Crime is Murder (11 page)

The little man with white hair had a voice softened with a lifetime of servility. Was he the only servant? The thought was startling in a house of such size. Carrie might manage. Carrie might manage the White House single-handed, but not this fragment of a man. But all wool-gathering ceased when Lisa was ushered into a large sunroom with a surprising—and welcome—twentieth-century atmosphere. Not that it was modern. It had been—the very latest in rattan and cretonne—back in about nineteen twenty-eight. The only changes that had been made since were in the nature of deterioration. But one didn’t have to look that closely. One shouldn’t. One should smile graciously at the hostess, express pleasure at this delightful diversion, and try not to show awareness of her faded chiffon elegance, as overdone as that rococo grand hall, or the completely staged effect of the whole scene.

The tea things—silver service and bone china—sat on a low table in front of Nydia’s fan-backed chair. Nearby, quite proper and subdued (A nice young lady doesn’t go about hurling paperweights. Aren’t you ashamed?) sat a Marta Cornish Lisa had never seen. No flamboyant scarlet-lined rainhood to set off her black-haired beauty, no bright yellow dress blowing like a defiant flag against the darkening sky, Marta was pastel today, soft, sweet, and genteel.

And artificial, Lisa thought. Everything is as artificial as the garden scene of a summer-stock comedy. She found herself looking about for the croquet set.

Then the amenities were over.

“I do hope you’ll excuse the light tea,” Nydia said, presiding over the table. “No one seems to eat very much in hot weather. I thought just a few sandwiches—”

They were few. Few, small, and plain. Lisa didn’t mind at all, she’d come to listen, not to eat; but all that chiffon elegance seemed a bit out of place.

And it’s quite old chiffon, Lisa. It’s even been mended in a few places.

“Marta eats like a bird,” the hostess added. “It worries me at times. But her father was the same way. Whenever he was deep in concentration on some work, I had to tag after him with a tray to make sure he ate anything at all. He would become completely absorbed in his music.”

Lisa caught a signal in Nydia’s eyes. After all, she had been invited for a purpose.

“Speaking of music,” she said, turning toward the strangely silent Marta, “how is the concerto coming?”

Marta stared at her cup.

“I understand all entries are to be in by the first of July.”

“Oh, Marta’s will be ready,” Nydia said brightly. “She merely has to brush up a few phrases here and there. Why don’t you play some of it for Miss Bancroft, Marta? I’m sure it will be all right. She’s quite impartial.”

It was the first time anyone had called Lisa impartial, but she didn’t argue. She had eyes only for Marta now. Marta the silent, the subdued, with a trace of a pout for a danger signal and a shadow of trouble lurking in those downcast eyes. (Play nicely for the lady, Marta. Show what a brilliant child you are.) There was resentment in every movement of her body as she walked listlessly to the piano. It stood before the windows looking out over the hill. Far below were the charred ruins of the old studio.

Marta began to play. She played mechanically. She might have been some pretty little toy with a winding key in her back. Now Lisa pried her mind away from the magnetic fascination of those ruins below the hill and tried to concentrate on what she heard. Part of the melody was familiar. Yes, last night she’d heard it as she started up the hill path on an ill-fated mission. But last night it was different. It was alive.

Play nicely for the lady, Marta.

Suddenly, Lisa was angry. She knew this child. She was deliberately spoiling her composition, deliberately delaying its completion. Even if she did complete it in time for the entry dead line, played in this spiritless manner before the judges, it would take more than the keen ear of Sir Anthony to find merit in the work. And yet she wanted to win. The award meant escape—and Joel.

She stopped playing after a bit and let her hands drop to her lap. She looked up with poker-faced defiance.

There, are you satisfied? Have I played nicely enough?

“Of course, that’s only a small part of the composition,” Nydia said. One thin hand worked nervously at a long strand of amber beads about her neck. It reminded Lisa of old Dr. Hazlitt and his watch chain.

