Let Dead Enough Alone Read online

  “Nobody’s under arrest,” Heimrich said. “But one is a murderer. For the rest, it’s merely an inconvenience, Miss Latham.”

  Forniss dropped the curtain. They waited, in the still room—still except for the sighing of the wind outside; a faint whistling sound from the fire—for Heimrich to go on. But he said nothing more. Boyd got up and once more refilled his glass. With it, he walked to Margaret Halley’s chair and, leaning down, said something to her which the others could not hear. She listened; she shook her head. Boyd went to his own chair. But almost at once he quitted it and went out of the room into the hall. Heimrich watched him. They all watched him. Abruptly, Audrey Latham crossed the room and went after Struthers Boyd. They watched her, too.

  “How long are you going to keep us here, captain?” Kemper said. “You don’t deny you are keeping us?”

  “Now Mr. Kemper,” Heimrich said. “I’d rather you all stayed. Simpler that way. It wouldn’t make too much difference in the long run, of course.”

  “You’ve nothing to go on,” Kemper said. “Not even enough to make it murder. What do you expect to get?”

  “Character,” Heimrich said. “Among other things. The character to fit the crime.”

  “Oh for God’s sakel” Kemper said, and walked away. Lynn and Brian Perry stood with the detectives and watched him go. Perry turned to Heimrich. He said, “Is that the way you do it?”

  “One of the ways, doctor,” Heimrich said. “Also, of course, no situation remains static. Not indefinitely.”

  “As any cat knows,” Brian said. Heimrich opened his blue eyes very widely.

  “Cat?” he said. “Why a cat, doctor?”

  “Watch,” Brian said. “Until the prey thinks the cat’s asleep. Until it moves. Comes too near.”

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Well, I’m just a policeman, doctor. Looking for a murderer. A man who tricked another man into going down to the lake. So he could kill him and push him in.”

  “A man?”

  “Manner of speaking, doctor,” Heimrich said. “You’ve something you want to tell me?”

  “No,” Perry said. “I wasn’t your man, captain.”

  “No,” Heimrich said, without inflection. “But, it was your simile, doctor. A cat waiting. Until the cat’s time comes.”

  Heimrich did not, now, make any effort to lower his voice. He could be heard by all in the room. Kemper, who was across the room, listened. Margaret Halley did not move, but she could hear. Lynn was sure she listened, too.

  “Until it was time to kill,” Heimrich said. “Because of hatred. Or in rage, which is somewhat different. Or for profit, naturally.”

  “John’s money comes to me,” Margaret said, her voice quite clear, and quite without expression. She did not turn from her regard of the fire. “Do you mean that?”

  “Now Dr. Halley,” Heimrich said. “I supposed it did. But there are other ways of profiting. Aren’t there, Mr. Boyd?”

  Lynn had not seen that Boyd had returned. He stood in the doorway, listening.

  “Afraid I don’t get you, friend,” Boyd said. “’Fraid I don’t know what you’re shooting at.”

  “Ways of making a profit,” Heimrich said. “Direct. Or indirect. By murder, in this case.”

  “My husband,” Margaret said, “killed himself. You’ll never prove anything else.”

  “Oh yes,” Heimrich said. “I think I will, doctor. One of you will tell me. In one way or another” He paused. “I think more than one of you knows. Or guesses. May even have seen something. It can be risky to know too much—in a dark house. A large dark house.”

  “Nonsense,” Margaret said. “You’re talking nonsense, captain.”

  “She’s right,” Kemper said. “You’re getting nowhere. Why don’t you drop it, captain?”

  “Now Mr. Kemper,” Heimrich said. “They wouldn’t like me to drop it, you know.”

  Boyd came into the room. He moved over to the bar, and picked up a bottle. Kemper joined him there and Lynn thought they talked, briefly. But they were at the other end of the room, and it was not even certain that they talked, as they bent together over the bar. Then Audrey Latham came back into the room.

  “Oh—Miss Latham,” Heimrich said, and then everybody looked at her. “There are one or two points you might help us on.

  “No!” she said; and the word was an exclamation. “I’ve told you all I can. All I saw last night.” She paused. “On the stairs,” she said.

