And down the corridor Neil Crawford closed another door behind himself
and Sydney. Their eyes met with a bleak and hopeless questioning.
“Oh, Neil,” she breathed. “What are we going to do?”
“What am _I_ going to, you must say, Sydney. Remember, my dear, you are
not in this. And remember that whatever I do or don’t do will be
entirely governed by my love for you and my desire to _keep_ you and the
children out of it.”
“You _can’t_ keep me out of it, Neil, even if you wanted to. That is the
way, with things relating to one or other of two people who are closely
united, both are in them for good or bad. So I’m in this with you to the
very last—that is, if—if—”
“If I want you?” He took her shoulders in either hand. “Is that what you
are trying to say? You know I want you. You know I love you, that I
never have loved, never will love, anyone but you. I can’t help myself.
We were made in patterns that match, like a jig-saw puzzle. We wouldn’t
match anyone else, no one else would match us.”
She did her best to control the wave of feeling that made her draw free
of him.
“She doesn’t feel so, Neil, or think you do. She loves you; and said it
tonight too definitely to make me feel you have not returned in kind.
Neil, where are our promises?”
“My God, Sydney, since when were you such an innocent as to think
promises were anything more than baubles, pretty but—but vain. The
promises to love forever until death do us part—”
“Keep still, Neil! You know as well as I do that those aren’t the
promises I am thinking of. Besides, we never made those particular
promises. But we did promise we weren’t going to go living around with
other people unless we _meant_ it—meant it down to the ground, do you
hear me?” She was trying to keep her voice under control, but it would
rise spasmodically. “And here you seem to have done just that.”
“I wasn’t just living around, Sydney. You know me well enough to know
I’d be fastidious about such things. Romany and I got into it somehow,
quite naturally. Why can’t women realize how little such things mean to
a man, and to some women. She’s one of them. We’ve never spoken of love;
do you hear that?”
“Neil, how silly to say such a thing, when by its very nature love is
somehow involved. In the very essence of it—your winnowing of the
physical from the spiritual—it is the ruin of all idealism. Someone we
know, who was it, was saying the other day that the trouble with the
younger generation is that it lacks guts. You are exactly what he meant,
Neil.”
“Don’t be vulgar about it, Sydney. Vulgarity doesn’t suit you. Only the
sophisticated can get away with it. Your delicacy is one of the reasons
I care for you. And I _do_ care. You can’t say I don’t love you, or you
me. Can you say it?”
“Which only makes it frightfully much worse. And don’t lie to me. She
couldn’t have written you a letter like that if you hadn’t used love, in
one form or another, toward her. Don’t quibble about the meaning of the
word love.”
“What do you mean ‘such a letter’?”
“I saw a letter on your desk, Neil. I had to read it, you can see that.”
“Then you got just what was coming to you, Sydney. Even a wife, a wife
least of all, doesn’t read a man’s private correspondence unless she
wants to get hurt.”
“All right! Say it if you will. It can’t make matters any more terrible
than they are. I saw the address on the envelope (I knew she had been in
Hollywood this spring), and in a flash I remembered that—that night.
It’s asking too much of human nature to ask it to turn its back on the
truth at such a moment. And you can’t say it isn’t better to know the
truth at whatever cost to us both.”
“If you think so, yes.” Crawford’s anger died as he saw her face change.
“Oh, Sydney, don’t look at me like that. I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry.” He
tried to take her hands and failed. “And now this other thing to hurt
you. I can’t endure it.”
“This other is bad, yes. But not really bad, my dear, as compared to my
trust and respect, trust in you and self-respect, splintered to atoms
overnight. Bertrand Whittaker can do his worst, can put you behind bars,
and me talking to you through bars, but it won’t be a patch on the edge
taken off what we have been years in building. Marriages aren’t built in
a day. There must be something wrong with me and my dreams, I suppose.
Before we left home tonight I happened to pick up a picture of Bunny,
and realized it was the one that had been in the town house all winter,
watching you—watching you—,” she trailed off helplessly. “I seem so to
confuse illusions and realities.”
