Skeleton Key (31 page)

“Nothing—going on? You haven't—”

“I can't say anything about that.” He had caught her meaning, and the voice took on the patient inscrutable tone of an official. “I believe the Inspector expects to be in Grettry Road later this afternoon.”

That should be enough. After all, it was full daylight, and she had lost the sensation of being followed.

Grettry Road looked peaceful and quiet as ever. Georgine stood at the top and once more took one of her heavy breaths as if to work up courage for a plunge into chilly water. She passed the Clifton house, which seemed to be deserted, and swung round the curve toward the lot where Ricky Devlin's jeep had once stood.

Behind her a door closed, not loudly but with great firmness, and Ricky himself appeared, hurrying after her.

“You don't happen to know where she is, Mrs. Wyeth?” he said breathlessly. “I couldn't get near her before she left, and Mother hasn't given me a chance to ask her Dad. Maybe he wouldn't tell me anyhow. And I've got to see her, to say good-by.”

“Good-by?” Georgine repeated. It was ridiculous how the least hint of anything untoward brought her heart into her throat.

“I enlisted in the Navy this morning,” said Ricky.

“Ricky! You—” Georgine just saved herself from crying out, “You're too young.” She substituted, “How'd you manage it?”

“My father gave his consent,” the boy told her. Already he looked a shade more mature. “You have to have one parent say you can.”

“But your mother—how is she—”

“She kind of went to pieces,” Ricky said in a low voice, looking down. “But Dad said she'd—she'd always have him. He said he'd stay and take it. They've been—we've had kind of an upset in the family.”

She had to face the truth about the Las Vegas story
, thought Georgine.
She's known it all along, in her heart, but they made her realize it. And then John Devlin took the brunt of it so that his son could escape
.

He couldn't have simply—wanted Ricky out of the way?

“So you see I've got to find Claris. I called everybody named Frey that I could find in the 'phone book, and none of them was her grandmother. I've got to see her, Mrs. Wyeth! Is there any way you could find out?”

“Mrs. Carrie Tilton, on Gough Street,” Georgine murmured. The young face flamed with relief. “Gee, thanks,” Ricky said. “I can't help it if Mother is in bed with a nurse, I got to go over there and see Claris. Gee,
thanks
.”

“Wait a minute, Ricky. I'd like to ask an impertinent question. On the night of the blackout, you and Claris met in the canyon. She told me about it, and about the signal. Which of you put up his signal first?”

Ricky had gone crimson, but he did not drop his eyes. “She did,” he said.

“That's—thank you for telling me.” Georgine had changed her sentence hurriedly. No use in letting him know…

But he asked her directly. “What did Claris say?”

“She said she saw
your
signal, and answered it.”

“Funny,” Ricky said, frowning. Then his face gradually took on a queer expression, and he began to back away. “I'm sorry, I've got to go now. Thanks awfully, Mrs. Wyeth. I—good-by, I might not see you again.”

“Good luck, Ricky,” Georgine said slowly.

She watched the tall young figure going back into the Devlin house; then, herself frowning, she walked down the road. Quiet again now that the boy's voice was silent; more quiet than ever before, she thought, because two of those houses had been emptied by death.

Mr. Frey was gardening at the side of his house, but his back was to her and Georgine passed without his turning round. The sound of her feet was once more, as on a day two weeks before, the only break in the stillness.

It gave her the feeling of re-living a dream, to have Mrs. Blake open the door for her. There was a difference today, though. The woman's ebony calm had been shattered. She was half in tears, shaking with apprehension.

“The P'fessah's gone,” she said, white eyeballs starting. “He got took down to the police station this morning, Mis' Wyeth, and he hasn't come back. I'm afraid it was me that did it. I didn' know what I was sayin', when I told that police officah that the P'fessah hadn't nevah been in Mr. Hollister's house to any of the block meetings, nor anything.”

