Yellow Room (13 page)

She went on. She had got soap and towels, and the girl took a bath and came down in a red kimono. She talked pleasantly, and she offered to pay Lucy five dollars to let her stay the night. Her railroad ticket back was for the next day. She had showed it. And with travel the way it was now she would have to stay somewhere.

Apparently she had won Lucy, although she refused the money “except for enough to get some food for her. All I had was what I’d brought for myself.”

She had gone to the village for some groceries, and she cooked a nice lunch and carried it up on a tray. The girl stayed in her room all afternoon. She thought she had slept. But when she carried up her supper the door to the yellow room was locked, and she wouldn’t open it until she told her who she was.

“She tried to laugh. She said it was just habit. She’d been staying in hotels. But I wasn’t comfortable after that, although she seemed to know the family all right. She asked about Mrs. Hilliard and Captain Spencer, and how Mrs. Spencer was. She’d asked for cigarettes and I brought her some, but she didn’t leave the room again, so far as I know.”

She had given Lucy the name of Barbour, Marguerite Barbour, and the initials on her bag were M.D.B. That seemed all right, and there wasn’t much in the house to steal anyway, Lucy said. Nevertheless, she was uneasy. She slept badly that night, and when it turned cold she had got up for an extra blanket. As the electric current had not been turned on she took a candle and went to the main linen closet, since the servants’ blankets had not yet been unpacked.

Her voice grew higher at this point, as she relived the terror of that night.

“I’d just got to the closet—the door was open an inch or so—when something reached out and knocked the candle out of my hand. I was too scared to move, and the next minute the closet door flew open and knocked me down. I—”

“Take a minute,” said the coroner kindly. “I know this is painful. Take your time, Mrs. Norton.”

She drew a long breath.

“That’s about all anyhow,” she said, more quietly. “When I got up I guess I was screaming. Anyhow I wanted to get out of the house. But it was black-dark, and that’s how I came to fall down the stairs.”

“Did anyone pass you after that happened?”

“I don’t know. I must have fainted. I don’t know how long I was out. I don’t remember anything until I heard the birds. That was at daylight.”

“When you came to, did you notice anything burning?”

“No, sir. There was nothing burning, or I’d have known it.”

They asked her very few questions. She had not really seen the hand that knocked over her candle. As to what ran over her after the door knocked her down, she didn’t remember any skirts. But who would, with dresses only to the knees anyhow, and women wearing slacks half the time?

They wheeled her out after that, and Carol was recalled. She knew no one named Barbour, certainly no Marguerite Barbour. And she had no idea who could have been using that name.

“You wouldn’t recognize the description of her clothing?”

“They are practically uniform for spring or summer. No, I don’t.”

“It is possible of course that she gave a name not her own. Would that help any?”

Carol shook her head.

“No one I know is missing,” she said. “I have no idea who she was, or why she wanted to see me.” She looked around the room. It was a sea of faces, curious, some of them skeptical, and not all of them friendly. She stiffened slightly. “If she was frightened to lock her door she was certainly not afraid of Lucy Norton. But she might have been afraid of someone else.”

“You are not accusing anybody?”

“Certainly not,” she said, her color rising. “I know nothing about this girl. I don’t even believe she came to see me. That was an excuse for some purpose of her own. But there may be someone who does know why she came. That’s all.”

They excused her then, and the coroner made a brief summary. It was hoped that the identity of the deceased would soon be established. She was evidently in good circumstances. The face powder she used had been analyzed and was of a fine quality. Her feet and hands had apparently been well cared for. And young women of that walk of life did not disappear easily. It was, of course, one of their difficulties that her purse as well as her clothing had not been found. They hoped to do that eventually, unless it had been destroyed, and all over the country authorities were trying to discover if a young woman of this description was missing.

In the meantime this inquest was an inquiry into the cause, whether it had been accidental, suicide or murder. He felt he should say here that it was considered impossible that she could have so injured herself, or—as had been suggested—that a cigarette could have caused the fire. However the jury had heard all the evidence, and must make its own decision.

And they did, without leaving the room. It was murder, by a person or persons unknown.

