Halfway House (25 page)

Bill stood by, rather helplessly. Ellery worked in silence. He stuffed a tablecloth under the small of the girl’s back; he flung the napkins into the pail of cold water. Then he fished one out, sopping as it was, and curled it about Andrea’s pale face like a barber’s hot towel, so that only the tip and nostrils of her nose showed.

“Don’t stand there like a politician,” growled Ellery. “Come around and pick up her legs. Hold ’em high—and don’t let her drop off these chairs, either. What the deuce is the matter with you, Bill? Haven’t you ever seen a girl’s legs before?”

Bill stood there with his arms about Andrea’s silk-sheathed legs, blushing like a boy and every once in a while plucking at her skirt to keep it decently covering her. Ellery soaked more napkins and applied them to her bare chest. He lifted them off and slapped them down again, sharply.

“What’s the idea?” asked Bill from dry lips.

“Simple enough. Head low, feet high—get the blood rushing to the brain. Restore circulation. It’s a method,” grunted Ellery, “that I learned from a chap by the name of Holmes some years ago. Young surgeon. My father was the victim then—it was more of an emergency in that case, considering dad’s age. The case of those Siamese twins, remember?”

Bill said in a strangled voice: “Oh, yes. Oh, yes.” He kept looking at the darkening sky.

“Keep those legs of hers elevated! There… How’s that, young lady? The position isn’t especially recommended by Miss Agatha’s Dancing School, but I believe you’ll come around in a moment.” Ellery changed napkins on her chest. “Hmm. There was something else. What in thunder was it, now? Yes! Artificial respiration. Blessed if it wasn’t one of the most important parts of the treatment!” He thrust his hand under the napkin rolled about the girl’s face and by main force opened her jaws. His hand knocked the napkin off, revealing a face already a little less pale, and dripping wet. “Pshaw! Well, it did its work; let it lie.” With a grimace he pulled her tongue out. Then he stooped over her torso and began to pump her arms up and down.

Bill said with a feeble grin, “It’s something out of Rube Goldberg.”

And Andrea suddenly opened her eyes to the sky.

Bill stood there stupidly, still holding her legs high and gaping down at her. Ellery put his arm under her head and raised it. Her eyes, bewildered at first, rolled about and then fixed on Bill.

“There,” said Ellery with satisfaction. “How’s that for a perfect job by Dr Queen? It’s all right, Andrea; you’re with friends again.”

Awareness rapidly filled her bloodshot eyes. Her cheeks stained with crimson. She gasped, “What are you doing?”

Bill still gaped. “For heaven’s sake,” snapped Ellery, “put her legs down, Bill! What do you think this is, anyway?” Bill dropped them as if they burned. They fell with a thud, and she winced at the shock.

“Oh, you fool!” groaned Ellery. “Fat lot of help you are. Take it easy, Andrea. Sit up, now… There! Feel better?”

“I’m so dizzy.” She sat up, Ellery’s arm still supporting her, and touched her forehead. “What happened? Oh, I’m
filthy
!” Her glance went from the pail to the unclean napkins strewn about the gravel, and then to herself. Her stockings were torn at the knees, her suit was plastered with wet dust, and her hands were smudged in a dozen places. Then she looked down at her chest.

“Oh,” she gasped, and with a snatching gesture covered herself with the lapels of the suit. “I’m—you—did you—”

“You are, and we did,” said Ellery cheerfully. “It’s all right, Andrea; Bill didn’t look, and I’m virtually sexless. The important thing is that we pulled you out of that stupor. How do you feel?”

She smiled wryly. “Rotten. Sick as the deuce. My stomach feels as if somebody had been punching it for an hour.”

“That’s the effect of the chloroform. It will pass soon.”

She glanced, still blushing, at Bill. He had turned his broad back and was staring with remarkable interest at a weather-beaten and quite illegible billboard across the road. “Bill,” she whispered. “Bill Angell.”

His shoulders jerked. “I’m sorry about the other day,” he said abruptly, without turning.

She sighed and leaned back against Ellery’s arm. “That was the other day.”

He swung about. “Andrea—”

“Don’t talk, please.” She closed her eyes. “Just let me—let me pull myself together. Everything’s so mixed up now.”

“Damn it, Andrea, I’ve been a fool.”

The air chilled a little as dusk deepened. “You?” Andrea smiled rather bitterly. “If you’ve been a fool, Bill, what have I been?”

