1

It was George who was responsible for the whole business.

It was George who made me go to Weesit in the first place, and it was at Weesit, where I was supposed to undergo a quiet and peaceful convalescence, that everything happened. I want to make it clear from the beginning that the next time I recover from pneumonia I’m going not to Cape Cod, but to Sarawak or Tibet or some remote spot where you might reasonably expect people to be killed outside your bedroom window.

I’d been home from the hospital just four weeks when George came in one Monday afternoon in late June and announced peremptorily that I was to spend the summer in Weesit. It was a nice placid little Cape Cod town and Dr. Burnside had particularly recommended its bracing sea air. That I had no desire to go away from Boston had no effect on George.

“You’ve got to go somewhere for the summer,” he pointed out. “You can’t stay here in this barracks. I’ve hired a summer cottage for you, small enough so that you can’t possibly invite a lot of guests. Now listen to my plans.”

I groaned a little to myself. So many of George’s remarks are prefaced by that statement, “Now listen to my plans.” Of course his executive ability and passion for detail have made him a huge business success at thirty, and I’m enormously proud of him and his achievements. I couldn’t be prouder if he were really my own, instead of my adopted son. But once in a while his plans become tiresome and I wish that my husband were alive to cope with the boy. Adin understood George perfectly. I’ve always remembered what he remarked to me just after he was taken sick.

“Vic,” he said, “if I don’t get over this, for Heaven’s sakes don’t let that boy manage you the way he manages Janet, and Ballard and Company. He’s competent, but he hasn’t a scrap of humor. Don’t let him bully you and tell you he knows what’s best for you!”

And I never had until I was taken sick. Then, I must admit, I fully appreciated his capacity for taking charge of things. But now his plans were beginning to bore me. It occurred to me, too, that possibly Weesit without George around to make me do what was best for me might be better than Boston with him. I didn’t feel strong enough to argue the matter, anyway. I half started to appeal to Janet, George’s wife, and then I decided it would be useless to ask her aid. She was listening dutifully, with an expression of habitual resignation, to George’s details.

Privately I’ve often wondered how Janet happened to marry George. She’s a dear girl, but she’s not his type at all—and as the most beautiful deb of her day she had a wide choice of husbands. For my own part, even though I admire George’s ability, I have my doubts as to whether I should enjoy being married to him. Once in a while lately, I’ve thought I detected signs that Janet was beginning to have doubts herself. He does supervise her a lot.

But for all that, George is really very kind and thoughtful. As Adin said, you always had to admit that his ideas were usually much better and much sounder than your own.

“Finally,” George was winding up, “you’ll need a cook—I’ve decided on Mrs. Tavish—and a companion of some sort. Cousin Mercy has very kindly offered—”

The mention of Cousin Mercy Cabot affected me as George should have known it would.

“I’ll go to Weesit,” I told him hotly, “because I haven’t the energy to debate about it. But not with Cousin Mercy! Not that—that moron! She’d wear me out. I simply couldn’t bear to spend the summer listening to her tales of the sick Ballards. I’ll go to Weesit, but I choose my own servant and companion!”

“You don’t seem to realize,” George announced, “that you’re in no condition to make your own plans. Or any plans, for that matter.”

That statement, coming on top of Cousin Mercy, goaded me beyond words.

“I’m fifty-five,” I said when I was finally able to speak, “and I’ll admit that I’ve hovered over the brink of the grave these last few months. I’m grateful for the way you made plans for me while I was sick. But I’ve no intention of having you superintend all my affairs now. And,” I added as an afterthought, “on your way to the office, stop in at Stephen Crump’s and tell him I’ll look after my own business in the future. Have your power of attorney revoked.”

“You can’t, mother! You’re in no position to handle things! You’ll be away and—”

“I’m perfectly capable, George, of taking care of the few stocks and bonds I have left.”

“Few,” George spluttered. “Few! Half a million!”

“I managed twice that before you were born or thought of,” I returned, “and I survived very well. Now run along. You’re tiring me. I’ll see you in September.”

“September? But I intend to go to the Cape with you and of course I’ll come down weekends,” George protested. “Janet’s leaving for Maine tomorrow to stay with her mother and I’d planned on spending my spare time with you—”

“You said it was a small cottage,” I reminded him tartly, “and that I couldn’t have visitors. Now, George, go along to Stephen’s. It’s time for my nap.”

George cleared his throat and got up from his chair. Janet looked at me nervously. I knew she knew what the gesture signified. George was going to lose his renowned temper.

