CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I HAD LEFT a light burning in my room. It was not burning now. Perhaps the cold breeze billowing through the opened windows had blown it out. The hall was washed with darkness, the walls coated black, and the lamp Billie held only underlined and emphasized this darkness. We paused at the top of the stairs. The breeze stopped blowing. The curtains fell limp. Everything grew still, quiet, but there was a sense of motion all around us, subtle and shifting. I had the curious sensation that the house was my enemy, that it had been holding back, gathering force, and now this stillness was the stillness before attack. Billie must have felt it too. She was breathing heavily, as though with difficulty, and the hand holding the lamp trembled visibly.

I led the way down the hall to Henrietta’s old room. We went inside. I closed the door. Billie set the lamp down on a marble topped table, and we stared at each other in the flickering yellow glow. Billie tried a flippant smile to show me she wasn’t really afraid, but the smile failed. Her eyes were dark, and her cheekbones looked chalky. I sighed and put the gun down beside the lamp. It was a moment before I could speak.

“It’ll just take a moment,” I said.

“Hurry, Em.”

“I’ll get something to stand on.”

The eagle perched on top of the tall, heavy wardrobe, out of reach. The yellow-green glass eyes seemed to be watching us in the wavering light. I moved a small velvet footstool to the edge of the wardrobe and climbed up on it, reaching for the eagle. I shivered as my fingers touched the dead, moldy feathers. The eagle was heavy, far too heavy, and I lifted it down and set it on the table. It stared at us accusingly as it perched there on its black wooden pedestal. Billie backed away from it a little, as though she feared it would fly in her face.

“I’ve never seen anything so hideous,” she whispered.

“We’ll have to find something to cut it open,” I replied.

“I don’t think I could touch it.”

I stepped over to the old roll-topped desk and there, among the dusty colored glass paperweights, I found a brass letter opener. The blade was dull, but it would do. I moved back to the table and stood over the eagle, wondering where I should make the first incision. The yellow-green eyes glared at me as though alive and aware of my intentions. I closed my eyes and plunged the knife into its chest. The eagle seemed to wince with pain. A cloud of dust exploded and feathers littered the table. I split the body open and reached inside, shuddering. I pulled out the worn chamois pouch. It was heavy and lumpy, tied with a piece of cord at the top. The eagle toppled over on the table, a limp pile of dust and feathers, destroyed.

We did not say anything. We stared at the bag. The excitement and elation we might have felt was overshadowed by the fear that hung like a tangible thing in the small, cluttered room with its sour smell and dust. We had no desire to examine the contents of the pouch. We wanted only to get away from this room, this house. I picked up the gun. Billie took the lamp and the lumpy chamois pouch. I touched the doorknob with trembling fingers. We heard the floor outside groan under the weight of something heavy moving across it.

I froze. Billie drew in her breath sharply.

The noise was repeated, a stealthy sound.

Strangely enough, the sound had a calming effect on both of us, like a bucket of cold water in the face of hysteria. The sound was real, something that we could hear and realize and therefore fight, whereas a moment before we had been in the grip of an unknown terror, a sinister pall that hung over us like a dark cloud. The knowledge of real danger is much less frightening than the silent threat of evil. My hand tightened on the doorknob. Billie held the lamp up. Her hand was steady.

“He’s out there,” she whispered.

“I think he is.”

“Waiting,” she said. “What are we going to do?”

“We can’t stay here.”

For some reason the room with the destroyed eagle and the sour smell and dust seemed to hold a far greater terror than the hall outside with the stealthy creak of floorboards.

“I have the gun,” I said.

“Do you think you can use it?”

“I—I think so. Put out the light, Billie.”

“But, Em—”

“We’ll be safer if he can’t see us.”

She blew out the lamp, set it down in darkness. I opened the door. The hinges creaked loudly, a grating noise that split the silence. The sound echoed in the hall, died down, vanished, and there was nothing but the soft sound of breathing and the gentle rustle of the curtains billowing in the now light breeze. I reached for Billie’s hand and squeezed it. We were both acutely aware of the danger and acutely aware of the necessity of remaining calm. We crept out into the hall and were soon swallowed up by the shadowy darkness.

We moved towards the staircase, slowly, silently. At each end of the long hall there were pools of light where silver moonbeams drifted through the opened windows, and in between there was darkness, gray at the edges, growing denser, impenetrable in the middle where we moved. It would be impossible to see anyone leaning against the wall, but I could feel someone, a presence, a curious current in the atmosphere. I listened for the sound of labored breathing, the sound of footsteps, but there were no noises. I could not be sure that someone was actually watching us, but I seemed to feel eyes on us as we moved down the hall.

