Wives to Burn, page 13
“Fred! I thought you wouldn’t wake for hours!”
“Sorry to disappoint,” said Fred Oaks drowsily. “Probably didn’t get a full dose. Is this Gabriel’s room?”
“Yes.”
“How’d I get here?”
“I don’t know, Fred.”
“Why the devil should that flatfoot want to give me drops?” Fred mused. “Why didn’t he just have me killed? It would have been just as easy. Or if he wants glory, why hasn’t he turned me over to the authorities?”
“I’m sure I can’t tell you.”
“I’ve got to get out of here.” Fred sat up suddenly. Virginia leaned forward to grasp both his hands with her small, hot fingers.
“Wait, Fred,” the girl pleaded. “It’s only three o’clock. There’s plenty of time for you to go before daylight. Will you wait?”
“That’s right. You came over to call on me, didn’t you?” Fred chuckled. “I heard you telling Gabriel while I was still half dozing.”
“Will you listen to me, Fred?”
“Yes, of course.” Fred could make out only the merest silhouette of the girl’s patrician head against the blur of the netting. He could see the graceful line of her hair that curled at her shoulders—hair that was fine and silken to the touch. He reached out his hand to caress its soft resilience. “Of course I’ll listen,” he said. “You came to tell me why you had me smoked out of the chokidar’s lodge.”
“But I had nothing to do with all that! I didn’t know the chokidar was coming back for his precious pipe.”
“You don’t owe me any explanation, Virginia. You were following your natural inclinations and your natural loyalties. And even if you feel no particular loyalty to your brother, why shouldn’t you want to hit back at me, after I’d told you how I’d planned to use you? I’d have been as vindictive myself. You had every reason to be resentful.”
“But I wasn’t resentful, Fred. That’s just the point.” The girl’s voice was vibrant. “I was hurt, at first. I did go to my brother with every intention of telling him where he could find you. But when I got to him, I discovered I couldn’t say a word. Every instinct that had always seemed right and natural, suddenly appeared wrong and against the grain. I felt as though I wasn’t Virginia Hatton any more, but somebody else, somebody entirely different. I was terrified. I’m still terrified—but I’m not sorry. I’m happy, really happy, that I didn’t give you away—not even after I learned that you had—wives to burn.”
“Who told you that?” Fred’s tone was sharp.
“Mr. Gabriel has Lucy Steel’s marriage certificate. And he has a record of a marriage to a Marjory Somebody. Marjory Root.”
“Wives to burn!” Fred laughed briefly, bitterly. “I never really had a wife,” he said.
“You don’t have to tell me about it. It doesn’t matter. Or rather it did matter—to you—once. I fancy it would explain you, all of you, the way you are now. But even without your telling me, I think I understand.”
“You’d better stop being so damned understanding and noble and self-sacrificing. If you don’t, you’ll get really hurt, badly hurt. Haven’t you enough trouble, as you are? You’re honest. That’s enough of a handicap in our modern world. That’s—”
“You see, it does matter,” the girl interrupted. “What did she do to you, this Lucy Steel?”
“Nothing.”
“Then it was the other one. What sort of person was Marjory Root?”
“She was fascinating,” Fred mused. “She was also cheap, designing, and completely unscrupulous. But she was very beautiful. That was all that mattered at the time.”
“When was this?”
“I was still in college—my last year. I hadn’t been brought up as the typical pampered rich man’s son. My father was a despot, with theories. He didn’t believe in giving anyone anything he hadn’t sweated for, not even his own son. I didn’t have much money to spend, and I was still fairly naïve, in spite of my having been raised in India until I was six, and in Europe for several more years. When I met Marjory, I was completely obsessed with her. I knew from the first time I saw her, I would have to marry her. Nothing else mattered. I introduced her to my father—who said ‘No,’ quickly and loudly. He said Marjory was a tart, and not a very high-class tart, either.
