Escape the Night (26 page)

Sutton, too, closed her eyes with a gentle but trembling hand. So then Amanda looked secretive—very beautiful but very secretive. And Serena thought with that great shock of uncommunicativeness that death brings, of all the things she wanted to say to Amanda. So many things, and so many ways, it suddenly seemed to her, in which she might have bridged the gap between the woman who had been her sister and the woman who was a stranger.

It was too late to do anything for Amanda. Sutton had said that. He had run toward her—and Amanda—through that lane of light, his shadow before him.

Amanda would have told them what had happened. Amanda would have told them who had sprung at her like that, knife in hand, from the shadows of the patio.

Knife? she thought sharply. Why, yes, she’d seen that, too. It had looked terrible and strange, the handle showing against Amanda’s thin, light negligee, between her shoulders before Sutton turned her. There’d been a dark wet patch around it. Knife …

They were at the telephone. She and Sutton. In the long living room with the lights all turned on, and Sutton, in his blue pajamas, jiggling the hook and shouting incoherently into the telephone. He wanted the police. Of course. The police.

Because Amanda was murdered.

Nothing seemed strange because the monstrous strangeness of Amanda—lying in undisturbed beauty at the foot of the stairs—dwarfed every other strangeness. So it didn’t seem strange to Serena to see Sutton getting a shotgun out of a cupboard; to see Modeste and then Ramon hurrying, half-dressed, into the room; to know somehow through that blankness that the two ranch hands who lived up at the Palfrey place were coming, that Jem and Dave were on their way. But she’d heard Sutton telephone to them all, hadn’t she? They were going to search the house and grounds and mountain road. They were going to search for Amanda’s murderer.

There were voices in the patio; footsteps through the house; lights. Dave came to her and put his hand on her wrist. Jem came and led her into Sutton’s study, a small, book-lined room with a couch; he told Modeste to stay with her. Later too, Pooky came and crawled up on the sofa close to her, and slept, snoring like a weary little old man.

She didn’t know how important Pooky had been in that dark and horrible thing the night had held until Jem told her.

Much later, after sounds of many voices, many cars—many footsteps along the verandas and in the patio—Ramon came in with coffee on a tray and Modeste made her drink it.

Dave came in again while she was drinking it. Again he put his hand on her wrist. He was white and drawn and unshaven; he thrust back the lock of black hair. “Let me see your eyes—here, look this way. Now that way …”

“Shall I get you some coffee, Doctor?” asked Modeste.

He was looking down at Serena. “What? Oh, yes; that is, no. I’ve had some.” He reached toward the little silver tray and took two lumps of sugar and put them in Serena’s cup. “It’ll pick you up. Nothing like sugar …” The door opened and Jem came in again; this time it was Jem, near and close and natural, not a white, strange figure blurred by an encircling blankness.

Dave turned to him. “She’s all right. Shock, of course. But she’s all right, really; pulse okay.”

Jem stood looking down at Serena. “She can’t see the police.”

“She’s all right, but they can’t put her through that now. I’ll tell them.”

“Don’t let them question her …”

“I’ll see to it.” Dave put his hand for a moment on Serena’s shoulder and went away again.

Jem said: “Finish the coffee.”

She whispered: “Have they found …?”

He shook his head. “Nobody. They’ve searched everywhere. Everything … Nobody was around and, so far as I know, no clues …”

“The—knife …”

He knew that she had to know. “It was a kitchen knife. The kitchen door was unlocked. Anybody could have entered and taken it.”

Pooky turned over on his back and sighed and snored again. She glanced at him and said to Jem: “Pooky—was crying …”

He nodded. “He was tied. To one of the pillars. Quayle figures that’s why she came down into the patio. That it was a trap. The murderer thought she would hear the dog and come to investigate and it would give him”—Jem paused and seemed to draw a breath before he said—“his chance …”

Jem too had once loved the Amanda they both had known. She put up her hand toward him and he took it.

He was still there when Alice Lanier arrived. She came in quietly, her red hair pulled up high, faint purple marks below her eyes.

“I’ll stay with her,” she said to Jem. He went away and Alice sat in Sutton’s desk chair. Pretending to smoke, pretending not to listen for sounds from the patio.