“What did that—” Georgine began, and stopped, the words all at once shaping into a tingling certainty. Everyone in the road had left prints there, Nelsing had said. But that meant the Professor's shouldn't have been there…

The quiet movements in Hollister's living-room, on the night of the blackout; the Professor's return to Grettry Road at an unspecified time, and his lack of obvious surprise when he learned that Hollister had worked for the Fenella Corporation—the smell of burning paper in the house when she went in to get a drink!

She was gazing at Mrs. Blake, and the African Queen gazed back fearfully. “He must have been here,” Georgine said aloud, to herself, “and heard the commotion over Hollister in the street, and jumped at the chance to get into his house and go through the desk while we were all occupied outside…”

Had he come back to the Road earlier yet, just before the sirens sounded? Had he guessed about Hollister the minute he realized that the telephone call had been false? Or had he been the one who knew all along that there'd be a blackout that night? It had been the chief point in his favor that he hadn't known… And there was that grave in his own back yard, and the laboratory where Mimi's body might have been hidden till nightfall…

“I don't know what he did, Mis' Wyeth,” said the African Queen, her voice trembling, “but my Lordy, the ruckus he raised when he found out that it was me told 'em! I'm mighty near scared to stay heah and cook his dinnah. He tol' me to, but—”

“Oh, please!” Georgine said, panic-stricken, “stay just a little while. I have only a few more pages to type and then I'll be finished. If you want to go, we could walk down together.”

The Queen didn't seem to have heard her. She blinked and mumbled to herself, and stalked off toward the kitchen. Georgine ran up the stairs and attacked the scattered papers on the desk. She hadn't seen them since Friday evening, since she had decided not to work on them, and had instead gone into the bathroom and looked down on an open grave.

She gave one convulsive shudder, and then forced herself not to think any more. One page carefully typed; the second page—be careful to get the carbons in right side up…

There. She had finished, except for that untidy page. She had earned her hundred dollars—probably, thought Georgine bitterly, at the expenditure of five times their worth in mental agony and shock. There were only a few more lines.

Downstairs the telephone rang, and she heard the velvety Negro voice murmuring like a bee. In another moment it was calling up the stair well. “Mis' Wyeth! They called me from the police station and the P'fessah's there yet and wants to have me come down and tell 'em some mo'. I've got to be goin'.”

“Wait!” Georgine shouted, frantically typing. “I'll be right down. Ten minutes can't make any difference!”

It was done. She scrambled the sheets together, ribbon copy and carbon and onionskin, and left the three neat stacks beside the covered typewriter. “If the Queen has walked out on me,” she told herself grimly, snatching her hat and coat, “I'll have her black hide. But I don't believe she's gone; I heard someone down there half a second ago, when I opened the room door.”

“Wait for me, Mrs. Blake,” she called, and came with flying feet down the stairs. She hadn't heard the front door close; maybe the Queen had gone out by the basement entrance, toward the canyon path. Down another flight, to the laboratory floor…

Georgine glanced, puzzled, up and down the cement-floored corridor. The door at the garden end stood ajar, but no majestic figure was visible through it. “She couldn't have disappeared like that in five seconds,” Georgine told herself, a faint uncomfortable chill running down her back. It couldn't be another case of Mimi? No, because there were sounds behind her, in the garage end of the hall. Of course Mrs. Blake was making her way through the garage.

She was about to call out once more, impatiently, when she paused, twitching her head around. The noise, a furtive sort of rattling, was coming not from the garage, but from the laboratory to her left —from an empty room.

The Queen couldn't be in there.

Lock the door—she snatched the key from the lock—and run!

Georgine whirled, poised for flight, measuring the distance to the rear door; and a voice spoke, with an uncanny hollow boom, from the niche under the laboratory sink.

“Could I interest you,” said the voice meekly, “in a Magnificent Combination Offer?”

She began to laugh, so hard that she had to hold onto the edge of the door. After a minute she staggered into the laboratory and let herself down on the high stool, still gripping the door-key. “Todd, you complete goon,” said Georgine faintly, “what are you doing under there?” The relief made her feel almost dizzy. Once that had passed, she felt that extraordinary sense of being at ease which seemed to accompany his presence. It was only Todd.

“Come out,” she said severely.

Mr. McKinnon emerged, absently dusting himself. “I feel very foolish,” he said.

