There is a sign on route Conn. 137, which runs from below Katonah through Poundridge and into Stamford on the Sound, which reads “High Ridge.” There are houses there; the community had been there for many years when Mrs. Lucretia Bromwell, then Mrs. Richard Bromwell, moved her husband and her son and a daughter, older than the son but destined for a shorter life, from the vicinity of Southampton, Massachusetts, to a more accessible location, by which she meant, as so many people mean, accessible to New York. To a lesser person, the fact that the name of High Ridge had already been pre-empted by a community, and particularly a community only a few miles distant, might have seemed a reason for naming the new place something else. It did not seem so to Mrs. Bromwell; she did not, in fact, permit the question to cross her mind.
The enormous house, which had been built at a time which produced many houses unbecoming to the landscape, was, certainly, on a high ridge. It surmounted it, seemed even to subdue it. The house stretched indefinitely in all directions; it was composed of brown shingles and it had circular protuberances with pointed roofs at the corners, of which there were many. And it was not, as Mrs. Bromwell had believed when she first decided to purchase it, in Connecticut at all, but in Westchester County, New York. It was, from New Canaan, “back” of Scott Corners, which is in New York; it was almost due east of Scott Corners and the moderately improved road which passed near it wandered irresolutely along the state line toward Vista, which again is in New York, finding itself now in one state and now in the other.
Something more than half of the hundred-odd acres which went with the monstrous house lay in Connecticut, but the remaining acres and the house itself were New Yorkers, and so, perforce, were the Bromwells. Mrs. Bromwell regretted this briefly, but was not a person to make too much of it, any more than she was a person to make too much of the obvious fact that the identity of names between her estate and the community on Conn. 137 created confusion. Guests destined for Bromwell hospitality frequently ended up at the other High Ridge, but after the first few years this meant merely that they had made a small and unnecessary, but not arduous, detour. After the first few years, Mrs. Bromwell was known in the other High Ridge, as she was known in Poundridge, Bedford, Lewisboro and South Salem, to say nothing of Vista. All of these communities felt they had a share of Mrs. Bromwell, and for many years they were fondly proud of her, as one might be of a monument, active in enterprises having to do with local improvements, generous in contribution to all worthy funds and to be counted upon to serve on library committees. Nor were the fondness and pride ever altogether extinguished, even after the day in late January when the man who identified himself as Everett Hume walked an unnecessary third of a mile up the beautifully kept driveway to the monstrous house, and asked to be permitted to use the telephone, saying that he had a flat tire and no lug wrench.
Scott Bromwell said that if that were all, he could have a man get a wrench from the garage and, for that matter, change the tire—this last after a second look at Hume, who was not dressed for changing tires. He was dressed very well, in tweeds, with a soft textured topcoat; he was as tall as Scott, and heavier and, Scott guessed, also in his early thirties. He was blond and his face was disarmingly ruddy. Possibly it was because of this, of his general appearance of fresh wholesomeness, and because he smiled and seemed almost embarrassed to cause trouble, that one noticed belatedly—and then without real conviction—that his face was less than commonly rounded; might, with its flat planes, even be considered rather formidable.
He shook his head to Scott’s suggestion, smiling and seeming to betray increased embarrassment.
“This is my bad day,” he said, in a light, pleasant and unrevealing voice. “I thought of asking that. Unfortunately, the spare’s flat too.” He shook his head. “Obviously,” he said, “I need a guardian.” It was then, she decided later, that Karen Mason first noticed how very little the blond man seemed to need a guardian.
Scott gave the blond man a number to ask for and said, “Tell them you’re at Mrs. Bromwell’s.” The man nodded, saying “thanks” again, and asked for the number. When he got it he said his name was Hume, Everett Hume, and went on from there. He listened, said “O.K.” and hung up.
“They’ll be along,” he said. “Thanks again, Mr. Bromwell.” He smiled at Karen, including her; associating her with the hospitality extended him although appearing to have guessed it was not hers.
“May as well have a drink with us while you wait,” Scott said. “Scotch? A cocktail?”
