Escape the Night (16 page)

“Sure, I’ll come,” said Bill raucously. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything. I’ve no idea why Leda Blagden was murdered. Or who did it. But if it’d been Amanda everybody I know had a motive. It ought to’ve been Amanda.”

“Bill, you’re drunk.”

“No, I’m not. Say, wait a minute! Maybe Amanda did it.”
^r

“Bill, shut up!”

“Maybe she did it. I can’t think of anybody else in our crowd that’d have the nerve.” He snatched up his raincoat and cap and stopped laughing as abruptly as one would turn off a tap. “I guess they’ll question all of us.”

Dave nodded and held open the door. As they went out into the mist and darkness, leaving the little Filipino leaning over the bar in his white jacket, his eyes bright and speculative, Bill said: “It’s not going to be much fun, you know. They’ll question you first, Sissy. You found the body. Say!” He paused as if struck by a sudden thought: “Say, you reported Luisa’s murder, too! You’re a regular Murder Mary, Sissy. You ought’ve stayed in New York!”

T
HEY PAUSED FOR AN
instant on the dark and suddenly bewildering street. A few lights were reflected from the slits around closed blinds in little glittering streaks on the black, wet sidewalk. Dave said seriously: “Don’t talk like that, Bill. Sissy’s got nothing to do with all this.”

Bill laughed again, so it filled the quiet street. “Why not? She’s Amanda’s sister, isn’t she?”

“That’s another reason for keeping your mouth shut. The car’s this way.”

“Listen,” said Bill, “if Amanda’s ever strung to the nearest lamp post, look no further for the fellow that did it. That’s me.” He opened the door of Sutton’s big car which was dimly perceptible in the darkness now that their eyes were growing accustomed to it. Serena got in beside Dave, and Bill sat in the back and lighted a cigarette. Dave, leaning over the wheel and turning on the dimmers, backed cautiously away from the curb.

“Besides,” said Dave, as they started along the main street—by day so busy and pleasant and bright, by night, and especially that night, a dark and mysterious lane—“Besides, things were quiet enough around here until you turned up.”

Bill had heard about Luisa and he had also heard about the laboratory, for he leaned over toward the front seat. “I was damned sorry about your lab, Dave. Can you save any of the stuff?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Who do you think did it? I heard it was some boys just prowling and looking for deviltry. Cigarette, Sissy?”

“I don’t know,” said Dave wearily. “I’m trying to rescue what I can. There’s not much hope for it. Maybe I was wrong anyway.”

“Wrong? How? In your experiments?”

“No. I meant maybe I was wrong in thinking I could be a …” Dave hesitated, seeking the turn through the fog. Bill finished for him: “A Pasteur? Don’t be so modest. Anyway, who wants to be a Pasteur? And you were always damn good, Dave. Everybody says so.”

“How’d you happen to hear about it?” asked Dave.

Bill by that time had settled himself back again in the seat, so his reply was muffled by the sound of the engine.

“Alice told me. I phoned to her and then saw her when I went to get the car she’s loaning me. Loaning me!” said Bill with a bitter tone in his laugh. “How do you like that! Your own wife,
loaning
you a car to use!”

“She’s not your wife,” said Dave.

“Oh, I know. We’re divorced. But you don’t stop being married, just like that. She told me all about it—Luisa and everything.”

Dave didn’t reply. Bill seemed to settle back into the silence and darkness behind them.

Eventually they began to ascend the steep and winding road to the Condit ranch above the ocean and above the Monterey peninsula.

The ranch was really outside the peninsula. As the police (Anderson, in point of fact) said later, “We don’t need a map. We know that whoever went to Casa Madrone and killed Leda Blagden, had to get there somehow, and we know the only way to get there, which was by car.”

But he got out a map just the same and pointed.

The fabled and lovely land of the Monterey peninsula is actually roughly a square, with the Presidio of Monterey and Hotel Del Monte (one of the luxury hotels of the world) at the northern, landward corner of the square. The village of Carmel, low and white and green, with the hills beyond and the blue sea beside it, supplies the southern landward corner. The peninsula is not a true square, for the ocean corners are pulled out, so to speak, both toward the north and Point Pinos, and toward the south and Cypress Point. Around the three ocean sides of this irregular square, and each of these three sides is longer and more irregular than the direct road between Monterey and Carmel, runs a famous drive, the Seventeen Mile Drive, with its amazing and breathtaking views of the blue Pacific. The shore line, as everywhere along the coast at that point, is rocky, and the surf a seething mass of foam.