“And look it,” Georgine said.

“Now they'll never let me be a detective,” he went on, sadly. “I told Nelsing I could keep an eye on you without you seeing me. It's easier outdoors, though.”

“It's been you? Following me around for two days?” He nodded. “Well, why in heaven's name haven't you wanted me to see you?”

McKinnon waited for a moment before he spoke, in his quietest tone. “I was afraid it might not reassure you.”

Georgine looked at the floor. Her lower lip folded over the upper.

“I'm not quite as insensitive as I make out,” he said. “And for the last few days I couldn't have helped seeing that you didn't feel safe with me.”

“I've been scared of my own shadow.” She looked up at him and laughed. “If I had suspected you, it would've been your own fault. Who made out the Case Against McKinnon? Who's the perfect type of Policeman's Little Helper?”

“Good for you,” Todd said, still with that remote twinkle. “Never overlook anyone. If you still feel that way, the door's ajar behind you, and I'll give you a fair start.”

“Oh, don't be silly. Wouldn't that be a bit ungrateful, when it was you protecting me, acting the faithful doormat? Did you stay outside my house all night?”

“Pretty much. I didn't think our murderer would make any more false moves, but there was always that chance. Nelse agreed with me that you might be in danger, but the force has been losing men to the Army, and he couldn't dig up anyone to guard you. So…”

“Well, it was awfully good of you. I still don't see quite why
you
had to take on the job.”

“Because,” said McKinnon in a clipped voice, “what happens to you is quite the most important thing in my life. Must I draw you a diagram to explain that?”

Georgine gazed at him wordlessly, while her heart performed some peculiar evolutions. She felt her temper beginning to spark like the fuse of a firecracker. “You make me tired, Todd McKinnon,” she said. “Why do you have to come out with this
now
, when it's—”

“When it's too late?” His face remained impassive. “I'm sorry about that. At least I've had the romantic pleasure of protecting you—from nothing.”

“I'm sorry you had to put yourself out,” Georgine snapped. “I suppose you think some specific person was after me?”

He nodded.

“Do you know who?”

“I think so.”

“Well, who was it?”

He hesitated. His eyes glinted sideways. “I wonder if we ought to be talking here. Where's—where are all the neighbors?”

Georgine considered. “There's nobody at all across the road, of course; and Hollister's house is empty, and so is the next one—unless Harry Gillespie's out of the hospital?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“The Professor's at the police station, and Mrs. Devlin is in bed, guarded by a trained nurse. I don't know about her husband.”

“On him I'll take a chance,” Todd said. “So we're all right. I hope you don't mind if I go mysterious for a few minutes?” He perched on a corner of the table and fixed her with one of his intent glances. “Look at the pattern of the case. You were attacked because it was thought you might hold the key; Mimi was killed because she knew who was aware, beforehand, that there would be a blackout, and who could plan a little in advance. By the way, did you find out who put up the first signal?”

“Ricky said Claris did.”

“And she said he signaled first. See what that means? Somebody wanted those two kids out of the way, either to protect 'em or to keep 'em from barging in on the commission of the crime. That gives us another characteristic of the Nervous Murderer; he's smart enough to make adequate plans, and to conceal his guilt—up to a point; then he can't let well enough alone. All right, we have our type; then combine that with possible motive. It couldn't have been straightforward greed, nobody was the beneficiary of Hollister's will and no valuables were missing from his house. It might possibly have been jealousy, but the only really jealous person is Harry Gillespie and he doesn't fit the classification. You know why?”

Georgine nodded, “He's too simple and obvious, isn't he? And if he threatens to kill people, he does it straight out. Not nervous, I'd say.”

“That's it. As to the fanatic—I can't believe this is that kind of crime. The attacks have too much connected purpose. And if it were the Jehovah complex, a nice gal like this Mrs. Gillespie wouldn't have had to be put out of the way. Revenge? Well, the police have gone over Hollister's past fairly thoroughly, and they can't find that he'd done anything very bad—yet. Of course, there's always the chance that the Professor was getting in his revenge beforehand.”