  “Nevertheless,” Heimrich said, and walked over to stand beside Audrey. He looked very large, beside the slim blond girl. “A point or two you might clear up.”

  He waited. She looked up at him. She sighed deeply. “In the dining room,” Heimrich said. She went out into the hall. Heimrich started to follow her. Then he turned.

  “The murder was unnecessary,” he said. He looked around at them. “You may as well know that. One of you couldn’t let dead enough alone.”

  Then he followed Audrey Latham.

  Heimrich had not told Audrey Latham what he meant. He had talked to her briefly; not for longer than fifteen minutes. “Nothing about that,” Audrey told Lynn. “I’m sure I don’t know what he meant.” She paused. “For my money,” she said, “he’s a very stupid man.”

  She and Lynn shared a bed, in the room which had been Audrey’s. It was Margaret Halley who had suggested it. But it had, unexpectedly, been Brian Perry who had brought the problem up; he who had said to Lynn, when, quite early in the evening, Heimrich had indicated that, for the time being, he had nothing more to ask of any of them, that she couldn’t keep warm under an electric blanket when there was no electricity. Mrs. Halley, who had remained in some distant world of her own, had then returned from it, briefly, to say that, of course she couldn’t and that they would find something. “I’ll have Mrs. Speed get the blankets off—” she had begun, but then she had stopped; had looked at Lynn.

  It was evident—too evident—what she had been about to say, and her doubt whether she should make the suggestion was equally clear. John Halley’s bed had had blankets on it; John Halley would not be needing the blankets. It was quite reasonable; a quite practical solution. But, before it was made, Lynn was shaking her head. So, it was not made.

  “Couldn’t you and Audrey move in together?” Margaret Halley said, instead. “It’s a double bed. I don’t know quite what else to suggest.”

  There had been a momentary pause. Then Audrey Latham had said, “Of course. If Lynn doesn’t—”

  Lynn found that, to some slight degree, she did mind. But it was only habit, she told herself—the relaxed habit of a bed to oneself. “Of course,” Lynn said, and smiled at Audrey, and said something about their keeping one another warm—something which, in her own ears, sounded meaningless. Audrey had, then, said that she would go on and “straighten things up a little,” and had gone up. Lynn had given her time; had gone up in half an hour to find the blond girl in the double bed, wearing a woolen robe, propped on pillows, smoking a cigarette by the light of a flickering candle.

  “The first warm place I’ve been in in hours,” Audrey said. “This dreadful house!”

  But she seemed, to Lynn, more relaxed than she had been, and less fearful.

  “I brought your pillows in from the other room,” Audrey said. “And your night bag, while I was about it.”

  This was a little surprising. It had not occurred to Lynn that Audrey Latham was one of those who do small, thoughtful things for others. Lynn said, with the utmost conventionality, that Audrey shouldn’t have, and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. She started, then, to go to the other room for her robe, saying she was going to. “Brought that in, too,” Audrey said. “Aren’t I the perfect hostess?”

  She was indeed, Lynn told her, only partly undressing—shiveringly undressing—putting the robe on.

  It was, after a few seconds, comfortably warm in the bed. Audrey put an ash tray between them.

  “Will I ever be glad to get out of here,” Audrey
said. “Was there ever such a weekend?”

  Not often, Lynn said. Not often she hoped. She shivered. It was then she asked Audrey if Heimrich had explained what he meant. “It was a strange thing to say,” Lynn said.

  “Personally,” Audrey said. “I think it was a curtain line. Unless poor John—” She did not finish. “All he wanted from me was, did I know John was—was breaking up our arrangement. I said, how could I, when he wasn’t?” She stubbed out her cigarette and turned to look at Lynn, who just perceptibly shook her head.

  “You’re a baby, aren’t you?” Audrey said, and spoke tolerantly. “There’s no secret about it, now. What’s the way they put it, speaking nicely? I was poor John’s protégée. The way they mean it. I told this dumb policeman. That and—other things.” She looked at Lynn intently, as if she had made everything clear. “More than I wish now I had. But, I was worked up. Don’t you ever get worked up?”