Once she put her red head down in her hands. “I was furious with Amanda about Bill. I love him. But I had to divorce him … I was furious at him, too. But I wouldn’t have had Amanda”—her voice died to a whisper—“murdered!” Her head jerked upward.
“Sissy, who killed her?
Who
could
have done it?”

She didn’t expect an answer. Her green eyes were feverishly bright. She said: “Bill loves me. Really. Do you remember when he came into the room last night and came to me and kissed me? Do you know what he said? He said, ‘Shut up. Don’t say a word about Leda.’ Just like that. He loves me.” She lighted another cigarette with shaking white hands. “Not that I had anything to tell anybody! I don’t know who killed Leda.”

A door banged somewhere; the telephone rang and was answered. Alice got up, left the room, came back. She looked at Serena doubtfully. “Do you feel like getting dressed? They’ve—taken her away, you know. The police are in the living room.…”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

Alice walked beside her, her high heels clicking.

The patio was blazing with sunlight. A car outside cut off the view from the arched doorway and men’s voices came from the other side of the wall. Nothing now lay at the foot of the stairway that led to her room.

Alice went into the bathroom and turned on the water. The scent of rose geranium wafted out of it, and Alice’s voice: “Leda and Amanda had had a row, you know. Did Amanda tell you? Leda thought Amanda was leading Johnny on. She—well, she would listen at the extension and follow Johnny and all that …” Alice came to the door and stood there, her hair flaming against the whiteness of the bathroom beyond. “I told Leda not to be silly; by that time I knew just how much Amanda meant. She’d done that with Bill. But Leda …” she paused, green eyes bright and excited in her paper-white face. “Leda told me that they met—Johnny and Amanda—at Casa Madrone. I suppose that’s how she knew that the back door was unlocked. Probably they didn’t meet there more than once or twice, and then it wasn’t anything for Leda to get upset about. But you know how Leda” was. And Amanda”—she paused and thought and said—“Amanda was very childish in some ways. She was so—so indiscreet and daring and yet—well, childish. She couldn’t seem to see that other people took her flirtations seriously. I did. Until I knew better; and by that time I’d divorced Bill. And Leda did.”

Serena said slowly: “Yet they were friends.”

Alice shrugged: “Of course! We—why, we’ve always been friends! All of us!” It was as if that settled it. She disappeared, turned off the water and came back. “But Leda telephoned to me the morning after Luisa Condit was killed. She was very pleased and said she’d finally got the upper hand of Amanda. She didn’t tell me how; and Leda was always getting excited about something so I didn’t ask. Bill told me yesterday about the bracelet. I knew that it was new when I saw Amanda wear it. It must be the Cartier bracelet. I wonder what happened to it. It’s queer too, Sissy … Amanda never really liked jewelry very much. I don’t think she’d ever buy a bracelet for herself, even if she had the money. And I can’t think of anybody who’d buy it for her. Least of all Leda. The bath water’s ready.”

When Serena came out, Alice was standing at the window, her slender figure tense. “Johnny Blagden’s just come,” she said over her shoulder. “Somebody came with him. It looked like that detective—Lossey. They went into the house. A whole car full of reporters, I think, came while you were in the bathroom. Anderson went and talked to them and they finally went away.” She dropped the curtain and came back. She’d put out clothes for Serena—a white skirt and sweater and blue jacket. She made Serena sit down, and she brushed her hair and helped her dress.

“Leda said ‘something’ was going to happen,” said Serena.

Alice looked at her sharply. “Yes, she said that to me, too. But I don’t think she meant anything—like this, I mean. I think she was only letting herself go about Johnny. You know—threatening.” Alice’s lips tightened. “Neither of us could really cope with Amanda. We both took it too hard; we ought to have laughed. Powder your face, Sissy. Put on some lipstick. You’ll feel better.”

It was Alice, too, who went to the door when Captain Quayle and Lieutenant Anderson came.

“I’m sorry,” said Captain Quayle. He looked tired and very grave; his blue eyes were direct and intelligent. “I’m afraid we’ll have to question you now, Miss March.” He glanced past her, saw Alice and added: “Suppose we go down into the patio.”

There was a bench there, in the bright, warm sunlight. Quayle sat beside her, Anderson stood. Quayle said quietly: “Just tell me everything that happened last night, Miss March. You can make an official statement later.”

She wondered suddenly if there were a trap of some kind in that; and that led her to another thought which until then had not occurred to her.
Did they think she had killed Amanda?
For the first time she remembered what Sutton had cried into the shocked horror of the night. “Serena, what have you done!”