“I knew my father was stubborn, but I was just as stubborn. In this case, nothing would have made any difference. I quit college. Marjory and I jumped into my car and drove over the Sierras to Reno, to get around the three-day marriage law in California. I thought the old man would soften up, when he was faced with a fait accompli. I told Marjory I was sure he would.
“He didn’t, though. He chartered a plane and had one of his attorneys fly to Reno with a copy of his new will—in which I was definitely and efficiently disinherited. The lawyer was waiting for the newlyweds outside the office of the Justice of the Peace. As soon as the ceremony was over, he read us the clause in the new will which he thought might interest the bride and groom. It interested the bride, all right—and how! She promptly had hysterics, called me every name I’d ever heard and a few that were new to me, for deceiving her and marrying her under false pretenses. Then she ran off. The marriage was never consummated. I’ve never seen her since.
“The old man expected that I’d come crawling back, after this humiliation, admit I was wrong, ask forgiveness, and beg to be taken back into the family fold—and fortune. The lawyer intimated as much. He also told me that my father had had private detectives investigating Marjory, and could very easily have shown me documentary proof of her worthlessness. Instead of that, he chose to make it a question of blind obedience to parental authority—knowing that the marriage wouldn’t be valid inasmuch as Marjory had an undivorced husband serving time in the Oregon State penitentiary, so that her marriage to me was bigamous and would be declared null and void by any court whenever the old man chose. But the old man overlooked the fact that I was his son, after all, and had inherited all his pride and stubbornness. I didn’t go back.
“I got into my car and headed East—but the old man wasn’t through yet. He’d given me the car for a birthday present, but he’d kept the registration in his own name. So he had me picked up and held under the federal law prohibiting the transportation of stolen cars across a state line. It was a dirty trick, even though I knew that all I had to do was telegraph abjectly and he’d have dropped all charges and sent me a ticket home. I was too mad to do that. I was going to be just as stubborn as he was. I kept my mouth shut, and pleaded guilty.
“The court suspected that there was something wrong, and suspended all but ten days of my sentence. But they had to take the car away.
“After that I hitch-hiked and rode freights pretty much all over the country. I worked at odd jobs—farms—restaurants—garages. I drove a taxi in Kansas City for a while. I worked for a bootlegger in St. Louis. The connections I made there took me to Mobile and then to New Orleans, working for rum-runners mostly, until Prohibition was repealed.
“In New Orleans, I met Lucy Steel. She seemed to be crazy about me. At any rate, she didn’t think I was a millionaire’s son—or if she did, I didn’t know it. There didn’t seem to be any ulterior motive in her making a play for me. I couldn’t think of anything I had that she wanted—except my love. ‘But there was. She wanted my name—any name—for a passport. She was mixed up with some Central American gun-runners, and the finger was on her. As Mrs. Fred Oaks, she thought she’d be safe for a while.
“It wasn’t until we were deep in the Caribbean, and she disappeared on her own business, that I realized what she was after. I got a divorce in Yucatan. I don’t know whether she was ever informed of it. Maybe she thought she was still my wife—Yucatan divorces have been challenged, I know—and came here to put the bee on me. Well, all that’s ancient history. Or I thought it was, until yesterday. Say, this is funny.”
“What’s funny?”
“My boring you with the story of the prodigal who didn’t return. A minute ago, I told you I was a good listener—but I’ve made you listen to me. Why?”
“Because I asked questions,” the girl replied.
“Yes, I guess maybe you did. I wonder—”
Fred stopped speaking. The fingers that had been caressing her hair suddenly tensed, drew her head toward him. Beneath the tenuous silkiness of her hair, the back of her head felt very small, fitting snugly into the throbbing palm of his hand. He could see tiny points of light in her eyes, and her breath was sweet on his cheek.
Abruptly he snatched away his hand, swept his arm brusquely upward to lift the netting. He swung his feet off the bed, stood up.
“You better get out of here!” he declared gruffly.
Virginia did not move.
