Fair Warning (20 page)

Rob there at the time of the murder. Marcia hadn’t comprehended it till then, and she thought dully that it was unlucky.

“Gally!” said Dr. Blakie. “What is he doing here?”

“He’s staying here. Beatrice asked him to come.”

“Why?”

“Nobody knows,” said Rob. “Why? Do you think it possibly—” He shook his head in sharp negative, as if arguing with something he saw in Dr. Blakie’s face. “No. It couldn’t be Gally.”

The doctor rose and went to the window and back again.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think so, either. But this is the thing: The list of suspects the police have is very small. It’s like this—oh, I know you two have done nothing but think of this thing and have covered every possible point. But let’s analyze a little. Either an outsider, a thief or intruder, did these murders, or an—insider. One of the small circle who we know had access to the house the night Ivan was killed. Tonight, now, too. If it’s an outsider, none of us know who; none of us know anything about it. And I must say there’s not any evidence of that—or if there is we don’t know of it. If it’s one of—us—”

“No,” said Marcia violently. “It can’t be. I thought that Beatrice might have killed Ivan. But now—”

“Now she’s murdered,” said Rob. “In almost exactly the same way that Ivan was killed. Probably for the same motive.”

“Motive?” said Dr. Blakie. “What is the motive?”

“There’s the money,” said Marcia suddenly. “It will come to me now.” It was an ugly thought, inexpressibly chilling. She could see Jacob Wait standing opposite her, lounging in a bored fashion with his hands in his pockets, looking as if he hated her and as if he knew she had murdered them. … “By this will, then, you did not inherit from your husband. You inherited only by the death of his sister …”

Rob said quickly, “You were locked up, Marcia. Gally and I can swear to that. You couldn’t have murdered her while you were locked in a closet.”

“But there’s the will,” said Marcia.

Rob gave her a wild look and said, “Oh, my God—I forgot the damned will,” and sat down suddenly on the foot of the chaise longue and swore.

Dr. Blakie said quietly, “Well, yes—there’s the will. Who knew about it, Marcia?”

“Nobody. That is, except the lawyer and Beatrice. Mrs. Emma Beek who witnessed the signature. You and Rob. Oh, yes, and Gally—he was in the room when they told me about it.”

There was a queer little silence. Below somewhere another police car was coming, and she wondered if it could be bringing Jacob Wait. Dr. Blakie said in a thoughtful, detached way, “Gally. If the murder was done by—by one of us who had access to Ivan, that means only you, Marcia, Rob, Beatrice, the servants, me—and Gally.”

“Gally didn’t do it,” cried Marcia, suddenly understanding that small silence. “Not Gally.”

Rob said something under his breath and went to the window, and she could see the reflection of his tense white face in the dark pane. He looked down and said there were lights in the garden as if he didn’t know he was speaking, and Dr. Blakie said, still quietly, that there were so few suspects. That was the trouble.

“If we knew the motive,” he said, “it would help. Rob had a motive, of course—now, now!” As Rob whirled around toward him, he put up a protesting hand. “I didn’t say you did it, Rob. But you did have a motive for—Ivan’s death. And for Beatrice’s murder.”

“I didn’t kill anybody,” cried Rob harshly. “I never— thought of it. Except I was sorry he didn’t die in the hospital.”

“I know. But let’s look at it as the police do. Can you prove you didn’t?” Rob said nothing, and he went on, “Marcia had a motive—or the police will say she did—and opportunity. For Ivan’s murder, that is. And motive but not opportunity for this latest thing, and I think the police will consider the murders part and parcel of each other. That’s reasonable. Marcia—you, Rob. Me.” He checked neatly on his fingers. “I was at Verity’s dinner party; know you all well. I’m suspect, too, you know. Though I must say if I’d been going to murder Ivan I would have chosen an easier way.” He sighed faintly, rather regretfully. “There are so many simple ways. However—Marcia, Rob, Beatrice, me—the servants. And Gally. That’s—how many?—seven people in all who were, at least, in the immediate vicinity the night Ivan was killed.”

Rob said suddenly, “You’ve forgotten—” and stopped so quickly it was like a smothered explosion. Dr. Blakie looked at him comprehendingly and said at once, “No, I didn’t forget Verity. And she might have had a motive. She’s done everything she could for you, Rob, always. Why not remove the barrier to your marrying Marcia?”

“She didn’t,” said Rob, white-lipped.

