Hanged for a Sheep (15 page)

If that were true, it would bar Ben Craig as a murderer. Because Cousin Ben was a man who considered, carefully. He looked before he leaped, and then he did not leap but moved forward cautiously. He was listening, now, with a smile to something the major was saying across the room, and seemed completely relaxed and comfortable. He looked as if he would prefer to husband all his resources, even to the extent of saying as little as possible. And yet he managed to remain entirely affable. Which was shrewd of him. He was, probably, a man shrewd even to the point of meanness, and she had already thought that murder was not the act of a shrewd man but of an unconsidering one—of a violent and emotional one. It was, Pam considered, difficult to imagine Ben Craig doing anything which required as much initiative as murder, and as much hotness of blood.

And if hotness of blood and violence were required, there was Bruce McClelland. He and Judy were a match in that—they were generous, emotional people. Bruce was shrewd enough in his way, probably. Pam knew him well enough to think that, and Jerry said he wrote well, which was a kind of shrewdness. And his newspapers thought well of him and gave him important jobs to do, and papers did not so put their faith in people who could not tell which side of the bread had butter on it. But there was no question of his initiative and little, Pam thought, that he could be violent if a cause arose. Probably he might kill, under the right circumstances. Had not there been such circumstances?

“I can't tell anything,” Pam said, to herself.

“Can't you, dearie?” Aunt Flora said, comfortably. “I must say you don't say much this afternoon, dearie. But I didn't know that it was because you had secrets.”

Pam was momentarily confused. Then she smiled, with only a little embarrassment, at Aunt Flora.

“Darling!” she said. “I must have been talking out loud again. I
did
think I'd given it up after—after that awful time. Because once, you know, I almost talked myself to death.”

Aunt Flora was very interested. She insisted that Pam tell her all about it, then and there. Pam did.
¹

1
. The story of Pam's almost fatal conversation with herself has been told in
Death on the Aisle
.

9

W
EDNESDAY

6:15
P.M. TO
T
HURSDAY
, 12:15
A.M.

The mood of the whole family had somehow changed during dinner, Pam thought as she undressed a little after 11 o'clock that night. When they were scattered through the drawing room, they had seemed to talk normally; it seemed that they had all, including whichever of them was hiding murder, forgotten Stephen Anthony's violent death in the adjoining room. The doors to the room were closed and Sand had not used it as a passage from the pantry, as he sometimes did, but had come and gone through the foyer. But it was always near and, under everything else, it had always been in Pam's mind. But there was nothing to indicate, before they sat down to dinner a little after 7:30, that it had been in the minds of the others.

It was hard to understand how then, almost as they sat down in the dining room, the atmosphere had changed. Perhaps it was the comparative darkness of the room, with only the table lighted by candle flames which twisted now and then with the movement of the air. Perhaps they felt the shadows behind them. Perhaps only one felt it first, and felt suddenly a fear which was conveyed, no one could tell how, to the rest. Perhaps it was merely that, when the pattern of casualness they had established in the drawing room was necessarily broken by the physical movements necessary to get them upstairs and regrouped around the long table, it was broken irretrievably and each mind fled back to fear.

Whatever the cause, the pattern of casualness—of sufficiently secure men and women talking idly in an atmosphere also secure—was not re-established after they moved to the dining room. At first they merely sat, each as if waiting for the conversation to resume. And then, while they were still waiting, it became hopeless. It seemed to Pam that she could almost hear the silence change from something merely accidental to something permanent and nerve stretching; could feel, almost physically, and in the air, the passing of the time when it was still possible for some one of them to speak casually into the time when anything said by anyone would of necessity be portentous.

It was Aunt Flora, characteristically, who broke the silence, which had endured through Sand's distribution of the soup and continued momentarily thereafter, with all of them looking at the plates as if they could not imagine what the plates held or how they came to be there.

