Wall Read online

  He ran his hand over his bristling hair.

  “Now and then,” he said, “I read these magazines that deal with crime. Real crime. Well, where do they start off? They’ve got something. They get a microscope and put a hair under it; or they take the dust out of somebody’s pockets and find where he’s been and what he’s been doing. But in one of these cases we’ve got a body and no clues; and, by the great horn spoon, in the other we haven’t even got a body!”

  Some time during the interview I gave him the button I had found in the garden at the foot of the trellis. He stood turning it over in his hand, and his face relaxed into a grin.

  “Now if I was a real policeman,” he said, “I suppose I’d start with this and go places. But hell, it’s just a button to me!”

  We buried Juliette from the old ivy-covered Episcopal church the next day. None of her friends appeared, from New York or elsewhere, and Tony hastily recruited a group of men to act as pallbearers, and was himself one of them. Neither Lucy nor Mary Lou appeared, but Arthur and I went together. It was Arthur who had ordered the pall of small green orchids which covered the casket, and except for my own cross of lilies there were no other flowers.

  The church was crowded and I myself felt sad and remorseful. Whatever Juliette’s faults she had not deserved this, I thought; to lie there shut away forever from the life she had loved, never again to put on her pretty clothes or to lie between her soft silk sheets. Frivolous and selfish she had been, but what could she have done to earn her death?

  “For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner …O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength: before I go hence, and be no more seen.”

  The words echoed and re-echoed in my mind as the service went on. I wondered if Arthur heard them and was remembering that time when he had brought her to us, and stood uneasy but stubborn before Father’s hardening face, and Mother’s helpless one.

  “This is my wife,” he had said. “I hope you will all be good to her.”

  How pretty she had been that day, and how alluring. Going to Mother and kissing her, and reaching her heart by what she said.

  “Try to forgive me,” she pleaded. “I love him so terribly.”

  Acting? Perhaps; but perhaps not. Maybe we had changed her, showed her a side of life she had never known, expensive and expansive living. But Mother had tried hard to make friends with her. When Father wanted to trace her people through a detective agency she vetoed it at once.

  “Why?” she said. “It is her future that matters, not her past. Anyhow, that seems respectable enough, and she is Arthur’s wife. Don’t forget that. She is Arthur’s wife.”

  But she never became one of us, in the family sense of the word. Mother furnished a suite for them both in the Park Avenue house, but it bored her. And I was too young to be a companion to her. In the end she simply moved Arthur away, and when I finally made my debut she was tight at my coming-out ball.

  I could still remember the shock that was; Father standing stiff before William, and telling him to get that girl out of the house.

  “And never let her come back,” he added.

  She came back, of course. Even Father had to permit that. But gradually she had drifted away, to take exquisite care of her body, to learn to dress, to gather around her the floaters who drift about New York, and eventually to ruin Arthur, financially and otherwise.

  I had tried to be friendly, but she had never liked me.

  “If you want your precious brother back, why don’t you take him?” she asked me once.

  And so I had let her go. I was young and active. I had my own crowd, my own amusements. Now and then, riding in the park, I saw her on a livery hack; and once she cut me dead. I remember going home and crying it out on Maggie’s shoulder.

  “Now, now, my lamb, don’t you worry. She’s just common. She always has been common.”

  But I had never hated her. She had been lovely to look at, gay and reckless. And now there she was, lying in state in the church under her pall of small green orchids. All over. Everything over. And the service going on.

  “O most merciful Father, who has been pleased to take unto thyself the soul of this thy servant—”

  What was Arthur thinking, there beside me in his morning coat and striped trousers, wearing the black tie which Mary Lou had so bitterly resented that morning? For almost six years Juliette had been his wife, and for at least two of them he had been passionately in love with her. Now she was dead, and there were many who believed that he had killed her.

  We stood by in the cemetery until the service was over and they began to lower the casket into the grave. Then Arthur turned away abruptly and I followed him. The crowd opened to let us through; but from somewhere on the outskirts there was a sharp hiss. He appeared not to hear it.

  There was a shock waiting for us on our return. Mary Lou had moved into Mother’s room and was shut away there! I remember my indignation when I heard it, and Arthur’s face. I still resent that childishness of hers; but I know now that it was largely terror. Little by little her small familiar world was slipping away from her, and she could not hold it. Arthur, on the witness stand, telling of deceiving her to meet Juliette. Arthur suspected of killing Juliette. And now Arthur going to her funeral; sitting in the church for everyone to see, standing by while the casket was lowered. It was as though the years with her had been wiped away, and Juliette had been still his wife.

  I went up at once, to find her on the small balcony outside Mother’s room, with its flower boxes around the railing. She had a sodden handkerchief in her hand, and her eyes were red and swollen.

  “What is all this nonsense?” I said sharply. “Can’t you forget yourself and think of Arthur? He needs you, and you act like a child!”

  “He doesn’t need me,” she said. “I’m going back to Millbank.”