“Conditions,” he began, his face already growing red, “are changing daily. I absolutely refuse to let you take the responsibility of—”

“Stop acting like a school boy,” I said, as calmly as I could. “I’ve explained to you that I’m grateful for the plans you made and the things you did for me while I was sick, but now that I’m well, I’ll take care of things myself. That’s all there is to it.”

“Of making your own plans,” George continued, speaking more loudly and ignoring me entirely, “You’ll be away from town, you’re out of touch with things. You’re not well!” He banged his fist on the table. “I shall not agree to seeing Stephen nor to letting you choose your own companions at the Cape!” He banged the table again, so hard this time that an ash tray bounced to the floor.

“You shall agree and you will agree,” I told him, “and please don’t bang the table so, George. The Ming vase—”

“Damn the Ming vase,” George yelled, snatching it up from the table. He raised it, and if Janet hadn’t gripped his arm, I truly believe he would have dashed it on the floor. He looked ashamed the next moment, but that did not alter my feelings.

“No,” I said as he started to speak, “don’t try to apologize. You know that vase is the gem of your father’s collection. I’ve had enough of this scene. I shall take whom I please to the Cape, go when I please, and I shall call Stephen within the hour.”

George’s face was literally purple as he walked toward the door. “Come, Janet,” he said. “Come!”

“In a moment.”

George opened his mouth to speak, then apparently thought better of it and left the room. He slammed the door very hard behind him.

“Vic,” Janet said, crossing quickly over to the couch, “I’m tremendously sorry! I don’t know what to say. He’s been—well, he’s not been himself since the Janson and Carter Trust went to pieces. And you know how he is when his plans are interfered with—”

“I do,” I said, kissing her. “And I know he’ll be very sorry for this outburst. Don’t antagonize him by making him wait—and write me. There’s no harm done. I understand.”

But I didn’t entirely. George hates to have his plans go askew and opposition of any sort usually irritates him, but I’d never seen him lose control of himself before. Probably it was due to business worries. I stared at the ceiling and wondered about him and tried to figure out whom I’d take to the Cape with me.

At that point Rose, my good-looking if slightly hit-or-miss housemaid, brought me in Elizabeth Houghton’s scrawled note.

“Sorry to bother you,” she wrote, “but I need your help. The girl I’m enclosing with this is Nelly Stone’s daughter Judith Dunham. She fainted from hunger yesterday on Boylston Street and they brought her here to the hospital. She’s far too decent just to put up any place and I can’t keep her here. We’re full. Can’t you take her on as a companion till she gets on her feet? She’s broke. She has a lovely voice and she could read to you. Won’t you do something? I’ll call later.”

I felt rather more than shocked when I finished the note. I’d not seen or heard of Nelly Stone for thirty years, but she’d been my best friend at Miss Owen’s Seminary. Hazy recollections of pickle limes and “Trilby” and taffy apples and horse cars and Harvard class days rose before me, and with them all a picture of Nelly, tall and brown-eyed and smiling. Now her daughter fainted from hunger on Boylston Street!

“Send the young woman up,” I said, thinking quickly. “And wait, Rose. Should you care to go to the Cape for the summer? Clean, cook, and all that? I’ll pay you what Mrs. Tavish gets.”

“Is it lonesome, Mrs. Ballard?”

I smiled. Recitals of Rose’s love affairs had considerably lessened the tedium of the last few weeks.

“I presume that the town has eligible young men,” I told her. “You don’t have to be lonesome.”

“I’ll go.”

“Good. Now, what does this girl downstairs look like?”

“She’s pretty. Sort of like Sylvia Sydney. She’s got a nice smile. I’ll bring her up.”

I liked Judith Dunham the minute I saw her. She was about twenty-five, and her clothes were good, if somewhat limp from too much pressing and cleaning. She must have known what was in Elizabeth’s note, but it didn’t bother her. Even if she were penniless, she was carrying her head and chin high.

“I knew your mother,” I said. “You look like her. Same brown eyes and hair.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t mother’s figure,” she answered.

That was perfectly true. She was excruciatingly thin and looked as though she hadn’t eaten regularly for weeks. I learned later that she literally had not.

“I’m going away tomorrow,” I went on, “and I wonder if you’d like to come with me and act as my companion? Read to me, order meals, play cards and all?”

“I thought you were going to say,” her voice wavered, “say that you’d love to give me something to do if you weren’t going away. I—I really don’t think I could have stood being turned down again. Thank you, Mrs. Ballard. I’d love to go.”

“You can drive a car? Have you a license? Good. Then we’ll drive to the Cape tomorrow. Now, what do people call you?”

“Judy.”

