What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (24 page)

“Why Judge Grannie!” she exclaimed, posing prettily in the doorway. “I just heard you talkin’, just the least sound of your voice up there in my room and right away I knew it was you!”

“Miss Charlotte!”

“How long? When was the last time you were in this house?”

Incredibly, Charlotte and the Judge began to create a scene from the past, acting out what happened, Charlotte playing the young southern belle to the Judge’s fatherly old man. Miriam and Hugh watched incredulously. The Judge, it was obvious, was senile and of no help to them at all. Charlotte, in the end, talked of her Daddy and how he made her promise to stay in the house and to never give in to the town and the people. She began to weep, so overcome with grief that Hugh had to help her upstairs to her room. The Judge, far from accomplishing his purpose of persuading Charlotte that she must leave, was eased out of the house by Miriam, still in a fury against the town meddlers who had bullied that “poor helpless little thing.”

That evening Hugh drove Miriam into town to see the commissioner to ask him for an extension of time for the demolition crews to take over the house. At first, he refused.

“What are you going to do?” asked Miriam. “She may be ill. And she seems to be deranged. Are you going to march in there and throw her out bodily?”

“Well, I could hardly take the responsibility for that kind of action.”

“And you can’t simply tear the house down with her in it.”

“No…”

“I will do my best to get her out as soon as possible.”

“Perhaps if you weren’t here. If there wasn’t anyone to help her?”

“You tried that before I came back and it didn’t work. And she is my only living relative, the only one left. And there is the danger that someone might harm her. I have to stay.”

The commissioner countered, “But if we bring a criminal charge against her…”

“It will only delay and make matters worse,” Miriam fired back. “I’ll be responsible for her… at least to see that she doesn’t shoot anyone. You’ll simply have to give me a little time.”

In the end the commissioner agreed to give Miriam another week.

As she went to the car, Miriam was met by Paul Selvin, who tipped his hat and smiled. “I don’t like to make a nuisance of myself,” he said, “but I did want to enquire if you’d had the chance to speak to your cousin.”

“I’ve had the chance,” replied Miriam, “but I haven’t had the nerve.”

“Perhaps if I were to just drop in…”

Miriam shrugged, “Why shouldn’t you? Everyone else in town has.”

“Tomorrow then?” Paul asked.

“If you don’t care what you do with your time. There’s every chance that Charlotte will refuse to see you.”

“But then perhaps you’ll keep me company yourself?”

Miriam laughed, got into the car with Hugh and they drove away.

The night was warm and muggy. Miriam slept lightly and fitfully. Further down the hallway, Charlotte rose from her bed and looked out into the evergreen hedges. Was there a figure there? Or was it a trick of light and her imagination?

“John?” Charlotte whispered. She stood a moment longer in indecision and then moved back into the house. Emerging into the hallway, Charlotte paused, took a silent step or two in the direction of Miriam’s half-opened doorway and listened. Hearing nothing, she turned and hastened down the stairs. At the foot of the stairs she stopped. The silhouette of a man seemed to loom against the window, and then it moved back and forth to become the shadow of a shrub. She opened the front door and found nothing more than the night and a breeze. She turned and went back into the house. She paused at the door of the drawing room and looked in. She started inside but a face loomed suddenly out of the darkness. She stopped, her heart pounding, as she realized that it was her own youthful face, caught in a patch of moonlight, staring from the portrait. Then hearing what she thought was a bit of music she started toward the ballroom. The door, usually kept closed, was ajar. There seemed to be a moving figure again, this time within the oblong of light shining from the doorway. She started forward and stopped, a little afraid and uncertain, and then thinking she heard the music again, moved slowly down the length of the hallway to the door and shoved it open.

Upstairs, Miriam moved restlessly in half-sleep. On the nightstand was the revolver, perfectly visible in the soft glow of the safety light. She too heard the music—a soft tinkle from the piano being played as before. The sound continued for a moment before she sat upright into full consciousness. For a moment she listened, and then rousing herself, she got up from the bed, put on her negligee and left the room. Out in the hallway, she stopped, peering downward to listen to the music. She turned back to look toward the bedroom but was drawn back sharply by a cry from below. She rushed back to the bedroom and snatched up the gun.

As she headed for the stairs, she heard the sound of smashing glass, which came again and again with shrill keening which continued as she rushed to the now closed door of the ballroom.