But to that extent, Hume said, he couldn’t bother them, couldn’t think of bothering them. He had already made nuisance enough of himself. Probably by the time he got back to the car, “they” would be there.
“Matter of fact,” he said, “I’m due in New Canaan.” He looked at the watch on his wrist. “Over-due,” he added. “The fog makes slow going.”
He left, then. In the hall, they could hear him speaking to William, thanking him; probably, Karen decided, giving him something because she thought she heard William say, “Thank you, sir.” It was odd, she thought absently, how some voices, seemingly no higher pitched than others, no greater in volume, have disproportionate audibility. Hume’s words to William could be heard clearly; William’s answer might almost be something she imagined. But then Scott Bromwell was suggesting another drink and as he mixed it he was saying he was sorry as hell.
“It’s all right, Scott,” she said. “It can’t be helped.” She paused. “Everybody’s the way they are, I guess,” she said, to add something, to fill a moment with response. He smiled at that, with a kind of affectionate amusement, and gave her the martini. Although she had agreed to take it, she was surprised to find it in her fingers. “Drink it,” he said. “You must need it.” He drank himself, and she sipped slowly from the glass, tasting the cold sharpness of the drink.
“Mother’s very fond of you,” he said, as if the words made a continuation of what he had just said. “So—” But instead of continuing, he drank again from his glass. “Where’d she go, by the way?”
Karen thought the library, and said so. Scott looked toward the library door, as if he thought of going to it, but then shook his head.
“It upsets her,” he said. “One wouldn’t think so to watch her. But all the same—” He smiled slightly. “Not that she didn’t brush Haas off,” he said. “And out. Marta should have known—” Again he did not finish the sentence, and this time his self-interruption was abrupt, a matter of decision. He finished his drink and looked toward the portable bar with speculation.
“Join me?” he asked, and Karen shook her head. There were a good many things she would have liked to say, but they were not things for her to say. So, after a moment, she said only that she ought to be putting some things in her bag. Scott nodded to that, as if he only half heard her; as if he only half remembered she was there. As she left the room, Karen felt as much as saw that his indecision had ended. He was moving toward the bar. She went on upstairs. Perhaps she might as well go to New York not for the night, not to meet and have dinner with, go to a movie with, stay overnight with, a girl she had known in school, but for the rest of time, the rest of her time. She cold-creamed and renewed makeup; she changed; she put the things she needed for one night in a bag and looked at her watch. It indicated ten minutes after six. If she were to catch the six forty-one, she would have to be leaving soon.
She carried her bag downstairs and left it in the hall. She went into the East Room and it was empty. It would be like Marta not to bother, Karen thought; so like her. Even if they left now they would no more than make it, unless Marta decided to take long chances in the fog. But then she heard quick steps in the hall, thought “She didn’t forget after all” and started toward the door. The door opened abruptly, but it was not Marta who opened it. The children’s nurse was there, and she looked quickly, anxiously, around the room. She said, “Lorry? Lorry!” and then, “Have you seen him, Miss Mason? He’s—I can’t find him anywhere.” She spoke rapidly, anxiously.
“Lorry?” Karen said. “What’s happened, Pauline?”
Pauline James came farther into the room, searching it with her eyes.
“Elspeth thought he’d gone to the bathroom,” she said, speaking hurriedly still, almost tonelessly. “So did I. But he hadn’t. I can’t find him upstairs. Anywhere.” She called again. “Lorry!” she called, and now her voice was high, excited.
Her call did not bring the child, but it brought Scott Bromwell out of the library. He came quickly, listened to the nurse, moved quickly. He got William; William was to get everybody. The house first, then the grounds. They were—
“What is it, Scott?” his mother said, from the hall door to the West Room. “What’s happened?”
