6:00 a. m.—Mist Drifting Through Mist
Lieutenant Valcour was out of the door in no time and racing along the
corridor up the stairs to the floor above. Somewhere—somewhere was the
entrance to the stairs leading farther up to the attic. Ah!—softly
now, quietly, not to disturb or shock. Thank God the treads were firm
and didn’t creak. . . .
There was a window in the attic, at the garden end of its peak, not a
large window, but big enough to permit the cold white light of morning
to illumine the place grayly.
Mrs. Endicott’s back was toward him, her face toward that window, and
the light from it blurred softly about her silhouette of darkness. She
had upended the trunk she was standing on, and it had placed her hands
within convenient reach of the rafter about which she had fastened one
end of a short rope. Its other end was coiled in a running noose about
her neck.
Lieutenant Valcour measured the distance between where he stood at the
top of the stairs and the trunk. He could never make it. Some board
would creak. And yet, if he cried out, or spoke, if he failed in the
proper choice of a word—in fact, the least thing that startled her
would destroy her almost calm stance of fatalistic poise.
He took a penknife from his pocket and, slitting the laces of his
shoes, removed them. Thank God her back was toward him, and the window
was there with its square of light cut clearly in muffled grays—its
light with which she seemed to be holding some private service of
communion—that inevitable farewell with earth indulged in by each
wretched soul before exchanging its conscious lonesomeness for the
obscure and problematic company of the damned. . . .
He was very near her now, himself a mist drifting softly through
mist. . . .
Whispering—whispering—he could hear her whispering—a thin flow of
meaning rather than of words, sent from the grayness to that light
beyond—sent through a little measured casement out into the
immeasurable brilliance of eternity. Her hands were resting easily by
her side; her body relaxed more and more peacefully in repose.
“. . . and if you’re there, Tom darling, and Herbert, too . . .”
He could leap forward now and catch her if it were necessary, but
better be safe, quite safe.
“. . . it won’t be heaven, dear. They have no room for such as you and
me in heaven. But when you come——”
His arms closed gently about her, and her body seemed to stiffen into
steel. She relaxed at once, and then stared down at him incuriously.
She removed the noose from about her neck as casually as she might
have taken off a hat. He lifted her to the floor.
“There isn’t any hurry,” she said.
He knew that she was hinting definitely at the future, when he and the
law were finished with her and she would be free to book her passage
for eternity again without supervision or restraint.
“No hurry, Mrs. Endicott; nor any need, now.”
The “now” dragged her sharply from the mists. She stared at him with
penetrating interest.
“Mr. Hollander,” he said, “will undoubtedly recover.”
“Yes?”
The word was clipped from some inner store of ice.
“Doesn’t that alter the surface of things, Mrs. Endicott—of your
intention?”
“Why should it, Lieutenant?”
“I am sorry that you choose to continue evasive.”
“I’m not. It is you who see things, read things in people that are
never there.”
“That isn’t true, Mrs. Endicott.”
“What is there further that you wish to know?”
There was no compromise, no yielding, and the hardness in her voice
was very definite. She looked almost extravagantly capable, too, in
the smart dark dress she had put on. She was, Lieutenant Valcour
reflected, one of those rare women who always “look their best” no
matter what the time is or the situation; who make a point of looking
so even when quite alone, and especially so, he added, when committing
suicide. But he was not deceived by her hardness. There were invisible
forces working within her, still stirred into turmoil by that
impressive emotional ladder she must have so recently climbed in order
to arrive at the decision to take her own life. If he were ever to
understand this complex woman he felt that he must do so now, while he
and she stood where they were in their private world—a tight little
sphere of shadows sifted with mists of sunlit dust—and before they
descended the attic stairs to the routined environment of daily
living. He decided to attempt to lead her by certain matter-of-fact
paths that would end in quicksands.
“Why did you have the address of Marge Myles in your directory, Mrs.
Endicott?”
She answered with the mechanical patience of an elder explaining some
academic problem to a child.
“It was necessary to take her into account. As I have already told
you, she possessed a certain standing—enough of a one to differentiate
her from the other women whom my husband picked up promiscuously—and
the time might have come when I felt it advisable to get rid of her.
