There is No Return (25 page)

“How did he know that Uncle Thomas had phoned for the sheriff?” objected Allan Atwood. “You’re forgetting that the man Uncle Thomas suspected wasn’t here at the inn. He was hidden out on the mountain.”

Chet Keith frowned. “Where is this hide-out you’re supposed to have discovered, Stuart?”

The chauffeur hesitated, and the sheriff, abruptly abandoning his humorous attitude, leaned forward and laid his hand heavily upon the man’s shoulder.

“This here is serious,” he said, “a lot more serious than I realized at first. Talk, fellow, or by God you’re going to jail and you’ll stay there till you rot if you don’t talk.”

Chet Keith nodded. “A thousand dollars is a thousand dollars in any man’s language, Stuart, but it isn’t worth hanging for.”

The chauffeur’s lean furtive face twitched. He reminded me of a ferret run to earth without the courage to bare his teeth and defend himself.

“The hut’s been cleaned up now,” he muttered, his eyes darting frantically about the room, as if he were looking for cover. “I ain’t got nothing but my word to prove the cigarette butts were ever there, or the car tracks either.”

“Your word’s sufficient for me,” said Chet Keith.

Just then Dora Canby, who had been sitting listlessly in her chair, taking no interest in the proceedings, looked up and cried out in a startled voice, “Gloria!”

Everybody turned. Sheila Kelly was getting slowly to her feet.

There was that blurred look which I had noticed on her face before.

Her hands were wavering in front of her as if she were feeling her way through a fog.

“God!” whispered Chet Keith.

He took a quick step toward her, but she did not see him. She was staring across the room.

“Ask Lila where the razor blade came from,” she said in that mocking, perverse voice which always sounded so strange upon her lips. “Ask her why she put me out of the way.”

I have never seen anything more tragic than Lila Atwood’s eyes.She seemed to be frozen in her tracks.

“Or ask Allan,” Sheila Kelly went on. “He knows.”

I do not believe that anybody who saw Allan Atwood’s ravished face at that moment failed to realize that he did indeed possess some guilty knowledge.

“Allan!” cried his wife and put out her hand to him, but he drew away with a shudder.

And then the lights went out. I heard Sheriff Latham’s muffled curses. I heard Butch cry out and somewhere quite near me Chet Keith kept calling Sheila Kelly’s name in an anguished voice. I was conscious of a great deal of confusion, of people moving about, of other people pleading with somebody to turn on the lights. Above all I was conscious of that terrible gurgling groan, followed by a coughing gasp which made my blood run cold.

“Lights! For God’s sake turn on the lights!” shouted Sheriff Latham.

And then Fannie Parrish gripped my shoulder convulsively.

“Look!” she screamed. “Oh, look!”

We all saw it, that weird ghostly emanation which floated in the air above our heads.

“Gloria! Gloria darling!” wailed Dora Canby.

It had a face, a malicious yellow face like Sheila Kelly’s and yet unlike hers. The eyes were indescribably evil, the mouth twisted into a perverted and shocking smile. It seemed to be jeering at us as it hung there, suspended in mid-air. And then it vanished and Chet Keith found the light switch and pressed it. We were all blinded after the darkness. I remember rubbing my eyes to clear them and being afraid to remove my hand. I think I knew what I should see in that chair in front of the coroner’s table.

“He’s dead,” whispered Sheriff Latham, his face as grey as a piece of blotting paper.

The chauffeur was dead, slumped down in his seat, the handle of a large butcher knife protruding from the breast pocket of his neat blue suit.

I have never denied that I lost my head for a few minutes after the discovery of Jay Stuart’s dead body, nor was I the only one. I do not believe anybody could give a coherent account of what happened there in the parlour for the next quarter of an hour. Fannie Parrish had hysterics, I do remember that, and I think from the expression on Sheriff Latham’s face he wished he might follow suit.

“I saw it! We all saw it!” shrieked Fannie over and over. She was referring to the apparition which had floated above our heads. She glanced at me reproachfully. “You said it wasn’t possible for the dead to come back,” she said. “But you can’t deny the evidence of your own eyes.”

Dora Canby was weeping. “Gloria! Gloria!” she kept saying in a desolate voice.

