The trooper at the door watched through the slit window beside it, saw the tall, hatless young man coming, and opened the door and said, “Well?” The young man stopped and his expression, which had held a kind of eagerness, faded, froze.
“What’s happened?” he said. “Jane? Mrs. Phillips?” He moved forward and the movement seemed almost angry.
“No reporters,” the trooper said. “What do you want?”
“Mrs. Phillips,” the man said. “Is she here? I have to see her.”
“Yeah?” the trooper said.
“For God’s sake, man,” the hatless one said. “For God’s sake give me a break. Is she all right?”
“Mrs. Phillips?” the trooper said. “I guess so. You want to see her?”
Ray Forrest merely looked at the trooper.
“I don’t know,” the trooper said. “You a friend of hers?”
“Yes.”
“Nobody said anything about you. Who are you?”
“Listen,” Ray said. “I’m a friend of Mrs. Phillips. Is there some reason I can’t see her?” He moved forward. “What’s happened?”
“Well,” the trooper said, “you can see Heimrich, if he wants to see you. It’s up to him, fella. What’s your name?” He listened. “Yeah,” he said. “Friend of Mrs. Phillips.”
“God,” Ray said. “Yes!”
“Don’t get tough, fella,” the trooper said. “It’s what I’m here for. Come ahead.”
The trooper went ahead, staying close to Ray Forrest. They went into the square central hall and the trooper knocked on a door on the right. Then he opened it.
“Captain,” he said, “there’s a guy here. Says he’s a friend of this Mrs. Phillips. You want?”
Ray could see into the room. A square-faced man was sitting in a chair, with his head restfully against the back of the chair. He looked as if he had just opened his eyes. Another man, larger, was standing in front of him, his head now turned toward the door.
“Bring him in,” the man in the chair said. “Why not?”
Ray went in and the man in the chair stood up.
“My name’s Forrest,” Ray said. “What’s happened? Has something happened to her?”
“Not to Mrs. Phillips,” the man who had just stood said. “Why did you think something had, Mr. Forrest?”
Ray motioned toward the trooper. He extended the motion to include the other two in the room.
“Yes,” the shorter of the two square-faced men said. “Naturally. The place is full of cops. I’m Heimrich. This is Sergeant Forniss. Both cops. But why would you think something had happened to Mrs. Phillips?” He shook his head. “Why not burglars?” he said, and looked at Ray Forrest with interest, his eyes wide open now.
“Was it?” Ray said.
“Oh no,” Heimrich said. “Murder, Mr. Forrest.” He nodded. “Mrs. Phillips’ aunt,” he said. “Her great-aunt. Mrs. Meredith.”
“Oh,” Ray said. “Jane’s all right, then? She got here?”
“Oh yes,” Heimrich said. “Naturally. She got here. Why wouldn’t she?”
“Because she was kidnaped once,” Forrest said. His voice was hard with impatience. “In Kansas City. Hauled off a train.” He looked at Heimrich without friendliness. “While the cops cheered, so far as I can tell,” he added.
“Now Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said. He waved toward a chair and sat down again in his own. “Now Mr. Forrest. How do you know? Did she tell you that?”
“When?” Forrest said, not sitting. “I haven’t found her yet. Haven’t seen her. Haven’t known what happened to her.” He did sit down, and leaned forward. “She was in danger getting here,” he said. “That’s why I came after her.”
“From Los Angeles?”
“Why not?” Ray said. “Sure. They tried to get her there. I realized it after she left and came after her. I was going to catch up with her in Chicago, I thought. But they got her in Kansas City.” He looked hard at Heimrich. “Well?” he said.
“You’re upset,” Heimrich told him. “Naturally. But she got here. She is here. Nothing’s happened to her.”
“The hell’s nothing happened to her,” Ray said. “The hell it hasn’t. Ask her. Let me ask her.” He stood up. “Where is she?” he demanded.
“Sit down, Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said. “Why did you come here? Instead of going to Kansas City? If you thought she was there?”
Quickly, in curt outline, Ray told him of his pursuit of Jane, of his uncertainty in Chicago, of his efforts to meet her in New York, of his final glimpse of her near the Grand Central. “Where would I go?” he finished.
“Here,” Heimrich said. “Naturally. You met all the trains?”
“I tried to.”
“The planes?”
Ray told him what he had done about the planes. Heimrich nodded.
“For your information,” he said, “she says she changed at Newark, came in at the Hudson Terminal.”
“Of course!” Ray said. “Damn!”
Heimrich shut his eyes and said Ray couldn’t be everywhere. He did not open his eyes, and he said: “Actually, she was apparently already here last night. In time to poison her aunt.” Then Heimrich waited, still with his eyes closed. But Ray Forrest did not say anything and after a time the detective opened his eyes and found that Forrest was looking at him, studying him with an odd, controlled intentness. Heimrich met the eyes of the younger man.
“You don’t believe it,” Forrest told him. “You’re not a fool. It’s part of the same thing. Of what they tried to do to her on the way.” He paused and spoke again. “Damn it, man,” he said. “You think she can’t prove this. Ask her.”
“Oh, I asked her,” Heimrich said. “It’s quite a story.”
“Provable,” Forrest said. “It would be.”
“Could be,” Heimrich said, correcting. “If it happened. Naturally.”
“It happened in Los Angeles,” Ray said. “And, a little after she left, somebody telephoned her from here. Why? To see if she’d got started.”
Heimrich opened his eyes. Heimrich pointed out that Mr. Forrest had not told him about that.
Ray told him.
“The voice?” Heimrich said.