D
ANE HAD LEFT HIS
car in an alley some blocks away from the hall. He slipped away to it quietly as soon as the verdict was in, and sat thoughtfully smoking until Tim Murphy joined him, when he took a back road home.

“Well,” he said, “what did you think of it, Tim?”

“Phony,” said Tim, biting off a piece of cigar and lodging it in his cheek.

“The Norton woman’s story?”

“Sure. Look at her! She’s nobody’s easy mark. None of these New Englanders are, especially the women. So what? She gives the girl a room, she buys groceries for her, and she carries trays up to her. It doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” Dane said, still thoughtful. “She didn’t perjure herself, but she didn’t tell the whole story. Find anything on the hill this morning?”

“That’s the hell of a place to search. I picked up a bushel of burs. That’s all.”

Dane glanced at the sky.

“There’s one thing,” he said. “If this dry spell keeps on we may get a hint. It’s no weather to replant anything, and if you see some shrubbery wilting—Did you notice Miss Spencer’s sister, Mrs. Hilliard?”

“Who could help it?” said Tim, with appreciation. “Not so young, but a looker all right.”

“She’s supposed to have been seen here—or, rather, her car was—the night of the murder.”

Tim whistled.

“Think it’s true?” he inquired.

“I think it’s possible. She married Howard Hilliard. You know who he is. Money to burn. She’s not going to let anything interfere with that. Place at Newport, house at Palm Beach, apartment in New York, a yacht when there were such things. The whole bag of tricks.”

“I see. Think this dead girl was Hilliard’s mistress?”

“It’s possible. Only why come here?”

Tim spat over the side of the car.

“Well, you sure bought yourself a job,” he said philosophically. “You can have it. How long have I got to search that hill or push that lawn mower? I got blisters already.”

Dane did not reply at once. He was in uniform, and he ran his finger around the band of his collar as though it bothered him.

“We got one thing there,” he said. “The girl’s name, or the name she gave. Marguerite D. Barbour. The police will go all out on that. Me…” He hesitated. “The initials are probably right. They were on her bag. How about calling up your people in New York, Tim? If she spent a night there at a hotel she’s used those initials, but maybe another name.”

Tim demurred.

“Know how many hotels there are in New York?”

“You can get help. I’m paying for it.”

“It’s a damn good thing you don’t have to live on your service pay, whatever that is, or whatever your service is for that matter,” Tim said resignedly. “All right. My best men are gone, but I can cover this, I suppose.”

“Not from here. Drop me at the house and drive over to the railroad. There’s a booth in the station there.”

“What about dinner? I have to eat sometime.”

“Get it over there,” said Dane heartlessly. “I’ve never known you to starve yet. And listen, Tim. If you don’t pick up anything by midnight take the train yourself. I want to beat the police to it.”

“Why, for God’s sake?”

“Call it a hunch. Say I don’t trust this bunch up here. It’s a big case, and they’re likely to go off on a tangent that may damage innocent people.”

“Such as the Spencer girl?”

“She’s out of it,” Dane said dryly. “Go and get your toothbrush. Alex will take you over, and you can get a taxi back.”

He rested until dinner. He had found that he could still do only a certain amount before the old trouble asserted itself and Alex began to baby him again. It annoyed him that night to find his dinner coming up on a tray.

“Damn it,” he said irritably. “I can walk, can’t I? And where’s the coffee?”

“Drink the milk?” Alex said firmly. “Coffee keeps you awake, and you know it.”

“No word from Tim?”

“He’s probably eating a beefsteak somewhere.”

Dane smiled. The matter of ration points was a sore one with Alex. But he dutifully drank his milk, and as a result he was sound asleep when the fire started on the hill above Crestview.

Tim had telephoned. The only one of his assistants he had been able to locate had found nothing so far, and he was taking the night train to New York.

“On his hunch!” he told Alex with some bitterness. “And in an upper. I’ll do it, but I don’t have to like it, do I?”

The fire started late. Carol and Elinor had dined at the Wards’ that night. It was Elinor who accepted over the phone.

“If we bury ourselves it will make talk,” she told Carol. “There’s too much of it now, after that story of Lucy’s today.”

