Another Woman's House (20 page)

“She was afraid of the new investigation.”

“Yes—yes … But she wanted to clear you and me before she took the poison. She …” Alice's voice broke. “She asked me to forgive her. And she wrote those few lines and then could not go on. She reached for the poison. She said, ‘It's cyanide; it won't hurt.' I hadn't really believed her until then. I ran to her but she put it in her mouth and pushed me away. I tried to get it out of her mouth and she got to the door and pushed me back and then—then she …”

She flung her hands up over her face and sobbed. “I couldn't stop her, Richard! I couldn't do anything! There wasn't time!”

Richard looked again at the paper in his hand. He read the few words over and over and then looked up at Myra, “You were here, too?”

Myra shook her head. “I heard Mildred on the terrace. That is, I did not know that it was Mildred. But I came down …”

Alice said, “Richard, do you doubt me? Are you asking an outsider, Myra, whether or not I am telling you the truth?”

“Myra is not an outsider,” began Richard, and Alice said suddenly, “No. I realize that. She is in love with you. Isn't she, Richard?”

Richard's dark head jerked upward. He gave Alice a long, straight look. “We'll talk about that later, Alice. Just now …”

“No,” said Alice. “Now. If you love each other, I won't stand between you. I promise you that.”

Richard's face had no expression. Alice turned to Myra. “I was wrong when I talked to you before. I hadn't had time to think. It was a blow to discover that the thing I had feared was true …” She looked at Richard, who stood, watching her, his face still unfathomable and quiet. “I told Myra I had guessed you were in love. I talked to her. I asked her to give me a chance to … But now I see—after I've had time to think—that I was wrong.” She came to Myra, and stood so near that a faint fragrance of perfume rose in a small cloud between them. She said, “I was wrong, Myra. I had no right to come between you. I see it now.”

Her brown eyes were soft and shining with earnestness; her beautiful face was like a flower rising from the lacy folds of her pink dressing gown.

The great, paneled hall seemed suddenly cold and the huddle below Richard's coat too near them. Myra shivered a little and Richard saw it and said abruptly, “It's cold here. We'll go into the library. I'll build up the fire.”

He went on ahead of them and turned on lights. It was warmer there as if, Myra thought suddenly, the chill in the hall had a center, an uncomfortable focus from which they had removed themselves.

Richard put Mildred's letter on the table, laying an ashtray upon it for a paper weight, and went to the fireplace, and put on logs and kindling. He stirred the embers until the kindling began to smoke and then to blaze. The ash tray, green glass, enlarged Mildred's desperate, sprawling handwriting. Myra, staring down at it, could make out through the wavering glass, certain words—“killed Jack. He intended …”

The handwriting was big and sprawling, and looked hurriedly, wildly written. She turned away from it, appalled by the vision of Mildred it induced—hagridden by conscience, by remembered heartbreak and frenzy, and now by fear.

Alice was standing beside the ruby-red chair, her hands linked, her face pale and determined. Richard stood and looked down at the fire, and then turned and Alice said unexpectedly, “I meant what I said, Richard. If you want a divorce …”

Richard said directly, “Yes, I do, Alice. I meant to tell you later. But perhaps it is as well for us to understand each other.”

“Yes,” said Alice. “Yes …”

“About Jack Manders, I mean,” said Richard.

“Jack! But Mildred confessed …”

“That isn't what I meant,” said Richard slowly. “I didn't believe that you killed him. Wait—let me tell you, Alice. Whether or not you had killed him, I'd still have done everything I could to help you. If you shot him—I'm only saying if …”

“Go on,” said Alice. “Go on …”

“Well, then, if you killed him there had to be a motive. I never really liked Jack Manders. I never knew quite why. Certainly with other men he behaved as—they did. But there was a phoniness about him; it always seemed to me that he was on the make. I knew that he liked and wanted money. And I thought he had the capacity for being both stupid and ruthless.”

“You invited him here. You were his friend …”

“You invited him here, Alice,” said Richard slowly. “Often.”

Her small, beautiful face was white, she leaned forward. “Are you trying to tell me that you thought that I was having an—an affair with him?”

