12

DANE SLEPT LATE THE next morning. He did not waken until noon, when Alex called him to the telephone. It was Tim in New York.

“Think I’ve struck oil,” he said. “Registered as Mary D. Breed.” He gave the name of a hotel. “Answers description. Gave residence as St. Louis. May be phony, of course. Only arrived Wednesday evening. Checked out the next morning.”

Dane was making notes on a pad.

“Seen the room?” he asked.

“Look, Dane, you know what hotels are like. There have been half a dozen in that room since. Yeah. I looked at it. Seven dollars a day. Worth about three. Paid in cash.”

“Anybody remember her?”

“The porter thinks he does. Says he carried down her suitcase. Gave him fifty cents. Remembers the fur coat and white hat.”

“A suitcase? She didn’t bring it with her. Probably checked it at the railroad station.”

“With the stub in her bag. Sure,” Tim agreed. “New Haven Railroad to Boston. From Boston to Maine. Could have left it anywhere.”

“It may have her initials on it.”

“Yeah, and it may not. Have a heart, chief. Have you seen the checkroom at any of the railroad stations lately? Anyhow, I can’t get hold of it if I do locate it. Unless you want the police in on this. Maybe they could get it. I can’t.”

“Keep the police out. That’s why you’re there, Tim.”

“I’m damned if I know why,” Tim grumbled. But Dane was not listening.

“Better take a plane and go to St. Louis,” he said. “We’ll have to try. How about money? Got enough?”

“I get airsick,” Tim protested. “Besides, I hate flying.”

“I’m sorry, Tim. I haven’t much time, you know. I’ll soon be back in service. Make it on a plane, and go to the police there. Give both her names. Chances are they don’t know any details about the murder. It’s just a hope, but it’s all we’ve got.”

Tim was still protesting when Dane put down the receiver. He went to the window and looked out toward the hillside which had burned the night before. Somebody had been smart, he thought. Alex had been down by the stable when it started, and he had seen nobody. The first warning he had had was the glare, and by the time he reached it it was too late.

“Started in half a dozen places,” he had reported, his voice sulky. “Gasoline, probably.”

Dane was worried, too, about Tim’s call over the telephone. If Floyd was as smart as he thought he was it had been unfortunate, to say the least. And from his point of view it had indeed. At that moment Bessie at her switchboard had plugged into the chief’s office.

“I’ve got something for you,” she said excitedly.

“Good girl. What is it?”

“A man named Tim called Dane from New York. Said she spent the night at a hotel there, and registered from St. Louis. Name Mary D. Breed. He’s gone on to St. Louis. Tim, I mean.”

“Fine work, Bessie. Get the chief of police in St. Louis and call me back, will you? We’re getting hot. Who’s this Tim? Did he say?”

“No, he didn’t. But he called Major Dane ‘chief,’ if that means anything.”

If Dane did not hear this conversation he was fairly sure it had taken place. He was still annoyed when Alex brought his lunch to the porch. Alex’s eye was bloodshot and his eyebrows singed, and Dane found himself grinning in spite of his irritation.

“Good place we chose for a rest, isn’t it?” he observed.

“It might be, if we’d mind our own business,” said Alex, and added a “sir” with some reluctance.

“At least we know we were on the right track. The stuff is buried there, or was.”

“Much good that does,” Alex grumbled. “I went over it this morning. It’s burned, and burned good. You couldn’t find your grandmother in it.”

Dane disclaimed any intention of looking for that aristocratic old lady in such surroundings, and ate a good lunch. After that he inspected the hillside. As Alex had said, it was hopeless. It was covered inches deep with charred wood and ashes, and the skeletons of blackened trees towered over it.

It was the border that interested him, however. It was irregular, as though the fire had started in several places at once, and he was inspecting it when someone spoke behind him. He turned sharply, to find a youngish man eying him.

“Quite a fire, wasn’t it?” he said amiably. “Spoils the place, rather. I always liked that hill. Used to play on it when I was a kid.”

Dane inspected him. He saw a big good-looking man in slacks and sweater, rather than like his own outfit, who was smiling as he offered a cigarette.

“I’m Greg Spencer,” he explained. “Only got here last night after the show was about over. Drove up. My sisters were pretty much upset.”

“They’ve had a good bit to be upset about. Especially Miss Carol.”

Dane was not certain, but he thought Gregory Spencer’s pleasant face became rather wary.

