Let Dead Enough Alone Page 10

  I should be afraid, too, Lynn thought. But she was not. It was, she supposed, part of feeling herself a stranger to the others; feeling herself not really a part of what had happened, what still was happening. Audrey must be, somehow, a part of it, since she was so clearly frightened. She had been, at least to some extent, a protégée of John Halley’s. Perhaps, Lynn thought, more than that—the word was sometimes used as an euphemism. Perhaps what appeared to be fear on the girl’s face was really grief.

  Margaret Halley sat and looked into the fire, and the expression on her finely modelled, intelligent face was one of intentness. Perhaps, Lynn thought, she was merely remembering. Lynn could not guess. But she had never, really, tried to guess anything about Dr. Halley. The circumstances of their relationship had made that inappropriate. It was for Margaret Halley to understand her, for her to assist that understanding as she could.

  “No,” she said, when Kemper left Audrey and came to her, and looked at her glass, which remained almost full. “I don’t think so, thank you.”

  “Keep off the chill,” Kemper said, lightly.

  She merely shook her head. She did not want to drink. And nothing she could drink would keep off the chill—not this chill. She discovered that she was shivering. Unquestionably, the house was cooling off, in spite of fires, of oil stoves, of the gas range burning in the distant kitchen.

  He was keeping Brian a long time in the other room. She wondered why. Surely, Brian Perry could tell him nothing about—about the thing the heavy, dogged man (she still thought of him so, although Brian had said that was not enough to know about him) wanted facts about. It was not possible that Brian could know anything. He might guess much; have theories about a good many things. She thought he had. He had worked out the trick with the electricity—at least a trick with electricity; whether or not one actually turned—quickly and logically. He had that kind of a mind, she thought. He could not, of course, be in any way—

  But—he had said that this might be—what was the word?—“important” to him. Because Halley had drowned in the lake. In, he had said, “this lake.” As if about this lake there were—

  Audrey Latham moved away from the fire. As if aimlessly, she moved toward Lynn’s chair; unexpectedly, she sat on the arm of the chair, her head close to Lynn’s. And then she said, very softly, “Can I talk to you a minute?” and, even while Lynn looked at her, puzzled, walked away toward the far end of the room—the end most distant from the fire, nearest the door which led to the rear of the house. After a moment, Lynn stood up and followed her. And, for no reason, except that it seemed to be expected, moved casually, as if without destination. When she reached the blond girl, Audrey suddenly took both of Lynn’s arms in her hands.

  “Listen,” she said, and her voice was still low, but was very tense. “Listen. You’ve got a car, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” Lynn said.

  “Couldn’t we get away?” Audrey said. “Tell me—couldn’t we get through? Get into the town—what’s the name of the town?”

  “Katonah,” Lynn said. “I don’t think we’d—”

  “I can’t stay here,” Audrey said. “I’ve got—got something important to do. A man to see. About a contract. It’s terribly important that I see this man. Terribly! If only—”

  Lynn was shaking her head. The blond girl stopped.

  “We’d never get through,” Lynn said. “Even with chains—and I haven’t got chains.”

  “You don’t understand,” Audrey said, and her hands tightened on Lynn’s arms. “It’s—it’s vital. Absolutely vital I—”

  “My dear,” Lynn said, “we wouldn’t get out of the drive. Surely you realize that. Even if they—if they would let us go. Can’t you reach this man on the telephone—I think it’s still working—tell him about the storm—about—?”

  She did not finish because Audrey let her hands fall to her sides; for seconds stood so, in an attitude which seemed one of defeat.

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “I suppose we couldn’t. I’ll try to get him on the telephone. I suppose that’s the only—”

  She did not finish. She walked back through the room and stood again near the fire. After a moment, she found a chair and turned it toward the fire, and sat in it. She did not go into the hall, to the telephone.

  Lynn walked back toward her chair. She became conscious, then, that the other solid man—the sergeant—was standing at the far end of the room, near the curtained windows, and that he had been watching them. But, she thought, in sudden realization, he’s watching all of us. She expected the sergeant, after she had sat down again in the same chair, to come to her and ask what Audrey had wanted, since he could not have heard what the blond girl said. But he did not leave his place near the windows.

