Nothing Can Rescue Me (9 page)

Sylvanus came up to the back of the sofa and gripped it with both hands. He gazed fixedly at Gamadge, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown.

“Opportunity,” Gamadge went on, “was therefore not so free as it seems. None of the work could be prepared in advance. Our friend had to wait until everybody was upstairs and presumably asleep; too well settled, in fact, to wander forth again and be surprised at the activities of a midnight reader—no typing would I think be heard through those doors. Our friend had first to consult the typescript, and then go into the library and hunt up a quotation that could be used first with arresting, then with terrifying effect; for each is more threatening than the last.

“So much for the literary part of the job. But what about the technical part? Don't underrate the skill that went into this piece of work—these five pieces of work. The page was replaced in the typewriter, and the quotation inserted; with no erasures, with no faults, and with professional spacing and alignment; each interpolation is put in exactly as the others are. I'm a mere amateur at the typewriter, much as I've used it; and I couldn't possibly have done this job.”

Mason spoke suddenly from the other side of the room: “Of course whoever did it knew how to type and knew about books.”

“There,” said Gamadge, “I think you're wrong. This person need not have known much about books; the literary end of the job required no more than patience, and the bare knowledge that pertinent material could be found in Poe, in the cryptic poems of the seventeenth or any other century—for poetry is a mine of the cryptic—and in the Elizabethan drama. A semi-literate person, I grant you, would have been more likely to resort to the Bible and Shakespeare; unless, of course, the attention of such a person had been called to these authors in some special way.”

He ended with a rising inflection; then, after a pause, he went on:

“But I confess that I should have expected you all to know that the quotations were quotations. Miss Burt has forgotten how to use a typewriter, Miss Wing is not well acquainted with Marlowe's Faustus, Mrs. Deedes thinks that the whole thing was the work of spirits, and so on; but I really should have thought that all of you—not to mention a literary man like Sylvanus, or an inveterate reader like Mr. Percy—”

Sylvanus interrupted, flushing deeply: “I explained. One becomes an ostrich. One refuses to admit
anything
.”

“Why?” asked Gamadge.

Evelyn Wing, her eyes on the fire, her elbows on her knees, spoke drily: “It was silly of me not to say they were quotations. I knew they must be, of course. But I knew they all thought I had typed them in myself, and when you're in a jam you do silly things; at least I did.”

Gamadge turned his eyes on Percy, who said, waving his cigarette in a gesture of negation, “Absolutely none of it was any of my business. I kept quietly out of it.”

Miss Burt laughed—shrilly. Gamadge, his eyes once more on Page 83 of Chapter Nine, went on without emphasis:

“Miss Wing is of course the logical suspect, if one can imagine a motive for her. She is highly educated, she must know the books in this library pretty well—and I may say now that all our four authors are to be found in it—she is familiar with the typewriter's art, and—as I intimated before—she had the supreme advantage of knowing where she was going to stop; or, perhaps I should say, of stopping where Mrs. Mason's line would fit a line already chosen from the classics. Miss Wing, and Miss Wing alone, could adapt the text to the quotations instead of laboriously adapting the quotations to the text.”

Percy, his cigarette in mid-air, said almost gaily: “Such an intelligent man! Is he going to disappoint me, or is he going to demolish this airy structure in the logical way?”

“It has been demolished,” said Gamadge. “Mrs. Mason was at first inclined—for her own reasons, no doubt—to imagine that her secretary had made a mockery of their work together. But before I pointed out the obvious to her she had had it pointed out by someone else: Miss Wing herself would not have played a trick that she might readily be suspected of playing.”

“Mrs. Mason ought to have seen something more obvious than that,” said Percy, with a smile, “and seen it for herself. Miss Wing would never play such a trick at all.”

“In fact,” asked Gamadge, “you agree with me that the trick may possibly have been played by someone less highly qualified to play it than Miss Wing, but endowed with natural cunning, and perhaps assisted by an intelligent friend?”

“I agree with you,” said Percy, looking amused.

