The Door Between (5 page)

She thought she saw a kimono-clad figure going through the doorway of Karen’s sitting-room as she turned into the upstairs corridor; and Eva hurried after.

Sure enough, it was Kinumé, Karen’s ancient maid, and Eva saw the tiny alien creature quite clearly, just going into Karen’s bedroom through the sitting-room and closing the bedroom door behind her. Eva also saw, before Kinumé disappeared, that the old woman was carrying a single blank sheet of deckle-edged Japanese stationery and an envelope, very delicate with their faint rose-on-ivory pattern of chrysanthemums.

Eva was about to knock on Karen’s door when it opened a little and Kinumé’s tiny figure backed out, without the stationery, saying something in her sibilant speech.

“
Oi! Damaré!
” Eva heard Karen say petulantly from inside the room.

“
Go men nasai, okaasan
,” lisped Kinumé hastily, shutting the bedroom door and turning around.

The old Japanese woman expressed surprise in the only way Eva had ever detected in her – by a slight widening of the ellipses of her eyes. “’Lo, Eva. You no coming see Missie long time.”

“Hello, Kinumé,” said Eva. “No, I haven’t, and I’m terribly ashamed. How are you, and how’s Karen?”

“Me good,” said Kinumé, but she stood her ground by the door. “Missie no good.”

“Is Karen –” began Eva, perplexed.

The wrinkled mouth set firmly. “You no see Missie now,” Kinumé announced in her polite, hissing little voice. “Missie liting. She finish soon.”

Eva laughed. “I wouldn’t disturb her for the world. A major novelist! I’ll wait.”

“I go tell Missie you here.” Kinumé turned back to the door.

“Don’t bother. I haven’t anything to do, anyway. I’ll read a book or something.”

Kinumé bowed and, folding her tiny hands in her sleeves, pattered off, closing the sitting-room door behind her. Eva, left to herself, took off her hat and jacket and went to the odd mirror to primp herself. She poked at her hair and wondered if she would have time to-morrow for a permanent. And her hair did need a good washing. Then she opened her bag and took out her compact and wondered while she opened the lipstick whether Dr. MacClure would bring her back one like Susie Hotchkiss’s. Mr. Hotchkiss had brought
her
quite the most fascinating gadget from Paris. She dabbed with her little finger three times at her lips, and then stroked the rouge on rather critically. Dick had kissed them a little out of shape and he hadn’t let her do a really good job before she left his office. The stuff wasn’t supposed to smudge, but it did. Eva made a mental note to get another lipstick like the peach-coral at home.

And after a while she went to the window to look out at the garden, patchy in the late afternoon sun.

The window was barred. Poor Karen! The way she had had her sitting-room and bedroom windows hemmed in iron when she bought the Washington Square house! It was absurd in a grown woman. New York would always be a terrifying place to her. Why on earth had she ever left Japan?

Eva flung herself down on one of Karen’s queer little couches. The room was so peaceful; it was a lovely place to think. Birds were chirruping in the garden – Karen’s sitting-room and bedroom occupied the entire back of the house, overlooking the garden – and the shouts of children in the Square were very far away … To think of Richard, and of being married … Eva wished for an instant that Richard – darling Dick – might be with her, in her arms. Poor Dick! He’d looked so surly – like a child denied its candy …

There was no sound from the bedroom next door, no sound at all. Eva picked up a book from a little teakwood table and idly flapped its pages.

At five-thirty by the ship’s New York chronometer the
Panthia
was slashing through a pleasant sea. It was growing dark beyond the eastern horizon, and Dr. MacClure lay in a deck-chair staring at the thin hazy line behind, where sky touched water fantastically.

The open upper deck was deserted near the dinner-hour. But one young man, tallish and wearing
pince-nez
glasses under his linen cap, was weaving his way along the deck, occasionally stopping to elbow the rail and gaze accusingly at the placid sea. As he passed Dr. MacClure his face lightened from green to yellow.

“Dr. MacClure!”

The doctor’s head rolled around and he studied the young man’s face blankly for a moment.

“Probably don’t remember me,” said the young man. “Name’s Queen. I met you in May, at your
fiancée
’s garden-party in Washington Square.”

“Oh, yes,” said Dr. MacClure, smiling briefly. “How are you? Enjoying the trip?”

“Well …”

“Had the most wretched time myself. Seasick since Southampton. Never have been able to stomach the ocean.”

