| |
BY THE TIME I HAD SHOWERED and put on a white shirt and a sport coat, I was in a more suitable mood for meeting Tom's new bride. I checked the mirror to see if the effect was respectable enough. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about my slightly rounded shoulders, earned by slouching over canvas, or the regrettable teddy-bear appearance of my wrinkled, tan coat.
I combed my hair, then looked myself hard in the eye. A desirable co-ed who’d been attempting to paint my portrait swore at me because of my eyes. "Dammit, Richard. Four days ago they were a placid, balmy blue. Yesterday they were icy green, and now I swear they look almost black! God, you look sinister–what the hell's gotten into you?"
"My eyes are hazel,” I had told her helpfully, but five minutes later she threw her palette at me and ruined a perfectly good shirt.
Right then my eyes seemed a bit haunted, so I lit a cigarette. Squinting from the smoke, I merely looked tired and a touch past thirty-five. "Can't argue with that," I told myself as Tom knocked softly on the door.
"I'm early. How about a drink?" he suggested.
The kitchen cabinets revealed a cache of spirits even I couldn’t dent in two weeks. Tom opened some chablis and poured two generous glasses with grim concentration. Then he sat opposite me in a chair filled with paisley cushions.
"To a truly good friend," he toasted with inordinate solemnity. Then he swigged down a third of his wine and gazed thoughtfully into what remained. The conflicting expressions flickering across his face showed me a Tom I did not know, the man he had become since Paris. I detected traces of regret and guilt and pride, of failure and fear and apology. But I also saw ordinary bravery and optimism and a boyish wish for happiness despite what life dealt him. Evidently life had provided some problem that was threatening to consume the good host Tom intended to be.
"Hey! It’s me, Richard, remember? What's the matter?"
He shrugged lightly and attempted a smile. "It shows, does it? Marie has been at me again about her grandmother's death. I made her promise not to mention it around you. But dammit, now she's got me wondering whether the woman could have been pushed down those stairs."
"Would it help to go over it one more time?"
Tom studied my face while he thought it over. "Yes, I think it would. Lily's room is nearby. I’ll tell you about it there.”
We abandoned our drinks and walked in silence to a stairwell off the kitchen hallway. The gray slate steps were worn smooth. Following their one turn was a simple iron railing. A wooden gate closed off the top.
Tom began to explain the accident as we ascended the steps.
"Lily was eighty-nine but quite alert. We installed the gate at her insistence. She was afraid if she awoke during the night and wanted to use the bathroom, she might fall down the stairs. Personally, I thought she was being overly cautious."
"Did she ever forget to close the gate?" I wondered.
"If she left it open, Pascaline, our cook, would close it. Her room is just down the hall. Unfortunately, Pascaline had a bad cold that day. She was asleep even before Lily came upstairs.
"This was Lily's," Tom said, opening the door to the bedroom nearest the stairs.
Functional and neat, the walls were plain white, broken only by ruffled brown curtains framing the two windows. A single bed with a brown coverlet, a cottage bureau, and a large sewing basket set near a comfortable-looking chair with a floor lamp completed the decor. The side window was inaccessible from outside, but the front window by the chair opened onto a low, flat roof with a clothesline stretched across it. Obviously, there had to be steps leading to the roof that would be extremely convenient for an intruder.
After a respectful silence, I asked if anyone had a reason to want to hurry nature along.
"You mean murder Lily? None whatever. She had few friends, no enemies, no money to speak of. She was a sweet old lady!"
"Suppose you tell me exactly what happened. Maybe we can put the whole matter to rest."
Tom leaned his elbow against the wall, and the feminine, old-world environment seemed to shrink beside his bulk.
"As Marie remembers it, it rained Sunday afternoon. Lily's arthritis bothered her, and Marie had to close the window for her when the storm started. By evening it had cleared and become quite mild, so Lily must have re-opened the window herself. Her hands were normally quite strong. If she was free of pain, she often kneaded bread, and she was accustomed to doing a lot of hand sewing."