“It’s very nice,” Lisa said. Nice was a silly word, but it was the only one she could think of. And then the wave of anger came again. There was more to Marta Cornish than a stubborn, defiant brat. She
could
play. She
did
have talent. Before discretion could stop her, Lisa was on her feet and at the piano.

“I’ve heard you playing as I walked about,” she said. “There’s one part I particularly like. It has such a haunting melody. Let me see—”

This was no place for a two-fingered pianist, but the theme Lisa picked out was so plaintively simple it could not go unrecognized. She waited for Marta to pick up the melody. No musician could remain mechanical with such a melody. But Marta’s hands, although they tightened into fists, remained in her lap. Then silence came. The dead, sickening silence of realization that something wrong has been done.

Nydia Cornish came to her feet.

“You are wrong, Miss Bancroft. That is no part of Marta’s composition.”

“But it’s quite lovely—”

“I think it’s quite inferior. It’s some childish foolishness she’s picked up somewhere. For all I know, it may have come from a carnival carousel!”

All the niceties were over. All the careful conduct of that friendly little tea vanished in a flash of anger. Not the hot anger of the child. The icy anger of the mother. Lisa stood between them for an instant, the puzzled instigator of a scene of changing moods. Now the mechanical doll was alive. She, too, came to her feet and pushed Lisa aside.

“What do
you
know about music?” she cried at her mother’s face. “What do you know about anything important—anything real! What do you know about love?”

At Carrie she’d hurled a paperweight, at her mother a knife of accusation. Lisa saw it sink deep, saw Nydia tremble and turn pale, and then one hand, the hand that had played with the beads, drew back and struck Marta across the face.

“You devil!” she said. “You she-devil!”

It was one of those terrible moments that should occur only on a stage where a merciful curtain can be dropped. But there was no curtain. There was the smart crack of Nydia’s hand across the girl’s face, the words—more exploded than spoken—and then three embarrassed people each of whom would have preferred to be anywhere but where she was. Instinctively, Marta responded to her desire. Like a colt breaking tether, she fled. Seconds later the front door slammed behind her with a reverberating thud. It was a signal for Nydia to return to awareness.

One thin hand groped toward her throat. She looked at least sixty-five at that moment.

“Oh, such a terrible thing to say!” she moaned. “I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean—”

Her eyes found Lisa’s face. They were wild with remorse.

“It’s just that I don’t understand her. Can’t you see that, Miss Bancroft? Can’t you see what her outbursts do to me? Talk to her. Please talk to her!”

Lisa had seen. She’d seen far more than she was meant to see. Now there was an excuse to leave without further ceremony, and she took advantage of it. Marta was running away again, just as she’d run away last night. This time there was no wounded Carrie to look after; Lisa could follow.

She was glad to be free of the house. The long drive reached like an empty sleeve through the pines. She could see as far as the two stone pillars, but there was no sign of Marta. Where else? There was an old summer pavilion in what had once been a rose garden—empty. There was the path bending down and out of sight over the hill. It was instinct that led Lisa now. When a child runs to hide, there must be a hiding place. An old, familiar hiding place.

She found her in the ruins crouched in a corner with her head pressed against her knees.

“Marta. Marta, get up.”

The dark head rose slowly. Sullen eyes found Lisa’s face.

“What was that all about? That ridiculous display at the piano?”

“It’s no good,” Marta said. “Nothing I do is any good.”

“Who told you that? Your mother?”

“Everybody. Everybody knows.”

“Everybody knows what, Marta?”

If Marta wouldn’t rise, at least Lisa could kneel beside her. There had been enough running away. This time she was going to get an answer.

“You know! You heard Carrie last night! You saw what I did!”

“I saw a foolish child give way to an outburst of temper. I saw the same thing again today. But that’s
all
I saw.”

Now Marta looked at her, sudden wonder in her eyes. And something else, too. Not just anger. Fear. Haunting fear.