  “Yes,” Lynn said. “Oh, yes.”

  “Of course,” Audrey said. “Weren’t you once—I mean didn’t you sort of go—” She stopped. She said she talked too much.

  “Yes,” Lynn said. “I did sort of go off. But that was quite a while ago. You needn’t—”

  “Now don’t get me wrong,” Audrey said. “I talk too much.” For some seconds, then, she did not talk at all. Then she said, reflectively, “Too damn much,” and added, “I don’t mean to you, my dear.” She paused again, and then said, “Well, we live and learn, don’t we?”

  “Did he mean that Mr. Halley was ill? Would have died anyway?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Audrey said. “If you ask me, Heimrich would believe anything. Anything the right people told him. But, you know how they are. Cops, I mean.”

  “No,” Lynn said. “I don’t, really.”

  “Not that I’ve had anything to do with them,” Audrey said, rather quickly. “Don’t think that. But, anybody can read the papers. Shakedowns. People with money treated one way. Other people, another way.” She was again silent for a minute or more. “You know what,” she said, then, “it could be he’s dumb enough to think I killed John. Because John was walking out on me—not that he was, really. Can you picture that?”

  She turned and looked at Lynn fully. She was very pretty, Lynn thought. She had very large blue eyes. At the moment they seemed to brim with innocence.

  “Of course not,” Lynn said. “Actually—why is he so sure Mr. Halley was killed? The blanket’s going off, but—perhaps the plug pulled out a little way. Perhaps I did the wrong thing. It’s so—it’s such a little thing.”

  “I’ve never understood about that,” Audrey said. “What did it have to do with it?”

  Lynn told her the theory that Brian Perry had worked out; was told by Audrey that Brian Perry was a smart cookie.

  “You’ve started to fall for him,” she said. “You know that, don’t you? You go sort of coo-y.”

  Lynn was startled; after a second she was not greatly startled. “Coo-y” was certainly an odd way to go; it would certainly be an odd time for it. But still— She shook her head, slightly.

  “Have it your own way,” Audrey said. “Only—I’d watch my step. That’s what I’m going to do from here on in.” She stubbed out her cigarette. “They can bet on that.”

  “They?” Lynn said.

  “Anybody,” Audrey said. “Anybody can bet on that, was what I meant. What do you say we get some sleep?”

  Lynn put out her cigarette. Audrey cupped a hand over the candle flame, and blew the flame out. The room was very dark; then, slowly, it was gray; objects in it could be discerned. But then the objects seemed slowly to fade into the grayness. The last thing Lynn remembered before she slept was the deep, regular breathing of the girl who lay, very quietly, beside her ….

  She awakened because she was no longer warm. For an instant, the night before seemed to be repeating itself, she thought, hazily. “The blanket’s gone off again.” But then she was more fully awake, and then quite fully awake, to find herself alone in the bed.

  She said, “Audrey?” and then, “Miss Latham?” in a voice loud enough to be heard through the small room. She was not answered. The wind wailed outside. “The bathroom,” Lynn thought, “of course,” and waited. After a few moments she groped on the table by the bed and found a folder of matches. When she started to strike a match, she found that her hands were uncertain. She was shivering again. It was, of course, because she was cold.

  Finally a match flared. The candle was still on the table and she lighted it. Slowly, objects in the room became visible—and the bathroom door. The door stood open. “Audrey?” Lynn said, this time more loudly. When there was no answer, she got out of the bed and carried the candle to the bathroom. The bathroom was empty. She stood for a moment looking into it and then went to the closet. Her own things were there. There was nothing of Audrey Latham’s.

  Audrey had gone. Of course, Lynn thought. That’s why she was so thoughtful; why she brought my bag in here, my robe. She had taken her own bag into the room I had; put a robe on over her clothes, waited until I was asleep. She must have gone down the back stairs and—

  I must tell someone, Lynn thought. Someone must stop her. She thinks because the plow got through the road is open but she’ll—

  IX

  The hall was empty, and very cold. Wind blew through it; here the sound of the wailing wind was louder than it had been in the room. The whole house seemed to be shaking with the wind. The little flame of the candle leaned far over; Lynn cupped a hand about it, and it straightened, but then again flickered wildly. She held her cupped hand closer—so close she could feel the candle’s tiny warmth. But then the wind tricked her, eddied back. The candle went out.