“No,” said Dr. Blakie equably. “Although she is an extremely spiritual person and has a nerve of steel. It’s an incalculable combination. The kind that makes genius. The kind that sees beyond human law. But don’t look like that, Rob. I didn’t include Verity because she has an alibi for the time when Ivan was murdered. Nobody else has, really, for we were moving about. Beatrice downstairs. I arriving and talking to you, you shaving and dressing, Gally on his way, Marcia alone here. You see? But Verity was in her kitchen seeing about holding up dinner because Gally was late, in full view, naturally, of the cook during the whole of the time immediately following Beatrice’s arrival at the dinner party until after Ancill had come to tell us Ivan was dead. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes,” said Rob after a moment. “Yes, of course.” He made a restless little gesture with his shoulders, as if settling more securely into his brown tweed coat. “Yes, I remember. She said, ‘one of those minor domestic catastrophies.’ I know. Of course, though, she—well, she just simply couldn’t have done it.”

“Rob, Rob!” said Dr. Blakie with a kind of weary impatience. “None of us would think for an instant that she did. I’m only trying to take the point of view of the police. You know you didn’t kill him—but do they know it? I know I didn’t murder him—but do they know it? And if they don’t, how can I prove it?”

“If you’d wanted to murder anybody,” said Rob, “you’d have done a neater job. It’s queer, but that’s something that seems to me sort of—oh, you can’t get around it. Sticks out like a sore thumb.”

“You mean the business of the skull fracture and stabbing?”

“I mean the botched job they made of it. The—casual weapons that were used. The—lack of preparation and careful planning.”

Dr. Blakie gave a small, precise nod.

“Yes. ‘Botched’ is a good word for it. But its botchiness is, I think, one of the reasons for their suspecting us. The work was so obviously that of an amateur.” He glanced at Marcia and said quietly but with a point as neat and precise as one of his own operating instruments, “Has Gally asked you for money?”

“No,” said Marcia and stopped. “Not exactly,” she amended miserably.

“But he knew about the will?”

“Yes.”

“And he knew you would have property of your own only at Beatrice’s death?”

“I—” Someone was coming along the hall. Heavy foot steps—inexorable, authoritative.

There was no doubt at all as to what was coming. For a singular moment the long room, with its crisp curtains and old mahogany, its glimmer of silver and crystal on the dressing table and its faint odor of cologne and soap, was altogether still and hushed, listening, too. Dr. Blakie’s gray shoulders stiffened a little. Rob shot a white look at Marcia.

Then someone knocked heavily.

Rob said in a swift undertone, “Tell them the truth about the sewing room and the scissors,” and rose to answer that summons. And as he did so Dr. Blakie said suddenly, in so low a tone it couldn’t have been heard beyond the door, “I suppose you destroyed the letter Beatrice had.”

Rob stopped as if he’d been struck.

“No!”

“You don’t mean to say—”

“Never thought of a thing but whether or not Marcia was all right!”

The man outside knocked again. There was no time for words. No time for plans. No time for Rob’s own passionate self-reproaches. Dr. Blakie, fortunately, kept his head.

“There are police everywhere now. Your only danger is if she carried it on her person. They won’t be likely to make a detailed search tonight. We’ll have to—” the knocking was thunderous now and impatient—“we’ll have to watch for a chance.”

He turned toward the door as neither Rob nor Marcia moved, and Rob said suddenly and hoarsely, “Can’t you keep them from questioning her tonight?”

The doctor glanced at Marcia, said, “I’ll try,” and opened the door.

They were wanted for inquiry. Jacob Wait had arrived and was downstairs. And the policeman’s eyes roved suspiciously about the room, as if he expected the murderer to pop out from the window seat or the wastebasket.

“We’ll come at once,” said Dr. Blakie. “But Mrs. Godden is ill with shock. I’ve just given her a sedative and am about to send for a nurse to stay with her. She’ll have to be excused for tonight at least. We can tell Mr. Wait all she knows of the murder—”

“You’ll have to see Mr. Wait about that, Doctor.”

Somehow he convinced him, Marcia never knew just how. But she was unutterably thankful for the respite. And he was as good as his word about the nurse, for an hour later she arrived, brisk and crisp in white and very efficient. It was, Marcia realized dimly, the only possible solution to the prospect of a night in that house, alone except for the servants, in their wing at the back of the house, and Gally, who at best offered only a mild protection, and just then—Marcia did not permit that thought to complete itself.

