IT WAS FOUR HOURS before they let her go.
Twice during that time they gave her steaming, strong black coffee which someone brought in a thermos jug and placed on the table beside the stained knife. Everything else had been removed from it—papers, books, cover—and the blank mahogany shone; on the table were just those two objects, the knife with its shellacked wooden handle, and the gleaming sides of the thermos jug.
As the house grew cold because Ancill had forgotten to change the usual setting of the thermostat, one of them brought her a coat from the closet off the library. It was a flannel jacket of Ivan’s and smelled faintly of the verbena-scented face lotion he had always used.
They had turned on all available lights, and as time went on someone turned the shade of the lamp over the brown leather chair so the light shone directly into Marcia’s face.
They had to do it, of course. It was their plain duty. That became increasingly evident.
She was the only one known to be in the house when Ivan Godden was murdered, except servants, who, from those questions, appeared to have alibied each other conclusively. She had been his wife. She knew about the knife. They asked her frequently about that, leaving the question, returning to it, wording their inquiries adroitly.
She recognized the knife? Yes. It belonged to the household, then? Yes. But it was new, what was its—use? It was a dandelion knife.
They looked at it sharply at that, and one of them got a fanatic gleam and said: “H’m. Dandelions. Looks more like a dagger. Narrow two-edged blade. It might work, though,” he added and put out his hand as if to try its efficacy in his palm. Jacob Wait coughed, and he withdrew it with a jerk.
So it was new. And she had seen it before? Yes. When? One day about three weeks ago. Under what circumstances?
“But I’ve already told you —”
“Tell us again.”
“Well, it came home from the hardware store that day.”
“What day?”
“The day of March eighteenth.”
“Oh, you recall the exact date?”
“That was the day my husband was injured in an automobile accident.”
“That’s why you remember the date?”
“Yes.”
“So you saw the knife?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In this room.”
“Who was in the room at the time?”
“Myself and—my husband. And Ancill, of course, when he brought it into the room.”
“Did you touch it?”
“No.”
“How did you know it was a dandelion knife?”
“Ancill said so. He brought it in with some other things—”
“What other things?”
“Some—hedge shears. Paintbrushes. Another dandelion knife, but a different kind, a sort of small spade. Ancill said this one was a new kind.”
“Oh, you talked of it? What did you say?”
“I said nothing. Ancill told my husband about it.”
“What did your husband say?”
“Nothing much. Oh, yes, he said it was time they made something that would get rid of the weeds.”
“Anything else?”
“No—yes—something about how sharp it was.”
“And you remembered that?”
“Why—yes—”
“And you thought what a good weapon it would be?”
“No, no!”
“What did you do with the knife?”
“Nothing. I didn’t touch it.”
“What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. Ancill left the whole package of things on my husband’s desk.”
“When did you see it again?”
“I didn’t see it again.”
She paused there to think, as she was to pause many times. “The package was left on the desk. I went to see the Copleys. When I returned I believe it was still there: yes, I’m sure.”
“Then what happened to it?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it was put away. We had news of my husband’s accident, and for several days everything was—very confused. I simply don’t remember anything about it. We went at once to the hospital.”
“He was very seriously injured?”
“Yes.”
“Would have died if the doctor hadn’t performed a sort of miracle?”
“Yes.”
“Was your husband driving the car at the time of the accident?”
“No. Ancill.”
“The doctor said he was here when you got news of your husband’s accident and that you and Miss Godden went to the hospital at once.”
“Yes.”
“With the doctor?”
“No. He told us to telephone St. Thomas’s and tell them to have an operating room ready. Then we followed in the small car.”
“Immediately?”
“Within—fifteen minutes, I suppose.”
“Did you drive?”
“No. The Copleys went with us, and Rob drove.”
“They were here, too, then?”
“We sent for them.”
“That was the day of March eighteenth?”
“Yes.”
“And,” Jacob Wait said sullenly and with a kind of obstinate shame, “during that fifteen minutes you hid the knife in case your husband didn’t die?”
“No. No. I never saw it or thought of it again.”
He left it there, horribly, and veered to the Copleys.
“So you were at the Copleys’ that day?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“In the morning.” She must go carefully here.
“Why?”
“They—are friends. Neighbors. I often go there.”
“How often?”
“I don’t know.”
“Once a day?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Once a week?”
