Winter of Discontent (7 page)
I got up, stricken. “Jane. Alan, we have to go to Jane.”
JANE TOOK THE NEWS BETTER THAN I HAD FEARED SHE WOULD. She was barely awake, for one thing. It was still early, and the pill I’d talked her into taking the evening before had worked well. She looked a little groggy when she answered my knock on her back door, although she had a cup of coffee in her hand.
Alan was with me. I think that was Jane’s first clue. She looked at us with no expression, and then stood aside and gestured us in.
Alan was marvelous. He waited until she had poured us coffee, unasked, and sat down, and then said, “Jane, it’s about Bill.”
She put down her cup and looked at him. “Go ahead,” she said gruffly.
“I think you have an idea of what I must tell you.”
She sat silent for a moment, and then sipped some coffee, her hand shaking. She cleared her throat. “Dead, isn’t he? Has been all along.”
“I’m afraid so. We don’t think he suffered at all.”
“Exposure?” She was keeping her voice steady.
“No. He wasn’t outside. He’d gone to the tunnel under the museum, and must have had a heart attack.”
“You found him?”
“I did,” I said, my voice cracking a bit. “He looked quite peaceful, Jane.” He’d looked awful, dead and cold and horrid. I wasn’t about to tell Jane that.
“Why’d you go down there?”
“What Walter said about Roman Britain reminded me of the tunnels, and I just thought Bill might have gone there for some reason. I really don’t know why the idea entered my head. It was just that he wasn’t anywhere else, and …” I trailed off. I was babbling again.
“Have to ask Walter.”
I looked at Alan, hesitating. Let him make this call. He’d known Jane longer than I had. “Yes,” he said finally, “we will ask him, but not just now. He’s been hurt, and is in hospital.”
“Hurt how?” Jane’s voice was sharp.
“A blow to the back of the head. We don’t know much more than that. Now,” said Alan, briskly changing the subject, “would you like to come and stay with us for a while? We’ve plenty of room.”
“No.” Jane’s eyes were dry, her face stiff. “Dogs need a run. I’ll be all right.”
I was about to argue, but Alan squeezed my hand and shook his head at me. “That’s a good idea. A brisk walk, and then come over for breakfast. Come, Dorothy.”
He hustled me out the back door. I protested the minute we were out of earshot. “Alan, should we leave her alone?”
“She’s grown up, love. She knows what’s best for her. Remember how angry she was when she was talking about Bill’s caregivers and their smothering kindness. Treat her like a sensible adult”
“You’re right, but—oh, darn it, it’s hard!”
“It is. You note I did shelter her from the details of the attack on Walter’s life.”
“You think that’s what it was? Not just some sort of robbery attempt gone wrong?”
“We don’t know, of course. The place was pretty well ransacked.”
I made a shocked noise.
“Yes, I thought you didn’t notice. It was dark when we went in, of course, and then we had eyes for nothing but Walter. In any case, they were subtle about it. Nothing tossed about or broken, but lots of things in slight disarray. It didn’t look like robbery, more like someone hunting for something.”
“And they hit Walter so they could do it”
“They probably thought they’d killed him. Certainly they stayed for some time after he was knocked out, and didn’t try to help him. Dorothy, if you hadn’t had your bright idea, if he hadn’t been found when he was, his brain would have gone on swelling, and he would have died.”
“So maybe I helped him, even if it was too late for poor Bill?”
“Exactly. Now”—as he opened our back door—“suppose you lie down for a bit while I keep an eye out for Jane’s return.”
I did as Alan suggested. I felt as though I’d been hit over the head like Walter.
Well, no, I didn’t, of course. Poor Walter’s life was in danger, or might be, and I lay there in a comfortable bed feeling sorry for myself because I felt tired and discouraged.
And guilty. If only I’d had my bright idea about the tunnel sooner! Bill might still be alive. Walter might not have been hurt.
I turned over and pummeled my pillow, which refused to cooperate. Lying on my front made my knees hurt. And my back. I turned to my side and pounded the pillow again.
