Fair Warning (19 page)

No, if it was in any way a clue, or there was any purpose in it beyond Beatrice’s stated purpose, then it was curiously twisted and backward. But it was something the truth or falsity of which was very easily proved. If Beatrice’s summer things were in the wardrobe in her room, if her winter broadtail coat and sable choker and white ermine evening wrap were not in the wardrobe, then the seasonal exchange had been effected—furs were stored, summer taffeta and silks brought out, and Beatrice had been lying when she asked for Marcia’s own wrap.

And while, if she had been lying, Marcia still would have no notion as to the reason for it, still it would indicate that there was a reason.

But Beatrice was in her room. Marcia knocked lightly on the door before entering, and there was a rustle inside and Beatrice said, “Who is it?”

Marcia said something vague about the police having gone, was assured rather tartly by Beatrice that she already knew it, and retreated to her own room.

With Beatrice in her room there was no use in trying to look in the wardrobe. Marcia went wearily to the windows overlooking the garden, as she had done so many times that day, and put her face against the chill windowpane. It was going to rain again. It was cooler, and there were heavy clouds all over the sky and very close above them, pressing upon the peaked roofs of the houses. It was dark, too, so dark that the shrubs were already black blotches and the figure of a man going along the street was merely a moving figure altogether unrecognizable. Owing to the clouds, twilight was early, and the street lights had not been turned on, and a blur of light making a rectangle on the lawn at the back of the Copley house—coming probably from the kitchen—was the only light visible, until, quite suddenly, someone turned on the light in the library immediately below, another brighter rectangle fell upon the lawn directly below her, making it dull green and full of sharp shadows, and then immediately vanished as the light was turned out again.

Gally, probably; coming up from the game room and wondering where everybody had gone to.

It was just then that she remembered the storeroom. If Beatrice’s wardrobe was inaccessible, the cedar-lined closet was not and would furnish as definite proof, for it was there that clothes, put in brown paper envelopes and tightly tied with twine, were hung away every spring and every fall. Sometime there had been an unwary and starveling moth in the house, and Beatrice had fought the menace of its unhappy presence ever since. The closet was there on the second floor, just around the turn beyond Beatrice’s room, and it would take only a few moments to explore it.

In the hall she remembered the stout twine knots and the heaviness of the paper. She would need scissors. As usual the sconce light was on at the landing of the stairway, and the hall below was a pool of shadow into which she descended—wondering as she did so if she would ever again be able to descend those stairs without remembering the faint little rustle of her chiffon dinner gown when she’d gone down that stairway so short a time ago and found what she had found there in the library.

The library was in shadow, too, though when she opened the door she thought she heard a movement and called out, “Gally.” But no one answered, and as she found the desk lamp and pulled on the light she saw no one was there. Nerves, she told herself, took the scissors from the top desk drawer, and went quietly upstairs again. There was no one about; a faint odor of dinner being cooked was in the hall.

Beatrice’s door was still closed. And the store closet, luckily, had the key in the lock. It was a generous room, originally a sewing room, well lighted, with a half-collapsed wire figure, much padded, in one corner and a long sewing table in the middle under the light. Sliding doors along the walls revealed ranks of brown envelopes, fat with clothing hanging along rods.

She looked at them, fumbling among them. It would be more of a task than she had expected. Still she might be able to select the new-looking envelopes. She put down the scissors, slipped up the shade of the light and went to work. The envelopes rattled and the paper looked inconceivably tough and only Beatrice’s strong hands could have possibly tied those knots. There was no glancing shadow between her and the light; no sound except the stiff rattle of paper. But these envelopes were obviously old; not of this year’s vintage. Surely they were marked somewhere.

They were. Down at the bottom, in Beatrice’s strong handwriting:

“Aunt Beatrice: Seal trimmed black suit; green wool dress”—Aunt Beatrice had died before Marcia’s marriage. She turned to other envelopes and at last found what she wanted: “B.G. Summer things,” 1934. Green taffeta wrap; white quilted wrap; 3 knit suits; white linen suit—”

Marcia did not need to read further. Beatrice had been telling the truth, then. But better look inside the envelope to be sure. She turned to the table, and the scissors were not there.

