Call After Midnight (26 page)

Dodson gave an unexpected giggle. “Oh, he did. I was on the same train. I was with him in the office, too, except for going out to talk to her—” he nodded at Jenny.

“You told me you’d taken the day off!” Jenny said. “And you were wearing a sports shirt and you had that leather jacket—”

“I’d been at the office just the same. Not all day but most of it—”

Art interrupted. “I assure you, Dodson, I don’t need any kind of alibi for anything!”

“You’ve got it for the night Fiora was shot,” Dodson said sourly, his eyes on Art. “I was at the house with you. Heard it when Blanche phoned to you before midnight. You never left the house once.” He looked at Cal and then at Peter. “Fact. I’d have known it. Besides we had a game of gin rummy, lasted till past midnight. I took him for fifty-three dollars.”

Art cleared his throat. “I’ll get it back. But that’s right, Peter. I don’t think you seriously suspect me of having anything to do with Fiora’s murder but—well, there it is. Coming, Waldo?”

Art gave Peter a negligent wave of one hand, ignored Cal and the rest of them, and left. Waldo Dodson padded out after him.

The front door closed with a bang and Art’s car started up and away down the drive. Peter said at last, “That young man is going to be out on his ear tomorrow morning. I’ll not have him working for me—”

“He’s working for Art,” Cal said. “And I rather think Art will keep him.”

“That’s as good as saying you don’t believe the alibi Dodson gave him!” Peter snapped.

Cal shrugged. “Dodson’s out for himself. Get in good with Art and he’s got a job as long as he wants it. I could be wrong.”

“You are wrong if you mean Art Furby shot Fiora,” Mrs. Brown said hoarsely. “I don’t know how she did it, but Blanche killed Fiora. I know her. She’d never have let anything stop her. Get rid of Fiora, marry you, Peter.” Her face was suddenly pasty white “Blanche killed her—”

“She couldn’t have, I tell you!” Peter cried. “Cal saw her. Jenny saw her. She couldn’t have killed Fiora.”

Mrs. Brown shook her head slowly; the curlers waggled. “And all the time you really wanted Jenny back.”

“Why, I—of course I wanted Jenny back. I’ve always been in love with her, haven’t I Jenny? You understand, Jenny—”

“Yes,” Jenny said. Revelation was not cruel and bitter because it was not in fact revelation; but recognition was like a strong clear light. “I do understand. You don’t love me, Peter. You were only sure that I loved you and you needed me.”

“I asked you to marry me again, didn’t I? Right away. I asked you—”

“Yes, and I should have known that there was a reason for it. There was something you had to have from me. An alibi.”

“Jenny—” Peter caught at her hand and she moved away.

“No, Peter. If it had been love for me, you’d have waited. You wouldn’t have talked to me of marriage a few hours after Fiora died. No. You were afraid I’d revenge myself upon you. You said something about revenge—but I didn’t listen. No, you only wanted to make sure I’d give you an alibi. I’d have done that without any promises from you. I wanted to help you.”

“You did help me. You came when I asked you to come—”

Another delusion cleared itself away. “Yes, I came,” Jenny said, “but why did you ask me to come, Peter?”

“Why—why because I needed you—because—”

“The truth, Peter.”

Peter lifted his head defiantly and met her eyes. “All right. There was something you could have done for me. I was sure then that Fiora had made either a real or a fake attempt at suicide. I wanted to prevent another such attempt. She had found out that I’d been phoning to you; she accused me of it; we quarreled. But then I thought, if I could get you to come right away, Fiora would ask you point-blank if I’d been seeing you and of course you’d tell the truth and say no.”

Oh, Peter, Jenny thought again; and Fiora did ask me and I did tell her the truth.

Peter said, “You’ve always understood, Jenny. Try to understand now. I couldn’t have a scandal. Nobody who has a responsibility to his stockholders can afford that kind of thing. I have to keep their faith in me and—don’t you see, it’s my responsibility—”

“I see perfectly,” Jenny said.

“You’ve always understood. Jenny, you must believe me—”

“I do,” Jenny said. “I’ll stick to your alibi because it’s the truth. You needn’t worry about that. But I never want to see you or hear from you again.” She walked to the door steadily as if she knew exactly what she was going to do and then when she reached the door she didn’t know. Curiously though, she felt perfectly able to do anything she wanted to do: strong, free as the air, rid of some burden. There’s nothing so dead as a dead love, she thought, and vaguely wondered who had first said that. She put her hand on the door casing. What now, then? Go up to the guest room in that house she had once loved as she had loved the perfect husband-image she had herself created? Ask Cal to take her back to town? Call a taxi and get a train? It really didn’t matter because she could now do anything she wanted to do.

