Yellow Room (25 page)

“What do you mean by ‘you fellows’?” Dane asked dryly.

“FBI man, aren’t you? Were before the war, anyhow.”

Dane neither denied nor assented. He lit a cigarette and blew out the match.

“We all slip. I suppose he frightened Lucy Norton to death and shot his sister, too?”

“We’re not trying him for either of those. We don’t have to.”

“You can’t very well leave them out.”

“He may have done them both. I’m not saying. The Norton woman, yes. I expect she saw him that night when she fell down the stairs. His sister, probably no. Somebody took her for a deer.”

“And the person who was hiding up at Pine Hill? What about him?”

“I’ve been up,” said Floyd comfortably. “So have the State Police. So had Mr. Campbell here. Know what? Those blankets came from the Ward place. Had the cleaner’s tag on them. Nathaniel Ward says his wife gave them last fall to a fellow who helped their gardener. He’s in the Marines now. Nice fellow too. Name’s Arthur Scott. Used to go hunting and stay out all night.”

Dane got up.

“So Arthur Scott came back from the South Pacific or wherever he is now and slept at Pine Hill within the last week or two. Is that what you’re saying?”

The district attorney roused at last. He spoke gravely.

“I understand your disappointment, major,” he said. “The family is well known, and Greg Spencer has a fine war record. I’m only sorry this has happened. But there is no use dragging red herrings across Floyd’s trail. He’s done a great piece of work.”

“All but finding the guilty man,” Dane said curtly, and went out into the fog and dim-out of the night.

H
E DROVE SLOWLY BACK
to his house. As he passed the club he could hear the laughter inside and the sound of the jukebox in the bar. He remembered how strange it had felt when he was first brought back from the war, to find people living normal lives. It had been a long time before a plane over the hospital had not caused him to flinch.

Perhaps no man was unchanged after he had been in this war; could take safety for granted, or even the ordinary human happinesses. Had he been wrong, and had this happened to Greg Spencer? At least twice he had admitted to prolonged and heavy bouts of drinking, that usual attempt on the part of exhausted nerves to relieve strain or achieve forgetfulness. And drunken men do strange things, as he knew well.

But again there arose the question of his sister. Guns could be fired and cleaned, of course. Also, people were sometimes shot by mistake. Had Greg meant to kill someone else and shot Elinor Hilliard instead? He tried again to reconstruct the night it had happened, Carol’s drowsy response when he knocked at her door, and Greg—

He thought that over, the search of the house and Carol reporting Elinor missing. “And Greg’s asleep. I heard him snoring. She must have gone alone.”

He remembered Elinor’s room, the bed used, the book left as she had put it down, with the wind from the open window ruffling its pages, and her sheer stockings on a chair. If Greg was asleep, who or what had roused Elinor? Had someone seen her light and called through the open window? If so, who had it been?

His mind turned again to the Wards, their blankets in the empty house, the old man’s odd behavior the morning after Elinor had been shot, and even further back, to the evening he himself had left Marcia Dalton’s and gone to Rockhill. What was it Mr. Ward had said? Something about not running to the police with every bit of tittle-tattle he heard. And his own impression that the old man had wanted to get rid of him that night.

He was not greatly surprised the next morning to learn from Alex that a dozen men or so were working on the hillside.

“Digging all over the place,” Alex reported. “Tim called me up to tell you.”

Dane dressed and went over. The hill was crowded with men who looked like a hastily assorted group of gardeners from various estates. They had pegged it out, each man with a definite area, and he was still watching them when one of them near the burned house suddenly let out a yell and Floyd hurried across to him.

They had found the cache. Floyd was holding up a small overnight bag, using a bandanna handkerchief to do so, and peering down at something at his feet.

“That’s all, men,” he shouted. “We’ve found them. You can quit work. And thanks.”

He was still there when Dane made his way over to him. Except for the bag Floyd had touched nothing. He was probably waiting for a photographer, Dane thought, and was not surprised when the reporter, young Starr, came loping across, camera in hand, from his old jalopy. He did not even see Dane. He waved the man back and stood over the hole, focusing carefully.

