Yellow Room (14 page)

“He’d better mind his own business,” Elinor said inelegantly, and went up the stairs.

It was one o’clock that morning when Carol heard the fire siren. She roused from a deep dream, in which Greg was hiding from her and she was following him, to hear the noise and sit bolt upright in bed. She got up, feeling for her slippers in the dark, and went to the window. The village seemed to be all right, but there was a reddish glare reflected on the clouds above the house, and the siren kept on. It was calling the volunteers now, and the engine was already on its way, its own shrill clamor adding to the din. She was still in her night clothes when she ran to Elinor’s room, to find her standing at the window in a pale negligee, gazing out.

“It’s the hill,” she said. “I think that empty house up there is going. It’s lucky the wind is in the other direction, or we’d go too.”

Carol looked out. The fire had already roared up the hillside. It had escaped the tool house, but as she looked the dried shingles of the roof of the abandoned house above began to catch, and the hill itself was a roaring inferno. The engine had gone to the fire hydrant up the lane, but she could hear the cars of the volunteer firemen as they began to roar up the Crestview drive.

She realized that it was hopeless, although men were shouting and running, and she even saw Maggie rushing out with a broom. The lane would probably keep it from Rockhill, and a cement road beyond the burning house would stop it there. But the hillside was gone. Even its trees were burning. Her first thought was the trees.

“I can’t bear it,” she said. “They’ve been growing there for years. Greg built me a swing there once. Remember?”

Elinor nodded. She looked somber in the red glare, but she said nothing. It was some time before Carol remembered that the firemen would want coffee. She dressed rapidly and went to the kitchen, to find the two maids huddled there and a bedraggled Maggie standing over the stove, with the coffee under way.

“They turned the hose on me,” Maggie said calmly. “Who started that fire, Miss Carol? Don’t tell me somebody dropped a cigarette. I saw it before it had gone very far. It looked like it began all over the place.” She turned to the other women. “One of you girls run out and tell those men to come in for coffee when they’re ready.”

But it was three in the morning before they wanted coffee. They straggled in then, tired and dirty and some of them with small burns. Maggie used some precious butter on them, lacking anything else. Most of the men of the summer colony had turned out, and they were as dirty as the rest. The house above was gone, and the hillside was burned, wiped out completely. They had saved a few of the trees, however.

They stood around, eating sandwiches and drinking coffee. A bewildered lot. The air warden who had turned in the alarm was Sam Thompson, who ran the hamburger stand in the village, and he told his story to an interested audience.

“I went up the lane just before one o’clock. It was all right then, but five minutes later I saw the glare and ran back. Looked like there were five or six fires, all going like mad. I raced over to the Wards’. There was a light on there, and it was the nearest house from where I was. Mr. Ward was still up, and he telephoned the fire department. When I got back the whole hill was one solid blaze.”

“Think somebody set it?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. With the wind the way it is, and everything dried up, it could spread itself.”

That was when Carol saw Jerry Dane. He was in his pajamas with a dressing gown over them, and he was as dirty as the rest. She took him a cup of coffee, and he regarded her coolly.

“Nice work!” he said. “How many people besides you know I was looking for something up on that hill?”

“You’re not invisible,” she said, her voice as cold as his. “And don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do it.”

“Well, somebody did.” He put down his cup and his face softened. “Listen, Carol,” he said. “Someday you may decide to tell me what’s behind all this. You may save a life or two if you do. Perhaps your own. So don’t wait too long.”

She did not reply, and she did not see him again. By four o’clock in the morning the house was empty. The girls were washing up, and she found Elinor in the library making herself a drink from the small portable bar table there. At some interval she had gone upstairs to do her face; but she looked tired and irritable.

“What was that Dane man saying to you?” she asked. “He looked nasty.”

“Only asking me why I started the fire,” Carol said ironically. “And what I was keeping from him. He thinks I know something.”

“And do you?”

“What do you think?”

There was a rather pregnant silence. Elinor said nothing. She sipped at her drink, and Carol lit a cigarette and watched her. Which was the precise moment which Captain Gregory Spencer chose to return to his summer home.

