Call After Midnight, page 3
Jenny sat down. The chair was too deep; she was swallowed up in it. It, too, was new, luxurious and uncomfortable, covered in orange velvet. Peter stood just behind her. She couldn’t see his face but she was intensely aware of his presence.
Cal said, “Was nobody else in the house?”
Blanche replied gently, “Nobody. Only Peter and me. The servants sleep in the cottage. I told you. The house was locked up.”
“It’s always locked up at night,” Fiora said. “This great house! Away out here in the country!”
Peter broke his silence. “Fiora has always been a little nervous about living in the country. We lock the doors at night. Most of the first-floor windows are bolted. I looked around, just to satisfy Fiora. Everything was all right. I even rang up Victor and Rosa, the couple who work for us. I asked if they’d seen anybody on the grounds or heard a car. Victor said they hadn’t. Of course, the gardener’s cottage is quite a distance from the house. But I really don’t see how anybody could have got into the house.”
“If anybody really wants to get into a house he usually can,” Cal said. “I’m going to have a drink. Never mind,” he added as Blanche made an efficient motion to rise, “I know the way to the pantry, too.”
Nobody spoke while Cal’s footsteps went briskly along the parquet floor of the long hall and turned into the dining room, where they were muffled by rugs, but still everybody listened. The pantry door squeaked as, Jenny remembered with sudden clarity, it had always squeaked. The house did seem too big and too still and too empty; Jenny had never felt that emptiness when she had lived there. It was so still that they heard the bang of the refrigerator door.
Then the pantry door squeaked again and Cal came marching back, through the dining room, along the hall, back into the library; he had a highball in his hand. He sat down. “Doors all locked, all right. Kitchen windows all bolted. No sign of any entry. Have you searched the house?”
Blanche laughed lightly. “Search this house!”
Peter came forward into Jenny’s vision. He was wearing an old suede jacket which she remembered. There was no expression at all in his face. “No, we didn’t, Cal. The main thing was Fiora. But we couldn’t have helped knowing it if someone got in. Still, perhaps we’d better search the house.”
“Oh no,” Cal said easily, “the police will do that for us. What’s the name of that local doctor of yours, Peter?”
Blanche’s slender figure stiffened. She glanced at Peter and addressed Cal. “I told you, Cal. It really isn’t necessary. I feel sure Peter doesn’t want to call a doctor.”
“Peter doesn’t need to. I will. What’s his name, Peter?”
“Fiora’s going to be all right.” Peter said briefly. He paused for a moment; then he said with deliberation, “I lost my head, there at first.”
Peter rarely lost his head; anger or any kind of trouble was more likely to turn him icy cold and very slow about words or actions.
Cal’s eyebrows went up.
“You said you’d be accused of murder,” Cal said. “Or attempted murder, I should say.”
Fiora sat up. “Peter! You thought only of me! You were afraid I was hurt and—”
Peter didn’t look at her. “Certainly I thought of you. I just said that I lost my head. But then it proved to be a very slight accident. I’d really rather not get the police into this.”
“Why not?” Cal said.
“Because I’d rather not. It’s unnecessary.”
Cal turned to Fiora. “Don’t you want a doctor, Fiora? Blanche may be a good first-aider but you don’t want to die of this.”
“Die?” Fiora’s eyes opened wide. “His name is Goodwin. Call him!”
“All right,” Peter said calmly. “If you want a doctor I’ll call him.”
Cal said, “Don’t bother. I’ll get him—” rose and started for the hall.
Blanche said, “Of course it’s really none of my business. But I do think, Peter, that this will be very annoying to you. Headlines. Mrs. Peter Vleedam attempts suicide?”
Fiora sat up again violently. She pushed back her blond hair, which she wore long and full around her pretty face. “I didn’t attempt suicide! Stop saying that! Somebody shot me. I don’t want to die. I want a doctor.”