“I—I don’t know. It is simply a friendship. I don’t know how often I see them.”
“So you went to see Robert Copley?”
“I went to see both Mrs. Copley and Robert Copley.”
“But Robert Copley is your—particular friend?”
“No more than his mother.”
“Was he here often?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why—he—the Copleys—we simply don’t see each other constantly.”
“But you went there?”
“Sometimes.”
“You were there this morning?”
“Yes.”
“You had an appointment with him tonight?”
The letter! Every drop of blood in her body stopped.
“No.”
“You met him outside the house just before your husband was murdered. What did you say to each other?”
“We certainly did not plan to murder my husband, if that’s what you mean.”
“You have suggested that, Mrs. Godden—we haven’t. What did you talk about? ”
She swallowed rage and fear and managed to say clearly, “Nothing much. We simply happened to meet. Rob, naturally, asked how Ivan was, knowing he had just returned from the hospital.”
“I see. Naturally, knowing that. Let’s go back for a moment to the day of March eighteenth, when you went to see the Copleys. Did you tell them about the knife?”
“No. Of course not. It was just one of the garden tools ordered for the spring work about the lawn. There was nothing to tell.”
“That was March eighteenth?”
Why did he repeat the date?
“Yes.”
“What else happened that day?”
“My husband was injured—”
“Yes, yes, but what else?”
“Nothing,” said Marcia.
“Except that you hid the knife for later use?”
“No, no!”
And there were other repetitions.
“You and your husband were on good terms?”
“Yes —” There was only one possible answer to that.
“Never quarreled?”
“Sometimes we didn’t see things exactly the same way.”
They encouraged that, friendlily. “Most couples are like that. What didn’t you agree about?”
“Nothing in particular. Nothing that I recall.”
“Nothing that you recall. You had no words about anything today?”
“We—No.”
“None at all?”
“No.”
“You were delighted to welcome him home from the hospital?”
“Certainly.”
Over and over again. It varied a little in form but never in content. Once the course of it swerved:
“What about this auto accident? How did it happen?”
“I don’t know exactly. It was raining, and there was a collision.”
“Collision with what?”
“Another car. I believe the other car got away. It’s all rather confused.”
“So the other car got away. And your husband was very nearly killed. Where were you at the time?”
“I was here.”
“Where was this young Copley?”
“I don’t know. At home, I suppose.”
“How do you know? Did you see him?”
“No. It’s as I told you. When we heard about the accident, Beatrice—that’s Miss Godden—sent a maid over to ask him to drive us to the hospital. He came, and Mrs. Copley.”
“But they never found out who was driving the car that they collided with?”
“No. Not to my knowledge.”
“Mr. Godden was very seriously injured?”
“Yes.”
“If he had died, it would have saved someone the trouble of murdering him?”
No answer.
“Have there been any other attempts on your husband’s life?”
“No. That wasn’t an attempt at murder. It was an accident.”
“How do you know?”
“Why, we—I—everybody said it was an accident. I never thought of anything else.”
“But he would have died then if Dr. Blakie hadn’t worked tooth and nail to save him?”
“Yes. But it was an accident …”
Then there was the story of what had happened that night.
“So there were no lights anywhere?”
“No. Not downstairs, that is. There was one on the landing.”
“You didn’t turn them on?”
“Not in the hall. I came in here—”
“Why did you come in here?”
“Because he—Ivan—had asked me to stop in here to see him before I went to the dinner party.”
“But it was dark in here, you say. How did you know he was here?”
“I didn’t. I thought he must have gone.”
“He was injured. He couldn’t walk. You knew he couldn’t walk. He would be helpless against a murderer who was physically weaker than he?”
“No. He was able to walk. The doctor said so.”
“But did he?”
“A little.”
“Why did he have his meals in here?”
“He preferred it, I suppose.”
“Go on. You came into the library, when, you say, it was entirely dark in the room. What did you do then?”
“But I’ve told you.”
“Tell it again.”
“Well, I—I thought there was a sound and that it was the dog —”
“What dog?”
“My dog. Bunty. A little Scotch terrier.”
“Where is he?”
Three policemen, faces wide and masklike in the bright lights, eyes only alive, looked blank. Lieutenant Davies shook his head. Jacob Wait, lounging in a deep chair with his hands in his pockets, looked back from that circle of faces to Marcia.
“Where is he?”
