Danger in the Dark Read online

  “I didn’t kill him,” she whispered. “Oh no, Dennis—I didn’t. I didn’t want to marry him. I’d never wanted to, but I hadn’t realized what it would be. Not till last night, when it was too late. But I didn’t kill him. Oh, believe me!”

  “Don’t shake like that, honey.” He started toward her as if to take her in his arms, checked himself abruptly, said, “Begin at the beginning, Daph. I mean when you left me there in the library tonight. After I’d won and you’d promised to leave with me. Tell me just what happened.”

  His dark eyes went swiftly to the clock on the mantel. It emphasized that unspoken, urgent need for haste—for swiftness; for something to be done before an approaching storm.

  She was twisting her hands together, looking up at him with a face so white, so set in horror, that Dennis deliberately looked away from her again, making himself listen only, remembering that a life he loved with every breath he drew and every beat of his heart lay actually in his hands that night. Give me wisdom; show me how to save her; what to do—it was like an unuttered prayer; he fumbled for a cigarette, got it out, remembered he’d better not smoke. So small a thing as the scent of tobacco, floating along the corridor of the old house at that time of night, might betray them.

  “First, I take it you told Ben you couldn’t marry him?” he said.

  Daphne moistened her lips.

  “Yes. That is, I—I tried to tell him. He wouldn’t listen.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said all brides felt like that. He—he laughed.” She tried to shut out that swift memory of Ben’s face, easy, smiling, flushed a little from the formal parade of wines at dinner, confident of his power. “I insisted, said I didn’t—didn’t love him—that I was sorry—”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “He said he’d always known I didn’t love him. That it didn’t matter, because he—he’d make me.”

  Dennis looked away from her again and thought, The man is dead. No use wanting to kill a dead man, because he’s already dead. Crazy. He subdued that hot, ugly anger and managed to say coolly enough and quietly, remembering that they mustn’t be heard through the thin old door across the room:

  “And then?”

  Her voice was unsteady. Her eyes tragic and blue as a midnight sky. And he daren’t go and take her in his arms and promise her to take care of her. To love her. To …

  “Then he—he held me so I couldn’t move. He’d had enough to drink, so he wasn’t guarded and watchful, as he usually was. And he told me that I’d have to marry him. That I couldn’t get out of it. He knew it was you, Dennis. He—he always knew things. That was why he had such—such strength, power.”

  “Did he threaten to get at me?”

  “Only—only through me, Dennis. And I don’t know how. But he—he won after all. I could feel myself giving away—it was as if you were farther and farther away from me. As if I could see your face from—some place far distant. Too far to help me. I knew I’d have to go through with the wedding. That I was mad to promise you to go away. That I was carried away—out of my head. That it couldn’t really be done. And then Ben said—he said very slowly, as if he meant it, that I must never try in any way to influence him when I was his wife. He said, ‘I can crush you all. And I will if I choose to do so.’

  She looked up at him, trying to make him understand, trying to control her voice as she told him, mindful, through it all, of a pressing need for secrecy. Not to be overheard.

  “And then I knew I was caught again. That there was no use trying to get away. That I must marry him.”

  Dennis got out a cigarette again and was turning it around and around with hands that shook. He didn’t dare look at her, and at that moment he hated the dead man as he had never known he could hate anything.

  “That was what you came to the springhouse to tell me,” he said.

  “Yes. I—I told myself I owed that to you. I wanted to—to say good-by forever to you, Dennis.”

  “Now, then—you came directly to the springhouse?”

  “Yes. I waited till the house was quiet. Then I slipped downstairs and out the front door. I turned the night latch, as I told you, so I could get into the house again.”

  “Did you see anybody on the way?”

  “No. Not a soul. I was already outside when I realized that I’d not changed my slippers. But it was too late to go back, for I didn’t want Ben to see me, and I—”

  “You felt he would be watching?”