Not murder—you’re too intelligent to misunderstand me—there are
several ways one woman can get rid of another woman that are just as
effective.”
“Which one did you employ, Mrs. Endicott?”
“It wasn’t especially nice, but I wasn’t dealing with a nice woman. I
employed forgery.”
This caught Lieutenant Valcour a little unprepared.
“Forgery?”
“Yes. I added a postscript to a letter Harry Myles had sent me before
he married Marge. Harry never dated his letters. This one was harmless
enough, but there was a reference in it to the camp he owned by that
lake up in Maine. The postscript that I added changed the whole
character of the letter. It made it apparent that Harry very
definitely feared Marge was planning to murder him. I gave that letter
to Herbert about a month ago, when it seemed that his interest in
Marge was becoming dangerously serious.”
“Didn’t he ask you why you hadn’t produced it before?”
“Yes. I explained that I had just come across it in an old letter file
that hadn’t been gone through for years. I asked him whether it was
too late to do anything about it—show the letter to some proper
authority, for instance. Of course I knew what he would say.”
“That it was too late?”
“Yes.”
“But didn’t he also ask you why you hadn’t said something about the
letter at the time of Harry Myles’s death?”
“I pointed out that we were in Europe at that time and didn’t hear the
news until many months later, when we got back. By then the letter had
escaped my mind.”
“And did your action influence your husband’s feeling toward Marge
Myles?”
“It was beginning to. Things like that work slowly; they keep breeding
in the mind until they become effective.”
She had missed, he decided, her century. When the Medicis were in
flower she, too, would have bloomed her best.
“Mrs. Endicott, what was your real reason for sending for the police
last night?”
“I can explain that better by accounting for my movements between the
time that Herbert knocked on the door to say good-bye and you arrived.
Will that satisfy you?”
“I hope so, Mrs. Endicott.”
“I shan’t lie to you, Lieutenant. I shall tell you the exact truth.
Roberts was in the room with me, fixing some disorder in my dress. I
left the room shortly after and started down the corridor for the
sitting room. Mrs. Siddons, my housekeeper—I don’t know whether you’ve
met her or not?”
“Yes, Mrs. Endicott.”
“She was standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the floor
above. She said she had something to tell me, and we went into the
sitting room.”
“That was just after seven o’clock?”
“Five minutes—ten—yes. Mrs. Siddons brought up the subject of a
particularly despicable affair that my husband was involved in with
one of our maids over a year ago. Shall I go into it?”
“It isn’t necessary, Mrs. Endicott.”
“The maid was married. Her husband was a sailor.” Mrs. Endicott paused
for a moment, and seemed to be sorting in her mind which facts she
cared to present and which, in spite of her recent avowal of candour,
she preferred to hold in reserve. “You have probably noticed,
Lieutenant, that Mrs. Siddons is an abnormal woman. She is the most
striking example of the religious-fanatic type that I have ever met.
Her life is literally built upon the composite foundation of faith and
duty which she believes all mankind owes to God. Her belief in direct
punishment visited by God on earthly sinners is a fixed idea. And last
night in my sitting room she told me that God was going to strike my
husband and that His instrument would be the husband of that maid whom
Herbert had injured.”
“But if that was an act which she so obviously desired to see
consummated, Mrs. Endicott, why did she warn you—anybody—about it in
advance?”
“Religious fanatics, Lieutenant, scorn the idea that human agency can
interfere with the workings of any divine plan. Things, for them, are
ordained and are supposed to happen just exactly as they are
ordained.”
“But why did she warn you?”
“She came to tell me about it, she said, in order that I might be
prepared for the shock. She has always sympathized inordinately with
me over what she terms Herbert’s ungodly actions. I asked her,
naturally, to be more explicit, and I finally forced the admission
from her that she had seen, or else believed that she had seen, the
maid’s husband that afternoon loitering about the street in front of
the house. She went upstairs, then, to her own quarters. It seemed
absurd.”
“Then it began to prey upon you?”
“Indirectly.”
“How?”
“In its possible relation to something else.”
Lieutenant Valcour became intuitive.