  I felt old enough to be her mother just then. What I wanted was to give her a good shaking. But she was pitiful too, and I rang the bell and ordered some tea for her. When I came back she was wiping her eyes.

  “Now listen to me,” I said, more gently. “You can’t escape life by running away from it. I could damn’ well do some running myself, if it comes to that. But Arthur needs you. He’s built the only life he has around you. If you desert him, what are other people going to do?”

  And then she took my breath away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I suppose I’m scared, Marcia. You see, I was there myself that morning.”

  “There? What on earth do you mean?” I was shocked because it was not until much later that the sheriff told me all about it.

  “I wanted to talk to her,” she said hysterically. “We couldn’t go on as we were. I thought if I told her how things were she might do something. She’d ruined us. She’d ruined you. Why shouldn’t I see her?”

  I reached out and caught her by the shoulder.

  “Did you see her?” I demanded. “Is that what’s wrong with you? Did you find Lucy’s golf club and then quarrel with her? Did you—”

  “You’re crazy,” she gasped. “I never killed her. I didn’t even see her.”

  “And you suspect Arthur!” I said. “Arthur, who wasn’t even near her. What if I tell that to the police?”

  She was shaken, but her story was clear enough. She had telephoned to Sunset early that morning and learned that Juliette was going to ride. The temptation had been too much for her. She had taken her car and driven over, and at a spot where the road is not far from the bridle path she had stopped it. But she never left it, she said.

  “I couldn’t,” she said. “There was a man on the hillside, and he was getting ready to paint something. I didn’t want to be seen, so I just sat still for a while, and then went back home.”

  “I think you’re entirely unbalanced,” I told her, and went down to explain to Arthur. On the whole, dangerous as it might be, that statement of hers relieved the tension between them.

  “You’re an idiot,” he told her. “It was a f
ool thing to do. Now give me a kiss and go and fix your face. It needs it!”

  But to me privately he showed some apprehension.

  “Sooner or later they’ll learn about that,” he said, “and they’ll suspect her of driving over to pick me up that morning. If they do there’ll be hell to pay. What got into her anyhow?”

  The next few days were quiet. Mary Lou was herself again, repentant and loving. I worried over the bills as usual. Why is there no sympathy for the people with houses and servants who can’t get rid of either of them? And meals in the servants’ dining room resolved themselves into small courts of inquiry, with no regrets for the missing Jordan.

  For Jordan was still missing. The search followed the general lines of the previous one, but with less excitement. Perhaps we were getting used to murder and sudden death. But no clues had been found, and no body. Bloodhounds, given one of her gloves, made nothing of it in the village. Taken on a route encircling the settlement they followed the bay path for a mile or so without enthusiasm, and then gave it up.

  The adjourned inquest was postponed once more. I tried to pick up my life as best I could, played some golf and some bridge, even went to a small dinner or two. Eventually Mary Lou went back to Millbank and Junior, leaving Arthur with me. And the excitement was dying away. It was as though, with Juliette dead and buried, everybody wanted to forget her. As for Jordan, I think only the police and ourselves believed that anything had happened to her. Nobody knew her. She might have had her own reasons for taking a stealthy departure, but the colony was not particularly interested.

  Mrs. Pendexter chose that time for one of her huge parties, and on her insistence I went. With Tony, as a matter of fact, and wearing a new white chiffon dress and Tony’s orchids.

  “Of course you’re coming,” she said to me over the telephone. “What was Juliette to you but a nuisance? Don’t tell me you’re hypocrite enough to go into mourning for her.”

  “I was thinking of Arthur.”

  “Stuff and nonsense,” she retorted. “Nobody thinks he did it, or would blame him if he did. As to that Jordan woman, I knew when I saw her that she would come to some bad end.”

  The party was for Marjorie and Howard Brooks, and as Howard had brought up his yacht, it was moored to the Pendexter dock and brilliantly lighted. Part of the time we danced there, on the deck, and Howard showed me over the boat. It was a beautiful thing, and he said he was planning to go on to Newfoundland in it, taking Marjorie and a party.

  “She’d like it if you could come,” he said. “It wouldn’t hurt you to get away, either.” He smiled. “Juliette alive was a strong man’s burden, but Juliette murdered is a lot worse. Better think about it.”

  “I didn’t know you knew her,” I said.

  “Not well. I saw her now and then. I have a place on Long Island, you know, and I’d see her about. Not my sort, of course.”

  He let it go at that, and I could not pursue the subject. We went over the yacht, its bedrooms, each with a bath, its imposing quarters for the owner, the bar, the living rooms. But I was wondering. Just how well had he known Juliette? Just how long had he been on the island when she disappeared? A day or two, at the most. And he was not the type that would kill, I thought. He was too self-controlled. He was strong enough, broad-shouldered and muscular. On the other hand, he had a sort of shy modesty that made the whole idea seem idiotic.

  “Silly thing to have a yacht this size,” he said. “But Marjorie likes it. I hope you’ll come along.”

  “I may be able to, if Arthur gets out of this mess,” I told him.

