Danger in the Dark (20 page)

She thought she was answered. Quite suddenly she saw that the door to Archie Shore’s room opposite was open and was a black cavern of shadow.

And from somewhere near her came Dennis’ voice.

“Daphne—where are you? Is this—” His hands were on her, touching her shoulders. “Daphne, what are you doing here?”

“Something is there,” she cried. “Down the corridor. Toward my room.”

Other doors were opening. There were indistinguishable sounds and voices. Then someone turned on the lights above the stairs.

It was bewildering, unutterably confusing—the voices, the lights streaming out in lanes, leaving the rest of the hall in deeper shadows.

Someone—Rowley?—was asking what had happened. Everybody was asking. Johnny was there beside Daphne and pounding at Amelia’s door. Nobody ever knew exactly what was done or said during that moment or two and could never tell with degree of certainty or clearness.

Except that it was Dennis who turned on the lights of the playroom and found him and shouted. They all crowded to the doorway. Amelia was there then, too, wrapped in her purple bathrobe.

After one look, Daphne turned blindly to her father, and he took her in his arms, hiding her face on his shoulder and staring above her at the thing on the floor.

“He was killed instantly,” said Amelia out of the shocked silence. “He couldn’t have lived one instant with a wound—” She stopped there.

It was true. No man could have lived. Archie Shore must have died instantly. He lay sprawled heavily on his face.

He had been killed with the heavy, bronze-handled fire tongs. They were there on the floor beside him.

Dennis bent over the sprawled body and gently turned him so he could see his face, but there was no need to do so.

“He’s dead,” he said. “He—There’s nothing we can do. Give me something to put over him.”

Gertrude whispered hoarsely, “Rowley—come—help me.” She put her hands on his arm and appeared about to faint, but Rowley, staring downward, eyes like black slits, did not move. Johnny put Daphne gently away, went next door and came back with a blanket, which he and Dennis put carefully over the thing on the floor.

“Don’t touch the tongs,” said Johnny. His hands were shaking, his thin, blond hair tousled, his face bleak and sick-looking. “Don’t touch anything.”

There were running feet suddenly in the hall; voices. Police.

“Hey there, what’s going on here? What’s all this commotion? What—”

Amelia moved aside to permit them to enter—three of them, inexpressibly comforting in their solid-blue bulk.

And inexpressibly threatening.

For they looked; pulled off the blanket and squatted down there on the floor briefly.

“He’s dead, all right,” said one, looking rather green around the mouth. A revolver was in his hand. He looked up and said, “Consider yourselves under arrest. You can stay right here, all of you, in this room. Braley, go to the telephone and call Wait.”

He rose. One of the policemen went hurriedly away, running heavily down the corridor. The other covered Archie Shore again and went to the door, standing there as if on guard, his revolver in one hand, the other busy buttoning his tunic. They’d been playing poker again in the kitchen. Wait would in all probability raise hell. But how’d they know there’d be a murder?

“You can sit down if you want,” said the policeman who had taken charge. “It’ll be some time before Wait gets here. You can all sit down, and one of you”—his revolver singled out Dennis and pointed at him—“can fix the fire. There’s coal there. You don’t need to go out of the room. Now then, look here, folks. We’ve got to wait awhile for Wait”—he was not making a pale attempt at humor; he was in deadly and rather sick earnest—“you can make yourselves comfortable. But one move out of any of you and it’s just too bad. Understand?”

The policeman at the door had got his tunic buttoned up and was feeling more efficient. He said briskly, “The servants—what about them?”

“They’re out of this,” said the other. “They are all out there in the place over the garage. Nobody got in the house the back way. Nobody—”

“Search the house?” suggested the other, bent on redeeming himself.

“When Braley gets back. Yes.”

Dennis was fixing the fire; putting on coals with his hands, taking time and care to arrange them over the small bed of embers. Gertrude had collapsed on the couch and was sobbing hoarsely but rather quietly in the ruffled sleeves of her pink chiffon dressing gown. Amelia, wrapped in purple wool, a tight black net cap over her head and tied under her chin, looked straight and severe and a little witchlike, for her nose and eyebrows jutted out, and her eyes had retreated to two points of light. There were no sobs from Amelia.

