Читать книгу Haunted Lady - Mary Roberts Rinehart - Страница 7

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Things looked better the next morning. The old house in the June sunlight looked shabby but not sinister. Mrs. Fairbanks wakened early and allowed Hilda to bring her a breakfast tray. But she took her grapefruit without sugar, and insisted on opening her egg herself.

In the kitchen waiting for her tray Hilda inspected the servants—Maggie, stout and middle-aged, over the stove, Amos outside on the porch smoking a corncob pipe, William, taciturn and elderly, and Ida, a pallid listless creature in her late thirties, drinking a cup of tea at the table. They were watching her, too, although they ignored her. She was familiar with the resentment of house servants toward all trained nurses; resentment and suspicion. But it seemed to her that these four were not only suspicious of her. They were suspicious of each other. They did not talk among themselves. Save for the clattering of Maggie’s pans and stove lids the room was too quiet.

She was in the pantry when she heard William speaking.

“I tell you I put it there,” he was saying. “I’m not likely to forget a thing like that.”

“You’d forget your head if it wasn’t fastened on.” This was Maggie.

“Someone’s taken it,” said William stubbornly. “And don’t tell me it wasn’t dead. It was.”

When she went back to the kitchen conversation ceased, but on the porch Amos was grinning.

Janice slept late that morning, but Marian was at the table when Hilda went down for her own breakfast. She looked as though she had not slept at all. The green housecoat she wore brought out the pallor of her skin and her thinness, and beside her Hilda looked once more like a fresh, slightly plump cherub. Marian had already eaten, but after William had served the nurse and gone, she stayed on, nervously fingering her coffee cup.

“I suppose,” she said, “that Mother has been telling you how we have tried to murder her.”

Hilda looked unruffled.

“I wouldn’t say that, Mrs. Garrison. She did say there was an incident some time ago. Something about arsenic in the sugar.”

Marian smiled grimly. She got a cigarette from a side table and lit it before she spoke.

“As it happens, that’s true,” she said. “That was when Doctor Brooke had the contents of her tray analyzed. It was there, all right. Only I ask you—” she smiled again, her tight-lipped smile—“would we have left it there if we had done it? Everybody handled that tray. My daughter Janice had taken it up to her. I took it out of the room. My brother Carlton carried it to the head of the back stairs and later his wife carried it down. If the servants were guilty they could have got rid of it. But nobody did.” She put down her cigarette. “We may be an unpleasant family, but we are not fools, Miss Adams. We wanted to call the police, but Mother refused.”

She shrugged her thin shoulders.

“What could we do? If she wanted to think we did it, that was all right with us; but life hasn’t been very pleasant since.”

“Was there arsenic in the house?”

“We never found any. Of course she suspects us all.”

“Why should she?”

“She has the money,” Marian said dryly. “She has it and she keeps it. I could leave, of course. I have my alimony.” She flushed. “And I have a little place in the country. But Mother wants Janice here, and Jan thinks we ought to stay. That rat last night was merely an accident. As for the bats and all the rest of it—”

She shrugged again. Hilda’s expression did not change. “Have you thought that she might be doing some of this herself?” she inquired. “Old women do strange things sometimes. They crave attention and don’t get it, so they resort to all sorts of devices.”

“How could she?”

“Through one of the servants, possibly. Or, she drives out every day or so, doesn’t she? She might have an arrangement—somebody handing her a package of some sort.”

Marian laughed, without particular mirth.

“Such as arsenic, I suppose!”

“I gather that she didn’t take enough to kill her,” said Hilda dryly. “She may resent some member of the family and want to make trouble.”

“She resents us all,” said Marian. “All but Jan, and she uses her until I’m frantic. The child has no life of her own at all.” She lit another cigarette, and Hilda saw her hands were shaking. “Don’t judge us too soon,” she went on. “I’d get out and take Jan, but she doesn’t want to leave her grandmother. And my brother has no place to go. His business is shot to pieces. He was a broker, but that’s all over. He doesn’t make enough to buy shoes these days. And he has a wife to support.”

She got up.

“We’re not a bad lot,” she said. “Even Susie has her points.” She smiled thinly. “None of us would try to kill Mother, or even scare her to death. Now I suppose you’ll need some sleep. I’ll stay within call, if she wants anything.”

Hilda, however, did not go to bed that morning. She saw that Mrs. Fairbanks was bathed and partly dressed, and made up her bed with fresh linen. Then, leaving Ida to clean the room and finish, she changed into street clothing and took a bus at the corner for police headquarters. The inspector was alone in his bare little office, and when Hilda walked in in her neat tailored suit and small hat he eyed her with appreciation.