Ray shrugged. A man’s voice. Anybody’s voice. And another man denying that there had been a call to Jane Phillips.
“You can check,” Ray pointed out, and Heimrich opened his eyes, said, “Naturally,” and closed them again. Then, without opening them, he nodded to Forniss, who said, “O.K.” and went out.
“Suppose what she says is true,” Ray said. “Suppose it.”
“Now Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said. “I have supposed it.” He opened his eyes quite wide. “I’m not part of any conspiracy,” he said. “Naturally not. If there is a conspiracy. I just want to find things out, Mr. Forrest.” He went so far as to lean forward in the chair. “Everything. This telephone call to Los Angeles, now. I’m glad to find that out. Anything else you know.”
“I don’t know the picture,” Ray pointed out. “The shape of it. What we’d call the story line.”
“No,” Heimrich said. “You don’t, Mr. Forrest. Tell me about Mrs. Phillips. Why did she want to come home?”
“I don’t know,” Forrest said. “She didn’t know. I mean, there wasn’t any definite reason. She just wanted to.”
“For how long?”
“She began to talk about it—oh, about a month ago. I think she made up her mind a couple of weeks ago. She wrote a letter to her great-aunt last week, I think.”
“Wednesday,” Heimrich said. “They got it Friday. They didn’t tell the old lady.” He had leaned back and closed his eyes. Now he opened them. “They thought it would be too exciting for her,” he said. “She was pretty sick. The doctor gave her a week. Last Friday that was. He was an optimist, you see.”
There was a long pause.
“Well?” Heimrich said. “What else?”
“She doesn’t lie,” Ray said. “She’s sincere.” He paused and shook his head. “They’ve made it a cliché,” he said. “But that’s it—she’s a candid person.”
“Did she talk about her relatives? These people here? Her aunt? All the rest of them?”
“Not much,” Ray said. “About her aunt, some. She said her aunt was the nearest she’d had to a mother. She said her aunt was a dear. Then she said she sounded like Cousin Alice, calling people dear. She said it was a big old house. She said her aunt hadn’t approved of her marriage or of her going into the Navy. I gathered her aunt liked to direct things, be in charge.”
“She wanted to see her aunt? Make things up with her?”
“I suppose so,” Ray said. “Only, I think it was—I don’t know exactly how to phrase it. More general than that. She just wanted to come home. Get oriented again. Once she laughed and said, ‘I want a fix, Ray. You know what that is?’”
“Did you?”
Ray nodded and said he had, near enough. It was a known place, a located place. It could be a place to go on from, a point of departure.
“Or arrival,” Heimrich said. “Yes. A navigator’s term. I suppose she heard it used in the Navy. Naturally.”
“Well,” Ray said, “I think it was that, more than anything. A lot of people were that way after they had got out. She was in a good while, for a girl.”
“She never mentioned that her aunt was ill?” Heimrich said. Ray shook his head. “Or that there was a lot of money?”
“Oh yes,” Ray said. “Casually. She has her own money.”
“A lot?”
“My God,” Ray said. “I don’t know.”
“The old lady had a lot,” Heimrich said. “Somebody wanted it, and didn’t want to wait. That’s what did it.”
“All right,” Ray said. “Not Jane.”
Heimrich did not answer that. Ray waited and after a time Heimrich opened his eyes.
“I want to see her,” Ray said. “Now. Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”
“To help her,” Heimrich said. “Naturally.”
But he did not seem to have ended the conversation. He kept his eyes open.
“Actually,” he said, “I don’t mind in the least. It might be helpful. Keep things moving. Stirred up. You know what a detective is in conditions like this, Mr. Forrest?”
Ray merely looked at him.
“Not all detectives, naturally,” Heimrich said. “We differ. I try to be a focus of irritation.” He closed his eyes. “It seems to work,” he offered then, mildly.
“Then I can see Jane?”
“Naturally,” Heimrich said. “You feel you’ve got the picture?”
“No,” Ray said.
Heimrich nodded.
“Your Mrs. Phillips leaves Los Angeles,” Heimrich said. “She was due here this morning, twenty-four hours within the time limit the doctor tentatively set. She was—well, says she was delayed. She got here tonight. That’s what she says. Monday, at about the time your Mrs. Phillips was getting on the train in Los Angeles, her great-aunt had a serious upset. Digestive, you know. Vomiting and everything. By Tuesday she thought she was being poisoned and told young Arthur Meredith, who told us. We talked to the doctor. She wasn’t being poisoned.”
“Jane was still in Los Angeles,” Ray pointed out.
“I said that,” Heimrich said. “She couldn’t have poisoned her great-aunt, then. But—her great-aunt wasn’t poisoned—then. She just ate something that disagreed with her. As a matter of fact, it seems to have been shrimps. But the cook says she didn’t give her shrimps. Naturally, because she knew the old lady had an allergy to shrimps. But the cook says some left-over shrimps disappeared and that there were traces of shrimps in a meat grinder.”
“I don’t—” Ray began. Heimrich shook his head.
“Odd,” he said. “I’m telling you what I hear. So you can help. Tuesday the old girl was sick again. That’s when she told Arthur, who told us.” He opened his eyes. “You see this, Mr. Forrest,” he said. “If nothing else had happened, we’d have thought she was an old lady who was getting delusions. Imagining things. Senile dementia. Mental incapacity. Anyway, we might have thought that. Anybody might have.”
“Yes,” Ray said.