No tears from Rowley, either, though his face was like a yellow wax mask with only his dark eyes alive. He, too, had seized a dressing gown, and so had Johnny. Daphne was still fully dressed, and she caught the eyes of one of the policemen traveling over her slowly, from her smooth hair to the tips of her brown oxfords, and then going with suggestive directness to Dennis who, too, had obviously been still dressed and about instead of sleeping in his bed as he ought to have been.

It was a hideous wait. The fire began slowly to crackle and smoke and then at last burst into flames. No one spoke; there was nothing they could say. The heap on the floor was terribly accusing. Archie Shore dead. Well, then, he no longer threatened them.

Or didn’t he?

If only, thought Daphne once, if only the little playroom were not so full of memories. The spot on the rug they had burned, she and Dennis and Rowley, years ago, was there just at the murdered man’s feet. On the wall hung an old thumbmarked and yellowed map of the world, traced once with an indelible pencil; Dennis’ pencil it was, marking the trip around the world he had said he was going to make.

Johnny at her side coughed. The policeman returned from telephoning, and he and the other one talked of searching the house and did so, the third remaining, watchful, his revolver poised in his hand. In the silence they could hear the two going the rounds of the house—opening doors—searching, talking—always, it seemed, together. The sounds grew more distant as they went downstairs. Johnny coughed again, and the policeman guarding them had his whistle halfway to his lips before he perceived it was only a cough and dropped his hand.

They could not communicate; they could not say all the things they would have said. Gertrude had stopped sobbing and was simply staring at the floor and twisting the pink ruffles of her dressing gown in her strong white hands.

They all heard the car—distantly at first, so they only listened—now nearer, so Amelia and Gertrude and Rowley, Daphne and her father and Dennis all stirred a little, exchanging glances. Curiously furtive glances that engaged and instantly shifted.

It turned in the drive. It came, loud in the silence and cold of the night, up to the door. They could hear it stop, just below the windows, and the thumps of the doors. And then another car came, hurriedly, and another.

The front door was flung open—there were voices and footsteps on the stairs and at last along the corridor.

Jacob Wait entered. The big policeman stood aside respectfully and started to explain, but Wait stopped him with a single motion of his small, supple hand. He stood there looking at them, his black fedora shadowing his face, his tweed overcoat dusted with snow. After a moment he went to Archie Shore and knelt and pulled back the blanket. There were others in the hall, peering, crowding; the detective, too, turned the body over a little. Gertrude took a long, sucking breath and covered her eyes.

Then Wait got to his feet.

“He’s yours, doctor,” he said. The medical examiner came in, his cheeks pink with cold, his bald head shining.

“Skull fracture,” he said. “H’m. The prodigal, isn’t it—this Shore fellow? Nothing to do here, Wait. All right, boys.”

They carried Archie Shore, a heavy, moveless burden, into the hall. Out there was some kind of stretcher; they could hear the men speaking: “This way—look out for the turn.”

The doctor said to Wait, “There’s your weapon,” and pointed to the heavy tongs.

Wait nodded and bent to look more closely at the tongs, putting his hands experimentally over the handles but without touching them. They were all obliged to watch. Presently he stood up and went to the fire, taking off his overcoat and his hat.

“All right, Kellogg,” he said, addressing the policeman who had taken charge. “What about it?”

The policeman knew nothing about it save the bare fact. He stammered a little telling of what they had done.

“They was all here,” he said, “when we got upstairs. All here in this room. I made ’em stay here—”

“Okay,” said the detective. He looked tired and a little ill and was. The sight and nearness of violent death always gave him a kind of qualm of nausea and hatred for it. It was his curse to see the thing fully, deeply, to feel its implications, to taste with horrid poignancy the full flavor of the thing. God, how he hated it! And hated them—people, staring at him, holding secrets back of every still face.

He lighted a cigarette; it was rank and bitter in his mouth, as if he had had recently a more acrid taste.

One of them in all likelihood had killed the man. He made the provision because he was truthful; in all likelihood. Well, there were motives. And he’d have to begin. The sooner he began and plunged into the noisome mess the sooner he’d be out of it.