“You’re not going to die, dear.” Blanche rose and went to Peter. Her eyes warmed and glowed; her face was now smiling and warm, too. Men always liked Blanche; she seemed to turn on a kind of feminine radiance at will. “Peter, I’m only trying to help you both. Besides—I don’t like to say this but I must—it’ll be difficult to explain, won’t it? I mean, Jenny. Her presence here. How are you going to explain that to the police? Don’t you think that they may wonder just what terms you are on with Jenny? They may even jump to the conclusion that you and Fiora quarreled because of Jenny. Oh, I know you didn’t! I’m only talking off of the top of my head—trying to think of every possibility, trying to help you both—”
Fiora said shrilly, “But I wanted Jenny, too …She’s my friend,” she added and gave Jenny a curious look which Jenny could never in her life have interpreted. She glanced at Peter whose face showed nothing.
Blanche smiled at Fiora. “Oh, Fiora! You really must face facts. Jenny was Peter’s wife and you—that is, we all know the situation.” She flashed a smile at Jenny. “Forgive me, Jenny, This is all rather unpleasant for you—”
Fiora cut in swiftly as a knife, “I wanted Jenny to come! I told Peter I was glad he had phoned to her!”
Jenny felt that things had gone far enough; she also felt as if she were walking through a strange and shadowy jungle. But one thing was clear. She said, “Cal is right. He’ll call the doctor—”
Cal spoke from the doorway. “No use arguing. It’s been done. He’ll be here in fifteen minutes or so.” He came back to his chair, settled down, lifted his glass and said, “We may as well make ourselves comfortable and wait.”
Blanche turned toward Cal so Jenny could not see her face, yet somehow she imagined a change in it from radiance and warmth to utter but polite blankness. She said, “You’ve done a harmful and unnecessary thing. I’m sorry.” She sat down and took up her cigarette.
“Peter, I’m frightened,” Fiora said.
“I don’t think there’s any need to be,” Peter said. “Calling the doctor is merely a precaution.” He sat down on the end of the sofa. Fiora put her hand in a proprietary way on his arm. Jenny looked away.
Cal said, “By the way, what happened to the gun?”
Peter looked slowly at Cal. Blanche replied. “Fiora put it back in the drawer in the hall—”
“I didn’t!” Fiora cried. “I never touched that gun.”
“Your gun?” Cal said to Peter.
“I’ve got a gun, yes. I keep it in a drawer in the table, right there in the hall. It’s still there.”
“We looked,” Blanche said. “But we didn’t think of looking for it until after I’d got bandages and Peter had got some brandy for Fiora. She was here on the sofa. She had plenty of time to get the gun from wherever she dropped it and put it back in the drawer—”
“I didn’t!” Fiora said furiously. “You keep saying that—”
“What did you do with the slug, Peter?” Cal asked.
“I pitched it out into the Sound.”
Cal said shortly, “Let me see the gun.”
“All right,” Peter said agreeably, rose and went out into the hall. Cal followed him. The women could hear their voices.
“Hasn’t been fired,” Cal said. “Not lately. At least I don’t think so.”
Peter sounded a little surprised. “Do you know, I never thought of that! Shows you, I really did lose my head.”
“Do you have any other guns?”
“No.”
“Then somebody did come into the house and take a shot at Fiora.”
Fiora said to Blanche, “I told you so.”
“Too bad you threw away that slug,” Cal said, in the hall. “It would have proved that your gun wasn’t used.”
There was a long pause. Then Peter said slowly, “I acted too fast. Always a mistake. There was Fiora, fainting, blood all over her dress. Well, I can’t get that slug back now.”
“Why on earth did you throw it away?”
“Use your head,” Peter said coldly. “I didn’t know what had happened. I only knew it was a gunshot and I had a gun. If my gun had been used and Fiora had died, the first person the police would suspect would be me. A slug from my gun would be very convincing evidence.” A touch of impatience came into Peter’s deliberate voice. “And don’t look at me like that, Cal. Nobody knows what he’s going to do in an emergency until it happens. I made a mistake in judgment.”
“You thought Fiora had shot herself with your gun?”
“What else was there to think—?”
“I didn’t!” Fiora screamed. “I didn’t!”
Cal came back into the room. Peter followed him. “How about you, Blanche?” Cal asked. “Do you happen to have a gun?”
