Wall (34 page)

Why did I go? I hardly know. Certainly he had told all he knew at the trial. But I was grasping at straws just then; and I wondered, too, how he was getting along, this elderly man who had lost both wife and child, and had been crippled himself by Allen’s car.

On that one point I was reassured at once. There was nothing impoverished about the apartment building when I found it, a plain old red brick house, past its grandeur and now made into flats. Nor was anything further from my preconception of Samuel Dunne than the rotund little man who, after some delay, answered the bell on the top floor. Answered it after an odd fashion too, for he did not throw open the door. He opened it a foot or so, squeezed through and closed it carefully behind him. I saw that he was very lame in one leg.

“I’m sorry,” he said, blinking in the light. “We’ve started.”

I had not the remotest idea what he meant.

“I don’t want to disturb you, Mr. Dunne. Can I talk to you? Just a few minutes.”

He could see me better then. He looked surprised, and he smiled a little.

“I’m sorry, miss,” he said. “I thought you’d come for something else. If it’s work you want done I can take your name and come to see you.”

“I can talk here. It’s not about work.”

He looked embarrassed and rather puzzled.

“I’d be glad to talk to you,” he said, “but you see we’ve started. They’ll be needing me.” He saw my face and smiled again. “It’s a séance,” he explained. “Just a small circle of friends. I have lost my wife and a daughter, and now and then I get messages. Nothing important, but it’s a comfort.”

I liked him, and clearly his messages, wherever they came from, had helped him. He looked quite cheerful, if a trifle abashed.

“Maybe you don’t believe in such things,” he said. “That’s because you don’t know. Most people don’t know.”

I made a quick decision.

“I might learn,” I said. “Is your sitting private, or could I join it?”

He looked doubtful. Then he opened the door an inch or so, looked in, and closed it again.

“It would be all right, I guess. Nothing has really commenced.” He hesitated. “It’s customary to pay fifty cents,” he said sheepishly. “One of our neighbors is the medium, and it gives her a little something.”

I found a half dollar in my bag, and he pocketed it in businesslike fashion.

“Just go in quietly,’ he told me. “There’s a chair by the door. It’s pretty dark.”

It was dark. The only light was from a small red bulb in a corner, and I still have no idea who were in that room. There were, perhaps, a dozen people, sitting in silence, while in an armchair there seemed to be a woman, asleep and breathing stertorously. There was the odor of flowers in the air, and after some time I located them. They were on the floor in the center of the circle.

Mr. Dunne sat down beside me. The silence continued. Once a man sneezed, and there was a small stir of disapproval. Then Mr. Dunne spoke aloud, in a quiet voice.

“I’m afraid we’ve disturbed the vibrations,” he said. “Let us sing.”

He started a hymn, and the others joined in. It was a familiar one, and I found myself singing too. I had a quick thought of some of the people I knew, seeing me in that environment singing. Then the singing ceased and there was another silence. The woman in the chair was breathing normally now, and seemed to be sound asleep. Suddenly she stirred and sat up, I think with her eyes closed.

“Good evening, friends,” she said, in a heavy semimasculine voice.

“Good evening, doctor,” said the other shadowy figures; and Mr. Dunne leaned toward me.

“Her control,” he whispered. “He was a doctor down near the Bowery in the old days.”

“I am glad to see so many of you gathered here tonight,” the voice went on. “I hope the conditions are good. There is a new presence. If she is in accord—”

This seemed to be a question, and Mr. Dunne nudged me.

“I am in accord,” I said, as best I could.

“Then all is well,” said the voice. “Sam, Verna is here. She says not to take that new contract. There is something wrong about it. You will lose money.”

“Thank you, doctor,” said Mr. Dunne. “I wasn’t sure myself. Tell her I won’t take it.”

For a time Sam lost Verna. There were many other messages. A Martha was not to go south. A woman near me, who seemed to be holding a handkerchief to her eyes, was told that Jean was all right. “All right and very happy, mother.” It seemed to me trivial and more than a little shocking; made out of neighborhood stuff which anyone could know. There was apparently an Emily whom nobody knew. Then suddenly I heard my name.

“Marcia,” said the voice.

