Julian, in dressing gown and slippers, sank back in the deep arm-chair
before the fire burning in his room, and gave himself up to being
downright worried. The situation at Thorngate seemed to him bewildering,
terrifying, and positively insane, by turns. Obviously there was far
more real trouble in the wind than the immediate problem of his own
predicament, though heaven knew that was bad enough, largely because of
Joel. However he was in a sense relieved and glad that Joel was to know.
He had never yet been able to figure out a way to tell her about
himself, but now this came along to settle the matter for him: she was
bound to know, willy-nilly.
Why, _why_ had he ever told Bertrand Whittaker of all people? No one
would have ever been any the wiser if he had kept his mouth shut that
warm evening last summer when his conscience was eating him alive,
together with the mosquitoes, and he had asked Whittaker what to do
about it. Whittaker had said, “Oh, forget it, boy. It won’t do you, or
Roger Dane, or Roger’s family any good to come out with it.” Then why
was Whittaker so thoroughly airing it now? Or was he? Perhaps he
considered Julian’s hot-headed crime of too light a weight to bother
with in his gruesome Diary. But Julian felt that it was playing ostrich
on his part to rely on such a hope. For a man is known by the company he
keeps. And it began to be desperately certain that the house was full to
the gables of murderers in one degree or another. Both Blake and Dorn
had been too quick on the rise to speak well for themselves. Romany
Monte Video and Neil Crawford had blown to bits under a little pressure.
And the Diary had been of sufficient importance for someone to have
already attempted murder for its sake. Murder to cover murder. What a
weird and preposterous household it was proving to be. What was Bertrand
Whittaker’s motive in assembling it unless he was playing a losing game
with death? If Crawford were not so chicken-hearted he would have
avenged tonight’s dreadful betrayal before now. He might get around to
it yet. Some of the rankest cowards in an open fight have been known to
be excellent stabbers-in-the-back. And if everyone else had a secret
murder in his past, whoever got away with the Diary was getting a
wonderful thrill—probably reading it now by flashlight in a cupboard or
under the shrubbery (one of Julian’s most persistent fears was that
Dorn, instead of having gone straight up to town, was haunting the
grounds with murder in his heart), trembling at every creak of the floor
or rustle of leaves.
Whittaker’s chances of seeing his scheme through appeared slim enough to
Julian: but even should he fail to see a rewritten version of his Diary
in print, he had already, by one evening’s work, made a rotten mess of
at least six lives. Neil and Sydney and Romany could no longer ignore
their situation; whatever was between them would from now on be an open
wound. Belknap would have definite proof of at least one crime and the
criminal behind it. Whether, in view of the preposterous and unfair
circumstances, he would decently ignore Crawford’s guilt was a doubtful
question. Romany had fainted dead away when the Diary was first
mentioned, and later had lost her head and confused the names of Neil
Crawford and that lover of hers, with the crazy name of Durian, who had
been accidently killed in one of her plays—why, of _course_, he _hadn’t_
been accidentally killed, that was just it. What a fool he was not to
have thought of it before? So now he had three murderers accounted for:
Crawford, Romany, and himself. As for Nadia, she looked the part of a
poisoner to the letter. Dorn had clearly run away from something. With
Blake it probably all depended on your definition of a duel.
But then there was Joel! Something must be wrong with his whole
figuring, or Joel wouldn’t be where she was. Surely Whittaker wouldn’t
include an innocent niece in a crime wave unless there were others as
innocent to make it proper. Julian smiled at his own charming conceit.
But it might be that Whittaker was so intent on crushing the alliance
between himself and Joel that he was taking drastic measures to acquaint
Joel with her lover’s villainy. He _must_ see Joel. He must see her
before things developed beyond anyone’s control, as they were rapidly
doing.
He jumped to his feet and almost out of his skin at a tapping on an
inner door of his room that led God knew where. Should he lie low and
gaze hypnotized at the door knob, or shout boldly “Come in,” or open the
door suddenly and take the intruder off his guard? Julian had by now
strung himself up to such a pitch that his own murder wouldn’t in the
least have surprised him. Before he could decide on a course of action
the door quietly opened and Joel appeared in a flowing blue robe. All
his breath deserted him at the vision of her in his room.
“Joel!” he whispered.
“Yes, dear, I’m on the other side of the door, with the key on my side.
Must be more plot in that, don’t you think? If we fall any deeper into
trouble than we have fallen already—I mean if it comes to calling the
police or something—there’ll be a scandal about the connecting door
between the rooms of Mr. Julian Prentice and his fiancée. Fiancée my
eye, it will suggest! And if, hearing a shot, we should dash into the
hall, it would add that we were seen emerging from the young gentleman’s
room, in negligee, at—” she glanced at her wrist watch—“at 12:30 A.M.
The fact that I am marking the time, with you as witness, may prove
frightfully important. It _is_ late, isn’t it?”
“Very, yes.” Julian’s over-emotion at Joel’s nearness showed itself in
understatement and a boyish stiffness that made Joel love him beyond
anything. “Come and sit here, won’t you? While I stir this fire. What
_are_ you doing out so late, dear heart?”
“I did a little listening and snooping in the halls and found everybody
else doing likewise. So I naturally can’t sleep. The house is fairly
creeping, Julian. I wish it would get to its feet and walk off. Perhaps
in the sense of very strong cheese, it will eventually. Oh dear, I’m so
tired, and therefore a little silly, as you see, darling.”