I stumbled against the bannister of the staircase. Billie jerked my hand. I reached out in space and found the railing, ran my palm over the smooth mahogany and began to go down the stairs, Billie following me. I moved down, down, hesitating before each step, and each step screamed in protest, though the noises were actually small squeaks. I knew the noise would bring him screaming out of the shadows and hurtling down the stairs with the axe waving and lusty for blood, but we were halfway down now, and I could see the hazy gray-black of the lower hall. The stairs curled around and there were just a few more to go. I felt the evil behind me, up there, and I tilted my head back and peered. Two hands were gripping the bannister, a torso was leaning over, a face looking down. I could hear breathing, heavy, carefully controlled, spilling down into the stairwell.

Billie heard it, too. She looked up.

We stumbled down the last steps and into the lower hall. We hurried towards the front door, heedless of noise now. It was locked. I fumbled with the bolts, rattled the latch, jerked the heavy brass knob. The door swung open. A flood of silver moonlight swept over the porch and illuminated the hall. We stepped over the dark boards and started to run down the steps. We stopped. We stared at the scene before us. We both forgot the man leaning over the stairwell inside.

Doctor Clarkson’s battered blue car was parked crazily in front of the house, both front doors wide open, the headlights mote-filled yellow wands pointing towards the graveled drive. Doctor Clarkson was sprawled out on the ground mid-way between the car and the porch, his arms flung out wildly, his head turned to one side. He was still, very still, and something dark and wet covered his forehead and temple. The breeze that drifted from over the water was icy cold, and there was a total silence unbroken by even the hum of insects. I had the feeling that time had stopped dead still.

We must have paused for only an instant, but it seemed like we stood there for an eternity, watching the motes of dust swirling in the wavering headlights, watching the dark wetness spread and slowly drip from his head. I thought, they’ve failed me. They promised someone would be watching the house at all times, day and night, and they’ve failed me. They promised nothing would happen, yet this has happened. Where are they? Why did they let this happen? Billie moved before I did. She stepped quickly down the steps and kneeled at his side. She touched his head. She lifted his wrist and felt his pulse. I followed her, numb, shocked. I could see his chest rising and falling, and I could hear his breathing.

Thank God for that, I said silently.

“He’s alive,” Billie said in a flat voice. “He’s been hit over the head. There’s a lot of blood, but the gash isn’t deep. The blood is still warm. He hasn’t been here long. What shall we do, Em?”

I was lost, trapped in a nightmare world, too numb to feel, too numb to answer her question. Billie looked up at me and then, after a moment, asked the question again. A tremor went through my body. I came alive and with the feeling of life came decision.

“We can’t leave him here,” I said. “We have to get him to a hospital right away. See if the keys are still in his car.”

Billie looked in the car.

“They’re gone,” she said.

“Perhaps they’re in his pocket.”

I knelt down and slipped my hand into the doctor’s pockets. The keys were not there. They were not in the ignition. They were not in his pockets. Someone had taken them, deliberately. Coldly, methodically, someone had thought this out. Doctor Clarkson would not likely be needing the keys for a long time, but his assailant knew that we might try to use the doctor’s car for escape. I felt an icy chill as I realized this. He knew we would try to get the doctor in the car and get away, and he had made it impossible, and he knew we would not, could not run away and leave the doctor in a critical condition. We were stranded. He had planned it, down to the last detail.

“Em, we can’t leave him here alone,” Billie said, her voice firm.

“I know. He knows it, too. That’s why he didn’t kill the doctor. He could have, but he didn’t—because he wanted to keep us here. We could leave a—a corpse, but we couldn’t leave an unconscious man.”

“Em—”

“George,” I said. “George Reed. Go to his cottage. Take the jewels. If he’s there, tell him what’s happened. If not, he has a telephone, phone the police, tell them.”

“I won’t leave you, Em.”

“Don’t argue, Billie. Please.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get Clive’s car and bring it around here and try to get the doctor in it and—”

“You’ll need help for that,” she protested, interrupting me.

“I’ll manage.”

“Em, he’s in there. You can’t—”

“Billie, please. Go. Get help. Send them. Quickly.”

She searched my face I don’t know what she saw there. She started to say something and then checked herself. She touched my arm and started towards the beach, moving lightly, quickly, soon diasppearing into the shadows. I stepped over to the car and switched off the headlights. The yellow wands vanished abrutly. I didn’t want the lights on me as I walked around the house and down the drive. The night noises returned. I heard a cricket under the steps, heard the wind rustling the grass on the beach and the sea slip softly over the shingles.

