Nothing Can Rescue Me (6 page)

“Your cousin Florence has.”

“You said you never heard of me.”

“When you told me who you were I was immediately struck by the fact that you don't figure in her will.”

“Or in Cousin Sylvanus's will, either.” She calmly began to sew up the rent in the curtain.

“Some other financial arrangement?” asked Gamadge diffidently.

“I don't know why you're interested,” said Miss Hutter, “but there isn't any other financial arrangement. My side of the family always got along without Uncle Nahum's money, and so do I.”

“You still regard it as the late Nahum's money?”

“Yes, and so does everybody else. Cousin Florence and Cousin Syl just spend it.”

Gamadge said, raising his eyebrows, “Your attitude is unusual—in these times.”

“Our side of the family is kind of independent. I have enough money of my own to live on, and I have my salary.”

“I feel it a privilege to know you, I really do.”

Miss Hutter returned his amused look, and then said: “I was Cousin Florence's secretary and sort of housekeeper a good while ago—the first she had. Before she was married. It didn't work.”

“Didn't it?” asked Gamadge gravely. “Too bad.”

“We never had a fight. I like her, and I like Cousin Syl. I come here whenever I want to, and take walks and a nap. I guess the truth is Cousin Florence and I are too much alike. She wants her own way, and I don't like to be bossed. Besides, I wasn't the right person for the job. Cousin Florence needs somebody she can dress up, and show around, and play cards with.”

“Like Miss Susie Burt?”

“Susie Burt isn't cut out for a secretary.”

“Like Miss Evelyn Wing?”

“I guess Evelyn Wing is just about right for Cousin Florence.”

Gamadge produced Chapter Nine from his pocket. He said: “You may be the disinterested observer I've been hoping for. When were you here last, Miss Hutter?”

“Two weeks ago to-morrow; that Sunday it cleared up after lunch. I wasn't coming, and then I did come. Had a nice walk.”

“If you haven't been here since, you probably haven't heard about this tampering with Mrs. Mason's book.”

“What book?”

“She's writing a novel.”

For a moment Miss Hutter looked a trifle arch. Then she said: “I didn't know about it. How was it tampered with?”

“Somebody typed things into it at night, after Miss Wing finished work on it. Here you are; you'll find them for yourself. Begin at Page 83.”

She fastened off her thread, stuck the needle into the curtain, and took the script from him. By the way she travelled through it, Gamadge saw that she needed no help in seizing the facts. At last she looked up at him. “It's the craziest thing I ever heard of. When did it start?”

“Middle of last week, ended on Wednesday night; because on Thursday Florence decided that she'd had enough, and yesterday she made Syl get hold of me.”

“Are you a detective?” She looked at him with interest.

“No, just investigate things sometimes.”

“I should think she
would
have had enough of it by the time she saw this last quotation.”

“Thank Heaven somebody admits to knowing it is a quotation.”

“Of course it's a quotation. They all are. Who says they aren't?”

“Not even Miss Wing seems to have said they were.”

She frowned at him, and then at the script. “I don't know where they're from.”

“But you immediately knew them for literature. Don't you agree with me that any educated person ought to know that?”

Miss Hutter considered. Then she said, “Lots of people can't tell one kind of writing from another. This Demon thing—who wrote that?”

“Poe.”

“I can't place that poetry, either.”

“George Herbert—
A Paradox
.”

“The others sound like old plays.

“Of course they do, and they are from old plays. Ford and Marlowe.”

“I guess I'm like a lot of librarians they tell about—I know more names of books than what's in 'em.”

“Can you suggest why any person should distress Florence by putting these things into her book?”

She ruminated, and at last inquired: “Who was here those nights?”

“Sylvanus, Mason, Mrs. Deedes, Miss Burt, Miss Wing, and Mr. Percy.”

Again she pondered, turning the leaves of the script.

“There's something about it,” she said at last, “that looks worse than just spite work. But it might be spite work.”

“You think so?”

“Well—if you've known Cousin Florence all that long time you know a good deal about her, don't you?” She looked up at him.

