Hangman's Whip Page 5

  And coming along the hall again, intending to inquire about the package of toffee before she saw Ludmilla (a word to the maid Carter would be enough), she met Calvin Peale. Diana’s husband.

  He was at the top of the stairs, a bag in each hand and his white straw hat on the back of his head. He was a small man, wiry and energetic, with a sharp-featured pink face and wrinkles around shrewd gray eyes. Basically astute, he had a hearty, overcordial manner of which, Search had felt, Diana disapproved (for she was very ambitious for him and wanted no flaw) yet which did not seem to be altogether assumed. He dropped the bags when he saw Search and shoved his hat still further back on his almost bald head.

  “Hello, Search. It’s swell to see you. How are you?” He shook hands and kissed her cheek briefly. “God, it’s hot. Chicago was terrible last night; people sleeping on the roofs and in the parks.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly cool here.”

  “Going to storm. I looked at the barometer. Well, glad to see you, Search. Make yourself at home; it is home to you, you know. Or would be if you’d stay. I’m going swimming soon as I can get in the lake. Better come along. See you later.”

  He took up the bags again and went, whistling softly as was his habit, along the hall toward the big masters suite. Search turned to Ludmilla’s door and hesitated. Whether the thing Ludmilla had told her was accident or delusion, she had to do something about it. In the sane light of day attempted murder was out of the question.

  As she stood there Diana came up the stairs.

  “Oh, Search. Did Calvin come up this way? He’s brought home a wretched kitten he picked up in town, and I simply won’t keep it; it’s half starved and full of fleas and I—oh, I forgot, Carter’s looking for you. Somebody wants you on the telephone.”

  The nearest extension was in the hall on the first floor. Search went downstairs as Diana, looking angry and exasperated, hurried along the upper hall. And it was Richard on the telephone.

  “Search …”

  “Yes. Richard—where are you?”

  “Search, listen.” His voice sounded far away, incalculably remote. “I’m in Chicago; I’ll be back tonight but I—listen, Search, will you meet me—say about ten tonight? At the—oh, at the cottage, I guess. I’ve got to talk to you. Alone. Will you?”

  At ten that night, at the cottage. “Yes. Yes, I’ll come.”

  The telephone clicked. She put down the receiver slowly. And was presently aware of voices on the veranda outside and that Ludmilla was there, talking in her soft voice to Eve. And just then Diana came downstairs again with Calvin in swimming trunks and a towel and looking rather sheepish.

  A battle, it appeared, was raging about the kitten. Search followed them out to the veranda. She went to Ludmilla and sat on the broad arm of her lounge chair, and Ludmilla gave her a lingering, half-apologetic, wholly loving look. The apology meant that she intended to avoid another talk until, as she had said, Search had had time to adjust herself. To consider and accept the hypothesis that someone was trying to murder Ludmilla Abbott with arsenic.

  Search thought of that and listened to the others talk. Calvin went down the steps, hurrying for his dip in the lake. Eve lounged, one round leg crossed over the other, in the long couch that hung like a swing at the end of the veranda. On the step stood a half-grown kitten, very thin and dejected.

  “Men are so stupid. I hate animals and I won’t have them about,” said Diana crossly.

  “Well, in any case,” said Search, looking at the kitten, “it’d better be fed. Do you mind?”

  “Oh, all right,” said Diana. “But I won’t keep it, just the same.”

  “It’s a waste of time and food,” said Eve negligently. “How horribly thin it is! Diana’s going to have it drowned or poisoned or something. There’s no sense in feeding it.”

  “Tell Cook to give you some scraps,” said Diana, and Search took up the surprisingly light kitten and went to the kitchen and gave it some milk and some steak scraps the cook gave her. It ate and lapped hungrily and, in a corner of the back porch, gave itself a thorough washing, as if to claim respectability, and then slept exhaustedly.

  Search left it there and went back to the veranda. It was, as a matter of fact, quite late in the afternoon when the cook, going to the back porch, found that the kitten was dead and had died apparently in some pain, for it had clawed its way between the railings and died actually on the grass below the porch.