She said in a flat, queer tone: “I didn’t do it.”

“Now, now, Miss March …”

“Oh, I’m not going to—be hysterical. But I didn’t …”

Quayle interrupted: “Now just tell me what happened. Take your time.”

She thought for what seemed a very long time and really thought nothing except that the small shadows in the patio were blue and sharp. “Pooky cried,” she began then, slowly. Somehow she told it; the starlight, Amanda, the knife and the wet, dark patch on her light silk negligee. Sutton and the stream of light. The telephone.

Quayle questioned her. “Did you touch the knife?”

“No.”

“Had you heard anything besides the dog? The sound of a car—anything like that?”

“No.”

“Mr. Condit says when he opened the door you were bending over the body.”

“Yes, I—I must have been.”

“You and your sister, Miss March, had a very sharp difference of opinion yesterday. About money. Did you quarrel—later, I mean, after I had gone?”

“We talked. We didn’t exactly quarrel.”

“Tell me, as nearly as you can remember, what was said.”

She did; slowly yet automatically, like a machine set in motion.

It was not easy; and somehow she remembered not to tell him of what Amanda had said of Jem. She couldn’t, then, think and analyze; she could only skirt around anything that instinct labeled dangerous.

There was a long silence. Somewhere in the house a man’s voice rose and abruptly subsided to a mumble of several voices. Quayle said finally: “Will you tell me, please, the circumstances under which you found the bullet hole—over there …” His bare head jerked toward the flight of steps behind them.

Jem must have told him. She explained that, too, remembering it across an abyss, a dark and dreadful gap between yesterday and today. When she’d finished, Quayle glanced at Anderson. “Get Condit,” he said, “and Blagden.”

She watched Anderson cross the patio. He went into the house and in a moment reappeared. Johnny, all color gone from his round face and great hollows under his eyes, followed him. “Hello, Serena,” he said, and passed his hand nervously over his bald head. “Hello, Quayle.”

Jem came, too, and Sutton. Jem crossed the patio quickly. “Do you mind …” he said to Quayle.

“That’s all right, Daly. You can stay.” Slader appeared in the doorway too and Quayle beckoned to him. Johnny pulled up one of the ornamental, wrought-iron chairs and sat down. Sutton did likewise; he glanced at her as he did so but said nothing. He was very pale and his eyes were red-rimmed and hollow. He had dressed too—in brown slacks and tweed jacket and, again, a yellow scarf. He got out a cigarette, blinking nervously in the sun. And Quayle said quietly: “Mr. Blagden, you were Mrs. Condit’s lawyer.”

Johnny passed his hand over his bald head again, nervously. “Yes. You know that.”

“You were on—very good terms with Mrs. Condit.”

Sutton stared at the path and did not move.

Johnny said: “Well—yes.”

Quayle’s blue eyes were very direct. “Did she take you into her confidence about financial matters?”

“I—well, yes. I suppose so.”

“Mr. Blagden,” Quayle’s manner did not accuse; it was merely honest and direct. He said: “Your acquaintance with Mrs. Condit was something more than the usual client and lawyer relation, wasn’t it?”

Johnny’s round face did not change. “I don’t like your word relation. I—was a very good friend of Amanda’s, but that was all there was to it. Sutton knows this; we’ve been talking. He knows all about it. I was a fool. My wife—Leda—objected. But I—I did meet Amanda occasionally; once or twice at Sissy’s house. That was why Amanda left the door unlocked. Or, before gas rationing, at some place along the coast. Amanda was—was daring. She liked the adventure of it. But that was all.”

There was a short silence. Then Quayle said quietly: “I believe you, Mr. Blagden. But I wish you had told …” he checked himself and glanced at Anderson. And nodded once. Anderson pulled something from his pocket. With a rather awkward gesture he laid it on the white bench beside Serena, where it blazed like a live thing in the sunlight, for it was Amanda’s bracelet.

The sight of it was as sharp and stinging as iodine in a wound. Quayle said: “Guess you’d better tell us, Mr. Condit.”

Sutton, staring at the glittering bracelet, swallowed hard. “Yes. Yes, I suppose so.”

“We found it hidden in the radio in your room. You did take it, didn’t you?”

“I—yes.”

“Why?”