Hasty Wedding (24 page)

“Elise,” said Sophie. “She would have a key.”

“Possibly,” said Wait. “I’ll have that checked. But it would prove nothing. Suppose she was here?”

“And suppose they quarreled,” said Jevan. “She and Drew, after Dorcas ran away. Suppose they quarreled because Elise was jealous or—which is as logical—because she was disappointed in his failure to persuade my wife, thus losing the money which could have made them both comfortable all their lives.”

Wait shook his head. “Not a strong enough motive. She might be jealous, yes; but there was no need for jealousy, since Mrs Locke refused Drew. She might have been disappointed but she wouldn’t have killed him from sheer disappointment. A murder,” said Wait, “is almost always done to remove an obstacle—an insupportable obstacle—to something somebody wants. An obstacle that can be removed no other way——”

“Most murders,” said Jevan, fighting for his life and for Dorcas’. “Most murders, but what about rage? Suppose she’d been drinking, there in the kitchen.”

A spark of light came into Wait’s eyes. “There was a glass,” he said “And a cigarette. Mrs Locke, I’ve asked this before. I repeat: Were you at any time in the kitchen of this apartment?”

“No,” said Dorcas out of a nightmare and was dimly surprised to hear her own voice speaking. And Jevan said quickly, seizing upon it: “You see, there’s proof someone was in the kitchen.”

“What exactly did you do when you arrived here, Locke?”

Jevan leaned tensely forward; a falling man clutching at a rope. “I knocked and no one answered. I suppose I knocked several times; there was no sound and I tried the door. It opened and there was a light and I looked in and saw—saw Drew. Over there beside the table. I didn’t think he was dead. Not then. I came into the room and shut the door and—and looked at him and realized he was dead and had been shot.”

“Where was the revolver?”

“Over there. On the floor beside the divan.”

“Out of his reach?”

“Altogether. I—I did think—that is, I——”

“You knew your wife had just gone, so you——”

“I saw three cigarette ends in an ash tray and they had red smudges like lipstick around them. I took those and later, on my way home, threw them out the car window. I saw two glasses and thought they might have been drinking and as I didn’t know which one Dorcas might have touched I wiped them both. I wiped the revolver and put it beside him and
——”

“And tried to put his fingerprints on it. Yes, I know. And you wiped the telephone and the doorknob and went away.”

“Yes.”

“Did you go into the kitchen?”

“No.”

“Where was Devany all this time?”

“Waiting for me. In his car. Downstairs——”

“You tell me, Devany,” cut in Wait. “You say you followed Mrs Locke and Drew here. Then you went to find Locke. You went——”

Willy’s thin hands twisted together. “I went to his house and he wasn’t there. I didn’t know what to do. I drove around and stopped at a drugstore and tried to telephone Drew’s apartment. I thought maybe I could get Dorcas on the telephone and could—could tell her to come away—could tell her about Elise—could do something. But no one answered. Then I went to the club and—you know the rest.”

“What did Locke mean by telling you it was his fight—when he left you in the car while he came up here?”

“I—don’t know,” stammered Willy and Sophie gave him an impatient look and said swiftly: “Only an expression of course. And as to that I wouldn’t blame Jevan if he did kill Ronald. A man’s got a right to protect his own—that is, he would have had a right to, except that, of course, he didn’t kill him.”

However well she meant it, it pointed to the weakness of their position. Any jury, hearing it, perhaps sympathizing secretly with Jevan, would nevertheless be forced to accede to his guilt. Dorcas saw it with cruel clearness and Wait said abruptly:

“Well, Devany, what then? What did you do?”

“Waited, of course,” said Willy, twisting his hands, and looked very worried. “It was about twenty minutes, maybe less, before Jevan came down. He got into the car and told me to get under way quick and told me what had happened. We went to my house and sat out in front and decided what to do: just keep mum and lie if we had to——”

“As you did,” said Wait.

Willy blinked. “Yes—well, I had to lie. You made me. I didn’t want to be arrested myself. I didn’t do it. Neither did Jevan. Or Dorcas.”

“How do you know?” said Wait quietly.

“Because I—I know them.”

“Look here, Devany, just why have you taken so active a hand in this thing?”

