Wherever Lynn Goes (24 page)

“They think the boy did it?” I interrupted.

“They think
one
of 'em did. Ralph claims he came right back, but they think he hung around, waited for her to return, followed her inside. Talk about dolts! There I was, tryin' my best to help—”

She talked on and on, describing her outrage, expressing her opinion of policemen in general. I stood up, not even hearing her, and Myrtle was so startled by my abruptness that she finally shut up. Looking at me with deep concern, she said, “You're so pale, ducky. I know what you're thinkin'. You're afraid he'll come after
you
next. That's the first thing I thought of, soon as I left the police station. Lynn, I thought. That poor girl might be in danger. The way he was starin' at—”

“Nonsense,” I said crisply.

“You can't stay here alone, ducky. You must realize that. I don't know what it is, but he's after something. First he murdered poor Daphne, and now—”

She broke off. She was genuinely concerned about me. I could tell that. She might be a gossipy old busybody, but her intentions were good. Stuffing the bag of chocolates back into her enormous purse, she climbed to her feet.

“He may come after
you,
” she said in a hushed voice. “You must come home with me. I couldn't go off and leave you here by yourself. If something happened I'd never be—”

I took her arm, leading her to the door. I'd never felt calmer in my life. My one desire was to get rid of her. I had to think. I had to compose my thoughts before Lloyd arrived.

“I won't be alone for long,” I said gently, firmly. “My fiancé will be here soon. He's driving up from London. I expect him any minute now. I appreciate your concern, Myrtle, but there's no need to worry.”

“Your fiancé?” she said, curious, eager for details. “I didn't know you were engaged, ducky.”

“Yes. He's a lawyer. I—I'll tell you all about it. Later. We'll have a nice long chat. I'll call you.”

“You're sure you'll be—”

“I'll be all right.”

I opened the front door. We stepped onto the veranda. As we stood there, another flash of lightning streaked down, exploding with silver-blue fury. Myrtle shuddered, wrapping the shawl closer about her. She was still reluctant to leave, but I was firm, insisting there was no need for her to stay.

Myrtle climbed into the old car and drove away. My relief was great as I watched the bright red taillights grow smaller and smaller, finally becoming tiny red blurs that disappeared into the night. My calmness and clarity of mind were astounding. Shock, horror, fear, all emotional reactions had been firmly put aside for the time being, and I was able to see things with a cool, lucid objectivity, almost as though I were in no way involved. I was amazed at my own composure.

I should have been afraid. Myrtle, in her garbled, excited way, had hit upon a truth. The man was after something. What? It was something extremely important to him, something he had been willing to kill for. He had thought Aunt Daphne could help him find it. When she had failed to cooperate, he had murdered her, just as he had murdered Colonel March and Cassie. He was cold-blooded. Human life meant nothing to him. He was not going to give up until he had what he wanted, and somehow I was involved. I had the key. He had been watching me, watching the house. He had followed me through the woods. He had followed me to the jumble sale. He had broken into the house the night before last. I was convinced of that now. Bart and Mandy had tried to conceal it from me, but I knew.

As I thought, I began to see—vaguely at first, then more and more clearly, as though clouds of fog were gradually evaporating.

The last cloud lifted, disappeared.

I saw. I knew. I understood.

It was an intricate pattern. It had begun with the telephone calls. What had seemed a cruel, senseless prank had meaning. When Aunt Daphne had called me that night, she had been drunk and hysterical, but there had been an urgency in her garbled message: “—here now. I have to talk to you. I have to tell you about—” In my mind, I finished the sentence for her. I knew what she had meant to tell me before we were disconnected. I visualized her terror as he ripped the phone out of her hand and slammed it down. He must have pulled out the knife then, and she must have run toward the stairs. When I called back, the phone in the hall must have rung repeatedly as he stabbed her and left her to die.

I understood it all now. I knew who he was and what he wanted, and I knew where to find it. It was so clear, so simple—so simple I hadn't been able to see what was right there before my eyes.