“I don’t wonder—that you’re tired I mean. Here, put your feet on this
cushion and let me warm your hands that are so cold. Tell me, Joel, what
do you think your uncle is up to; what is he doing to everybody,
including himself?”
“I don’t know; truly, Julian, I don’t know, and I don’t care what he is
doing to himself and all the others but us. But I do care dreadfully
what he does to you and me, and I have come to see whether we can’t, you
and I, pass a magic wand over ourselves to keep out his evil genius and
whatever it’s leading to. That we may even begin to do it, I realize I
must be very brave and tell you about myself. We can’t in the face of
things leave any stone unturned between us.”
Julian looked up at her with a swift, tender smile.
“Now you are going to tell me _you_ have committed murder, too,” he
said.
“Julian, be still; don’t be amused. Yes, I am going to tell you that I
have committed murder. I have. But listen, please; don’t laugh that way.
I can’t bear it.”
“Darling, I can’t help it. Oh my God, I was just coming to tell you
about my murder before you should hear about it from another, or read of
it in a tabloid, or have it sprung upon you when I am cross-examined.
Joel, we are in for a very great deal of horridness—worse than we
realize.”
“Not worse than _I_ realize,” she said, with inexpressible weariness.
“Julian dearest, you must listen to me; and then,” she smiled faintly,
“I will hear about your murder.”
He put her hands to his lips.
“_Don’t_,” she said, drawing back. “Perhaps you won’t feel that way when
I’ve told you. After all if you have killed one—husband—.” She found it
almost beyond her to say the word.
“Joel, you didn’t kill Jerry. You didn’t, you didn’t. Say it, I tell
you. Say you didn’t.”
“I did. But it wasn’t quite a murder, really it wasn’t. Listen, Julian,
stop crying. I swear to you it wasn’t altogether a murder.”
“I don’t know what you mean ‘not altogether a murder.’ Murder is murder,
you can’t get away from that.” Julian’s tone was low and dull. “Joel, I
can’t bear it.”
“I should have thought being in a glass house you wouldn’t throw
stones,” bitterness had crept into her voice.
“Mine was self-defense—in a way it was.”
“And mine was an affair of honor—in a way it was. I am going to tell you
the whole story. It’s our only hope, Julian—for us both to tell
everything.
“Jerry and I had been in love, really and terribly in love, for several
years. It was after we knew Junior was on his way that we married. Oh,
not because we _had_ to. It was Jerry’s idea that we’d call that our own
private marriage, if we found that we could have one, and then accept
the necessary legalities for its sake. You see what I mean. I thought it
a sort of romantic super-modernism, a beautiful way of counting out the
world. Don’t laugh at me, Julian; for the laugh _was_ on me. The first
shock came when we knew. He said, ‘I wonder whether we really _need_ to
go through the outward form!’ Puzzled, but no more, I said, ‘Of course,
don’t you think so?’ and his answer was, ‘Just as you say, of course.’
‘As _you_ say,’ note that. It took me months of increasing pain to
realize that it wasn’t romance for him, but a way of keeping free
himself while achieving a son.
“Well, I thought it all out; and it seemed to me I had been deceived as
surely as any girl in melodrama. After all it’s six of one and half a
dozen of the other, the old Tess of the D’Urberville way and the modern,
talking-it-all-out way, isn’t it? Instead of the enraged father and
brother going on the warpath (fathers and brothers have been made to
feel gun-shy these days) the woman herself, whose boast is that she can
take care of herself, should have more than the theoretical right to do
it. She should be able to fight it out to the death. Call it a new form
of dueling if you like. So I went to work to clear my honor. That’s what
it amounted to. I had ceased to care, to love him, of course, or I
suppose I couldn’t have done it. I took shooting lessons at the 79th St.
Armory. _He_ had been a good shot since the War. Then I challenged him,
coolly and seriously. I meant it. I named the hour, and the spot (in
Central Park), and said he could name the day.”
“_Joel_, what did he say!”
“He laughed. I suppose I should have known he would. But I was made
blind angry by it. So I went for a gun and—ended it all.”
“How did you get away with it?”
“I didn’t intend to. But I had taken his pistol from the drawer—and
that, with the position in which he lay, pointed to suicide. It was
never finger printed. Our friends claimed we were the most devoted
couple they knew. I went to Uncle Bertrand immediately (he was Judge in
our Precinct at the time), but he persuaded me, wrongly I know now, to
keep silent; he said Jerry had it coming to him. But I wish I’d just run
away from him instead.” Joel was crying with eyes wide open.
“Oh, Joel dear, you poor extraordinary child. I would have killed him
for you.”
“Perhaps, but you weren’t around in those days; and besides, it was the
feeling of defending my own name that made me do it. I wouldn’t have
brooked a _man’s_ defending me.”
“Now that I’ve got to do something about your uncle, what would an extra
murder more or less have mattered?”
“Julian,” she said quickly, “you can’t stop my uncle if he is bound and
determined, even by killing him. He would have a way of getting around
his own murder, if it took his ghost to do it.”
“I won’t try murder, sweetheart. But I am going to have a talk with
him—_tonight_.”
Julian stood up and bent over to kiss her.
“I’ll be back soon, I promise. Don’t you move.”
“Julian, please stay. I don’t want to be left alone in this awful
house.”
But the door had closed behind him.