If Walter died, it would be my fault. Where did I get off thinking I was some kind of detective? Anybody with an ounce of sense ought to have thought of those tunnels ages ago.
Nobody else did, though, did they?
Well, no, but …
And you don’t know when Bill died. It might have been instantaneous.
True, but …
And punishing yourself won’t accomplish a thing. Your martyr’s hat is getting a trifle threadbare. Throw it out.
I often have conversations with myself, but this time the voice of reason spoke quite distinctly in Alan’s accents. I sighed, gave him a mental salute, and went to sleep.
I woke after an hour or so. I’d had plenty of sleep the night before, after all, and closing my eyes at this hour of the day never did much for me. But I woke somewhat refreshed, and certainly in a better mood.
I went down to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee, and then went in search of Alan. He was in his study, but not, this time, at his computer. In fact, he was just finishing a phone call.
I barely gave him a chance to cradle the receiver. “Have you seen Jane? Is she all right?”
“As well as can be expected. She came back with the dogs about fifteen minutes ago. She wouldn’t have breakfast, just popped in to tell me she was driving to the hospital to see young Walter.”
“Oh, dear! I hope he’s not—I hope he’s better.”
“I rang up. He’s still unconscious, but they’re working on bringing down the swelling. They seem cautiously optimistic.”
“How did you find out all that? I’ve never known a hospital to give anybody any information about a patient except the one-word description of his condition. You know, ‘critical, serious, guarded’—those words that don’t really mean much.”
“A policeman has certain privileges. Even a retired policeman. I’ve learned quite a lot in an hour on the phone.”
“Well, come and have a cup of coffee with me and tell me everything you know.”
“For a start,” he said when we were settled at the kitchen table, “you’ll want to know about that piece of paper that was in Bill’s hand when you found him.”
“Oh!” I sat up straighter. “I’d forgotten all about it, to tell you the truth. I’m slipping.”
“Not surprising, under the circumstances. But I think you’ll be quite interested in what Derek told me.”
“For heaven’s sake, Alan!”
“Yes, well, all right. I could draw this out, of course, but I won’t. Bill was holding a letter, an old letter, by the look of it. There is no date, but the paper is creased and dirty, and somewhat yellowed and chipped and so on. There’s no name of sender or addressee, no return address, and no signature. In fact the last sentence on the page is incomplete, so it looks as though what we have is the first page of two or more. But the text of the letter is of interest, because it contains—are you ready for this?—the place names that Bill marked on that map of Indiana.”
“But—I don’t understand. Was the letter written to Bill? Suggesting some places he ought to go, maybe?”
“It was headed ‘Dear Waffles.’ I asked Jane, when she was here a few minutes ago, whether Bill was ever nicknamed Waffles. She thought not.”
“It’s an awfully old-fashioned kind of nickname, anyway,” I said thoughtfully. “The sort of thing one might find in a Dorothy Sayers novel, or even P. G. Wodehouse. Ever so frightfully public-school, what?”
Alan grimaced at my imitation of an upper-class British accent.
“And Bill wasn’t that sort at all,” I pursued, “and he was just a child in the thirties. On the other hand, what would Bill have been doing with someone else’s letter, down there in the catacombs?”
“Search me. That, of course, is what Derek is trying to find out. One of the things. Do you want to hear the rest of my news?”
“I haven’t had time to deal with this bit yet, but go ahead.”
“Well, you remember I said the museum looked as though the intruders were looking for something?”
“Intruders? There was more than one?”
“Plural for convenience. We don’t know yet how many there might have been. At any rate, Derek and his people have been searching through the mess, trying to work out what ought to be there and isn’t. And so far, two things seem to be missing. One is Bill’s diary. Sorry, ‘engagement calendar’ to you Yanks. They can’t find it anywhere.”
“But that could be really important! If we knew who Bill had seen on that last morning—”
“Exactly. That’s why Derek put particular emphasis on finding it. Now it’s still possible they may find it. Walter might have taken it home with him, or it could be in that rabbit warren of an office upstairs. They’ll keep looking.”