Susie Burt sprang to her feet. “Well, I don't!” she exclaimed. “I don't agree with anything you've been saying. You think Evelyn Wing wouldn't do such a thing, Glen Percy? You think she's above it? She's done plenty of other mean things, I can tell you! She spies on us all. She told Mrs. Mason that Mr. Hutter drinks, and that Mr. Mason took me to a night club, and that you tried to make love to her!”

“That I tried to make love to Mrs. Mason?” Percy's expression was one of extreme horror.

“To Evelyn Wing,” shouted Miss Burt. “And if I wanted to be so mean I could tell Mrs. Mason worse things than that!”

Mrs. Deedes winced; she cowered back against the sofa cushions, and put her hands over her ears. Mason strode across the room as if he were in his wife's novel, and roared: “Susie, will you be quiet?”

Susie Burt sank down; Percy wagged his head at her. “Who told you Miss Wing told Mrs. Mason all that?” he asked.

“Never you mind.”

“I do mind. I deduce our dear faithful old Louise Baugnon, who is so fond of us all. Fond of us all,” he repeated, smiling, “but with no respect for white-collar jobs.”

Mrs. Deedes rose. “If you don't mind, Henry,” she said in a feeble voice, “I shall go upstairs and lie down. I don't believe Florence meant us to listen to this kind of thing.”

“No, no, Sally; wait a minute.” Sylvanus gently urged her back upon the couch, and then turned to Miss Burt. “You ought to be made to apologize, Susie. What's the matter with you?”

“I won't apologize.” Her voice trembled. “Glen Percy is putting it on me!”

Percy, with his eyes fixed on the top of Miss Wing's smooth head, remarked that all the theories originated with Mr. Gamadge.

Miss Wing had not moved. She sat looking at the fire, her hands clasped on her lap. Mason, with a glance at her, snarled: “You needn't come out with a lot of stuff about the rest of us, just to get even with Percy.”

“I haven't come out with half I know!” Susie began to cry, a blue linen handkerchief pressed to her face. Percy addressed Gamadge mildly:

“May I remove this emotional wretch from the Presence, or is the conference still on?”

“It's off.”

“Then I'll take her for a walk. I'm going out myself; I feel the need of a change of air.”

Susie Burt started up, said in a choking voice that she never wished to speak to Percy again, and rushed out of the room. Mrs. Deedes rose, watched her go, and then slowly followed; her face expressed fastidious dislike.

Mason said hoarsely: “I never heard anything like it. Florence encourages a lot of half-bred youngsters to hang around looking for treats and
pourboires
, and this is the result—a bear garden.”

“You're as bad as any of them!” Sylvanus turned upon him with spirit. “Why don't you set an example? And if you mean to include Percy and Miss Wing, you'd better apologize! If you don't, Florence shall hear of it—she'll be very angry.”

“I bet she'll hear of it anyway,” replied Mason. “As for that old witch of a Louise, I'll get rid of her; she's always running to Florence with backstairs gossip.”

Sylvanus looked at him squarely: “There's been enough of trying to get rid of people, Mason.”

“What do you mean by that?” Mason swung to confront him.

“I mean that Florence isn't to be further upset. As for carrying tales, so far as I know everybody in the house does it except myself and Miss Wing.”

“Thanks,” said Percy, and the word had a clear, warning note like the sound of a bell.

“I don't mean you; you're out of it,” said Sylvanus, irritably.

“You mean I have nothing to gain from Mrs. Mason? Well,” said Percy, with a smile, “there are treats, even if there are no
pourboires
.”

“Mason shall apologize.”

“I'm not taking orders from you, Hutter.” Mason clenched and unclenched his fists. “You're not the master of this house.”

“Perhaps not; but while I live in it there'll be decent behaviour in it.” Sylvanus was magnificent. “If Florence wishes me to go elsewhere, she has only to say so.”

“If this kind of thing goes on I'll leave myself. The place has struck me as being overcrowded for some time.” Mason plunged from the room, and, apparently, straight from the house; the front door was immediately heard to slam with a noise like thunder.

After a dead silence lasting for thirty seconds at least, Gamadge asked faintly: “Won't he catch his death of cold with no hat or coat?”

