Yellow Room (32 page)

“What about Elinor Hilliard?” Dane inquired. “Why was she shot?”

“She was badly worried. You can understand that. I suppose she meant to see me that night Lucy’s death had frightened her. Or she may have meant to look for the clothes I’d buried. But he was not a killer, major. I hope you realize that. She may only have been in his way. Colonel Richardson was after him, you know. He may only have fired a shot to stop Henry and it struck Elinor. I don’t know. I never saw him after that night. As a matter of fact I drove him to the railroad myself. But he would not talk.”

Dane was thoughtful for some time. The old man was fumbling in a pocket.

“You slipped up about the blankets at Pine Hill,” Dane said finally. “Why did you leave them there? You’d made a good job of the rest of it.”

The old man produced a letter and laid it on his knee. He took off his pince-nez and wiped them.

“When you reach my age,” he said wryly, “you forget things. When I remembered them it was too late. You’d already found them and told Floyd. And I’d lost my glasses when I was carrying out the empty cans he’d left. That is why—”

He got up, the letter in his hand.

“That is why I shot you, major,” he said. “You knew I did it, of course?”

“I knew it, yes,” Dane said soberly.

Nathaniel stood, looking down awkwardly at the man in the bed.

“I don’t know what is proper under such circumstances,” he said. “I can’t apologize. I can only explain. I had missed my glasses some time before, and that night I went to look for them. When I heard you—my nerves aren’t what they were. But I never meant to shoot you, only to frighten you off. I beg you to believe that.”

“I’m glad you’re not a better shot,” Dane said cheerfully. “I thought it was like that when I was able to think at all. You see, I understand a great deal, Mr. Ward. More than you think, perhaps.” He reached for the shoe box. “You’ll find your glasses in here,” he said, “but they’re broken. Don’t pay any attention to the other stuff. Just throw it away. Only”—he added with a smile—“I suggest you don’t bury it.”

Mr. Ward took the box awkwardly.

“What about the police?” he asked. “Should I go to them? Before he left he sent me a statement, to be opened after his death, or in case Gregory Spencer was convicted. I am keeping it at home.”

“Let’s wait a bit,” Dane suggested. “Greg Spencer won’t be tried for some time. And things sometimes work out. After all you may be wrong, you know.”

The letter was on his bed when Nathaniel went out, and Dane marveled at the strength which had carried the old man through the last few weeks, and which might have to carry him even further. It was some little time when at last he picked up the letter and began to read it.

H
E KNEW AT ONCE
when Carol came in that morning that she had seen the newspapers. She was very quiet, but she went to his arms at once.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Jerry,” she said. “Later, perhaps. Not now.”

“Just so it doesn’t change things between us, darling.”

“Nothing is changed,” she said steadily.

“Have you seen the colonel?”

“I stopped there. I didn’t see him. His man said he wasn’t feeling very well.” She stopped, and withdrew herself from his arms. “What am I to do, Jerry? It seems so brutal somehow.”

“I think that it will settle itself, Carol,” he said, his steady eyes on her.

He put her in a chair—he was dressed by that time, and a small dressing had replaced the bandage—and sat down near her.

“This is not going to be easy, darling,” he told her. “And I’ll ask you to withhold judgment for a while. I want to read you a letter. Mr. Ward brought it in this morning.”

He offered her a cigarette, but she refused, and he read the letter through to the end. Now and then he looked up, but she made no comment. She sat with her clear candid eyes on him, her face rather pale but otherwise calm.

He left off the salutation, and a following unimportant paragraph or two. He began:

“I have some news for you both, but I want you to keep it to yourselves for a while. I’ve found Don Richardson.”

Dane glanced at Carol. She had not moved, and he went on: “I was visiting one of our fellows in a hospital, and Don was in a convalescent ward. He was playing dominoes with a sergeant, and at first he didn’t see me. When he did he only looked puzzled.

“‘I think I’ve met you somewhere,’ he said.

“‘Why you old son of a so-and-so!’ I told him. ‘I’ll say you have. What’s the matter with you?’

“Then the fellow with him said he’d lost his memory. He’d been for months on an island somewhere. The natives had looked after him, but he’d had a fractured skull. ‘Got a silver plate there now,’ the sergeant said. ‘Been here for a good while. But things are coming back, aren’t they?’ he said to Don. ‘You knew this guy all right.’