“In which case, she couldn’t change her will again, could she?” Heimrich said, with interest. “Put Mrs. Phillips back in. She’s not in now, you know. Not to any extent. It’s this way—” He told Ray about the will. He waited for comment, and got it in a narrowing of Ray Forrest’s eyes. Heimrich seemed content with that.
“She was sick off and on until this morning,” Heimrich said. “Then she died very suddenly of nicotine in her medicine. There was enough left to kill a couple more people. In the medicine. The medicine was all right last night, at about eight o’clock. It killed Mrs. Meredith this morning.”
“The medicine bottle?”
“In the room, naturally,” Heimrich said. “Taken out, poisoned, put back. The night nurse was asleep.”
“For God’s sake!” Ray said.
“She thinks she was given sleeping powder,” Heimrich said. “In some coffee she warmed up for herself about midnight. She says she thinks that. Maybe she just went to sleep. She had night duty and had been in town all day, instead of sleeping. Or maybe the medicine was poisoned while the nurse was warming the coffee.”
“But look,” Ray said. “Don’t you have to come closer than that?”
Heimrich opened his eyes fully. He said he might, if he needed to.
“At the moment,” he said, “I’m told Mrs. Phillips was seen leaving the house at about two o’clock this morning. Perhaps that’s close enough.”
“There’s your murderer,” Ray said. “That—whoever told you that.”
“You think so?” Heimrich said.
“Which one of them?” Ray said.
“John Lockwood,” Heimrich said. “The lawyer. A careful man, I’d think, Mr. Forrest. He—”
“Wait a minute!” Ray said. “When did he tell you this?”
“A little after we got here. About ten-thirty this morning.”
“Listen,” Ray said. “Suppose she had come in on the Century. She couldn’t have got here by then.”
Heimrich nodded and waited.
“So—this Lockwood knew she wasn’t on the Century. He knew it. Otherwise he wouldn’t have said that. If he was honest, if he didn’t know she wasn’t on the train, he’d have waited to see whether she showed up. On the chance that it might have been someone else he’d seen, on the chance she could prove she’d come on the Century and hence couldn’t have been here last night. He hadn’t met the train, had he? No—of course not. He couldn’t have been here either. So, he was the one—.”
But Captain Heimrich was shaking his head.
“I thought of that, Mr. Forrest,” he said. “Naturally. He had a man from his office meet the train. He telephoned this man, a young fellow named Carroll, about a quarter of ten and Carroll told him the girl hadn’t showed up. So, you see, you go too fast. Very natural.”
“This Carroll might have missed her,” Ray said. “He couldn’t be sure.”
Heimrich shrugged at that. He said that, apparently, Lockwood had confidence in Carroll.
“And after all,” he said, “she wasn’t on the train. You know that. She admitted that before you came. So Carroll was right.”
“I—” Ray began, and his voice was doubtful. A knock at the door interrupted him, and Forniss stood in the door. “Mrs. Phillips,” Forniss began, but then he moved aside without finishing, and Jane was in the doorway. She was there only for a second, and then she was almost running across the room.
“Ray!” she said. “Oh—Ray!”
He held her very close to him, his hands behind her shoulders. “All right, Jane,” he said. “All right.”
She pulled back and looked at him.
“Ray,” she said. “How did you—? You came after me!”
“It’s all right,” he said again, still holding her.
“They think I killed Aunt Susan,” she said. “All of them. They—look at me. Hate me.” She shook her head, still leaning back against his hands, looking in his face. “They’re all together,” she said. Neither of them seemed conscious of Captain Heimrich, who had stood up when Jane came into the room and whose eyes were open now—quite wide open, quite interested. Forniss stood in the doorway, and his eyes, too, were interested. Then Ray Forrest turned his head to look at Heimrich and said, “They could be, you know. Just that.”
“Now Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said. “Now let’s look at it. Why don’t you and Mrs. Phillips sit down?”
“You,” Jane said. “Can’t you see?”
Heimrich shook his head slowly.
“Not altogether, Mrs. Phillips,” he said. “Naturally.” He did not say why it was natural. “You wanted to see me?”
“No,” she said. “I—I just had to get away. Out of that room. And then I thought I heard Ray.” She looked back at Ray. “I thought I heard you and I thought—I don’t know what I thought. Because you were in California. But you’re not.”
Ray took her to a chair and she sat in it, and held to one of his hands. Again he said it was all right. But he looked at Heimrich and was angry. “What’ve you been doing to her?” he said. “What’s the game?”
Heimrich shook his head and said there was no game. He sat down and leaned his head against the back of the chair in the manner which had already, to Ray, become oddly familiar, expected.
“Nobody’s doing anything to anybody,” he said. “Naturally, Mr. Forrest. They’re just—available for questioning.” He opened his eyes and looked at Ray. “Waiting.”
“Talking,” Ray said. “Wondering what the hell.”
“Oh,” Heimrich said, and closed his eyes again. “Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“And you?” Ray said.
“Oh,” Heimrich said again. “They know I’m here, Mr. Forrest. They wonder about me.” He nodded slightly. “So hard to let things lie. Naturally. Somebody will want to do something. Like Mrs. Phillips here.” He smiled faintly. “You’d like to do something, wouldn’t you, Mr. Forrest?” He opened his eyes. “What?”
“Make you see sense,” Ray told him. “This started when Jane was in Los Angeles. She’s out of it. You know that.” Heimrich, Ray saw, was keeping his eyes open. “You don’t think the shrimps were an accident?”
“No,” Heimrich said. “Oh no.”
“Then?” Ray said.
“She didn’t die of shrimps,” Heimrich said. “And when she died Mrs. Phillips wasn’t in Los Angeles. I don’t know where she was.”