“Well, Judy, run along and get your trunks and things and by the time you get back, there’ll be a room ready for you.”

“I’m sorry,” she spoke hesitantly, “but I’ve nothing to get. My last landlady took my trunks for back rent. She’s probably pawned everything by now. I’ve nothing but what I’ve got on.”

“Then bring me my pocketbook,” I said briskly, trying to hide the effect of her calm announcement. “Thank you. Here, take this and call it an advance. Get what you need.”

“I’ve not seen so much money in months,” she admitted with a little laugh. “Ought you to let me loose with it? You’ve not seen my references—”

“You’re Nelly’s daughter and that’s enough. Run along and get some clothes.” I stopped a moment. Perhaps it wasn’t wise to take this girl into the family without someone else’s stamp of approval. I didn’t want to question her as though she were a charwoman, but in spite of George’s complaints to the contrary, I’m a cautious person. “Wait,” I said. “After you’re through shopping, go to my son’s office. Rose’ll give you the address. Tell him you’re my new companion and that we’re leaving tomorrow with Rose. He’ll probably raise a rumpus.”

She nodded and grinned. From the glint in her eyes I knew she understood that it was more than a casual order.

Just as I downed the last of my five o’clock buttermilk, George phoned.

He considered my new companion headstrong, wilful, and unduly flippant. So I knew then that I’d made no mistake. Judy was firm, self-reliant, and she had a sense of humor.

We set off the next morning, stopped for a leisurely luncheon and reached Weesit just before three in the afternoon. While we hunted for the real estate agent, I took stock of the town. My first impression was of white paint. All the houses were shining white with green blinds. There were tall stately elms along the main street and from the general air of spick-and-spanness, I gathered that the people of Weesit took pride in their village.

Finally we located the agent, an amiable man by the name of Bangs. His garrulousness and appearance reminded me of a peddler who had once attempted to sell me fake diamonds on the installment plan. He guided us over the three or four miles of rutted sandy backroads to our cottage, a small modern reproduction of a Cape Cod house.

It stood in a clearing among scrubby pine trees on the top of a high bluff. Below, at the foot of the bluff, stretched the ocean.

I got out of the car and looked around critically. Although an unsuccessful attempt at a lawn had apparently been made, tall beach grass grew in clusters about the house. It was a perfect location for a summer place. The view was marvelous and there were no neighbors. But the air of wildness and loneliness didn’t please me at all. I’m a sociable creature.

It annoyed Mr. Bangs that I was not more enthusiastic.

“It’s the first summer the Hendersons ever rented this place,” he said earnestly. “It’s just as they left it, too, except for bein’ cleaned an’ opened. You got things in this place no other house in town’s got. Three nice bedrooms, a nice kitchen, electric lights, electric pump an’ a two-car garage.” He paused for breath. “Wild roses outside your door, chintz coverings on your chairs, a fireplace, an’ Persian rugs. And,” with a gesture, “two p’latial bathrooms. Two. Don’t you think that’s pretty fine?”

“Yes, indeed. But aren’t there any people near? I can’t see a house and we didn’t pass one after we left the main road. It’s so lonely!”

“Your son wrote he wanted me to get him a nice quiet place,” Mr. Bangs said defensively. “I got it. I told him in my letter that the nearest house was two miles off.”

Judy laughed at my woebegone face. “We’ve got the car, Mrs. Ballard. We can always find people. Listen to the surf. Isn’t it grand?”

“Sounds damp to me,” I remarked. “I’ll probably get pneumonia all over again and I’m sure you can’t get over it twice in one life.”

“Don’t you worry, Mrs. Ballard. I’ll bundle you up. Mr. Bangs, what about ice, coal, wood, milk, groceries and all those things?”

“All set,” Bangs told her. “Mrs. Ballard’s son told me to arrange for everything an’ I did. Ice man’ll be here this afternoon. So’ll the grocery boy. He sent a list, your son did. Coal an’ wood’ll be here before supper time. Sorry there ain’t no phone. Henderson managed electric poles, but I guess phone poles would of busted him. Guess you’ll have to run into town in your car when you want anything quick. Glad to help you out when I can.”

And with that, Mr. Bangs departed hurriedly. I suspected that he had some doubts about my keeping the cottage after all.

Rose was frankly dubious. “It’s lonesome. I bet there’s rum-runners an’ smugglers. Bet we’ll all be shot,” she said lugubriously.

“Cheer up,” Judy advised. “There are no end of wandering males.”

The ice man arrived just then and took forty minutes to fill our diminutive ice box. Rose was whistling when the grocery boy came, and by the time he and the coal man had departed, she burst into song.