“Well, he didn’t. Not at first anyhow. He was not in an officers’ ward, for nobody knew who he was. He was just part of the flotsam and jetsam of a war, brought back and dumped. I had to hurry, but I went back the next day, and he was definitely on the up-and-up.

“‘You’re Terry Ward,’ he said. ‘I know you now.’

“He didn’t remember his crash or the island, either, but he asked about his father. He didn’t want him to know until he could get back to see him. Old Richardson has a bad heart, you know. And when I’d seen him several times he said I was to write you this, that he would come to you first, and then you could arrange how to break it to his dad so it wouldn’t be a shock.

“I suppose I’ve been a help. They call him Jay here, because he was naked as a jay bird when they found him, and the natives had probably taken his identification tags. I agreed to keep his identity a secret until his father had learned it. To avoid shock. And I gave him a couple of hundred dollars. The reason I’m writing is that you may see him soon. He went AWOL from the hospital last week, and as I’ll be leaving before long it will be up to you. Just remember this. He’s changed a lot. Got a beard for one thing, although he’s promised to shave it off. And they’ve done some plastic work on him. Not bad, but not good either. He’s pretty much depressed. The boys say he talked about a Marguerite and somebody named Greg—maybe Greg Spencer—while he was delirious after the ether. And I’m sure he’s got something on his mind he won’t talk about.

“All I know is that he said he had some things to see to, then he was going back to the Pacific again to fly if he had to stow away to get there. He’ll do it too, silver plate and all. It’s the whale of a story, isn’t it? Be good to him—but of course you will. He’s had a rotten time. All my love to you both. Terry.

“P.S. I’ll send you some sort of word if he comes back here, or manages to get back to his squadron. Just an okay.”

When Dane looked up Carol was sitting with her eyes closed, as though to shut out something she could not bear. It was some time before she spoke. She was very pale.

“Marguerite!” she said. “Are you telling me that Don killed her? That Don came here and killed her? And shot Elinor. I don’t believe it, Jerry. He wasn’t like that.”

His voice was gentle.

“I’ve told you this before, my darling. War changes men. They’re not quite the same after it. And there are always designing women waiting around for them.”

“But—murder!”

“I’ve asked you to withhold judgment, for a few hours anyhow. And don’t forget this either, Carol darling. You’ve read the story in the paper. He wasn’t only saved from that island. He got back to his squadron and has been fighting hard ever since.”

“You think that condones what he did?” she asked. “He killed that girl because she had married Greg. And he’s allowed Greg to be indicted, to sit in a cell and wait for trial. Is that courage? It’s despicable, and you know it.”

Dane glanced at his wrist watch. Something had to happen, and happen soon, unless he himself was crazy. Sitting on the edge of his bed—there was only one chair in the room—he began carefully to tell her Nathaniel Ward’s story as he had heard it; softening nothing, making it as clear as he could. To this he added his own visit to the Coast, the Gates family, and finally the birth certificate.

Carol read it with only a slight rise of color.

“That only makes it worse,” she said. “She bore him a child. She even named it for him! And then—”

She did not finish. Someone was coming along the hall. When the door opened Dr. Harrison came in. He looked grave and unhappy when he saw Carol.

“I’m afraid I have bad news for you, my dear.”

She got up quickly.

“Not Greg!”

“No. Colonel Richardson died at his desk an hour ago. It was painless, of course. He was writing a letter at the time, and—well, it’s understandable. He had taken bad news for two years like a man and a soldier. But good news—”

Dane drew a long breath. There were tears in Carol’s eyes.

“He was one of the finest men I ever knew,” she said quietly. “I’d better go there. He was all alone, except for his man. Perhaps I can do something.”

Dane got Alex on the phone the moment she was out of the room. He gave him some brief instructions and hung up. His mind was already busy with what was to be done to quash the indictment against Gregory Spencer. They would reconvene the Grand Jury, he thought, and present the new evidence, and for once he was grateful for the secrecy of such a proceeding. When Alex called all he said was a laconic “Okay,” and Dane relaxed as though a terrific burden had been lifted from his mind.

Some time later Floyd was sitting across from him, his legs spread out and his face sulky.