  “I don’t know, Dennis. I don’t know. And I didn’t see him or have any sense—then—of being followed. I was desperate. I was coming to see you for the last time. Perhaps he was there, perhaps he was watching and following me—I don’t know.”

  “When you reached the springhouse what did you do?”

  She shut her eyes, trying to remember exactly.

  “I stood there for a moment and—and listened, I think. I wondered if you were already there. I couldn’t see anything. Once I thought I heard you—a sort of motion off away from the path, though. As if something had brushed against the shrubs. No, that was when I was on the path. But it was nothing. It was snowing so hard, I thought I’d go into the springhouse—” It was horribly difficult. He knew it and said very gently, “Go on, my dear.”

  Her throat ached and hurt. She said, forcing out the words, “So I went into the springhouse. I couldn’t see anything at all: I didn’t have any matches. I didn’t—didn’t like it. It seemed—all at once—as if something were there with me. And I kept smelling a—a rose. That rose.”

  “Did you speak—move about?”

  “I think I said, ‘Is anyone here?’ There wasn’t any sound, of course. It was just then that—you came, Dennis. That’s all.”

  “Then you didn’t know it was Ben?”

  “No.”

  “Is there any possibility that your talk with Ben was overheard—or that he told anyone of it?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

  “Well, then,” said Dennis slowly, “I suppose he came to be sure—came because he knew we were to meet there—and someone else—”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, Daphne. But whoever it was—left no clue at all.” If he had left a clue, it was gone, now, thought Dennis. He turned the cigarette in his fingers, thinking furiously. How to save her—how to keep the sordid, hideous thing from getting her in its slimy tentacles. She hadn’t wanted to marry the dead man; she had been another sacrifice to the Haviland company, and an unwilling sacrifice; she’d been seen in the arms of another man; she’d been heard promising to meet the other man, to go away with him. To meet him at midnight, to meet him at the springhouse in the snow.

  The wedding day only a few hours away. And at midnight, in the springhouse, the prospective husband murdered.

  And Rowley finding them there. Well, Rowley couldn’t talk now. They were together in it. So long as Gertrude didn’t get the story out of Rowley. Gertrude—that was a danger point. Gertrude hated him, Dennis. Well, he’d have to face that when it came. Just now …

  “Look, Daph. This is what you must do. Don’t question it.

  I’m—I’ll take it on my shoulders, and I’m doing, God knows, the best I can do. You’ve got to pull yourself together, my dear, and—and have a story ready. Understand? If it doesn’t seem right to you now, later it will. You are—You’ve had a hideous experience, you can’t think or—or plan for yourself. Will you do as I tell you, Daphne, my darling?”

  “I—What, Dennis? Why?”

  “Because you are in danger, Daphne. You know you are. I believe your story; I know you couldn’t have killed Ben. But—but I want to keep you out of it altogether; it’s the only safe way. You never know what detectives and inquiries and—well, juries—”

  “Juries!”

  “—will do,” finished Dennis hurriedly. “Don’t be frightened. Oh, my dear!” He took a long breath and went to bend over her, taking her hands again in his own. “F
irst, you were not out of this house tonight. Understand? No matter what they say, you were not out of your room after twelve.”

  But someone knew.

  “There was somebody on the stairway,” said Daphne with stiff lips. “Just now. When I came upstairs. And I thought it was you.”

  It gave him a really ugly shock. She could see the fright leap into his eyes. He paused as if to steady himself against it.

  “What do you mean, Daphne? For God’s sake, what—”

  She told him; briefly. “Was it the murderer, Dennis?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t—Oh, good God, why did I leave you! But in the house—it seemed so safe—the danger out in the snow and—” He stopped. It was worse, then, than he’d thought. Daphne herself …

  “So whoever it was knows I was downstairs,” said Daphne.