“Gee, chief,” he said. “That’s the stuff all right. Bad news for somebody.”

Dane could see the pit now, not far from the small shallow one he had seen before. It was wide rather than deep, and the clothing in it had been dropped carelessly. A small black shoe, what looked like a black dress, an edge or two of peach-colored underwear, and the corner of a flat pocketbook were in sight. They made him faintly sick. Good or bad, the girl they had belonged to had lived and liked living. Now—

He went down to break the news to Carol, only to find that she was not alone. He heard a sonorous voice as he walked along the hall.

“But, my dear girl,” it was saying pontifically, “I never touch criminal cases. Why Mr. Hilliard sent for me I don’t know. As for this fellow Dane you refer to, I’ve never heard of him.”

Thus disposed of with neatness and dispatch, Dane reached the door. The speaker was standing in front of the fire, a short tubby elderly man exuding displeasure from every pore, while Carol was looking crushed. Evidently this was Hilliard’s lawyer.

“If—as seems entirely probable—Gregory Spencer has committed—” Hart began. Then he saw Dane and stopped.

“What if he hasn’t committed a murder?” Dane said aggressively. “And what about remembering that Miss Spencer has had a shock and ought to be in bed?”

“Who the hell are you?” said Mr. Hart, pomposity lost in indignation.

All the last two weeks of anxiety and frustration came suddenly to the surface in Dane’s retort.

“My name’s Dane, sir. I gather that means nothing to you. But if you’re starting by accepting the fact that Spencer’s guilty, I suggest that you take the next plane back. He’s better off without you.”

Mr. Hart was apparently stunned. He reached for his pince-nez and surveyed Dane through it, uniform and all.

“I see,” he said. “Brother officers. The services take care of their own.”

Dane took a step toward him, and Hart retreated abruptly.

“All right, all right,” he said, the unction gone out of his voice. “I take that back. I’m rather upset. I had no sleep last night. I hate planes, and to be confronted with murder—”

“By a person or persons unknown,” Dane said softly.
“Still
unknown, sir.”

The learned counsel left after that, presumably headed for the hotel and Hilliard, and Dane, rather ashamed, broke the news about the hill to Carol. She took it stony-faced and unflinching.

“It doesn’t prove anything against Greg, does it? After all, since he wasn’t here—”

“No, but there are other things not so good.”

He could not hold off any longer. He put her in a comfortable chair and then told her the whole story as he knew it. He omitted nothing, but he gave her only facts, not theories. And her wide intelligent eyes never left his face.

When he had finished she nodded.

“I can see why they arrested him, Jerry. I can’t see why you think he didn’t do it.”

“Do you?”

“No. Of course not.” She looked startled.

“All right, darling. Now I want you to think, and think hard. What about Terry Ward? He was expected here but he didn’t come. Is that right?”

“Yes. But if you’re trying to make a case against Terry—”

“He’s involved somehow, darling. Pretty seriously, I think. He’s on the coast now, for one thing, although I can’t find out if he’s been east. He may have been in the crowd last year when Greg met this girl. He may even have been in love with her himself. That’s possible, you know. And what’s wrong with the Wards? Greg’s arrest has upset them pretty badly, or something has. I saw the doctor going in there a while ago.”

But her mind was still on Terry. He was young and gay. He adored the old people. He had been Don Richardson’s friend, and there was some story of the two of them taking up Greg’s plane years before, and that Greg in a white fury had threatened them both with jail. Of course that meant nothing, she said. It was just kid stuff, and certainly Terry would never murder anybody.

Dane made no comment. He did not say that this Terry was a different man, one who had been taught to kill. He sat back, watching her and thinking what it would mean to get her away from here, from the neurotic mother, from Elinor’s selfishness—if nothing more—and Greg’s ability to get himself into trouble.

The mention of Don Richardson had reminded her of Maggie’s story about the colonel. She repeated it now.

“So much has happened since,” she said, “I simply forgot it. But Maggie’s quite positive. It was only a few minutes after she heard the shot. Of course the colonel may merely have been hurrying home from the Wards’. They play chess very late.”