There are irregular points of rocks that jut out into the sea; and there are small coves, one of them Still Water Cove, just between the Lodge—which is an offshoot of the Del Monte Hotel but on the other and southern side of the peninsula and directly upon the bay of Carmel—and the village of Carmel, is one of the loveliest bays in the world, in its protected, still and tranquil blue.

On the northern side of the square is Monterey bay with its fishing fleets. Monterey itself is part old Spanish town and part new and modern California. With the exception of the village of Carmel and the Presidio of Monterey, almost the entire remaining peninsula is closed to public traffic and is guarded by three Lodge Gates, the Country Club Gate at the north, the Hill Gate which is only a few miles above Monterey, and the Carmel Gate which leads directly into the village. The Lodge lies within these boundaries, several golf clubs, and many charming country houses, Spanish in type for the most part, and most of them commanding views of Carmel bay.

In the hills directly across the road between Carmel and Monterey are other houses, with their gardens, their views, their plans for gracious living. Ranches and houses also lie above Carmel, along the valley road back into the mountains and along the coast—after one passes the old Mission, yellow and quiet in the sun, the white and beautiful Carmelite convent, and the dark, thrusting tongue of Point Lobos.

Perhaps because of its extraordinary beauty, perhaps because of something indefinable in the sun, in the rain, in the brown hills, or the black rocks, or the sea, there is an other worldness about the peninsula. It is a Shangri-la, a world apart. Its stars are low and eerily bright. The tule fogs rise up from the ground gently, like veils. Its nights have a balminess and a promise. Its black rocks and crashing waves a threat. It is rarely a peaceful landscape. In spite of warm and sunny days, when the Pacific is as calm and beautiful as its name, there always remain the black cypress trees, bent and twisted with wind, the tumultuous shore line, the rocks—and the hint of an older world underlying and perhaps motivating to some degree this new world. Probably the most famous and modern golf club in the world (the Cypress Point Club) is on the peninsula—and a few miles back in the hills one of the oldest ranches on the continent, clinging in many ways to all its old customs. The mingling of the two worlds adds to the romance of the peninsula and to its curious enchantment. Curious because there is really something spell-like and enchanting in the very air. It is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, incredibly in one’s hand, yet ever escaping and elusive.

But probably never before in its colorful history had its own special topography played as large a part as it was about to play in the lives of several people. Certainly seldom before had sheer geography so much to do with murder.

Dave Seabrooke was the first to mention that, although he did so obliquely. As they stopped beside the arched gate leading to the patio he said: “Well, I got Sutton’s car back again all right in spite of the road and the fog. Serena, how did you get to the house—I mean to Casa Madrone—this afternoon?”

“I drove. I took Sutton’s station wagon.”

“How did Leda get there?”

As much as Serena had thought while she waited in Sade’s, she hadn’t thought of that. Yet it was an obvious inquiry. “I don’t know. I didn’t see any other car. I don’t know how she got there.”

Bill was getting out of the car. He said: “She drives. I take it she was alone—that is, except for whoever killed her. Maybe she came with him! Here, Sissy, take my hand. It’s black as a pit.”

Dave got out and slammed the door and came around the front of the car. “You’d have seen Leda’s car if it was there. Jem said he had Sutton’s station wagon and mine and would bring them both back, one of the policemen driving. Well, of course that doesn’t say that Leda’s car wasn’t there too. I wasn’t paying much attention to anything but the murder. I guess the police and Jem aren’t here yet.”

Bill took Serena’s hand. The long white outlines of the encircling house were dim in the fog. They found the flagstones and the way to the veranda, and fumbled for the latch for the door. Amanda heard them and flung it open.

“There you are!” she cried. “I was listening …” and then she saw Bill Lanier.

Serena was beside Bill. She saw Amanda’s face change, her eyes widen and her mouth freeze so it was like a straight scarlet gash, and her cheekbones suddenly stand out as if the blood had drained altogether from her face and left only bones and skin behind.
“Bill!”