She had changed, Karen noticed; she was wearing a woolen dress, now. That was where she had gone, to change; probably she was getting one of her colds. But when she heard the news she showed no signs of it, nor of hesitancy. She looked at Pauline James as if about to say something, and looked away as if it were needless. “The west wing, Karen,” she said. “Scott—”
The slight, fair child was not in the house. It took Scott and his mother, Karen and the nurse, William and the maids, no more than a quarter of an hour to be sure of that. And Marta Bromwell was not in the house either, nor was she in the kennels.
“If she’s—” Scott began when he met Karen in the hall, saw her shake her head, “If she—” But he did not finish. He was pulling coats out of a hall closet.
It is hard to search a hundred and more acres in a heavy fog; it is impossible. One can stumble through the fog, lose one’s self and find one’s self again, hurry into clinging darkness—as if by hurrying one could search the better; one can cry a name over and over again. “Lorry! Lorry!” But if a little boy of five has come to harm, if he has fallen in the grass and weeds of an unmowed meadow and lies there in cold wetness, and does not answer—cannot answer—
The flashlight was little good. The beam lighted only fog, retreated from fog, made fog luminous and so doubly opaque. A flashlight could show you the ground at your feet and the wall of mist around you. It could not show you a little boy wandering lost, confused, fear swallowing his voice and the fog his choked answer to the shouts—to Scott’s shout from some distance off, sounding as if he were farther from the house and to her right; to Mrs. Bromwell’s calling from nearer the house; to the repeated calls of William and the kennel man and the gardeners and the maids.
There were many people seeking Lorry, and yet each of them was, minutes after leaving the house, desertedly alone. The voices of the others were unreal, like the echoes of voices. Karen, one of Scott’s out-door coats heavy on her shoulders, clumsily wrapping her, went the way Scott had told her—east across the lawn, down the path to the first field, through the gap in the stone fence beyond. She looked back now and then, and at first could see the lights of the house and know where she was. “Lorry!” she called. “Lorry!” But the lights of the house dimmed as she crossed the first field, and then the ground sloped down and cut the house off from her. She might easily get lost herself, she thought. Where was the path? Should the growth of the summer, dry now, harsh now, be so thick here and so high here? “Lorry! Lorry!” A child would grow panic-stricken here, in this; grow hysterical with fear. Even Lorry; even quiet, observing Lorry.
She stumbled, caught herself by seizing a little tree, but then found the ground sloping more abruptly under her feet and had to catch again at a slim trunk and then again. Where was she now? This wasn’t right. Somehow she had got turned around, stumbled out of the second field having started east and turned unconsciously to the south. Probably, without knowing it, she had gone through another gap in a stone wall and was on the edge of the Raewood swamp. Not Bromwell land at all, not—
The flashlight was of some use now. It showed her the hummocks of swamp grass ahead. A child could die here! “Lorry! Lorry! Lorry!” The effort of calling rasped at her throat. She stumbled and did not fully catch herself, and one foot went deep into water between the hummocks. A little farther on there would be a brook. She was in the Raewood swamp, unquestionably. But could Lorry have got so far—so far on short legs, so far on such slender legs? She stood on one of the hummocks, teetering insecurely, and let the flashlight’s beam do what it could. Did it catch water there? The brook? And—something huddled by the water?
Karen Mason could hardly remember afterward how she reached the brook, how she fell between hummocks, went up to her knees in mud and water, how once she seemed to be crawling, not walking. But she reached the brook and what was beside it, was half in it.
It was not Lorry. It was Marta Bromwell. She was face down in the brook. The parka hood of her coat covered her black hair. And the water covered her pretty face.
Karen called her name and tugged at her and got her face out of the water. But as she did this, gave all her strength to doing it, did it with a frantic strength she had not known she had, she realized that there was not much point to it. Marta was dead.
She had not come there across the fields. She had come there, to die there, down a path which led from near the kennels out to the comparative firmness of an old farm road. When she knew Marta was dead, Karen ran along the path and then along the road, calling, “Scott! Scott!” He would, she thought—not knowing why she thought it—be first to hear her.
