The Door Between (16 page)

“The police don’t know everything about Karen’s death. There’s one important thing they don’t know.”

He sat very still, not looking at her. “Yes?” he said again, and this time he didn’t even try to keep from showing how scared he was.

“Oh, Dick!” cried Eva in a rush. “That door wasn’t open! It was bolted from inside the bedroom!”

There. It was out. She felt better already. Let him be scared, Eva thought with a little snap. If he was scared, this would petrify him.

It did petrify him. Dr. Scott half-rose from the Cape Cod chair, almost dumping Eva on to the floor. Then he sank back. “Eva! What door?”

“The door in Karen’s bedroom which leads to the attic stairs. When I came into the room that door was bolted. Bolted from inside the bedroom.”

Eva kept looking at him appraisingly, wondering at her lack of excitement. The only thing she felt was compassion; he looked terribly distressed. He worked his mouth twice.

“But, Eva,” he said in a dazed tone, “how could anyone have – No one could have got away through the attic, then!”

“No.”

“And the windows in the bedroom –”

“They’re barred,” said Eva, as if she were talking about the trimming for a new hat.

“And the only other way out is through the sitting-room, where you were waiting.” His eyes brightened. “Eva! Someone did go through that sitting-room. That’s it, isn’t it? Somebody went through and you’ve – well, you haven’t told the police.”

“No, darling,” said Eva. “Not even a mouse went through.”

“But, good God!”

“I didn’t lie about
that
, if that’s what you mean.”

His mouth worked again, and then he set her down on the floor and began to race up and down, like a man hurrying for a train. “But, Eva, you don’t know what you’re saying. That means no one – no one but you
could
have …”

“That means,” said Eva calmly, “that no one but I could have murdered Karen. Say it. Don’t be afraid to say it, dear. I want you to say it. I want to hear
how
you say it.”

He stood still then, and looked at her, and she looked back at him, and there was no sound except Dr. MacClure’s growl about something to Venetia from the living-room.

Dr. Scott’s glance wavered. He slammed his hands into his pockets and kicked Eva’s rug so hard it wrinkled up in protest. “Damn it all!” he exploded. “It’s impossible!”

“What’s impossible?”

“The whole situation!”

“What situation – the murder … or
ours
?”

He tousled his hair so desperately Eva wanted to look away. “Listen, Eva. I’ve got to think. You’ve got to give me time to think. You can’t spring a thing like this –”

Eva pulled the white robe closer about her. “Look at me, Dick. Do you believe I killed Karen?”

“Good God, no!” he shouted. “How should I know? A room – one exit only – nobody went through … What’s a man to think? Be reasonable, Eva. Give me time!”

It was so absurdly inconsistent, so full of pain and doubt, so really definite, that Eva felt a stab in her chest, as if something had suddenly broken inside. For an instant she fought down the feeling that she was going to be ill. But she wasn’t through. There was still one thing more to say. One thing more to ask. Then, she thought, she would
really
know. She steeled herself.

“Monday afternoon you asked me to marry you. I held you off, Dick, because of that bolted door. I wanted time, too, because I – I couldn’t bear to tell you. And yet I couldn’t marry you
without
telling you. Don’t you see? Well, now I’ve told you.”

Eva stopped, because there was really no necessity to be any blunter about it. They weren’t children; certain things took on adult meaning without being said in so many words.

He licked his lips. “Get married – you mean, now?”

“To-morrow,” said Eva relentlessly. “Whenever you get the ince-ne. At City Hall. Connecticut. Anywhere.”

It didn’t sound like her own voice. Perhaps that was because there was a coating of ice around her heart, chilling each drop of blood as it went through. She really had found the answer to her question. He didn’t have to speak. Monday he had wanted to marry her; to-day, Wednesday, he was asking for time.

Eva didn’t quite expect what happened. He seized her hands. “Eva!” There was something new in his voice. “I’ve just thought of it. Who unbolted that door Monday before the police came – you, or that Ring fellow?”

“It doesn’t make any difference,” said Eva listlessly. “It was Mr. Ring. He thought of it, and saved me.”

“Who else knows?”

“Daddy. Mr. Queen – the young one.”

“Everyone but me!” He was bitter. “And you expect me to –” He scowled at her. “What’s going to happen when that Inspector finds out?”

