The Cases of Susan Dare (15 page)

“Nonsense,” said Jim simply. “See here, Susan, what do you make of all this? And why did that woman down there faint?”

“Because I know what the weapon was that killed Brock Cholster,” said Susan. “And she knows, too.”

“Weapon?” said Jim.

Susan looked at the couch and then upward again into the purple dusk.

“Jim,” she said slowly. “I’m going to put myself in the place of the murderer for a moment. And I want you to listen. Suppose I want to murder Brock Cholster—perhaps have wanted to for a long time, or perhaps quite suddenly want to more overwhelmingly than I have ever wanted to before. Suppose I come up on the stage and the asbestos curtain is down and thus no one can see and for some reason I stop there and discover that Cholster is there, too. That he is sleepy and drowsy, for he’s been gardening all day—that he is lying at full length on the couch down there.”

“Susan—”

“Wait. I stand there perhaps and look at him and hate him. Hate him as I’ve never done before. Hate him until it is almost insupportable. For he stands in the way of something I must have. And I wish that he were dead. But the wish isn’t enough to kill him, and perhaps it’s accident—or perhaps it’s some memory of danger from above that makes me look upward. And way up there, hanging like a sword of Damocles I see a weapon—wait, Jim, don’t talk—

“It’s hanging there as if it were waiting for me. And it looks as if Cholster has actually chosen to put himself directly under it—as if fate itself were offering the weapon ready for my hand. I look at it and think only of that weapon at last ready for me and that no one will know—or dream of looking up there. There isn’t much time, so I hurry up to this gallery. And I find the rope that holds that weight. So I—I let down the rope—slowly, perhaps,
until I discover that it is actually,
as it looked from down there,
directly above his head.
And when I’m sure of that I let it fall. Heavily.”

She stopped and this time Jim did not offer to speak. He was staring upward, and his face looked white and grim. He said finally: “And then what?”

“Then,” said Susan. “I jerk the thing up again. I loop the rope hurriedly around this pin. I hurry down the steps. He is dead, and the thing is done. Suddenly the nervous tension of that awful emotion collapses, and I am terrified. How can I hide my own part in what has happened? How can I confuse things—make them seem different—somehow change things? The lack of a weapon will lead suspicion away from the people now in the theater and thus from myself. Fortunately he is on the couch, and the couch—Jim, you remember the rumbling sound they heard?”

Jim looked at her. “The ventilator?”

“Perhaps it was going, too, but the sound of someone arranging the stage was the sound of that light couch being pushed across the stage. (It’s got casters and would move readily; I looked to be sure.) It would not be difficult to pull the body off the couch and return the couch to its place. And as the body lay when it was discovered, there was nothing but proscenium and ceiling above it, for it was far out over the footlights. It was simple enough to put up the asbestos curtain and thus allow the body to project beyond the curtain line.”

Jim shook his head slowly.

“But the murderer couldn’t have known that Cholster would be exactly there.”

“The murderer
didn’t
know! Of course, he didn’t know. That’s the key to the whole affair. The crime wasn’t planned at all. All that stored-up hatred didn’t, perhaps, even reach the point of murder until the murderer saw the man and the weapon. Victim and weapon together, at a time when for some reason the murderer was worked up to a frenzy—all three combined like chemicals and produced murder.”

Susan’s grave low voice came to a stop. In the silence, she could hear the crisp flap of a newspaper with which Jane was fanning Adelaide and the murmur of Tom Remy’s voice speaking to Dickenson.

Jim sighed and said very soberly and deliberately:

“I believe you’re right, Sue. The weight will show it under analysis. And of course, if it didn’t come exactly over his head it would have been a simple matter to fasten the rope, run down to him without waking him and swing the thing so that it—accomplished its purpose. The weight itself isn’t much, but the momentum makes it deadly. Yes, Sue, I think you’re right. But any one of them could have done it. Who had a motive?”

“The motive must have been actually desire,” said Susan slowly. “Desire so strong that it produced a smoldering, gathering hatred. All ready to be lashed into frenzy. But I don’t know.” She paused, wishing she could seek objectively instead of subjectively through all those currents of feeling and motives and consciousness that are handily put together and labeled personality. Or character. Jim was more reasonable and more definite than she was; she could only push out blind tentacles of something that was perilously like intuition.

“I don’t know,” she said sadly, “what that lashing was.”