“It was one of us, you know,” Aunt Flora said. Her tone held nothing except flat statement, but Pam, looking at her, thought that her face had somehow shrunk under its unvarying surface. Aunt Flora looked slowly down one side of the long table and up the other—looked at her sons and her grandsons, looked at Clem and Judy and included Pam herself in the stare which did not change. “One of us is a murderer.”

There was still no emphasis.

“Now, mother,” Ben Craig said, and seemed to decide that any possible addition would be inadequate. “Now mother.”

His mother waited rather obviously for him to say something more. He said nothing more.

“Can't deny it, can we?” she said. “You can't deny it, can you, dearie?” The last was specifically to Ben. “Somebody here killed him. And fed me arsenic.”

“Don't be ghoulish, grandmother,” Chris Buddie said. Pam could feel him trying to regain the crisp mockery that was his manner. Aunt Flora looked at him.

“Ghoulish?” she repeated. “Don't be a fool, dearie.” She dropped him and looked around the table again.

“Well,” she said, “why doesn't one of you speak up? Eh? Tell the truth and shame the devil. Alden?”

The major had, apparently without knowing it, started to eat his soup. His spoon clattered as he put it down. He met his mother's eyes and for a moment their gazes held.

“Drop it, mother,” he said. “You'll not get anywhere. Drop it, I say!”

After he had spoken, he continued to stare at her. It was as if commands were clashing between them, and then Pam realized that the major—miraculously she thought—was winning. It gave you a new idea of the major. It was Aunt Flora who broke the passage between them, suddenly looking down and taking up her spoon uncertainly. It was as if, suddenly, she had become afraid—afraid to look any longer at Major Alden Buddie, afraid to look at any of those around her. And Pam, watching the others, saw that each of them seemed similarly affected. It was as if each were embarrassed among the others, and afraid to catch the eyes of the others because of what might be in them, whether of guilt or accusation or, possibly, fear. It was as if each feared the dreadful embarrassment of finding disclosure in the eyes of one of the others. And after that no one spoke—literally, so far as Pam could remember, slipping on a” robe and going to a window to watch the snow—literally, after that, no one spoke. Or spoke only, as it became necessary, to Sand, or the maid, Alice, waiting on them silently. Even Sand, Pam thought, had been a little odd, but perhaps he had merely felt the strain so palpable around the table.

And after the meal had been finished, the family had melted away. Dr. Buddie and Chris had, Pam thought, left the house, going to their own apartments—the doctor's a few blocks up Park Avenue, Chris's in a shambling old building in one of the Forties. The others apparently had gone to their rooms and closed their doors after them, as Pam herself had done, and perhaps found in being alone some of the lifting of weight Pam herself had found.

Pam had found also the two cats, indignant at being so long deserted by the human society they prized. They had been all over her; Toughy had climbed to her shoulders, as he so often did to Jerry's. He crouched there now, looking out with her at the snow; now and then making the small sound of a cat asking attention. Pam reached up and stroked his head idly, and felt Ruffy tugging at the cord of her robe. It was snowing as hard as ever; snow was pouring down through the cones of light made by the street lamp opposite; snow was scratching faintly at the window. A car went along the street with snow thick in the beams of its headlights. It seemed to be groping.

Pam turned away and walked across to dump Toughy on the bed. He clung and was dislodged; he voiced mild protest and was diverted by the alarming vision of his own tail. He jumped at it and revolved madly, his tail swelling. Toughy was pretending to be greatly alarmed by this unknown which pursued him as he pursued it. Ruffy jumped up on the bed and regarded Toughy with evident disdain. She began to wash herself.

And then there was a tiny knocking at the door of the room—a secret knocking. Pam heard it and stiffened and she could feel her heart beat suddenly faster. She waited and did not move, and heard the knocking again. It was a little louder this time and gave the impression of urgency. Pam told herself, fearfully, that there was nothing to be afraid of and went closer to the door. But she did not move to open it.

“Who is it?” she said. “What do you want?”

The voice was low and secret, too—low and hurried and frightened.