“A good deal.”

“She likes all these people,” (and Gamadge knew that Corinne Hutter would never come nearer than that to the word “love”), “likes some of them ever so much. But anybody that gets on her nerves, or makes her mad, or even if she's just feeling mad herself at something else—she'll take it out on them. She'll say something mean.”

“How mean?”

“Pretty mean. She works herself up to thinking that they're out for what they can get, and that they're making fun of her behind her back.”

“Sylvanus isn't out for what he can get.”

“No, and I guess she trusts him more than any of them. And I don't think Glen Percy ever makes her mad, and she wouldn't say anything mean to him if he did. She can't get many young men to the house any more. Susie Burt doesn't go around with young ones much, and Evelyn Wing doesn't seem to have any.”

“But she takes it out of the others, does she?”

“Yes, and they don't go.”

“Poor devils, they don't.”

“They must feel pretty mean themselves, sometimes.”

“Mean enough to do that?” Gamadge indicated Chapter Nine.

“I wouldn't have said so.” She added: “I've heard her say things even to Cousin Sylvanus. When she didn't think he helped enough with the expenses, and when he fights with Cousin Tim Mason.”

“Does she go for the paragon—Miss Wing?”

“I don't think she does much. I don't think Evelyn Wing would stand it. But I did hear her say once that Evelyn Wing needn't dress up for Cousin Tim Mason, because she wasn't his type.”

“Heavens!” Gamadge winced.

“I know it sounds pretty bad, but Evelyn Wing had sense; she just lets things like that roll off her back.”

“If I were Miss Wing, and Florence said a thing like that to me, hanged if I wouldn't hit the ceiling. And if didn't hit the ceiling I might—” he put a forefinger on Chapter Nine, and looked at Corinne Hutter inquiringly.

She thought it over. At last she said: “I don't think she's the kind to do it; and even if she was, she'd do something else. This typing, and these quotations and everything—they point to her. She's too bright for that.”

Gamadge said in an admiring tone: “You don't miss much. How about somebody wanting them to point to her?”

Corinne Hutter took this suggestion without surprise; but while she reflected on it she protruded her lower lip. She said at last: “I don't see much of them; just passing sometimes, and in Cousin Florence's room when I drop in to see her. I don't see them the way I used to when I was here all the time. Evelyn Wing wasn't here then. I don't know how they feel about her.”

“They might be jealous, perhaps?”

“I don't know why they should. None of them can handle Cousin Florence, and they know it.”

“Mason can't?”

“I hardly know him. I like him, though; he's always pleasant.”

“This job—” Gamadge took back Chapter Nine, refolded it, and stowed it away again—“it's not a thing anybody could do—without help.”

“Susie Burt couldn't.”

“Could her friend Percy?”

“He reads a lot, anyway; he comes down to the library in Erasmus, and he sits with his feet up and reads for hours.”

“What does he find to read there that he couldn't find in the excellent gentleman's library here at Underhill?”

“We have a fine library at Erasmus,” said Miss Hutter, with some feeling. “It was a donation from some rich people that used to live there, and people give us their books. Somebody died in Bethea a few years ago and left us a thousand books, all old.”

“What does Percy take out?”

“French poets and novelists, Old English poetry; dictionaries, and
The Anatomy of Melancholy
. He read that all one summer.”

“Not for advertising copy, I am sure.”

Miss Hutter gratified him by laughing.

“Sally Deedes couldn't do it alone,” he went on, “but of course Miss Wing's her cousin. And poor Bill Deedes could have helped her, but I don't see him at it.”

“Besides, they're divorced now”

“So they are. Syl could do it, and Mason ought to be able to, unless he's forgotten that there's any printed matter outside of
Racing Form
. He went to a good school and university. And for all we know, somebody may have helped
him
.”

She said, as he rose, “It's perfectly terrible to think of Cousin Tim Mason doing such a thing. It's perfectly terrible anyway. Mrs. Deedes never did it.”