“It’s certainly suggestive, though. That it’s missing, I mean.”
“It is. And the other thing that’s missing—care to hazard a guess?”
I thought hard, and then looked at Alan with dawning comprehension. “The atlas?”
“Got it in one. The atlas. That carefully marked atlas with all the place names—the same place names that are in the letter. Now what do you make of that?”
WELL, I COULDN’T MAKE ANYTHING OF IT AT ALL. So ALAN AND I sat over our coffee, brewing another pot, until we had ingested enough caffeine to keep a grizzly bear awake all winter. We got ourselves thoroughly wired, but we didn’t come up with anything very useful.
We began hopefully enough. “All right,” I said briskly, stirring sugar into my coffee, “let’s start with the missing stuff. Why would someone steal an appointment book and an atlas? Maybe—maybe Bill kept his address book in the back of his calendar, as I do. Maybe—um—someone wanted to look up addresses in the atlas.”
“In a road atlas of the American states.” Alan’s tone was carefully neutral.
“Oh. And most of Bill’s addresses would be around here, I suppose. Or in the UK, anyway.”
“In any case, if there were addresses in the diary, they were copies. Bill kept an address book in his desk. Quite a nice one, leather bound.”
“Okay, scratch that idea. Wait! Maybe Walter took them home himself. I don’t remember when he said he saw it—before or after Bill disappeared. He might have wanted to try again to figure out who was supposed to be coming to that meeting. And he said he wanted to study the atlas, to get an idea of why it was marked.”
“Yes, but you gave him the atlas yesterday. And the paramedics don’t think he was attacked this morning—more like yesterday afternoon or evening. That means he never left the museum last night. When would he have taken the things home?”
I shook my head. “Poor Walter. Lying there for all those hours in that cold place—well, at least he wasn’t in pain, I suppose. Not if he was unconscious the whole time. Well, so probably he didn’t take the things. Anyway, I just remembered—the museum was ransacked, and the calendar and the atlas are the only things missing. So they
must
have been stolen. Which gets us right back where we started. More coffee?”
must
have been stolen. Which gets us right back where we started. More coffee?”
“Please.” He held up his cup. “You’re going too fast, my dear. We don’t know for certain what’s been stolen. We won’t until Derek and his crew have made an exhaustive inventory.”
“Which,” I said, pouring myself another slug, “will be extremely difficult to do with Bill gone and Walter unconscious. Almost impossible, really.”
“A nasty job, certainly. There is a catalogue of acquisitions, but it won’t list every single paper clip and pencil in the place. The diary and the atlas won’t be in there, for example.”
I sighed. “I must say I don’t envy them the job. Reminds me of cleaning out a gigantic attic, except worse, because nothing can be thrown away. You know, Alan, eventually somebody’s going to have to sort through all the piles up there in Bill’s storage area. I suppose the job officially belongs to Walter, now that Bill’s gone, but the poor boy won’t be up to it for a long time. If ever. I
wish
I knew how he was doing. Do you suppose you could call the hospital again?”
wish
I knew how he was doing. Do you suppose you could call the hospital again?”
“It’s only been an hour or so since I called,” Alan pointed out.
“Well, I’m going over there. We’re not getting anywhere, and I can’t stand it, not knowing.”
“I’ll drive you, then. I confess I’d like to see for myself.”
I wasn’t at all sure they’d let us in, but once more Alan’s influence was a help. With strict instructions not to touch the patient, not to talk, and especially not to disturb any of the tubes and wires, we were allowed five minutes in the ICU.
I wanted desperately to touch Walter’s hand, make sure he was still warm. I would never forget the dreadful coldness of Bill’s cheek. Walter looked exactly like a crash dummy, plastic and inhuman. He lay unmoving. I couldn’t even detect a rise and fall of his chest, but the monitors displayed rhythmic lines that meant, I presumed, that his pulse and respiration and so on were normal.
Yes, and what about his brain?