“On the train,” Jane said. “I told you.”
“You told me,” Heimrich agreed. “Mr. Lockwood says no. He says you were here.” Heimrich did not make anything of this. He stated it.
Jane’s hand trembled in Ray’s; her whole body was trembling. He sat on the arm of her chair and held her, trying to stop the trembling.
“But,” Heimrich said, after looking at them a moment, “I do see your point about the shrimps, Mr. Forrest. Naturally.”
“To put it most simply, you couldn’t get away with it,” Ray said. “It comes down to that. Whatever you thought, you couldn’t make anybody believe the things weren’t connected, part of a series of events. Part of the murder. And Mrs. Phillips was in Los Angeles.”
“Now Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said, in a tired voice. “Why would I want to get away with anything? I—Yes?”
The last was to Forniss, who made some sound, some gesture, which the others did not hear. Ray was vaguely conscious that, while he talked to Heimrich, Sergeant Forniss had gone away, closing the door after him. Now he had returned. He had brought Alice Meredith with him. She looked at those in the room and said “oh!” Then she said, “Dear Jane.”
She looked at Heimrich and then, with a darting glance, at Jane, sitting in a chair, with Ray’s hand on her shoulder. Ray was half standing now.
“Dear Jane,” Alice repeated. “It’s so dreadful, isn’t it? So—hard to understand.” She turned to Heimrich. “But I’m sure it isn’t what you think,” she said. “You and this—this other gentleman.” The “other gentleman” seemed to be Ray Forrest.
Jane looked at the older woman and shook her head.
“No, Alice,” she said. “This is Ray Forrest. He’s a—a friend. Not what you think. He isn’t arresting me.”
“Dear Jane,” Alice said. “Of course. So nice he’s here. So helpful. Inspector—”
“Captain,” Heimrich said. “You want to tell me something, Mrs. Meredith?”
“But—” Alice Meredith said. She looked at Jane and Ray Forrest. “I’m so afraid I—it’s so embarrassing. So dreadful, really. I can’t forgive myself. Poor, dear Susan. But Frederick says I must. And John too, of course.”
Heimrich got up. He motioned toward a chair, watched Alice Meredith perch on it, sat down himself. His eyes did not close.
“Naturally,” he said. “About the shrimps, I think?”
“But how?” Alice said. “Oh, cook, of course. Dear cook. Such an unfortunate accident. So—confusing. For you especially, captain. That’s what John felt most.”
“Go on, Mrs. Meredith,” Heimrich said. “Somehow, accidentally, shrimps got into your—” He paused and closed his eyes. “The late Mrs. Meredith’s food,” he said.
“Step-mother,” the present Mrs. Meredith said. “Step-mother-in-law, really. I’m so afraid so, captain. I can’t forgive myself.” But she did not sound as if she were unforgiven.
“Monday, that would have been,” Heimrich said.
“Monday morning,” Alice Meredith said. “About—oh, ten-thirty, eleven? Cook was resting, you know. Poor, dear cook—so tired, sometimes. And I was making the bisque myself.”
“Yes?” Heimrich said.
“Grinding them, you know,” she said. “The shrimps, of course. And just as I was finishing, the telephone rang and I’m so terribly afraid—Well, there must have been some left in the grinder, you know? And poor cook didn’t notice and ground the chicken for Susan’s croquettes and—” She broke off and looked at Heimrich. “So dreadful,” she said. “Such a dreadful accident. Poor dear Susan was so susceptible, you know. Even the tiniest particle of shrimp upset her for days. But we simply couldn’t think.”
“Very understandable,” Heimrich said. “You made the bisque?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Oh yes, of course. And it was so good I—I’m terribly afraid I ordered more shrimp for a curry the next day. So—unthinking of me! Really, I can’t forgive myself. And what was left of the curry—Tuesday, you know—I couldn’t understand at all and I was so afraid. But that was all right. Dear Arthur.”
Heimrich closed his eyes. Jane and Ray looked at the slender delicate woman, the quick little woman who was Alice Meredith. They looked at her with a kind of fascination.
“Yes?” Heimrich said.
“After he saw you,” Alice Meredith said. “He—he was afraid it might be the shrimps, somehow. So he threw them out. Poor dear cook was so puzzled, of course.” Alice Meredith shook her head. “So many things went wrong,” she said. “So confusing.” Then she sat, looking at Heimrich, as if she had finished. After a moment, Heimrich opened his eyes.
“So embarrassing to have to tell this,” Alice said. “But, we thought, so—necessary.”
Heimrich looked at her; he seemed to look at her carefully. But all he said was, “Naturally, Mrs. Meredith. I can see it would be.” And then he stood up and again there was some obscure communication between Captain Heimrich and Forniss, and Forniss went out behind Mrs. Meredith. Heimrich turned and faced Jane and Ray Forrest. He faced them and waited.
“You believe that?” Ray said. “Don’t you see what they’re after?”
“Oh yes,” Heimrich said. “I see what they’re after, Mr. Forrest. They don’t want me to be—confused.”
“They want to get this first—poisoning—out of the series.” Ray said. “Because Jane couldn’t have done it. You see that?”
“Naturally,” Heimrich said. “But—I rather think she told part of the truth, you know. Enough of it for her purposes. Their purposes, if you prefer.”
“An accident!” Ray said, and he was angry.