“Talk about it,” Lisa ordered.

“Talk—?”

“Start at the beginning. Or shall I start for you? There was a gardener, wasn’t there? A peculiar gardener when you were just a child.”

“No! I don’t remember him. I don’t even remember!”

“But you remember what the gossips said when he was sent away, don’t you? You remember that. And then old Mr. Hubbard who lost his heart medicine at your birthday party.”

There had to be a limit to Marta’s stubbornness. Somewhere there had to be a limit to the strength of that wall of defiance.

“I don’t remember!” she insisted. “I remember the party. I remember that he died. That’s all I remember!”

“But you do remember when Pierre Duval fell down the stairs. You remember that, Marta.”

“Yes, I remember. But I didn’t push him. That’s what Carrie told all over town. We quarreled. We quarreled a lot, but it wasn’t anything serious. And I wasn’t in love with him. I don’t care what anybody says, I
wasn’t!
”

“Were you in love with Howard Gleason?”

For just a moment Lisa thought the moment had come for the wall to collapse. Marta drew in her breath. She was very pale now.

“Not really,” she said, in a half-whisper. “Not enough. He knew that. He knew that from the beginning.”

“But he shot himself.”

Talk about it. Talk in cold, hard words until Marta’s shoulders began to tremble and a lifetime of fear began to seep through that wall of silence. And then it was gone—swept away in one terrible cry,

“I killed him! I killed them all! I never meant to, but I did. Everybody knows that.”

And then the tears. A dark head buried against her knees, and the long, deep sobs of a child’s fear. How many times? How long had Martin Cornish’s child come to this spot to cry away her fear? Lisa’s arms were about her shoulders, drawing her near. Martin Cornish’s child, alone these many years.

After a while the sobbing stopped.

“Talk about it,” Lisa said again. Softly now.

One last, muffled sob like the echo of spent grief.

“I liked him,” Marta said. “He was young and I was glad when Mother asked him to stay at the mansion on week ends. It gets lonely there. Maybe I thought I loved him, but I didn’t tell him so. And I didn’t ask him to stay. I didn’t ask him to give up the scholarship and stay. And I don’t know anything about that money. I don’t know anything about
any
money!”

“And yet you said that you killed him.”

The words sounded foolish now. They must sound foolish even to Marta, but still she hesitated.

“But he shot himself—”

“Exactly.
He
shot
himself
. There was a weakness in him. You didn’t put it there. You couldn’t have put it there. Howard Gleason was afraid of life. Sooner or later he would have destroyed himself by one means or another. Suicide, liquor, self-pity. That’s the world’s greatest killer—self-pity.”

Marta’s head came up. She began to grope for a handkerchief.

“Now, why don’t you forget all this nonsense and get back to work? I know a fine young man who believes in you. He’s already planning a honeymoon in Paris.”

There was so much confidence in Lisa’s voice—never mind if it were justified—that she fully expected Marta’s face to brighten with a smile. The storm was over, wasn’t it? The sun always came after the storm. But Marta didn’t smile. Suddenly the fear was in her eyes again.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you love Joel?”

In a small voice, Marta answered.

“Very much. Too much.”

“Then why are you afraid?”

Marta began to corkscrew the handkerchief about her fingers. There was something more to be said. The storm wasn’t quite over. Then she faced Lisa with large, frank eyes.

“Because I might hurt him, too. Because something terrible may happen.”

“Marta!”

“No, I will say it! I will! I do terrible things. I don’t know why. Like throwing that weight at Carrie, and letting that—that load of lumber fall—”

For a moment, Lisa couldn’t believe her ears. “
Letting
the lumber fall?” she queried.

There was silence after the question, as if Marta herself wasn’t sure what she meant.

“I saw it getting ready to fall,” she said at last. “I stood there and watched it.”

“But you couldn’t have stopped it.”