“So you’ve made a monkey out of me,” he said. “How the hell did you know?”

“I didn’t. I worked on Terry Ward for some time. There had to be an X somewhere. Who was hiding out up at Pine Hill? Who got into the hospital, trying to talk to Lucy Norton, and scared her literally to death? Who ran into Elinor Hilliard at night and shot her in order to avoid recognition. Washington reported Terry was on the Coast and hadn’t left there.

“Maybe I began to believe in miracles myself! But I was pretty well stymied. Washington had no record of Don’s being alive. I couldn’t discover anything on the Coast. Yet here were the Wards protecting somebody. Not Terry. He hadn’t been east. All along they’d been in it. They—”

“Are you telling me old Nat Ward buried those clothes?” Floyd demanded.

“You’d better ask him,” Dane said smoothly.

“All right. You’ve dug a lot of worms to get a fish,” Floyd said resignedly. “So you pick on another hero for your fish! Don Richardson’s guilty. How are you going to prove it?”

Dane settled back in his chair.

“I haven’t said Don killed that girl, Floyd.”

The chief sat forward, his face purple.

“Stop playing games with me,” he bellowed. “First Don did it. He says he did. Then he didn’t. Who the hell did?”

“The colonel,” said Dane, lighting a cigarette. The colonel, Floyd. And he never knew he had done it.”

When Floyd said nothing, speech being beyond him, Dane went on.

“Figure it out for yourself. There was always X, you know. And X didn’t behave like a guilty man. He hung around after it was over. He waited for the inquest. He tried to see Lucy Norton, to find out what she knew and hadn’t told. Wouldn’t a guilty man have escaped as soon as he could?”

“Pretty smart, aren’t you?” Floyd said. “You got most of that from old Ward himself this morning!”

“All right,” Dane said amiably. “I had two guesses, Don or the colonel. And if it was Don it didn’t make sense. Why didn’t he see his father? The colonel would have died to protect him. Instead of that Don took a farewell look at him through a window. The colonel didn’t like the idea, so he tried to follow him. I don’t think he even knew it was his own son. He really thought it was Terry Ward.”

Floyd got out a bandanna handkerchief and wiped his face. He was sweating profusely.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Go on and dream, Dane. So the colonel killed the girl and went home and had a good night’s sleep. Go on. I can take it.”

“Well, think it out for yourself,” Dane said reasonably. “The colonel had been paying for the support of his grandson ever since he was born. He’d gone to the Coast and seen Marguerite—if that was really her name. I suspect she was born Margaret—and he knew her. Imagine his feelings when he saw her, the morning she arrived, on her way to Crestview. He was an early riser. He had to have seen her, to account for what happened. Maybe she saw him too.

“Anyhow he went up to the house that night, after Lucy had gone to bed. She couldn’t take him into the house. She put on a negligee and went to the door to talk to him. I think she told him she had married Greg, and that she offered to bribe him. If he’d keep quiet about Don’s baby he needn’t pay any more hush money, or whatever you choose to call it.

“He must have been in a towering rage. Not only about the trade she suggested. Here she was, a little tramp, married to Carol’s brother and capable of telling her she had been Don’s mistress. Not that he thought it out, I imagine. I think he simply lost his head and attacked her. He didn’t know he’d killed her, of course. He left at once, and from that Friday night until her body was found in the linen closet he must have thought she had got away. I saw him myself once, walking around the house, to be sure she had gone.

“The next thing he learned was that she was dead in the linen closet.

“He hadn’t put her there. So far as he knew he hadn’t killed her. I think all he felt was relief. She was out of the way, and someday he would locate the child and provide for him. The Wards believed Don Richardson had done it. Don had told them so. But his story didn’t hold water. He said he’d knocked her down with his fist and she’d struck her head on the stone step. You saw that wound. It hadn’t been made that way. I thought of a poker or a golf club. I didn’t think of a thin skull and a heavy walking stick.

“After I found someone had been hiding out at Pine Hill I still had to do some guessing. I knew by that time it wasn’t Terry Ward. I had the Wards looked up. Terry was the only relative they had. Whom were they protecting, and why? Whom were they feeding? And whom were they afraid of? They were afraid of someone. Old Nathaniel was carrying a gun. And when you dug up the clothes on the hillside Mrs. Ward had a stroke.