“She’s at Copley’s. I gave her to Mrs. Copley.”
“Why did you think she was there, then, if you knew she was at Copley’s?”
“I didn’t think so. I just thought vaguely of her because there was a sort of sound on the floor. It made me think of a dog before I remembered that it couldn’t be Bunty.”
“You gave her to the Copleys. Why?”
Why? “Because Mrs. Copley wanted her.”
“When?”
Back to the day of March eighteenth again.
“Several weeks ago.”
“What date?” said the detective, and the little tense ring of faces all poured inquiry at her like so many strong headlights and waited.
“That—that was the day, too, that my husband was injured.”
“March eighteenth?” repeated the detective.
“I—suppose so.”
It went on and on. They made her tell it over and over again. How she had pulled the lamp cord—“What lamp?” “That one.” “Then what?”—how she had seen Ivan there on the floor with the knife through his heart, how she had bent over him.
“Did you know he was dead?”
“I thought so.”
“Why?”
She was growing a little dizzy. Perhaps she would, mercifully, faint. But they gave her coffee then and kept on.
“Because of the wound.”
“What wound?”
“The one in his—his heart—the knife—”
“Did you see the wound on his head?”
“No. At least, I don’t remember it.”
“Suppose he actually died of that wound, then what?”
No answer.
“Did you call anyone?”
“No. Beatrice came to the french doors just then.”
Always she managed by that direct cut to eliminate, as Rob had told her to do, Ivan’s words to her, her own hands on the knife. But it was increasingly difficult. And when they asked her, as they did continually, if there wasn’t something else, some small forgotten fact, she always said no. It was by repetition, of course, that they hoped to trap her. One time, they thought, she would vary that story a little.
About midnight Dr. Blakie came to the door and insisted on speaking to the detective. She saw him, and Rob’s tense face for an instant over his shoulder. It was only a glimpse, for the door closed.
It was a brief respite, and she became aware again of the room, its familiarity distorted, and of the chalked oval along the carpet. It was directly opposite her, so that every time she looked away from the pinioning, pressing circle of faces she saw that chalked oval and her memory filled out the blankness of it with a figure. A man in a silk lounge coat which had fallen apart so that the redness on his white shirt showed, with a face which she had known well, had known in all its varying expressions, had known as no one else had known it, and now knew in its last, most poignant, most terribly intimate look.
And behind her, so she couldn’t see it (fortunately, perhaps, or her gaze would have betrayed its presence), was a cupboard with closed doors.
She did realize that either they had not found the letter yet, or they were holding it back as a final coup for the time when she became so confused and so worn with physical fatigue that her defense would go down altogether before it.
The detective was back again. If Dr. Blakie and Rob had tried to interfere, it was not successful. What were they doing with those others? The place had grown still, and there was, now, no motion in the halls and no blurred sound of voices.
It began again. This time about Ivan’s property. Was he a rich man? Had he willed her any money? She didn’t know! Hadn’t he told her, then? No. But she was his wife; why hadn’t he told her? Oh, she didn’t know.
Time went on, and Marcia gradually became just a voice, disassociated from the white-faced girl in the chair, with her crumpled chiffon trailing around her silver slippers, and Ivan’s blue flannel jacket around her slender chilled white shoulders. She was becoming a little incoherent; she couldn’t sit upright, but leaned against the chair. They kept telling her to look at them, and she couldn’t because the light was so bright. Because her eyes were so queer and dazed. Yet her voice kept on answering and kept on telling the things it had to tell them.
But no more.
She clung to that desperately, time after time whipping herself to a keener comprehension of what she was about to say, and rousing herself in time to see a trap, avoid it, and watch for another. The light everywhere was so bright and so strong that the circle of faces seemed to float in it.
Presently the story was being told again—the story of how she came down the stairs and how there were no lights and how she came into the library. Only someone else was telling it. And when it came to the part where she’d bent over Ivan it was being told wrong. “… and he sat in the chair reading and you took the knife in your hand and reached over and stabbed—”
“No, no!” screamed Marcia. And still did not, could not, faint.
At two o’clock they let her go. She swayed when she stood, and one of the policemen helped her upstairs. No one was about. Rob, Beatrice, Dr. Blakie had all gone. Or had been sent away.
The police were doing their duty.