“No, but I could have warned Joel and he might have stopped it. I didn’t because I was angry with him. He’d been riding me about finishing my composition. I just watched it fall and then ran away the same as I did last night. Can’t you see, Miss Bancroft? I really am—”

But she couldn’t actually speak the word. It caught on a barrier of her mind.

“I mean, I really do bring bad luck to people. I am a jinx, just as they say.”

She actually believed it. It was a sickening thought. Lisa felt a wall of anger rising up inside her. A child, nothing but a child, but she was being crucified by backstairs gossip and old tragedy. The ruins seemed uglier now. Black and dismal. How many lives had to be sacrificed on this charred altar?

“
They
say!” she exclaimed. “What do you care what
they
say! Don’t you know why they talk about you? You’re the daughter of Martin Cornish, and you have a gift they envy. You can’t please the world, Marta. None of us can. Even to try is to risk your sanity. Life isn’t easy. All we can do is make the best of whatever we have to work with, and let the idle minds find fault. They have the time for it!”

A speech with that much feeling behind it had to have some effect. Lisa waited for a sign of confidence. It was beginning to come.

“Your friends will see the good in you,” she added. “The others just aren’t worth thinking about.”

It was beginning to come. Marta’s head rose higher, and then her ear caught a sound on the path. Lisa heard it, too. Not Nydia, she prayed. Not now. But some happy fate was with them, and the voice that came with the footsteps was the one voice Lisa longed to hear.

“Marta? Marta, are you in there?”

Joel’s ruddy face appeared at the window fragment. He saw them immediately.

“Now, what are you two doing in this godforsaken place?” he asked. “I just stopped by the house and Mrs. Cornish said that Marta had run off—”

“We’re having a discussion,” Lisa said quickly, “on the trials and tribulations of a great artist in the making.” She winked at Marta. No time for tears now. The storm was over. “Now, if someone will just give me a hand. I seem to have dropped my cane out of reach.”

Marta was on her feet instantly, and her hand was strong for one so small. Joel stepped through the window and retrieved her stick from a crack in the boards. He smiled at her, as if thanking her for keeping a promise. Marta was calmer now. Shaken still, but calm.

“Take her home, Joel,” Lisa said. “She hasn’t much time to get that concerto in complete form. There’s no time like the present to get started.”

Marta drew back.

“It isn’t good,” she said.

“Then make it better.”

“But I can’t—I mean, I’m not really
that
good!”

Her wide gaze swept the studio ruins in a kind of last stand of timidity. Lisa knew exactly what she meant.

“Shades of Hamlet! The child’s haunted by her father’s ghost! Take her home, Joel, and make her work. You’re not competing with Brahms and Beethoven, you know.”

Now the smile came—a weak one, to be sure, but a big improvement over any expression Lisa had seen on Marta’s face to date. Joel had his arm about her waist. They started to move away, and then Lisa remembered something still unfinished. It was risky to bring it up inasmuch as she’d touched off a small revolution with the subject before, but there might be no other opportunity to ask.

“There’s one thing, Marta.”

Marta and Joel paused in what once was a doorway.

“That theme I’ve heard you playing. Where
did
you get it?”

She was right. It was a touchy subject. Marta paled for an instant—but no, they were friends now. There was nothing to be feared or hidden between them.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I don’t—really. It’s just something that’s been running through my mind for—oh, ever so many years. I work on it, but I can’t ever seem to find the finish. Then I get angry. Mother’s right. I shouldn’t try. It only makes me unhappy.”

She hesitated as if there might be more she could tell, but there must not have been. The troubled look that had come into her eyes vanished. She was smiling again as she and Joel started back toward the big house on the hill. Back to work. Back to the pursuit of a dream.

Lisa watched them go, a vague smile softening her mouth. Something had been done. Something had been accomplished. But then, as she stood alone among the ruins of Martin Cornish’s studio with all its ghosts of tragedy past, she knew at last the purpose of this pilgrimage to Bellville.

Like Marta’s composition, there was a story that needed an ending.