I had been standing on the veranda, lost in thought, for several minutes, and every piece of the puzzle was in place now, the picture complete. It was horrifying, and I realized my own danger, but I knew I had to keep calm, hold back the panic that threatened to overcome me. Lloyd would be here any minute, and I would be able to give him all the answers. He would tell the men from Scotland Yard, and they would capture the man who had murdered three people, who would murder again to get what he wanted.

I went back inside and locked the door, testing it to make sure that it was secure. The lights flickered in the hall, dimming, and I prayed there wouldn't be another power failure. I had the uncanny feeling that someone had just been here in the hall, watching me as I stood outside. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. It would be so easy to snap, to give way, to be reduced to a mass of trembling fear, but I couldn't allow that. Not now. I leaned against the door, summoning control. There was another crash of thunder, deafening. The whole earth seemed to shake, and then everything grew still, silent, the silence so total I could hear my own breathing.

I ran into the library, searching for some small object that would serve my purpose. There was a thin letter opener on the desk. It would do nicely. I picked it up, and as I stepped back through the hall on my way to the parlor I paused, listening. In the dense silence I thought I heard a car motor, far away, approaching. Relief swept over me. I rushed to the door, unlocked it, threw it open, expecting to see headlights sweeping up the drive. There were none in sight. The sound had died away.

What was keeping him? He should have been here long before now. Latish, he had said. Perhaps something had held him up. Wearily, I closed the door and re-locked it.

Lloyd would be here soon. I must be patient. I would have much to tell him. I would have something to show him as well. I was sure of that.
I
hope you will follow the right path
, my father had written on the card, and the lid of the box wouldn't close properly.

I went into the parlor. The red lacquer box was on the table. I picked it up and examined it carefully, certain my theory was right. Sitting down on the settee, I emptied the letters and card onto the table and pulled back the lid. Yes, the thin sliver of wood on the inside bulged out as though warped. Hardly thicker than a piece of paper, it splintered and tore away as I applied the letter opener against the edge. The folded sheet of yellowing tablet paper dropped out. I knew what it was even before I unfolded it. The map was crudely drawn, but it was simple enough to understand. There was the river, there the old mill, there the clearing with the oak stump and, beside the stump, a heavily marked X.
I
hope you will follow the right path
, he had written. However dubious it might be, my father had left me a legacy.

I was still looking at the map when I heard the heavy footsteps coming up the front steps. Someone pounded on the door, continued to pound, and I knew it wasn't Lloyd. My body seemed to turn to ice. There had been a car after all, but it had stopped in the woods, out of sight. There was a dull thud … another. He was trying to break the door down.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The door was strong, solid oak. I hoped it wouldn't give. There was another great thud, a loud grunt, then the sound of heavy breathing. He stood in front of the door for a moment, and then he began to walk around the veranda. I didn't scream. The terror was so complete that it had a numbing effect. My body was frozen, and I seemed to be drugged, my mind far away, suspended, and none of this was real. The sheer, stark horror was part of a nightmare, and I would awaken. Surely it would vanish. It couldn't be real. It couldn't be happening. The floorboards of the veranda groaned noisily as he came around the corner and walked along the side of the house. I managed to stand, still clutching the map, everything unreal: the room, the noise, my own pounding heartbeats.

He stopped in front of the French windows. I could see him clearly through the panes. He was huge, at least six feet tall. The heavy overcoat made his shoulders seem even wider, and his face was brutal, the wide mouth pressed tight, the broken nose humped, the dark eyes burning. He stared at me, and I stared back, paralyzed, powerless, like a small bird mesmerized by a snake. He wore a pair of black leather gloves, and he raised a hand and curled it into a tight fist. I watched as he rammed the fist through the glass. The pane shattered, sending a hundred pieces of glass clattering to the floor. He reached in, found the latch, unlocked it, and pulled the door open.

Slowly, deliberately, he stepped into the room.

He stopped, standing several yards away, and took a deep breath. His overcoat was coarsely woven and bulky. The leather gloves were new, shiny black. His complexion was grainy and pitted, pale, and there was a jagged white scar from left temple to jaw. His hair was black, streaked with gray, and his dark eyes were glowing with pleasure. He was enjoying himself, enjoying my terror. The wide lips spread in a sadistic smile, curling up at the corners, and he chuckled.