I braced myself, trying to summon the courage I knew I would need. He was there, and they had failed me. Someone will always be watching after you, George had promised. He had been in the house earlier. I knew that as soon as Billie told me she found cigarette butts and the magazine article about his father, but where was he now? Where was Officer Stevens, and where were the men who were supposed to be watching the house? It will be a perfect trap, George said. Yes, and I would be the bait with my pretended amnesia. The trap was set, a perfect trap, but who was caught? I held the gun gripped tightly in my hand and told myself to stop thinking. Now I must get the car and get the doctor away from this place.

I walked across the lawn and around the front of the house. I did not have my purse, but I knew Clive kept an extra ignition key tucked under the floormat. I would drive away, and nothing would happen. George would come, and the police, and they would capture their criminal and it would all be over. My sandals scraped loudly on the drive. The noise unnerved me. The carriage house was straight ahead, the door yawning open, a black hole. Clouds floated across the moon and shadows drifted across the ground, black and silver and gray. The gravel crunched. My heart pounded.

My God, my God, I thought. What am I doing here? Why did I let them talk me into it? I must have been out of my mind when I said I’d help them do this.…

The idea had seemed preposterous at first. I told George that. I said I couldn’t possibly pretend to have amnesia. I couldn’t fool anyone. George was Doctor Clarkson’s protégé … Doctor Clarkson helped send him to medical school, and he would help with this, too. So would Officer Stevens, Burt Reed’s drinking buddy and lifetime friend who didn’t believe for a minute that old Reed had murdered Henrietta. The three of them worked out all the details. Officer Stevens knew about the will and knew I would inherit the house and have a logical reason for coming back. Doctor Clarkson brought me books on amnesia and discussed them with me. George saw to it that everyone knew I had “witnessed” the crime and been shocked into amnesia. It was all smooth, all simple. Although George had come to London several times, we had seen each other in secrecy, and none of my friends knew of my engagement, not even Billie, nor had I ever talked of Henrietta or the months in Brighton.

I had been in London the night Henrietta was murdered. When they told me about it I was desolate, but there was nothing I could do. I didn’t go to her funeral. I sent her favorite roses and grieved in my own way, and this fit in perfectly with the plan, for if I had appeared at the funeral when I was supposed to have been “in the hospital,” the whole fabric of the deception would have fallen through. I wanted to help. They were all three convinced of Burt Reed’s innocence, but the case had been closed, and the only way they could prove he didn’t do it was to find out who did. I agreed to help, because I loved George, because I felt I owed it to Henrietta.

At the last minute I tried to back down. I didn’t have the courage to go through with it. I couldn’t come to the house alone and stay here, not for George not for Henrietta, not for anyone, and then Billie said she wanted to come with me. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t expose her to danger, too. But there would be no danger, they insisted. Someone would be there watching, waiting for the killer to show himself. Billie mustn’t know anything about it, because she might say something, accidently of course, but nevertheless she might let on. We couldn’t risk that. She was coming to help find a killer.

We came. The trap was set.

I almost gave it away when Nelson came running across the lawn and put his head in my lap, and George overplayed terribly, first for Billie’s benefit, later for Boyd Devlon. And later on, in the kitchen, I entirely forgot my role and started preparing dinner with all the assurance of one completely familiar with the room and its cabinets and drawers. Boyd noticed that, and I covered up as well as I could, saying I had explored the room earlier. It had been hard from the very first, and I had to pretend even to myself that everything, so deeply felt, so well remembered, was strange and new.

Now there was no need for pretense. Now I knew who had murdered Henrietta. I moved slowly towards the carriage house, tense, terrified, holding the gun tightly in my hand.

I could see Clive’s car in the darkness of the garage. Just a few more yards. Keep calm. Stay cool. Don’t break, not now, not when everything is almost over. Get the car. Drive it around front. Help the doctor. Be very brave. I moved towards that nest of darkness, and when I was almost at the great open door the shadows seemed to melt and Boyd Devlon moved out of them, stepping quietly out onto the drive and blocking my way. My heart leaped. My throat went dry.

He didn’t say anything. He stood there with his hands resting lightly on his thighs, a curious smile on his wide lips. His hair spilled over his forehead in unruly waves. His eyes were full of mockery. I stopped, three yards away from him. I closed my eyes. I whispered a silent prayer. I tried with all my might to force back the hysteria that rose up in panic-stricken waves to engulf me. I managed to maintain a shaky control, and I held the gun out with trembling hand and stared at him over the short black barrel.