“You better get out of here, right now,” Fred repeated. “That shot in the arm seems to have affected my judgment. I’m getting silly and sentimental. In another minute I’ll be getting maudlin. I might even say, ‘Virginia, let’s chuck all this and get the devil out of here. Let’s run away from the world and ourselves—our old selves.’ ”
Again Fred paused. The girl remained sitting on the edge of the bed. He could barely see her in the dark, sitting rigidly erect. The mosquito netting had fallen back and was draped over her head and shoulders like a wimple—or a bridal veil. Her voice was hardly more than a whisper as she said:
“Well—why not?”
“Because it’s impossible—even if I wanted it,” Fred declared curtly. “I can’t stop this thing I’m in now. It’s gone too far and I’m in too deep. If I try to back out, I’ll be tracked down and wiped out, sooner or later. If I go through with it—which I will, of course—I’ll be automatically a fugitive from India and all that’s British. In either case, I can’t take you with me. I’ve drawn a pattern for my life that will have to he the same as long as I live—which probably won’t be too long. I’ll always be a fugitive from something, a rover, a pirate of sorts. I’ll never have a home, or even a country for long. It’s not a bad life, if you like it. I do. But you won’t. You couldn’t.”
“I could try,” said Virginia softly.
“The trial might last a fortnight—or a month. Perhaps even two months. Then what?”
Virginia stood up. She went up to Fred and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I told you I was a changed person,” she said. “You’ve changed too, Fred, although you haven’t said so. You’re thinking of the future—a whole month ahead. Yesterday you told me you lived for the day—that tomorrow morning could always take care of itself.”
“You haven’t changed, and neither have I, Virginia. That’s only wishful thinking. If we ran away together, you’d only try to make a useful citizen of me. And when you didn’t succeed, you’d reproach me for being what I am. I’ll always be a scoundrel, according to your lights. I can’t change now. I’m not the man for you.”
“I’m afraid you are.” The voice that pronounced this phrase of capitulation was gentle, but it was not meekly submissive. There was still a note of Hatton pride, a sureness, a complete lack of doubt, that found victory even in surrender. Fred was startled.
“No,” he said. “No, you’re wrong.”
Then he caught the girl in his arms, buried her slim shoulders in his hard, impulsive, crushing embrace. Her quick gasp was smothered by his lips. Long and hungrily he kissed her. He felt her heart beating violently against him, while her fingertips touched his face, crept up his cheeks like the searching fingers of the blind. He kissed her eyes, the smoothness of her forehead, the fragrance of her hair. Then he breathed deeply, and shook his head in the darkness, as though to clear his brain of the insidious, heady bouquet of desire.
“It’s no use,” he said in a voice he did not recognize. “We’re ten years too late.”
The girl still clung to him. He kissed her again.
Then he heard voices outside in the corridor. Footsteps passed the door. He recognized the voice of the District Officer, arguing coldly. The footsteps receded.
“Good-by,” Fred breathed.
He kissed the girl once more. Then he groped his way across the room. He knocked against a chair. He found the window, fumbled with the shutters, opened them cautiously He stared into the night until the stiff, black silhouette of tal palms against the sea told him where he was. He looked down. Luckily he was on the ground floor. An instant later he had straddled the window sill and was gone.
Virginia watched him go. The feeling of elation that sang within her persisted long after he had vanished, and she stood motionless just as she was when he kissed her the last time, as though afraid the sorcery of that moment would vanish, too, if she moved. She wondered vaguely if Fred had thought, when he said “good-by,” that he imagined he was saying good-by forever. She knew that he was not, and she thought that he, too, must know. He certainly could not have forgotten about the shipment of rifles that was coming in on the Mail from Madras in the morning, the boxes labeled “invalid chairs” that were consigned to her. She had not forgotten. They were contraband rifles, surely, and they might lead her into turbulent and muddy waters, but she didn’t care. She would follow them. She would see Fred again in the morning.