“Lucy isn’t a liar.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” said Elinor impatiently. “That’s the point. She
was
telling the truth. But now everybody knows that awful girl had some reason for coming here. She wasn’t using this house as a hotel.”

In the end Carol agreed. They walked over to the Wards’, using the gravel path that connected the two properties, and lifting their long skirts as they crossed the dusty lane. In the summer twilight they both looked young and lovely in their light dresses, Elinor’s hair piled high—with Freda’s assistance, of course—and Carol’s brushed back smoothly from her forehead. When they went in they found the colonel there, rather guiltily trying to hide a map.

Mrs. Ward put down her knitting and got up.

“How nice to see you,” she said, “and how beautiful you both look. How are you managing, Carol?”

Carol said she was getting along, but inwardly she was shocked. Mrs. Ward looked ill. She had changed since the preceding Monday when she had been at Crestview. So had Nathaniel, for all his smiling hospitality. Only the colonel seemed himself, defiantly hopeful, as though he were daring fate to deal him its ultimate blow.

No one mentioned the inquest, or that strange story of Lucy’s. Mrs. Ward had picked up her knitting again but her eyes were on Carol with an odd intentness.

“When do you expect Gregory?” she asked.

“We don’t know. I suppose he’s still in Washington or maybe New York. He may not come at all, of course. He’s going to be married. And the way things are now…”

Mrs. Ward inspected her work. Their grandson, Terry, had been flying in the South Pacific, and she was knitting socks for him.

“Even there their feet get cold, poor dears,” she said. “They fly so high, you know. How frightful this war is!”

The other three were talking together over their cocktails, and Mrs. Ward lowered her voice.

“I don’t think Gregory ought to come up, Carol,” she said. “After all, why should he? It will only spoil his leave. He has seen enough of death where he has been. I might as well tell you. Floyd was here today after the inquest.”

“Floyd? What did he want?”

“Just to know if we had seen or heard anything that Friday night. But he asked about Gregory.”

There was no mistake about it. Mrs. Ward’s veined old hands were shaking. She gave up all pretense of knitting.

“But that’s absurd,” Carol said stormily. “Greg was in Washington. Floyd’s crazy. He has only to use the telephone to learn that.”

Dinner was announced then, and they went out to the vast baronial hall that was the dining room. Carol’s color was still high, but Elinor was her usual self. She talked about Greg’s decoration, and his approaching marriage, and she inquired about Terry Ward, who it seemed was either on his way back on furlough or about to be.

Nevertheless there was constraint at the table. They ate the usual soup, fish and chicken, and there was the inevitable discussion of ration points and thin cream. But neither of the Wards ate much, and Carol was glad when the meal was over and old Nathaniel took Elinor out to his garden.

They left early, Elinor pleading fatigue after her journey, and Nathaniel seeing them home and then returning for what he called his nightly game of chess with the colonel.

“He can’t do much else,” he said. “His heart’s not too good. Fine fellow, the colonel. We’re very fond of him.”

He left them at the door, saying a rather abrupt good night, and turned back, his small figure almost immediately lost in the shadows. Carol had the feeling that he was relieved to get rid of them, and wondered why. It was not until they were inside the house that its possible meaning began to dawn on her. Elinor had started up the stairs when she stopped her.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Elinor, when Marcia saw your car that night was Greg in it?”

The hall was dark. She could not see Elinor’s face, but her sister turned and stared down at her.

“How often,” she said, “do I have to tell you Marcia did not see my car?”

“Have you seen Greg at all?”

“How could I? He’s been in Washington and New York. What’s the matter with you, Carol? If you start suspecting your own family—”

“It’s only because old Mr. Ward has insomnia,” Carol said, rather wildly. “He gets up and takes walks at night. And tonight Mrs. Ward said Greg oughtn’t to come here. She looked queer, too. Elinor, I can’t take much more. If you know anything, tell me. I won’t run to the police, but at least I’ll know where I am. Major Dane—”

“What about Major Dane?” Elinor said sharply.

“I don’t know. I think he’s Intelligence or something. I saw him at the inquest today. I don’t think he believed Lucy.”