  Tom Kemper went to the fireplace. He rearranged the fire; added two logs to it and then, briefly, poked at it. It began to crackle again. Kemper went to sit on his heels near Audrey Latham’s chair, and she turned to look at him. If they spoke, it was so softly that Lynn, not far away, could hear nothing. Boyd, carrying a drink, walked to Sergeant Forniss at the end of the room by the windows, and he did say something, but Lynn could not hear what he said, and did not try to. (What could Brian have to tell Captain Heimrich that would take so long?)

  Then Brian came to the door from the central hall and stood for a moment looking around the dimly lighted room. He went to Margaret Halley and said that the captain would like to talk to her, if she felt up to it. That Lynn heard, and saw Margaret turn slowly in her chair and look up at Brian Perry. Kemper stood up and said, not trying to keep his voice low, “She doesn’t know anything. Can’t he leave her alone?”

  “It’s quite all right, Tom,” she said. “He’s doing what he thinks he has to do.”

  She got up, then—a slender, erect woman who, in this light, looked much younger than Lynn knew her to be. Kemper walked with her to the door and through it. After a moment he returned.

  “Why won’t he admit John killed himself?” Kemper said, and looked around the room at the others; spoke generally, it seemed, to all of them. No one answered him. Brian Perry shrugged, briefly, and crossed the room to Lynn and stood looking down at her. He looked at her intently for some seconds and then he said, as if he were speaking to himself, “Yes, I suppose that’s what it comes to.” He pulled a light chair toward him and sat in it, facing Lynn and still looking at her.

  “What is it?” she said. “What what comes to?”

  He smiled, then. After a moment, he took off his glasses.

  “We’ll go into it another time, perhaps,” he said. “Why did Margaret ask you here, Lynn?”

  “Why?” she repeated. “I don’t know. To provide another woman, I suppose. That’s an odd question, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s a very odd question. It was the first thing the captain asked me. You didn’t know John well, did you, Lynn?”

  “Hardly at all,” she said.

  “So,” he said, “had nothing against him?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course not. Did Captain Heimrich ask you that, too?”

  “In effect,” he said. “Although he apparently knew already.” He hesitated. “We’ll go into that another time, too,” he said. “Assuming—” He finished only with a shrug.

  The telephone bell rang in the hall.

  Kemper went across the room toward the door, but he stopped in it and stood there for a moment. Then he turned and came back.

  “That’s quick work, sergeant,” Heimrich said. His voice came quite clearly into the room. He was, evidently, making no effort to speak unheard. “Start with—” He stopped. “The first name I gave you,” he said. “I realize it’s a bad day for that sort of thing, naturally.”

  He did not speak again for a minute or more. Then he said, “Very nice work, sergeant. The next one?”

  He listened more briefly. He said, “I supposed that. Go ahead, sergeant.” This time he listened for several minutes. During that
time, no one in the living room spoke. Heimrich said, “Thanks. You’ve been very helpful. Still snowing there?” He listened. “Until about midnight? Well, that’s something.” They could hear the receiver replaced. Heimrich went back into the dining room, and they could hear the door close behind him.

  “Checking up on us,” Brian said. “In New York, I suppose. Have you many secrets, my dear?”

  “No,” Lynn said. “No secrets. Oh—Miss Latham is very anxious to get back to New York. But that’s not a secret. She wanted me to drive her to Katonah. I told her we’d never get through.”

  “No,” he said. “You certainly couldn’t. And—I don’t suppose be let, in any case. What’s the lady’s hurry?”

  She told him what she had been told.

  “An odd day for it,” he said. “New Year’s Day is normally one for—repentance. Not business engagements.”

  “Did she need a reason?” Lynn said. “Wouldn’t we all go if we could?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  The solid figure of Captain Heimrich came into the room. Margaret Halley was not with him. Heimrich walked across the room to Struthers Boyd. Boyd went out with him.