They would not let her go to Sheila Kelly. They would not allow Chet Keith near the girl either. Upon Sheriff Latham’s orders Butch had taken the prisoner upstairs to her room and locked her in with instructions not to take his eyes off her door for a moment.

“Though I’m beginning to realize that you’re right, ma’am,” the sheriff said with a sigh to Fannie Parrish. “Locks and bolts don’t mean nothing to what we’re up against here.”

The sheriff’s scepticism had suffered a sad blow. He was a thoroughly materialistic man and, like Fannie, he was constitutionally unable to distrust the evidence of his own senses. He had seen Gloria Canby’s spirit rising from Sheila Kelly’s body. The sheriff no longer bothered about how she had been able to kill the professor while she was, as he believed, incarcerated in a locked room.

“I never took no stock in spooks,” he said, wiping his brow, “but I ain’t too old to learn.”

Chet Keith, looking tired and shaken, tried to protest. “It was a trick. There is no such thing as ghosts or apparitions.”

He might as well have saved his breath.

“You talked me into letting you run this business,” growled Sheriff Latham, “and what have we got to show for it? Another corpse!”

“The girl’s being framed!” exclaimed the newspaperman in a despairing voice. “Your men searched her. They searched her room. They took away everything of a lethal nature. If she killed Stuart, where did she get the butcher knife?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Locked doors don’t mean nothing to her. She’s in traffic with the Devil and the Devil looks after his own.” He crossed himself and glared about the room. “Clear out, all of you. The investigation is over. We’ve got the murderer, though we may have to burn her for a witch to be rid of her.”

“I tell you the girl isn’t guilty,” groaned Chet Keith.

Nobody, least of all Sheriff Latham and Coroner Timmons, paid any attention to him. Judy Oliver was assisting her aunt to her feet. They walked out, followed by Jeff Wayne and Patrick. Lila Atwood started to go with them, but Dora Canby turned on her.

“You killed Gloria,” she said, “because of Hogan Brewster. I never want to see you again. Come, Allan.”

I saw the look which Lila gave her husband. He hesitated, then he turned and walked out of the room behind his aunt. With a short laugh Hogan Brewster took Lila’s arm.

“Lean on me, old dear,” he said.

I saw her stumble and then her shoulders lifted. “Thanks,” she said and they went out together.

Ella Trotter sighed. “I suppose that settles it. She’ll surely divorce Allan now and marry Brewster.”

“Do you believe she killed Gloria Canby?” I asked.

Ella shrugged her shoulders. “Allan Atwood believes it. No wonder he shrinks from her. He thinks she killed Gloria on account of Brewster!”

It explained a great deal which had puzzled me about Allan Atwood’s attitude toward his wife. He thought she was in love with Brewster, who, according to Ella, had been having an affair with Gloria. It did not, however, explain one thing.

“She isn’t in love with Hogan Brewster,” I protested. “I’d almost be willing to swear that she’s in love with her husband.”

Ella shook her head. “I dare say she’s stuck to Allan for fear he’d betray her to the police if she left him.”

“That’s possible,” I muttered, but it did not satisfy me.

We were all gathered in the lounge again with the exception of the Canby family. Lila Atwood was there, sitting a little apart on one of the hard settees, talking to Hogan Brewster. She must have known that everybody present was discussing the charge which had been made against her, but she held her head high and I heard her laugh at one of Brewster’s sallies.

“She’s going to brazen it out,” remarked Ella. “After all, I don’t suppose she’ll ever be arrested. With Thomas Canby dead, there is nobody to press the case, and even he doesn’t seem to have been able to prove that she killed his daughter.”

I frowned. “Doesn’t it seem a little queer that even Gloria Canby’s ghost appears to have been confused on the issue?”

“What issue?” demanded Ella, knitting her brows.

“At the séance last night she blamed her father for her suicide. Tonight she accused Lila Atwood of murdering her.”

Ella sniffed. “Are you still trying to give Sheila Kelly a clean bill of health, Adelaide?”

“I have said from the first that the dead don’t come back,” I explained wearily.

Ella shrugged her shoulders. “The kindest thing you can say for Sheila Kelly is that she’s possessed of something,” she pointed out.

“But not of a ghost,” I insisted, looking about for Chet Keith.

He appeared to have vanished. At least he was not in the lounge. Fannie Parrish said she had seen him a little while before putting on a slicker, as if he intended to go out.