  Cook stood looking at it. If put in words, her thoughts would have gone something like this: “Poor little thing. Ate too much; the steak came from Miss Ludmilla’s tray; she didn’t touch it; she eats almost nothing lately. Poor little thing. Well, perhaps it’s just as well; Madam doesn’t like animals. But I’ll not tell the young lady that fed it. There’s Jonas down in the garden; I’ll tell him to take it away and bury it.”

  Chapter 6

  THE DAY WAS LONG, oppressively hot, and nothing happened—except the death of a stray half-starved kitten, and no one but the cook and Jonas knew about that.

  There must have been decisions arrived at, preparations made, but there was no hint of either. It was not, however, a pleasant day; there was an unreal and nightmarish quality about the stillness and the heat.

  It seemed to Search that all that long day her mind ran along two grooves and that the two grooves were parallel, so when she was thinking of one she was still perfectly and strongly conscious of the other. Richard and Eve. Ludmilla.

  The trouble was that there was nothing she could do but wait. Wait until she could persuade Ludmilla. Wait until she saw Richard that night. At ten. At the old unused gardener’s cottage not quite a quarter of a mile through the woods that stretched along the shore toward the south. The Stacy house lay at the north within its own spacious grounds; swimming late in the afternoon, she looked up toward bulky red brick and ivy-hung outlines, half hidden by trees and shrubs, and thought of Howland Stacy.

  She would tell Howland the truth; he would understand it.

  Ludmilla, sweetly, stubbornly, quietly evaded her all that day. She remained on the veranda with the others; she lunched with them at the long table in the dining room, eating blandly and, so far as Search could see, without hesitation or qualm. Certainly it wasn’t very likely that arsenic had been introduced in a wholesale way into the food all of them were eating; but then, thought Search, undergoing one of her periodic rejections of the whole story, it wasn’t likely that Ludmilla had been intentionally poisoned either.

  For the conditions of the attempts to poison Ludmilla (if attempts they were) were irreconcilable with the act. There were only Diana and Calvin, Richard and Eve and now herself in the house. There had been, she discovered from the conversation, no guests so far that summer. Eve had been there for a few weeks and had gone again. But there was no one who could conceivably have given Ludmilla Abbott arsenic, and there was certainly no one who could profit by it.

  Delusions of persecution. Didn’t mental quirks, like that, take strange and unexpected forms?

  About five, with the air as heavy as a blanket and the water taking on a languid oily look, they went (Eve, Diana, Calvin and Search) for a swim. Ludmilla remained on the veranda, rocking and watching placidly and giving evidence of a talent for acting Search hadn’t known she possessed.

  The line of willows was as lifeless as stage scenery. When she slid into the lake from the pier the water felt warm and sluggish around her, and the sky seen from the water was pale gray and looked thick.

  There was not much talking among them, for even Calvin seemed oppressed by the heat. After a few moments’ swimming about the pier he and Eve, both strong swimmers, headed for the raft which was anchored perhaps two hundred feet from the shore, and Diana, looking very thin in her white bathing suit, drew herself up again on the pier, where she pulled off her white cap and sat at ease, dangling her long legs in the water.

  “It’s going to storm,” she said to Search as Search swam about in the water below Diana. “Was tha
t Richard on the telephone this morning?”

  Search said yes and turned over on her back, floating and looking up at the fleecy thick sky which seemed to press down upon them.

  “What did he say?”

  “Nothing much,” said Search slowly. “Just that he was in town.”

  “Funny he didn’t talk to me,” said Diana, watching her. And added: “I wonder if he went to see a lawyer. About Eve, I mean.”

  She waited again, and as Search didn’t speak her gaze shifted to the two out on the raft and she said suddenly and rather jerkily: “I hate that woman! She’s like a vampire; he ought to murder her if he can’t get rid of her any other way.”

  There was a vehemence in Diana’s voice that actually startled Search for an instant. She said: “Diana! You don’t mean that!”

  Diana laughed, a silvery light little peal. “Of course I don’t mean it. But she’s made his life miserable—especially about money.” She stopped, swung her legs and said thoughtfully: “Did you find out what’s wrong with Ludmilla?”

