DANE HAD LEFT HIS car in an alley some blocks away from the hall. He slipped away to it quietly as soon as the verdict was in, and sat thoughtfully smoking until Tim Murphy joined him, when he took a back road home.
“Well,” he said, “what did you think of it, Tim?”
“Phony,” said Tim, biting off a piece of cigar and lodging it in his cheek.
“The Norton woman’s story?”
“Sure. Look at her! She’s nobody’s easy mark. None of these New Englanders are, especially the women. So what? She gives the girl a room, she buys groceries for her, and she carries trays up to her. It doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” Dane said, still thoughtful. “She didn’t perjure herself, but she didn’t tell the whole story. Find anything on the hill this morning?”
“That’s the hell of a place to search. I picked up a bushel of burs. That’s all.”
Dane glanced at the sky.
“There’s one thing,” he said. “If this dry spell keeps on we may get a hint. It’s no weather to replant anything, and if you see some shrubbery wilting—Did you notice Miss Spencer’s sister, Mrs. Hilliard?”
“Who could help it?” said Tim, with appreciation. “Not so young, but a looker all right.”
“She’s supposed to have been seen here—or, rather, her car was—the night of the murder.”
Tim whistled.
“Think it’s true?” he inquired.
“I think it’s possible. She married Howard Hilliard. You know who he is. Money to burn. She’s not going to let anything interfere with that. Place at Newport, house at Palm Beach, apartment in New York, a yacht when there were such things. The whole bag of tricks.”
“I see. Think this dead girl was Hilliard’s mistress?”
“It’s possible. Only why come here?”
Tim spat over the side of the car.
“Well, you sure bought yourself a job,” he said philosophically. “You can have it. How long have I got to search that hill or push that lawn mower? I got blisters already.”
Dane did not reply at once. He was in uniform, and he ran his finger around the band of his collar as though it bothered him.
“We got one thing there,” he said. “The girl’s name, or the name she gave. Marguerite D. Barbour. The police will go all out on that. Me…” He hesitated. “The initials are probably right. They were on her bag. How about calling up your people in New York, Tim? If she spent a night there at a hotel she’s used those initials, but maybe another name.”
Tim demurred.
“Know how many hotels there are in New York?”
“You can get help. I’m paying for it.”
“It’s a damn good thing you don’t have to live on your service pay, whatever that is, or whatever your service is for that matter,” Tim said resignedly. “All right. My best men are gone, but I can cover this, I suppose.”
“Not from here. Drop me at the house and drive over to the railroad. There’s a booth in the station there.”
“What about dinner? I have to eat sometime.”
“Get it over there,” said Dane heartlessly. “I’ve never known you to starve yet. And listen, Tim. If you don’t pick up anything by midnight take the train yourself. I want to beat the police to it.”
“Why, for God’s sake?”
“Call it a hunch. Say I don’t trust this bunch up here. It’s a big case, and they’re likely to go off on a tangent that may damage innocent people.”
“Such as the Spencer girl?”
“She’s out of it,” Dane said dryly. “Go and get your toothbrush. Alex will take you over, and you can get a taxi back.”
He rested until dinner. He had found that he could still do only a certain amount before the old trouble asserted itself and Alex began to baby him again. It annoyed him that night to find his dinner coming up on a tray.
“Damn it,” he said irritably. “I can walk, can’t I? And where’s the coffee?”
“Drink the milk?” Alex said firmly. “Coffee keeps you awake, and you know it.”
“No word from Tim?”
“He’s probably eating a beefsteak somewhere.”
Dane smiled. The matter of ration points was a sore one with Alex. But he dutifully drank his milk, and as a result he was sound asleep when the fire started on the hill above Crestview.
Tim had telephoned. The only one of his assistants he had been able to locate had found nothing so far, and he was taking the night train to New York.
“On his hunch!” he told Alex with some bitterness. “And in an upper. I’ll do it, but I don’t have to like it, do I?”
The fire started late. Carol and Elinor had dined at the Wards’ that night. It was Elinor who accepted over the phone.
“If we bury ourselves it will make talk,” she told Carol. “There’s too much of it now, after that story of Lucy’s today.”