“Just the same,” she said when she brought in the soup at dinner, “Toby—he’s the ice man—he says there still are rum-runners here. And smugglers, too. He said Mr. Henderson that owns this house slept with a gun.”

“Uncomfortable, I should think,” Judy commented.

“And Toby says this house was broken into four times this last winter. I’ve put a burglar-proof catch on both the kitchen windows. I brought ’em from home.”

“Then,” Judy said, “you’re safe. Why worry?”

“Just the same,” I remarked later while we were having our coffee before the fire, “it’s very lonely here. I don’t like being without a phone. What would we do if anyone tried to break in?”

“Why, Mrs. Ballard—”

“You can’t,” I interrupted, “go on Mrs. Ballarding me for ever. My name is Victoria Alexandra. My friends shorten it to Vic. I hope you will.”

“It’s a bit regal, but it suits you, somehow. Vic, I think you’re safer here than you are in Boston. It’s so calm and settled. I’m happy for the first time in months.”

“I’m glad for you, my dear, but just the same I’m nervous. I’ve a feeling that I’m being watched from outside that window. I’m sure someone’s—”

Promptly the front door knocker beat a tattoo and I looked at Judy.

“There! Hear that? And I saw no car light, did you?”

Judy shook her head and started for the door. I noticed that she eyed the poker reflectively as she passed by it.

I followed her to the door. A harassed looking young man in white flannels and a polo coat stood on the door step.

“Sorry to rouse you, all that—” he said politely, “but can you tell me where I am? Are you the Guilds?”

His broad ‘a’ and pleasant voice allayed my fears.

“Come in,” I said, “but we’re not the Guilds.”

“I thought as much. You didn’t look expectant,” he said regretfully as he crossed over to the fireplace. “Maybe you could tell me where to find them?”

“I can’t. We’ve just arrived and there’s no phone.”

“Gee! Oh, I’m Richard Edson, by the way. Punch Edson. I run an itinerant Punch and Judy show. My gear’s in a truck down the road a bit. Lights gave out and the fog stopped me completely.”

“Fog?”

“There’s quite a lot rolling in. I say, no others have wandered out this way, have they? The Allens—they’re a song and dance outfit I’ve been travelling with—they had the same directions. We were supposed to give our show for these Guilds.”

“We’ve not seen them.”

“What a week, what a week! Rain, four flats and more engine trouble than I’ve ever seen outside a repair shop. Now this! Well, I still can’t see how I went wrong. I took the turns as Dan gave ’em to me. Well, I’ll pop along. Thanks ever so much.”

“Perhaps you’d better wait,” I suggested, “and see if your friends don’t turn up. Are you professionals?”

“By necessity. I was an engineer. Dan Allen is a customer’s man turned barytone. His wife Edie used to dance for charity benefits and now she does it for a living. Harriet, Dan’s sister—well, Hat used to teach and now she’s a pseudo-Ruth Draper. Our latest addition used to have an automobile agency. Now he pulls rabbits out of silk hats. That’s Red Gilpin.”

“Did you say Kilpin?” Judy asked in rather a strange voice. “Funny name.”

“No, Gilpin. You know, ‘John Gilpin was a citizen of credit and renown’? Old man Cowper.”

I laughed. “I haven’t thought of that poem for years. I recited it once in school. ‘Away went Gilpin—dum-de-dum—and sore against his will—’ ”

The knocker banged again. Punch rushed to the door and ushered in three people.

“Mrs. Allen, Miss Allen and Mr. Allen,” he said. “No, Dan, don’t start a speech. This isn’t the right place. There’s no phone, these people have just come and don’t know the Guilds, and the truck’s lights have gone out.”

Dan Allen groaned. He was thirty-odd, stocky and dark, and his eyebrows fascinated me. They met in the middle of his forehead.

“What a life,” he said disgustedly. “And the van just got a flat. Red’s fixing it.”

“Inside tire,” Harriet Allen added. She was dark like her brother and she wore a lot of make-up, vivid brown powder and plum colored lipstick. I felt sure that her eyebrows grew naturally like her brother’s, though now they were hair lines. “That means two hours!”

Punch shook his head. “That’s shot the Guilds’ show. Well, let’s go help.” He bowed to me. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

“Wait,” I said. “Why not leave the women here till you get things fixed?”

They looked at me gratefully. “We’d like nothing better,” Mrs. Allen said. “Run along, boys, and call us when it’s over. Hat and I were pretty chilly.”