The farm road joined a town road after a hundred yards or so. Karen knew where she was. She ran along the road, which would take her to another and then, after only a few more yards, to the drive which led up to the monstrous shingled house. She ran, and a pain knifed at her side, and she kept on running, her lungs straining for air. She ran as if she were pursued, her feet sinking into the softness of the path and then of the road. But at last she was on the packed gravel of the drive and running toward the house.
She met Mrs. Bromwell first. Mrs. Bromwell was walking up the drive, calling the child’s name. She looked back when she heard the sound of Karen’s running. She stopped.
“Lorry?” she said, quickly, fear in her voice.
Gaspingly, Karen told her.
“But how dreadful,” Lucretia Bromwell said. She seemed to sway a little, but perhaps the unsteadiness was Karen’s own. In the gray dark, nothing was clear.
It was then that Everett Hume made his second appearance of the evening. Because of the fog, his appearance was startlingly abrupt; at one moment he was invisible (although his steps must have been audible, only unrecorded); at the next Karen could almost have reached out and touched him. He had a flashlight and, when he came to them, threw its beam briefly on the two women and then on his own face.
“Something’s wrong,” he said and Mrs. Bromwell said, “Oh!” and then, “Who are you?” Hume waited an instant, looking at Karen.
“The man who came to telephone,” Karen said, and tried to remember more. “Mr. Hume,” she said.
“Can I do something?” Hume asked, and he spoke to the elder woman. For the instant she merely looked at him. “I heard someone running,” he said. “I was still at the end of the drive. Waiting. Before that people were shouting. As if they were trying to find somebody.”
There was a clarity in his words, in his tone, which was unlike the night. It was as if there had been fog, too, in Karen’s mind, and the voice penetrated it.
“A little boy,” Karen said, when Mrs. Bromwell still said nothing. “Mrs. Bromwell’s grandson. Lorry. But now—”
“My daughter-in-law has had an accident,” Mrs. Bromwell said. “Miss Mason was running for help. She’s afraid—”
“She’s dead,” Karen said. “It—it couldn’t be any other way. She was in the brook.”
“I’ll go back with you,” Hume said. He spoke quickly, as if he had taken charge quickly. “Mrs. Bromwell can get the others. Call a doctor.” He paused a moment and looked at Karen. “You’re up to it?”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh—yes!” She looked at Mrs. Bromwell.
“All right,” Mrs. Bromwell said. “Go with him.”
“The path off the old road,” Karen said. “You know where I mean.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Bromwell said. “Go with him.”
Hume did not run; did not quite run. But Karen had almost to run again to keep up with him. After a little he took her arm to help her. “Sometimes you can do something,” he said, as he half pulled her. “Drowning’s funny.” But Karen missed the path in the fog, and they were lost momentarily, and had to go back to find it.
Marta was lying as Karen had left her; she might, now she was out of the water, her face visible, have lain down to rest. Quickly, Hume dropped to both knees beside her; gently touched her face. He lifted one of her arms and watched it fall again. He shook his head.
“She’s dead, poor kid,” he said and, without standing, twisted to face Karen. “You pulled her out?”
“Yes,” Karen said.
“Where was she?” he asked. “Before?” He felt Marta’s heavy coat, her skirt. “The clothing’s not wet. Not soaked.”
It was only her head, Karen told him. It was as if—almost it was as if she had lain face downward to drink from the brook and then had let her face into the brook, her head into the water.
“She must have stumbled,” Karen said. “Fallen forward. Hit her head on something.”
Hume stood up, then. “Show me,” he said.
“Almost where she is,” Karen told him. “I could only pull her back a little.”
Hume threw the beam of his flashlight on the brook; it groped with the fog. He looked at the ground around, and then, more carefully, at Marta’s body.
“There’s nothing to stumble over,” he said. “And I don’t see any mark on her head. She was sure-footed enough.” He paused, but only momentarily. “At least, she looks young. Healthy. People catch themselves.”
“I don’t know,” Karen said. “What do you mean?”
“Someone could have pushed her down,” Hume said. “Or tripped her. Got on her back and held her face under. Holding onto that hood thing. Not even touching her. Just her clothes.”