“Now Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said. “Not an accident, I think. The old lady was supposed to believe she was being poisoned. That was supposed to indicate senile dementia, incompetence. So she couldn’t make a will. But—I’m afraid it happened, not by accident, pretty much as she said. And, I think it stopped there. I think Mrs. Meredith stopped there.” He paused, and nodded slowly. “I think somebody else went on with it,” he said. “In a different way, to the end. Leaving out the fancy stuff, the subtle stuff.” He stopped, and Jane felt he was looking at her. And again she could feel herself trembling, feel Ray’s arm back around her, trying to hold her body against its own movement.
She was more conscious of the pressure of Ray’s arm, then and for some time, than of what Ray was saying—saying tersley, angrily, to Heimrich. Heimrich was seated again and probably his eyes were closed again, but she did not look at him. She looked at her hands in her lap, and felt the pressure of Ray’s arm on her shoulders. And waited.
Ray was arguing and she did not think, as she thought vaguely, that Heimrich was rejecting the arguments. He seemed rather to be absorbing them; now and then he nodded.
“They’re all together,” she heard Ray say. “Against the old woman, now against Jane. Can’t you see it?”
“No,” Heimrich said. “It doesn’t happen. You know that, Mr. Forrest.”
There was more to which she did not listen or to which, listening, she could not get into her mind. When she could focus her thoughts again, Ray seemed to be arguing another theory—that there were several plots. He seemed to be listing them—Alice Meredith and the shrimp allergy, somebody else and Jane’s delay, somebody else and the actual murder.
“Or,” he said, and this she heard clearly, “Mrs. Meredith and one other—one to delay Jane and, when that failed, kill the old lady. Because then they couldn’t wait any longer.”
“Possible,” Heimrich said to that. “Intricate. Naturally, Mr. Forrest, I can’t say it’s impossible. But there’s always Lockwood’s story. A good witness, you know. A solid story. And—the simplest thing, Mr. Forrest. You see that.”
“But wrong,” Ray said. She was listening now, because she knew what they were talking about. The room seemed shadowy and uncertain, even Ray’s arm was something she had dreamed. Only the words were real. It was as if she were coming out of an anesthetic, and heard the words, real in a world of dream.
“He’s lying,” Ray said, and Heimrich said, “Prove it, Mr. Forrest. Prove it. Nobody’s stopping you.”
There was an odd pause, then. It was as if there were words which were unspoken in the pause.
“The way you work?” Ray said then, in a strange tone.
“A way,” Heimrich said. “Prove it. You’ve got the story—a story. You’re in the movies, Mr. Forrest?”
“Yes.”
“Cast it,” Heimrich said. “Is that what you call it? Cast it, and I’ll look at it.”
“How did Lockwood know she wasn’t on the train?” Ray said. “If he lied. Or this other man lied. You’d be interested?”
“Naturally,” Heimrich said. “We asked the other man. Carroll.”
“You did?”
“One of the boys,” Heimrich said. “A point.” There was again a pause. Then Heimrich spoke, as if to himself.
“Why leaving the house?” he said. “When did the other Lockwood—Elliott—catch cold? And Carroll, of course.”
Again there was a moment without words, and then Ray spoke with a kind of challenge in his tone.
“Look,” he said, “you know, don’t you? Think you know?”
“Now Mr. Forrest,” Heimrich said. “Now Mr. Forrest. Proof.”
“You’re waiting for it,” Ray said, as if it were an announcement of fact.
“Naturally,” Heimrich said. “Proof after the fact, you know. That’s when you get it, usually, Mr. Forrest. From the way people act.” He seemed to Jane to be speaking from a long way off. “Make the criminal fit the crime,” she thought he said. It did not seem sequential.
Perhaps, she thought suddenly, frighteningly, it had all been a dream. The others were looking at her again and she covered her eyes, with her hand, feeling with thumb, with middle finger, the delicate bones under the skin on her temples, holding her mind—she thought—between the thumb and middle finger of her right hand. Perhaps there, within that space she could so easily span, lay the only reality there was in any of this, and that reality was only the reality of a dream, or of a kind of madness. Perhaps nothing she thought had happened to her had really happened, except in her mind—perhaps what they believed was what was true. Perhaps she had come on through from Los Angeles, perhaps there had been no man in Kansas City, no stranger in St. Louis pulling at her and calling her his wife. Perhaps she had come here, as they thought, by airplane and then had rented a car, as again they thought, and driven to the house and poured poison into the medicine, so that Aunt Susan would die. And then, closing in in horror, in shock, at what she had done, her mind had fled into a dream—into this fantastic dream. I can’t believe my mind any more, she thought; it is lying to me. It has gone off the track, she thought; it is plunging through a nightmare, seeking to be safe. It is hiding me from knowing, because it would be something too dreadful to know.
She reached out with her other hand, as if to close it on some thing, and only after she had reached and found nothing did she understand she was reaching for Ray’s hand. But Ray was not there. Ray had been there, in the dream, and in the dream he had held her close for a moment when they had come from the library, leaving Heimrich sitting in a chair, with his head leaning back, his eyes closed. Ray had held her, close. He had put his hand on the back of her head, his fingers in her hair, and held her face against his shoulder and he had said something. If she tried she could remember what he had said, in the good part of the dream. It was going to be all right, he had said. “It’s going to be all right, Jane. We’ll make it all right.” And then, holding her, he had said something else. “Don’t tremble that way,” he had said. “Darling, don’t tremble so.” But she had not thought she was trembling, although now she could feel her fingers shaking against the bones of her temples.