  There was still a faint light in the hallway. It came from the oil stove, near the head of the main stairway. The stove cast a small circle of light on the ceiling; splattered the floor around it with faint light.

  “Audrey?” Lynn said, and for some reason spoke softly—so softly that, even as she spoke, she realized that the sound of the wind tore the word from her mouth, destroyed it. She took a breath to call more loudly, but then released the breath without sound. At the far end of the hall there was, momentarily, the movement of light.

  She could not see the source of the light; the light was faint, reflected. But she thought it must come from a flash. She went toward the light, down the hall, moving silently on slippered feet. When she was nearly at the end of the hall, she saw the light again—still reflected, now seemingly from a greater distance.

  The light, she realized as she went down the hallway, came from the hall which ran at right angles to it, crossing the rear of the house. She called, then, more loudly—called Audrey Latham’s name. She was not answered.

  When she reached the hallway corner, she paused momentarily, since the rear hall—narrower than the other—was unlighted—unlighted save by the faint gray light which came through a window from half way along it. She called again, still more loudly, and still her voice mingled with the sound of the wind. She would never, she thought, outscream the wind. She would go back and—and find someone. Heimrich was somewhere in the house; the sergeant, the young trooper. She had turned to go back when she heard the sound—thought she heard the sound which was like a sob. It was very faint; it was tangled in the sound of the wind.

  But then, she thought, she could not go back—take the time, waste the time, to find help in the dark and noisy house. She went along the hall, holding her arms out on either side, finding that on either side she could touch the walls with her out-reaching hands. She guided herself by the walls, down the gray formlessness of the hall.

  Just in time she caught herself, held herself with hands against the walls. The hallway ended in a flight of stairs, pitching downward sharply. She swayed for an instant at the stairhead before she caught herself. She heard the sound again—the sound like a moaning sob. It came from below her.

  She called once more and again was unanswered. Groping, she foun
d handrails on either side and went down the stairs. Now and then she stopped to listen, but heard only the raging wind as it wailed around the house; heard only the house, muttering as it braced itself against the wind.

  The stairway came down into a wider hall. The night’s grayness seeped into it through the open door to the kitchen, beyond. There was enough light when she was near the bottom of the narrow stairs for her to see what huddled there.

  Audrey Latham lay on her back, one leg twisted under her. Her eyes were open; her face unmarred.

  Lynn drew in a shuddering breath as she crouched beside the small, blond girl and then, seeing, put one hand up toward her face, as if to ward off what she saw. The blond head lay in a darkness darker than the floor; the hair was matted by the darkness. And—the girl was alive. There was life—hurt, stunned life—in the open eyes.

  Lynn bent toward her and said the girl’s name and the eyes answered and then the lips answered, if a moan is an answer. Lynn crouched and reached toward her—to touch her, to lift her up, somehow to assuage with hands the terrible hurt.

  Then she heard a scuffling sound behind her and started to turn to face the sound. She did not have time to turn. Hard hands wrenched at her neck and shoulders, drew her up and then there was a great jar and a glaring redness which, almost instantly, closed darkly in upon itself and was utter black ….

  There was no light, yet there was some change in the quality of the darkness. Gropingly, Lynn came back to the consciousness of herself, out of the utter black which was more than darkness, which had been without the dreams of sleep. She was Lynn Ross now; Lynn Ross in a place without light. She willed to move, and her body moved; she moved her hands about her, and moved them on smooth, cold hardness. She held her hands up, but she could not see her hands.

  For a cold instant she thought, “I’m blind! I can’t see!” Then she pressed her fingers against her eyes and felt no pain and then covered her eyes with her fingers. There was a difference—a difference almost imperceptible, but enough. She was in a dark place, but the darkness was of the place. She brought her hands slowly down her face and on the right side of her face—in the cheek, along the jaw—there was a sharp pain. She took her hand away quickly, and the sharpness of the pain diminished, but a throbbing pain remained. She waited, and the pain lessened.