Willy’s face flushed a little. “You mean the notice in the paper tonight. And—and coming here and all. Well, it’s just as I told you. We—that is, Jevan and I didn’t want you to know about Elise—didn’t want anyone and especially Dorcas to know, for as Jevan said, sooner or later you would find some way to get the truth out of Dorcas and if she even knew of Elise you would take it to be a motive for her—Dorcas—wanting to murder Drew. Jevan said she’d be safer if she knew nothing of Elise. And then—after Marcus’ murder we thought, of course, that Elise had done it. So we were trying to find her and find out what she knew (for if, after all she hadn’t murdered Drew and convinced us she hadn’t, it would only make things worse for Dorcas if you knew about Elise). Jevan said the first thing to do was find Elise and talk to her. I thought of putting in the personal notice and did. It went like this …” He repeated it word for word. “I thought,” he added naively, “that she would think W meant Whipple and the whole thing meant money for her.”

“Nine o’clock. Why weren’t you here, then, when Mrs Locke got here?”

“Oh, that. Well, you see, somebody telephoned to my house and left a message from Jevan telling me to wait there for him and he might be late. So I waited and about nine, maybe a little after, he telephoned himself from the club where we’d originally agreed to meet. He said he hadn’t left any message and that he was coming straight here. I said I would come, too, and he told me to wait downstairs. And I—I did,” said Willy. “Till a couple of policemen came along and one of them recognized me and——”

“Who telephoned to your house the first time?”

“You mean who left the message, saying it was from Jevan? I don’t know. Haven’t any idea. No time to question the maid.”

“But you and Locke did not come here together tonight? Did not even see each other until the police brought you up here?”

“N-no,” said Willy. “That is, not since about noon.”

“And for all you know it was Locke who telephoned your house in order to keep you away until he had met Elise and shot her?”

“No. Certainly not.”

“You don’t know,” said Wait conclusively. “And you still haven’t answered my question. Why have you so devoted yourself to your friends? To the extravagant point of being involved yourself in the murder.”

“Involved,” cried Willy, starting up and subsiding as abruptly. “I’m not involved in this. I only wanted to help Jevan if I could. And—and Dorcas.”

Sophie’s dark eyes held a queer look of scrutiny and she said suddenly: “He’s always been in love with Dorcas, Mr Wait. Everybody’s known it but Dorcas. He—why, he’d have murdered Ronald himself if he thought Ronald had—threatened Dorcas in any way. Not that he did,” said Sophie. “But his efforts in Dorcas’ behalf are perfectly comprehensible.”

“Shut up, Sophie, for God’s sake,” cried Jevan. “I tell you, Wait, Willy’s only an—an innocent bystander. You must believe me.”

“Mrs Locke.” Wait addressed Dorcas very softly, as if the thing he was about to say were of the smallest and most trivial significance. He said as she met his eyes: “There’s a question you didn’t answer, too, Mrs Locke. Remember? I asked you why Drew was afraid of your mother.”

“Afraid——”

Jevan sprang to his feet.

“That’s perfectly obvious,” he cried. “You say that Marcus and Drew were conspirators—and perhaps they were. It sounds logical and true and the note—bears it out. Well then, if Drew said he was afraid of Dorcas’ mother the explanation is perfectly simple. He was afraid that her influence upon my wife would destroy Drew’s chances. Mrs Whipple was always against Drew and naturally he feared——”

“I expect that’s true,” said Wait. “Yes, I expect that’s true, Locke. And that being true, I—I’m afraid there’s only one thing I can do.” He got up quietly, with the neat economy of motion of a cat. He looked at the table below his outstretched fingers for a moment that was all at once as quiet as if every pulse in that white and mirrored room had stopped. Instinctively Dorcas knew he had reached a decision. Jevan knew it too. His chin went up to face it like a man facing a firing squad. Willy twisted in his chair and stopped as if the little squeak of the chair might influence adversely that decision. Even Sophie was like a black, neat statue beside Dorcas but her hand, still on Dorcas’ hand, held it rigidly.

Cary didn’t do it, thought Dorcas numbly. Her little frail mother. It wasn’t possible. But her heart was still and horribly heavy in her breast, as if laden with stones. And then Wait said quite gently: “I’m sorry, Locke.”

“You——”

“I’ve considered it. And every consideration I put up—you knock down. And the—considerations,” said Wait, clinging to the word, “were only tentative, an effort to see if any of them would bear the weight of investigation. But I did do that. I’ve been fair. But—my arrest has got to stand.”

There was an utterly still moment. Dorcas could not look at Jevan. But she heard him say, breaking that stillness:

“The glass in the kitchen, the cigarette, Elise——”

“Elise was shot—she may die.”

“But there are other things you haven’t touched. Other”—Jevan used the word too—“other considerations.”

“Such as what?”

“The—the attempts to steal Marcus’ reports.”