“Yeah. Terrible thing,” he said. “She’s a courageous child, or she’d have got out before this. How she kept the servants—I came as soon as I could. I’ve been in the South Pacific, and I’m trying to get married before I go back.”

Dane introduced himself. They had been in different theaters of war, but the service was a common bond between them. Also Dane found himself unwillingly liking the other man. They went in together for a drink, to find Elinor there alone.

“Carol’s gone to see Lucy Norton,” she said. “We’ve had Floyd and his outfit here all morning. To hear the way they talked to the servants you’d think we had set that fire last night.”

“Why think that?” Dane asked.

“I don’t know,” she said pettishly. “It’s silly, of course. It spoils the place dreadfully.”

She did not look well. She was as carefully dressed as usual, but she looked her age and more. Dane took his highball and went to the fireplace, where he could face her.

“I was looking at it. I think it was deliberately set.”

If she knew anything about it she was good, he thought. She lifted her carefully penciled eyebrows in surprise.

“But why?” she asked.

“The dead girl’s clothes were never found. They might have been hidden there.”

“That’s rather farfetched, isn’t it?”

Gregory put down his glass.

“Oh, come now, major,” he said. “Why go looking for trouble? The place was dry, and probably somebody dropped a cigarette.”

“Dropped six cigarettes, in that case. It started in half a dozen places.”

There was an uneasy silence. Greg picked up his drink again.

“What you’re saying is that it was set to burn the—to burn the girl’s clothes. Is that it?”

“It looks like it. That’s why the police have been here. They’re used to forest fires, you know. I expect they had a ranger with them, didn’t they?”

Elinor didn’t know. She had slept late, and they had not come into the house. The servants had told her. And for goodness’ sake let her forget it. She was giving a dinner that night at the club. She went back to her list, using the telephone now and then while the two men talked, about the war, about their respective services, even about the political situation. Carol found all three of them there when she came. She came in tumultuously, flinging off her hat and ignoring Dane completely. Greg looked at her.

“Well, did you see Lucy?” he asked.

“If you can call it that. They kept a nurse in the room every minute. I tried to get rid of her, but she said she had orders. I think Lucy knows something, but she doesn’t intend to tell it.”

Dane, conscious of tension when Carol came in, now sensed relief in both Elinor Hilliard and Greg. Especially in Elinor.

“What makes you think she knows anything?” she inquired.

“The way she looked at me. The way she tried to send the nurse on an errand. She wouldn’t go, of course.”

“Rather highhanded of Floyd, eh?” said Greg. “Have a drink and forget it, Carol. So long as the old girl minds her own business, why worry?”

Carol refused the drink. She picked up her hat and prepared to leave and Dane, seeing her almost for the first time—except for a glimpse at the inquest—without the slacks and sweater which had made her look young and boyish, realized now that she was neither; that she was indeed a highly attractive if indignant young woman, and that she was still angry with him. In fact, at the door she turned on him sharply.

“I suppose all this pleases you,” she said. “You think I started the fire last night, don’t you? You told Floyd to keep Lucy from talking, too. He’d never think of it himself.”

“Perhaps you underestimate Floyd,” he said gravely. “I didn’t advise him about anything. I rather think we have different ideas about the whole business.”

She did not leave, after all. She was still in the doorway, looking uncertain, when Floyd accompanied by Mason, came along the hall. Mason was carrying a largish package wrapped in newspaper, which he held onto even after he sat down. Floyd did not sit at all. His big face showed excitement and something else.

“Sorry to bother you all again,” he said. “Hello, Greg. Didn’t know you were back.”

“Got back this morning Drove up.”

“After the fire?”

“After the fire. Yes.”

The chief looked around the room.

“Well, folks,” he said, “that’s what I came to talk about. Seemed queer to me, that fire. It spread too fast. It looked like it had started all over the place. So I got one of the forest rangers here this morning. He thinks the same as I do. Somebody set it.”

No one spoke. He braced himself on his sturdy legs.

“Now it isn’t as though things were just as usual around here. Maybe we’ve got a firebug. Maybe we haven’t. What we know we’ve got is a murderer, and that ain’t common. Not here it isn’t. Sol begin to think. That girl’s clothes were never found, but she was staying in this house, and she didn’t come in a red wrapper. So—well, there’s the hill. Lots of places to hide clothes there.” He glanced at Dane. “I reckon Major Dane had the same idea. He’s been snooping around some. So the hill gets burned and the clothes with it. That’s the general idea.”