For a moment she was unable to get the door to open, but
then open it flew nearly hurling her backward. The room seemed madly aglitter with moonlight although the French windows were closed. She heard sobs coming from somewhere at the center of the dimness. She switched on the lights, and then looked around in mute stupefaction. All the mirrored panels in the room had been smashed, the floor littered with bright shards. Charlotte stood at the center of the room crying, clutching her arm with her hand. At her feet lay one of the hammers the workers were using when packing the furniture.

Miriam hurried across to Charlotte. “Charlotte, are you all right? What have you done? Why, Charlotte? Why, Charlotte?” The question poured out almost on reflex.

Charlotte could only sob and shake her head, and when she took her hand away from her arm, blood oozed through her fingers and down the length of her arm.

“You did this, didn’t you?” Miriam demanded to know.

Charlotte shook her head and finally got out the single word, “No.”

“Then who did it? You were here. You saw. Who did it?”

Charlotte looked back in the direction of the closed French doors. “John…” she finally managed to breathe. “He’s angry at me.”

“Go along,” Miriam demanded. “Go on up to your room. I’ll come in and fix your arm in a minute.”

As Miriam went to test the French windows, to make sure they were locked, she found one unsecured. She opened it and looked out and for a moment thought she saw a moving figure out there, but the light made it uncertain.

The next day Miriam showed Hugh and Velma the room, which Velma, complaining all the while, had been set to cleaning up.

“It ain’t the sort of thing anybody in their right mind would do,” Velma proclaimed. “Bustin’ up a place like this… that Miss Charlotte…”

Miriam interrupted, “No one said my cousin did it.”

“Nevertheless,” Hugh put in, “whoever did it was in a violent state of mind. One way or the other, Charlotte’s got to be made to leave before anything else happens.”

“I know,” Miriam said, “that’s why I called you. I wanted you to be here when I talked to her. If need be, I think we should give her a strong sedative… if you agree to that, of course.”

“We’ll see,” Hugh replied.

As they left the room, Velma straightened up from her work, and then slowly, leaving enough time so that she wouldn’t be observed by them, followed silently after to watch and listen.

Much to their surprise, Hugh and Miriam found Charlotte packing, getting her things ready, apparently, to leave.

“What are you doing?” Miriam asked in disbelief.

“I must go,” said Charlotte in an oddly quiet way. “I realize now…”

“I’m so glad,” Miriam said. “I felt certain you would sooner or later.”

“Yes,” said Charlotte, and then looked away so Hugh and Miriam could not see her expression, she added, “I should have seen it before. But I didn’t know…”

Miriam gave Hugh a quick glance. “You didn’t know what?”

“That John wanted me to. But now, after last night…”

Miriam stared at Hugh disbelievingly. This seemed to be proof that Charlotte most certainly was mad.

Downstairs, Velma, who had been eavesdropping, went to the phone to tell Paul Selvin, who had paid her to do so, that Charlotte had finally decided to leave the house.

Miriam and Hugh were engaged in a hasty discussion as Charlotte left the room. Was Charlotte up to something, or had she really decided to leave? They would simply have to wait and see.

“But I won’t leave in the daylight for them all to stare and crow over me,” Charlotte said vehemently. “They’re not the ones who’re making me leave… it’s because of Jewel. Tonight, I’ll go when
it’s dark, when they won’t see, I’ll just vanish…” She turned to Miriam. “You’ll drive me, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” Miriam said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Where it’s sunny. Where it’s warm. Remember that little town down on the gulf where Grandma used to live?”

“I was never there.”

“Oh, weren’t you? Never mind. We’ll find it.”

“I know,” said Hugh sotto voiced. “I know where she means.”

Miriam looked back at Charlotte and smiled. “We’ll leave tonight, then, after supper.”

“Yes,” echoed Charlotte, “after supper. I’ll just vanish. I’ll just leave this place as it is… to the jackals…”

“I suppose,” said Miriam worriedly, “I’d better pack my bags.”

That evening as they sat down to the dinner that Velma had left for them, Miriam watched Charlotte nervously, uncertain as to whether she would change her mind again or not. Since the food that Velma left was poor, she went to the kitchen, found her way to the wine cellar and returned with a bottle of champagne. Miriam had always had champagne tastes; and Charlotte, in her deepening depression, could use some cheering up. Miriam opened the bottle and took it out to Charlotte on the terrace.