“I am here,” I managed, out of my utter surprise. “Do you want me?”

“There is a message for you. The trouble is not over. Do you understand that? It is not over. There is more trouble coming.”

I gasped. Mr. Dunne leaned over.

“Keep on talking,” he said. “Keep the vibrations going. Say something.”

“What sort of trouble?” I asked, my heart thumping. “We have had so much. Who is in danger?”

But there was no answer. The medium put her hand to her chest, gasped as though it hurt her, and then leaned back in her chair, and began the heavy breathing again. The séance was over.

I got out before the lights were turned on. It was customary, Mr. Dunne said, to give her a few minutes’ rest in the darkness first. He came with me into the hall, solicitous and anxious.

“I’m sorry about the trouble,” he said. “From what she said, you’ve had some already.”

“Yes,” I replied. “How—how did she know my name, Mr. Dunne?”

He smiled at me cheerily.

“They know everything,” he said. “Funny thing about that contract. But Verna knows. She’s a better businessman than I am, even now. You said you wanted to talk to me, didn’t you?”

But I was confused and uncomfortable.

“I’ve only recently heard of your accident,” I said. “I really came to see if you are getting along all right.”

“Fine,” he said cheerfully. “Mr. Page took good care of that, and I’ve got a little business of my own. The leg’s a nuisance, but you can get used to anything, you know.”

He shook hands with me and went briskly back into the room. The lights were on by that time, and there was considerable talking and even some laughter. Apparently one man had put his foot through his straw hat! But I went quickly down the stairs and out into the street.

I had been gone almost a week from Sunset. When I got back, William met me at the train and said the house had been quiet and that everyone was well. I had a bath and breakfast, and then went out onto the upper porch, where I lay back in my steamer chair while Maggie tucked blankets around me. It was magnificently cool, and for a time I was content merely to lie there, looking out over the water.

It was Maggie who, looking down at the beach, said that one of the crows was dead.

“Looks like it broke its neck,” she said. “I always did say they were bad luck.”

“One of them has already had it, I should say,” I observed idly.

It was comforting to be cool again, cool and clean, after the city. The sun shone on the bay, on the white sails of a yacht race beyond the islands, on motorboats and launches. There was no sign of Allen’s cruiser, but the
Sea Witch
was in the harbor and I knew that Howard Brooks was still about.

I tried not to think; to rest and watch the gulls, and forget that world where men were driven mad by women and ran down other women and killed them. I wanted to forget the Langdon Page who had been engaged to somebody named Emily Forrester and had gone crazy over Juliette. I tried not to see that picture of him, looking straight into the camera, as he left for the penitentiary.

I could not have been very successful. When the sheriff came to see me that same afternoon, he eyed me closely, his head tilted to one side.

“Humph!” he said. “Looking sort of washed out, aren’t you? Detective business sort of wearing on you, eh?”

“What do you mean by detective business?” I inquired unsuspectingly.

He sat down on the rail, which creaked under his weight.

“Listen, young lady,” he said. “Too many things are happening around here for me to run any risks with you. I telephoned down to New York when I learned you’d gone, and I know pretty much what you did. All except the library stunt. That’s got me puzzled. Looks as if you could get books enough around here without that.”

He knew that I had not gone to the library for books, but he did not say so. He gave me one of his searching glances and smiled.

“Not ready to talk yet?” he said. “All right. D’you mind if I look over that room upstairs again?”

“Everybody’s been over it, again and again. Besides, it’s been cleaned.”

He looked disappointed.

“Like mother, like child!” he said. “Why didn’t you leave it alone? Way it probably looks now, might be any room anywhere. What’s the sense of cleaning it anyhow. Nobody ever sees it.”

He went up, but he was there only a short time. When he came downstairs again he took a turn or two about the porch, his hands in his pockets, before he spoke at all.

“Trouble with a case like this,” he said, “there are too many leads and too few clues—if I know a clue when I see it, which I begin to doubt. There’s a reason for everything we’ve got. That’s sure. And we’ve got plenty of motive. Too much motive. Far as I can make out, quite a few folks on this island wanted Juliette Ransom out of the way. Fred’s not the only one. Take Lucy Hutchinson now. She’s not sure yet that Bob didn’t do it, although she’s beginning to doubt it. As for the others, what about this Pell fellow, for instance? He gets hurt. He’s carried to a hospital by somebody unknown, he gets well, and by the great horn spoon, he doesn’t come back. He’s got a five-thousand-dollar trailer here, and does he claim it? He does not.”

