Patrick went to the kitchen and came back and beckoned to Jane and to me to come into the hall. He motioned that we were to go to the parlor, where we stood talking very quietly for a few minutes.
“I’ve yet to hear your story about Dick Mallory’s death from yourself, Jane.”
Jane lifted her shoulders. Her blue eyes became very dark.
“It’s a very slight story. You’ve heard it from everybody else.”
“That’s not the same.”
Jane Mallory’s face closed up, became a beautiful expressionless mask.
“Pat, I didn’t kill Dick. As I’ve said, I’m convinced that he killed himself.”
Patrick’s tone was merciless. It frightened me.
“You had a chance of making that stick until the nurse was murdered, Jane. Now you must work with me. I’ve never had a client I knew so little about.”
Jane wheeled away as if to walk out of the room.
“I don’t want to be your client. I’m sorry. I said that I was, just to let Mrs. Mallory know that she couldn’t treat me like that. Or you either. Please forgive me and forget it.”
“Nope,” Patrick said.
Jane stiffened. “I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I don’t want or need your help. Besides, there’s no money to pay you.”
Had she forgotten her two million dollars?
“I’m not in the least interested in what happens to you,” Patrick said. “I’ve seen you sitting smug as hell …”
“Smug!” Jane cried, her eyes blazing. “How can you say that about me? How would you like to be in my place, in this hateful house, where I am hated? To have a man you once loved die? To be accused and suspected? To endure the insults and insolence and suspicion? I’d like to have it happen to you, just once, so you’d know what it’s like.”
I said, “Do you think we like being here ourselves?”
“You can leave,” Jane said. “You can leave at any time and if you don’t mind my saying so, I’ll be glad.”
“We can’t leave,” Patrick said. “I don’t give a hoot in hell what happens to you, Jane, but I do mind for Seth. In case you don’t know, Seth beat the tar out of that policeman on your account as well as his own. We’re staying, but not for your sake. I’ve got King’s permission to take you up to the room your husband died in. Come along. I want you to re-enact what happened when you were in that room.”
Jane drew back. She turned pale. Her lips quivered.
“No!”
“You’ll go with us now or with King and us later. He’s convinced of your guilt. Make a choice.”
“How can my going there possibly prove anything?”
“Maybe it won’t. It’s a chance. King’s been short-handed ever since he came on the case. The room hasn’t been properly searched. I’ll do that too.”
“I won’t go up there! I can’t!”
“Okay. We’re going anyway. But not on your account. You can go later with the police.”
Jane gave in suddenly and walked ahead of us up the stairs. I thought of Amelia, in her room on ahead. Amelia had faded out of the affair as easily as her mother had. Amelia had evaded responsibility and Mrs. Mallory had dismissed it.
Patrick unlocked the door. The big room was dark. A window was open and the air was heavy with the fragrance of the white lilacs outside. He flicked the switch by the door and the lights bloomed in lamps and under the portrait of Jane on the wall opposite the bed.
The likeness was startling. The portrait might have been alive and about to speak. It gave the room life, even now when death had just left the great rosewood bed with the covers thrown back carelessly and the imprint of a head on the first of the stacked pillows at one side. The bed was a four-poster. The chest of drawers and the bureau matched the bed.
“I entered first, like Bart Wayne,” Patrick said. “I can see the nurse’s chart on the top of that chest of drawers. Jean, stand looking at the chart, with your back toward this part of the room. We’ll do this like a charade. I’ll be Bart Wayne, Jean the nurse. You’re yourself, Jane.”
Jane Mallory began trembling all over. I didn’t like it myself. I felt creepy and intrusive. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. It startled me. Also, as I stood by the chest with the chart in front of me I saw that out of the corner of one eye I could see in the mirror the pillows on the bed. I could see the carafe and glass on the bedside table. That would be where the capsule had lain. The police had not yet taken the carafe or the glass or even the spoon.