He came in from the terrace, a tall blond man in uniform with Elinor’s good looks in masculine mold, but with Carol’s candid eyes and Carol’s smile. He was smiling then as he dropped a bag and straightened to look at them.

“Well,” he said. “Here’s the sailor home from the sea, and the hunter—”

Elinor looked stunned.

“Greg!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

He did not reply. He held out his arms and Carol went into them. He held her close.

“Poor little girl!” he said. “Been going through hell, haven’t you? I couldn’t get away any sooner.”

Out of sheer relief she began to cry. She stood in the shelter of Greg’s arms and felt safe and protected again. And Greg held her off and gave her a little shake.

“Stop that,” he ordered. “Didn’t you know I’d come? Where’s your hanky? Here, use mine.” He wiped her eyes, and over her head looked at Elinor. “What’s the matter with you? Why shouldn’t I come? I thought that was the big idea in opening the house.”

He released Carol and poured himself a drink.

“Quite a fire, wasn’t it?” he said. “I’ve been hiding out for the last couple of hours. It looked as though they had plenty of help, and this is my best uniform. I thought it was this house at first. What on earth happened?”

“Probably someone dropped a cigarette,” Elinor said calmly. “There hasn’t been any rain for ages.”

He seemed satisfied. He finished his drink and yawned.

“What about bed?” he suggested. “Plenty of time to talk tomorrow. I drove up, and I’m tired. You look as though you could stand some sleep, Carol.” He inspected her closely. “Taken quite a beating, haven’t you?”

Suddenly Elinor got up.

“Everybody has taken a beating,” she said furiously. “It’s not over, either. Why should you come here to be dragged into it? I thought you were going to be married right away?”

“So I am,” he said, “God willing.” He looked at Elinor. “But I’m not letting Carol take this mess alone. It’s got her down already. Look at her.”

“Then I think you’re crazy,” said Elinor, her voice sullen.

Carol went up to see to his room, which was still closed, but the first excitement and relief of seeing Greg was gone. There was something behind Elinor’s semi-hysteria, and the look Greg had given her. It had almost been as if he was warning her, and alone upstairs, fumbling in the dark back hall for sheets from the service linen closet, she felt once more the old closeness of the two downstairs. They might quarrel—they had always quarreled—but they would stand together, against her, against the world.

By the time she had made the bed and seen to towels and soap Greg had come up. He stopped in front of the sealed closet door and inspected it.

“Why all this stuff?” he inquired. “I thought the thing was more or less over. It’s horrible, right here in the house.”

“Maybe you can get them to take it off.”

“I’ll do my damnedest,” he said. “It makes me sick to look at it. I suppose they have no idea who did it?”

She looked up at him, and at once she felt that she had to talk to him, to tell him what was driving her into a nervous collapse. He looked big and reliable, and he was Greg, whom she had always adored. She lowered her voice.

“I hate to tell you, Greg,” she said, “but I’m frightfully worried. Marcia Dalton says she saw Elinor’s car here the night it happened.”

She had been prepared for surprise, perhaps for indignation. She was not prepared for the stricken look he gave her.

“Oh, my God!” he said. “What was she doing here?”

He tried to pass it off, of course, said the whole thing was preposterous and to forget it. But he had had a shock, and she knew it.

It was faintly daylight before she went to bed. She left a note on the kitchen table saying that Greg had arrived and not to disturb him, and before she went up to her room she glanced out the kitchen window. There were still men around, watching, for fires like that had a way of eating for hours under the leaves and then flaring again. But in the gray of the dawn the blackened hillside stretched up to the skeleton of what had been a house above, its green beauty destroyed and small patches here and there still smoking.

Her car was still in the drive where she had left it. It looked shabby in the morning light, but at least the fire had not touched it. And already the birds were singing, although some were fluttering about with small frightened chirps. Their nests were gone, she thought tiredly. Their nests and their babies. Even the old orchard where in the autumn the deer came at night to stand on their slim legs and eat the apples.

In her room she undressed slowly. The patio was gray with the dawn, and across it she could see faintly the outline of Elinor’s door. As she looked she saw it open and close, and realized that Elinor had gone to waken Greg and talk to him.