  “Yes. Yes, I see.” He mustn’t let her know how it frightened him. The old house with all its narrow corridors, hidden closets, sharp and sudden turns when you couldn’t be sure what was waiting for you. Yes, it was worse then he’d thought. He said, “Well—it’s—it’s all right now, Daph.”

  The clock on the mantel struck a thin, hoarse little note.

  “I must get out of here. Even your light burning so late—if anyone sees it—Now remember, Daphne. When the police come, you know nothing at all of all this. You were not out of your room during the night.”

  “But whoever was on the stairway—”

  He said grimly, “We’ll have to risk it. No matter what the police say, stick to your story. I’ve tried to fix it so they won’t suspect—if it works, they’ll be decent—won’t hound you to try to trap you.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Fixed it to look like—Oh, it’s all right, Daph. You’d better act surprised—anyway, remember that. Don’t let anyone know you were out of your room during the night. Don’t let anyone know you quarreled with Ben.”

  A sudden thought struck her, and she rose, stumbling on that draggled little yellow train, so he caught her in his arms to steady her and held her, then, tightly.

  “Dennis—will they blame you?”

  “No,” he said with quick assurance. “At least, I’ll take good care that they won’t. Trust me. I’ll look out for myself.”

  “Dennis, you—you didn’t kill him,” she said. “I mean—if you did it would be me—it would be because of me—I would love you no matter—”

  “Well, I didn’t kill him, Daphne,” he said and laughed. A queer, cold little laugh that didn’t sound like Dennis. “I didn’t kill him,” he said. “Someone else had that pleasure.”

  She clung to him suddenly and put her head against him, and he looked down at her shining soft hair. After a moment he put both hands around her face and lifted it and kissed her.

  “I know, darling,” he said gently. “I know.”

  He released her and went to the door.

  “I’m going now. Remember, dear, and keep your chin up. Lock the door.”

  He was gone, then, making no sound. She crossed the room and locked the door, listening for his footsteps. She heard nothing.

  Presently she realized that she must move; must do as Dennis had said to do. Let no one know what that night had been. What was first? Why, to take off that dress, of course. Turn out the light. Pretend to sleep.

  There was still no sound in the corridor, and she did not know till afterward that he went to the window seat at the turn of the passage and sat there the rest of the night

  The narrow branching corridor was dark—Amelia had never held with night lights—but it was so narrow that no one could approach and pass by him in the direction of Daphne’s room without his knowing it.

  He shouldn’t have left her to go through the house alone. The thought of it now appalled him. Yes, it was going to be bad.

  He wondered about them all, there in the chill, waiting darkness, thinking of them intimately as he knew them. Gertrude with her slow, blank eyes and those recurrent, violent, nervous headaches and those fits of rage. Amelia with her amazing hidden obstinacy below that fragile, gentle exterior. Amelia should have been a man. And Johnny with his affability, his handsomeness, his bland evasion of the sisters so at last they accepted him as neutral—as property belonging to neither of them. Rowley. … He frowned. He wished that Rowley had not come upon them there in the springhouse. He must watch Rowley; even as a child you could never count on him. Especially when Gertrude got hold of him.

  Who had killed Ben Brewer?

  And how would that death affect the Haviland Bridge Company? How would it affect that family to whom the company was more than meat and bread, for their very being was woven into it?

  He sat there till the first, cold gray light of dawn. He didn’t dare smoke, and every small sound the house made during those hours brought him to sharp attention, every nerve alert.

  They had, he decided, done everything possible to turn in another direction that floodlight of inquiry which so soon would be upon them. He hoped they had made no mistakes. He went over and over again every step in that grisly process. He was desperately tired. And mainly he wanted to wash his hands, scrub them with clean, hot soapsuds. It wasn’t till the walnut bookshelf in the corner of the hall beside him began to show its outlines clearly, and the fiat little cushion on the window seat took on a bluish green color, that he remembered with horrible abruptness one mistake.