“No!”
“Fiora?”
“No! Never. I’m afraid of them. You see—I kept telling you, Peter, I didn’t shoot myself.”
Cal said to Peter, “Too bad you didn’t call the police immediately. I think you’d better do it now.”
Peter thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it does look as if somebody got into the house. Yes, I’ll call them now. Besides, the doctor will have to report it.”
“I’ll call them.” Cal went out into the hall again.
“Peter, you didn’t believe me!” Fiora cried plaintively. “I told you I didn’t shoot myself!”
“I’m sorry,” Peter said in a controlled way. “I thought you were hysterical.”
Blanche said, “Really, Fiora, everything was horribly confused. We didn’t know what to do except see to you as fast as we could. You don’t realize—”
She broke off as they heard Cal at the telephone in the hall. He was speaking for Mr. Vleedam; someone had entered the house and shot and wounded Mrs. Vleedam. No, Mrs. Vleedam was not seriously wounded. No, there was apparently no intruder in the house now; it had happened nearly two hours ago. No, Mrs. Vleedam had seen no one. Nobody had seen the prowler. Well, it hadn’t been reported sooner because they had been upset about Mrs. Vleedam and hadn’t thought of the police. He listened for a while, said thank you, and came back. “They’re sending a prowl car at once.”
Fiora cried shrilly again, “You wouldn’t believe me, Peter! Why didn’t you look at your gun? Why didn’t you believe me?”
If there was a flash of exasperation in Peter’s eyes it did not show in his face. He sat down again on the sofa beside Fiora. “It’s not hurting much, is it?” he said.
Devotion? Jenny thought. She couldn’t be sure.
She leaned back in the too deep chair so as to avert her eyes from Peter sitting there beside Fiora who was now his wife. It seemed odd that Fiora had said so flatly and so very unexpectedly that Jenny was her friend. She was no friend of Fiora’s.
She wished that she and Peter had met alone, with no watching eyes. She wished that the meeting had been different. She eyed a brilliantly blooming box of fuchsias at one of the windows and then looked around the room.
So here she was again. This was the house she had thought of as home, and had been poignantly homesick for, during the whole of the past year. Same roof, same rooms—different, of course. Very different. Fiora must have called upon the services of decorators to change every inch of the vast place. It surprised her again because it was in Peter’s nature to hate change. He had changed wives though. And he must have permitted Fiora to change the house. Perhaps Peter was happy with Fiora.
She wouldn’t think of that now. She let her eyes travel over the entire room. She missed ranks of bookshelves which had disappeared. She missed a huge old writing table which had stood solidly before the fireplace, and then found it, in a corner, its heavy wood bleached to a kind of gray beige. The top was carefully arranged with jade paper knife, jade inkstand, a tall orange lamp with a white shade. She missed the thin old rug, but it had been really too old and too thin and Fiora was certainly quite right to replace it with a mustard green, thickly piled carpet. But it was a very different room. Fiora had made her mark on the house as Jenny herself had never done.
In fact she couldn’t think of anything in particular she had done herself to change the house. She wouldn’t have thought of changing anything, for it had seemed to her as if even the massive mahogany chairs and tables were a part of the house and had earned their right to stay exactly as they were. Besides, Peter had secretly loved every one of them.
She felt a sneaking admiration for Fiora’s courage in discarding anything she—or the decorators—chose to discard. At the same time she missed the odd comfort of familiar and loved things.
She lost herself in thinking of the two enchanted springs she had spent in that house. The doors at the end of the room opened upon a terrace overlooking the Sound. When there was a storm at sea, waves dashed against the sea wall below the house and sent salt spray up over it. She and Peter had walked on the terrace many times and heard the peepers in the spring, shrilling out musically everywhere, and watched gulls dropping mussels down upon the stones to crack them open and swooping to pick up the exposed food; Peter had laughed and said it was a hard way to earn one’s dinner. She remembered the great trunks of the wisteria which lined the terrace and burst into masses of softly purple bloom, and the jonquils which came out brilliantly gay and yellow.
