Call After Midnight (3 page)

The road wound along the Sound and it was thick with fog. Jenny rolled down the window on her side and felt the salt air moist on her face. She wondered how Peter would look, what he would say, but mainly what would be in his eyes when he saw her.

Cal turned in at last at the stone entrance with its banks of huge laurels leaning over the high wall. The driveway curved between great clumps of copper beeches and masses of shrubbery which glistened wetly in the lights from the car. They rounded an enormous yew tree and saw the house, looming up vastly in the fog. It was sparsely lighted, a light over the entrance, a light in the library, one or two lights on the second floor. Cal said, “No sense in Peter’s trying to save electricity,” and brought the car up to the steps. In a moment now, at once, Peter would come to the door.

Cal got out of the car, came around to Jenny’s side and opened the door beside her. “Take it easy—” He stopped as the door of the house opened. Peter did not come out. Instead a woman stood in the lighted doorway looking out at them. Cal stared for a second and said, “It’s Blanche Fair!”

It was Blanche, an old-time friend of Fiora’s and Art Furby’s secretary for many years; at least she was supposed to be his secretary. In moments of disillusionment with Art, Peter had said that Blanche was Art’s brains, which was not precisely true, for Art was certainly a sufficiently good and experienced lawyer to hold his position as general counsel for the railroad; if he hadn’t been efficient, even Peter, who clung loyally to old associates, would have had to get rid of him. Blanche had introduced Fiora to Peter and Jenny liked her accordingly.

Cal turned back to Jenny. “What’s she doing here?”

“Perhaps Peter sent for Art Furby, too. A lawyer. So Blanche came with him.”

“You’re way behind the times. Blanche isn’t Art’s secretary any longer. She’s got a new title, executive assistant to Peter.”

“She’s very intelligent,” Jenny said slowly.

“She’s ambitious,” Cal said shortly. “Are you going to get out? I can still turn around and take you back to town.”

“No.” She wished that Peter would come to the door and run down the steps to meet her.

He didn’t and she and Cal went up a few steps, crossed a terrace, went up some more steps. It was an absurdly pompous approach. Jenny remembered fleetingly how Peter had laughed at its magnificence but nothing could have induced him to change so much as a single marble urn; weather-stained but pompous, the two urns stood as they always had on either side of the door.

Blanche said, “You made a quick trip.”

Cal said, “Hello, Blanche. You remember Jenny—”

“Of course.” She put out a hand and pressed Jenny’s hand. “This
is
an imposition though, Jenny. I didn’t think Peter should send for
you.
But come in.”

They entered the hall and Jenny realized vaguely that it, at least, was very changed. Cal said, “What about Fiora?”

“She is perfectly all right,” Blanche said.

It was what Jenny’s common sense had suggested; at the same time something hard and tight around her throat relaxed its pressure. Fiora wasn’t much hurt; there was no possibility whatever of Peter’s being charged with murder. Murder, Jenny thought with incredulity.

Blanche said, “Fiora fainted from shock. Peter was upset. He phoned to both of you before I could stop him.”

Cal took off his coat. Blanche said earnestly, “This is very hard for Jenny, Cal. Very embarrassing to her. Why don’t you see Peter yourself, and Jenny and I will wait till you’re ready to go back to town? I’m only thinking of Jenny—”

“Come off it, Blanche,” Cal said pleasantly and threw his coat and hat down upon a bench. “What’s been happening? Was Fiora shot or not?”

Blanche replied with neat precision. “It happened about midnight. Fiora had invited me for the weekend. I got here just before dinner. Afterwards we sat around and talked. Peter wanted a nightcap. Fiora went to the pantry to get some ice. They have no domestic help living in the house—there’s only a young couple, Victor and Rosa, who cook and see to the place and they live in the old gardener’s cottage. I was at the telephone here in the hall. Peter was in the library. We both heard the shot and Fiora screamed. We ran to the pantry. She was clutching her arm, backed up against the refrigerator.” Blanche shook her lovely head just a little. “Fiora said somebody had come up behind her and shot her.”

“Who?” Cal said.

“She says she doesn’t know. But she does have a bullet wound in her arm. We got her into the library. I bandaged up the wound. She’s sitting up drinking a highball right now.”

“Didn’t she
see
who shot her?”

“She says she didn’t.”

Jenny found her voice. “Didn’t you send for a doctor?”

“Oh, no,” Blanche said. “I once took a first-aid course. I knew what to do. It’s a clean wound. The bullet went right through and came out. Peter found it on the floor. Why send for a doctor?”