“You are wondering now,” he said, “whether or not you ought to tell me
all about the tea.”
“How did you establish the connection?”
“Between your having tea with Mr. Hollander yesterday afternoon and
Mrs. Siddons’s story?”
“Yes.”
“It’s rather simple, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“Yes, Mrs. Endicott, I think it is. You won’t deny, will you, that you
very definitely impressed on Mr. Hollander that your determination to
‘end it all’ either by committing suicide or killing your husband was
sincere? Mr. Hollander _was_ the confidant for your secret confusions,
sort of a proving ground for reactions. I’ve already substantiated
that theory, both through Mr. Hollander himself and his friend.”
“No, I won’t deny it.”
“And you believed that he would do something to prevent you from
accomplishing your purpose.”
“I suppose I did.”
“And in your naturally upset state of mind last evening Mrs. Siddons’s
curious prophecy concerning the maid’s husband taking his revenge made
more of a genuine impression upon you than you cared to admit. You
were subconsciously afraid that something _would_ happen—that the
sailor might really injure or kill your husband, and that Mr.
Hollander, when the police investigated, would somehow become
involved. There was even a possibility that worshipping you as he
does, when he heard of your husband’s murder he might give himself up
to the police and offer a false confession in order to shield you. It
has often been done, you know.”
“You are right, Lieutenant. I did think exactly that. The muddle of
the whole thing began to drive me crazy during dinner. I went down at
seven-thirty and ate nothing. I don’t think I stayed at the table for
more than five minutes. I went upstairs and into Herbert’s room,
looking for something. I really don’t know what—unless it was for some
sort of physical confirmation of his aliveness by the things he owned.
Then I saw that note on his desk. I hadn’t the shred of a nerve left
by then, and the note genuinely worried me. It was such a direct
confirmation of Mrs. Siddons’s story. I wasn’t exactly panicky, but I
felt as if things had got out of hand. I tried to reach Mr. Hollander
by telephone, but he wasn’t in his apartment. I began to picture
converging forces: himself—the maid’s husband—and Herbert as a focal
point. I felt that something had to be done. Well, I telephoned the
police.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the maid and her husband when I came,
Mrs. Endicott?”
“It isn’t the sort of thing one would plunge into directly.”
“You would have told me in time, then?”
“Certainly.”
“And why,” he asked quietly, “did you try to direct my suspicions
against Marge Myles when, in view of your special knowledge, that
maid’s husband was the logical suspect? That’s a little inconsistent,
isn’t it?”
She looked at him evenly.
“Do you always do precisely the proper thing at the proper moment?”
“Rarely ever, Mrs. Endicott.”
“Well, neither do I. I don’t think anybody does.”
She adopted again that patient, explanatory precision of the teacher.
“A person’s actions or statements during any moment of great strain
are dominated by that moment itself, rather than being any sane
reflection of logical and contributory causes. At such times one
clings to straws.”
“Marge Myles was a straw?”
Mrs. Endicott shrugged. “Herbert had gone, as I supposed, to see her.
I believed that whatever happened to him would occur between this
house and her apartment, or at some moment during the evening while
they were together. I’m not claiming that there was any sense to my
beliefs. I wasn’t feeling exactly sensible just then.”
“And you would have been quite willing to have Marge Myles blamed for
anything that happened rather than either the sailor or Mr.
Hollander?”
“Oh, quite.”
It was very convincing—her willingness, that is. As for her
credibility, Lieutenant Valcour retained reservations. He started
along another divergence.
“Why have you kept Roberts so long in your employ, Mrs. Endicott, when
you must have known how deeply she hates you?”
Mrs. Endicott smiled with frank amusement.
“You’ve never kept a maid, have you, Lieutenant?”
“Hardly.”
“Then you can’t appreciate fully what I mean when I say that Roberts
is a good maid. What earthly difference does it make whether she hates
or loves me? I’m hiring her services, not her emotions, and her
services are excellent. I’ve frequently wished that someone in my
successive chain of cooks would develop a similar passion. There’s
something so binding about it.”
He felt that she was escaping him again, that her armour was swiftly
undergoing repair. In the brightening light her face shone clearer.