Jim said thoughtfully: “Revenge might come into it. A grudge. The constable says Cholster had really a wicked temper. Town gossip has it that he was nothing short of a tyrant in his own home.”

“Does the constable’s knowledge extend to Jane Cholster’s reaction?”

“I asked about that. He knew of nothing, except that she was a bit high-handed. But if there was trouble between them, the constable hadn’t heard of it. Oh, by the way, Sue—this young Dickenson isn’t altogether honest in his statement about what he was doing back there in the office. He was actually talking over long distance.”

“Talking!”

“Exactly. To some woman. I went back to telephone my story. Had to make a long distance call, and the girl asked if I wanted the charge reversed again. I said, ‘Again?’ and she said, ‘Oh I thought it was Mr. Dickenson. You’re at the Majestic, aren’t you?’ (The Majestic, dear Susan, is the name of this theater.) It took only a minute or two to get it out of her. At ten minutes to eight o’clock he was talking to a girl in Springfield. It lasted only a few minutes, so it isn’t an alibi. And from what central, who obligingly listened in, says, it was an extremely loving conversation. Why are you looking so queer?”

“Queer?” said Susan vaguely. “Oh—nothing. Except that there’s the weapon, you see. And the murderer. And—odd, isn’t it, if that telephone conversation hadn’t taken place there would have been no murder.”

“What—”

“Oh, yes, of course. It couldn’t have been any other way. But—oh, look—look, Jim, quick—down there! See, she’s becoming conscious again. She’s opening her eyes—she’s looking—she’s remembering.”

Jim, watching, saw the figure in the beige coat stir, sit upright, and fumble suddenly at the bottom of the coat.

Susan was leaning forward, her face white and her eyes frightened.

“Quick, Jim, get the coat. Somehow—anyhow—”

After all, she did not even remember going down that narrow, steep flight of steps. She didn’t know either what Jim said to the others. She only knew that he thrust the coat into her hands.

The pockets were empty, but she found it in the bottom of the coat between the lining and the soft beige wool. She worked the small hard object up until it emerged from a torn bit of the lining of a pocket and was in her fingers.

“What are you doing?” demanded Jane Cholster. Her face was pasty gray and her eyes blazing.

Susan did not reply. Instead she crossed the stage, and Jim was beside her when she knelt there at the body. It was he who thrust Tom Remy out of the way when he would have snatched at the thing that Susan held. Somebody—the constable it was—seized Remy and held him struggling, and the guard at the door and the little deputy were both running toward them.

Then Susan covered the face again.

“What—” said Jim. “Who did it?”

Susan felt ill and wished she had never heard of Kittiwake. She said to Jane: “Did you put the make-up box and cap in his dressing room?”

“Yes, of course,” said Jane slowly. “I left it open and ready for him.”

“You knew that he objected,” said Susan after a long moment. “You knew he refused.”

“God forgive me,” said Jane suddenly looking old and tired. “I knew—I think we all knew—”

Susan nodded to Jim. “I wasn’t sure,” she said, “until Mrs. Cholster admitted it just now. That is, I wasn’t sure of the motive. The rest of it was terribly simple.”

She held out her hand toward the constable. “Here it is,” she said. “The lipstick that was used on his mouth by the murderer.”

“Lip—” said the constable and after a long time added—“stick.” And away at the back someone was suddenly pounding on the doors—pounding so loud that the sound echoed in waves that all but submerged those on the stage.

The constable turned to the deputy.

“Open the door for the sheriff,” he said.

The group moved and wavered. The sound and motion left Jim and Susan for a moment as if on a small remote island.

“Are you sure?” said Jim.

Susan nodded. “The face was made up for only one motive, and that had to be to give the impression that it had been made up before the murder; thus that the murder had been done after, approximately, eight o’clock—the time set for make-up. Therefore, it must have been done before eight or thereabouts. Therefore it had to be done by someone who was here at eight—Dickenson—Jane—Tom Remy.”

“Wait. How do you know the face was made up by the murderer?”

“There was no powder on it and no cream. That would have been put on first. And the lipstick on his mouth was not matched in color or in quality by any of the lip paste in the make-up boxes downstairs. Of course, there were a hundred places to hide the lipstick. But it was not hidden till too late.”

The pounding stopped and there was a sound of voices—inquiring, explaining.