The scissors were not there. They were not on the table, they were not on the floor, they were not anywhere in that room.

And there was no one in the room. The light from the unshaded bulb beat brightly upon its emptiness. There was no breath of motion, no sound, no flickering shadow.

But the scissors—heavy and sharp—were gone. Gone … and Marcia was suddenly possessed by one ugly, terribly compelling thought:

She must tell them—tell everyone. Tell them now before it was too late.

The door had closed. Funny. She didn’t remember closing it. But the house was old; the doors loosely hung; they closed themselves—or often drifted open.

But they did not lock themselves.

Her hands bruised on the lock.

“Yell like hell,” Rob had said. How could she yell when no sound would come from her throat? When in that great house, in a closet lined with cedar, no one could hear her. Unless Beatrice ...

Suppose whoever had locked that door returned.

…
But she must warn them—she must tell them before it was too late.

She couldn’t warn them, and it was already too late. It was perhaps ten minutes after that that Beatrice Godden was found—murdered.

S
HE WAS FOUND HALF
on and half off the lower steps of the stairway, just outside the library door.

Delia found her. Ran upon that sight unexpectedly, horribly, when she turned on the light in the hall. She screamed, and Marcia heard the scream. She heard more. The sound of running footsteps and the terribly shrill bleating of a police whistle. Confused sounds and shouts. Doors being opened and closed. Footsteps at last on the stairs. Much later, it seemed, someone calling her name.

She tried to reply. Pounded on the locked door with her fists. Off somewhere in the distance a siren was coming, again, nearer that house.

Gally found her, and Rob came running at his shout.

“Marcia!”

“What is it? What’s happened?”

“Marcia! We couldn’t find you. We didn’t know. Are you all right?”

“Take her into her room, Rob.” Gally was brandishing a golf club, his eyes bright with excitement and his freckles standing out. “I’ll search the back of the house.”

“Rob!” Marcia clung to him. “What—who—You must tell me.”

But he had to be certain she was uninjured. Had to be certain there was nothing in the room but Marcia and the paper bags and the limp, grotesque dummy. Had to take her to her own room. The hall below was filled with noise and confusion and voices; at the stair well she had a lightning glimpse of a sort of nucleus of it all there at the foot of the stairs.

“Don’t look,” Rob said, pulling her away.

Somewhere down there Delia was sobbing and crying out shrilly, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it—there she was— and I saw it shine when I turned on the light—I didn’t touch it—I didn’t—”

They reached her room, and Rob went ahead and looked all around it.

“Come inside,” he said, returning quickly from that swift survey. “Sit down there. Do you want—Are you all right?” His eyes were blazing, and he knelt down beside her and put his arms around her. “Oh, my dear, I was so scared,” he said in a shaky voice.

His arms were warm and safe. And he was safe. There in that small sewing room, with the door locked, she hadn’t known. She wouldn’t think of those moments again; not for years and years. Not ever.

It was the smallest, briefest interlude of reassurance and warmth and comfort. They had each other, safe and tight in that small circumference, and they told each other that that was the real thing and it was removed and not a part of this ugly unreality. This thing that, in spite of its unreality, had happened.

Rob stirred suddenly and said in a muffled voice, “These things—It’s like—what is it? The terror that walks by night—”

“It was Beatrice?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Nobody knows.”

“How?”

He rose and turned away with his hands jammed into his pockets and his face white and sick-looking.

“Stabbed. She—Look here, Marcia, do you have to know? I’d rather—”

A voice that wasn’t Marcia’s said, “Were there—scissors—anywhere?”

He whirled around at that and stared at her before he said huskily, “How did you know?”

She told him, looking away from him as she did so, and her voice was thin and small against the tapestry of sounds in the house.

“God!” said Rob and took her into his arms again as if he meant never to let her go. But he was savage and angry, too. “How dared you do it, Marcia? How could you—

You’ve got to be taken out of this. It’s criminal negligence on the part of the police. It’s a homicidal maniac. That’s what it is. Roaming around—striking from any shadow. And here you are unprotected—that fool police man letting such things—” He pulled himself up shortly, released her suddenly as someone in the hall called “Marcia” and opened the door. “Oh, Dr. Blakie. Thank God you’ve come. Take a look at Marcia, will you? She’s just had a pretty bad shock.”