  “I think,” Dr. Perry said, “that I’ll get myself a drink.” He looked at her glass. “And freshen yours,” he said. “I think we’ll be around a while.”

  The fire did not roar. As they reach maturity, fires in fireplaces become quiet, only now and then hissing a little as they work, sometimes crackling briefly as new logs are added. But it was a big fire by six o’clock—a fire hotly red. They could not stand close to it without discomfort. But as the fire grew, the room became colder. A few feet from the fire, they shivered, and there was dampness in the chill. The wind rattled the windows, and screamed at the house which blocked its path. A cold draft came in from the hall, and Kemper went over and closed the double doors. He came back to the fire and added another log to it. As they waited, they gradually became a tighter circle around the fire. But, even as their physical proximity increased, the real distance between the four who remained in the room after Boyd left with Heimrich seemed enhanced. Margaret Halley did not return; Sergeant Forniss remained, but he was not to be counted in the group. He remained at some distance, saying nothing. Now and then he pulled back a curtain and looked out.

  Brian Perry said nothing. Although he sat near her after he had brought a refilled glass, he remained, to Lynn, remote. He sat and looked into the fire, his thin, long face impassive, the reflection of firelight on his glasses hiding the expression of his eyes. Kemper, when he was not rebuilding the fire—once he left and returned after a few minutes with more wood, and with Abner Speed behind him, bringing more still—Kemper sat also, seemingly detached, and looked at the fire. But, continually, he rubbed the finger tips of his right hand with the thumb. If he would only stop doing that, Lynn found herself thinking as time passed slowly; if he would only stop! But the gesture was soundless; she was not compelled to watch it.

  Audrey Latham was the most restless. She sat, hunched forward, on an ottoman near the fire; she left it to wander through the room, hugging her arms against her body. The chill drove her back and she sat on the ottoman again, at first looking around her—at Kemper, at Brian Perry, at Sergeant Forniss by the windows—and then sitting, hunched again, the palms of her hands pressed against her forehead. After a time so, she left the fire once more and again walked, restless, around the room, stopping to pull a curtain back and to look out into the swirling darkness. If she would only sit still, Lynn thought—only sit still!

  After what seemed a gratingly long time, and was actually a little over half an hour, they heard someone at the double doors. They all looked toward the doors, and Struthers Boyd opened them and came in. He looked at Kemper and motioned with his thumb toward the hall and said, “Wants you, now.”

  Kemper did not move. He said, “I’ve told him all I know about everything.”

  Boyd shrugged. He said, “O.K., I’ve passed the word.” He did not join the others by the fire. Instead, he walked the length of the room, toward the rear end and, at a window there, parted the curtains and looked out—and remained standing so, looking at what he could not see.

  “Time somebody—” Kemper began, and by then Forniss had crossed the room, quickly and very silently for so large a man. He stood near Kemper’s chair.

  “Has to talk to everybody, Mr. Kemper,” Forniss said, his voice heavy, tolerant. “Probably won’t keep you long. Just some routine questions, probably.”

  Then he waited, looking at Kemper. After a moment, Kemper got up and said, “Oh, what the hell!” and went to the doors. Forniss did not follow him, but he looked after him. Then Forniss went back to the end of the room.

  The waiting went on. But one did not grow accustomed to waiting, in the chilling room. Instead, in herself, Lynn felt tension building. It was time for something to happen—past time, long past time. It was time for something clean and final; it was time for an awakening from this drab, cold dream. If only, Lynn thought, the lights would come on. Only the lights again. Perhaps, she thought, at this moment a man is somewhere putting two wires together, or pulling down a switch or—Perhaps in a second, light will come on. By the time I count ten, she thought, and found that she was counting. By the time I count again to ten, she thought.

  “This too will pass,” Brian Perry said, his voice low. He spoke without looking at her, but it was evident he spoke to her. “You’ve done nothing about that drink.” She had not; she had put it on a table within reach, but she had not reached for it. She did now, and tasted it. It had gone flat; the glass was warm to her touch and the liquid warm, and somehow brackish, in her mouth. She put the glass back. It clinked on the polished wood of the table. The sound seemed loud.