He went on. There were no actual clues, no prints, latent or otherwise, no bullets, no weapons unless the golf club was one, and its handle had been wiped clean. The lock to the toolshed had been broken by somebody, but by the time they got it three or four people had handled it. Jordan had put in a local call the night she was killed, but it could not be traced. But there was one thing they’d all overlooked, and as he said, he always came right back to it.

“That’s the hatchet you and Maggie found upstairs,” he said. “Your brother didn’t bring it; according to both you and that Maggie of yours, it was there before he came. It wasn’t bought in town either. So we have one of two guesses: either Juliette and the Jordan woman brought it, or it was carried in through the window. My guess is that the women brought it, and if we knew why they did it we’d know a lot more about this case. We’d know still more if we knew why, having brought it, they didn’t use it.”

“They may not have had a chance,” I told him. “Part of the time the rooms were locked and the key hidden in my room. Then when they did get in, they might not have had time. But there’s another thing to think of,” I added. “Whatever was there may have been gone.”

He grinned, for the first time.

“Got the makings of a good policeman, haven’t you?” he said. “Well, I’ll agree that there was probably something there, and that somebody made a darned good try to get it. We don’t know that he got it.” He turned his blue eyes on me. “If he got it,” he said, “who was it tore up those rooms of yours in New York?”

“Who told you about that?”

“You ought to know,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “You ought to know a lot of things. Understand you’ve got spiritualist on me!”

I could only look at him, and he chuckled. Then he sobered again.

“Now see here, Marcia,” he said, “we’ve got to have a showdown, sooner or later. What about this fellow Dunne? And why did you go to see him?” When I said nothing he made a gesture. “You can’t play with a man’s life,” he said gravely. “Things look pretty bad for Fred Martin. Arthur’s cleared, and there’s nobody else. But Allen Pell leaves the hospital and disappears. Why? Is he afraid of somebody? Or what is he hiding? And why? Isn’t it time you spoke up?”

But I could not answer him. All I could say was that I did not know, and a few minutes later I heard him slam out of the house and knew that he was both angry and suspicious.

I
T WAS THAT NIGHT
that Doctor Jamieson was killed.

I can write that now. Even a few weeks ago I could not. Perhaps the most tragic thing about death is that one gets used to it. The strangeness wears off; the empty place is gradually filled. There is a new man in the village already. He drives the doctor’s car, and I suppose he knows more modern medicine than Doctor Jamieson knew existed. He has installed a small laboratory in the room where the old doctor used to keep his fishing tackle and the rubber boots he wore for country cases; and already the people on the island are accepting him; as if there had been no murder, as if he had not stepped into a dead man’s shoes.

For it was murder. He was found by the side of the main road, his car drawn up beside the wall of the Pendexter place, as if he had stopped it there; and there was a bullet wound in his heart. The gun had been fired at close range; but there was no weapon in sight. He was slumped down in the seat, his body slightly turned to the left, as though he had been talking to someone. Indeed one arm hung down over the door, as if he had put out a hand too late. Or even as though he had been merely resting it, after his casual fashion, on the top of the door.

He was discovered at half past eight. It was the night of the masquerade ball at the club, given for the local charities, and dozens of cars must have passed him on their way to this dinner or that preceding it. As it turned out, it was Marjorie Pendexter and Howard Brooks who finally discovered him.

Howard was driving, and the car was only ten yards beyond their gate. Marjorie noticed it first. They had passed it by that time, but she tried to look back.

“Wasn’t that the doctor’s car?” she asked.

“Looked like it,” said Howard. “We’d better stop. He may be having engine trouble.”

They backed up and got out, two fantastic figures, Marjorie as the Queen of Sheba and Howard as a medieval knight in tin armor. Cars continued to pass them, but no one stopped. It was by the light of one of them that they saw he was in the driving seat.