“Oh, Dick,” whispered Eva, “I don’t know.”

“What’s Ring’s game? Why should he do a thing like that for a girl he never saw before?” Dr. Scott’s eyes were inflamed. “Or
do
you know him? Do you?”

Stupid; it was all so futile and stupid. “No, Dick. He’s merely been kind to me in his own way.”

“His own way,” sneered Dr. Scott. “I know his way! That East Side scum! I’ve looked him up. I’ve been finding out things about him. Crony to every gangster in town! I know what
he
wants. I know his sort!”

“Dick, that’s the foulest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Defending him! I just want to know what dirt my intended wife’s getting into. That’s all!”

“Don’t you
dare
talk to me that way!”

“Mixed up in a filthy murder –”

Eva flung herself on the bed and buried her face in the candlewick spread. “Oh, go away,” she sobbed. “I never want to see you again. You think I killed her. You suspect me of all sorts of horrible things with – with that Terry person. Go away!”

She lay there, pressed into the mattress, crying into the spread, the robe askew and her bare legs dangling over the floor. But she didn’t care. It was all over. He – he was gone; that was gone, too. Now that he was gone, although she hadn’t heard the door bang, she saw how unreasonable she had been to expect him just to believe. Blindly, without questions. It wasn’t human. No woman could expect it of any man. After all, what did he know about her? Nothing, nothing at all. When a man and woman were in love and spent their time kissing and babbling nonsense, they really didn’t get to learn much about each other. They came to learn every line in each other’s face, every trick of breathing and kissing and sighing – but nothing else, nothing real, nothing on the inside, about which knowledge was paramount. So how could she blame him? And there was his career. It meant everything to him. Now that he suddenly found out, without warning, that his
fiancée
was up to her neck in a murder, how could he help thinking about his own future – about how people would whisper behind his back – even if everything turned out all right? He was sensitive; he came from a good family; perhaps his
family
was behind all this – pumping away at him, talking to him. That stiff-necked mother of his from Providence, his bankerish father with the mean face …

Eva sobbed harder. She saw it all now, what a selfish and uncomprehending little beast she’d been. He couldn’t help his family, or the situation she found herself in. He was just a man – a dear, dear … And now she had sent him away for good, and even the chance for happiness had escaped, and there was nothing facing her but that grim and terrible little Inspector.

Dr. Scott unclenched his fists and dropped on the bed, close to her, pressing against her, his face contorted with contrition and eagerness.

“I love you. Darling, I love you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Just kiss me, Eva. I love you.”

“Oh, Dick!” wept Eva, twisting and putting her arms tightly about his neck. “I didn’t understand. It’s my fault for expecting …”

“Don’t say any more. We’ll see it through, together. Just hold me – this way. Kiss me, –darling.”

“Dick …”

“If you want to get married to-morrow –”

“No! Not until everything – everything –”

“All right, darling. Whatever you say. Just don’t worry.”

And a little later Eva lay still on the bed and he sat still beside her, only his fingers moving, his cool physician’s fingers stroking her temples, soothing the pulsing blood vessels, making her peaceful and sleepy. But above her tumbled hair Dr. Scott’s face was drawn and troubled.

“The trouble with this case,” complained Ellery to Terry Ring on Thursday afternoon, “is its unbelievable instability. It’s a bee flashing from flower to flower. You can’t keep up with it.”

“What’s the matter now?” Terry flicked the ashes off his mauve tie on its field of wine-colored shirtfront. “Damn it, there goes a burn in my tie!”

“By the way, must you wear these atrocious shirts?” They paused at the little bridge in Karen Leith’s garden. It seems to me that recently you’ve taken to sporting an almost male-bird coloration. It’s September, man, not spring!”

“You go to hell,” said Terry, flushing.

“You’ve made the wrong movie star your idol.”

“I said go to hell! What’s on your mind to-day?”

Ellery dropped a pebble into the tiny pool. “I’ve made a discovery that bothers me.”

“Yeah?”

“You knew Karen Leith, at least for a short time. And I know you’re a self-taught and dependable student of human nature. What kind of a woman would you say she was?”

“I only know what I read in the papers. Famous writer, around forty, kind of pretty if you like ‘em washed out, clever as hell and just as deep. Why?”