“Hello, Lynn baby,” he said.

The dark, glowing eyes, burning with satanic glee, mocked me. Leather-gloved hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, as though they had separate life and were eager to coil and crush and kill. He exuded evil like a heavy musk. I stared at him. This man had murdered three people in cold blood, and he had enjoyed it. Probably there were other victims I knew nothing about. He looked at me, and he seemed to be reading my mind. He chuckled again, taking great pleasure in his power to frighten and intimidate.

“I've had my eye on you for some time,” he said huskily. “We've got something to settle, then you're going to die.”

I hardly heard the words. That numbing terror had worn off, and now I was fully conscious in every fiber of my being of the danger. Panic rose, mounting, nerve ends taut, jangling. I was faint, dark clouds pressing around the corners of my mind, total blackness threatening to overcome me. I could feel my knees weaken, and I started to sway. Yet somehow my mind was still able to function, and I knew I couldn't give up, couldn't give in to the panic shrieking inside. I had to fight. Not physically—that would be futile. My only hope was to outwit him. If only I could stall him, keep him at bay until Lloyd arrived … Through sheer willpower I managed to speak, and to my own surprise my voice was perfectly level.

“You're Herb Sheppard,” I said.

“Yeah, you guessed it.”

“They released you from prison after all these years.”

“Released? Fat chance of that! No, baby, they didn't release me. I arranged my own release, know what I mean? I had to kill a couple of guards in the process. Jenson I stabbed. I brought Barlow out with me, used him as a shield, made a hostage out of him. He wasn't any use to me after I got to my hideout, so I killed him too. Slow. Real slow.”

“The police must be—”

“They've been lookin' for me for damn near three months—haven't found me yet. I got help, see. Real expert help. Soon as I collect the jewels, I'm going to cut out. They'll never find me.”

He looked around the room and spied the heap of letters and the broken box. “So that's it,” he said as he saw the map, still in my hand. “Damned clever of 'im,” he muttered, “damned clever. I'll take that, please.”

I threw the map toward him. It dropped at his feet. Herb Sheppard bent down and picked it up, examined it for a moment, finally crammed it into the pocket of his overcoat.

“I've been very patient,” he said thoughtfully. “It's finally paid off, just like the lad promised me it would. No one knew where the jewels were, you see. They never showed up on the market. None of the fences ever laid eyes on 'em. I knew they had to be around somewhere.”

“You thought Aunt Daphne had them.”

“At first, yeah. I soon realized the old bitch didn't know anything about 'em. The lad told me, he said, ‘There's only one person who can lead us to 'em,' and that person was you. He was right. I got real impatient. Every copper in the country lookin' for me and the jewels still missin', but he said we had to wait, had to play the game. I wanted to kill the old bitch right at the beginning, but he said that would be a mistake. He worked everything out, showed me exactly how we'd go about finding the jewels, and it was clever, real clever. I finally agreed to play along.”

“Aunt Daphne—”

“I made sure she wouldn't talk. I told her if she breathed a word I'd come back and kill her, and she said she didn't care, she'd go to the police anyway. Then I told her I'd kill
you
first, and that shut her up. She was terrified. I knew she'd keep her mouth shut.”

“Then why—”

“The last time I came to see her she got panicky. The lad told me we'd have to be patient. Everything was working out just as he told me it would. We couldn't rush things, he said. You didn't know anything about the robbery, see, thought your old man had gone to Australia, but the phone calls were jugglin' your memory. Sooner or later you'd remember something. Anyway, I wasn't satisfied just sittin' around, twiddlin' my thumbs, so I came back here to search the house again, and she got panicky. I heard her usin' the phone. She called that Colonel fellow, told him to come over as fast as he could, and then she called you. I cut her off before she gave everything away. I saw she was hysterical, saw she wasn't going to keep her mouth shut, so I killed her. Then I went outside to wait for her friend to arrive—”