“Harry,” the voice said. “Harry Perkins. I've got to tell you—”

Pam did not wait for him to finish. She recognized the voice and quickly drew the door toward her. But she let it stop against the toe of one foot after it was open only a little, and looked out. She could not have told why it seemed safer, but it did seem safer.

The light was dim in the hall. On each floor a small bulb burned throughout the night, and now only the small bulbs were lighted. But there was enough light for Pam to see that it was Harry Perkins. He stood very close to the door, as if he had been flattening himself against it.

The light fell on him from above and behind, so that it fell on his thin, disordered gray hair and his narrow, old shoulders. Somehow the light made him even thinner, and more frail than Pam remembered him—more frail and more helpless. His voice was thin, too, and he was trying to keep it low. But it had a penetrating sound, as if excitement lifted it in spite of Harry Perkins's efforts.

“I've got to tell you something,” Harry said. “I know—”

Then he broke off and looked back over his shoulder, and the light caught his thin, gray face. It was the face of a man utterly exhausted and desperately frightened.

“Did you hear anything?” he demanded, after a moment of listening. “I thought I heard something.”

“No,” Pam said. “Come in, Harry.”

Harry shook his head.

“Not here,” he said. “I think I heard something. They'll come after, me. I—”

While he talked he had thrust out his hand. There was a small package in it and his eyes told her to take the package. He moved it toward her urgently, and after a second she took it. The eyes thanked her. Then Harry stood for a moment listening.

“Maybe I was wrong,” he said. Now he was whispering. “Maybe there's nobody. But I can't take a chance. I've got to tell somebody.”

Pam was whispering too, she found.

“What, Harry?” she whispered. “What do you know?”

But Harry was listening again. His whole body concentrated on listening. The hand which had held the package motioned her to silence. She listened, too, and heard only Harry's hurried breathing.

“There's nobody,” she told him, her voice low. “Nobody. You'll be safer here, anyway. For what you want to tell me.”

Harry turned back to her, but there was still fear in his face. He leaned close.

“Upstairs,” he said. “They won't get me there. In my room?”

The last was a question. Will you come to my room, where we will be safe?

“But—” Pam began. But there was no use pointing out the obvious. Harry was not listening to her—he was merely listening. He has lived in the room a long time, Pam thought. It's the place he's safe in.

“All right,” she said. “You go on. I'll come.” It was drafty in the hall. “I'll put some clothes on and come,” she said. “You go on and wait for me.”

There's really no danger, Pam told herself. But if there is any, it is in the hall. In his room we can lock the door. I'll have to go to his room.

Because there was no doubt in her mind that Harry had something to tell her—something to tell someone. Bill had promised to leave a man in the house. But if he had left someone, the man he had left would be hard to find in the dark house, and while she searched Harry might slip away again. Because there could be no doubt that, whether he had reason or not, Harry Perkins was terrified.

The old man nodded to show he had heard her, and then in a moment he had slipped away. She could hear him going along the hall toward the foot of the next flight of stairs; she could imagine how he was going, creeping, close to the wall, looking around him wildly in the half light.

She closed the door and was conscious only as she started to take off the robe that she was holding something in her left hand. She put it down and zipped off the robe. She fumbled through the larger of her bags for sweater and skirt and pulled herself into them. Somewhere she had crepe-soled walking shoes, but there was no time to look for them. Slippers would do. She had caught from the old man at the door some of his desperate urgency.

The cats stared at her. When she went to the door and through it, they tried to follow her. But she pushed them back and pulled the door closed behind her. The hall was empty now, and silent; it was dim and cold. She was shivering, partly from cold.

She looked back over her shoulder, as the old man must have done, when she went toward the stairs leading up. There was nothing—nothing but shadows and emptiness. She went up the wide stairs, still looking back and along the hall above. She was halfway to the last flight leading to the top floor when she heard an odd, scuffling sound. It came from above, and was beyond description. It was a sound of something rubbing against something else; a soft sound, as of cloth rubbing. For a moment she stood still, gripping the rail that ran along the side of the stair well. It was above her head—almost directly above her head.