But the present was Fiora lying back on the pillows with her eyes closed. The present was Peter sitting beside Fiora. The present was Blanche, upright and composed, her ankles neatly together; there was no lounging for Blanche. Her eyes looked rather pale and abstracted, yet Jenny felt that if she so much as moved a finger Blanche would know it. The present was waiting for police to investigate a prowler and a gunshot.
Jenny looked at Cal and he was looking at her. Unless she imagined it there was a kind of warning in his eyes, as if he wanted to say, Don’t get involved in this.
How could Fiora have failed to see someone standing in the pantry, someone with a gun?
It could have happened if that someone had managed to approach Fiora as she bent over the refrigerator.
Cal said abruptly, “Is anything missing? Was it a robbery?”
Peter gave him a deliberate look and rose. “I didn’t look.”
“I did,” Blanche said coolly. “There’s a bracelet and a necklace on Fiora’s dressing table.”
Fiora’s eyelids fluttered. “The rest of my jewelry is in the safe. In Peter’s room.”
“I’ll see,” Peter said and went at his usual solid pace out of the room. He was back in a matter of moments. “Nothing’s been touched. He must have got scared and got away. He must have been hiding on the back stairs and heard Fiora, thought she’d seen him, so he shot at her and escaped. That seems reasonable.”
“There’s a car,” Cal said.
It was the doctor. He was young, and unshaven at that hour, so he looked vaguely raffish and untidy. He also looked sleepy and a little unnerved, as well he might be, Jenny reflected, called out in the middle of the night to attend a gunshot wound.
“Sorry about this, Doctor,” Peter said, acutely sensing the young doctor’s weariness. “It was a prowler—thief, somebody got into the house.”
The young doctor’s face waked up. “Did you get him?”
“No, he got away. We’ve sent for the police.”
The doctor shook his head. “Too much of that around here. Big houses. Well, now let’s just see about it, Mrs. Vleedam.”
Mrs. Vleedam. It was the first time Jenny had heard Fiora called Mrs. Vleedam; she had always thought of herself as Mrs. Vleedam. Cal said, “Shouldn’t we get her into bed, Doctor? Wouldn’t it be simpler for you?”
“Yes, yes of course. Now if you can walk, Mrs. Vleedam.”
“Certainly,” Fiora said and rose briskly before she caught Blanche’s eyes, and suddenly sagged weakly against Peter. “Darling, carry me. I seem to be so dizzy and weak. I must have lost a great deal of blood.”
Peter caught her in his arms. The doctor said, “In that case, we’ll just give you a transfusion,” and carrying his black bag started for the hall.
Fiora gave a yelp. “Oh, no! I haven’t lost that much blood. I’m only—only weak.”
“Her pulse is strong,” Blanche said pleasantly.
The doctor paused to look at Blanche. “I understand you put on the bandage.”
Blanche smoothed out a nonexistent wrinkle over one knee. “Cal told you. Yes, I took a first-aid course.”
“Mmmm,” the doctor said and went out into the hall. Peter scooped Fiora up in his arms and carried her out. Cal followed and from the hall Jenny heard a little colloquy. Cal said, “Here, let me help—”
Peter said, “She’s not heavy.”
Fiora said rather crossly, “I’ll walk.”
That seemed to resolve it. There were the sounds of footsteps on heavily carpeted stairs.
Blanche sat very elegant and quiet as a cat at a mousehole. Jenny listened, too, and suddenly couldn’t stand it any longer. She couldn’t stand the sprawling depth of the lounge chair any longer either, so she hoisted herself out of it, went to another chair and lighted a cigarette. Blanche’s pale green eyes watched her for a moment. Then she sighed. “Dear Fiora. I’m afraid she’s being a little stubborn about this. It would be better if she would admit that by accident she shot herself.”
Chapter 4
“SHE DIDN’T HAVE A GUN.”
“So she says.”
Jenny stared at her. “Do you doubt it?”
Blanche thought for a moment and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It would be easy to find out.”
“How?”
“Why—why ask Fiora!”
Blanche smiled. “Cal did ask Fiora.”
“Well, then search for it—”
“In this house?” Blanche said again.