Mr. Queen grinned under his greenish mask. “You know, I’m the same way. Suffer the tortures of the damned. If I look as badly as you do, Doctor –”

“Haven’t been well,” grumbled Dr. MacClure. “It’s not all
mal de mer
. My folks packed me off to Europe. Can’t say I feel any better for it.”

Mr. Queen clucked. “Father in my case. Practically had me shanghaied. Inspector Queen of the New York police department. If I did feel any better, this westward passage has taken it all out of me again.”

“Say! You’re the detective-story fellow. I remember now. Sit down, Mr. Queen, sit down. Haven’t read any of your stories – can’t stand the damned things – but all my friends …”

“Have probably written me letters of complaint,” sighed Ellery Queen, dropping into the next chair.

“I mean,” said Dr. MacClure hastily, “I don’t like detective stories. Not yours especially. Scientific information always garbled. No offence, you understand.”

“That’s what I meant,” said Mr. Queen gloomily.

He was rather shocked at the change in the doctor’s appearance. The chunky, powerful face was gaunt and the clothes looked pitifully loose.

“Haven’t noticed you before,” said the doctor. “But then I’ve practically lived in this chair.”

“I’ve been too sick to do anything but groan in my cabin and munch at dry chicken sandwiches. Been abroad long, Doctor?”

“Couple of months. Poking around the capitals, seeing what was being done. Stopped over at Stockholm for a visit to the prize people. Had to apologize for forgetting to come, and all that. They were pretty decent about it, considering the size of the check.”

“I read somewhere,” smiled Ellery, “that you donated it to your Foundation.”

Dr. MacClure nodded. They sat in silence for some time, gazing out to sea. Finally Ellery asked: “Is Miss Leith with you?” He had to repeat the question.

“Eh? I beg your pardon,” said the doctor. “Why, no, Karen’s in New York.”

“I should think a sea jaunt would have done her good,” said Ellery. “She looked rather done in in May.”

“She’s run down,” said the big man. “Yes.”

“Post-novel fatigue,” sighed Ellery. “You scientific fellows don’t know what hard work it is. And
Eight-Cloud Rising!
It’s like a piece of perfect jade.”

“I wouldn’t know,” murmured the doctor with a tired smile. “I’m just a pathologist.”

“Her grasp of Oriental psychology is simply uncanny. And that glittering prose!” Ellery shook his head. “No wonder she’s feeling it. Lost weight, I’ll wager.”

“She’s a little anaemic.”

“And high-strung, eh? Comes of a delicate strain, no doubt.”

“Mostly nerves,” said the doctor.

“Then why on earth didn’t she come with you?”

“Eh?” Dr. MacClure flushed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I –”

“I think,” smiled Ellery, “you’d rather be alone, Doctor.”

“No, no, sit right down. Little tired, that’s all … No secret about it. Karen’s extremely timid. Damned near a phobia with her. Afraid of burglars – that sort of thing.”

“I noticed her windows were barred,” nodded Ellery. “Funny how a notion like that will get you down. Result of her life in Japan, I suppose. Completely out of tune with her American environment.”

“Maladjusted.”

“I’ve been told she never leaves her house even for an overnight visit – spends all her time either indoors or in her garden.”

“Yes.”

“Reminds me of Emily Dickinson. In fact, one would almost say there had been some tragedy in Miss Leith’s life.”

Dr. MacClure turned deliberately around in the deck-chair and stared at Ellery. “And what makes you say that?” he asked.

“Why – was there?”

The doctor sank back and lit a cigar. “Well … there was something. Years ago.”

“Family?” suggested Ellery, who had an insatiable curiosity about everything.

“A sister. Esther.” The doctor was silent for a while. “I knew them both in Japan in ‘13, just before the War.”

“A tragedy of some sort, no doubt?” said Ellery encouragingly.

Dr. MacClure put his cigar in his mouth with an abrupt gesture. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Queen … I’d rather not discuss it.”

“Oh, sorry.” After a while, Ellery said: “Just what was it you got the award for, Doctor? I never could get scientific details straight.”

The doctor brightened visibly. “Proves what I said. You fellows are all the same.”

“But what was it?”

“Oh, a lot of foolishness, as usual premature. I happened to be fooling around with enzymes, probing into the oxidation process in living cells – the fermentation process involved in respiration … following up the work Warburg of Berlin did. I didn’t strike it there, but I got off on a tangent … well.” He shrugged. “I don’t really know yet. But it looks encouraging.”