“Are you going to shoot me?” he inquired casually.

“If I have to,” I said.

“Why should you want to do a thing like that?”

“You know very well.”

“Tell me,” he said, still smiling.

“You murdered Henrietta.”

“Come now, Emmalynn—”

“It’s all in her diary, Boyd. Everything.”

“Diary?” He looked bewildered.

“I know who you are. I know why you came here. I know why you stayed on even after you’d killed her and framed Burt Reed.”

“And why did I?” He asked quietly.

“You wanted the jewels. You knew she had them hidden somewhere in the house, but you couldn’t find them. Gordon Stuart wanted them, too, but he didn’t want them enough to kill for them. I was certain he’d done it. He was capable of such a crime, and he had a strong motive, but not as strong as yours.”

The smile was still flickering on his lips, but I could see that he was growing uneasy, restless. He dug the toe of his shoe in the gravel. His strong hands curled into fists, and he lowered his eyelids, staring at me through narrow slits.

“You murdered your mother,” I said.

“Did I?”

“Don’t try to deny it, Boyd.”

“I see you’ve regained your memory,” he said.

“I never lost it.”

He nodded his head briefly. “I see. Oh yes, I see now. I knew you were carrying on with Reed, but I thought—I really believed—you’d forgotten it.”

I made no comment. I held the gun firmly.

“When I saw you had amnesia, I thought I would get you to throw away everything else and join forces with me. I thought I could convince you we had been lovers. But you wouldn’t buy that. You knew there’d never been anything between us, and you let me go on making a fool of myself. There could have been something though, back then—”

“I was barely aware of your existence,” I said.

“True. You were too wrapped up in George Reed to notice anything. I stayed on here because I assumed you knew where the jewels were, would come back for them. I would bide my time. You would come. You would get the jewels, and I would take them from you. The amnesia bit threw me.”

“It was intended to,” I replied.

“I knew I would have to kill you, Emmalynn. As soon as you began to remember, as soon as I’d forced you to show me the hiding place.” His eyes grew cloudy, and a deep frown creased his brow. “She was a sly old bitch. She knew I was after the jewels and she kept hiding them in different spots to confuse me. After I killed her I thought for sure I’d find them. I’ve searched every room in this house, over and over again. I knew they were here.”

“Last night,” I said. “You were in her room.”

“You almost caught me. I was just coming out when you stepped into the hall and went to her room. I hung around, thinking maybe you’d remembered and would find the jewels, even though I’d just gone through the room with a knife, looking everywhere. You didn’t even know about the jewels.”

“Not until today,” I told him.

“You came here to trap me.”

“Exactly,” I said. “And I have,” I added, pointing the gun at his chest. I was in complete control of myself now. I had the gun, and I knew I could use it, would use it if necessary. The corners of his lips curled up, and gave a soft chuckle, not at all intimidated by the short black instrument in my hand.

“So you know,” he said.

“I know. Everything.”

“I never knew who my father was,” he said. “I wonder if she did? She didn’t have the guts to abort me, so she went to Switzerland and gave birth to me, and then left me in Devon with a former maid. They told me all about her. She sent money every now and then, occasionally a Christmas gift, and she even financed my college education, what there was of it, but she would have nothing else to do with me. I knocked around the world, a bastard in every sense of the word, and I vowed that someday I’d get what was rightfully mine. I kept track of my mother, and when she came here I followed her. She was very generous. She gave me a job. She let me put on a uniform and drive her around. She let me sleep over the garage, and sometimes she even gave me a few extra dollars when I wanted to go to town. Oh yes, she was very generous.”

He paused, his face a mask of hatred. There was nothing handsome about Boyd Devlon now. He was like an animal, tense and vicious, holding back, restraining the hot animal rage erupting inside of him. He drove his fist into the palm of his hand. He heaved his shoulders. He took a deep breath and relaxed and stared at me with a controlled, level gaze.

“I killed her,” he said. “I warned her I would. I told her I’d do it if she didn’t at least give me enough to get out of the country and make a new start somewhere. She laughed at me. Mocked me. I stole Reed’s axe. I waited until dark and knocked on the door, and when she opened it I let her get a good look at me, a good look at the axe, and then I did it. I hid the axe behind Reed’s place and went to Brighton and drank with my buddies, and later I found her body and phoned the police and Reed was arrested. He died in jail and the case was dropped and there were legal difficulties and I stayed on here as caretaker, waiting for you.”