Chapter Eighteen
A Puzzle of Torn Paper
William Shakespeare Gabriel sat on the floor of Gwendolyn Small’s apartment, surrounded by torn bits of paper and fragments of photographs. He was so engrossed in trying to fit pieces together that he did not notice the District Officer come in. Hatton watched the detective for a moment with faintly contemptuous interest, before he said:
“Working puzzles, I see, Gabriel.”
“Yes,” the detective said. “I’m a pushover for puzzles.”
“I’d like to speak to you a moment, if you could leave your juvenile amusements long enough to get up off the floor.”
“We can’t all be mental giants like you, Mr. Hatton,” said the detective, without looking up. “You were in the attic for quite a while. What’s your conclusion?”
“Quite obvious,” the District Officer said. “Miss Small killed herself by hanging.”
“It’s obvious, all right,” Gabriel agreed, “but she didn’t kill herself. She couldn’t have. That overturned chair carefully placed beside her so we’d think she kicked it over after she stuck her head in the noose couldn’t have supported her weight long enough for her to make the rope fast to the rafter. It was rotten with termites.”
“I noticed one of the legs was broken,” said the District Officer. “But I assumed the leg broke under Miss Small’s weight.”
“It couldn’t have supported the lady; it turned to sawdust when I touched it. No, Hatton, I’m afraid Miss Small was strangled right here in this room by someone who carried her to the attic afterward and hung her up for artistic effect.”
“Nonsense, Gabriel. Why should anyone go to all that trouble and subterfuge, only to leave these rooms in such disorder? The whole thing is obviously and simply the illogical act of an unbalanced woman. We’ve all known that Gwendolyn Small hasn’t been completely sane for years.”
“You can blame me for the condition of the room,” Gabriel said. “I’m positive it would have been neat and clean if I hadn’t blundered into finding the body ahead of schedule. The murderer was here when I went upstairs tonight, and decided he’d better clear out, leaving things as they were, rather than risk getting caught with his alibis down. And I’m afraid he found what he was looking for.”
“What, for example?” The District Officer was not impressed.
“I wish I could tell you,” Gabriel said, frowning at the puzzle of torn paper on the floor. “I wish I could tell why the murderer tore up some photographs and papers, and left others intact. And why he carried away large pieces of everything he tore up. I’ve got far enough along with my solution to be able to say that for sure. He’s a collector.”
“Gwendolyn Small was insane, I tell you.”
“Oh, sure, she was a little on the screw-ball side,” Gabriel agreed. “But she wasn’t suffering from any gnawing melancholia or shrinking violet complex. She wouldn’t have sneaked off quietly to hang herself secretly in the attic. She’d have made a large and noisy exit in full view of her public, leaving a long and full explanation of her final act, penned in her own hand, stuck in the mirror for all to read.”
“She did leave a note,” said Hatton.
“She did?” At last Gabriel seemed more interested in the District Officer than in his puzzle. He got slowly to his feet. “Where?” he asked.
“With me,” Hatton replied. He took an envelope from his pocket. “She must have been contemplating suicide for some time, because she brought this to me day before yesterday, and asked me to keep it in my safe. She’s written on it, ‘To be opened only in the event of the death of Miss Gwendolyn Small.’ As soon as you came to me tonight, I realized it was undoubtedly a suicide note, so I got it out to bring along.”
“Let’s open it,” Gabriel said.
Hatton held the paper close to his face as he read it.
“It’s not a suicide note exactly,” he said when he’d finished. “But it amounts to the same thing—shows she anticipated death. It’s her last will and testament. She leaves everything to—”
“I can read,” said Gabriel, looking over the District Officer’s shoulder. “I, Gwendolyn Small, being of sound mind and disposing temperament, do hereby leave and bequeath my entire estate, consisting of Seaside House and its contents and contingent revenues, in fee simple and clear title, to Dr. Zachary Forsythe of Shakkarpur, India. Any other moneys are also to go to Dr. Forsythe to aid in converting Seaside House to a hospital and laboratories for continuation of his research into the cause and cure of Black Fever. Pretty fancy language for an ex-soubrette,” Gabriel concluded.