Richard said flatly: “I didn't know. I didn't think so. I'd never known you to lose your head over any man.”

“Richard, how can you take that tone! It was always you I loved. From the time we met. I was so young …”

“We were both young. We won't go into that. I did not know whether or not you were having an affair with Manders. …”

“I was not …” whispered Alice.

“… but if you were, and he had angered you, then I was afraid that you might have shot him …”

“No, no,” moaned Alice in a distraught way. “No …”

He looked at her for a moment, rather curiously, as if she were a stranger to him. Then he said gently, “You are now cleared, Alice. Mildred's confession will close the case. It will stop the new investigation. It will close the thing forever. From now on, Alice, nobody will think of you with anything but pity for your terrible and unjust conviction, and with respect for the way you have borne it. You do not need me any longer.”

The kindling crackled; flames shot upward. Alice's fingers dug into the red-satin upholstery. Her face was white and stony, like a perfectly chiseled marble mask. Her brown eyes went to Mildred's letter on the table below the green glass ash tray and then to Myra and her gaze had the stoniness, the frightening blankness that was in her small face. She looked back at Richard who was watching her, who had not moved. She said, “There are two of you. You are stronger than I. Is that why you built up the fire?”

“
Alice … !
” cried Myra.

She went on swiftly, panting. “One move from either of you and that letter would be gone in flames. Either of you can do it. I can't stop you. That—or a divorce. That's what you mean, isn't it? You can both say I murdered Mildred. You can say anything you like; everybody will believe you. They believed Webb …”

Myra, horrified, cried, “Alice, no! I'll tell the truth. I'll tell them exactly what I heard …” She turned to Richard. “I heard voices—I could not hear words. Mildred was hysterical—I heard her laugh. I heard them at the door, and it came open and I saw Alice trying to help her, trying to stop her … I saw it!”

Alice's clenched hands slowly relaxed.

Richard said, “You are wrong, Alice. Nobody is trying to blackmail you. Our own situation has nothing to do with this. We'll talk about divorce and a settlement later. …”

Someone was coming down the stairs. All of them heard it and looked and Sam came hurrying into view. He was in pajamas that were too big for him, Richard's, and a topcoat. His narrow sallow face was sharp with curiosity. “What is it … ?” he said. “I thought I heard somebody …”

He stopped, caught by their looks, their attitudes. In the short silence, away off toward the back of the house, a bell rang and rang. And then Richard went to the table and picked up Mildred's letter and gave it to Sam.

“She killed Jack.”

“
Mildred …
”

“She killed herself a few minutes ago. Her body's in there. She took poison. That's the doctor at the door. I'll let him in. …”

Sam was reading the letter again, his face waxen, like a yellow candle. The bell rang distantly in the pantry, and Richard started toward the door. Sam said, “You'll have to phone the Governor, too. The district attorney. You'll have to get the police. You women had better get dressed. They'll have to question all of us.”

“Yes,” said Alice. She moved toward the door, passing Myra so near that she could hear the light swish of her dressing gown. As Alice passed she lifted her eyes and met Myra's in a brief, yet curiously deliberate, glance. She went on into the hall.

The fire was burning brightly. Yet, quite suddenly the chill from the hall seemed to seep into the room.

Alice had been lying. All at once Myra knew it, as certainly as if Alice had admitted it.

Her soft, brown eyes were implacable with purpose. She had no intention of giving up her claims upon Richard; she only wanted him to believe so.

A
LICE'S SLENDER FIGURE WENT
on ahead, her dressing gown whispering softly. What, actually, did Alice intend to do?

Or rather, how did she intend to accomplish her aim: to dispose of Myra, somehow, some way, and reestablish herself in Richard's house? And in his heart?

And again Myra thought, her own heart sinking, that Alice was in the right. Her house—her husband.

She followed Alice slowly up the stairs. Below, at the end of the hall, the front door opened. Myra heard Richard's low voice, the doctor's shocked exclamations and the sharper, higher voice of Sam at the telephone. She could see Richard and the doctor, short, grizzled, bald from that angle, trotting beside Richard, swinging a shabby leather case. They reached the ivory-and-gold room and the door resisted a little, as if the thing that lay there held it against intrusion, demanding mutely the dignity of death.