“If you ask me,” she said, which nobody had, “we’d better all start walking to town before we get our throats cut.”

“I imagine he’s gone to look for that hut which the chauffeur discovered,” I said to Ella.

“What good will that do?” she retorted. “Whoever was hiding out on the mountain had nothing to do with the murders.”

“Then why was the chauffeur killed just as he was on the point of revealing the whereabouts of the hut?” I demanded with, I believe, some acumen.

“Gloria Canby never needed rhyme or reason for inflicting pain,” said Fannie with a shudder.

“Tommyrot!” I cried.

Ella looked at me as if she would like to shake me.

“You’ve been saying ‘Tommyrot!’ ever since you got here, and weird and horrible things have gone right on happening in front of your eyes. Isn’t it about time you climbed down off your high horse, Adelaide?”

Now, had Ella been less sarcastic or had I been less contrary, as she says, I might have confided in her at that moment and spared myself one of the most dreadful experiences of my life. Or if Chet Keith had not wandered off in search of the abandoned shack which Jay Stuart had found, I should certainly have taken Chet into my confidence. As it was, I took nobody, not even Miss Maurine Smith, from whom I elicited my information, such as it was.

“Yes, Miss Adams,” she admitted, regarding me with puzzled eyes, “we have such articles on sale. It’s inconvenient for people to go to town from here, so we keep a lot of stuff on hand.”

She glanced apologetically at the cigar case at the side of the desk which was indeed cluttered up with a variety of ill-assorted objects, such as gumdrops and shaving cream and chocolate bonbons in boxes and small bottles of perfumery, not to mention several toy automobiles, a couple of jumping jacks and a yo-yo top.

My heart skipped a beat. “You have them on sale!” I exclaimed.

“The point is, have you sold one?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t. I am not on duty all the time, you know. Shall I ask Captain French and let you know?”

“Please do,” I said and drew a long breath. “I’ll be in my room.”

Her eyes opened very wide. “Oh, but, Miss Adams, I thought we all decided we’d be safer if everybody stayed down here in the lounge together …”

“I’ll be in my room,” I repeated firmly and stalked over to Sheriff Latham, who had just finished telephoning to town with regard to the latest report from the bridge.

“They say we can get across by six in the morning,” he muttered, scowling at nobody in particular.

“Seven hours!” breathed Fannie Parrish. “If we survive that long!”

At first Sheriff Latham was disposed to shelve both me and my complaint without ado. “I got other things on my mind, lady,” he said irritably, “without worrying about petty larceny.”

“It may be petty larceny to you,” I announced with all the dignity at my command, “but it’s my property and I insist that you do something.”

“Getting all worked up over a trifle like a book at this stage,” he grumbled.

“The book was stolen after I arrived at the inn,” I pointed out.

“That means somebody in this house took it. By seven o’clock in the morning everybody will be scattered to the four winds. If you hope to recover my property, it’s got to be done tonight.”

“Listen, lady,” grumbled the sheriff, “I’ll buy you a book. I’ll buy you any book you want. I ain’t got time to bother with chasing down a thief right now.”

“I don’t want you to buy me a book,” I snapped. “I want you to take steps to recover the book I’ve lost. And I warn you that I am not without influence in this state. I am also a major taxpayer. I should hate to have to write you up in the papers as being criminally negligent in your duty.”

I do not believe it was my threat to take action which finally moved Sheriff Latham. I am inclined to think, with my foster son Stephen Lansing, that the sheriff yielded because he was tired of being harassed to death by me and Fannie Parrish, who was after him every minute to do something or other. At any rate he did yield.

“All right, all right,” he said wearily, “what is it you want, lady?”

He stared at me, when I had explained. “I’m to search their rooms?” he asked.

“Or have your deputy do it after you’ve sent them up to me.”

He rubbed his ear. “’Tain’t likely they got the book where it can be found in their possession,” he protested.

“You’ll never know till you look,” I pointed out acidly.

He shook his head. “I’d feel better if you’d stay off that second floor.”

“I’m not afraid, Sheriff Latham,” I assured him, though my voice carried less conviction than I intended. “Anyway,” I added, “your man is on guard right outside my door.”

He shook his head again. “That didn’t save the professor.”

There was no answer to that, so I attempted none. “I wish you’d let me know the results as soon as you search each room,” I said.