CHAPTER EIGHT

It was eight o’clock when I woke again. The sun was streaming in, a cardinal was singing just outside, and Aspasia was standing there with my breakfast tray, with a single yellow tulip in a delicate silver Vase next to a beautiful silver coffee pot, saying, “Good morning, miss. Where would you like your tray? “

It took me a long second to remember that Mr. Trent was downstairs, dead—murdered—and that Michael Spur and Cheryl Trent were waking from drugged forgetfulness to the tragic memory of the night before.

“I could put it on the table by the window, miss,” Aspasia said and while she was doing it I got into my dressing gown and picked up the folded paper.

“It’s not in the papers, miss,” she said. “But Magothy found a reporter from Baltimore sittin’ on the steps when I got up this mornin’, so I reckon it’ll be in today.”

I nodded. Aspasia was a high yaller, and I suppose that accounted for her detached interest in her employer’s murder.

“Of course,” she added, pouring my coffee, “we wasn’t surprised. Magothy locked all our doors last night, and he wouldn’t go out this mornin’, not until the Major knocked on the door his self. Is there anything else, miss?”

“Nothing, thanks,” I said.

I was finishing my third cup of coffee when there was a tap on my door. I said “Come in,” and was rather surprised when I saw Dr. Sartoris, in cool white linen, looking grave and formal.

“Forgive my disturbing you,” he said, closing the door again and coming across the room. “May I sit down?” “Why, yes . . . if you like,” I said. He sat down and lighted a cigarette.

“I’ve come from Mrs. Trent, Miss Gather,” he said, looking at me; and I had exactly the same warm confused feeling about him that I’d had when he first spoke to me on the train. Except that I hadn’t any make-up on my face to protect me from letting him see that he affected me just as he did Mrs. Trent, and Cheryl, and Agnes Hutton. He smiled ever so faintly, and Ï got perfectly furious—at myself for being stupid, and at him for . . . well, for knowing it. It seemed to me a shoddy sort of business, this going around and making women’s hearts turn over, and all the rest of it, just for practice. It was like an animal trainer who couldn’t ever go out without taking his giraffe along with him. Granting that making women fall in love with him, or at least fall heavily for him, is a psychoanalyst’s stock in trade, or a psychotherapist’s, as he called himself, it did annoy me very much that he couldn’t drop it for five minutes. Or anyway, it annoyed me to find myself as susceptible to him as a sixteen-year-old.

“Do you enjoy having every woman you meet fall in love with you, Dr. Sartoris?” I asked, thinking I might just as well let him know that I wasn’t being taken in, even if I couldn’t prevent my heart from doing odd things when he looked at me.

He smiled.

“No,” he said coolly. “As a matter of fact I don’t. Frequently it’s very annoying.”

It seemed to me that he should at least have had grace enough to demur a little. But he didn’t. In fact he said, “Are you planning to write the story of my great success? “

“I hadn’t thought of it. Why?”

“Well, since you’ve put your finger on the only reason for it, I thought you might be analyzing me as possible material. Now that . . .”

He hesitated, and blew a suave blue funnel of smoke toward the window.

“Now that Mr. Trent is dead,” I said. But his eyes were grave again.

“Mrs. Trent asked me to give you her sincere regards,” he said almost abruptly; “and to tell you she knows you’ll want to get away. There’s a train at ten from the station down the road. She’s ordered the car for you at nine-forty-five and is very sorry that your visit was interrupted so tragically. She hopes that she’ll have the pleasure of seeing you some time in the future.”

“Thank you, Dr. Sartoris,” I said. “Will you give Mrs. Trent my sincere regards, and tell her I’ll be ready at a quarter of ten. Good-bye.”

I held out my hand. He rose, and took it. Even then he couldn’t forego pressing it just enough not to commit himself but to imply some way that there was a special bond between us. However, I’d got over my momentary lapse, and I saw him again as a handsome and charming charlatan—who, furthermore, was glad I was leaving.

“Good-bye, Miss Gather,” he said very gently. “I enjoyed our train trip, yesterday.”

“Good-bye,” I said.