  “Of course he’ll get out of it,” he said heartily.

  But I never made that cruise; and the time was to come when, needing Marjorie badly, I was to look out over the bay and see that the Sea Witch had gone, taking her with it.

  CHAPTER XV

  THE INVESTIGATION WAS STILL going on. One day I saw Arthur with Russell Shand in the grounds, examining the door of the toolshed and then apparently retracing his direction the night he had climbed out of the hospital room after the unknown intruder. So far as I could see the man, whoever he was, had first made for the Hutchinsons’ grounds. Once there, he had apparently doubled on his tracks, for Arthur and the sheriff reappeared beyond the garage and followed the driveway toward the gate.

  It looked as though the sheriff was coming to the conclusion that there was something in Arthur’s story, and I felt happier than I had for a long time. It was also hopeful that a group of fingerprint men and photographers came over from the county seat that afternoon and went up to the hospital rooms. They were there for a long time, but a careful search revealed nothing of interest or value, and I could see that the sheriff was puzzled.

  “What,” he said, “would Juliette Ransom have been looking for in that attic of yours?”

  “I haven’t any idea.”

  “Well, she was there,” he said. “Her prints are all over the place. They match up with the ones in that bedroom of hers. If we knew what she was after we’d know a lot. How long since she’s been here? To live, I mean.”

  “More than six years. Seven, I think.”

  “Queer,” he said thoughtfully. “If I hadn’t been over those rooms with a fine-tooth comb, I’d say one of two things. Either she came back to hide something there, and that’s unlikely. Or she came to get something, and somebody got her first. At least that’s what it looks like, or why did she stay on, when she knew she couldn’t get that money from Arthur?”

  The idea that there was something hidden in the room interested him, and later that day he took a detective up again. They sounded the walls in both rooms and even lifted a loose floor board or two, but they found nothing.

  Before he left that afternoon he told me something that only added to my bewilderment. He said that Jordan had visited him at the police station the day of her disappearance. She had driven up in a taxi and, sitting across the desk from him, had said she wanted to leave Sunset.

  “I’m afraid,” she said. “I guess I know too much. So I thought—”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Of being killed.”

  “Who would want to kill you?” he asked.

  She had shut her mouth firmly.

  “I’m not accusing anybody. I just want to be safe, and I’m not safe in that house.”

  That is all she would say. She not only wanted to leave the house. She wanted to leave the island. But she was needed for the inquest, and he could not let her go. Further than that she would not explain. He had done everything but threaten her with arrest, but she remained stubbornly mysterious.

  “I’m not talking,” she said. “Not yet anyhow.”

  That was all he got out of her. He had given in at last and got the room for her at Eliza Edwards’s, and she went there that same afternoon. Where she went from there he did not know, except that it was probably to her death.

  As I have said, I made an attempt at normal living during that interval. The Shore Qub had opened the first of July, and now and then I stopped there on my way home. One day I saw Mansfield Dean there, an enormous figure in a pair of bathing trunks and nothing else. He was entirely unself-conscious, and he walked across the lawn and asked me if I would go to see his wife again.

  “She’s been sick,” he said, “and she liked you. I know you have plenty on your hands, but she’s pretty lonely. She’s used to having young people about.”

  He looked pathetic, I thought. Evidently he was worried about her; and so I went that same afternoon. I found Mrs. Dean on the terrace, and I was shocked at the change in her. Thin before, she was emaciated now. She gave me a friendly smile, but her hand was bloodless and cold. She did not directly mention our trouble, nor did I; but once I turned from the panorama of bay and sea before us to find her eyes fixed on me with a curious intensity.

  She colored above her pearls and looked away quickly.

  People had been very kind, she said. Quite a number had called, but of course she had not been ab
le to see them. Later on she would get about more.

  “It would please Mansfield,” she said. “He is gregarious. He likes people. And of course, for the last year or so—”

  She was silent for a moment.

  “I think my life ended then,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  I felt awkward and constrained. There was nothing to say, although I tried. She did not really hear me; she seemed far away in some distant tragic past; and I left her like that, polite but detached.

  Those days before Jordan’s body was found were the longest I have ever lived through. Arthur, asked to remain within call, spent much of his time at Millbank. He looked older and very tired. I saw little of Tony Rutherford after the Pendexter dance, and Allen Pell had apparently left the hills and was painting from a small boat. Once I saw him tied to a channel marker a hundred yards from the house, and he waved to me, but did not come in. But most of the time he spent on one or another of the islands. I saw him there several times through the field glasses, clad in old white duck trousers, and once he was moving along a beach. He was walking with his head down, as though he was looking for something, and I wondered what that something was.

  Then one day the first clue to Jordan’s fate was discovered.

  The butler to one of the families along the bay path, a man named Sutton, had been taking a swim and landed to rest, on the rocks at Long Point. The path there was some twenty feet above him, and he climbed to it and sat down.

  He had been there five minutes or so before he saw something. Below him, and above high-water mark, was a woman’s bag, firmly wedged between the rocks.