“Don’t confuse them. Don’t have illusions. Yet that’s why I love you,
for the image you make of a perfect life. But it can’t be lived, Sydney.
It can’t.”
“_Our_ chance is gone, if that’s what you mean.”
“I don’t see how it affects us in the least if our love remains to us. I
have never told her I loved her.”
“How charming for her!”
“That wasn’t what she wanted. She understands. I’m not the only one for
her. It isn’t as if she were— She can take care of herself.” He paused.
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind if she were dead if it would do us any good.”
“Neil, hush! Nothing, not even our own deaths, could do us any real good
again. How can you think wrong will right wrong?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how I think a lot of things I’m thinking.
For instance, Bertrand Whittaker must be stopped dead in his tracks. He
can’t be allowed to do this to Bunny’s life, or yours, or mine either.
I’ll kill him first. The past is over and done with and he has no right
to revive it.”
“The past is over; yes, the past is done with. She said she had your
picture and Bunny’s on the dresser before her. Listen to that—_Bunny’s_
picture. What’s Bunny to her under the circumstances, I’d like to know,
that she should be able to make free with her picture: stepchild, love
child or godchild? I don’t suppose any of them fit, but they sound so
refreshingly shocking it’s fun to use them.”
“_Stop_ making a scene, Sydney! I didn’t think you had it in you to make
scenes and say such wild, bitter things. I can’t _tend_ to a scene now.
Can’t you _see_ I can’t?”
“When did it all begin, Neil? Don’t say it began in the common
old-fashioned way at the common old-fashioned time. Don’t say it began
when Bunny was coming.”
“Of course it did. When did you think it would have begun? You didn’t
expect me to be a monk, did you? Sydney, let’s stop talking, please; and
think about what’s got to be done. What do you say we clear out of the
country and make a fresh start. Australia or somewhere.”
“A fresh start! How devastating it sounds—to start over after eight
years. It can’t be done, and the soul still live. As if one were told,
after a terrible day of sled-pulling in an Arctic storm, that one had to
retrace one’s steps without rest or food. It couldn’t be done, and the
body live. That’s how I feel.”
“Sydney, quiet. Quiet, dear, you must stop. And help me plan. I must
find Giordano. I see it clearly. I must find him tonight. He will deal
with Whittaker.”
“Oh no, no, no, no. You mustn’t get in touch with those men again. You
are finished forever if you try that. Neil, don’t do anything rash. I’ll
talk to Bertrand the minute I have a chance. He will listen to reason.
You know we have always said the day might come, and we promised to keep
our heads. Our promises again! She said the rain where she was made her
remember your night rains. Neil, Neil! what does that do to our rains,
our trains, our meteorites, our—our—.” She was sobbing now with a
desperate tearless exhaustion.
“Nothing. Nothing. It doesn’t do anything to them, dearest one. We have
our love. With Romany, as we agreed, it was all just a symbol. Do you
hear me, Sydney? Stop crying. Stop it. I have something that has to be
done. _Stop it._”
He went to the telephone on the stand between the beds. She screamed.
“Keep away from that telephone, Neil. Can’t you see what frightful
things may be going to happen in this house tonight. A call can be
traced—you mustn’t _touch_ a telephone.”
She sprang toward him; but he had lifted the receiver and she couldn’t
struggle or argue with him against the ear of the operator. The number
he gave was AUdubon 2-1801. It answered.
“Hello. Crawford speaking.” Then he never _had_ been out of touch with
them. “Pick up Disuno if you can find him. If not, one of the others.
The address is Bertrand Whittaker’s, Blue Acres. Outside the park gates
at three.”
Neil hung up.
“You have made the mistake of your life, Neil Crawford. If a breath of
what you have just done reaches the police it’s all over but the
shouting, Bertrand or no Bertrand.”
“And it’s certainly all over if I do nothing. No, this is going to be
Whittaker’s life or mine.”
“Ordway Belknap may be here for a purpose.”
“They have foiled better men than Belknap.”
“You have been with them ever since?”
“You didn’t for a minute imagine I could have been anywhere else did
you? Once with them always with them as far as the underworld is
concerned. They never release us.”