Had the nurse seen something in that mirror that she had not spoken of? Did it concern Bart Wayne or Jane Mallory? She had spoken of ethics, however, and that would suggest Seth Godwin.
Patrick bent over the pillows, straightened up, and spoke to Jane. “Is this where Bart stood?”
“Yes. I don’t see the point. I wish you wouldn’t insist on this, Pat.”
“You watched Bart?” Patrick asked, as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Yes, I think so. No, I was watching Dick, really. He looked dreadfully ill and all. I felt shocked.”
“Did Bart touch him?”
“No. Oh, I don’t know. He bent over him and then turned to me and said that Dick was asleep. He left the room at once. I walked over to the bed. I put my hat and bag on a chair and pulled up another chair.”
“The nurse went out then?”
“Yes. I don’t know exactly when. All I could think of was Dick. And, if it matters, I sat down first and then pulled up the other chair for my hat and bag. I turned away from Dick to do this and when I looked back he was watching me. His eyes were bright and friendly. I felt surprised. They looked fine, in contrast to his face and all.”
“‘Hello, Dick.’
“‘You came.’
“Of course I came.’
“‘I’m glad. I was all kinds of a jerk. I want you to forgive me.’
“‘Of course. I’ve forgotten all that.’”
Jane stopped speaking. I was still standing by the chest. Patrick hadn’t asked me to go out as Miss James had done.
Jane passed one hand over her forehead.
“That’s funny,” she murmured. “I have total recall of what was said but I’m mixed up on what came after what. I was terribly moved because Dick had looked so ill with his eyes closed. His skin was waxen. He needed a shave. His beard had turned gray. But when he opened his eyes and they looked so gay and healthy I felt relieved and hopeful.”
“The nurse was still in the room when you spoke with Dick?”
“I don’t know. I know she left but I don’t know just when.”
“Go on. Repeat the conversation, if you can.”
“I can, but maybe it’s best just to say that Dick started cursing his mother and Denise, and then he asked if I was happy. I said I was and he asked if there was somebody and then—oh, before that, he offered his hand and I took it in both of mine, and then when I said I was happy he grabbed both my hands tight and grinned in the way he always did when he was plotting trouble. He hurt my wrists. He accused me of having had a crush on Seth Godwin. I tried to get free. He scratched my wrists then and sank his teeth into one of my hands till it bled. He started kissing me. He seemed terribly strong. I was helpless. Suddenly he let me go and asked for the medicine. I said I’d call the nurse. He said no, that the medicine was there on the bedside table. I gave it to him in a spoon and held the water glass to his lips. Then he seemed to come back to himself and pled with me to come back. Said his mother had given him back control of his money. Promised not to drink again. I said we’d talk about all that later. I left the room. He shouted a final insult—no, he didn’t shout it, he mumbled it, in a very strange voice, just as I left the room.”
“And your hat and bag?”
“Oh. I’d picked those up sometime or other. I washed up in the bath across the hall and started downstairs. The nurse was coming up with Dick’s tray. Mrs. Mallory and Denise had not spoken to me when I entered. They didn’t now. Bart Wayne was waiting to drive me to a hotel. The nurse entered Dick’s room and as we were walking out the front door she screamed that he was dead. Bart tore upstairs. Mrs. Mallory and Denise followed him. I waited downstairs in the hall. Bart came down and phoned Seth’s office and learned that Seth was on his way here. I went then and sat for a good while in the living room, alone sometimes, and after the ambulance came and went I couldn’t stand the feeling of the house any longer and I went outside. I sat down near the creek. I began to feel easier. I smoked a cigarette and started another. I saw the nurse watching me.”
“That was when you destroyed something?”
“So she said.”
“Didn’t you?”
“No. I’m sure I didn’t. I don’t remember. I’ve told you that I can’t remember exactly in sequence what I did.”
“Go on.”
“That’s all. I went back—came back—into the house and the nurse kept hanging around. Bart came and was kind. He kissed me, and unfortunately the nurse saw it. It’s too bad. He was just being kind.”