I poured the last few drops of coffee in the pot into my cup and drank it. I wanted to go back to New York. I hadn’t the slightest desire to sleep another night in Queen Elizabeth’s bed, or to watch Mrs. Trent making a fool of herself. But somehow I didn’t like just being put out. Then I remembered my promise to Cheryl Trent, that I wouldn’t go right away. But that was plainly out, in view of what had happened.

In the middle of my bath I suddenly thought of what Agnes Hutton had said about my going in the morning, and then I remembered what it was that had vaguely bothered me when she had said it. It was what I’d heard outside, when she had said to someone—some man-~”If she’s half as smart as she thinks she is,” and the rest of it.

It would be interesting to know whom she was talking to, I thought. Then it occurred to me that it wouldn’t do me any good if I did. I couldn’t stay around when Mrs. Trent had ordered the car to remove me at 9.45.

I dressed and packed. At 9.30 I was about to put on my hat and go out to find Cheryl, when there was another rap at my door. This time it was Mr. Archer.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning, Miss Gather.”

He was pink and well-shaved and glowing as usual, but the twinkle in his eyes was gone and he was very serious and business-like.

“I’ve arranged with Mr. Doyle, the State’s Attorney, for you to be allowed to leave this morning,” he said. “And I feel you deserve some little remuneration for your trip down. So I’ve taken the liberty of discharging that obligation of my friend’s.”

He handed me a piece of paper that I didn’t quite realize was a check until I had it in my hands and saw the “Five Hundred Dollars” written on it, and my name, and Mr. Archer’s.

“Oh,” I said, and handed it back to him. “I’m sorry—I didn’t understand. I couldn’t possibly take this. It’s very kind of you, but I’m paid by my magazine.”

He brushed my objections aside peremptorily.

“Nonsense,” he said. “Put it in your purse. You deserve something. Call it damages, if you like. All you’ve been through down here. The car’ll be around in ten minutes. You need any help? I’ll send the maid up.”

He started out.

“Just a minute, please, Mr. Archer,” I said—rather sharply, I’m afraid, because he turned around and looked at me as if he were a little taken aback. “I’m afraid you don’t understand. In the first place, I’m leaving for New York in fifteen minutes anyway. In the second, I don’t accept gifts. Will you take this, or shall I tear it up? “

He took it and mumbled something about my being absurd, and went out.

It was almost time for Mrs. Trent’s car to show up. I put on my hat and went downstairs to see if I could find Cheryl. Instead I found a telegram on the table in the hall. It was from one of the tabloids, offering me an even larger sum than Mr. Archer’s check to cover the murder from the inside as a human interest story for the strap-hangers of the great city.

I had torn the yellow envelope open at one end. As I put the telegram back into it, I noticed that the flap was a little wavy, as thin paper is that’s been wet and dried out again. Or steamed, I thought. I wondered who it was that was enough interested in my correspondence to go to all that trouble. It might have been Mrs. Trent—it couldn’t have been Mr. Archer, because he would have met the offer it contained. That didn’t leave a great many people, and as Michael Spur, to the best of my knowledge, had not left his room, it let him out as well as Mr. Archer. I wondered a bit about it, decided there was nothing to do anyway, and thought I might perhaps tell Cheryl about it, if I could find her.

All that went through my head in much less time than it takes to write it. And just when I had made up my mind that nothing could be done and it didn’t matter anyway, I became suddenly aware of a curious smell of something burning. It seemed to come out of the living room, so I went across the hall and looked in. I was right, only it was a cigar that was burning, and the man smoking it seemed quite pleased with it, or with himself, or with something. He was standing in front of the Florentine fireplace. A very light gray hat was tilted on the extreme back of a shiny crop of wavy white hair, carefully parted in the middle. He had the cigar perched at a jaunty angle in the right corner of his mouth, and his mouth was set in a red, rugged and uneven face. His hands were thrust down into the pockets of his brown striped trousers; and he was jingling his cash, teetering methodically up and down on the balls of his feet, and surveying Mrs. Trent’s living room with the air of a man who had just bought the whole works for about ten dollars cash.

“Oh,” I said. “Pardon me. I thought I smelled something burning.”

He chuckled.

“Lieutenant Kelly’s the name,” he said.

“I’m Louise Cather.”