We asked the nurse when we had tiptoed out of the room. “We won’t know for a bit. Perhaps another twenty-four hours, perhaps longer. He’s—you’re not family, are you, Mr. Nesbitt?”
“No, just friends. Actually my wife and I found him.”
“Yes, I know. Do you know anything about his family?”
Alan looked at me. I shook my head. “I’m afraid I know very little about him, other than that he works at the museum and is reading history at the university. You might check with the registrar, or wherever student records are kept.”
“Yes, we’ve done that, and we talked to the woman where he rooms, but we can’t seem to reach his parents. I thought you might know if they’re away on holiday, or something.”
“Is it—I know you’re not supposed to talk about patients’ conditions, but is it a case of notifying his family because he might—that is, is he really—” My voice was unsteady. I stopped.
The nurse looked at me with sympathy. “I wish I could tell you he’ll do splendidly, but honestly there’s no telling yet. He’s stable, which is a good sign, but he was very badly hurt.”
I cleared my throat. “Yes. I see. There was another woman here to see him a little while ago, wasn’t there?”
“Yes. I told her she could look in again in an hour. I think she went downstairs for some tea.”
“Thank you. You’ve been kind. May we come back too, in a little while?”
“You won’t see a change, but yes, you can come and at least look in. I do understand how you feel, but we’re doing all we can for him, you know.”
“We know.” Alan nodded his thanks and tucked my hand over his arm. We went to find Jane.
She was in the hospital canteen, drinking tea from a cardboard cup. She had been, anyway. A lot of the tea was left in the cup and after one look at it I could see why. Jane doesn’t take milk in her tea, and the fluid in the cup resembled something one might use to pave roads.
We sat down at her table. “Don’t get the tea,” she said gruffly.
“I hadn’t planned on it. Jane, we just saw Walter.”
“Looks like nothing on earth, doesn’t he?”
“Well … I must admit he doesn’t look wonderful. They say he’s doing all right, but …”
“‘Stabl.’ Could mean anything.”
“Did they ask you about his parents?”
“Yes. Don’t know anything. Never talked about his family. Don’t think they live around here.”
“Where does he live, do you know?”
“Boards with someone, up near the university. Cheap place. Not got a penny to bless himself with, that lad.”
“Then I don’t suppose his landlady would know any more about his parents.”
“Not likely. A shrew, from what I hear.”
“Well, maybe he has friends at the university who would know something. It’s not that big, the university. Surely somebody …”
I trailed off miserably. There was Walter, lying unconscious in a hospital bed. His family didn’t know, and he had, apparently, nothing better to go home to than a cheerless room with a shrewish landlady.
“Might do some checking myself,” said Jane. “Family needs to know.”
I sighed. “I wish there was something I could do.”
Jane nodded. “Told you helpless is the worst feeling.”
I brooded and wished I could have a decent cup of tea. Was there no way I could help?
Well, there might be, come to think of it. “Alan,” I said slowly, “a while ago we talked about somebody needing to go through Bill’s storage and workroom at the museum. It’s a rat’s nest of papers and all sorts of junk, but there might be something interesting, something useful in there. Do you suppose Jane and I—?”
Alan shook his head regretfully. “The whole museum’s a crime scene for now, Dorothy. Sealed off. You’re right, the storage room needs to be searched, but it’ll have to be done by evidence technicians. And it may be several days before they get around to it. Derek’s shorthanded, as usual, so they might in a pinch allow me to help, but I’m afraid I haven’t a prayer of getting you two in there. In any case, we have to face the fact—I’m sorry, Jane—that as Bill’s fiancée, you’re an interested party. No one thinks you had any hand in anything that’s happened, but …” He spread his hands.
I sighed. “Well, as long as someone does it. I suppose maybe they can do some organizing while they’re at it. Walter won’t want to face that mess when he gets back to work.” I didn’t admit the possibility that Walter might never get back to work. It hung in the air of the room, as real and heavy as the hospital smell.
