Fair Warning (12 page)

She couldn’t have stopped to find it.

She was in the hall; she was running, stumbling up the long stairway. She was panting, she couldn’t have screamed; she never thought of pounding with her hands on Beatrice’s closed door. She was all at once in her own room, locking the door, leaning, spent, against it, her whole body thumping and throbbing with her heart.

In the summerhouse the policeman moved cramped muscles and wondered when the hell the rain would stop. He was cold and gloomy and sleepy, and yet uneasy because the beating of the rain kept making him think someone was walking around the summerhouse. Funny they were getting so much rain and the rest of the country was blowing away, whole farms choked and hidden with dust. He wondered who’d killed that guy.

In the kitchen Officer Mawson decided that the dripping under the windows was getting on his nerves, although he was not popularly supposed to possess them. Made him think of the stuff that dripped when they— Oh, hell. Funny how cold it was; all old houses were cold. He moved the light kitchen chair so he could put his feet on the radiator and tilt back more comfortably. But he was irritated and restless and his shoulder blades itched. He didn’t like the drip and beat of the rain.

Upstairs Marcia heard it, too. Long after she’d told herself she must try to sleep; that she must get herself together; store up a little reserve for the day to come. She would see Rob early in the morning; as early as she could reach him. What could they do—She mustn’t think about it—she mustn’t think about Ivan—she mustn’t think of the rain beating, beating against the doors in the library. She sat up and pulled a silk comforter around her ears, but she could still hear it.

But it wasn’t Rob in the dark library.

Then who had killed Ivan?

Morning came at last, though there were people who thought it never would. A chill, gray morning, sodden and drenched and still raining lightly but with sullen determination.

Morning with everyone about late as if it were a queer, nightmarish holiday. Morning with everyone doing the things that were usual with a kind of grimness and defiance. Morning with Beatrice sitting at the head of the table, as had been her custom since Ivan’s illness, and Marcia opposite her forcing herself to drink coffee, hearing Beatrice telling Delia to wash the prism chandelier in the dining room and telling Ancill to wipe off the car and to put the fish out in the pool, just as if it were any other April day, with house cleaning not far off.

“Isn’t it a little cold to make the change this morning, ma’am?” said Ancill.

“I don’t think so.” Beatrice looked gray that morning, and the faint black mustache was like a grim shadow, and she did not look at or speak to Marcia. She had never liked the fish. They were Ivan’s. It was like her to be prompt about getting rid of them.

Morning with someone telephoning to say that the coroner’s inquest was postponed; the voice (which was that of Lieutenant Davies) didn’t know when it was to take place; they would be informed. Meantime, there would be a policeman in the house and would they please not leave the grounds. There was more than a hint of a parole about it; so long as they stayed there about the house they would not be placed under arrest—not, that is, immediately. But if they attempted to leave, steps would be taken. It was quite definitely stated.

That was the morning, too, that Delia found the nutmeg in the hall behind the big Indian vase. A trivial thing it was, nothing at all to do, certainly, with murder, for its only importance appeared to lie in the fact that no one remembered, or at least admitted (and there would have been no reason to deny it), taking the gayly printed little box from its customary place in the locked liquor cabinet of the dining-room buffet and leaving it on a table in the hall. And if it had walked it was most unusual.

But it was trivial; of no meaning at all.

Marcia dragged herself out into the hall. She must get to the Copleys; she must see Rob. Prepare him; tell him she had betrayed him into their hands.

He hadn’t murdered Ivan. Morning failed to shake that sudden unreasoning conviction. He was in danger; they could make it look as if he had murdered, but he hadn’t.

She was still sure of it. And the knowledge, instinctive, without reason or proof, and with all reason, in fact, opposing it, sustained her. She had not wrecked his life by bringing blood-guilt upon it. She had not—unless they built up that case against him until it alone sufficed.

Innocent men had been convicted of crime before that.

She went to get her coat. Across the garden to the Copley house, which almost of necessity shared the guard placed about the Godden house, would not be exactly leaving the grounds. Anyway, if they stopped her, she would return. Beatrice was using the telephone in her study, and her voice floated out to Marcia.

