Danger in the Dark (26 page)

“When? For God’s sake, Daphne, what do you mean? What happened?”

She told them. “And I thought he was the murderer,” she finished. “I was sure of it; I was so—so
afraid
of him. But I was wrong, for it was only a little later that he was murdered.” Queer, she thought in a kind of dull acquiescence, that she could talk of killing, of murder, could speculate upon things that had been only a few days ago completely removed from her little, governed orbit. Unspeakable things then—unreal, too, because one didn’t look closely at them, because one never peered below newspaper headlines into the murky, ugly entanglements that, she knew now, had to be there.

There was a kind of small ruby glow in Wait’s eyes.

Dennis started to speak, and the detective said, “Tell all that over again, Miss Haviland.”

She did so.

“And almost immediately after he told you that, he was murdered?”

“I don’t know how long afterward—not an hour.” Daphne didn’t see the implication, but Dennis did.

“She couldn’t have done it,” he cried hotly. “No woman could bring those tongs down with sufficient force—”

“Oh yes, she could have done it. And she could have gone to you at once and told you about it and you could have murdered him. Reason: he knew too much. And proposed to use what he knew.”

“But his own presence on the stairway ought to be explained.” Dennis was snatching at straws. “If he murdered Ben—”

“Shore was murdered, too,” said Wait. “And by his own story was in the house at about that time.” He stopped: added: “The time’s wrong. If you reached the springhouse at twelve or near it, and the taxi left at one—well, go on, Haviland, what next? You went back to the springhouse.”

And Dennis took up the false-sounding tale again, going on to the grisly business of moving and shifting that terrifically heavy and inert body. Of taking the dress shirt and waistcoat. “Rowley was to burn them,” said Dennis. Of arranging that stage setting—clumsily, amateurishly, thinking of possible clues and of the seriousness of the thing they had done.

“You did it to protect the bridge company?”

“No,” said Dennis.

“The girl, then. What about your revolver?”

“That’s as I told you. I left it accidentally—I mean without knowing it—in the springhouse. When I put on the flashlight and saw Ben there on the floor, I saw my revolver, too. Daphne didn’t see it. I took it and managed to put it, finally, outside in the snow. I didn’t think it would be found, the snow was so deep.”

The snow so deep. Well, it wouldn’t be deep much longer. If there were anything else it had masked, it would soon be unmasked. Exposed. Discovered.

Wait turned to Tillinghouse. “Have you got the other revolver here?”

“Huh?” said Tillinghouse, startled. “Oh, the other one. The one Shore had, you mean? No, it’s at headquarters.”

“It’s the only other revolver you found?”

“Yes. Nobody else in the house had a revolver. This one was in Shore’s room in town.”

“I know.” Wait’s somber gaze shifted to Dennis again. “He had a room of sorts in town. No evidence of any kind in it, but there was this revolver. A thirty-two.”

“Then my revolver—” cried Dennis, but Wait put up his hand.

“The bullet that killed Brewer and that we took from his body came from your revolver. And Shore’s revolver was loaded but hadn’t been fired for some time.” He stopped and gave his attention to the rug at his feet. There was a short silence. They could hear the heavy drip and murmur of the thaw. Presently Wait turned to Daphne.

“You say you unlocked the door when you left the house that night?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve looked at the night latch—it’s a sort of double button arrangement—which one unlocks the door, upper or lower push button?”

Daphne thought back.

“I don’t know. I just assumed it was locked and—and changed it.”

“Why did you unlock it? Why, rather, did you mean to unlock it?”

“So I could return to the house, of course.”

“Then you may really have locked it. That is, if someone had preceded you out that door and unlocked it. Or, if you actually unlocked it, someone may have come out after you and locked it again—as you found it later when you returned to the house. You, Haviland, did you change the night lock?”

“No. I didn’t expect us to come back to the house. The taxi was waiting.”

“Did you have your bag?”

“Yes. I got it back to my room—I think without Rowley seeing it.”

“You two and Rowley Shore,” said Wait. “Brewer—Archie Shore. All out the door near midnight. Good God, it looks as if you’d have needed traffic signals to keep from running over each other. You still say you saw nobody? Heard nothing?”

“Nobody,” said Dennis. And Daphne said, “Except on the path to the springhouse. I thought there was somebody moving.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Not on the path ahead. Somewhere among the firs. I couldn’t tell exactly—the snow muffled sounds.”

“But you did think you heard someone moving?”