  She couldn’t stand it any longer. Something had to change; her nerves screamed for change. She stood up, abruptly. Audrey Latham lifted her head from her hands and looked at Lynn; Brian Perry turned toward her. At the distant window, Struthers Boyd did not change his position.

  “I’m going up and get a coat,” Lynn said, and the sound of her own voice, the disproportionate emphasis with which she spoke—startled her. Audrey continued to look at her; Brian nodded his head, slowly, and looked back at the fire. “Is that all right?” Lynn said, across the room to Sergeant Forniss. “Is that all right with you?”

  She was saying too much; saying what did not need to be said; attaching importance to the trivial. She could not stop herself.

  “Why not, Miss Ross?” Forniss said. “No reason why not.” His voice was flat.

  She went to the double doors, and opened them and then closed them behind her.

  It was much colder in the hall, with doors to both living room and dining room closed. The smell of burning kerosene was harsh, acrid. She realized then that there were fumes also in the living room; that her drink had tasted of the fumes.

  It was noisier in the hall; the storm seemed closer. The front door rattled with the storm, and cold air came in around it. The house creaked with the storm and somewhere, toward the rear, the wind had found an opening through which it could whistle shrilly. Lynn went up the stairs. Near the top of the flight one of the oil stoves was burning and there the odor of kerosene was pronounced. There was a faint warmth in the immediate vicinity of the stove.

  She went down the hall toward her room. At the far end of the hall, beyond the door to the room, another oil stove burned. She went into the little room, and found it dark and very cold—much colder than the hall outside. On a table near the window somebody had put a candle. She lighted it. Certainly, she could not stay there, although there was relief in being alone. She would, she thought—before she remembered—fill the tub with hot water and lie in it, warming herself, washing from her body the scent of kerosene which seemed to cling to it. Then she remembered. The water would not be hot. And, there was little water. The pressure was low already, Abner Speed had said.

  She opened her overnight bag and took out a perfu
me atomizer and sprayed scent on her sweater—sprayed much more than she had ever used before. But even the perfume, after the first few seconds, seemed to smell of kerosene. She got her suit jacket from the closet and put it on over the sweater. She moved the candle to a dressing table and, by its flickering light, straightened her hair. Then she put on lipstick. She found that doing these small, familiar things quietened her nerves a little. She began to shiver, and that was from the cold, not from nerves.

  She could not stay here. It was, in a sense, a haven, but much too cold a haven. She went to the door and opened it and started out—and stopped, abruptly, and drew back.

  A little way down the hall, toward the stairs, a man and a woman were standing with their arms around each other—standing so locked in each other’s arms that they seemed, in the dim light, to be one person. But the man had a hand on the back of the woman’s head, and was holding her head against his chest. If they heard Lynn at her door, if either of them saw her, they gave no sign. Lynn drew back into the room and closed the door, very softly. She stood looking at it.

  Audrey. Audrey Latham and Tom Kemper. Holding each other like lovers, in the cold hall, the hall that reeked of kerosene fumes, that was lighted, faintly, by the oil stoves.

  But that’s all wrong, Lynn thought. That is—I must have been all wrong. I thought she and John Halley. And that Kemper was—she did not finish that, even in her mind.

  But she waited. She stood for perhaps five minutes, perhaps longer, shivering in the little room. Finally—and this time with unnecessary noise, although one noise more was nothing in the creaking house, she opened the door and stepped out into the hall. The two were no longer there.

  She went along the hall and down the stairs, and into the living room. Audrey and Tom Kemper were there, with the others. Audrey was by the fire, facing the rest; Kemper was some distance away, at a window, looking out. All of them kept looking out at the storm, Lynn thought. There was a kind of compulsion to look out into the storm. Even the sergeant—She looked toward the window by which Sergeant Forniss had stood. He was not where he had been. Instead, in much the same position, Trooper Crowley was standing there.