“I’m glad,” remarked Ellery, “that you’ve both saved me the trouble of characterizing you.”

“It was a trap.” He felt her stiffen against his arm. “The wire—”

“We know all about the wire. What happened?”

She jumped up suddenly. “Mother! I must get to Mother—”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of now, Andrea. The telegram was a hoax; it wasn’t sent by your mother, obviously. It was meant to lure you here.”

She shivered. “Take me to Mother, please.”

“Didn’t you drive down?”

“No. I came by train and walked from the station. Please.”

“Surely,” said Ellery, “you’ve something to tell us now, Andrea?”

Her hand went to her lips, leaving a smudge. “I—I’d rather think things over first.”

Ellery stared at her. Then he said lightly, “My car’s a two-seater, you know. Rumbleseat’s working, though, if you—”

“I’ll sit in the rumbleseat,” said Bill thickly.

“I’m sure,” said Andrea, “we can all three sit—”

“Would you rather sit on Bill’s lap or mine?”

“I’ll drive,” said Bill.

“Not you,” said Ellery. “Nobody drives this car but Dr. Queen. I’m afraid you’re stuck, Andrea. I’ve been told by habitués that Bill’s is the most uncomfortable lap in the world.”

Bill strode off; his back was stiff. And Andrea plucked at her hair and said softly, “I’ll take a chance.”

Ellery drove with a negligent air, whistling. Bill sat like a lump beside him, his hands at his sides. Andrea was very quiet on Bill’s lap. There was no conversation; only occasionally Andrea murmured a direction to Ellery. The car bounced around rather more than seemed necessary; for some reason Ellery seemed unable to resist the smallest bump in the road.

Andrea joined them in the sloping gardens within fifteen minutes of their arrival. She had changed from her dusty clothing into something cool and pastel, of indeterminate color in the dusk. She sat down in a basketwork chair and for a moment none of them said anything. The gardens still exuded a moist warmth, aftermath of the gardener’s hose and the afternoon sun, soothing their tired skins as the scent of the flower-beds about them filled their nostrils. Below and far away the waters of the Sound were deep blue velvet, gently restless. It was quiet and peaceful. Andrea leaned back and said, “Mother’s not here. I’m glad.”

“Not here?” Ellery frowned slightly over his pipe.

“She’s off visiting the Carews, old friends. I’ve warned the servants not to say anything about… the way I came here. There’s no point in alarming her.”

“Of course not… You remind me of the heroine in one of those careless movies, Andrea. Finding a fresh wardrobe so conveniently!”

She smiled, too tired to answer. But Bill said in tones hardened by the tension of his throat, “Well?”

She did not reply at once, looking up into the cool heart of a tree. A catfooted man materialized among them balancing a tray on which were three tall frosty glasses. An assistant bore a table, linen. For a moment they were busy; then they were gone. Inexplicably Andrea sipped once, set her glass down, and rose to begin a drifting patrol before them, moving from bush to flower-cluster, her face always turned from them.

“Andrea,” said Ellery patiently, “hasn’t the time come?”

Bill sat forward gripping his glass; he did not stir thereafter. His eyes were magnetized by the languid course of the girl. Andrea’s fingers jerked, snapping the long stem of a gladiolus. She whirled about, pressing her fingers to her temples. “Oh, I’m so tired of keeping it to myself!” she cried. “It’s been such a nightmare. If I had to choke it back another day I think I’d go completely mad. You don’t know, you can’t know the torture I’ve been through. It wasn’t fair; it isn’t right!”

“Do you remember Browning’s reference in
The Ring and the Book
,” murmured Ellery, “to ‘the great right of an excessive wrong’?”

She grew quiet at that, and moved over to finger a jonquil, and then sighed and sat down in the basketwork chair. “I think I see what you mean. Perhaps this wrong was right. I thought it was. I had to think so. Now,” she whispered, “I don’t know. I don’t know anything surely any more. I’m dizzy with thinking about it. Now I’m just… afraid.”

“Afraid?” asked Ellery quietly. “Yes, I should think you would be afraid, Andrea. Because of that fear, won’t you understand that we want to help you, to help poor Lucy Wilson? Don’t you see that with a united front we may palliate this fear of yours and fight off the danger?”

“You
know
?” she said in a panting voice.