She was apparently talking to Ivan’s lawyer, one Henry Fitterling, for she said, “Thank you, Mr. Fitterling. If you’ll come at once … Yes, there might be a new one. Of course, this is very soon after his death, but under the circumstances … Yes, terrible… Oh, she’s bearing up very well, thank you. Really surprising, but—youth, you know… Yes, a devoted husband. Strangely devoted …”

The door closed abruptly as if at the thrust of Beatrice’s white hand. Marcia remembered that look of purpose which had flashed in Beatrice’s eyes for one unguarded instant the night before. She remembered it and was conscious of it as something that ought to be explored, that ought not to be forgotten. But first she must see Rob.

She snatched her brown tweed coat.

The library door was open, and she hesitated, wondering whether to try the french doors or the front door. But a policeman—Mawson it was—was standing in the library looking at something small in his hands. Something—burned matches and a small pasteboard fold printed with advertising. He looked up and saw her and put them hastily in his pocket.

She said. “Is there any objection to my going across the garden?”

“Well,”—he looked at her as if wondering how much she had seen—“no—but it’s sort of wet.”

She hesitated. “Did you have breakfast?”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you. I’ll be relieved in a few minutes.”

“Will—will Mr. Wait be here again this morning?”

“I suppose so.”

She went out into the light drizzle of rain. Just there by the cupboard she had stood frantically lighting matches, finding no letter. Whose hand had touched that door, opening it so silently, letting in the black, wet night and the beating of rain? Officer Mawson was watching her; and she went down the flagstone steps.

Rob saw her coming and opened the door for her.

“Marcia!” He took her small, cold hands and pulled her inside. “I’ve been watching—waiting—wanting to come to you. Verity said to wait. Marcia, what did they do to you last night? Oh, my dear!”

“Rob, the letter’s gone.”

It was worse because he took it so quietly. He held her hands a little tighter against him, and his eyes were very dark and blue, and he was rather white around the mouth. But he said, “Oh, so they got it.”

“It’s not there, Rob. I—did it myself; I put it in the cupboard because Ivan was asking me about it; I wanted to conceal it just till I could return and get it and destroy it. Oh, Rob, what have I done to you?”

“Don’t, Marcia! After all, I didn’t kill Ivan.”

Verity came swiftly into the hall.

“What’s all this? Good morning, Marcia. How are you? How do things stand? They telephoned to us that there would be no inquest. No reason. I suppose Wait wants to have enough evidence for the coroner's inquest to secure a grand-jury indictment. They say he does that. What’s wrong?”

“Let’s go back to the sunroom; there’s a fire there.”

Rob put on fresh logs before he told Verity. She took it rather well.

“Oh. I see. A letter. Exactly what did you say in this letter, Rob? You didn’t talk of—killing Ivan, did you?”

“No.”

Verity understood. “But it might be read to imply that. And of course it was a love letter, thus furnishing a motive.”

“Yes.”

She looked into the fire for a moment and turned suddenly to Marcia. “Marcia, what did you think when you found Ivan dead? I mean, did you realize he was murdered?”

“Yes. I thought—I thought Rob had done it. Because of me. It would have been my fault, you see. Rob—with murder on his hands forever because of me—” Marcia stopped.

Verity gave her a curious look and said, “Didn’t you think it was wrong to murder him?”

“I don’t know. I—I hadn’t time to think. You see, Rob wasn’t himself when I saw him there at the gate just before Ivan was murdered.”

Verity said dryly, “Well, no, he’s not been exactly sensible for days. Weeks. Since the night we thought Ivan was going to die, in fact. You needn’t say just how you felt about it, Marcia, but there’s no disguising the fact that it would have been a mercy if Ivan Godden had died that night. And after that one glimpse, while we waited to hear from the operating room, of what life could mean to both of you if he died, his getting well and coming back was a—a pretty ghastly sort of climax for Rob,” said Verity abruptly. “However—did they ask you about the letter last night, Marcia?”

“No. They asked about everything else. But not about the letter.”

Again Verity looked into the flames for a long moment, and Rob came over and sat on a footstool near Marcia and took her hand. But he did not look at her.

Finally Verity said in an odd tone, still watching the flames, “Do you still think Rob killed him, Marcia?”

“No,” said Marcia simply.

Verity turned quickly, and Rob glanced up at Marcia’s face and said, “Why? How do you know?”