“Oh? You’re the writer lady I heard about?”

“I nodded.

“You don’t say?”

I nodded again.

“Well, well,” said Lieutenant Kelly. He shook his head and made a clucking noise with his tongue as if it was all too much for him. Then he said suddenly, “What you got your hat on for?”

“I’m leaving,” I said.

“Yeh? Where you going?”

“New York.”

“Says who?”

I hesitated. I didn’t quite like to say, “Says Dr. Sartoris and Mr. Archer,” so I said, “Well, there’s no point in my staying.” Lieutenant Kelly shook his head.

“Won’t do, lady,” he said. “Take off your hat and stick around till we see whether there’s any point. You’re the second person’s tried to duck out on me.”

“Really?”

“Yeh. The doctor fella—Sartoris—showed me a telegram from a society. I guess he said it’s an ethical society. That sound all right? They have ’em in New York? “

“Yes. I guess they do.”

“Well, they wanted him to lecture to ’em. I said he’d better get ’em to change the date. Say, there’s a telegram for you out there—you get it? “

“Yes. I got it.”

“Well, then. Just take off your things and make yourself comfortable.”

“Listen, lieutenant,” I said. “Mrs. Trent has ordered the car for me, and Mr. Doyle said it was all right for me to go. I don’t quite see how I can stay.”

He looked at me suspiciously.

“What’s the hurry?” he demanded.

I told him Mrs. Trent had practically ordered me out, that it wasn’t my idea.

He seemed interested, and nodded as if it seemed to have some meaning.

“Now look here, lady,” he said. “I’m taking charge here, from now on, and what I say goes. You’re taking orders from me, and nobody else. Now you go away somewheres, and I’ll fix it up. O.K.?”

“O.K.,” I said.

“All right, then. Now you might just tell me what you know about all this business.”

“I’d like to ask you a question first.”

“Shoot.”

“You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

“That’s right. Lieutenant Joseph J. Kelly, Bureau of Detectives, Baltimore Police Department.”

“But that isn’t my question. I want to know what you’re here for?”

He grinned.

“I ain’t sure I can tell you that.”

“Do you think Michael Spur didn’t shoot Mr. Trent?”

“Why, lady,” he said very blandly, “I ain’t even said he did shoot him, have I?”

“No. But everybody just assumes naturally he did. I’m sure he thinks so too.”

“Well, I guess he ought to know.”

“Oh, no!” I said quickly. “That’s just the point.”

“Now look here,” he said. “Let’s get this straight, so we don’t have no trouble understanding each other. I ain’t taking anybody’s say-so about anything, till I see what’s up. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then. We’re set.”

He sat down, and I sat down too.

“Now, then. How long you been here?”

“I came yesterday evening, about seven.”

“Yeh? What for, now?”

“I thought you knew.”

He grinned.

“No. I don’t know nothing.”

So I told him why I was there. When I finished he said, “You didn’t know any of ’em before you came down?”

“Not a one,” I said.

He nodded.

“Now,” he said, “they say you found the body.”

It was surprising how quickly Mr. Trent’s colorful, sharp, determined personality had evaporated, and left just “the body” in its place.

I told him how I couldn’t sleep, and had come down to get the magazine I’d seen that evening on the sofa where we were sitting, and had heard someone talking in the library. He nodded, and chewed his under lip when I told him about seeing Michael Spur out on the terrace.

“He see you?” he asked.

“No, I’m sure he didn’t, because he didn’t turn around, and I got out and back upstairs as quick as I could.”

Then I told him how I’d rigged myself up a card table and was playing solitaire because I couldn’t go to sleep.

He nodded at that too. “Country’s a noisy damn place when those frogs get going,” he said.

“It was just two when I heard a shot,” I went on. “I got up and came down and found Mr. Trent. He was dead. I’d just started to look around when the light went off.”

“What’s that?” he said quickly. He acted as if he hadn’t quite heard me.

“The lights went off.”

“While you was standing there?”

He got up.