“Hello,” he said. “How’s the haunted lady today?” She smiled and deposited the box and the parcel on the desk in front of him. He looked faintly alarmed.

“What’s this?” he inquired. “Don’t tell me you’ve brought me cigars.”

She sat down and pulled off her gloves.

“The box,” she said smugly, “contains one bat. It’s alive, so don’t open it while I’m here. The other is a dead rat. I got it out of a trash can, at three o’clock in the morning—if that interests you.”

“Great Scott! The place sounds like Noah’s ark. What do you mean, you got the rat out of a trash can?”

She told him then, sitting across the desk, her hands primly folded in her lap. She began with the arsenic in March, and went on to the events of the night before. He looked bewildered. He stared at the body of the rat, neatly wrapped in its newspaper.

“I see. And this thing couldn’t get into the room, but it did. That’s the idea?”

“It may not be the same one I saw in the linen closet.”

“But you think it is, eh?”

“I think it is. Yes.”

“What am I to do with it?” he inquired rather helplessly. “What about rats, anyhow? Don’t the best houses have them?”

“They carry bubonic plague sometimes.”

“Good God,” said the inspector. “What did you bring it to me for?”

“I don’t suppose it has any fleas on it now. It’s the fleas that are dangerous. I just thought it had better be examined. Certainly somebody is trying to kill Mrs. Fairbanks.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

He leaned back and lit a cigarette.

“I suppose you haven’t any ideas?”

She smiled faintly.

“All of them have motives. I haven’t seen Carlton and Susie, the son and his wife. They’re out of town. But Mrs. Fairbanks has the money and apparently holds on to it. Her ex-son-in-law, Frank Garrison, sees her now and then, but I doubt if he gains by her death. The doctor might have a reason, but she was poisoned before any of them knew him, except the granddaughter. She’d met him somewhere. He was called because he lives close by. I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Why the doctor?”

“I think the girl may be in love with him. And I suppose he could carry more than babies in his bag.”

The inspector laughed. He had a considerable affection for her, and an even greater respect.

“You’re a great girl, Hilda,” he said, as she got up. “All right. Go back to your menagerie. And, for God’s sake, don’t get any fleas.”

She took a bus back to her corner, but she did not go directly to the house. Instead she turned at Joe’s Market into Huston Street and passing a row of once handsome houses, now largely given over to roomers and showing neglect, found Dr. Brooke’s office in one of them. It was almost directly across from the Fairbanks stable, and a small brass plate, marked C. A. Brooke, M.D. and needing polishing, told her where she was.

On the steps she turned and surveyed the outlook. The stable and its cupola concealed the service wing of the house, but the rest was in full view. She could see the porte-cochere, and as far back as Jan’s room. So that was why Jan had been gazing out her window the night before!

It was some time before an untidy girl answered her ring. Then she jerked the door open and stuck her head out.

“Is the doctor in?” Hilda asked.

The girl surveyed her, looking astonished.

“I’ll see,” she said, and ducked back.

Hilda followed her into the house. To the left was a waiting room. It was sparsely furnished with a center table, a row of chairs around the wall, and a bookcase which had seen better days. Double doors opened into the consulting room behind, where a young man, with his coat off, was sound asleep behind a desk.

The girl made a gesture.

“That’s him,” she said, and disappeared.

The young man opened his eyes, looked bewildered, then jumped to his feet and grabbed his coat.

“Terribly sorry,” he said. “Up all night. Please come in.”

He was not particularly handsome. He had, however, a nice smile and good teeth. Hilda rather hated disappointing him.

“I’m afraid I’m not a patient,” she said.

“No? Well, I didn’t really expect one. Sit down, anyhow. It’s hot, isn’t it?”

Hilda was not interested in the weather. She looked at him and said, “I’m the nurse at Mrs. Fairbanks’s. I’d like to ask some questions, doctor.”

She thought he stiffened. Nevertheless, he smiled.

“I can’t violate any professional confidences, even to you, you know, Miss—”

“Adams is my name.”

“I see. In a way I’m responsible for your being there Miss Adams. I was worried about Jan. But I didn’t expect her to get a police nurse.”

“I’m not a police nurse, doctor. When there is trouble I report to the police. That’s all.”