Wait’s eyebrows lifted. “Were there attempts to steal those reports? Only a picture, hanging crooked.”

“But the—the entrances into the house at night. The door—the——”

Again Wait’s eyebrows lifted.

“Nothing definite. Indeed, Locke, if those things mean anything they mean that you arranged them deliberately in an effort to indicate that someone outside was involved in the thing. I’ve never taken those frequently and conveniently opened doors and sundry presumable evidences of an intruder prowling about the house very seriously. There’s always been something—well, something phony about it.”

“But the door was left open,” insisted Jevan, clinging desperately to a fighting chance. “Someone could have entered the house——”

Wait shook his head. “Phony,” he said. “It happened too much. It was too obvious. It didn’t,” said Wait simply, “smell right…I’m sorry, Locke. But you were caught tonight redhanded. And you are both under arrest.”

“Both! You mean me——”

“If you are going to confess to save your wife, yes. But it’s my duty to arrest both of you. I—look here, Locke. I’m not a man saying this. I’m just a—voice doing what it’s here to do. There’ll be a trial and you have that chance.” He stopped. Willy muttered something and Sophie sighed and leaned back against the divan and Wait called out: “O’Brien. In here.”

The door flung itself open as if O’Brien and the others crowding behind him had read the meaning of that summons.

“I’m arresting Locke and his wife,” said Wait. “Take them to the station. Take them …” He hesitated and turned toward the door, saying over his shoulder, “Take them in my car. No need to get a patrol wagon.”

“Thanks, Wait,” said Jevan and came to Dorcas’ side. He took her hands and pulled her to her feet and put his arms around her. Warm and strong and gentle, and still he could not really protect her except in an unthinkable way. She clung to him, grateful for his nearness, overwhelmed by the cruel shock of recognizing futility. She knew she had not murdered Ronald, she knew by every deep-lying instinct in her that Jevan had not done it. Yet blindly, fatuously, they had walked into that net of evidence which now held them so securely there was no way out. Jevan’s arms held her tightly. He whispered: “Dorcas—don’t give up. The—the struggle hasn’t begun. We’ll get a good lawyer——”

She didn’t know what else he said, for O’Brien was beside them. “If you please, Mrs Locke.”

“You can’t take her. I’ve confessed. I do confess. I——”

Wait’s voice across the room was cool and grim: “Take them both, O’Brien.”

“Never mind, Dorcas. They can’t keep you long. They——”

“Hurry up, O’Brien.”

“If you please, Mrs Locke. This way, Locke. You’ll have to—”

Jevan’s protecting arms were gone. A policeman was at Dorcas’ elbow.

Willy was talking frantically, protesting. The mirrors and lights and voices were confusing. Sophie said harshly: “I’ll have to go back and tell Cary. Here, Dorcas, get your hat on straight. You look like the wrath of God.” She looked at Dorcas and from blind habit opened her black bag and glanced at her own haggard face in the little mirror and took out her lipstick. “I’ve got to go back and tell Cary,” she repeated, applying lipstick with hands that shook and as if she were quite unconscious of what she was doing. “We’ll get a good lawyer, Dorcas. We’ll—but what will I tell Cary? It’ll kill her.”

Wait had turned around and was watching Sophie. “Cary …” he said. “Cary.”

Later Dorcas remembered the curious way the policeman’s hand on her elbow seemed to stiffen. Then Wait went on, in exactly the same still, hushed way he had said, “Cary … Cary …”: “O’Brien. Go downstairs. Get Mrs Whipple on the telephone. I’ll talk to her down there.”

O’Brien said, “Yes sir,” very quickly and vanished. Wait looked at the remaining policemen and said: “Stay here. I’ll be back shortly. Locke and Mrs Locke are under arrest. You know that. Devany, will you stay here, please. You, too, Mrs Whipple.”

“What are you going to do?” demanded Jevan and Dorcas cried incoherently: “Not my mother. She knows nothing of this. She——”

Wait went out the door and one of the policemen said: “You heard his orders. Sit down if you want to. It won’t be long. But you’d better not talk,” he added hurriedly as Willy began to sputter unintelligibly about arrests and lawyers. He subsided, looking at Dorcas with worried eyes. Sophie closed her bag and touched her smart hat and sat erect on the edge of the sofa. And Dorcas met Jevan’s eyes and was held by a look in them so deeply sustaining that it was as if he had taken her hands and made her a promise of the greatest possible significance. Yet—there was no way out. And Wait had gone to telephone to Cary—little, frail Cary. Cary, who had always been sheltered; Cary, who must be sheltered.