Danger in the Dark (14 page)

The wedding ring had a dozen explanations; the most probable was that during that hideous moving and arranging of the body (suddenly she thought with horror of the physical strain it would have to be—sliding and fumbling and panting for breath down that slippery little path in the snow, getting that inert and heavy burden along the drive, through the window among all those vases and flowers and ferns)—sometime during all that the wedding ring had dropped out of Ben’s pocket and Dennis had picked it up and thrust it into his pocket. It was not an explanation they could give the detective, for she began to see, coldly now and with certainty of reason, that Rowley and Dennis had been right. Rowley from his own point of view, perhaps, but Dennis decidedly from his and from her own.

For the police had to have a motive. And failing any other motive, that of love and jealousy and hatred remained. And with ugly aptness it fit. What had actually occurred—except that it had stopped short of murder. Dennis
had
returned as soon as he heard of the marriage. Ben
had
been murdered the very night of Dennis’ return and the night before his wedding. And again with ugly aptness the thing the police wanted was exactly the thing that had occurred. That was the truth. Dennis
had
tried to stop that marriage, he had used desperate and extreme measures, and she, overwhelmed no less than Dennis by desperation, had agreed to run away. To leave Ben the night before a widely known and talked-of marriage. It had been, of course, a dreadful thing to agree upon; a cruel expediency which, if they had been cooler, if they had been less driven by the pressure of time and circumstance, they would never have considered even momentarily. But, besides the need for haste because the wedding was so near, they were, Daphne realized now, a little drunk with love.

Dennis had returned at just the time when she realized poignantly that her wedding to Ben was a tragic mistake but one that to all intents and purposes was already accomplished. There was, she had felt, no possible escape. She was set in a mold, and she could do nothing but remain in it. So she had said good-by to Dennis and good-by in a strange way to herself.

And then Dennis had returned. Had taken her in his arms. Had told her she could not marry Ben.

And in the sheer madness and drunkenness of those moments she’d agreed. They had planned the thing that seemed, then, their only way of escape.

She looked incredulously at the big brown chair before the fireplace. There was no fire there now; the room was cold and had undergone that singular translation so it was no longer familiar. But last night, at about this time, it had been warm and softly lighted; flames in that hearth and herself—alight, too—in Dennis’ arms, promising anything, everything, overwhelmed as was Dennis.

But Dennis was stronger. And Dennis was not bound by all the fetters which bound her.

She had talked to Ben; she had realized she could not keep that mad promise to Dennis. That it was, again, too late.

She had gone to tell Dennis that; in her heart she had wanted another and a last moment with him. In her heart perhaps she had hoped against hope that he would find a way to save her.

She shivered a little, thinking of the way that had been made. But not by Dennis.

Not by Dennis.
If the truth were known, it would be the motive the police needed. But it wasn’t Dennis who had killed him.

She leaned her head wearily on her hand and thought of the revolver. He might have been lying—Jacob Wait—in order to get some reaction from her—in order, even, in some wily and hidden way, to trap her into giving evidence. But instinctively she believed he had told the truth. Not probably from any scruples or even habits about truth, but simply because he didn’t bother with anything but direct methods. Short cuts.

If true, it was of course a horribly incriminating thing. Add to that a proved motive, and the police had all that they needed.

She thought of the revolver; going over in a kind of weary perplexity all possible contingencies whereby the revolver could be proved not to have been in Dennis’ possession. It was a futile attempt; she knew too little of the thing. The bare statement left no loopholes, no ground for speculation. She would ask Dennis; did he know—had they asked him—what had he told them? It was again part of the dizzying nightmare of questions—to which there were no discernible answers—which had overtaken them all.

But had overtaken more perilously herself and Dennis. Had overtaken them so it was already like a trap.

She had never in her life before consciously seen or talked to a detective. She had known them as newspaper figures, or less remotely as rather stolid gentlemen, well dressed and standing about at unexpected points at weddings or fashion shows, keeping rather obviously unsocial and cold eyes upon jewels. Now they represented in their persons indescribable menace and power. It was their right to question her about all those things; to delve insistently into her deepest thoughts and emotions and motives. She thought, with a kind of sick shudder, of what she’d read of murder trials and of suspects. Suppose they took her to prison—questioned her for hours and hours and hours until she was fainting with exhaustion and the hypnosis of nagging, persistent, repetitious inquiry.