He fished in his pocket and brought out something which he held in his hand.

“It’s still burning in places up there,” he said. “Likely to go on some time. So I put a man to watch it. This is what he found.” He opened his hand and held it out. On his broad palm lay another metal initial letter, this time a B. It was blackened by fire, but it had not melted. “Off the bag she carried,” he said, and looked around the room. “Anybody recognize it?” he inquired.

No one spoke until Elinor rose abruptly.

“This is all very interesting,” she said, “but I can’t see how it concerns us. None of us were here at the time this girl was killed, and I object strongly to your attempt to involve us. It’s ridiculous.”

“Whoever set that fire knew the girl’s stuff was on the hill,” he said stubbornly.

“How do you know who set the fire?”

“Sit down, Miss Elinor,” he said. “I’m not through yet. Give me that package, Jim.”

Mason placed it on the table. This time it was not fastened, and he simply unrolled it and exposed its contents. What lay there was an old-fashioned pitcher, of the sort that belonged with a washbowl in the days before modern plumbing. It was chipped here and there, but the pattern was clear and distinct. Floyd stood off and let them see it.

“No prints on it,” he said. “The gardener over at the Ward place, Rockhill, found it in the shrubbery near the lane there this morning. It might have been hidden there a year or so ago, but old Nat Ward took a notion to clean out that corner today. So here it is.”

Dane glanced at Carol. She was staring incredulously at the pitcher, and her color had faded.

“Maybe some of you remember it,” Floyd said. “Probably not you, Miss Carol. You’re too young. But you might, Greg. Miss Elinor too.”

Elinor shook her head, and Greg looked puzzled. Dane pursued his policy of watchful waiting.

“It looks familiar,” Greg said slowly. “It’s years since I saw a thing like that, but the pattern—”

His voice trailed off, and Floyd smiled.

“It just happens,” he said, “that I know where it came from. I took it to old Annie Holden at the China Shop, and she remembered it all right. It was a special order. She got out her books and showed it to me. Your grandmother bought it thirty-odd years ago before your father built in the extra bathrooms.”

“But what has it got to do with the fire?” Carol asked, looking bewildered. “I don’t see—”

“Only that it’s had gasoline in it,” Floyd said. “That fire was set with gasoline, Miss Carol, and it was poured out of this.”

There was a stricken silence. Dane, watching all the faces, realized that the difference between surprise and fear was very small. They all looked shocked. In a way, they all looked guilty.

“Of course,” he said quietly, “you have to show that it came from this house. Things like that can be given or thrown away. Unless the rest of the set is here—”

“You needn’t bother,” Carol said, her voice flat and expressionless. “It’s been in the attic for years. I saw it there the other day. You can go up and look if you like. One of the maids can show you the way.”

Floyd nodded to Mason, and he went out. No one said anything. Floyd replaced the monogram letter in his pocket and looked at Carol.

“Your car was in the drive last night. I saw it there when we were working on the fire.”

She nodded.

“It’s too far down to the garage. I’ve been leaving it there at night. The weather was all right.”

“All right for a fire too,” he said. “Got any rubber hose around?”

“Rubber hose? There is plenty in the tool house.”

“Narrow hose, I mean. Tubing.”

She tried to think.

“I suppose there is,” she said. “For shampooing hair. We usually leave such things here. Why?”

“Siphon out the gas. You can’t turn a tap and let gas out of a car, you know, Miss Carol. You have to siphon it.” His voice was milder when he spoke to her, almost apologetic. “Miss any gas today? That thing there”—he indicated the pitcher—“holds quite a bit.”

“I didn’t notice,” she told him, and fell silent again.

There was a rattle of crockery from the stairs and Jim Mason came in. He was carrying an assortment of heavy porcelain, a washbowl, soap dish, tooth mug and so on, and his manner was triumphant as he placed it on the table.

“There’s another piece up there, but I didn’t bring it,” he said, wiping his face with a dusty hand. “Ladies present. Guess this is enough anyhow.”

There was no argument about it. Except that it had been wiped, the pitcher was obviously a part of the set, and Floyd’s face was uneasy as he looked at Carol.

“Now,” he said, his voice still mild, “why did you hide that girl’s clothes, and set fire to the hill, Miss Carol? Who are you trying to protect?”