“That’s enough,” he said. “You’re staying.’1

He thought a minute. Then he reached in his coat pocket and took out a folded newspaper, which he handed to me. I opened it. On the front page there was a three-column picture of a girl on a horse, erect, smiling, perfectly poised, taking a hedge. It was headed “Daughter of Slain Millionaire at Valley Horse Show.” Under it was a brief account of the mere fact that Duncan Trent, millionaire shipbuilder and capitalist, had been found dead in the library of his country home on the Chesapeake near Annapolis, arid that Mr. Thomas Doyle, the State’s Attorney, was in charge of investigations. It went on with a short summary of Mr. Trent’s life and his sudden rise to wealth during and after the War. There was also an article headed “Fatal Shooting Recalled.” It told how Mr. Trent’s partner Stephen Spur was shot and killed by his son Michael fourteen years before, and added that Michael Spur was present at the Trents’ estate, Ivy Hill, last night.

I handed the paper back to Lieutenant Kelly.

“I feel kinda sorry for that girl,” he said. I nodded.

“I got all the local reporters on the outside looking in,” he added. He was looking at the picture.

“Kinda pretty, ain’t she? I got a girl of my own about her age.”

He stopped abruptly and looked towards the door. I turned. It was Cheryl, but she didn’t look like the millionaire’s daughter on the horse. She was erect and poised, but the look of assured confidence was gone. Her yellow hair looked almost white above her face that was like old ivory now that the warmth was drained out of it. Her eyes were like two blue splotches of cobalt sky mirrored in a pool. I supposed the bright slash of defiant crimson of her lips was to keep up her courage, or perhaps it was just habit, like putting on stockings.

“Hello!” she said. “Perry said you’d gone—I’m so glad you haven’t.”

“No, I’m staying a while, it seems,” I said. “This is Lieutenant Kelly, from Baltimore. This is Miss Trent, Lieutenant.”

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Trent,” he said, and put out a large red hand. “I sure am mighty sorry about all this.”

There was something awfully decent the way he said it as if he really meant it. Cheryl took his hand and shook it without saying a word.

“I suddenly wanted to cry,” she told me in her room a little later. “He was so sort of . . . sort of sweet—you know? “

“Thanks,” she said, after a while. “Major Ellicott said you were down here, and my mother sent me down to tell you she wants the . . . the case left in Mr. Doyle’s hands, or Dr. Sartoris’s. He’s a specialist in mental cases.”

“I see,” said Lieutenant Kelly.

“You see, Mother feels that Mr. Doyle understands Michael’s difficulty, and she doesn’t want anything dreadful to happen to him.”

“I see,” said Lieutenant Kelly again. “So that’s the way of it, is it? Well, Miss Trent, I wouldn’t worry about it if I was you. You just run up and tell your mother Mr. Doyle’s going to be out pretty soon and we’ll fix it all up.”

Cheryl looked up at him, her blue eyes swimming in tears.

“Oh, really? Then you won’t send him to Phipps? “

Lieutenant Kelly looked puzzled.

“Phipps? Oh. No, Î don’t guess we’ll send him to Phipps.”

“I’ll tell Mother,” she said quickly. “She’ll be so glad.”

Lieutenant Kelly looked after her. He screwed his face sideways, scratched his head with his free hand, and looked at me.

“What’s Phipps?” I asked.

“That’s the nut clinic at Johns Hopkins,” he said simply. “But that ain’t exactly what I meant,” he added.

“What did you mean?”

“Well—I guess I might as well tell you, and you can break it easy to the little girl. If we send Spur anywhere it ain’t going to be Phipps. It’s going to be jail.”

“Jail!” I said.

“Yeh. Jail.”

“What for, for heaven’s sake?”

“For murder, lady,” he said. “Now listen. I don’t say there ain’t a lot in this psychopathy—I’m as up to date as any of ’em—but it don’t sound reasonable to me for a bird that’s been all right for fourteen years to come along and shoot the only person in the house that ought to be shot.”

I stared at him.

“Ought to be shot?” I repeated.

“I mean . . . Well, we’ll just let things work out their own way. O.K.?”

I nodded.

“All right,” he said. “If I was you I’d go up and have a chat with Miss Trent. We’re going to be mighty busy down here for a while.”

A lot of men with cameras and things had come and were in the hall. When I went upstairs Lieutenant Kelly was shaking hands with Mr. Doyle, who had also just arrived.