Ray had said something else and she tried to remember. Something about taking the car, about seeing a man named Carroll. A man named Carroll in White Plains, that was it. But that did not fit into the dream. She must have said something in response, because Ray had held her out from him and looked at her and had seemed satisfied, and he had smiled and said, “Good girl. Good girl.” But then he had gone and the trooper had motioned with his head toward the door to the living room and she had gone into the room—had come into this room, where the others were. And they had looked at her without speaking, as if they were waiting for something—for her to say something or do something. But she had sat down again and covered her eyes, and then the terrible belief that they were right had begun; the belief that they were right and that she was hiding in a dream from something to which she could not bear to awaken. Perhaps, she thought, she would never awaken.
She heard her name spoken and realized that someone had spoken to her before, but that she only now heard. She moved her hand and looked up and Grace Lockwood was standing in front of her and saying “Jane. Listen. Jane.” Grace’s voice seemed almost gentle. When Jane took her hand away and looked at Grace, Grace smiled. She did not seem to be unfriendly. “Listen, Jane,” she said, again. “You must get some rest.” She paused. “Whatever is true,” she said. She looked at Jane. “You’re shaking,” she said. “You’re cold.”
“I don’t know,” Jane said. “I have to wait here.” She looked at Grace. “Don’t I?” she said.
Grace was shaking her head.
“It’s all right,” she said. “He’s talking to Alice, now. About the shrimp. So awful, such a crazy thing to do. You know about it?”
“Yes,” Jane said. “I don’t understand.”
“Nobody does,” Grace said. “Such a crazy thing. Poor Alice. You can never tell. But, anyway, the rest of us can go, now. You have to rest.”
“I don’t know,” Jane said. “I’m—I’m afraid I—” She stopped, then, not sure what she had meant to say.
“For one thing,” Grace said, “you probably haven’t had anything to eat. Have you? And you’re shivering.” She looked down at Jane. “I’m not asking anything,” she said. “Don’t tell me anything. You need a hot bath, and something to eat. And you need to go to sleep, Jane. Whatever is true.” She shook her head, as if Jane had been about to speak. “I don’t know what’s true,” she said. “It’s terrible. I sent the children away. To their friends.” She seemed momentarily to be speaking to herself, as much as to Jane. Then she said, “Come, Jane. A good hot bath. Some hot milk. And bed.”
Jane found herself getting up, following Grace out of the room, through the hall, up the stairs. It was her old room, but someone had been using it. “Little Susan’s room,” Grace said. “The bathroom—”
She stopped, because Jane nodded.
“It was my room,” Jane said. “When I was growing up. I remember.”
“Of course,” Grace Lockwood said. “Your aunt told—” She stopped abruptly, as if she had broken some rule. “A good hot bath,” she said. “I’ll get you some hot milk. In a thermos, so it will be hot when you’re ready. And then you must go to sleep.”
“I—” Jane said. Then she said, “Thank you, Grace.”
“Good,” Grace said. “You must drink it, now. You need it, you know.” She went toward the door and then stopped. “It will make you sleep, you know,” she said, and went out the door, closing it behind her.
Jane stood for a moment and then started toward the door, but took only a step and stopped. No, Grace was bringing something—milk, that was it. Grace would have to get in to leave the milk. She must not lock the door, because then Grace could not get in.
It comes out very neatly, Jane thought. It is very logical, very sensible: Perhaps I am not dreaming now.
She went the other way across the room and into the bathroom. She locked this door behind her and stood for almost a minute looking at the bathroom before she did anything else. It had new fixtures, she realized; it was not, as she had expected it to be, familiar. She shook her head and turned on the hot water. It had come slowly when she was a child there, it had been little more than a trickle. Now it gushed into the tub. Slowly she undressed, letting her clothes fall on the bathroom rug. When she had finished, she stood looking at herself in the mirror which was the full height of the door. She ran her hands through her hair, lifting it, and let it fall again. She leaned close to the mirror and looked into her eyes and they were not as she remembered them. I must be afraid, she thought.
The water gushed noisily into the bath and she leaned down and tested it, and then turned off the hot water and let cold gush in. Then, still moving slowly, almost automatically, she stepped into the bath and slid down so she could lie in the warm water. It was a long time before she did anything but lie in the water, feeling it make her body lighter, less bound to heaviness.
“Just to stand by,” Heimrich said. “To watch. Not to keep things from happening. Not to let too much happen. He understands that?”
Forniss shrugged.
“I told him,” he said. “All you could do,” Heimrich agreed. “Is he out of sight?”
“A closet,” Forniss said. “Linen closet. With the door open a little.”
“Convenient,” Heimrich said. “It ought to work. If he stays awake. If he’s bright. Is he bright?”
“He’s what we’ve got,” Forniss said.
Heimrich opened his eyes. He did not look pleased.
“What we’ve got,” Forniss repeated. “What they sent along. A trooper. Name of Turner. I suppose he’s bright.”
Heimrich closed his eyes again.
“Well,” he said, “we’ve got to suppose something.” He considered this and, after a time, sighed. “I suppose,” he said.
Ray had driven the little rental car as fast as he dared on the unfamiliar, twisting road. He had driven it angrily, swearing at its sluggishness, swearing at the vagrant twistings of New York 22. The road was black surfaced, too narrow, for a good many miles; he was a long way from Somers when he found concrete again, and the little car steadied down. He came around a broad curve and down a steep hill into White Plains at a little before eleven o’clock. It was after eleven when, finally, he found the address Sergeant Forniss had given him. It was a detached house, in a row of houses. And it was dark. The Carrolls had gone to bed.