They were paid by taxpayers to enforce law and order. Murder was murder. It was their business to find the murderer, and he deserved no mercy as he had given none. They didn’t take any one of them to the station that night for questioning merely because they were as good as under arrest where they were, and there was not yet a strongly enough indicated line for a direct charge.
The policeman’s attitude hinted this as he helped Marcia to her room, and she all but collapsed on the chaise longue. He did tiptoe to the bathroom as if someone were asleep near by and get her a drink of water. If she didn’t murder him she didn’t. But somebody had. And why not the woman who was alone with him, who found him dead, who was his wife?
He put the glass in her hand.
“Drink it,” he said. “You’ll feel better. And by the way, ma’am—about the knife—does it work?” He added rather hurriedly, “For dandelions, I mean.” It was the man who had got the fanatic gleam. He shook his head disappointedly as he saw she had no comprehension of his words, muttered, “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” and went away.
After he’d gone Marcia got up and reached the door and locked it. And reached the chaise longue again before a swimming gray pool of shadows engulfed her.
It passed somehow into sleep, for she lay there unstirring, a small, limp heap of rose-pink chiffon, one bare arm outflung, and blue shadows under her eyes. Across the room was the door to Ivan’s empty, silent room. It was closed and had been locked since the first night he was in the hospital.
Across the dark garden a light burned in the Copley house, and Bunty wriggled and sighed and turned and finally crept under the bed to avoid its glare and slept.
The Godden house became completely silent. A final car roared away into the night and left it, at last, alone in its own dark being. Neighbors, aware of the tumult and sounds and, swiftly, of the reason for it, had stopped watching from their windows long ago, and their houses were dark.
It began to rain again, steadily and monotonously, pushing at the french doors in the library and dripping rhythmically from the eaves. It was colder, too, and a policeman who was a darker bulk in the dark garden sneezed and thought of a warm kitchen and a pot of coffee. Besides, there was nothing going on; there never was right after a murder. People were too scared. The murderer too anxious to avoid drawing attention to himself. It was all nonsense keeping a policeman out there. In the rain. One man in the house was enough.
But he was afraid of Jacob Wait. So he went down to the summerhouse, which sheltered him a little, and huddled there smoking and listening to the steady downward beat of the rain. His pipe made a small crimson glow, lost and forgotten in that black, wet night so filled with its own commotion. Below him was the lily pool, drenched and full. Odd how the steady beat of the rain sounded like footsteps. So like, indeed, that once he rose and went to the door of the summerhouse and peered through rain and blackness. There was nothing, and the rain beat steadily again and with no change in its rhythm. He went back to the bench and probably slept a little.
There was another shadowy, dark bulk in the house, too, and he was tired and very sleepy and shared the views of the man in the garden. Besides, it was such an empty-feeling house at night, filled only with the murmurous beat of the rain on the windows. He would hear anything that went on inside the house. But nothing would happen. Not right after the murder. It never did. He kept thinking of the kitchen, too. It was at the end of that passage back of the dining room. There would likely be something in the refrigerator. Anyway, it would be more comfortable than the front of the house. That was all right in the daytime. But not at night. Not just after a murder had been done there. Not with the black rain beating and beating against the doors as if it wanted to come in. As if something out there wanted to come back.
He crossed himself and swore and went to the kitchen, closing all intervening doors.
The rain beat against the black windows of Marcia’s bedroom, and the eaves dripped steadily like stealthy feet, and Marcia awoke.
She awoke at first to a confused sense of discomfort and chill. Something had happened. Something which accounted for her lying there on the chaise longue, dressed, in the murmurous blackness. Then she remembered in one swift, terrifying rush. And there was something she was to do. Something terribly important. Something that meant—
The letter, of course. Rob’s letter to her.
It was as if it had waked her. Her head began to clear. She struggled, moved, sat up in a small huddle.
Her arms were bare and cold, and without thinking of it she put on the flannel jacket which had slid away from her while she slept.
The police were probably gone by this time. If they were—and they must be—now was the time to recover the letter. It must be found. When they made so much of, even, that moment or two with Rob in the dusk just before Ivan was murdered, what couldn’t they make of that letter?
She was terribly, acutely clear about it, as one is in emergency.
She unbuckled her silver slippers, and thought fleetingly of fastening them so long ago, it seemed, and how clumsy her fingers had been. Without them, now, there would be less danger of Beatrice’s hearing her as she passed her door. She pulled up the sleeves of the flannel jacket which were much too long. The room suddenly seemed safe.