“Are you in love with Bart, Jane?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know. He reminds me of the better side of Dick when we were first married. I think it would be nice to be in love with somebody like Bart. He seems so kind and responsible. But I don’t have any special feelings now about anybody. Well, that’s my story. What good is it?”
“Did you take your handbag with you outdoors?”
Jane Mallory blinked.
“I don’t know whether I did or not. Why?”
“What about cigarettes?”
“I had a pack in my jacket pocket. I think, but I’m not sure, that I left my bag with my hat in the living room at this time. I can remember every word said and could repeat it, but I seem to be in a sort of daze about what I did.”
“Where is your handbag now?”
“In the living room, I think.”
“Let’s go down, get your bag, and go outdoors, Jane. You two turn on the porch lights and go out the front way. I’ll go get your bag.”
With the porch lights on I saw for the first time the car parked in this part of the drive. It was a little to the left of the porch and fairly well concealed from the section of the drive which cut through the hedge to the back, and which was the part I had stayed on when looking for Deputy Hollister. It was a dark-colored car and the night was dark, and we wouldn’t have noticed anyway, or rather I wouldn’t’ve, since I do not see everything the way Patrick does.
We walked out of the circle of light and on along the lane toward the gates.
Jane lit a cigarette.
“I smoke too much,” she said. “More tonight than usual.”
“Are you worried?”
“Puzzled. It’s so strange. Who would have done it? Why?”
“Then you’ve decided that it’s murder?”
“What Pat says makes sense. The nurse was certainly murdered if she got cyanide in that almond sponge. They’re sure of that, aren’t they?”
“I suppose so. They’ll have an analysis made, but they can tell about things like that from the sight and smell. Do you think Seth had anything to do with it, Jane?”
“Seth? Of course not. Of all things!”
“Were you ever in love with Seth?”
“Oh, no. He’s like Bart. Sympathetic and responsible. You’d be surprised how much that means to a woman. Seth is kind, which is wonderful too, in this house. Oh dear, what am I saying? Uncle Victor and Amelia and Mrs. Rollo are kind.”
“But they’re hypnotized. They don’t dare be themselves.”
“I suppose so. I feel sorry for Mrs. Mallory.”
“I don’t. Not one bit. I hope Dick Mallory’s will can’t be broken. I’d like to see those people have that money.”
“They will. I’ll see that all the people mentioned get what Dick wanted them to have. I wish he’d done it out of true generosity. He was only tormenting his mother. But I’ll see that it’s carried out if I never do any other thing.”
“And what will you do with what’s left?”
“Deed it back to Mrs. Mallory. It’s really her money, you know. Not Dick’s. He never lifted one finger to increase the family fortunes.”
“Don’t you really want any of the money?”
“Not one penny.”
I sighed. I love money.
“You’re a better woman than I am, Jane.”
“I doubt it.”
We were near the gates at the end of the drive. The lights on the porch were turned out. We were far enough away that it didn’t matter. We started back along the white lane. The front door opened and closed. A door of the car in that part of the drive was opened and closed softly. The front door again opened and closed. In a couple of minutes we met Patrick in the starlight. Jane destroyed what remained of the cigarette she was smoking.
“I couldn’t find your handbag, Jane.”
“Never mind. It’s there someplace.”
“You’re sure you won’t need my help?”
“I’m sure. But thank you, and forgive me for being unpleasant a while ago. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right, Jane. I hope you’ll stand by Seth Godwin.”
Jane stopped dead.
“Oh, surely, that lieutenant doesn’t think that Seth did those horrible murders? Oh, Pat!”
“The lieutenant is not at all kindly disposed toward Seth, after the beating he gave him. And—well, I was told to bring you inside the house. King doesn’t like your coming outside. Altogether, he’s in a state of mind. Can’t say I blame him. This has been quite an evening, all in all.”