“Because you and Peter will be liable for criminal negligence for one reason,” Cal said, “and because you can’t be sure that you cleaned and bandaged the wound properly.”

“Oh, I think I did. You see, a doctor might feel he ought to report this to the police. Peter might be in for considerable annoyance.”

But Cal said, “Why Peter?”

Blanche touched her pink lips with her tongue. Blanche’s beauty was in her dazzling coloring, pink and white skin, luminous green eyes, and luxuriant hair, which was so black it really did have a blue tinge. Her nose was a trifle flat, her lips a trifle wide, her chin a trifle small and receding, but the over-all picture was one of brilliant beauty. She said, “Because, only Peter and I were here with Fiora. I didn’t shoot her and neither did Peter. I’d have seen him if he came out the library door and went to the pantry. I told you, I was talking over the telephone. I was talking to Art Furby, if you feel a need privately to check my alibi, dear Cal.” She laughed conscientiously but Cal didn’t seem to think it a joke.

“That’s the business of the police. I’ll see Peter.”

“Wait, Cal, we’ve talked it over, Peter and I and Fiora. None of us want the police bothering around, stories in the paper, scandal.

“But Fiora had a bullet through her arm,” Cal said. “Take off your coat, Jenny.”

Jenny had been standing like a stone. She roused as Cal came toward her and removed her red coat. Blanche’s eyes flickered up and down Jenny’s dress with what Jenny felt was automatic approval. She said politely, although disapprovingly, “Peter’s in the library. This way—”

“I know the way.” Cal cupped his hand around Jenny’s elbow. Blanche turned along the hall toward the library and Cal said, low to Jenny, “We’ll get this over with and get back to town.”

Jenny was thankful for the firm clasp of her arm but she couldn’t keep her heart from pounding like a drill.

Again, as they entered the library following Blanche’s erect and elegant black figure, Jenny was sensible of change, which vaguely surprised her. The library had been a dingy but comfortable old room; it was now a lively mixture of colors, mustard green, orange, tangerine. All she really saw then, however, was Fiora, blanket-swathed, sitting up against pillows on a sofa and Peter coming quickly to meet them. Jenny went to him as if drawn by a magnet. He took both her hands. He was just the same: a little stocky in build with a habit of standing very solidly on his feet as if, as Cal had said, he had some railroad steel in him. His light brown hair was cut short as a brush; his eyes were a light and rather wary blue set in a tanned face; he had blunt features like his Dutch ancestors and it was difficult to read any expression in his face even though he was smiling at her and for a reckless second Jenny thought he would take her in his arms and wanted him to.

He didn’t. He didn’t say anything either. Something was wrong with the reunion she had almost unconsciously expected.

She looked away from Peter and met Cal’s rather sardonic gaze. Blanche’s face and Fiora’s were very still. She drew her hands from Peter’s.

From the sofa Fiora said, “I didn’t shoot myself, Cal! I don’t care what they say, somebody shot me.”

P
ETER MOVED A CHAIR
toward Jenny, as if inviting her to sit down. Blanche went to a table where she took a cigarette from a silver bowl and lighted it with a crystal lighter shaped like a rabbit. New, Jenny thought with odd detachment; new since I lived here. She looked at Fiora who lay back against the pillows, her pretty doll’s face as sweet and luscious as a cream puff. She was huddled in a peach-colored dressing gown, with one arm bare except for a big white bandage pad, strapped on the delicate flesh with strips of adhesive. A blanket was over her feet and a highball glass stood on the table near her. Blanche, as usual, was accurate.

Cal folded his arms across the tall back of a chair and looked at Fiora. “Who says you shot yourself?”

“Peter and Blanche, of course!” Fiora cried. “They say I must have been fooling around with Peter’s gun. But I wasn’t. I didn’t. I’m scared to death of guns. Somebody shot me.”

“Who?” Cal said.

“I don’t know who! I was there in the pantry, getting ice out of the refrigerator for Peter’s highball. I didn’t hear a thing. Except this horrible sound right in my ears, and then I fell against the refrigerator and knew it was a shot and saw the blood on my dress and I screamed and I was shot.”

Blanche delicately touched an ashtray with her cigarette.

“Didn’t you
see
anybody?” Cal said.

“No! Not anybody!”

“Didn’t you
hear
anything?”

“I heard the shot. I didn’t shoot myself. Why should I?”

Her pretty face was obstinate. Cal sighed. “You’d better sit down, Jenny,” he said without looking at her.

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—”