“I see,” he said again. “Well, Miss Adams, if you want to know whether or not I think Mrs. Fairbanks is haunted, the answer is no. She’s an old woman, and she was always eccentric. Lately she has developed some fixed ideas. One is that her family is trying to do away with her. Scare her to death, as she puts it. I don’t believe it. When you know them—”

“The arsenic wasn’t a fixed idea, doctor.”

He looked unhappy and annoyed.

“Who told you about that? The family and she herself have insisted on keeping it to themselves. I argued against it, but it was no good.”

“It was arsenic, wasn’t it?”

“It was. Arsenious acid. She didn’t get a lot, but she got it on an empty stomach. Luckily I got there in an hour. Even at that she was in poor shape—cyanosed, pulse feeble, and so on. I washed her out, but she was pretty well collapsed.”

“There was no doubt what it was?”

“No. I used Reinsch’s test. She’d had it, all right.”

He went on. He had wanted to call the police, but look at it! Nobody there but the family and servants who had been there a lifetime. Impossible to blame it on any of them. Impossible to have a scandal, too. And there had been no repetition. All that had happened had been a change in the old lady herself. She had been imagining things ever since. This story of things in her room, bats, rats, sparrows or what have you—

When he heard about the night before he got up and took a turn about the room.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “I’ll be eternally, everlastingly damned! Of course,” he added, “things like that won’t necessarily kill her. It’s not murder. The other time—”

“You thought it was an attempt at murder?”

“She didn’t take white arsenic for her complexion,” he said grimly.

He went to the door with her, a tall, lanky young man who towered over her and who as she started out put a hand on her shoulder.

“Look here,” he said. “Keep an eye on Janice, will you? She’s been under a terrific strain. They’re a decent lot over there, but there isn’t anything to hold them together. They fight like cats and dogs. If anything happens to her—”

He did not finish.

He stood still, gazing across the street to where, beyond the fence and the brick stable, the dark rectangle of the Fairbanks house stood in all the dignity of past grandeur.

“Funny, isn’t it?” he said. “When I was a kid I used to stand outside that fence to see the old lady drive out in her carriage!”

Except that she was trusting nobody just then, Hilda would have liked him that day. He had a boyish quality which appealed to her. But she hardened herself against him.

“I suppose you know,” she said coolly, “that you are on the list of suspects?”

“Suspects! What on earth have I done?”

“You might have carried a few vermin into Mrs. Fairbanks’s room in that bag of yours.”

He looked astounded. Then he laughed, long and heartily.

“And tried to scare my best and almost only patient to death!” he said. “Come and look, Miss Adams. If ever you’ve seen a bag of pristine purity you’ll see one now.”

She did not go back, however. He showed her a break in the fence near the stable and she took that short cut to the house. Amos was washing a muddy car as she passed him, but he did not look up. He was a short, surly-looking man, and she felt that he was staring after her as she went toward the house. She had an unpleasant feeling, too, that he was grinning again, as he had grinned that morning on the kitchen porch.

She did not go to the front door; instead, she walked to the rear of the house. It was twelve o’clock by that time and the servants—with the exception of Amos—were already eating their midday dinner in a small room off the kitchen. She stopped in the doorway, and William got up.

“I was wondering,” she said blandly, “whether you have a rattrap in the house. If there are rats here—”

“There are no rats in this house,” said Maggie shortly.

“One was caught last night.”

“You ask Amos about that. He’s got them in the stable, if you ask me.”

But Amos, arriving and overhearing, grouchily affirmed that there were no rats in the stable. Hilda surveyed them. They were the usual lot, she thought; loyal rather than intelligent, and just now definitely uneasy. Ida glared at Amos.

“What about that arsenic? Maybe there’s arsenic in the stable.”

Her voice was high and shrill. Amos glared back at her.

“You’d better keep your mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you.”

They were all close to hysteria, but it was left to Maggie, matter-of-fact Maggie, to put the keystone on the arch of their terror.

“If you ask me,” she said, “the place is haunted. I’ve sat with the old lady when Ida and Miss Jan were out, and I’ve heard plenty.”

“What have you heard?” Hilda asked.

“Raps all over the room. Queer scraping noises. And once the closet door opened. The one with the safe. I was looking right at it, and only me and Mrs. Fairbanks in the room—and her asleep.”

Ida screamed, and William pounded on the table.

“Stop that kind of talk,” he ordered sharply. “All old houses creak. Do you want to scare the nurse away?”

Maggie subsided, looking flushed. Ida was pale and plainly terrified. Only Amos went on eating. And Hilda, on her way upstairs, was convinced of two things, that they were all badly scared, and that they were all equally innocent.