Mrs. Brown rose. She stood, in her grotesque curlers, her brilliant flowered dressing gown, a highball in her hand, and looked majestic. “Peter, you’re the kind of man who wants to eat his cake and have it, too. You married Fiora but you couldn’t quite give up Jenny. You hang onto this Art Furby because he’s always been a part of the railroad. You hang onto this house because it belongs to you. If you’d got Fiora to divorce you and married Blanche, you’d still have hung onto Fiora, too. You can’t give anything up, Peter. God forgive me but you’ve got blood on your hands. If you didn’t kill Fiora yourself, it’s your doing, just the same. Blanche was determined to marry you, she believed every word you said and she killed Fiora—”

Cal went to Mrs. Brown. He said gently, “We’ll talk to Blanche, Mrs. Brown.”

“You’d better call the police,” she said and sat down. Two tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s the money,” she said miserably. “I really was counting on the money Peter was going to give me. Now he never will.”

“I told you I would!” Peter shouted.

Cal said, “But what have we to tell the police, Mrs. Brown?”

Mrs. Brown mopped away a tear and thought it over. “You say she couldn’t have shot Fiora. You say you saw her there in the front hall and I can see that if she was in Fiora’s room she’d have had to meet you or pass you before she could get to the front hall. You”—she looked at Jenny—“say she collapsed, then and there. You saw her.” She thought that over and looked up at Cal. “I don’t know anything to tell the police. But I know Blanche did it.”

“But you can’t prove what you say you know,” Peter said.

Cal said, “I’m going to phone to Blanche and see if she’s got home yet.”

They listened while he telephoned. Peter stared at the rug; Jenny couldn’t have guessed his thoughts. Cal said, “She’s not there.”

Mrs. Brown said stubbornly, “She did want those letters. She was afraid they’d give it away—about her and Peter. She was afraid Fiora had guessed. She was here, I tell you, trying to get into the house and get those letters.”

“You said you weren’t sure,” Peter said glumly.

“Blanche had a motive,” Mrs. Brown said.

“Blanche did collapse, it was like a faint. I put her head down. She didn’t kill Fiora and neither did Peter. And neither did I,” Jenny said.

“Well, then”—Mrs. Brown looked at Cal—” that leaves you.”

“I didn’t kill Fiora,” Cal said in an unperturbed way. “I think the thing for all of us to do now is go to bed. We’ll see how things look tomorrow.”

“I think so, too,” Jenny said, went out into the hall, marched up the stairs and didn’t care at all that once she had loved the house so much. And Peter. She didn’t know what the rest of them did. She went into the guest room and turned on the lights.

It was strange after all that general housecleaning of emotions that she should feel only very tired and sleepy.

Cal had said, “We’ll see how things look tomorrow.”

He came to the door and called, “Jenny.”

She opened the door. “Here’s your bag.” He put it down.

“Thank you. Cal, there’s another thing that clears Blanche. She looked dreadful after Fiora died. Sallow, red eyes, really grief-stricken.”

Cal gave her a long look as if she’d said something of importance. “I didn’t notice.”

“You wouldn’t. She tried to cover it with make-up. And when she came out of Fiora’s room just after she died, she was really shocked. Horribly shocked. I’m sure.”

After a pause, Cal said, “I didn’t notice that either.”

Jenny had an uneasy feeling that she had said something she didn’t intend to say. Cal’s face had its closed-in, thoughtful look. She said, “But Dodson—”

“Oh yes,” Cal said. “He’s out for money any way he can get it. Maybe he was lying about Art’s alibi, just to get in good with Art, his employer. Maybe he was telling the truth. I’ve just had a long talk with Parenti.”

“Oh.”

“He didn’t have much news. Still hasn’t been able to trace the purchase of those black stockings and he’s not likely to be able to trace them. Hasn’t identified that stray fingerprint yet. I told him all about the things that happened to you today—or, thank God, didn’t happen.”

“What else did you tell him?”

“Everything. Dodson and Blanche and Peter and—everything, Jenny. Do you mind?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about Blanche and Peter sooner?”

“I didn’t know until—oh, I began to guess it and then this afternoon I was sure.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She said again.