“Yes.”

They couldn’t tell whether he believed the things they had said or not.

“What about the wedding ring?” he said.

Dennis said, feeling again, as they had both felt, that the whole story sounded false and rehearsed, “I don’t know anything about the wedding ring.”

“Rowley was to be best man,” said Daphne. Her voice was small and tired. She twisted her hands together and strove to speak calmly, with clearness, so it would convince. “Ben had the ring before dinner. He showed it to me then. I think he gave it to Rowley to keep until the wedding. Because Rowley was to be best man. Ben was—oh, efficient. Orderly. It would have been like him to do it.”

“He had the ring, then, after he’d dressed for dinner?”

“Yes.”

“And he didn’t have it when you found him in the springhouse?”

Dennis saw it was a trap and said quickly, “We didn’t look in his pockets at all. We didn’t think of it. There was nothing in his waistcoat pocket unless—well, Rowley was to dispose of it—he might have got it then.”

“In fact,” said Wait, letting a tinge of melancholy enter his voice—“in fact, you are both determined to put the possession of the ring upon Rowley. Why would he go out of his way to involve you, Haviland? Any particular source of enmity between you?”

“No.”

“Oh,” said Wait. “You just knock him down from sheer cousinly affection.”

Dennis reddened. “That,” he said, “Rowley deserved. Gertrude—” He swallowed and decided to tell that, too. “You see Gertrude—Mrs Shore—is not too—too—”

“Bright,” said Wait. “I gathered that. Well, what’s she trying to do? Make a match for sonny?”

“Yes,” said Dennis.

“And proposes to do it by—well, how?”

“She knew we had planned to—to go away. Daphne and I. She said—”

“Said she’d tell if you didn’t agree to her demands. Nice family,” murmured Wait. “Murderers—extortionists—”

Dennis said, “It’s the money—”

“Not entirely,” observed Jacob Wait with truth. “After all, money can be anything you make it. Natural depravity is something else.”

Dennis, who didn’t expect the detective to moralize, especially with such simple sincerity, was surprised. It was fleeting surprise, however. There was too much to think of that was more important.

“So you think Rowley Shore had the wedding ring and put it in Haviland’s dress coat to frame him?” said the detective to Daphne.

“I thought so. Yes,” said Daphne. “I don’t know, of course, I didn’t see him do it.”

“You would accuse him of it, though, in order to shift the thing from Haviland?”

She didn’t, curiously, feel anger. She replied honestly, “Yes, if I thought it was right. It’s like Rowley somehow—and he didn’t deny it when I told him what I thought. And he did come to the springhouse that night.”

For a moment the detective did not speak. Tillinghouse shifted his position and sneezed, and the lamp made a bright circle on the table and around the stained gold slippers. Dennis looked at them and thought, in an underlayer of his mind, Why didn’t I tell her to do something about her slippers? I cleaned my own shoes—I brushed the snow off my clothes—I looked over everything for fear there was blood—I ought to have told her.

Then Wait said obliquely, “Rowley’s alibi is also his father’s alibi.” And while Dennis looked at him, struck by the possibilities of interpreting it, Wait turned to Schmidt. “Get Mrs Shore down here. And young Shore.” Gertrude. Daphne’s hopes, which had risen a little as the detective questioned and seemed to listen, sank again. Gertrude in a rage, Gertrude getting over one of her nervous headaches, Gertrude baffled and furious with opposition. Any evidence she could give would not be friendly. And suppose Rowley stuck to his story. Maintained that he had not gone to the springhouse. But he couldn’t do that; surely her word and Dennis’ would more than balance Rowley’s; it would be at least two against one. But there was a thing called collusion. There was prejudice. And even if Rowley told the truth, as she knew it, it would still constitute the strongest evidence against her and against Dennis, for he had found them leaning over Ben—Ben so shortly dead.

She understood then; Dennis had been right to tell the whole story. For, since she had openly defied Gertrude and Rowley, it was only a question of time before Wait was told how deeply she and Dennis were involved in the thing. Dennis had been right to tell the story first; before Rowley could tell it. Before Gertrude could tell it.

She looked at Dennis, and he rose and came to her and put his hand upon her own.

“Look here, Haviland,” said Wait. “You say you didn’t look in Brewer’s pockets at all?”

“I didn’t.”

“During that business of getting him down the path from the springhouse, do you think anything could have slipped from his pocket and become lost in the snow without your knowing it?”