“I think we’ve all had a shock,” said Dr. Blakie. “Do you know anything about it? How did it happen? I’ve just seen her—Beatrice, I mean. The police doctor’s here; he let me take a look.” He took Marcia’s wrist. “What’s the matter here?”

Rob told him, tersely.

“
Locked
in!”

“Yes. And the scissors gone.”

“And you don’t know who—”

Marcia shook her head.

“I was looking through the bags of clothing. They rattled a lot. Made so much noise I didn’t even hear the door close.”

“And the scissors—” began Rob and stopped, looking at the doctor.

He nodded.

“Yes. One blade only—it’s not a nice sight.” He paused, watching Marcia, and said after a moment, “Well, you’re both unhurt. Marcia’s pulse is pretty wild. A mild sedative won’t do you any harm. Run down to my car, Rob, and get my bag, will you? The car’s right outside the gate.”

Rob vanished, and Dr. Blakie said sensibly, “Now, Marcia, you’ve had a shock and you’ll just have to get over it yourself. Want to talk about it? If so, do. Don’t harbor it; it’ll come back later to bother you if you do that.” He rose and paced up and down the room. “We’ll have to get you out of all this somehow. Although if the—whoever locked you in that closet had meant to harm you he would have done so. Why on earth he did it— But I suppose there’s not much use speculating on motives. After all it happened.”

“Who—” said Marcia, whispering.

“That’s the question.” He looked at her worriedly, rubbed his hands lightly together in one of the first wasteful gestures Marcia had ever seen him indulge in, and repeated, “That’s the question. Who—and it won’t be long before the police are after you again, tooth and nail. But after all, you do have an ailbi this time. You couldn’t have murdered Beatrice while you were locked up in a closet. That’s one thing.”

“I had the scissors.”

“Suppose you did. That doesn’t mean anything. But I think—Thank you, Rob—get me a glass of water from the bathroom, will you?” He took the bag which Rob handed him, opened it, selected a small tube, and gave her two small white pills. “Here you are, Marcia. Wash them down with some water. Now then—you’ll feel better. Did you see Wait anywhere, Rob?”

“He’s not come yet. They didn’t know just where he was—haven’t managed to reach him yet. But I think every other member of Baryton’s police force is down there.”

“Well, we’d better have a council of war before Wait gets here. There’s no telling what they’ll do. A second murder.” He sat down near Marcia; he adjusted his brown tie absently, and sat as straight and as remote as if he were attending a staff meeting; except that his face had the intent yet absent look it always had in moments of extreme concentration—as if he left his body as one would leave a shell, quiet and resting, became altogether mental. But he watched Marcia, too; noted the gradual lessening of her pulse and her deeper breathing. “Just what happened, Rob?” he said in a quiet way that was reassuring. “You were here at the time?”

“Yes. I’d come in—ostensibly to see Gally. That’s what I told Ancill when he came to the door. But Gally was downstairs in the game room, so I had to go down there and saw nothing of Marcia.”

“When was that?”

“I don’t know exactly. Must have been about twenty minutes before the murder. Gally and I were in the game room when we heard Delia scream. No, wait a minute—” He stopped, his face perplexed. “
I
was in the game room at exactly that moment. Gally’d gone for cigarettes. I think he’d just started downstairs again when he heard her scream, for we ran into each other there in the kitchen passage outside the dining room. I remember him yelling ‘What’s wrong?’ and I said I didn’t know or something. Anyway, by the time we reached the hall, Ancill and the cook and the policeman were already there. The policeman and Ancill were leaning over Beatrice, and the cook was holding Delia, who was still screaming.”

“That’s all you saw?”

“Everything. Nobody passed us—the door into the library was open. But as to clues—if there are any, I don’t know about it. Marcia wasn’t there, and I couldn’t find her, and Gally didn’t know where she was, and I got a crazy notion that perhaps she, too—Well, never mind. Anyway, we found her locked in that closet. By that time the policeman had got to the telephone. I don’t know—that’s all, I guess. It was all—confused.”