“That sort of thing in cancer research? I thought doctors were generally agreed cancer is a germ disease.”

“Good God, no!’ shouted Dr. MacClure, bouncing up in the chair. “Where the devil’d you hear that? Germ disease!”

Ellery felt squelched. “Er – it isn’t?”

“Oh, come now, Queen,” said the doctor irritably. “We discarded the germ theory of cancer twenty years ago, when I was a squirt with delusions of grandeur. A lot of men are working with hormones – there’s definitely a basic hydrocarbon connection. I have a hunch we’re all going to come out at the same place –”

A steward stopped before them. “Dr. MacClure? There’s a New York call for you on the telephone, sir.”

Dr. MacClure got hurriedly out of the deck-chair, his face heavy again. “’ Scuse me,” he muttered. “That may be my daughter.”

“Mind if I trail along?” said Ellery, also rising. “I’ve got to see the purser.”

They followed the steward in an odd silence to the A-deck lounge, where Dr. MacClure entered the ship-to-shore telephone room with a quick step. Ellery, waiting for the purser to placate a florid woman passionate about something, sat down and rather thoughtfully eyed the doctor through the glass walls. There was something bothering the big man – something which might possibly explain, he thought, more than the convenient excuse of “overwork” Mr. MacClure’s poor health …

He sprang out of the chair the next moment, and then stood still.

As the connection was made and Dr. MacClure spoke into the instrument, something happened to him. Ellery saw the big man stiffen in his seat beyond the glass walls, clutching the telephone convulsively, his craggy features drained of blood. The shoulders sagged then and the whole man seemed to cave in.

Ellery’s first thought was that the doctor had suffered a heart-attack. But he instantly realized that the expression on Dr. MacClure’s face was not caused by physical pain; the pale lips twisted with shock, the shock of immense and horrified surprise.

Then Dr. MacClure was at the door of the cubicle, fumbling with his collar as if he wanted air.

“Queen,” he said in an unrecognizable voice. “Queen. When do we dock?”

“Wednesday. Before noon.” Ellery reached out to steady the man; the iron arm was shaking.

“My God,” said Dr. MacClure hoarsely. “A day and a half.”

“Doctor! What’s happened? Has your daughter –?”

Dr. MacClure braced himself and with an effort walked to the leather chair Ellery had vacated and sat down, staring at the glass walls. His eyeballs were yellow, speckled with red darts. Ellery motioned violently to a steward, whispered to him to bring a long drink, and the man left running. The purser was already hurrying across the lounge, followed by the florid woman.

The big man suddenly shook through the length and thickness of his body. And his face screwed up in the queerest expression of pain, as if he were wincing at a terrible thought that refused to leave his brain.

“An awful thing,” he mumbled. “An awful thing. I can’t understand it. An awful thing.”

Ellery shook him. “For God’s sake, Doctor, what’s happened? Who was that?”

“Eh?” The red-speckled eyes gazed up at him unseeingly.

“Who was it?”

“Oh,” said Dr. MacClure. “Oh. Oh, yes. The New York police.”

Eva sat up on the couch at half past four and yawned, stretching her arms. The book she had picked up from the inlaid table she dropped, wrinkling her nose; it was dull. Or perhaps that wasn’t fair – she’d really not been able to put two consecutive sentences together. There were so many things to think about – the wedding, the honeymoon, the house, where to live, the furniture …

If Karen didn’t finish what she was doing soon, she thought, she would curl up and go to sleep. There was still plenty of time before the six o’clock call she contemplated to Dr. MacClure in mid-ocean, although she could hardly wait. She did wish Karen would come out, or something. They’d call the
Panthia
together! Or should she keep the news as a surprise for Dr. MacClure when the
Panthia
docked Wednesday morning?

The telephone rang in Karen’s bedroom.

Eva sank back on the silk pillows, not listening, half-smiling. But the telephone rang again. It stopped. It rang.

That was funny, thought Eva, staring at the closed door. The telephone was on Karen’s writing-desk in front of the oriel windows overlooking the garden, and that was where Karen sometimes did her work. She had only to reach over … There it was again!

Could Karen have lain down for a nap? But surely that shrill signal would have awakened her. Was she in that funny, mysterious old attic of hers? But … Another ring.