Death Has a Small Voice (5 page)

Bill Weigand went up the flight of white steps to the white door, feeling that he should first have wiped his feet. He pressed a button and heard a bell ring. Then he waited. He rang again, and as he did so a prowl car came up to the curb, making little of itself, and Mullins got out. He looked at the house and said that he would be damned. He joined Bill at the door. Bill rang again and waited again. Nobody came to the white door.

“Nobody home,” Mullins said, after several more minutes.

Weigand agreed with him.

It stopped them, of course. It was one of those things, and one which happens as frequently to policemen as to others. You call on someone unexpectedly, and the someone is not at home. There is nothing further to do, no matter how a sense of the need for haste nags at your mind. You cannot break down a sedate white door, policeman or not. You can merely go away and try again later.

Acting Captain William Weigand and Sergeant Aloysius Mullins walked down the white stairway, which would just accommodate the two of them abreast. At the foot of it, a tall man awaited them politely. When they had reached the sidewalk, he went up the stairs. He rang the bell. Weigand and Mullins regarded him. They waited. He rang the bell several times.

“I'm afraid,” Weigand said, “that Miss Godwin is not at home.”

The tall man turned and looked down at Weigand and Sergeant Mullins. He was a handsome man in, perhaps, his middle forties. His features were regular, his chin firm; his skin had the freshness of the massaged. He wore a dark gray suit which fitted well across square shoulders; he carried a darker gray topcoat folded neatly over his left arm. He raised his eyebrows momentarily at the two below him. Then he smiled.

“An elusive young lady,” he said. “I gather you have already tried?”

“Right,” Weigand told him.

The tall man looked at the police car and back at Weigand and Mullins. He raised his eyebrows again, slightly. “The police?” he said. “Surely—?”

“Miss Godwin seems to have been robbed,” Weigand told him. “Burglarized, rather. By a sneak thief. We hope she'll be able to identify some of her property.”

The tall man came down the steps, shaking his head. He wore a homburg on his head. It became him. Seen closer, below the homburg, his hair was graying becomingly at the temples. He was very sorry to hear that Miss Godwin had been victimized.

“You wouldn't happen to know when Miss Godwin will be home?” Bill asked him.

He smiled and shook his head; he shrugged.

“Not our Hilda,” he said. “One never does, really. She's unpredictable, of course. She may have packed up and gone anywhere. She often does, you know.”

Bill Weigand shook his head, indicating that he didn't.

“But,” the tall man said, “you know who she is, surely?”

The name had meant nothing; it appeared it should have. So prompted, Bill began vaguely to remember. Hilda Godwin. Hilda Godwin.

“The writer,” the tall man said. “Perhaps we are inclined to over-estimate her fame. But still—” He waited. Making, Weigand thought, almost too evident an allowance for a policeman, he waited.

“I do remember,” Bill said. “The poet. They compared her to Millay—almost compared her to Millay. Several years ago, wasn't it?”

“About five,” the man said. “When she was twenty. Mrs. Parker also was mentioned, by way of comparison. I believe there was even, in some quarters, passing reference to Keats.” He smiled, the smile of maturity. “She has the further advantage of being beautiful,” he said. “It is always desirable for a poet to have beauty.”

He spoke well; it was evident he enjoyed it. His speech went well with the little house; it was less appropriate to the situation. Bill Weigand nodded, to indicate that he had heard.

“Have to try again,” he said. “If you should find her, Mr.—?”

“Wilson,” the tall man said. “Bernard Wilson.”

There was, it seemed to Bill Weigand, the faintest of implied suggestion that that name, also, might prove familiar. It did not.

“Wilson,” Bill said, finishing his sentence. “Will you ask her to get in touch with me? Acting Captain Weigand?” He paused, momentarily, realizing that even to the uninitiated the identification he had been about to add might seem strange. “Tenth precinct,” he said. “The West Twentieth Street station house. She'll find it listed.”