“I suppose so. Yes. But it doesn’t seem likely. After all, you don’t carry much in the pockets of a dress coat. And things don’t fall easily from trouser pockets. And it wasn’t so—so rough-and-tumble as it sounds. We made a sort of hammock of my coat.”

“And you stayed entirely on the path?”

“Yes.”

“You were not at any time beyond the firs—out in the shrubbery beyond the path?”

“No. I’m certain of that.”

“You went to Brewer’s room once—twice?”

“Yes. Twice.”

“You took nothing from the room?”

“A bathrobe. Nothing else.”

“And you would be willing to swear that you took nothing from Brewer’s room or from his pockets?”

“Certainly. I am ready to swear to everything I’ve said just now.”

“Well,” said Wait rather grimly, “you’ll have a chance to.”

“Is Miss—Are we still under arrest?”

“Why not?”

“Because she didn’t murder Ben. And I didn’t,” said Dennis. And held Daphne’s hand tightly, but would not look at her. In the silence the drip of the thaw beat an inexpressibly dismal tattoo on the window sill.

Jacob Wait got up and went to the table and leaned against it, facing them with his hands in his pockets.

“Did Brewer know you were leaving together?”

“I don’t know. Mrs Shore says he did.”

“You don’t know. See here, Haviland, suppose he did know. Suppose he went to the springhouse. Suppose he found you there and tried to stop you—what would you have done?”

“I don’t know,” said Dennis, white to the lips, and his eyes two sparks of light under those peaked black eyebrows.

“Your revolver was there. Suppose he had tried to use force. He was by all counts something of a bully. He was a big man—accustomed to having his own way—had an ugly temper. What would you have done, say, if he had laid hands on the girl? What,” said Wait slowly,
“did
you do?”

“Nothing like that happened.” Dennis was white and taut. “Nothing like that happened. But if it had, it would have concerned only me. Not Daphne.”

Wait made again that curiously impatient gesture with one of his small, mobile hands and shoved it back into his pocket.

“There was nothing to prevent your arriving at the springhouse before Miss Haviland—meeting Brewer—killing him—”

“Would I have left my revolver there to be found? Would I have kept the thumbprint? Would I—”

“I’m asking you,” said Wait, and there was a flurry and commotion at the door, and Gertrude swept in, green silk and the pungent smell of cologne swirling around her, and Schmidt a cautious three feet behind. Braley, forgotten in the corner, stepped forward as if he felt he might be needed. For Gertrude was plainly in a rage. Her face was red, her light fine hair violently askew, and her eyes snapping dangerously.

“You!”
she cried and waved the cologne-scented handkerchief and put it with exaggerated flourish to her brow.
“You—
dragging me from a bed of pain—”

Rowley entered. He, too, was angry, but you had to know him as Daphne and as Dennis knew him to perceive that anger, for he looked merely pale and sullen. There was a smudged reddish spot on his jaw. He said crossly, “Oh, do hush, Mother.”

“Even my son,” cried Gertrude, “turns against me,” and kicked the train of her house gown aside and sat down in a swirl of green silk and glared at the detective and then at Dennis and Daphne. She looked as if she might unsheathe claws and spring at any instant, and Wait got down off the table and approached her rather wryly. Braley, somewhat reluctantly, followed his superior and stood behind him.

Wait said directly, “Did Brewer know that Miss Haviland and Dennis Haviland were to meet at the springhouse the night of his murder?”

It startled Gertrude. She floundered, darted one look at Rowley and another at Daphne. “Well, he—that is—yes. Yes,” she said with a kind of defiance. “Yes, he knew it.” She waved her handkerchief, and Wait stepped back a little away from the aura of cologne, and she cried, her eyes flashing and snapping as if venomous little tongues were leaping out, “He knew it. He went to stop them. And they killed him. Dennis and Daphne. Killed him.”

“How do you know Brewer knew it?”

“How do I know?” cried Gertrude. “Why, because I told him.”

“YOU TOLD HIM?”
said Wait, and Gertrude touched her brow with her handkerchief and said, “Certainly. I agreed that he ought to know. Somebody ought to know, anyway, and stop the elopement, and Ben was better able to do so than any of the rest of us.” She shot a look at Daphne. “After all, Daphne, you ought to have decided sooner that you didn’t want to marry Ben. Why, even the wedding presents had come. Or most of them,” said Gertrude. “We hadn’t heard anything from the Wileys yet. Or the Andersons. Funny, how lax people are growing.”