“Lucy isn’t a liar.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” said Elinor impatiently. “That’s the point. She was telling the truth. But now everybody knows that awful girl had some reason for coming here. She wasn’t using this house as a hotel.”
In the end Carol agreed. They walked over to the Wards’, using the gravel path that connected the two properties, and lifting their long skirts as they crossed the dusty lane. In the summer twilight they both looked young and lovely in their light dresses, Elinor’s hair piled high—with Freda’s assistance, of course—and Carol’s brushed back smoothly from her forehead. When they went in they found the colonel there, rather guiltily trying to hide a map.
Mrs. Ward put down her knitting and got up.
“How nice to see you,” she said, “and how beautiful you both look. How are you managing, Carol?”
Carol said she was getting along, but inwardly she was shocked. Mrs. Ward looked ill. She had changed since the preceding Monday when she had been at Crestview. So had Nathaniel, for all his smiling hospitality. Only the colonel seemed himself, defiantly hopeful, as though he were daring fate to deal him its ultimate blow.
No one mentioned the inquest, or that strange story of Lucy’s. Mrs. Ward had picked up her knitting again but her eyes were on Carol with an odd intentness.
“When do you expect Gregory?” she asked.
“We don’t know. I suppose he’s still in Washington or maybe New York. He may not come at all, of course. He’s going to be married. And the way things are now…”
Mrs. Ward inspected her work. Their grandson, Terry, had been flying in the South Pacific, and she was knitting socks for him.
“Even there their feet get cold, poor dears,” she said. “They fly so high, you know. How frightful this war is!”
The other three were talking together over their cocktails, and Mrs. Ward lowered her voice.
“I don’t think Gregory ought to come up, Carol,” she said. “After all, why should he? It will only spoil his leave. He has seen enough of death where he has been. I might as well tell you. Floyd was here today after the inquest.”
“Floyd? What did he want?”
“Just to know if we had seen or heard anything that Friday night. But he asked about Gregory.”
There was no mistake about it. Mrs. Ward’s veined old hands were shaking. She gave up all pretense of knitting.
“But that’s absurd,” Carol said stormily. “Greg was in Washington. Floyd’s crazy. He has only to use the telephone to learn that.”
Dinner was announced then, and they went out to the vast baronial hall that was the dining room. Carol’s color was still high, but Elinor was her usual self. She talked about Greg’s decoration, and his approaching marriage, and she inquired about Terry Ward, who it seemed was either on his way back on furlough or about to be.
Nevertheless there was constraint at the table. They ate the usual soup, fish and chicken, and there was the inevitable discussion of ration points and thin cream. But neither of the Wards ate much, and Carol was glad when the meal was over and old Nathaniel took Elinor out to his garden.
They left early, Elinor pleading fatigue after her journey, and Nathaniel seeing them home and then returning for what he called his nightly game of chess with the colonel.
“He can’t do much else,” he said. “His heart’s not too good. Fine fellow, the colonel. We’re very fond of him.”
He left them at the door, saying a rather abrupt good night, and turned back, his small figure almost immediately lost in the shadows. Carol had the feeling that he was relieved to get rid of them, and wondered why. It was not until they were inside the house that its possible meaning began to dawn on her. Elinor had started up the stairs when she stopped her.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Elinor, when Marcia saw your car that night was Greg in it?”
The hall was dark. She could not see Elinor’s face, but her sister turned and stared down at her.
“How often,” she said, “do I have to tell you Marcia did not see my car?”
“Have you seen Greg at all?”
“How could I? He’s been in Washington and New York. What’s the matter with you, Carol? If you start suspecting your own family—”
“It’s only because old Mr. Ward has insomnia,” Carol said, rather wildly. “He gets up and takes walks at night. And tonight Mrs. Ward said Greg oughtn’t to come here. She looked queer, too. Elinor, I can’t take much more. If you know anything, tell me. I won’t run to the police, but at least I’ll know where I am. Major Dane—”
“What about Major Dane?” Elinor said sharply.
“I don’t know. I think he’s Intelligence or something. I saw him at the inquest today. I don’t think he believed Lucy.”