  Search turned over and swam a few strokes.

  “Not exactly. She’s—worried about something.”

  “She won’t talk to me either,” said Diana and switched abruptly. “Did Eve tell you at breakfast exactly—well, exactly why she’s come back?”

  “She said she—had changed her mind about the divorce,” said Search slowly.

  “Yes, I know, but …” Diana paused, her light eyes thoughtful, and then went on. “She came here early in June, you know; followed Richard here from New York; stayed until she got Richard to agree to some kind of money arrangement. Then she went away, presumably, to get the divorce. He oughtn’t to have married her. He was infatuated, I suppose; he was always an idealist, and she did have the face of a saint. Remember how she looked in her wedding veil?”

  “Yes.”

  “She never loved him; from the moment she found she’d have to live on his salary the marriage was a failure. And now she’s decided to stick to him. There’s something back of it. She’s got a motive—and if I know Eve, it’s not a pretty one. Where are you going?”

  “Out to the raft,” said Search, “if I can make it.”

  It seemed a longish swim; she wasn’t, she decided, in condition. Halfway out she turned and swam slowly back toward the pier. Eve and Calvin were still on the raft, Eve’s blue silk suit a vivid spot of color, when she and Diana went up to the house. The sky by that time was darker but still thick and fleecy looking.

  By dinnertime the sense of tenseness, waiting for the storm to break, was like a weight. It was very hot even at dusk, and the birds were quiet, as if waiting too. Dressing for dinner in cool thin white, Search found the package of toffee put neatly away in a bureau drawer, and its discovery relieved her in an obscure but very definite way, so she didn’t stop to examine the cellophane wrapper.

  Ludmilla, still evasive, came to dinner.

  It was a long meal and, in spite of Calvin’s energetic hospitality, a rather unpleasant one. All the windows were open, and now and then a hot gust of air would push out the curtains and make the candle flames waver. Diana, perfectly groomed and dignified at the head of the table, was coolly polite to Eve. Ludmilla chatted with Calvin, her china-blue eyes meeting Search’s occasionally (rather pleadingly) across the table. Eve was demure; all gentle, smiling affability. Search was uneasy; conscious of the sticky warmth of the thinnest and coolest dinner gown she possessed; conscious of Ludmilla’s occasional glance; conscious of Diana’s dignity with Eve. Conscious of Eve too; Richard’s wife, secure and certain in her position as his wife. Beautiful with her soft blue eyes and golden hair; laughing gently, although there was a faint excitement in the note of her laughter, as if the coming storm plucked at her nerves too.

  At ten, only a little while now, Search would meet Richard. Then she would know.

  Search had never hated anybody in her life; she thought suddenly, watching Eve, that she could hate her. Her heart beat heavily; a hot breath of air stirred the candle flames again, and she watched the little flutter and dip and told herself that the tension and breathlessness in the still night were attributable to the coming storm.

  Dinner was over at eight-thirty.

  Eve went straight upstairs after dinner, without waiting for coffee.

  “I’ve some letters to write,” she said, pausing in the hall at the foot of the stairway, her golden hair gleaming in the light from above. Her eyes met Search’s and she smiled and turned to Ludmilla. “Did you hear the good news?” she said sweetly. “Richard and I aren’t going to be divorced after all. Aren’t you pleased?”

  Ludmilla’s face showed no expression.

  “I’m afraid that’s your business and Richard’s,” she said.

  For a moment Eve’s smile wavered. Diana watched coldly; Calvin cleared his throat. Then Eve leaned forward, all appeal. “Try to like me, dear Aunt Ludmilla,” she said—very gently, very wistfully. And went upstairs, arms white against the old wood paneling, blue chiffon trailing softly behind her.

  “Shall we have coffee on the veranda?” said Diana in a strangled voice.

  At a quarter to ten Search left the house.

  She left it quietly by the side door.

  No one saw her go; she thought that Diana and Ludmilla were still sitting on the veranda watching the distant play of heat lightning on the opposite shore of the lake, and Calvin was waiting in the library for a long-distance call he’d put in during dinner.