He was looking at the ground again, slowly, carefully.
“She’d have struggled, of course,” he said. “Not much, probably. Not long. Sort of—thrashed around. Tried to—” He broke off, and went back to Marta’s body, and now he looked at her hands.
“Tried to push herself up,” he said. “And—see?”
He held up one of the dead hands, the beam of the flashlight on it. The palm was dirty, as if it had been ground against earth or stone. On the fleshy part of the thumb there was an abrasion, the skin not quite broken.
“As she did,” Hume said, and put the arm down again, gently this time. “With light we’d see more, probably. She wouldn’t die without trying. Not—” He stopped abruptly, and began again. “Almost anybody could have done it,” he said. “One’s almost helpless lying that way.” He turned the flashlight on Karen. “Even a little person,” he said. “Somebody no bigger than you.”
Then they heard voices.
“The others are coming,” Karen said….
Marta Bromwell had been a little person, too. She had weighed hardly more than Karen. Scott Bromwell could carry his wife’s body in his arms along the path and the farm road, along the county road and up the long drive to the monstrous house. Karen had expected Hume to make some protest when Scott took the body up but he did not. And, by the time they reached the house, he was not with them, although nobody had noticed when he disappeared.
Marta’s body lay for half an hour on her bed—her wide bed in a room which had about it the kind of glitter she had always liked—before the doctor arrived, examined briefly, shook his head in a physician’s deprecation of the inevitable and said that the police would have to be notified. A formality, of course. “Always in accidental death,” he said. He would notify the police.
It was Karen herself, after she had changed quickly, who received the doctor, stood in Marta’s room while he made his brief examination and, finally, showed him the nearest telephone extension.
Before the doctor came, Scott had stood for long minutes looking at his wife’s body on the bed, not speaking, showing little in his face. Mrs. Bromwell had stood near the door and waited, but finally she had spoken.
“Scott—Lorry,” she had said. “We’ve got to find Lorry.”
Scott Bromwell had stood for a moment longer and then, almost physically, shaken himself away from death, and from memories which had not died.
In the East Room, Karen had waited, standing in front of the fire, shaking—partly with cold. She had not seen Scott by his wife’s body; had not tried to imagine it. She had waited, shaking a little, feeling a kind of numbness. Outside, in the fog, she could still hear men and women calling the child’s name. Most of them seemed now to be at some distance from the house.
It had been Scott who asked her to wait for the doctor; Mrs. Bromwell who had said that Karen must change before anything and that she would wait until Karen came down again. When Karen did come down, Mrs. Bromwell went back into the fog to call “Lorry! Lorry!” with the others. In her voice, now, there was a kind of desperation.
The doctor had gone to the East Room to wait after his telephone call, and Karen was with him—in front of the fire again, sipping a drink he had ordered her to take, when Mrs. Bromwell came back. Her face was gray and, for the first time since Karen had known her, she was a little uncertain in her movements. She stood in the door of the room and shook her head.
“I can’t go on with it,” she said. “I’m too old.” She looked at Karen as if she had never seen her before. “Too old,” she repeated. “We can’t find the child.”
She swayed and the doctor was across the room, helping her to a sofa. He poured brandy for her and, when she merely held the glass and looked at it, and did not appear to see it, sat down beside her and lifted the hand which held the glass to the old woman’s bloodless lips. After a moment, but still not seeming to know what she did, she sipped from the glass.
It was then that Everett Hume made his third appearance of the evening, coming once more out of the fog. Apparently he had found the front door unlocked, because when they looked up at a sound he stood in the door of the East Room. And Lorry was in his arms, his head against the man’s shoulder.
Lucretia Bromwell dropped the glass and her breath came in shudderingly and she started to get up—all this before Hume spoke. But his smile had told them before he spoke.
“The kid’s all right,” he said. “Asleep. He was sleeping in the back seat of my car.” He shook his head. “All the time you were looking for him, probably,” the blond man said. “He didn’t waken when I picked him up.”