That was tough on the Carrolls, Ray thought. They were going to be waked up. He pressed the button of the doorbell and heard the bell shrill, and then, after a little, a dog barked. It was a small, indignant dog, apparently. But nothing else happened, and Ray continued to press on the button of the doorbell. It continued to shrill, and the little dog became furious. Ray stopped pressing and the bell stopped, but the little dog continued, in a frenzy. The bell was unnecessary. The little dog would wake anyone. It became apparent that there was no one else to wake.
Ray swore and went back to the little car. There was only one thing to do and he settled down to do it. There was no telling how long it would be. Eventually, almost always, people did come home—from bridge games, from late movies, from improving lectures by recognized authorities.
Jane would be all right. He told himself that several times, until he almost believed it. Whatever the logic of this was, there was no logic which would require that anything further happen to Jane. She was “it.” She was the fall guy. Things didn’t happen to you when you were “it,” when you had been moved to the spot selected for you. Nobody then needed to do anything further. Anybody would be a fool to. The intelligent thing would be to let well enough alone.
Only—people didn’t let well enough alone. That was, as nearly as Ray could understand it, the theory on which Captain Heimrich worked, and Ray did not think Heimrich was a fool. Heimrich was a man who relied on other people being fools, and who waited, with exemplary patience, for them to behave foolishly. It might suit Heimrich’s plans admirably if somebody tried to do something, further, about Jane. But it would hardly suit Heimrich’s plans to allow them to succeed. Since he could not be there himself, Ray decided he would have to trust Heimrich. It was not as good as being there himself. He hoped that Carroll would come home soon. He considered Carroll—Oliver Carroll, it was—with disfavor. He could only hope that Carroll, in addition to being out too late at nights, was a liar.
If Carroll had lied, supporting an original lie told by John Lockwood, Ray thought he had something. Going away from the house, Lockwood had said Jane was. So—her back was to him, it was night, there was a moon but it was only part of a moon. Identification could not have been easy, always assuming there had been anyone to identify. Lockwood would hardly have ventured to make it, with emphasis, unless he was sure of one thing—that Jane could have been there. If he were honest, or even if he were cautious, he would not say he had seen Jane leaving the house until he had found out that Jane could not prove she was on the Twentieth Century Limited, several hundred miles away, at the time he gave. By the time he made the statement to the police, he could have found that out from Carroll, whom he had sent to meet the train. If he did not find it out from Carroll, then he already knew it, and if he already knew it, it was because he had arranged for Jane not to be on the Century.
Even if Carroll admitted he had lied, the point would not be conclusive. Ray, lighting a new cigarette, looking vengefully at the dark Carroll house, admitted this to himself. It would give Lockwood something to explain, it would bear out Jane’s story. But it would not prove Jane’s story. It would not prove her innocence. Until her story was proved, it remained possible—to Heimrich, obviously—that she could have been at the house at two o’clock that morning, and any lies Lockwood might have told would merely muddle things, complicate them. Jane would still, presumably, be a major suspect. But there would be more suspicion to go around, and it would be spread thinner.
“Damn you, Carroll,” Ray said, aloud, and lighted a new cigarette.
A car came up the street, slowed—and swung into the driveway of the house next door to Carroll’s. Ray snapped his new cigarette out the open window of the rental car, watched its arc, almost at once lighted a new cigarette. He got out of the car and stood leaning against it, regarding the Carroll house with animus. It was almost half past eleven, then.
It was ten minutes later when a couple came along the sidewalk, sauntering, unhurried. The man moved like a young man, the woman was slim and graceful, and held his arm. Ray watched them, ready to leap. They glanced at him and the car, seemed unperturbed, and turned in toward Carroll’s house.
“Hey!” Ray said, and was startled by the volume of his voice, by the anxiety in it. “Hey! Are you Carroll?”
The two stopped and faced him.
“Why yes,” the man said. “Yes. You wanted to see me?”
She lay in the warm water for a long time, turning more hot into the tub as the water cooled. Finally she soaped, slid back under the water, stepped to the rug to dry herself. She dried herself slowly, carefully, not letting anything awaken her from this new relaxation, not letting anything, any thought, any terror, come between her and the pleasure of the slightly rough towel on her skin, the kind of languor which had come with warmth, with the soft stroking of the heated water. When she was dry she looked down at the clothes on the floor and then, still not letting herself think what she was doing, ran warm water into the basin and washed underclothes, doing it slowly and carefully and hanging them, when she had finished, over the rod of the shower curtains. She looked at herself again in the door mirror, wanting to see if there was still fear in her eyes, but the mirror was steamed, now. She cleaned a place on it with the side of her hand, but almost at once it began to cloud again.
She went out into the bedroom, then, and the air was cool on her skin and for a moment she shivered. But this time the shivering was really from the cold. Still she did not let herself think, still she moved with deliberate lassitude.
There was a pair of pyjamas on the bed. They were blue, demure, something which might be worn by a young girl, and Jane realized they must be little Susan’s. She hesitated a moment and then thought that Grace Lockwood had seemed to intend kindness, and that this would be part of it, and put the pyjamas on. They were a little small, but only a little and only across her breasts. They were not made of silk, but of some soft cotton material which felt against her skin as cloth had not felt since she was much younger. She looked down at herself in the blue pyjamas and she felt that she was much younger. The room, too, became more familiar, so it was as if she had somehow moved back in time and become again, by some alchemy of physical sensation and of memory, a girl in her teens. She had had her hot bath, as she had been told to, and now she would drink her milk and go to bed, obedient, questing back for childhood. It became, oddly, a kind of game, and a kind of refuge. For so long as she was a little girl, obedient, demure, the rise of her breasts restrained, she would be safe. That was the game. She would not have to fear, to wonder if something had happened to her mind, to think that she was hiding guilt in the fantasy of nightmare. It was part of the game, also, to move very slowly, very carefully, toward the bed, so as not by sudden movement, by familiar freedom, to reawaken fear. She got into bed and smoothed the covers over her and lay on her back, her legs together, very quietly.
