Nothing Can Rescue Me (4 page)

“Sometimes I hardly know what to think; I'd rather think that than think other things! Since Thursday—” she cast a glance at her bewitched novel, and looked away from it again—“I have been dreadfully nervous at night. These doors are all so thick, and they fit so tight; I don't believe anybody would hear me if I did—make a noise.”

‘Don't let this joker undermine your morale. The thing was meant to scare you, you know; let's give our anthologist a bit of a disappointment. Why are you so marooned at night? Have you no bell?”

“No, I've never needed Louise in the night-time. I'm only too glad to get rid of her. You know what she's like—practically on top of me all day.”

“Er—what about Mason?”

“Tim has his own room—that little one that used to be Father's dressing-room, beyond the bath.”

Gamadge looked over his shoulder at a closed door in the east wall. “Why don't you and he keep the communicating doors open?”

“He likes them shut.”

“Let him forget what he likes,” said Gamadge indignantly. “I never heard such stuff.”

“It's on my account,” explained Mrs. Mason. “He doesn't like to disturb me. He gets up early, and sometimes he comes in late.”

“Tell him you wish to be disturbed, at least until you get to the bottom of this foolery. It's a damned shame that you should be left alone at night to scare yourself into fits.”

“I won't ask favours of him.” She seemed likely to burst into tears. “I have some pride left.”

Gamadge, rather perturbed, considered her in silence. He said at last: “I'll have a word with Mason.”

“No, Henry; I forbid you!” Her round eyes gleamed at him through tears. “I absolutely forbid you.”

“Well, I'm not sure that I don't think you're right. Much better to have Louise in with you than one of the suspects.” He patted her arm as she began to sob. “Now, please, Florrie! If we're to investigate; we must do it properly. If you want to find out who played this horrid game with you, you must go right at it like a policeman; leave no loopholes. That's the only way. Have Louise in with you at night.”

She dried her eyes. “All right, I will. I'm sorry, but it's all so miserable. I've done so much for them all. I give Sally her clothes—not my old ones, you know; I dress her. Susie Burt comes here whenever she likes, and I make her a little allowance for her rent in New York—fifty dollars a month. I settled a hundred thousand on Timothy when we married.”

“He's probably spent that long ago. You can't play polo and fly aeroplanes and travel de luxe for nothing.”

“Tim's given up lots of things. He's getting very economical.”

“Who's paying for that private golf course?”

“It's just in case we have to give up using the cars, Henry!” She added, as he smiled at her, “People must have a little fun.”

“You're mighty good to him, and I dare say to them all.”

“They don't know how good!” She looked suddenly like the more formidable Florence of the old days.

“They don't know, but they may guess.” He studied her for a moment, and then said briskly: “Now let's tackle this curious problem you've given me.” He crossed his knees, and turned the pages of Chapter Nine. “Who in the house does a neat job of typing, and also has a more than nodding acquaintance with literature?”

Her face clouded. “That's
it
. Nobody here types as well as Evelyn, and she knows more about books than any of them, even Glen Percy.”

“So far as you know. I must go into the matter myself, of course. Now as to why the thing was done. Malice, as your husband seems to insist? For if it's a joke it's a malicious one, and in fact it takes us into the field of morbid psychology; I mean that no balanced person runs the risk of losing favours present and to come by gratifying petty spite. I'm inclined to reject the theory of petty spite, anyway. It would merely have tried to make your book sound funny—much funnier than these quotations do. They're not funny at all. They're ominous.”

“They were meant to frighten me.”

“And that means hatred.”

“If anybody hated me,” said Mrs. Mason, her lip quivering, “I should know it.”

“People often don't know it; tragedy is full of people who didn't know it. Assume that you're right, though, and that nobody in your house deeply hates you; there must have been some reason for playing this game, and a good reason too. Was some other effect upon you intended? Was some other effect achieved?” As she was silent, he went on: “Did anybody suggest that a special person had the means and the ability to play the trick? Suggest, in fact, that Miss Evelyn Wing had been tampering with her own typescript?”