“Because I had to let you find out some things for yourself,” Cal said and went away.

Jenny closed the door slowly. She sat down and leaned her head back. She had, again, as after her conversation with Mrs. Brown that afternoon—only that afternoon, she thought with surprise—too much to think about.

It was a long time before something began to intrude stealthily into the corners of her awareness. Something began, almost, to say, don’t look but I’m still here. Don’t look, but I haven’t given up. So she did look all around the room. Nobody was there, of course. She wasn’t tired now; she was up and searching the room, looking over the top of the dressing table, looking below its flounces, looking everywhere.

When she was at last satisfied, she opened her dressing case and there it lay, snug as a snake, on top of a nightgown, a small bottle full of sleeping pills.

T
HE HOUSE WAS PERFECTLY
silent. Cal was in the room next door. The bottle was real so hands had put it there. Then whose hands?

Her dressing case had been in Cal’s house since Saturday night. Cal had thrust her few clothes into it that evening while she talked to Peter in the library of Cal’s house. It had then been put in the back of his car; it had been there while they waited, in front of Blanche’s apartment house; it had been there, unlocked, all that time they had talked and talked and many things had been said, in the library. Art Furby had passed it, coming and going; Waldo Dodson had passed it, coming and going. Mrs. Brown had not been in the library all the time; she could have gone out to the car and no one would have known it. Cal had got it out of the car and brought it up to her. Peter—no, Peter had not been out of the house at any time. Yes, he had: he and Cal had made a futile search for Mrs. Brown’s prowler.

Mrs. Brown had insisted that it was Blanche who had tried to get into the house; it was true that Blanche was not at her apartment, or at least had not answered any bells. Mrs. Brown had accused Blanche of murder; now Jenny began to accept certain premises. Blanche did have a strong motive for killing Fiora; Peter had talked of marriage to Blanche; Fiora had taken her stand against divorce; Blanche had a strong motive and a strong will and Blanche could have acted. So then Blanche had an equally strong motive for getting rid of Jenny; it was an appalling logic.

Peter had been afraid that Jenny would revenge herself upon him; she understood that now as clearly as if he had told her. He had acted quickly, counting on Jenny’s love for him, sure that he could sway her, tie her to him, at least until the danger of a murder charge was past; his stated wish to remarry Jenny was what Peter felt to be insurance. Jenny would then stick to his alibi.

If Blanche had killed one woman, no matter how, and instantly another woman, Jenny, stood between Blanche and Peter, she could have acted again. Blanche could easily have found the sleeping-pill bottles. Fiora had hidden them here and there; a less determined will than Blanche’s could have nosed them out. It wasn’t so easy to see how Blanche could have introduced the ugly little bottles so they seemed to haunt Jenny but it could have been done; obviously, it had been done.

One thing strung itself after another swiftly, as if Jenny had a handful of beads and Blanche’s motive for murder was a cord stringing the beads together. Suppose Blanche had determined upon a more subtle way of ridding herself of Jenny than outright murder, something, say, which would look like suicide. The pill bottles, the whispered voice over the telephone saying, take them, it would be easier. Yet surely Blanche would have known that Jenny wouldn’t take the pills.

Jenny rushed on though, stringing the beads. A woman could have followed her that day adopting some sort of disguise as Jenny had done; something easy, dark glasses, a scarf over her striking black hair. The wiliness of the pursuit, the wiliness of looking up the locksmith and getting the new key, all of it bore Blanche’s stamp like a trademark. Yet all she’d have had to do was hunt around the neighborhood, telephone until she found the locksmith who had changed the lock, tell her story of losing the new keys and send a messenger for the duplicate key.

The messenger who said he was from Western Union and was not could have been Blanche—wearing a man’s long coat, assuming a husky, hoarse voice. In truth, looking back now, Jenny wasn’t at all sure just what kind of voice had replied to her; the pretended messenger could have been anyone in the world. The corridor had been almost dark; the pretended messenger was merely a black blur, advancing toward her.

All of it was devious, all of it bore the stamp of wily, adroit and determined will, and there was no way to reconcile Blanche’s trademark with what in fact had happened at the time of Fiora’s murder. Blanche had been standing before Jenny’s eyes, in the hall, clinging to the newel post in a matter of seconds after Fiora had been killed. She could not have fired those shots, concealed the gun, run from Fiora’s room to the stairway, closing the double doors behind her, without being seen by Cal, by Jenny herself, by Peter.