“My dear Terry, I want your
personal
reaction.”

Terry glared at the goldfish. “She was a phony.”

“What!”

“You asked for it. She was a phony. I wouldn’t have trusted her with my old lady’s store teeth. Mean streak. Tough as a floozy underneath and ambitious as hell. And no more conscience than Dutch Brenner’s mouth-piece.”

Ellery stared at him. “My worthy opponent! That’s characterization. Well, it’s true.” His grin faded. “You don’t know, I imagine, just how true it is.”

“Doc MacClure’s lucky to be rid of her. He’d have punched her in the nose in three months if they’d ever hitched up.”

“Dr. MacClure belongs to the Leslie Howard rather than the Victor McLaglen school, for all his physique. Nevertheless, it’s probably true.”

Terry said casually: “If the doc hadn’t been on a ship a thousand miles to sea when she was bopped, I’d say he did it himself.”

“There were no hydroplanes around, if that’s what you’re thinking,” chuckled Ellery. “No, I fancy I know what’s bothering the doctor. And it’s more concerned with Eva than with his deceased
fiancée
.” He studied the pool. “I wish I knew exactly what it is.”

“Me, too,” said Terry. He fingered his tie. “Come on, spit it out. What’s up? What did you find out?”

Ellery stared from his reverie and lit a cigaret. “Terry, do you know what Karen Leith really was? I’ll tell you. A parasite. A very special kind of pediculous monster. One of the most incredible vessels of evil God ever designed for skirts.”

“You going to talk or aren’t you?” said Terry impatiently.

“What amazes me is how she was able to concentrate on one vicious objective for years, going through what must have been agonies of continuous apprehension. It’s indecent. Only a woman could have done it – a woman as full of silence and fury as she must have been. I don’t know what’s behind it, but I can guess. I think, many years ago, she loved Floyd MacClure.”

“That’s tall guessing, my friend.”

“A love-affair crushed at its inception … yes, it might have started the ball rolling.”

“Ah, nuts,” said Terry.

But Ellery was gazing again in profound reflection at the pool. “And then there’s the crime itself. Even knowing what the Leith monster was, the crime remains an enigma.”

Terry flung himself in disgust on the grass and tipped his pearl-grey felt over his eyes. “You should have run for Congress.”

“I’ve been over those two rooms upstairs with, figuratively, a stethoscope and a selenium cell. I tested those bars on the oriel windows. They’re solid iron embedded in concrete and there’s nothing wrong with them. Immovable. Not set in false sockets. None has been recently replaced. No, no one got in or out of those windows, Terry.”

“That’s what
I
said.”

“I tackled the door and bolt. You found the door bolted from inside her bedroom, but it was conceivable that the bolt might have been drawn from the wrong side of the door by some mechanical contrivance.”

“Whoosh,” said Terry from under his hat. “You’ve been reading one of your own lousy detective stories.”

“Oh, don’t sneer; it’s been done. But not with this particular door. I tried with every method known to my peculiar science, and none of them worked. So mechanics was out.”

“You’ve certainly made progress, haven’t you?”

“With the doors and windows eliminated, I thought of – don’t laugh now –”

“I’m laughing already!”

“A secret panel. Well, why not?” asked Ellery defensively. “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. You don’t spit on your great-grandmother just because she’s hung around a long time? But there isn’t any panel. That room’s as solid as the walls of the Great Pyramid.”

“Closets?”

“Are just closets. I don’t know.” Ellery made a face. “It leaves you with the hollowest feeling.”

“You’re telling me,” said Terry glumly.

“I’ve thought of everything – that the crime, for instance, might have been committed
through
the window-bars, with the murderer somehow outside. But that doesn’t gel, either – there’s the weapon.

“It was withdrawn from Karen’s neck. It was wiped off. Even if we postulate the strained theory that Karen stood
at
the window, was knifed through the bars, fell, that the killer wiped off the blade and threw the knife through the bars to land on the desk … it still doesn’t gel. The body was out of position for that. And there should have been a trace of blood on the sill, on the floor directly below the sill. But the bloodstains are along the edge of that dais. She couldn’t have been stabbed from the window at that spot, unless her assailant was a gorilla.”