Now I must drink my milk, she thought. I will be a good girl and drink my milk. But for a moment she did not see the milk. Then, turning her head to the side, slowly, she saw the thermos pitcher on a little table beside the bed. The thermos pitcher and a glass were on a round silver tray and she reached out and lifted the top from the pitcher. A tiny wisp of steam came out of the pitcher. She put the top back and withdrew her hand and lay very still. It was not time yet, she thought. I will lie here very quietly, in the quiet, for a little while. Then it will be time to drink my milk and go to sleep. I must not be greedy, for the milk or for sleep; I must be a good girl. That is part of the game, and if I am careful the game will become real, and I shall be a young girl without fear, or knowledge, and without guilt. And then when I sleep I will not dream any more, and perhaps that way I can find my way back, so that when I wake up again all the dreams will be over.
She lay so for perhaps ten minutes. Then she thought, I will count to a hundred, at the cadence of my pulse beat, and then I will drink my hot milk and go to sleep. She began to count in her mind, one—two. She put her fingers under the pyjama jacket, against the place where she could feel her heart beating, and counted with its beat. Three, four, five, six—If she did not drink the milk until she had counted to a hundred, “they” could not get her. She would be safe from them. It was a rule of the game.
Oliver Carroll looked a little frightened, and not very well. He said over again what he had just said.
“How could I know that?” he said. “Be fair, Mr. Forrest. Look at it my way. Lockwood’s my boss. You’d have done the same.”
“All right,” Ray Forrest said. “Skip it, Carroll. Sure I’d have done the same, I suppose. Work it out yourself.”
“It was harmless,” Carroll said. “I thought it was harmless. That’s what he said. Said it would embarrass him.” Rather suddenly, Carroll got red. “All right,” he said. “He’s my boss. What the hell?”
Ray Forrest was standing, moving toward the door. Carroll followed him, talking. Carroll’s wife sat in the living room, and she looked frightened, too.
“It’s O.K. now,” Ray said. “Quit worrying. As long as you come through, boss or no boss.” He stopped and faced Carroll. “You’ll have to do that, you know,” he said.
“Yes,” Carroll said. “Of course. Believe me, Mr. Forrest, I—”
“O.K.,” Ray said. “I get it. I’ve got to get back.”
“Any time,” Carroll said. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“Sure,” Ray said. “That’s up to the cops. I’ll tell them.” Ray opened the door. He said “good night” and did not listen to anything more Carroll said. Carroll had said enough.
The motor of the rented car sputtered, died, sputtered again. Ray swore at it. It caught and he raced it, so that it made an angry sound in the night.
It had taken too long, a lot too long. Carroll had denied it, had said he’d told all he knew to the police, had insisted he had met the Century, would have known Jane. (“I know all the family; I knew her as a kid.” He had been proud of that.) She had not been on the train. Lockwood had telephoned him and he had reported. That was how Lockwood knew.
“Come off it,” Ray said. “This is murder, Carroll. You’re covering up. Covering up for the boss. This is murder.”
It was that which had broken Carroll, finally. “This is murder, Carroll. You can’t cover up when it’s murder. You’re a lawyer. You know that. This is murder, for God’s sake. This is murder.” It had taken time; too much time. There had been a few minutes when Ray had begun to doubt, had begun to fear that what he didn’t want to hear was nevertheless the truth. And then Carroll had broken.
He had not met the Century. He had not been told to meet the Century. Around ten o’clock, perhaps a little before, Lockwood had telephoned him.
“He said, ‘Listen, Ollie,’” Oliver Carroll said. “He called me Ollie when he was amiable, wanted me to feel pleased. He said, ‘Listen, Ollie. I want you to do something for me. I want you to say you met the Century this morning, that I told you to meet Jane Phillips, who was expected on it. You remember Jane.’”
Carroll had said he remembered Jane.
“‘Good,’” Lockwood had said. “‘You met the Century, looked for Jane, and she wasn’t on it. Understand?’”
Carroll had said he guessed so.
“The fact is,” Lockwood had said—or had said something like that—“I promised the family to have the train met and I was going to ask you to meet it. Slipped my mind. Embarrassing to have to admit it, you see? I’d like to have you say you did meet it. All right?”
“I said, ‘Look, Mr. Lockwood. Do I just say I missed her? Or what?’ and he said, ‘No, Ollie, just say she wasn’t on the train. Say you couldn’t have missed her if she had been,’ and I started, ‘But, Mr. Lockwood—’ and he cut in. ‘Don’t worry about that, Ollie,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t on the train. You can take my word for that.’”
“He didn’t say how he knew?” Ray had asked and Oliver Carroll had shaken his head.
“I suppose he got word somehow,” he said. “Didn’t he?”
“Oh yes,” Ray said. “I think he got word, all right. Somehow.” He paused. “You may have to swear to this,” he had said. Oliver Carroll didn’t like that, but after a time he saw it. It did not make him happy, it was then he began to look a little unwell, but he saw it.
The little rental car jumped when the clutch went in. It did its best, under a heavy, driving foot. But it was some time after midnight when it finished climbing the hill outside White Plains and it was well after one o’clock when it stopped, with a final shudder, in the turnaround in front of the Meredith garage. There was still a light in the library, and a trooper was still awake to open the door to the house.