“Certainly,” Mr. Wilson said. “Although—she may be anywhere by now, as I said. California, Florida. The south of France.” He shook his head. “And I had stopped by to ask if I could give her tea,” he added. “Unpredictable, our Hilda.”

It was far from a stolen dictating machine.

“Well,” Bill said, “thanks.”

He led the way to the police car; Mullins went around it to get behind the wheel. When Bill was in the car, Mr. Wilson crossed the sidewalk and spoke.

“By the way,” he said. “What was the nature of the property you recovered? In case I should happen to find Hilda? She may merely be out to lunch, of course.”

“A Voice-Scriber,” Weigand said. “It's a—”

“I know,” Mr. Wilson said. He shook his head. “How young writers change,” he said. “I can remember—”

“Well, thanks,” Bill said again. Mullins started the car. They left Mr. Bernard Wilson on the sidewalk, with whatever it was he remembered.

IV

Tuesday, 4:10
P
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M
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to 7:20
P
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M
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After the first blow, she had not been hurt. Since she had been here, she had not been touched. She had only been locked in darkness. She had only, at intervals, faced the blinding light and heard the whisper behind her.

“Where?” the whisper had said; had said over and over. “Where is it? When you tell me, I'll let you go.”

It had always been the whisper, never the full voice. It had to be the same, or it had no meaning. Yet she could not prove it the same. A voice is recognized by its timbre and by its pitch; by gradations and phrasing. A whisper has no timbre; it may be pitched almost at will. A whisper has no body.

The one who whispered, who had to be the same man, was as disembodied as the sound. The light shone in her eyes in the black cubicle in which she was locked; the man who held the light was invisible behind it. Now the whisper seemed to come from the lips of a tall man; now from those of someone much shorter. But the light itself was held now high, now low. It might be that, to confuse her, the man, if he was tall, sometimes crouched: if short, sometimes stood on tiptoe. Perhaps, although she did not believe this, it was not always the same man.

It was time for him to come again, Pam thought. It must be time. Even that was better than this darkness …

She had wakened to the darkness, how long ago she could hardly guess. She had wakened, pain in her head, and had at first not known herself awake. Then she had thought herself blind, and had screamed. The light came on then for the first time. He had been waiting.

“Who are you?” the whisper behind the light said first. “Are you Mrs. North?”

“Yes,” she said. “Oh—yes! What's happened?”

“You were sent a record,” the whisper said. “You took it to your husband's office. To play it, of course. You remember that?”

She had not. But then she did.

“You killed her,” Pam said. “You—wait—you called her a snake. Then you killed her.”

“Who?” the whisper said. “You don't know, do you? You can't prove anything, can you?”

“I heard your voice,” Pam said. “Heard—the things you said. I'll know the voice.”

“Don't boast,” the whisper said. “I wouldn't boast. But—suppose you did? Without the record, suppose you did? There isn't anything else. Not now.”

“I—” Pam began, and then stopped. “You're right, of course. Why have you done this, then?”

“I didn't find the record,” the whispering man said. “The envelope, but not the record. The watchman came up too soon. Tell me where it is. When I get it, I'll let you go.”

Pam did not answer. It was a lie. She did not need to be told it was a lie.

“Where is it?” the whisper repeated.

“If you find it, you'll kill me,” Pam North said. “Why wouldn't you? As you did—whoever it was.”

“It's in your husband's office,” the whisper said. “You hid it there. Your husband won't be back until Friday. Nobody'll find it until then. I won't kill you if you tell me where it is.”

She said, “No,” to that. Then the light went out. Then the door closed as she jumped toward it; held against her. Then she heard a padlock snap.

That was the first time. Since then she had not jumped at the door. Held under the unflinching light, outlined in it, her least movement, the least tensing of her muscles, was as revealing to the man who held the light as words would have been if she had said, “I'm going to jump for the door, now.”

She was locked in a square room, the walls of rough boards. The room was about ten feet by ten; she could not tell how high it was. She could not reach a ceiling; jumping, she could not touch a ceiling. It was only after hours that she guessed what the room was. It was only after the night was gone that, looking up, she saw, far above, a curved line of light.