“And you never told me how it has been with you!”
“You couldn’t have helped in the least. I’ve saved Giordano from the
chair twice over. And Disuno hasn’t hide nor hair that he doesn’t owe to
me. Now I need them, that’s all. And you, my dear. And always you.”
He took her in his arms now, but she was strangely unresponsive. For her
the living spark of whatever it was that had existed between them,
whether love is the word to call it or not she had never known anyway,
was as snuffed out as though it had never been.
X
Belknap entered his room just before dawn and turned up the light. Nadia
stood against the wall inside the door, both hands at her throat, her
breath coming in gasps. Her face in the sudden light was as pale as the
under side of willow leaves before a storm, or after. Here it seemed
that the storm must have passed a moment since.
Belknap sprang to her and seized both her wrists in one vice-like grip.
“Nadia! you haven’t done it?”
“No, no, I haven’t done _it_, as you call it,” she whispered.
“What _have_ you been doing then?”
“I have been running, my dear detective; don’t you see that?” She tried
to laugh.
“Why? What from? I thought nothing could ever frighten you. Once and for
all, Nadia Mdevani,” he continued as her eyes fell before his, “I ask
you to keep out of this. Can’t you begin to see what I am here for? I am
here for game, and you are not fair game. Or perhaps it’s that you are
too fair.” His voice wavered. “Anyway, keep clear.”
“I can’t, Mr. Belknap. On my soul, I can’t. There is too much at stake.
If I were the only one. But I am not.” She handed him a slip of paper
that had been crumpled in her hand.
He took it to the table, and smoothed it under his palm.
“Did you follow instructions?” he asked, in a low voice. “Is that what
the running was about?”
“No, no. I didn’t do it, on my word of honor.” Then her eyes suddenly
lifted wide open. “There is someone in the hall behind me. Do you hear?”
Her body was stiff, her face frozen.
“No,” said Belknap, matching the softness of her voice. “But it seems
quite possible. It _would_ be strange if you and I were the only ones
abroad in the house tonight, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” she whispered. They stood motionless. “It is going downstairs. Oh
my God, it will find it. Do something, Belknap. Quick, destroy that
paper, if you love me!”
A long, long scream penetrated the house from corner to corner, like a
knife thrust. And then the silence fell again. Nadia drew a deep,
shuddering breath, and when she spoke her voice was stronger.
“Perhaps you had better go down, Mr. Belknap. Something seems to be
wrong.”
“Something does. You may come with me if you care to.”
They went down and to the door of the library where there was a light.
Sydney Crawford stood over a body lying crumpled on the floor. The body
was Hartley Blake’s, and was stabbed so well and so often as to have
watered the rug thickly with blood.
Sydney, with stricken eyes, met Belknap’s gaze.
“I found this,” she said. “I’m sorry to have screamed, but it was a
little unexpected.”
Belknap turned on his heel and rang the service bell. He crossed to the
telephone on Whittaker’s desk and lifted the receiver.
“Sit down, Mrs. Crawford. You, too, Miss Mdevani. Don’t look at the
body. I shall have the police here in a moment. But perhaps I can help
you, Mrs. Crawford, if you have anything to say to me before they
arrive. I shall undoubtedly be on the case, since I have had the
misfortune to be at Thorngate this week-end—(Police Department? Ordway
Belknap speaking. You may or may not know my name. I am up at Judge
Whittaker’s place. Yes, Whittaker. There has been a murder committed
here during the night. Body just discovered. You had better send up a
sergeant with a few men. The guests, I am afraid, will have to be held.
Pick up a doctor of course. Right you are.)”
He hung up, and crossed to the divan for a lounging robe which he flung
quickly and deftly over Blake’s body.
“Blake’s dead,” he said to Julian and Joel who had just put in an
appearance. “The police are on their way. Meanwhile, if you will excuse
me, I shall look the ground over. Seems to have been an impulsive
affair,” he continued, “with the knife left behind.” He picked up the
long, thin, bronze paper-knife, which lay, stained with blood, a little
to the left of the body. There was also a woman’s lace handkerchief,
which Belknap offered to Sydney.