But later, when the sedative had made her increasingly drowsy, she did think that whatever was the truth she was certain that Gally wouldn’t hurt
her.
Even if, owing to some desperate emergency, he had unwittingly brought upon himself … even if he had …
But he hadn’t.
It roused her, and she looked at the nurse.

“What are they doing downstairs?”

“Nothing. Just a lot of policemen standing around. Doors closed on either side of the hall. You go to sleep now.”

It was a strange night, dimly seen through mists of a sedative which must have been stronger than Dr. Blakie had let her think. She seemed half conscious during the whole night, as of course she was not. Half conscious and thinking, desperately retracing those already too well-worn paths of thought. And once in a while, in the most curious way, something complete and formed would possess her; some fact would stand out suddenly as if illuminated.

“Gally wouldn’t hurt me, she thought. But it wasn’t Gally … Somebody had the letter; no, it was hidden.
She must find it …
Rob had looked so white and stricken, and yet there’d been something invincible in his dark, intent blue gaze. He always ought to wear brown tweed; it matched his hair, harmonized. And the touch of blue in his tie. How did they execute people in Illinois? … Don’t think. Sleep. Forget all this. It didn’t happen. Only Rob is real.
Whoever had murdered Ivan and Beatrice had known the house well. Beatrice, dead!

It roused her again.

How late the inquiry in the house continued, she didn’t know. There were sounds from below, and once the roar of police cars leaving. She lifted her head, and the nurse was at the window. She turned at once and said, “Now, now, doctor said you were to sleep.”

The doctor did not come upstairs again, nor did Rob, but about midnight Gally put his head in, looked at the nurse in astonishment, and said in a stage whisper, “What’s wrong? Is she sick?”

Marcia sat up, and the nurse rattled forward.

“She’s supposed to rest. Doctor said she was not to be disturbed.”

“Come in, Gally,” said Marcia. “What’s happened?”

He looked doubtfully at the nurse and did not enter.

“Wait’s been here,” he said. “Lord, I’m tired. They’ve had us all on the grill for hours.” He yawned prodigiously and said, “Well, I told ’em everything I knew. Safest way. Told ’em about the will, Marcia; hope you don’t mind. They got it out of me—though, come to think of it, I believe they already knew. They’d had the cook on the carpet, and she was one of the witnesses.”

“Oh,” said Marcia after a moment.

Gally yawned again and peered at her anxiously.

“You’re sure you’re not sick?” he said.

The nurse rustled, and Marcia said quickly, forestalling her, “Not at all. I was only sort of shaky—Dr. Blakie fixed it so I wouldn’t have to see Wait tonight.”

“Good,” said Gally. “Well, I’ll be going on. You’d better lock the door, Nurse. I’ll swear, Marcia, I don’t see how the fellow got in to the house?”

“What fellow?”

“Why, the murderer, of course. Do you know what I think—” He stopped, withdrew his freckled face for an instant as if to glance about the hall, peered into the room again and said in a loud whisper, “I think she was killed because of what she said to us. Remember?”

Marcia could only stare at him, and the nurse had become transfixed.

“You know,” he said impatiently. “She said she could have solved the murder long ago if she’d wanted to. That’s why she was killed. To suppress evidence. That’s what. And I told Wait so. Good night, Marcia.”

His thin face with its sharp, freckled nose vanished, and Marcia and the nurse both stared at the empty panels of the door for a moment before the nurse rustled forward and, with a certain zeal, locked the door.

She turned a flushed face toward Marcia.

“It’s the first time,” she declared, “I was ever in a house where there’d been a murder. I can’t say I like it.”

Marcia agreed heartily.

“I wouldn’t have come for anybody but Dr. Blakie. Seems a shame, when he worked so hard over Mr. Godden, that his work was all wasted—oh, I beg your pardon—oh, I didn’t mean—I am so sorry—”

She was scarlet and stammering. Marcia said, “You were one of my husband’s nurses while he was at the hospital, were you not?”

“Yes. My name is Wurlitz. I was the nurse he had longest. I was with him when he left. Got him ready to leave.” She hesitated but went on, professional enthusiasm getting the better of tact: “It was a marvelous job. Dr. Blakie worked night and day to save him—just wouldn’t let him die. When you think how they brought him in! And there he was, four weeks later, going out under his own steam. I remember thinking, when I pulled the sock on over his bandaged foot, that except for the foot he was all right, nobody would ever dream how near he’d come to dying. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Blakie … and I never saw him work like that for anybody.” An inquisitive look came into her eyes. “He must think a lot of you.”