“Do you think she'd boggle at much, if she had an idea she'd be helping Bill?” He added, “Divorce or no divorce.”

“I don't know why this should help Mr. Deedes. He's going to marry a rich widow.”

“Well, we must confer about it again. You're invaluable to me, Miss Hutter.”

“I have got to get back to Erasmus this afternoon.”

“It's clouding over; don't miss your walk.”

She cast a glance at an enormous and shining magazine that lay on top of the others. “I want to finish a story, first. We don't take many periodicals at the library.”

As he reached the door the griffons came whiffing from under the bed. Gamadge, surprised at their emergence, remarked that they seemed to get around faster than the human eye could follow them.

“Just like lightning bugs,” agreed Miss Hutter. “You never know where they're going to turn up.” She admonished them: “Go down and get your lunch, now.” They galloped past him to make for the front stairs; Gamadge went after them, and descended to the second floor.

Sylvanus Hutter's large corner room communicated with one which had often been occupied by his young friends in times long past, and had been adapted to their muddy boots and casual ways. Now its serviceable drab-coloured curtains and rugs were replaced by fine chintz and broadloom, its Morris chairs and brass bedstead by rich old mahogany. Two charming oils of the Hudson River school graced the flowery walls, and yellow-glass ornaments, once relegated to the servants' quarters, had been recognized as period decoration and arranged respectfully on the mantelshelf.

Gamadge found that his things had been unpacked and put away. He washed up in the gleaming white bathroom, and then knocked at the communicating door. Receiving no answer, he went down to the library.

This was very much as it had always been; large and solemn, with tall and narrow windows framed in claret-coloured rep, a red Turkey carpet, and a huge black-marble mantelpiece. The old clock-and-vase set had gone from the mantel, however, and been replaced by an arrangement of Chinese bronzes; a slim lady twelve inches tall stood on her pedestal at either end of the shelf, swaying gently towards an antique bowl in the centre.

The clock had been moved to a console at the end of the room, between the windows. Gamadge was glad to see it there, and to hear, as he entered, its low, pleasant chime. But he was not sorry that the aquarium and the parrot cage had disappeared; Polly must at last have died, and the Hutters grown tired of reptiles in the home.

He wandered along the glass fronts of the bookcases, but found nothing that he sought until he reached a section to the right of an arched doorway that led into the den, now the office. He was taking books out of it when Sylvanus came in from the hall.

“What are you looking for?” Sylvanus approached, cigarette in hand.

“Edgar Allan Poe, George Herbert, John Ford, and Christopher Marlowe.”

“Good gracious.”

“I have Ford and Marlowe here.”

“Poe's in this corner; Herbert? Herbert? Poet, is he?”

“Religious poet of the seventeenth century.” Gamadge, turning the leaves of John Ford, did not look up at his host.

“Then he ought to be—yes, here he is. Here they both are. I have no wish,” said Sylvanus quizzically, “to pry into the amusements of guests; but aren't you providing yourself with rather serious bedtime reading?”

“They provided the elegant extracts which were found in your Aunt Florence's novel. I wasn't sure of Ford, but here's one, and I'd swear that the other is in
The Broken Heart
.”

Sylvanus turned from the corner bookcase, a red-brown volume in his hand. “They were quotations?”

“I should have thought the fact reasonably clear.”

“Good gracious. To tell you the truth, Gamadge, I barely glanced at the things. I fought shy of them. I hoped everything would simmer down and come to nothing. Here's Herbert.”

“Look up ‘A Paradox,' and then Poe's ‘Silence—A Fable.'”

They both turned pages. “
Here we are,” said Sylvanus at last. “‘Listen to me, said the Demon
.' Well, I'll be hanged.”

“And here's the other Ford, in that piece whose title we have no concern with.”

“No concern with it?”

“Oh, no; we never mention it. People can't make up their minds to produce it, because they can't imagine the title in front of a theatre in electric lights.”

Sylvanus joined him, peered, laughed, and then grew grave. “I didn't even know we had a Ford. Good heavens—you think the party used our books!”