"Then the window was open when she died?"
"Yes. The way I piece things together, she was probably sitting here sewing when the burglar alarm went off and frightened her. She dropped the basket and rushed to the top of the stairs. Unfortunately, the gate was unlatched and she lost her balance and fell."
"What set off the alarm?"
"We can't be sure. I was out with Marie, and, as I said, the cook was asleep. When the alarm woke her, she ran out and found Lily."
"So, no intruder was seen?"
"No."
"Any damage?"
"Not that time, thanks to the alarm. The police receive a signal, and they always respond promptly. When they arrived, there was no evidence to explain what happened. They thought an animal bumped something or the alarm had malfunctioned.”
"Have vandals ever successfully entered the chateau?"
Tom waved his head. "They’ve tried, but I'm happy to say they failed. All the damage has been outdoors so far."
"Exactly what bothers Marie about the accident?" I asked.
"The alarm sounded at quarter to eleven, and Marie insists her grandmother would have been sleeping. If so, Marie argues that someone may have come in the window, knocked over the sewing basket, turned on the light, confronted Lily, and somehow caused her fall."
“The light was on after the accident?"
"Yes, it was."
"Seems unlikely a burglar would enter a lighted room," I thought aloud. "What was Lily wearing when she died?"
Tom's eyebrows shot up. "A bathrobe–so I must be right! She was probably awake!"
I crossed the room and lifted the window easily. "How did Marie's grandmother come to live in the chateau?" I asked.
"Ah, Holmes. What a tidy mind you have. Lily was widowed very young and soon afterward came to work for Hugh Marsford. Eventually became the second Mrs. Marsford's personal maid. They gave her this room for life in appreciation of her long service. Lily liked to boast she was the only person alive who knew the Marsfords well. She could entertain you for hours with her stories about them. Marie loved visiting her grandmother here. That was how we met."
He snapped himself out of a pleasant daydream. "Anyway, Marie has a theory that Lily was more than a little in love with Hugh–all very prim and proper, of course. But it explained her intense devotion to him and later some of her wilder ideas. Old Grannie had the wild notion her employer was murdered."
My skin began to prickle. "Any evidence to support her suspicions?"
"No, of course not. But Lily held her ground very stubbornly."
"Maybe those wild ideas run in the family."
"You mean Marie? The power of suggestion?" As Tom closed up the room and entered the hallway, I could see the idea had not occurred to him, but he liked it pretty well. He was still thinking it over as we reached the top of the stairs.
Just then a resounding clang like the lid of a large pot being dropped came from the kitchen below us. Out of nowhere something short and furry darted between our legs and streaked down the stairs.
"What the hell..." I exclaimed, grasping the railing to balance myself.
"Coquin!" Tom scolded sharply. "Damn cat..." Then he turned to me as the inevitable possibility flashed into his mind.
"I'd say that wraps it up," I said with more certainty than I felt. "Lily was sewing when the alarm went off. She dropped her basket, came out here to investigate, and opened the gate herself. The frightened cat ran past, and Lily tripped and fell. End of story.”
Tom wasn’t so certain. "I should be relieved, I suppose," he conceded, "but I can't help seeing Marie's point. I mean, the vandals were indirectly responsible for Lily's death if they set off the damn alarm..."
"Yes, but the police found no evidence of vandals," I reminded him.
"No," said without conviction.
We proceeded downstairs in thoughtful silence. I didn’t want to worry my friend just before his honeymoon, but my own feelings about the woman’s death were less conclusive than my arguments. Quarter to eleven did seem late for an elderly woman to be sewing, yet she had been wearing a bathrobe. Perhaps she was having a wakeful night.
I finally decided our reasoning was too logical to be wrong. I knew very little about Marie, but maybe she was blessed with the sort of imagination fascinating women often possess. Or maybe it really had been the power of suggestion. Anyway, it was over, and there seemed to be no way to prove what happened one way or the other.
Tom decided to investigate the commotion in the kitchen, so I pushed all morbid thoughts aside and prepared myself to meet the cook.