Suppose—Where was the county jail? That would be the place. What kind of room would they take her to? A cell—away from her people—away from …

She caught herself up shortly; such thoughts were dangerous.

Why didn’t Jacob Wait return? Who was the woman who had left the house? Why—It was no good thinking.

The two plain-clothes men exchanged a word or two; a man came to the door and summoned the policeman with the shorthand tablet, who sighed and unfolded his thin length and went away.

“You can go now, miss,” said one of the plain-clothes men. “There’ll be more later. All persons are instructed not to leave the house until further notice,” he added mechanically and held the door open for her.

There were voices in the music room. As she left the library, the door of the music room opened and the policeman (stenographer, was he?) entered, and she heard Jacob Wait’s voice and a few words: “… at exactly what time …” The door clicked, and Daphne went on. New evidence; she took a little courage in the thought of its being important enough new evidence to distract the detective, at least for the time being, from questioning her.

Dennis was waiting in the hall, pacing up and down, smoking. He threw down his cigarette and came to her quickly.

“Did they—” he began and stopped abruptly; it was with a quick feeling of incredulity, a stabbing sense of the unreality that had overtaken them, that she saw him glance quickly along the passage, as if to be sure no one could overhear before he continued. This, in the ordinarily peaceful house where up to now they could have shouted anything they wanted to say. Police all over the house, free to come and go and watch and listen. No reticence, no defense against them. Themselves under guard, under unrelaxing surveillance; knowing that a word, a whisper—a look even—might betray them. And in that surveillance was a chill, ever-present reminder that a man they had all known intimately, a man who’d been one of the small, tight circle and an important one, was dead and was murdered.

Death must always be a shock; sudden and unexpected death, and one that strongly affects the lives and destinies of others, a still greater shock.

But murder has its own being; its own aftermath; its own insidious and inexpressibly ugly shadow. It was as if the air were suddenly tainted; as if
the
house and the old familiar stone and wood had taken on a different and strange dimension. As if they themselves were touched and threatened by it in a way that went deeper than their obvious danger from the police—although that, thought Daphne wearily, was ugly enough.

It was, of course, the secret repudiation of man’s inheritance of law and social pacts that was in itself terrifying. That secret loosing of bestiality. Of ruthlessness. Surely such an experience would leave its mark forever upon the murderer; stamped as if in letters upon his face. But no one of them was any different, no one of them—She checked herself: that thought, too, was dangerous. And Dennis said in a matter-of-fact voice, “We’re having some dinner in the dining room, Daphne. You’d better come along. There’s a fire there, too.” He was looking at something over her shoulder. She looked, too, and a policeman had emerged quietly from the kitchen passage and was simply standing there looking at them. Dennis went on: “It’s going to be frightfully cold tonight; Laing has stoked up the furnace, but there’s not much chance getting this house warm. Thank God, there are fireplaces. Come on, Daph, and have something hot.”

They were at the door of the dining room. She whispered, “The revolver—they say it belongs to you,” and he nodded briefly and whispered, “I know. It’ll be all right. Don’t worry.”

He knew of it, then; and he must have given the detective some sort of plausible explanation, as otherwise he would have been under arrest. But the reassurance in his voice and face was too marked. And she had no time then for further questions, for they were at the door of the dining room.

There were tonight no candles reflected in silver, no red lake of roses. The lights from above were garish and bright: a bright, hot coal fire made the room stuffy but warm; the red curtains were drawn across the windows, and the entire family was at the table.

Amelia looked up quickly and sharply.

“Coffee, my dear,” she said very gently, and Rowley jumped up and pulled out a chair at the vacant place beside his own, saying, “Here you are, Daph. You look all in. What had the detective to say?”

It was natural for every one of them to want to know any fresh developments; at the moment, however, it seemed to Daphne sinister and unnatural, as if among them might be one who hid guilty, gnawing anxiety as to the course of the inquiry. Well, that, too, didn’t bear thinking too much about. She sat down in the chair Rowley held for her and said, “Just general questions. I answered—there wasn’t anything that I knew of any real evidence.” (Parenthetically she hoped it was true.) Gertrude, watching her fixedly, bit slowly into a grape she had held poised at her mouth for an instant or two, and Johnny sighed.