“He’d better mind his own business,” Elinor said inelegantly, and went up the stairs.
It was one o’clock that morning when Carol heard the fire siren. She roused from a deep dream, in which Greg was hiding from her and she was following him, to hear the noise and sit bolt upright in bed. She got up, feeling for her slippers in the dark, and went to the window. The village seemed to be all right, but there was a reddish glare reflected on the clouds above the house, and the siren kept on. It was calling the volunteers now, and the engine was already on its way, its own shrill clamor adding to the din. She was still in her night clothes when she ran to Elinor’s room, to find her standing at the window in a pale negligee, gazing out.
“It’s the hill,” she said. “I think that empty house up there is going. It’s lucky the wind is in the other direction, or we’d go too.”
Carol looked out. The fire had already roared up the hillside. It had escaped the tool house, but as she looked the dried shingles of the roof of the abandoned house above began to catch, and the hill itself was a roaring inferno. The engine had gone to the fire hydrant up the lane, but she could hear the cars of the volunteer firemen as they began to roar up the Crestview drive.
She realized that it was hopeless, although men were shouting and running, and she even saw Maggie rushing out with a broom. The lane would probably keep it from Rockhill, and a cement road beyond the burning house would stop it there. But the hillside was gone. Even its trees were burning. Her first thought was the trees.
“I can’t bear it,” she said. “They’ve been growing there for years. Greg built me a swing there once. Remember?”
Elinor nodded. She looked somber in the red glare, but she said nothing. It was some time before Carol remembered that the firemen would want coffee. She dressed rapidly and went to the kitchen, to find the two maids huddled there and a bedraggled Maggie standing over the stove, with the coffee under way.
“They turned the hose on me,” Maggie said calmly. “Who started that fire, Miss Carol? Don’t tell me somebody dropped a cigarette. I saw it before it had gone very far. It looked like it began all over the place.” She turned to the other women. “One of you girls run out and tell those men to come in for coffee when they’re ready.”
But it was three in the morning before they wanted coffee. They straggled in then, tired and dirty and some of them with small burns. Maggie used some precious butter on them, lacking anything else. Most of the men of the summer colony had turned out, and they were as dirty as the rest. The house above was gone, and the hillside was burned, wiped out completely. They had saved a few of the trees, however.
They stood around, eating sandwiches and drinking coffee. A bewildered lot. The air warden who had turned in the alarm was Sam Thompson, who ran the hamburger stand in the village, and he told his story to an interested audience.
“I went up the lane just before one o’clock. It was all right then, but five minutes later I saw the glare and ran back. Looked like there were five or six fires, all going like mad. I raced over to the Wards’. There was a light on there, and it was the nearest house from where I was. Mr. Ward was still up, and he telephoned the fire department. When I got back the whole hill was one solid blaze.”
“Think somebody set it?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. With the wind the way it is, and everything dried up, it could spread itself.”
That was when Carol saw Jerry Dane. He was in his pajamas with a dressing gown over them, and he was as dirty as the rest. She took him a cup of coffee, and he regarded her coolly.
“Nice work!” he said. “How many people besides you know I was looking for something up on that hill?”
“You’re not invisible,” she said, her voice as cold as his. “And don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do it.”
“Well, somebody did.” He put down his cup and his face softened. “Listen, Carol,” he said. “Someday you may decide to tell me what’s behind all this. You may save a life or two if you do. Perhaps your own. So don’t wait too long.”
She did not reply, and she did not see him again. By four o’clock in the morning the house was empty. The girls were washing up, and she found Elinor in the library making herself a drink from the small portable bar table there. At some interval she had gone upstairs to do her face; but she looked tired and irritable.
“What was that Dane man saying to you?” she asked. “He looked nasty.”
“Only asking me why I started the fire,” Carol said ironically. “And what I was keeping from him. He thinks I know something.”
“And do you?”
“What do you think?”
There was a rather pregnant silence. Elinor said nothing. She sipped at her drink, and Carol lit a cigarette and watched her. Which was the precise moment which Captain Gregory Spencer chose to return to his summer home.