“That is not mine,” she said quietly.
“Just as you say,” Belknap replied, thrusting it into his pocket. “We’ll
soon know whose it is.”
John came to the door.
“Did you want me, sir?”
“I did, John. Will you round up everyone in the house, including the
help. There has been a murder. Colonel Blake. The police will want you
all for questioning. Not that most of you aren’t here already,” Belknap
smiled at the room. Crawford had come in on Julian’s heels. Romany and
Whittaker, however, were still absent.
Belknap bent to the body and examined rapidly and thoroughly.
“There’s the off chance we might find something, Mrs. Crawford,” he
remarked. “If Blake, under cover of darkness, returned for a cachéd
Diary and met his death because of it, the murderer may not have had
time to relieve him before you, or shall we say I, appeared.”
Sydney made no answer; but her two lovely hands lifted from her lap in a
little helpless gesture of futility.
“It is quite obvious,” Julian said unexpectedly, “that you intend to
make Mrs. Crawford responsible for Colonel Blake’s death, Mr. Belknap. I
feel called upon to ask you to keep your suspicions, even such proof as
you may have, until a moment more in keeping with judicial etiquette.”
Belknap flushed darkly.
“Don’t be too hard on our detective, Mr. Prentice,” Nadia cried. “He
does not suspect Mrs. Crawford of this ghastly affair, but he very much
wishes he did. And the wish has been father to the possibility. He
really suspects me. Therein lies the difficulty.”
“Spare the noble gesture, Nadia.” Whittaker was standing in the door.
“_I_ suspect you myself when you go altruistic. Ah, Belknap! in your
element I see! I can’t believe it. Blake murdered! That it should have
happened in my house. Terrible! John said he was unable to rouse Romany
with his knock, so I sent one of the maids to her room. And I gave
orders for the servants to wait in the hall. Does that meet with your
approval, Belknap? I shall sit down, if I may. Last night and this
morning, taken together, are more than is good for me.”
As he sank heavily into a chair there was a windy bustle at the front
door, a careless, strident laugh, and a stamping of feet, that in its
sincere disrespect for the traditions and restraint of Thorngate,
announced the arrival of the police. Belknap stepped toward the library
door.
“This way, Sergeant. We have been waiting for you.”
“Don’t Sergeant me, Belknap,” came a pleasant, resonant answer from the
hall; and a man of medium stature, with clear, blue eyes and gold-bronze
hair, faced him in the doorway. “Your humble servant. It’s nice to see
you again. I’m only sorry for one thing, that you have the jump on me as
usual.”
“Berry! Why, land alive, where did _you_ come from? Don’t worry about
being a step behind me. There’s going to be plenty for both of us. Come
in. Whittaker, you know Lieutenant Berry. There’s only one other in the
room important enough for you to meet at the moment. Berry, this is
Colonel Blake. Colonel, Lieutenant Berry has come to see what he can do
for you.” Belknap indicated the body with a motion of his hand. “You
brought a doctor? It will be convenient to know about when death
occurred.”
“Yes. Doctor Giles is here. Giles,” he called. “Get on the job, will
you? Come along in, Sergeant. This is Sergeant Stebbins, Ordway Belknap;
Belknap, Sergeant Stebbins. Now, old man, what’s the story? The sooner
we catch the scent the better. When did you arrive?”
“Before the trouble began. That may help us, and it may not. What do
_you_ say, Whittaker? Shall I—”
John’s voice was heard in the hall.
“Oh, Judge! Lily has fallen downstairs. I think it’s a faint, sir.”
“Pick her up,” said Whittaker.
John and two cops between them lifted her to the library couch.
Berry glanced at her.
“If the superstition that the object last beheld leaves its mark branded
on the face I should say your Lily had been seeing things! Where has
_she_ been?”
“To the room of one of the guests,” Belknap said. “Perhaps we’d better
take a look.”
But Lily opened both eyes and gazed glassily at the ceiling.
“Miss Romany’s stiffer’n a post,” she said.