She was too exhausted to wonder why.

D
ANE SLEPT LATE THE
next morning. He did not waken until noon, when Alex called him to the telephone. It was Tim in New York.

“Think I’ve struck oil,” he said. “Registered as Mary D. Breed.” He gave the name of a hotel. “Answers description. Gave residence as St. Louis. May be phony, of course. Only arrived Wednesday evening. Checked out the next morning.”

Dane was making notes on a pad.

“Seen the room?” he asked.

“Look, Dane, you know what hotels are like. There have been half a dozen in that room since. Yeah. I looked at it. Seven dollars a day. Worth about three. Paid in cash.”

“Anybody remember her?”

“The porter thinks he does. Says he carried down her suitcase. Gave him fifty cents. Remembers the fur coat and white hat.”

“A suitcase? She didn’t bring it with her. Probably checked it at the railroad station.”

“With the stub in her bag. Sure,” Tim agreed. “New Haven Railroad to Boston. From Boston to Maine. Could have left it anywhere.”

“It may have her initials on it.”

“Yeah, and it may not. Have a heart, chief. Have you seen the checkroom at any of the railroad stations lately? Anyhow, I can’t get hold of it if I do locate it. Unless you want the police in on this. Maybe they could get it. I can’t.”

“Keep the police out. That’s why you’re there, Tim.”

“I’m damned if I know why,” Tim grumbled. But Dane was not listening.

“Better take a plane and go to St. Louis,” he said. “We’ll have to try. How about money? Got enough?”

“I get airsick,” Tim protested. “Besides, I hate flying.”

“I’m sorry, Tim. I haven’t much time, you know. I’ll soon be back in service. Make it on a plane, and go to the police there. Give both her names. Chances are they don’t know any details about the murder. It’s just a hope, but it’s all we’ve got.”

Tim was still protesting when Dane put down the receiver. He went to the window and looked out toward the hillside which had burned the night before. Somebody had been smart, he thought. Alex had been down by the stable when it started, and he had seen nobody. The first warning he had had was the glare, and by the time he reached it it was too late.

“Started in half a dozen places,” he had reported, his voice sulky. “Gasoline, probably.”

Dane was worried, too, about Tim’s call over the telephone. If Floyd was as smart as he thought he was it had been unfortunate, to say the least. And from his point of view it had indeed. At that moment Bessie at her switchboard had plugged into the chief’s office.

“I’ve got something for you,” she said excitedly.

“Good girl. What is it?”

“A man named Tim called Dane from New York. Said she spent the night at a hotel there, and registered from St. Louis. Name Mary D. Breed. He’s gone on to St. Louis. Tim, I mean.”

“Fine work, Bessie. Get the chief of police in St. Louis and call me back, will you? We’re getting hot. Who’s this Tim? Did he say?”

“No, he didn’t. But he called Major Dane ‘chief,’ if that means anything.”

If Dane did not hear this conversation he was fairly sure it had taken place. He was still annoyed when Alex brought his lunch to the porch. Alex’s eye was bloodshot and his eyebrows singed, and Dane found himself grinning in spite of his irritation.

“Good place we chose for a rest, isn’t it?” he observed.

“It might be, if we’d mind our own business,” said Alex, and added a “sir” with some reluctance.

“At least we know we were on the right track. The stuff is buried there, or was.”

“Much good that does,” Alex grumbled. “I went over it this morning. It’s burned, and burned good. You couldn’t find your grandmother in it.”

Dane disclaimed any intention of looking for that aristocratic old lady in such surroundings, and ate a good lunch. After that he inspected the hillside. As Alex had said, it was hopeless. It was covered inches deep with charred wood and ashes, and the skeletons of blackened trees towered over it.

It was the border that interested him, however. It was irregular, as though the fire had started in several places at once, and he was inspecting it when someone spoke behind him. He turned sharply, to find a youngish man eying him.

“Quite a fire, wasn’t it?” he said amiably. “Spoils the place, rather. I always liked that hill. Used to play on it when I was a kid.”

Dane inspected him. He saw a big good-looking man in slacks and sweater, rather than like his own outfit, who was smiling as he offered a cigarette.