trip up in the Mahoganies. Emmeline DuPré sniffed. ‘It's funny Frank Lloyd should go hunting
the very next morning
after James Haight gets back to Wrightsville. Ran away, of course. That big windbag!' Emmy was disappointed that Frank hadn't taken one of his deer rifles and gone stalking through the streets of Wrightsville for Jim, like Owen Wister's Virginian (starring, however, Gary Cooper).

Old Soak Anderson, the town problem, discovered by Mr Queen Monday noon lying on the stone pedestal of the Low Village World War Memorial, rubbed his salt-and-pepper stubble and declaimed: ‘“O most lame and impotent conclusion!”'

‘Are you feeling well this morning, Mr Anderson?' asked Ellery, concerned.

‘Never better, sir. But my point is one with the Proverb, the twenty-sixth, I believe, which states: “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.” I refer, of course, to the reappearance in this accursed community of Jim Haight. Sow the wind, sir; sow the wind!'

The yeast in all this ferment acted strangely. Having returned to Wrightsville, Jim Haight shut himself up in his room at Upham House; he even had his meals served there, according to Ma Upham. Whereas Nora Wright, the prisoner, began to show herself! Not in public, of course. But on Monday afternoon she watched Pat and Ellery play three sets of tennis on the grass court behind the Wright house, lying in a deck chair in the sun, her eyes protected by dark glasses hooked over her spectacles; and she kept smiling faintly. On Monday evening she strolled over with Pat and a hostile Carter Bradford ‘to see how you're coming along with your book, Mr Smith.' Ellery had Alberta Manaskas serve tea and oatmeal cookies; he treated Nora quite as if she were in the habit of dropping in. And then on Tuesday night…

Tuesday night was bridge night at the Wrights.' Carter Bradford usually came to dinner, and Carter and Pat paired against Hermione and John F. Hermy thought it might be ‘nice' to have Mr Smith in on Tuesday, August twenty-seventh to make a fifth; and Ellery accepted with alacrity.

‘I'd much rather watch tonight,' said Pat. ‘Carter dear—you and Pop against Ellery and Mother. I'll heckle.'

‘Come on, come on, we're losing time,' said John F. ‘Stakes, Smith? It's your option.'

‘Makes no difference to me,' said Ellery. ‘Suppose I toss the honour over to Bradford.'

‘In that case,' said Hermy quickly, ‘let's play for a tenth. Carter,
why
don't they pay Prosecutors more?' Then she brightened. ‘When you're Governor…'

‘Penny a point,' said Carter; his lean face was crimson.

‘But Cart, I didn't mean—' wailed Hermione.

‘If Cart wants to play for a cent, by all means
play
for a cent,' said Pat firmly. ‘I'm sure he'll win!'

‘Hello,' said Nora. She had not come down to dinner—Hermy had said something about a ‘headache.' Now Nora was smiling at them from the foyer. She came in with a basket of knitting and sat down in the big chair under a piano lamp. ‘I'm really winning the war for Britain,' she smiled, ‘all by myself. This is my tenth sweater!'

Mr and Mrs Wright exchanged startled glances, and Pat absently began to ruffle Ellery's hair. ‘Play cards,' said Carter in a smothered voice.

The game began under what seemed to Ellery promising circumstances, considering the warm vital hand in his hair and Carter's outthrust lower lip. And, in fact, after two rubbers Cart slammed his cards down on the table.

‘Why, Cart!' gasped Pat.

‘Carter Bradford,' said Hermy, ‘I never
heard
—'

‘What on earth?' said John F., staring at him.

‘If you'd stop
jumping around
, Pat,' cried Carter, ‘I'd be able to concentrate on this ding-busted game!'

‘Jumping
around?
' said Pat indignantly. ‘Cart Bradford, I've been sitting here on the arm of Ellery's chair all evening not saying a word!'

‘If you want to play with his beautiful hair,' roared Cart, ‘why don't you take him outside under the moon?'

Pat turned the machine-gun of her eyes on him. Then she said contritely to Ellery: ‘I'm sure you'll forgive Cart's bad manners. He's really had a decent bringing-up, but associating with hardened criminals so much—'

Nora yelped. Jim Haight stood in the archway. His Palm Beach suit hung tired and defeated; his shirt was dark with perspiration. He looked like a man who has been running at top speed in a blazing heat without purpose or plan—just running. And Nora's face was a cloud-torn sky.

‘Nora.' The pink in Nora's cheeks spread and deepened until her face seemed a mirror to flames. Nobody moved. Nobody said a word.

Nora sprang toward him. For an instant Ellery thought she meant to attack him in a spasm of fury. But then Ellery saw that Nora was not angry; she was in a panic. It was the fright of a woman who had long since surrendered hope of life to live in a suspension of life, a kind of breathing death; it was the fear of joyous rebirth.

Nora darted by Jim and skimmed up the stairs. Jim Haight looked exultant. Then he ran after her. And silence. Living Statues, thought Ellery. He ran his finger between his neck and his collar; it came away dripping. John F. and Hermy Wright were saying secretive things to each other with their eyes, as a man and woman learn to do who have lived together for thirty years. Pat kept glaring at the empty foyer, her chest rising and falling visibly; and Carter kept glaring at Pat, as if the thing that was happening between Jim and Nora had somehow become confused in his mind with what was happening between him and Pat.

Later…later there were overhead sounds: the opening of a bedroom door, a slither of feet, steps on stairs. Nora and Jim appeared in the foyer. ‘We're going to be married,' said Nora. It was as if she were a cold lamp and Jim had touched the button. She glowed from within and gave off a sort of heat.

‘Right off,' said Jim. He had a deep defiant voice; it was harsher than he meant, rasped by emery strain. ‘Right off!' Jim said. ‘Understand?' He was scarlet from the roots of his sandy hair to the chicken skin below his formidable Adam's apple. But he kept blinking at John F. and Hermy with a dogged, nervous bellicosity.

‘Oh, Nora!' cried Pat, and she pounced and kissed Nora's mouth and began to cry and laugh. Hermy was smiling the stiff smile of a corpse. John F. mumbled, ‘I'll be dinged,' and heaved out of his chair and went to his daughter and took her hand, and he took Jim's hand, just standing there helplessly. Carter said: ‘It's high time, you two lunatics!' and slipped his arm about Pat's waist. Nora did not cry. She kept looking at her mother. And then Hermy's petrification broke into little pieces and she ran to Nora, pushing Pat and John F. and Carter aside. She kissed Nora and kissed Jim and said something in a hysterical tone that made no sense but seemed the right thing to say just the same.