“I never did have a good head for liquor,” said Charlotte. “Don’t you remember?”

“Just a little won’t hurt,” Miriam suggested. “Besides, there’s cause to celebrate.”

As they finished the bottle, Charlotte became visibly tipsy. Miriam saw and urged her to “Just eat a bite or two.”

Charlotte left the table and went back into the house. For a moment she stood looking down the length of the hallway. Then, not so very gracefully, spilling a little of her wine, she did a deep curtsy.

“How nice,” she said, in a light, girlish voice, “How nice of you all to come to my little party…”

“Charlotte,” Miriam called, entering from the terrace.

“Oh,” said Charlotte, smiling back at her, “I’m just funnin’. Don’t you worry ’bout me…”

“I’d better go get things ready,” Miriam said. With a quizzical glance at Charlotte she went on up the stairs. In the hallway, Charlotte gave a little laugh and offered her hand to some imaginary swain. Then she meandered room to room reliving moments from the past—at first the happy ones in which she was the pretty daughter of adoring parents. She stopped long enough to enact with her father just enough to give a hint of a kind of “conversational” incest. She could always get anything she wanted from a man… or so she had been led to believe. And she could get any man.

“John…” she murmured the name and whirled about. It was as if he was there before her. She reached out and took his hand.

“If anyone sees you!” she said in girlish delight. “If Jewel should find out… She acts so nicey-nice and lady-like, but you know how she is… married to her…”

Charlotte ran along the hallway as if leading John, drawing him into the shadowed shallows of the music room.

“Oh, if anyone knew! If Daddy knew! Oh, I hate to think… No, no, you mustn’t kiss me here. Anybody might come along. If they do, you go straight over to the piano and start playin’, like that was what you came in here for…”

She smiled softly to herself. “Oh, you’re so silly comin’ here this way… for the help to see… but I’m glad… Glad! Oh, John, I don’t care anything about any of those silly, silly boys that come around. When I see them, and then I look at you… your handsome, handsome face and your beautiful hands…”

She stopped suddenly, her hands outstretched as if to take his, and then as some other vision rose before her, she groaned and covered her face as she whirled out of the room.

On the upper landing, Miriam appeared hastily, having carried out some boxes from Charlotte’s room. She called down to her,
but heedless and crying now, Charlotte was only intent upon fleeing the terrible vision that confronted her there in the ballroom. She hurried toward the big front door, desperate now to be away and out of the house. Again Miriam called her name, but Charlotte was too upset to hear. Tugging at the door, Charlotte rushed outside.

As she started across the wide front veranda, a figure loomed monstrously and suddenly before her. She cried out, and there was a terrible blinding flash of light before her. In the black wake of the flash, Paul Selvin came forward, smug now at having gotten his picture.

“Miss Hollis,” he said, “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

Sobbing in terrible panic, aware of some other flashing lights on the drive, Charlotte ran back inside the house, slamming and bolting the door before leaning against it, too terrified for the moment to move. Miriam, a box clutched in her arms, came awkwardly to the top of the stairs.

“Charlotte!” she cried. “What happened?”

Outside the flashing lights in the drive proved to be the headlights of Hugh’s car. He came to a stop and, having witnessed the hasty drama at the door, got out and went immediately to Paul. Cutting him off from escape and struggling with him, Hugh took and smashed his camera.

Inside Miriam continued to stare down at Charlotte. “Charlotte,” she said, “please…”

Charlotte turned from the door, trying to control her sobs and looked up at Miriam. She tried to speak, to say what happened, but she was unable to form the words.

“All right. All right,” said Miriam. She started to put down the box, but it slipped and as she made a grab for it the lid, the box, now turned to its side, fell open.

Charlotte looked up at the opened box and its exposed contents and her sobs were stilled by a new and even worse terror, for there, before her, grinning down from the top of the stairs was a horrible
severed head. As she stared, unable in her terror either to move or to make any sound, the head tumbled from the box and fell to the stairs, and descended a ghastly jouncing descent to the bottom of the steps across the floor to her very feet. Then sucking in a deep, convulsive breath, Charlotte gave vent to a deafening scream.