At first, this was meaningless. There was too little light to lessen the darkness; there was only this thin line, telling of light elsewhere; this part of a circle of light. The circle, she thought, would be perhaps three feet in diameter. About the diameter of—

But she could not think, at first. The pain still filled her head; the darkness was like a pressure on her body. Her mind would not work. She made it work. About three feet in diameter—a circle of three feet, more or less. An opening of that dimension, not quite closed, leading upward to light. Pam North shook her paining head. It was as if she were seeing, from below, one of the manhole covers one sees in city streets; one of the covers which, removed, let men down into a labyrinth of water mains and conduits and great sewers. But she was not—

She realized, then. She was in the coal bin of some building. The light above came around half the circumference of the badly fitting cover of the opening through which the bin was filled. Beyond the heavy board walls of the prison was the basement of the building, whatever it was, wherever it was.

The bin was empty of coal but, now realizing where she was, Pam felt the grittiness of coal under her feet. She stooped down and felt the floor, and felt the harshness of the coal dust. Unconsciously, she wiped her hand on the wool of her dress, and then, still instinctively, brushed at the fabric before she realized that she had been lying on the coal-blackened floor for an undeterminable time before she regained consciousness. I've ruined my dress, Pam North thought, inconsequentially; it was such a pretty dress …

It had been about two hours—she could not see her watch and so could only guess—after he came first that he came again. She heard him walking through the basement, and by the cadence of the footsteps knew it was a man. She heard his key in the padlock and faced the sound, tensing, and then the light was on her. The whisper came again.

“Well?”

Pam shook her head.

“Where is it?” the whisper said. “You'll tell me in the end, you know. I don't want to hurt you, but I can.”

She had known that. She had waited for him to say that. He was right, of course. He could hurt her until she told him what he wanted to know. But, until then—

Pam shook her head again.

“You're stubborn,” he whispered. “It won't do you any good. There's no need to be a fool.”

“No,” Pam said.

“Aren't you thirsty?” the whisperer asked. “I'd think you'd be thirsty.”

She was. She nodded.

“Well?” he said.

She shook her head.

He stepped back then, the light receding, holding her until the last moment. Then the door slammed shut and the lock clicked, and there was only the darkness—only the darkness and the thin, semi-circular edge of light above.

She had been conscious of growing thirst before, but not sharply conscious. Now the idea of water began to grow in her mind; now her mouth grew dry as if dry, hot air were being forced into it. Partly, she realized, this was due to suggestion—he had spoken of thirst and her mind, even her body, responded. She could go for hours yet before thirst was more than an inconvenience, several hours before hunger was added to thirst. So that was what he planned. Hunger and thirst—and darkness. Now the darkness was the worst. It wouldn't always be.

Somebody would come. Somebody always came.
Jerry
, Pam thought,
I'm here!
But where was here?

She thought, already they'll be looking for me. Martha will come and find I'm not there; she'll know because the cats won't be fed. And then Jerry'll—But no, Jerry's in San Francisco, not here. He won't even know, and Martha'll just think I've gone some place for the night. But won't she know I'd make some arrangement about the cats? Or that I'd leave her a note? Then won't she—?

She'll get hold of Bill, Pam thought. She knows Bill. And then hell start looking and—

But what good will it do? What will he have to go on? He'll find out I went to the office and Mr. Helder will remember taking me up. But Mr. Helder didn't see the man who hit me, or I wouldn't be here. He must have carried me down the stairs and through the lobby when Mr. Helder was somewhere else and then to a car, of course. Then he must be strong. Then—

It went round and round in her mind. It went faster and faster, until her own thoughts seemed to dizzy her and she sat down on the gritty floor and hugged her knees in her arms and then put her head on her knees and sat so, huddled, feeling that her mind had been running. And the dryness in her throat grew, and the dryness of her lips grew.