She didn’t seem quite such an enigma, after all. Nothing ever was, he
reflected, truly enigmatic in daytime. It was just a tired face,
wearied by any number of things other than the lack of sleep.
“I wish you would trust me, Mrs. Endicott,” he said. “I’m not a bad
sort, really, and I’m not trying to trap you into admissions that
would prove injurious to yourself. There are still confusions that
have to be straightened out. I have been assured by Mr. Hollander that
you were devoted to your husband. You personally imply that your
interest in Mr. Hollander is purely that of a friend, and yet you
address him in your notes as ‘Tom, darling.’ And there isn’t any
question but that he worships you. The situation doesn’t fall under
the heading of the eternal triangle. It’s a hub, rather, from which
radiate several broken and uneven spokes.”
“Broken spokes.” The phrase appealed to her in a tragic sense
inordinately out of keeping with its flavour of triteness. But then—he
had said so to her before, ages ago—the trite things were the true
things. And that’s just what Tom and Herbert and herself were. And the
hub? Passion, she supposed, or perhaps a composite illusion of all the
various derivatives of love.
“It’s hard to resolve human feelings into the simplicity of A B C’s,”
she said. “I can’t just say I loved Herbert because I was married to
him and because he was the first person I ever loved, or that no
matter how many other people there may be later in my life I will
always return to him in my heart, just because he _was_ the first
person whom I loved, and expect you to understand.” She brushed with
elementary strokes through fog in her effort to be explicit. “I love
Tom Hollander, too, just as much as I loved Herbert. It isn’t nice,
but it’s the truth. Love isn’t a unit, a single emotion tightly
wrapped up in one word. It’s a hundred feelings and desires and any
number of little human hurts that are longing to be made well again.”
A certain bitterness crept into her manner: a bitterness of revolt.
“The whole wretched business is too stylized. It’s quite all right to
love your father and your mother equally; in fact, it’s held wrong not
to—exactly fifty per cent. of your parental love must go to each.
Brotherly love must also be reduced to proportionate fractions. The
love for one’s neighbours is presumably scattered into legion. But if
a woman announced that this otherwise divisible quality is spent upon
more than one single man——”
Her laughter wasn’t very pleasant to hear. Lieutenant Valcour felt a
little upset; there was something disturbingly reasonable in her
attitude. Was it pure sophistry? Not really. There was a strong
element of fact and truth running through it all. It was useless to
parade before her the different _clichés_ of what any universal
acceptance of her implied philosophy would do to society. He imagined
rather accurately the treatment she would hand out to them. And like
most people who had got what they wanted, he didn’t know even faintly
what to do with it. He couldn’t come out flatly and ask her if she was
planning to marry Hollander, and apart from the insight it gave him
into her character there hadn’t been any special advancement toward a
definite solution of the problem of who _did_ kill her husband, and
for what motive. Lieutenant Valcour began to feel that it was he who
had landed in the quicksands rather than herself.
“You have been very patient with me, Mrs. Endicott, and very kind. To
an extent I am beginning to understand you. We have arrived again, but
perhaps with a surer footing this time, at our stumbling block. Before
we attack it, I wonder if you cannot think of any reason why your
husband should have joined you up here in the attic when he found you
here yesterday afternoon.”
Mrs. Endicott was still too drugged with abstracts to attend very
kindly to the mechanics of detailed fact.
“Well,” she said, “it wasn’t to commit suicide. That leaves your other
nine tenths, doesn’t it?”
“You mean that he must have been just looking for something?”
“There’s hardly any other plausible explanation.”
“But does he keep things up here?”
“He may have. This is his trunk.”
She moved off toward the window, disinterested in anything further
that he might care to do. A complete lassitude drenched her, and she
sunned it negligently in the light sifting down through dusty panes.
Lieutenant Valcour righted the upended trunk and raised its lid. There
were some papers lying loosely in its upper tray. He studied them
curiously until he came across a certain one that caused him to draw
his breath in sharply. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
Then he closed the trunk. His manner, as he approached Mrs. Endicott,
was implacably stern.
“I want you to tell me,” he said, “just where about this house you
have hidden Marge Myles.”