“He never catches cold.” Sylvanus fanned himself with his handkerchief. “He's proud of it. Miss Wing, let me thank you for your forbearance; nobody places reliance on the wild statements of our absurd Susie.”

Evelyn Wing answered without turning her head: “She was just hitting out because she thought her friends were letting her down. I can hardly blame her.”

“Don't be too good to be true,” Percy begged her. “Mr. Gamadge looks to me like a man who would view too much altruism with suspicion.”

“He doesn't look cynical enough,” replied Miss Wing, “to think everybody is always playing a part.”

“The allusion is to me,” said Percy raising an eyebrow at Gamadge. “I'm the kind of fellow they wrote maxims about. ‘There is something not entirely displeasing to us in the headaches of our patrons.' You know the kind of thing.”

“That's a new one,” said Gamadge, with a smile.

“A variation merely. Well, I'll have my stroll—unless it begins to rain; Mrs. Mason and I are developing ideas about the spring plantings in the walled garden.”

He sauntered from the room. Miss Wing continued to look at the fire; Sylvanus interrupted his uneasy patterings up and down, to and fro, and stopped beside her. “Is Louise responsible for that stuff Susie gave us?” he asked.

“I don't know. Even if she were,” said Evelyn Wing, “I shouldn't be inclined to judge her severely. It's easy to call people gossips and mischief-makers, but when they're in a dependent position what are they to do if they're questioned? Refuse to answer? Would that improve matters?”

Gamadge studied what he could see of her profile. A face difficult to read; was it an honest one? She had withheld knowledge, she had tried to mislead him at lunch-time; she had had years of diplomatic training in the service of Florence Mason. And she had kept the job—a job that Corinne Hutter had resigned or been dismissed from, a job that Susie Burt hadn't cared to work at. Evelyn Wing had been a success at it; did she know how great a success?

Sylvanus resumed his pacing of the room. “Hang it all,” he protested, “I have my highball every night when I go to bed; and because Grandfather Hutter ended by getting too fond of his toddy, Florence will have it that I'm a secret tippler.”

“I didn't tell Mrs. Mason that,” said Evelyn Wing, her lips curving a little.

“Or any of the other things; of course you didn't.” Sylvanus, again coming to a standstill, asked with a sidelong glance at her: “Is the Burt-Percy engagement broken again?”

“I don't know.”

“Looks that way. They exchanged vows at the age of eight or thereabouts, Gamadge, and since then nobody ever knows whether the affair is on or off. I suppose Percy isn't such a fool as to have made a row about—er—Mason and the night club?”

“I don't know,” said Miss Wing.

Gamadge remarked that he ought now to report to Florence.

“Just come and have a word with me first.” Sylvanus grasped his elbow. “No, Miss Wing, don't move; we'll go into your office.”

When they had reached that sanctuary Sylvanus closed both its doors and faced Gamadge peevishly. “Hanged if I don't think that whole shindy was your fault,” he said.

“Of course it was. I had to stir them up; you wouldn't give me information, so I jounced it out of them.” He added: “I suppose Mason is having some kind of affair with little Burt?”

“Utter nonsense! He goes to town oftener than Florence does, and she gets touchy and suspicious here with not enough to do, and so he keeps things from her; the most innocent things. Of course they ought to have told Florence they'd been out.”

“I suppose if he didn't tell, Miss Burt couldn't.”

“As for Percy, he may have tried to flirt with Miss Wing in order to get even with Susie for the Mason outing. Idiots.”

Gamadge said: “To me the situation doesn't seem to be on that plane at all.”

“Don't start exaggerating things.”

“Miss Wing doesn't look like a girl one tries to flirt with uninvited.”

“Nonsense. She's a bit grim just now; all this bother. And she means to keep this job—I told you she's had a taste of poverty. But she had plenty of social experience before her people died, they were rolling at one time—had a big place outside of Philadelphia. I hope she cuts a bit loose on vacations; not that she gets too many of those—when the time comes Florence always needs her for something or other, and gives her a watch or a fur coat instead. I sometimes think the girl's worked half to death.”

Gamadge, who stood looking down at the typewriter, said: “I wonder if you noticed something; nobody seems to have carried tales to Florence about Sally Deedes or Evelyn Wing.”