Bill who never grinned, grinned then. His straight, brutal mouth pulled away from his teeth. He said loudly: “Didn’t expect me, did you, Amanda! Didn’t want me either. Well, I’m here and you can’t put me out. I’m coming in. In fact I’m going to stay around just lots and you can’t do anything about it. And I want to know first if my lovely wife is here.”

Again Amanda said,
“Bill”;
but she moved aside, numbly, and let him pass her. Her eyes went to Dave’s, and he said: “He’s all right, Amanda. Just a spot on the tight side. He won’t hurt anybody.”

Amanda closed the door behind them and followed them into the long living room.

For an instant Serena stopped on the threshold, struck by the odd sense of a repeated experience. It was as if she had done that very thing before, entered that room, found the same people there, about to discuss the same thing. It was as if she knew what would happen next. Then she realized that it actually was a repeated experience. It had all happened and only the night before.

Luisa Condit had met a violent death; and now Leda was dead, and the police were about to arrive to question them about it. Supper, buffet fashion, was again spread on the long table at the end of the room. Amanda and Sutton and—well, there it was different, Leda was gone. Johnny Blagden and Jem and the police had not arrived. This time there was no question as to whether or not it was murder.

And Alice Lanier and Bill were there.

Alice sat in the depths of a lounge chair before the fire, her beautiful legs crossed indolently, her gorgeous red hair like a beckoning flame above her beautiful, white skin, and her green eyes and scarlet lips, and her green tweed suit with artificial cherries shining on the button hole. She was smoking. Sutton sat opposite her on the sofa; both of them looked up at Bill, who stopped a moment on the threshold still with that wolfish grin on his dark face. Neither Sutton nor Alice moved for an instant or two. Alice’s hand with a cigarette in it was halfway to her mouth and remained so. Then she said coolly, “Hello, Bill.” Sutton after his first moment of surprise, got to his feet.

“Bill!” he said, but without cordiality. “We didn’t expect you. Come in. Ah, there you are, Sissy. Are the police here, too? They’re coming.… Hello, Dave. You got her all right. Want a drink? Here, sit down. Sissy.…”

“Don’t ask her about it yet,” said Dave rather sharply. “She’s all right, if you just let her alone.”

“But Sissy,” cried Alice. “You’ve got to tell us what happened. How did you happen to go to your house? How did you happen to find Leda? Had you arranged …?”

Dave said abruptly: “I mean it, Alice. Let Sissy alone. I’ll take a Scotch, Sutton.”

Bill had scarcely moved—and had not spoken. He moved then, however, his big, well-made body as lithe and easy as an animal’s. He went to Alice’s chair and reached out abruptly and caught her delicate, pointed chin and forced her face up toward him. She tried to move away, back against the chair, but his other hand caught her shoulder hard. Alice writhed back into the chair and Bill held her like a vise and bent over and kissed her twice on the mouth. Alice cried angrily: “That’s like you, Bill Lanier! That’s like you. I hate you. I told you I never wanted to see you again. And yet you come here—
here,
of all places …”

Bill said to the rest of them, loudly: “Sorry, but I want to speak to my wife. My ex-wife, I should say. Privately.”

“I
won’t,”
said Alice.

“There’s plenty of room,” said Sutton over his shoulder, from the side table where he was mixing drinks. “There’s a light in my study and a door you can close. Nobody’s going to listen.”

“Come on, Alice.”

“I won’t. There’s nothing I want to listen to. There’s nothing you can say to me ever again.…”

She put both slim white hands on the arms of her chair as if to resist Bill Lanier by force. He looked at her, however, and then suddenly laughed. “I’m not going to drag you away from your protecting friends. What I have to say I’ll tell you here and now. And you’ll do well to listen.”

“Bill, don’t …” cried Alice, but he bent, took her face in his big muscular hands again and whispered in her ear. Serena, sitting on the sofa Sutton had left, saw Alice’s face change from a rather petulant, sharp anger to quick comprehension. Bill drew away. Sutton came with glasses. Amanda who’d been watching, too, Serena realized, sat down slowly in the chair opposite Alice and across the hearthrug. Bill straightened up again, his dark face perfectly immobile and unrevealing. Alice’s delicate face was unrevealing, except for a flash of something like friendliness which came into it suddenly and she said: “Thank you, Bill.”