“I do wish they would let you alone, honey,” he said worriedly. “I tried to tell them you knew nothing about it. But this Wait insisted—”

“Oh yes,” said Daphne suddenly. “They stopped questioning me because they found out who the woman in the taxi was.”

“The woman—” said Amelia and stopped, and Gertrude cried, “The woman in the taxi! Why, they asked me about that, too! They insisted that someone was here overnight—that is, was in the house last night and left about midnight or a little after. I told them there was no one, that there could be no one—
Oh!”
She paused sharply, her blank blue eyes wide and glassy. “Why,” she cried, “that means there really was someone! But it’s impossible. It—”

“Who was it, Daphne?” asked Johnny.

Rowley, eating steadily, said nothing, and Amelia, pouring coffee in a steady amber stream, said, “They asked me that, too. I told them no one could have been in the house without my knowledge. Laing would have told me at once. Anyway, the thing is ridiculous. However, if they’ve found the wretched woman, I suppose she must have been somewhere about outside. Probably having come to see Ben.” She filled the cup and gave it to Daphne. “I do hope it wasn’t some woman who—”

“Who had claims upon Ben?” cried Gertrude excitedly. “Oh, my—”

“I was about to say,” continued Amelia, “who was, or had ever been, his mistress.”

“Really, Amelia—”

“It would be most unpleasant. Do have more grapes, Gertrude. But at any rate it would settle the thing without dragging us all into it.”

Rowley put butter on a piece of roll. “You say they’ve found the woman, Daphne? When?”

“I don’t know. But she’s here now. In the music room, I think, being questioned.”

“Oh,” said Rowley. “Well, in that case you’d better know.”

“Know?” said Amelia. “Know what, Rowley?”

“Rowley,” said Johnny in a tone of sudden comprehension which had something despairing in it, “do you mean to say—”

“Oh yes,” said Rowley. “He came last night. Wanted to see Ben.”

Johnny put down his fork slowly, staring fixedly at Rowley with troubled blue eyes, and Gertrude stopped another grape on its way to her lips, shot one blank blue look at Johnny and another at Rowley, and a slow wave of crimson crept painfully over her face. Amelia said, “Oh—so that’s it,” quietly, and Gertrude thrust back her chair with a violent gesture and surged to her feet.

“I will not stay under the same roof with that man,” she shouted with explosive, vehement passion. “Rowley, you’ve been writing to him! You told me you wouldn’t! You promised me! You lied to me! You’ve been lying to me all along! How dared you do it! You let him into the house. You knew he was coming. You were going to let him talk to Ben. What about? What was it you had plotted? Why did he want to see Ben?”

“Gertrude!” Amelia put a beautiful small hand upon Gertrude’s arm. “The police—they’ll hear you. Stop shouting. You are childish.”

“I am not childish,” shouted Gertrude and began to wheeze so her voice was spasmodic and hoarse. “I am not shouting. He—my son—Rowley, tricking me—”

“Now, Mother, sit down. Nobody’s tricking you. He wanted to see Ben—”

“Why?” demanded Gertrude hoarsely, leaning over the table and planting both her hands upon it. “Why did he want to see Ben? Because you were plotting, that’s why. Because you—”

Rowley slid to his feet and said sharply, “You’ll give yourself a headache, Mother. And you’ll have the police in here. And it does no good to shout and rage and get asthma. He said he had business with Ben.”

“What kind of business?” asked Johnny quickly. “He couldn’t have had business with Ben. That’s absurd. I don’t know what he told you, Rowley, but—”

“He didn’t,” replied Rowley slowly, “tell me just what business. He did say, though, that his allowance had been cut off.”

Amelia glanced at Johnny, who drummed the table with his fingers, cleared his throat reluctantly and said, under the compulsion of Amelia’s look, “Well—yes. That is, no. That is—well, dividends are low, Rowley. You know that. His allowance came from a small block of stock. There was nothing else to do. We had to cut it down.”