We invited Jane over for lunch, but she said she had to feed her dogs. It was just an excuse. She wanted to be alone. My heart ached for her, but Jane is not an easy person to comfort, and she’s seldom in any doubt about what she wants.
So Alan and I, saying we’d check with her later, went back, alone, to our house with the Christmas tree in the parlor and the Christmas cards on the mantel and two friendly cats dozing on the hearth rug. It ought to have been a comforting scene, but to me it all seemed infinitely dreary.
We lunched on canned soup and cheese sandwiches. It didn’t matter. We were eating to live. One flavor of sawdust tastes much the same as another.
“We never got round to talking about the letter,” Alan commented when we had finished and were drinking tea.
“Letter? Oh. The letter.” I added milk and sugar to my tea.
“Snap out of it, Dorothy!”
I gave such a start I spilled my tea. Alan had never before shouted at me.
“You’re feeling sorry for yourself, and blaming yourself, and working yourself into a fine tizz, and I won’t have it. You’re not God. You’re not even Superwoman. You’re a perfectly healthy, sensible, intelligent woman, and I love you, and I’m not going to let you sit there and make yourself miserable.”
I made an effort. “I’m sorry, Alan. I know I’m getting gloomy over this. It’s just that—well, I’ve been wondering if I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. My brain seems to be turning to mush. I can’t seem to pick up on the obvious. Do you suppose I’m getting—” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word.
“Alzheimer’s? No, I don’t suppose any such thing. You’re under stress, that’s all. In any case, you didn’t miss anything that everyone else didn’t also overlook. You thought of the tunnel before I did, or Derek. It was too late. Very well. It might have been too late five minutes after Bill went down there. We don’t know how he died. But wallowing in guilt isn’t going to help anyone, least of all you. Furthermore, don’t you realize I’ll love you every bit as much if one day you do turn into a drooling idiot?”
“Oh, Alan!” He took me into his arms, and I cried and cried and, finally, got it out of my system.
“All right,” I said, dabbing my eyes and blowing my nose, “the letter. You never did tell me what it said, exactly.”
Alan looked me over, decided Id do, and returned to business. “Well, it wasn’t complete, as I think I mentioned. It was the first page only, beginning ‘Dear Waffles’ and ending with an incomplete sentence. It was a rather pointless letter, really, telling ‘Waffles’ all about someone, apparently a friend of both writer and addressee, who was planning a trip to America, to Indiana, in fact.”
“When did you say this letter was written?”
“I didn’t. It had no date. It looked old, but I’m no expert on these matters.”
“Hmm. Do you suppose I could see it?”
“No reason why you couldn’t see a copy, I’d think. The original will be in an evidence bag by this time, of course.”
“And they will have fingerprinted it, I’m sure. There are ways of lifting very old prints from paper, aren’t there?”
“There are, but they won’t have done that.”
“Why not?”
“Because (a) it’s expensive, and (b) the letter is only what we call tangential evidence. Bill didn’t die violently, Dorothy. He wasn’t murdered. We won’t know for sure how he did die until they complete the autopsy, but the betting is on either heart attack or stroke, something cardiovascular. The police are keeping the letter only because Walter was attacked. That’s a crime. And Bill was in the tunnel. That’s an odd thing. When odd things happen in the vicinity of a crime, we tend to think they’re connected.”
“You’re talking like a policeman.”
“I am a policeman. Or I was.”
“Well, stop being one for a minute. As an ordinary human being with a good brain, tell me what you think the connection might be between that letter and Bill’s death and Walter’s attack.”
“I think,” Alan said slowly, “that Bill died because he was under stress. I think he took that letter down to the tunnel for a reason, but the effort was too much for his system, and he collapsed shortly after he got there.”
“Why shortly after he got there? Why couldn’t he have been there for a while before he died?”
“For one thing, he wasn’t very dirty. His clothes and hair were almost free of cobwebs and dirt. You must have noticed that the tunnel was full of both. If he’d spent much time there, he’d have been covered. Cobwebs are sticky and hard to brush off.”
I shuddered. “You’re telling me!”
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