There would be now no new investigation. Tim was safe, and Richard. Alice was cleared beyond all question. That much, at least, was settled.

But the situation between Richard and Alice and herself, Myra, was unchanged. Even if Richard was determined, even if whatever Alice planned to do failed, even if Richard's love for Myra was like a fortress, impregnable to approach of any kind, could Myra—
could
she—let him insist upon a divorce? There were glimpses certainly of a marriage which was not well-built. It would have been too easy for Myra to let herself build upon those glimpses.

And besides, suppose Alice's plan, whatever it was, succeeded!

Alice had turned to glance back curiously. “Why are you stopping?” she said. “What are they doing?”

“Nothing. The doctor has come. I think Sam is telephoning the Governor and the police …”

“Oh,” said Alice blankly. She put her hands up again to push back her hair. “Oh,” she said and went into her own room.

Myra went on. She aroused Aunt Cornelia; she aroused Tim. Rather she intended to arouse Aunt Cornelia. Actually Aunt Cornelia was sitting upright in bed, in an elegant white fur bed jacket, smoking nervously and pretending to read. She had heard voices, she explained, and listened while Myra told her.

“Mildred!” she said, her face old and bleak. “Mildred! I'm going to get up!”

“But the police …”

“That's why. No, no, don't wait to help me. I can manage. I'll ring for Barton to help me downstairs.”

But as Myra moved toward the door Aunt Cornelia said abruptly, “Wait, Myra. I think I have something to say to you. Come here.”

She went back to the bed and the old lady reached up to take her hand. Her touch was gentle, her old, deep-set eyes were very bright and compelling. She said directly, “You're in love with Richard. Aren't you, my dear?”

It was useless to deny it. Besides, there was no reason for denial. “Yes,” said Myra.

“That's why you are going to leave me?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. He loves you.” It was a statement, not a question. She waited a moment, her wise yet anxious gaze seeming to search Myra's. Then she said, “I'm going to meddle further. I'm going to tell you to do something which seems contrary to what I—so much older than you—ought to tell you. The things we call old-fashioned are new-fashioned, too, based on simple principles of right and wrong. But if you love Richard, fight for him.”

Her searching eyes, her forthright manner, and her long and tried love for Myra made it possible for Myra to reply as directly. “No,” she said, “I can't.”

“Because of Alice, of course.”

There was no need to reply. Aunt Cornelia said, “Yes. Alice. I have not seen much of Alice really. Richard brought her to me in England shortly after their”—her voice was a little dry—“after their whirlwind courtship and marriage. I saw her again when I came to America to get you, Myra. I stayed here for a couple of months, waiting for you to finish your school term. But I believe that under no circumstances could I know Alice,” said the old lady deliberately, “better than I knew her in the first fifteen minutes of our acquaintance. But that isn't the point. Myra, listen to me: Mildred has confessed—Alice is free and now fully exonerated. Richard was loyal to her, during her need, but now …”

“Perhaps he still loves her,” said Myra. “In his heart.”

“I see,” the old eyes delved mercilessly into her own. “I see. So you're going away. You'll leave them together. Let time and propinquity work. I should warn you that Alice is a very shrewd and a very—” again her tone was dry—“a very determined woman. Also very beautiful.”

“And she's his wife,” said Myra.

There was another short silence. Then the soft, withered yet strong old hand released her own abruptly. “I've taught you too well,” said Aunt Cornelia rather irritably. “All right. We'll say no more about it. Go and get dressed.”

Fight for him? thought Myra, hurrying to Tim's room. Cornelia Thorne Carmichael, with all her years and wisdom, knew as well as Myra that she could not fight Alice.

Tim was sound asleep and so was Willie, a black little shadow on the foot of his bed. Neither proposed to be wakened.

She had to shake Tim and call him and shake him. But when she told him, he was instantly awake and out of bed. “Have they called the police?”