Those two old women; scared to death, both of them—determined to fight him. They didn’t care, probably, who killed Ben Brewer or who killed this Shore fellow. All they wanted was to cover the thing up. Hush it, keep any family skeletons decently covered; if one of them had killed him and the other knew it, still she wouldn’t talk.

Of course, it would have taken strength this time. Shooting was easy, anybody could do that; but breaking a man’s skull with a bronze-handled pair of fire tongs—that took a certain amount of physical strength. But not enough to exclude the two—no, three—women; the girl might be stronger than she looked. She was slender but not thin; there was considerable nervous strength and toughness in her. He looked at his cigarette and decided to tell them what he knew. They wouldn’t be prepared for that. But mainly it would be a short cut. Would hurry the thing along. He’d have to close the case; make an arrest or two; let the inquest take place; have his evidence ready.

Because one murder wasn’t enough.

Because whoever murdered Benjamin Brewer was ready to do murder again and had.

Yes, he’d have to stop it. Stop it if he put them all in jail.

But it put the murderer in a new light. The murder of Ben Brewer might have been impulsive; might even—though it was doubtful—have been done in self-defense. But another murder changed the thing. It was as if some incredibly malignant disease were spreading, creeping, putting out its loathsome tendrils.

Whoever did it, the girl was mixed up in the thing. The woman Brewer had been about to marry and who had certainly some elements of beauty. He looked at Daphne, considering her deeply, as he had already many times considered her. Well, one thing was certain: she had not been in love with the man she was to marry. That or he was entirely mistaken in her character—her strength and her ability to love and grieve. She was frightened and horrified; she was in the grip of some extremely strong and devouring emotion. But she was not, now, in grief.

As to that there was very little grief displayed anywhere. They were, of course, relieved to see the last of Benjamin Brewer, and he knew, now and pretty definitely, why. And probably they were relieved in their hearts because this Shore fellow was out of the way. Even the son, Rowley, didn’t look exactly grieved. He was shocked and frightened and not at all inclined to respond to his mother’s glances, but still he did not seem to be in grief. Not that he was of a particularly affectionate temperament; still there might be some regard for his father.

He took a long puff and looked at his watch. One o’clock. Time for decent people, leading decent, orderly lives, to be in bed and sleeping. Untroubled by monstrous things like murder. Unaware of it. He wondered if he would ever be able to lead a sane, decent kind of life—he envied deeply the inhabitants of the darkened, peaceful houses they had passed in their headlong swoop through the snow-laden roads.

They’d waited—the coroner and county officials—about the inquest. They would wait, he knew (unless it was too prolonged a wait) till he gave the word.

But as things were it wouldn’t be safe to prolong his gathering of evidence. It was not at all complete. Not nearly as complete as he would like it to be before proceeding with the coroner’s inquest.

But he didn’t dare wait much longer.

And it proved, he thought wryly, that the murderer had nerves. Was in a state of frenzy and desperation.

For self-protection was almost certainly the reason for the murder of Shore. There couldn’t, really, be another motive. Yes, he’d tell them what he knew—or some of it.

One o’clock. Night hours and day hours were the same to him. A part of his abnormal, out-of-plumb kind of existence. He closed his eyes for a moment and thought fleetingly and in the top of his mobile mind that he would like to marry again, a woman this time who knew about and would give him a rich, warm, tenacious way of living which was complete in itself, far apart and away from all this…  He opened his eyes, and the other part of his mind began to function, almost against his will.

“Wake the servants,” he said to Braley. “Tell ’em to make some hot coffee. Put some more coal on the fire. Now then.”

His voice had taken on richness and depth which almost insensibly affected them all. Johnny sighed and rubbed his eyes wearily and sat up straighter in his chair and looked anxiously at Daphne. Amelia blew her nose and folded her bathrobe tighter about her knees. Gertrude straightened up, too, and looked warily at the detective, and Rowley’s dark gaze shifted toward him, and Dennis went to show the policeman that if you put chunks of coal on their sides they would slit and blaze up sooner.