“Not everything. Not half enough. I know that on the night you visited the shack near the Delaware something happened. Something happened to you. I think, Andrea, that those match-stubs and that charred cork were correctly evaluated during Lucy’s trial. The murderess wrote a note using that cork as a pencil; the note is gone; but so were you, you see. The note, then, must have been meant for you. And your subsequent actions showed clearly that the note threatened you.” His hand lifted and impatiently brushed away the drifting smoke from his pipe. “But these are conjectures. I want the facts, the truth, from you as the only person besides the murderess who can establish the truth.”

“But it won’t do you any good,” she whispered across the barrier of dusk. “It can’t possibly. Oh, don’t you think I’ve been all through that with my conscience? Despite everything, don’t you think I would have told if I’d thought it would help Lucy?”

“Why not let me be the judge of that, Andrea?”

Her sigh was surrender. “Most of what I told you before was true. Not all. But I did receive that telegram, and I did borrow Burke’s roadster and drive out that Saturday afternoon to Trenton.”

“Yes?” said Ellery.

“It was eight o’clock when I got there. I mean when I drove up. I honked the horn; no one came out. So I went in. The shack was empty. I saw the man’s suits hanging on the wall, the table, everything—it struck me as terribly queer, and I began to feel… funny. Something told me that a dreadful thing had happened or was about to happen. I ran out, jumped into the car, and drove off toward Camden to think things out.” She paused and they were silent. In the gathering darkness Bill strained his eyes to see her, a quiet, pale curve on a shadowy chair. His own face was as colorless as her gown.

“And then you returned,” murmured Ellery. “And it wasn’t at nine as you told us, was it, Andrea? It was considerably before nine.”

“It was eight thirty-five by the clock on the dashboard.”

Bill said hoarsely: “You’re sure? God, Andrea, don’t make a mistake this time! You’re sure?”

“Oh, Bill,” she wailed, and to their consternation she began to sob. Bill stiffened, then he kicked over his chair and bounded across the glade. “Andrea.” The words tumbled out. “I don’t care any more. About anything. Please don’t cry. I’ve treated you so shabbily. Just don’t cry. But I didn’t know. You see that, don’t you? I was frantic about my sister. If only—”

Her hand crept into his. He held it timidly, scarcely breathing, as if it were something incredibly precious. And he stood that way for ever so long, while she began to talk again. It was quite dark now and only the glow from Ellery’s motionless pipe-bowl was visible. “When I’d come at eight,” she said with a curious tremor in her voice, “the shack was rather dim inside. I’d turned on the lamp—the lamp on that table. When I returned at a little after eight-thirty the lamp was still burning. I saw the light shining through the front windows.”

Abruptly, Ellery asked, “There was a Ford in that semicircular driveway when you got there the second time, wasn’t there?”

“Yes. I parked just behind it. I remember wondering whose it was. It was an old Ford coupé and no one was in it. Later—” She bit her lip. “Later I knew it was Lucy’s. But then I didn’t know. I went into the shack, expecting to see Joe.”

“Yes?” said Ellery. “Yes?”

She laughed, a bitter little laugh. “I was disturbed, but I never expected to see… what I saw. I pushed open the front door and stopped on the threshold. All I could see was that table, the plate on it, the glowing lamp. I think I was scared to death even then. Something told me—I took a few steps into the room, and then…”

“Andrea,” muttered Bill. Her hand fluttered in his.

“I saw two legs on the floor behind the table. They were so still. I put my hand to my mouth—I couldn’t think for a moment… Then everything exploded. Went absolutely black. All I was conscious of was a sharp pain at the back of my head, and that I was falling.”

“She
hit
you?” shouted Bill.

The echo died away before anyone spoke. Then Ellery said: “Whoever it was who heard your car drive up knew someone was coming. She might have escaped by the side door, but she wanted to drive that Ford away; that was part of her plan to implicate Lucy. So she lay in wait behind the front door. When you came in she struck you on the back of the head. I should have seen that. The note… Go on, Andrea.”

“I was lucky I was wearing a hat,” replied Andrea with a half-hysterical giggle. “Or perhaps she—she didn’t strike me hard. I came to at a few minute past nine; I remember looking at my wristwatch in a daze. The place was empty again. I thought it was empty, at first. I was on the floor in front of the table, where I’d been struck down. My head was aching hideously. My mouth felt like flannel. I got to my feet and leaned on the table, still weak and stunned. Then I became conscious that there was something in my hand…”

“Which hand?” asked Ellery quickly.

“The right. My gloved hand. It was a scrap of paper, wrapping-paper. Like the paper I’d seen on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. Ripped off.”