  He sat upright—his skin prickling a little with the shock of it. How could they have done that? In all their plan and talk and sweating efforts, when they thought they had covered every possible loophole for suspicion, how could they have forgotten such an important thing! He got up—no one seemed to be stirring; there was no sound in the sleeping house, and with the coming of light it had stopped its creaking. He went through the narrow, silent passages toward the stairway, a tall, grim shadow in disheveled evening clothes. He forgot the third step from the bottom and how it creaked, and cursed himself as he trod on it. That was the sound Daphne had heard. Thank God, she’d run away.

  He went on across the wide hall, gray now with sparse cold light, and reached the drawing room. He paused there to listen and to open the door with extreme caution. The drawing room was gray, too—the piano a blunt dark bulk in one corner, the odor from the flowers bitter and strong. He could barely see the outline of the little gilt chair nearest him and, at the far end of the long room, the door that entered the small, oak-paneled library. There was a door from that room, too, into the passage leading, at last, past a closed and useless music room, to the central hall again. The strategic importance of that door and that passage had been a part of their plan. He did not intend to look toward the door leading into the library, but he did so for a very short moment. It was still, however, too dark to see objects clearly at that distance. That was lucky, he thought, and went to the french windows, thrusting his way through the massed ferns and flowers. One jar he sought with his hand, as if to steady it as he passed, and remembered with something like a physical wrench that instant during the night when something had thrust unexpectedly against the jar and it had rocked on its pedestal and threatened to crash to the floor. He had caught it—Rowley had cursed under his breath; his face had been damp and his hands shaking when the heavy vase was upright and steady again.

  It was better not to think of that hour or two. The windows—his hands felt along the bolts. The window was closed as, inconceivably, they had left it. How could they have done it! That which was the keystone, the kernel of that plan. They’d closed the window and had turned the Venetian shade so that the small light they were obliged to use—carefully shaded, an instant or two at a time—would not show, in case anyone were in the snow outside, watching them. There was no one there; there could be no one there, and both of them knew it. But nevertheless there was that feeling that they were under observation. Odd. He thought now with sharp recollection of the taxi fellow—but he wouldn’t … Probably he hadn’t even come. There was an automatic bolt on the lo
ng french window; when it closed it bolted itself. Part of Amelia’s amazing and thorough system of locking herself in.

  He turned and pulled up the Venetian blinds, hating the little sucking whisper they made in that horribly silent room. He found the bolt, released it and opened the window. Hating, too, the sound it made as he pushed it slowly open.

  There. That was better. But it had been a near thing, and his hands shook with the sense of catastrophe, narrowly averted.

  Was there anything else?

  Every instinct urged him to leave that room quickly, without a backward look. He forced himself to remain and to go over every step in that process, every small joint in the edifice they had built up. There was no other mistake—nothing, at least, that he could find. He even went near the window and looked down into the snow. Lucky it had snowed so hard. There were, of course, traces of footsteps—not the outlines of the steps themselves but small, broken depressions, covered now with snow; the outline was there, but nothing that would show, say, a heelprint or the size and outline of a shoe. He wondered about the path leading through the shrubs and thickets of firs up to the springhouse. That was a danger—one of the weak points. Something they could not help. But it would be fatal to go and look. He could only hope the snow had done its work and that the police cars and the doctor’s car coming hurriedly along the drive would destroy any evidence the snow had not covered. When had it stopped snowing—But it had not stopped, although the fall was lighter. That was good. Well, there was nothing more he could do here. And the household would be abroad early that morning—servants letting themselves into the house, starting preparations for a wedding that was not to occur. For the life of him, as he reached the door again, he could not help glancing toward the library. But chairs and piano intervened, and he could see nothing.

  Again with extreme caution he let himself out the door. No one was in the hall, and it was perceptibly lighter. There were as yet no sounds from the south L where the kitchen and dining room were. He thought again of Daphne and the stairway in the darkness. He must remember this time about the third step.