Jim glanced over Susan’s shoulder and said tersely: “Go on. Quick.”

“Well, then—since the murder wasn’t planned, there must be inconsistencies—things that changed somehow in the very act of being done. Blunders. I tried again to follow what I should have done in the murderer’s place: frantic, trying to confuse things again—changing the position of the body, putting on the beard—Cholster had it there in his hand, probably, and it must have suggested that attempt at make-up. Yet there was no time to open a make-up box and do it thoroughly. Besides, the powder would have spilled. The beard and lipstick were enough, anyway.”

“Yes—yes—”

“Well, then, I would have turned and—and passed the switchboard and put up the asbestos curtain—perhaps, as I said before, so the body could be dragged out near the footlights, perhaps merely from that frantic blind desire to confuse, to make things opposite to what they had been. I don’t know. But after that I would have gone down to the dressing room. And
on the way
I would have passed the stage entrance. And I would have known suddenly of another change—of another inconsistency. That I could walk out that door, wait outside for a few moments, walk slowly around to the front of the theater, enter again, and—this time—be very sure that I was seen by the man in the office. Then, in going down to the dressing room again, I could bolt that door, on the inside, as it had been.”

Jim’s eyes looked dark and shining. The confused voices of sheriff and men were coming closer.

Jim said, whispering: “
Adelaide
.”

“No one else entered after eight o’clock. If she had had time to plan, she wouldn’t have made up Cholster. But she was frantic, excited, obliged to snatch at defense. This time she snatched at an alibi. Dickenson discovered the murder only a moment or two after her arrival. But it was her second arrival. He really hadn’t seen her at first. He was too intent on the girl in Springfield probably.”

“But the motive?”

“Remember Cholster controlled her money and thus actually controlled her. He was tyrannical and violent-tempered. It seemed to me that her sobs were more frightened petulance than sorrow. And that she was much more concerned about Dickenson than anything else. That’s what I meant and what Jane meant when she replied. Probably Dickenson talked marriage: Cholster objected; refused to give Adelaide money that was rightfully her own; and Dickenson—I don’t suppose he wanted her without money.”

“And then she heard the telephone conversation—”

“Yes,” said Susan soberly. “She entered the theater and heard that. And jealousy—rage—the fury of a woman who sees the only thing she wants denied her (a vain woman, clutching at youth)—all of it swept to a climax. She walked up to the stage and saw Cholster lying there asleep. And
at the same instant
saw a weapon for her vengeance and for her release hanging there over his head.”

“It’s her lipstick?”

“Yes. It was in her coat pocket; that’s why she sent for her coat. Jane uses none. Adelaide does, and you can see a smear of it on her lips now. It’s called claret—a rather soft crimson. Any woman would note the exact shade. And Tom Remy saw it, too. He was looking in Cholster’s make-up box to see if there was a stick of lip paste of that shade of soft crimson. And without the odor of grease paints. But then,” said Susan slowly, “perhaps they all knew in their hearts who did it—and why. Jane admitted that. And—for proof there are fingerprints on the bolt of the stage door where Adelaide had to touch it.”

The sheriff reached the footlights and stopped.

Without looking Susan could see the group at the other side of the stage.

“So,” said the sheriff, “there’s a murder here.”

Jim’s hand touched Susan’s shoulder.

“The car’s outside at the corner where we left it. Go on and wait for me there.”

S
USAN DARE WAITED IN
the dusk. Above her into the night rose the dim, dark outline of Notre Dame. The heavy doors behind her slowly opened now and then, and closed, as an occasional figure went in or out of the church. Mariette, thought Susan, ought to come soon. Perhaps she herself was a little early at their meeting place, for she hadn’t known exactly how to find the French quarter. She hadn’t, in fact, known that there was a French quarter in all Chicago.

Yet she hadn’t been surprised when Mariette Berne told her that, until times were better, she was living there. She would, of course, have sought her own people. Susan wondered if she would recognize the girl. It had been so long since Susan had been taken in frilly white dresses and huge hair-ribbons to Monsieur Berne’s dancing school. Mariette Berne had been then a tiny, dark-eyed wisp of a child; dancing, said the elders approvingly, like a fairy. And now years had passed, and Monsieur Berne’s dancing school was no more, and tiny Mariette Berne had grown up and had become a ballet dancer and had telephoned to Susan out of that fragrant past.