He frowned. “That damn kid hung around a lot. I chased her away. She was a nosy little thing, and once when I caught her she made a face at me and said she knew something I didn’t know and hinted about the murder, and then this afternoon when I was waiting for you at the store she went up to Gordon Stuart and showed him a wooden dog and said Reed had given it to her and he was supposed to be a murderer but she knew for sure he wasn’t. So I brought you back here and left again immediately. I saw her on a pier talking with George Reed. He left. I waited. She started walking along the beach. I followed her. I called her. She ran. I trapped her in a hut and killed her.”

“You didn’t,” I said. “You hit her. You merely knocked her unconscious. She’s alive, in the hospital.”

He looked stunned.

“She’ll talk,” I told him. “The doctor says she’ll be able to talk in two days.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “By then I’ll be long gone.”

“No, Boyd.”

“Who’s to stop me?”

“You seem to have forgotten about this gun.”

“No,” he said. “I haven’t. I’m very thoughtful, Emmalynn, and very careful. When you and your friend left the kitchen I came back in and unloaded the gun.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Try it,” he said.

I remembered then that I had left the gun on the drainboard, and Billie had found it on the high stool beside the stove. I pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked loudly on metal, but there was no explosion. Boyd smiled a crooked smile and blew breath between his lips. His eyes were full of anticipation and my blood ran cold as I realized what he was anticipating. He took a step towards me, his face chiseled in moonlight and shadow.

“Where are the jewels?” he asked. His voice was throaty.

“Gone,” I said.

“Gone? They’re here, hidden. You know where they are.”

“Billie took them. She left.”

“You’re lying.”

“They were in the eagle. We found them there. “You—you saw us leaving the room. We had the pouch—”

He stared at me, bewildered, confused, a heavy crease in his brow. He realized then that I was telling the truth. He realized the jewels were gone. His face fell. It seemed to crumple. I thought for a moment he was going to cry. He clenched and unclenched his fists and made a strange noise in his throat. He looked up at me finally, and his eyes were glazed. Without a word he turned and stepped into the garage. I saw him bend down to pick something up. I watched, paralyzed, held rooted to the spot with a horrified fascination.

He came out of the garage with a heavy wrench. It was long and black, deadly. He held it up by the handle and caressed it with his other hand. I saw that the end was wet with blood and knew that this was what he had used to hit Doctor Clarkson. Boyd caressed the wrench and moaned, a sound like crooning. He stood with his legs wide spread, his shoulders hunched forward, his powerful body silver in moonlight, his grotesque shadow black and distorted against the drive.

I knew that this man was insane. I knew that he intended to kill me. I tried to scream, but no sound would come out. I wanted to run, but my feet were glued to the drive and my whole body was frozen with a terror that was like a physical force holding me down.

Boyd looked down at the wrench and studied it as though it were an object of great beauty. He crooned softly, the most terrifying noise I have ever heard issue from a human throat, and then he looked up at me, and I saw the face that Henrietta must have seen in her last moment of life. It was not a human face. It was a face with all humanity crushed aside by the madness that possessed the man. He raised the wrench, and he giggled. He came towards me, moving slowly, each step crunching loudly on the drive. I saw the arm with the wrench raise back, saw him tense for the blow, heard him giggle again.

Then the explosion came.

I was in the center of the explosion. Gravel flew. Voices yelled. I felt arms flung about my body. I was thrown to the ground. I saw a streak of orange flame, heard another explosion and a shrill piercing scream and I looked up to see Boyd Devlon with his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide, a circle of scarlet spreading on his forehead. For an instant he stood there with his body still tensed for the blow, the wrench raised high, and then he fell with an enormous thud of dead weight. Men ran around, scattering gravel. I glimpsed Officer Stevens. I saw uniforms and boots. I felt the arms still around me, and my body was throbbing with pain from the tackle. George and I were both in the middle of the drive, surrounded by a chaos of noise and confusion.

He touched my chin with his fingers, and his face was incredibly tender. His dark brown eyes were full of concern, but his mouth was smiling. He ran his fingers over my lips, my cheeks, touched my eyelids as though they were exquisitely fragile.

“I was with you every minute,” he said, his voice husky.

“Upstairs—in the hall—”

“Me,” he said, “watching you.”

“The police—”

“The house was surrounded with them, one behind every tree. They saw him attack the doctor, but he disappeared into the garage before they could get him. Stevens decided to wait until you came out. We wanted to hear him confess—we weren’t ten feet away from you—”

“Why did—”

He laid his hand over my lips. He cradled me in his arms there on the ground, amidst all the chaos and shouting. “Later,” he whispered, and I laid my head against his chest and tried to forget.