Mrs. Mason, looking very angry, tossed her head.

“Mason insisted that it was a practical joke, meant to humiliate you. Did
he
say it must have been done by Miss Wing?”

“I knew Evelyn Wing wouldn't do a thing like that—especially if it pointed right to herself!”

“But did you know it immediately? Were you shaken at first? Do be frank with me, Florrie.”

“Just at first I didn't know what to think.”

“And then you had the subtle notion that it all pointed too directly to her to have been done by herself. Did
you
have the notion?” He looked her at sceptically. “Do you trust her absolutely, Florence?”

She hesitated, and then said sombrely: “There's only one person I know that I can trust absolutely; but I trust Evelyn Wing better than to—”

“Who is the person that told you Evelyn Wing couldn't have done it?”

Mrs. Mason, rather flushed, said nothing.

“Well, at least we have a point or two for the record. Mason suggested that the trick had been played by Miss Wing, out of malice.”

“I'll never forgive him!”

“Mason, therefore, presumably wants to get rid of her.”

“It was so small of him!”

“We have been told that a favourite has no friends. Our second point is that some person—not Miss Wing—argued you out of the idea by showing you—what? That if Miss Wing were the guilty party she would have botched the job, misspelled words, interpolated something less literary? Convinced you, in fact, that the whole thing was a plot to eliminate your secretary.”

“I believe it was!”

“And what did you do about it? Or haven't you done anything yet?”

“I did do something, I can tell you! I made a new will.”

“Did you indeed?” Gamadge allowed a match to go out on its way to his cigarette.

“Yes, I did. But it's temporary—until we find out who put the things in my book.”

“Well, Florrie, you've been a trifle precipitate.”

“This last thing was the last straw. Henry! You don't know what I've had to put up with from people. I've been meaning to make a new will for ever so long.”

“When did you make the new one?”

“On Thursday afternoon.”

“Quick work!”

“I'd had time to see that last awful quotation, and hear what Tim had to say, and realize that it wasn't true. I had to do something. I should have burst if I hadn't made that will.”

“Did Bob Macloud draw this new will up for you?”

“No, he fussed so over the telephone that I just told him he needn't do anything for us ever again, and that I was through. When I think of the bills he sent in!”

“Bob's very discreet, Florrie,” said Gamadge, smiling.

“You can carry that kind of thing too far. I told him to destroy my other will, and I just drew up the new one myself. I know exactly how, and I got the telephone man and his assistant to witness it for me. They're very nice boys, local boys; I've known them since they used to bring berries around.”

“You know how to make wills, Florrie?”

“Yes, I do. I've had plenty of practice.”

“I suppose you made one after you were married.”

“Yes, I did. I left everything to Tim, and Bob Macloud fussed me and fussed me until I made another, a much more sensible one, about three years ago.”

“Poor Bob.”

“I'm quite willing to admit that it was more sensible. You know I haven't much to leave, Henry; only about five hundred thousand dollars. You know how our money's tied up?”

“You and Syl have the income.”

“Until one of us dies, and of course I shall die first. So I'll never have more to leave than this five hundred thousand, which—as I keep reminding Bob—is absolutely my own to do as I like with. I earned it myself!”

“Playing the market?” Gamadge smiled at her.

“Yes, and it was hard work, I can tell you! I read the financial pages every day, and I spent hours at my broker's, sitting in front of one of those blackboards, with a lot of men.”

“I bet you had a glorious time.”

“It was glorious to make the money, and have something to put in a will. I never can save much out of my income now, and I don't suppose that I'll ever be able to earn much that way again. Do you?”

Gamadge said he feared not.

“Well, as I say, I felt that this five hundred thousand was my own; so about three years ago, when I made my new will, I did just as I chose in it. I left nice legacies to the servants, and annuities to Thomas and Louise, and a hundred thousand to my church in New York—dear Dr. Stokes-Burgess, I hope he'll be alive then to distribute it. He's quite a young man. It's the Church of SS. Gervase and Protase. And I left a hundred thousand to the Bethea Home for Destitute Children; Mother founded it, and I've always been interested in it. I wish I had enough to rebuild it entirely—it's dreadfully out of date, no laboratory. That left about two hundred and sixty thousand. I left twenty-five thousand apiece to Sally Deedes, Susie Burt, and Evelyn Wing. Tim was my residuary legatee; that meant a hundred and eighty-five thousand, more or less, my personal goods and chattels, and Underhill.”