She perched on a footstool before the fire and pulled off her smart, tight fitting red cap. A shock of blonde curls fell almost to her shoulders and in the firelight she looked like a small girl, though I learned later that she was thirty, just three years older than her sister-in-law. I smiled as I remembered an expression of Adin’s that covered her exactly. She was a “half-pint beauty.”

“Isn’t it grand to be warm, Hat? Ooh. You’ve got the same chintz pattern we had in our sun room in Winchester. The dear, dead days!”

I laughed, for there was no sadness in her tone.

“How long have you been doing this?” I asked.

“Dan and I’ve been at it two years. Hat and Punch a little over a year, and Red about six months. It’s fun except when it rains or the truck or the van breaks down.”

She and Hat Allen chatted on about their experiences till the men came back around ten-thirty. They brought John Gilpin with them and I liked him better than either of the other men. He was, I thought, exactly the sort of person I’d have wanted my own son, who died when he was a baby, to be. He was big and tall and pleasant and full of life—and humor. And he had the most cheerful red hair I’ve ever seen.

“Everyone’s mad with me, Mrs. Ballard,” he announced. “And by the way, is it B-a-l-l-a-r-d? Punch’s hot potato accent is so difficult.”

“It is,” I told him. “Why are they mad?”

“Because I can’t fix the truck lights. I can’t seem to grasp the short circuit.”

“What are you going to do for the night?”

“That’s just the point. I wondered if you’d let us park the cars in the turn off on the left, below the house? We found it just now. Followed the ruts and had to do an about-face. Then we wouldn’t be blocking the road. You see, we can crank the truck and use a flashlight to get it there, and then in the morning I can fix everything. But we couldn’t possibly get to town in all this fog.”

“But where will you sleep?”

Red Gilpin laughed. “Where we always do. Punch and I in the truck and the rest in the van. We won’t park up here if you don’t want us to, Mrs. Ballard. We’ll understand if you say no.”

“But of course you may,” I said. “I was just trying to figure out if some of you couldn’t stay here.”

“I could take the couch, Vic,” Judy spoke up, “and then Mrs. Allen and Miss Allen could have the two beds in my room.”

“Bliss,” Edie Allen said, “sheer bliss! A bed. Hat, I’m as excited as a girl! Haven’t seen a bed for years!”

Dan went out and brought in a suitcase of night things for them, then Rose served us coffee and sandwiches. It was exactly twelve when we settled down for the night—the Allens and Rose in the bedrooms upstairs, the men out in the cars, Judy in the living room. I occupied the downstairs bedroom.

It was after one o’clock before I went to sleep. As I dropped off I heard the mantel clock strike, and shortly after it seemed I heard a car backfiring—four times. In my drowsy state I thought I was home on Beacon Street and muttered to myself that the police should stop those banging trucks at night.

I woke shivering a little later—three-fifteen by the luminous dial of my travelling clock. After much wavering back and forth as to whether or not I really needed an extra blanket, I decided that I did, and so I got up and went into the living room.

A few charred logs glowed feebly in the fireplace and I could see the outline of my steamer rug and its strap handle on the floor near Judy’s couch. I didn’t want to wake her, so I picked it up quietly and hurried back to my own room. I wondered sleepily where she’d found that white blanket. I hadn’t remembered any but colored blankets in the Henderson chests.

It took some time to undo the rug strap, but at last I got everything settled and with my teeth fairly chattering, I hopped into bed. I was glad all those people were around. Somehow I wasn’t at all nervous or lonely with them at hand.

Again I dropped off to sleep and again it seemed that I heard a car backfiring. Louder, this time. Almost like the report of a gun. Maybe, I thought, the men were still trying to fix the truck.

I awoke in the morning to the sound of Rose’s pans clinking in the kitchen. The sun poured in my window and outside the ocean was sparkling and blue. I put on a sweater suit and top coat and tiptoed out. I peeked in at Judy, still asleep on the couch. A brisk walk along the bluff, I thought, would give me a fine appetite.

But not three feet from the steps that led to the beach, I stopped short in horror.

I don’t think I ever understood the phrase “rooted to the spot” before that minute. For there at my feet, lying in the tall sea grass, was Red Gilpin. Curiously sprawled. Rigid.

His red hair was wet with dew—but his face! I turned away from the sight.

Suddenly it came to me as I looked out over the white flecked rolling waves that those sounds of the night before had not all been car exhausts. They had been gun shots. Someone had shot and done away with Red Gilpin.

Ironically the old tag line of the poem pounded in my ears along with the crashing of the surf:

“Away went Gilpin—dum-de-dum—and sore against his will.”