He came in from the terrace, a tall blond man in uniform with Elinor’s good looks in masculine mold, but with Carol’s candid eyes and Carol’s smile. He was smiling then as he dropped a bag and straightened to look at them.
“Well,” he said. “Here’s the sailor home from the sea, and the hunter—”
Elinor looked stunned.
“Greg!” she said. “What are you doing here?”
He did not reply. He held out his arms and Carol went into them. He held her close.
“Poor little girl!” he said. “Been going through hell, haven’t you? I couldn’t get away any sooner.”
Out of sheer relief she began to cry. She stood in the shelter of Greg’s arms and felt safe and protected again. And Greg held her off and gave her a little shake.
“Stop that,” he ordered. “Didn’t you know I’d come? Where’s your hanky? Here, use mine.” He wiped her eyes, and over her head looked at Elinor. “What’s the matter with you? Why shouldn’t I come? I thought that was the big idea in opening the house.”
He released Carol and poured himself a drink.
“Quite a fire, wasn’t it?” he said. “I’ve been hiding out for the last couple of hours. It looked as though they had plenty of help, and this is my best uniform. I thought it was this house at first. What on earth happened?”
“Probably someone dropped a cigarette,” Elinor said calmly. “There hasn’t been any rain for ages.”
He seemed satisfied. He finished his drink and yawned.
“What about bed?” he suggested. “Plenty of time to talk tomorrow. I drove up, and I’m tired. You look as though you could stand some sleep, Carol.” He inspected her closely. “Taken quite a beating, haven’t you?”
Suddenly Elinor got up.
“Everybody has taken a beating,” she said furiously. “It’s not over, either. Why should you come here to be dragged into it? I thought you were going to be married right away?”
“So I am,” he said, “God willing.” He looked at Elinor. “But I’m not letting Carol take this mess alone. It’s got her down already. Look at her.”
“Then I think you’re crazy,” said Elinor, her voice sullen.
Carol went up to see to his room, which was still closed, but the first excitement and relief of seeing Greg was gone. There was something behind Elinor’s semi-hysteria, and the look Greg had given her. It had almost been as if he was warning her, and alone upstairs, fumbling in the dark back hall for sheets from the service linen closet, she felt once more the old closeness of the two downstairs. They might quarrel—they had always quarreled—but they would stand together, against her, against the world.
By the time she had made the bed and seen to towels and soap Greg had come up. He stopped in front of the sealed closet door and inspected it.
“Why all this stuff?” he inquired. “I thought the thing was more or less over. It’s horrible, right here in the house.”
“Maybe you can get them to take it off.”
“I’ll do my damnedest,” he said. “It makes me sick to look at it. I suppose they have no idea who did it?”
She looked up at him, and at once she felt that she had to talk to him, to tell him what was driving her into a nervous collapse. He looked big and reliable, and he was Greg, whom she had always adored. She lowered her voice.
“I hate to tell you, Greg,” she said, “but I’m frightfully worried. Marcia Dalton says she saw Elinor’s car here the night it happened.”
She had been prepared for surprise, perhaps for indignation. She was not prepared for the stricken look he gave her.
“Oh, my God!” he said. “What was she doing here?”
He tried to pass it off, of course, said the whole thing was preposterous and to forget it. But he had had a shock, and she knew it.
It was faintly daylight before she went to bed. She left a note on the kitchen table saying that Greg had arrived and not to disturb him, and before she went up to her room she glanced out the kitchen window. There were still men around, watching, for fires like that had a way of eating for hours under the leaves and then flaring again. But in the gray of the dawn the blackened hillside stretched up to the skeleton of what had been a house above, its green beauty destroyed and small patches here and there still smoking.
Her car was still in the drive where she had left it. It looked shabby in the morning light, but at least the fire had not touched it. And already the birds were singing, although some were fluttering about with small frightened chirps. Their nests were gone, she thought tiredly. Their nests and their babies. Even the old orchard where in the autumn the deer came at night to stand on their slim legs and eat the apples.
In her room she undressed slowly. The patio was gray with the dawn, and across it she could see faintly the outline of Elinor’s door. As she looked she saw it open and close, and realized that Elinor had gone to waken Greg and talk to him.
She was too exhausted to wonder why.