“Last night—remember what you said at the gate, Rob?”

“Yes—God, do I remember!”

“What was that?” said Verity sharply.

Rob answered her. “It was pretty heated. You see, I’d just seen them through the french doors. Ivan— Well, never mind. The thing is, I was half out of my wits with—”

He dropped Marcia’s hands and rose and walked to the window. “Never mind that, either. I said she shouldn’t go back to him. I’d kill him first.”

“Did anyone hear you?”

“I don’t think so. There was no one to hear.”

“What were you doing in the garden?”

“I knew Ivan had got back. I had to see Marcia—thought I might get a chance to that way. Knew if I went to the front door Beatrice would be on the job.”

“But he didn’t kill Ivan,” said Marcia. “If he had, it wouldn’t have been his fault—it would really have been mine. And Ivan would have always, always separated us. But Rob didn’t.”

Verity made a sudden impatient little gesture and rose and went to Marcia and kissed her, still with a queer impatience.

She said abruptly, “Rob didn’t kill him. He just simply couldn’t have done it. In the first place, he’d realize that was not the way to get to marry you, Marcia, if that’s what he wants—”

Rob turned quickly. “If she’ll have me.”

Verity’s face was suddenly bleak and old-looking; she said, “Don’t you realize what will happen if you marry and Ivan’s death remains a mystery?”

Rob looked very white and angry. “After a decent interval of time—after—”

“Wait, Rob. Listen to this: Your raincoat. Your presence in the garden talking to Marcia not an hour before the murder. Ancill hearing someone talking to Ivan in the library and saying it was your voice. The possibility that someone in either household has some inkling of how things stand between you.”

“No one—”

“You can’t be sure.” She was checking things on her small, strong hands. “The man in the garden—”

“That wasn’t I.”

“Oh, wasn’t it? It could have been you that—Ancill or Emma Beek or whoever it was—saw. They might have been wrong about the time but right about you—you
were
in the garden, remember. And then you marry Ivan Godden’s wife.”

“There’s the letter, too,” whispered Marcia.

“Oh, yes,” said Verity. “The letter. Well, there you are.”

“They’ll find the murderer,” said Rob, white-lipped. “Don’t look like that, Marcia.”

“Find the murderer?” said Verity, looking into the fire again. “Well, I suppose so. It’s your only hope, isn’t it?”

“Marcia, why are you so sure I didn’t do it?”

“I think by morning, when I’d had time, I would have—at least, I wouldn’t have thought only of what you had said there at the gate. I would have thought of you as I’ve known you all this time. And—loved you,” said Marcia. “But last night there was something else. Something more objective—and yet not exactly objective, either. You see, when I went to the library to look for the letter—the rain was louder, all at once, and there was something there. In the dark—and rain. And I think it was the murderer.”

“Good God, Marcia!”

“What did you do? What happened?” Verity’s eyes were blazing. “Did you see—”

“No.” She told it, haltingly, remembered it too well. “But it wasn’t Rob. I wouldn’t have been,” she struggled, trying to find the right words, “I couldn’t have been afraid of Rob. I mean—instinctively, as I was then. Terrified.”

Rob sat down suddenly on the footstool and took her hands again and said tautly, “Marcia, promise me never, never to take such a chance again. Ivan Godden was
murdered.
I’m not sorry he’s dead; I’d lie if I said anything else. And he was—well, we’ll skip that, too. But the thing is, it’s murder. You—oh, God, Marcia—in the middle of the night—alone—with—”

“Why did you think it was the murderer, Marcia?” said Verity.

“I—don’t know. Unless—well, who would come there at that time of night stealthily? And it was, somehow—horrible—emanating evil—”

Verity said soberly, “It’s possible. There are things one simply knows. Thirst—hunger—shelter and awareness of danger. Rob is right. I mean—we’ve got to speak honestly, Marcia—neither of you could be sorry Ivan is dead. But the means of his death is another thing. Murder itself is—sort of contagious. It’s letting something loose. Unchaining it. From your point of view Ivan’s death is not exactly regrettable, though you’d rather he hadn’t been murdered.”

“Divorce,” said Marcia with stiff lips, “would have been—oh, anything would have been better than this.”