She opened the door without making any sound.
The hall was wide and long, passing a succession of black, closed doors before it passed Beatrice’s door, and at last she reached the well of the stairs. It was shadowy and dim, lighted only by one small night light at the top of the stairway, but it was empty.
Her chiffon skirts, too long now without her high heels, whispered lightly along the floor, but the steady beat of the rain submerged it and all lesser sounds. She crept down the few steps to the landing and paused there, clinging to the banister.
Below was a pool of shadow, except for a small light on the table away at the front of the hall, so heavily shaded that it lay only upon the polished surface of the table and upon an Indian vase beside it.
There was no light coming from the library door. Either there was no one there or the door was closed. But there was certainly no one in the hall, and she could hear no voices.
The rain beat steadily upon the colored panes behind her, but there was no other intrusive sound. And there was a quality of immobility, of desertedness about the hall below that convinced her, rather than any more reasonable evidence, that there was no one about.
She went on down the stairway, clutching her skirt so it would not trip her.
The library door was closed. She put her hand on the doorknob, turned it with the most extreme caution, and opened the door a fraction of an inch. No one stopped her, and there was no light within.
They had gone, then, finally. The whole empty room waited for her. A moment more and she would have that letter in her own hands. That letter and Rob’s life and her own.
Safer to close the door behind her. Safer not to turn on the lights, for the room was empty. The beating of the rain was, of course, clearer now and nearer, for it was at the windows, at the very doors, pushing against them.
But she was sure again, by some indefinable quality in the still blackness around her, that there was no living thing near.
The big chair would be slightly to the left, the chair and the chalked oval on the floor and the lamp. The long desk considerably to the right. The table again at the left. She must find her way through the darkness straight across the room.
She groped and found the chair. She could feel the thick nap of the carpet through her thin silk stockings. Right there below her feet Ivan—she moved instinctively to one side—now the table—careful, though, for fingerprints—
She found the edge of it. The blackness was curiously thick, and something was askew about it. A chair rose up before her hand which ought not to have been there. She circled it cautiously. Ah—there were the french doors, a wide, unbroken rectangle which was faintly less dark than the rest of the room. The cupboard would be at the left.
She found the wood panels, the small latch. She opened it carefully; she could find the letter in the dark. She would know the feel and shape and size of it. If not, there were matches on Ivan’s desk.
She groped inside. Frantically, swiftly, now that she was so near the end of it. Frenziedly. For it wasn’t there.
She couldn’t give up—it had slipped down somewhere—somewhere among those smooth, cool stacks of magazines, somewhere between those rougher-textured boxes of paper. Matches.
She found them and was back at the cupboard. Lighting them, thankful the sound of the rain drowned the tiny sharp sputters of that lighting. One after another at last in reckless, frantic haste, searching, hunting, burning her fingers, dropping the match and lighting another. The tiny sharp flares wavering in the darkness, lighting for an instant her own white face and the outlines of the table behind her and the blank stacks of magazines and boxes on the shelves. A quart bottle of ink. A small paper sack containing something heavy like sugar and tied firmly and marked. An empty vase. It was distressingly orderly, and the letter was not there. There was no place for it to have slipped within. It would have fallen, of course, directly behind the closed doors. And the neat stacks inside the cupboard were placed well back.
She gave up when she had used up the small packet of matches, though she had known from the first.
The little pasteboard fold with advertising printed on it dropped from her hand.
Well, what now? It was gone. Rob …
All around her that surging blackness. Rain against the windows, rain against the doors, blackness everywhere. What could she do? What was there to do? She stood there numbed by the shock of it as if it were a physical blow.
There was nothing in all that murmurous darkness to tell her to go away. Nothing in the beat of the rain to say “Hurry, hurry. Don’t stay here.” All the familiar objects in that room were engulfed in blackness and sound and could not warn her. Had failed once already that April night to warn.
She did move away from the cupboard. She must have closed it without knowing it. She turned blindly in the darkness, and because she could no longer see the lighter rectangle of the french doors and guide herself by it she lost herself somehow in that black room among suddenly strange and bewildering objects or more bewildering space.
Where was she? What was this thing brushing her hand? A window curtain? But what window?
The beat of the rain was suddenly louder and sharper. As if it were in the room.
As if the french doors had opened in that blackness, letting it in.