“Underhill is yours, is it?”

“Oh, yes; didn't you know? It costs me a fortune, too, and Syl won't do anything, though he treats it as if it belonged to him too.”

“You brought him up to treat it that way.”

“Well, he ought to help me with the taxes and upkeep. My personal chattels don't amount to much—I never bought myself jewellery.”

“Didn't your father buy you jewellery?”

“Just a few things. He hated buying jewellery. He thought it was a poor investment, and I suppose I caught the idea from him. Well, Bob Macloud didn't make any fuss about the will I made three years ago.”

“It's not a bad will. But if Miss Wing knows what's in it, I'm not surprised that she keeps her temper when you lose yours.”

“She doesn't know anything about her legacy. Nobody knows about my wills. The only will they know anything about is that first one I made after I married; I told everybody I was leaving everything to Tim. Five hundred thousand didn't seem much for him—then.”

“No; I understand that.”

“But Bob Macloud fussed me about Susie Burt and Sally. I think it was very good of me to leave them as much as I left Evelyn. Susie didn't keep her temper when she was my secretary; I can tell you; and I told Sally frankly that I shouldn't leave her anything if I thought she would spend it all on Bill Deedes.”

Gamadge, remembering Bill Deedes's sweetness and fatal charm, groaned faintly. He murmured: “Poor Sally.”

“When she promised to divorce him, I put her down for twenty-five thousand, as I said. She doesn't know how much she's getting, though. And she doesn't know that when she finally did divorce Bill, I made up my mind to leave her fifty thousand.”

“Good.”

“So on Thursday, when I made my new will, I gave her fifty thousand, and I gave Susie fifty thousand. And,” said Mrs. Mason, looking at him defiantly, “I gave Tim fifty thousand, and I made Evelyn Wing my residuary legatee.”

Gamadge sat back and stared at her. Then he said with restraint: “Let me get this straight. The legacies to the servants, the church, and the Home, stand; Miss Burt, Sally Deedes, and your husband receive fifty thousand apiece; and your secretary gets—how much exactly?”

“It comes to about a hundred and ten thousand, I think, it and Underhill, and my personal belongings. Jewellery and stuff.”

“How much does the jewellery and stuff add up to?” Gamadge glanced around the delicately furnished room.

“My furs and silver and glass and china, and the furniture and things, and my poor little brooches and bracelets and rings are appraised at fifty thousand.”

“Low estimate, I think. Why Underhill to Miss Wing? Why not to Sylvanus?”

“He can buy it from Evelyn, if he wants it. He'll be rich enough to buy anything, when I die; don't forget that!”

“I'm not forgetting. Mason will fight, Florence.”

“They say it's very hard to break a will.” She added, rather pleadingly: “He never came back from Palm Beach when I had flu last winter; we came up here for Christmas, Syl and I, and had a party. And I couldn't get a nurse for two nights, and Evelyn sat up with me. It was so
small
of Tim to try to get rid of Evelyn!”

“Some people might not wonder at his trying to get rid of her. So you think he was the one that cooked up that business with the quotations.”

“Oh, Henry, I wish I didn't think so!”

“Well, my poor, dear girl, I'm awfully sorry.”

“Of course if you find out he didn't, I'll make another will.”

Gamadge smiled. “This one is just to shake at Mason if I don't clear him?”

“He doesn't know anything about it yet, but he knows I don't believe Evelyn put the things in my book.”

“And you telephoned Bob Macloud, and dictated this will to him on Thursday, and he cut up rough?”

“He was perfectly wild. Of course he doesn't know my reasons; he doesn't know about the things in the book, or what Evelyn means to me.”