  She let herself quietly out the door; the night was dark and warm and the clouds so heavy and low that there was no faint gleam of moonlight from behind them.

  She groped her way along the narrow flagged walk.

  There were two ways to reach the cottage: a path through the woods, wandering but a short cut, or the well-marked path along the shore. Because it was easier of access from the flagged walk, she chose the path through the woods.

  She regretted it almost instantly; it was very dark under the trees, the path twisted constantly, leaves touched her face and seemed to move away; once a bird, disturbed, fluttered alarmingly in some near-by thicket.

  She knew the path well even at night, but she lost her way twice and had to fumble through undergrowth and only by a sense of direction found the path again. It must have been actually something after ten when she reached the small clearing about the cottage and saw the light in the window.

  Richard was there, then; he’d reached the cottage ahead of her.

  She came out of the path. A small flash of lightning, still far away, illumined the cottage with its high peaked roof and the grass of the clearing briefly and faintly as she hurried across it.

  The lightning vanished; there was only a distant murmur of thunder, and her foot on the tiny porch of the cottage sounded loud and abrupt. She half expected Richard to hear it and open the door for her, but he didn’t. She called softly, “Richard,” and opened the door.

  It opened directly upon the living room. It was small and sparsely furnished, and no one was there. There was a sweet, rather sickish odor somewhere; something she seemed to know but could not quite identify. And someone had been there for, besides the light, there were two glasses on the table beside it and something else that looked like a toy—a thin green silk cord with a green celluloid ball and tassel on one end of it.

  She only glanced at the table and around the room.

  Thunder came again, this time much nearer, rolling long and loud. There were two doors opening from the living room: one leading to the tiny kitchen at the back, one to a bedroom. Both were open; she went to the nearer, the bedroom door, and said, “Richard …” and stopped.

  The room was dark, but someone was there; a figure, barely discernible in the light from behind her, stood still across the room. Seemed, in fact, to be standing on something—a chair, a bench? Yet there was something oddly sluggish and motionless about the figure. Something wrong about its stillness and silence.

  Her breath caught in her thr
oat so she couldn’t speak.

  She must reach for the light. But before she could move there was another flash of lightning, tremendously bright and sharp and clear. Simultaneously, with a crackling sound, the light in the room behind her went out.

  She wasn’t aware of it. For in the lightning flash she had a clear glimpse of the figure across the room. It was not standing on a chair or a bench; it was supported, horribly limp, by a rope that went up toward the bare rafter and out of sight. And it was Eve Bohan, blue chiffon dress showing between folds of a dark raincoat, golden hair gleaming. She was dead. Nothing alive could look like that. And then the bright greenish light was gone, and thunder fell upon the cottage, shaking it.

  It surged and rolled and died away, yet still there was a kind of rushing sound in Search’s ears.

  Through it, however, she heard the sound of footsteps in the kitchen.

  Chapter 7

  SHE SHRANK BACK AGAINST the door casing and whirled around so she was staring into the darkness of the little living room. Someone was coming from the kitchen into the living room; there was a crash, as if whoever it was had blundered into a chair in the dark, and she cried: “Richard!”

  It was Richard. There was a sudden cessation of footsteps and then his voice, sounding unnatural through the darkness: “Search, is it you? Where are you?”

  “Here—in the doorway.”

  “Stay there. Don’t move. The lights have gone—”

  There was another but not so brilliant flash of lightning. She caught only a glimpse of him—tall, his white shirt open at the throat, his face a pale blotch. He caught her arms. “When did you get here?”

  “Just now. Eve—in there—”

  Thunder rolled again over the cottage. He cried above it: “You’ve seen her? I didn’t mean you to! I—Search, you’ve got to go back. Quick.”

  “What happened? Why did she—”

  Abruptly the noise of the thunder rolled away and died, and Richard said, his voice hoarse and urgent: “You’ve got to do what I tell you to do. Now. Hurry. Go back by the lake path—it’s safer. Don’t tell anyone you’ve been here.”