He did not ask her for further details. He persuaded her to try to get some rest, and went around to see Maggie herself. Maggie’s story was even more dramatic, the running, the hatless head with its white hair, the dressing gown, the slamming of the colonel’s front door. “It was him all right,” she said, “and I’m going to that potbellied Floyd tomorrow and tell him so.”

He advised against this. He told her he had some ideas of his own, and to keep quiet until it was time for her to speak. But Maggie was still suspicious. She was convinced that the colonel had lost his mind since Don’s death. “The way he pesters Miss Carol, poor child.” And he lived close enough to Crestview for what she called any sort of monkey business. In the end, however, she promised and he left, puzzled by the incident but also aware of the Irish tendency toward exaggeration. Any man might run if he had heard a shot near him. Only it was rather curious that the colonel apparently had not spoken of it.

He went home, feeling more in the dark than ever. If Floyd had found anything of importance in the girl’s pocketbook that morning, he did not know it, would not know it until the trial probably. But there was one angle of the case which he realized he had neglected, and after some hesitation he added it to his notes.

(14) If Marguerite had been married before she married Greg Spencer, who was the man?

He could not do anything about it that day. He might indeed have to go to the Coast himself to trace it down. But one thing was obvious. He would have to see Elinor Hilliard, regardless of hospital rules or the small army that supposedly surrounded her.

In the end he found this surprisingly easy. Apparently with Greg’s arrest Floyd had taken away the troopers, and the nurse on duty was probably somewhere smoking a cigarette. Because the day was hot the doors were open, and he found Elinor’s room without difficulty.

She was more or less lying in state, wearing an elaborate bed jacket, and with her hair freshly done. There was a silk blanket cover on the bed, and a mass of delicately colored small pillows around her. Evidently reinforcements had come from Newport, he thought grimly.

Elinor herself still showed the effects of shock and pain. Even the touch of artificial color on her face and lips did not hide the fact that she was a desperately frightened woman. She almost leaped out of the bed when she saw him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling at her reassuringly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Do you mind if I sit down? I want to talk about your brother.”

It was the right opening. She looked at him angrily.

“These fools!” she said. “Arresting Greg! He never killed that girl. Never.”

He drew a chair beside the bed.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think he did. But he may go to trial, Mrs. Hilliard. Too many people are not telling what they know.”

“What people?”

He watched her carefully.

“The Ward family, possibly including Terry, their grandson,” he told her. “And you yourself, Mrs. Hilliard. I think you were here the night your brother’s wife was killed. I think you know who killed her.”

“You’re crazy,” she said defiantly, although she visibly paled. “Why would I come here? If you believe that malicious story of Marcia Dalton’s—”

“I’ll tell you what I believe, Mrs. Hilliard. After you hear it you can decide whether you will let your brother be tried for murder or not. I can easily verify some of it. This girl, Marguerite Barbour—or Spencer—learned of your brother’s presence in the country, and followed him east. She may have gone to Washington first. If she did, he did not see her there. I know she spent one night at a New York hotel. I know she tried to see your sister or mother at their apartment, and missed them there. I know she checked her suitcase at Grand Central the next morning, and I think as soon as possible after that she got in touch with you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I won’t listen to any more. I don’t have to.” She reached for the button which would call the nurse, but he took her hand and held it.

“Do you want me to tell you this? Or shall I go to Floyd with it? I don’t think Mr. Hilliard would care for that. Do you?”

She said nothing, and he went on.

“I believe she went to Newport and saw you there, probably at your own house. She told her story. She had her marriage certificate, didn’t she? You pretended to need time to think things over, or perhaps to raise money for her. But you did not tell her your mother and sister were there at the time. She said she was coming here, and you let her come. Why did you do that, Mrs. Hilliard? To get her out of the way? Or to kill her that night?”

“I didn’t kill her,” Elinor said hysterically. “She was dead when I got there. She was lying on the upper steps outside the front door, in a wrapper over her nightdress. I—I got away as fast as I could.”

“Alone?”

“Certainly I was alone.”