Arrow Pointing Nowhere (21 page)

Alden was working at a cardboard puzzle, and did not look up from it; Craddock, in the bay window, returned Gamadge's nod and then looked out into the street again.

Caroline said: “Here's Mr. Gamadge, come to bring Father his books. I persuaded him to come up and have tea.”

Mrs. Fenway turned her head to smile at him, and put her hand up to the level of her shoulder. “I'm so glad,” she said.

Gamadge took the hand, released it—it was feverishly hot—and bowed to Mrs. Grove, who had glanced up as he came in. She bowed in return, and lowered her eyes again to her needlework.

Mrs. Fenway said: “You're just in time, Phillips was going to clear away,” and patted the back of the chair between her and the hearth. Caroline had already established herself in the one she had occupied the day before, and was pouring tea for herself and the guest. Phillips brought Gamadge his cup and plate.

Gamadge drank, his eyes on the small creature opposite him who worked so busily; why did Caroline, he wondered, think that
she
was “quite herself again?” She was like a
listening small animal of the woods. He noted the rounded forehead of obstinacy, the set lips. Her well-shaped head under its plain bands of iron-gray hair showed intellect. Neutral in her gray dress she sat effaced, but Gamadge thought that Mrs. Grove dominated the scene as a rock dominates a bright landscape.

Craddock had at last decided to join the group. He came up behind Alden, touched his shoulder, and said: “Here's a visitor, old man.”

Alden looked up with his amiable, vacant smile. He said: “You did come back.”

“But not for long. I must swallow my tea and go. I'm on the wing.”

“I'm running out myself to get stamps. I hope you'll be here when I come back?” Craddock met Gamadge's eyes.

“Afraid not. Some other time, I hope?”

Craddock nodded and went off. Caroline said: “We came up to see you last night, Aunt Belle, but you had gone to bed.”

“The doctor told us this morning. I was so sorry. They've told me, Mr. Gamadge, how kind you were last night. Our first tea without dear Mott, I'm glad you're with us to fill his place. We miss him so.”

“I miss him,” said Gamadge, “after only one meeting.”

A gasping note had come into her voice. “Who wouldn't? I remember him so well as a young man, but of course he was much older than the rest of us. We all looked up to him as a wonderful, learned person, but he was such a beautiful dancer too, and loved parties. I remember him so well at parties. He used to dance with me, and I was so flattered—a Harvard graduate, so old! He used to hold my hand up straight with my fan in it, while I clutched my dress up with the other hand, you know; he held my fan up and pointed at people with it when he said funny things about them. So silly,
but we laughed. He was part of our lives, it's a chapter closed, he's been spared all sorts of awful things. Old age, illness, all the misery.”

Alden looked up at her, a slight frown on his smooth forehead and an enquiring expression in his eyes.

“It's all right, darling.” She smiled at him, and then went on in the gasping voice that had disturbed him: “I'm just a little nervous. It's all right. He knows when I'm nervous, Mr. Gamadge, and it upsets him so; I must control myself better. But I keep thinking of last night. Here we sat, just where we are now, the three of us, after Bill went out of the room. We were going to play bridge, Blake said he'd play. Just tiny stakes you know, to make it more fun. One can't go through all the work and suspense, can one, and then not even bother to add the scores up? And Bill Craddock would gamble with his last penny, and Mrs. Grove likes a gamble too; don't you, Alice?”

The question was put a trifle diffidently. Mrs. Grove said without raising her eyes that she had had English parents, who put something on a game as a matter of course.

“Such sports, aren't they, and the racing too.” Her breathless voice went on: “We do seem provincial compared with them in so many ways. But kind, I think we're kind. Well, here we sat, and the next thing we knew was when Phillips came and knocked at Caroline's door. He was terribly shaken, but Phillips is considerate and careful; he told me privately—that Cousin Mott had gone away, Alden. You remember? I told you all about it afterwards.”

“But he didn't take his coat and hat.” Alden looked mildly puzzled. “I saw them in the closet downstairs this morning.”

Mrs. Fenway laughed and patted his hand. “
You
have two coats and two hats, you silly boy; why shouldn't he?”

Caroline said: “Have you really finished your tea, Mr. Gamadge? Then we all have, Phillips, and you may clear away.”

Phillips gathered cups and plates. A calm domestic scene, which Caroline kept on the same level with her next question: “Have you had an interesting day? But all your days must be interesting, of course.”

Gamadge accepted a cigarette from Mrs. Fenway's box, lighted it at the silver lamp Phillips presented to him, and answered: “Unusually interesting. Exciting. I suppose I may tell you that I see a good many people in the course of my day's work who are in touch with friends in prison camps abroad.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Yes, and sometimes my office gets indirectly into touch with them, though I don't always even know who they are. One of my clients, for instance, has a friend who was interned a little distance away from a large city; this afternoon I found, after having sent and received a number of code messages, that we had been able to get my client's friend out.”

Phillips had gone, and except for the small click and rattle of the colored marbles in Alden Fenway's game, the room was quiet.

“Actually out of the prison camp?” asked Caroline.

“Yes, and more than that; we had arranged to cut communications. The telephone was put out of commission for at least an hour and a half. And how do you think we arranged to get the party away from the place?”

“How?” Mrs. Fenway gazed at him.

“On a sled. We had a cable; and at this moment my client can be sure that the party is coasting down a hill on a sled. Not an unusual diversion, you know, even for grown people.”

“But when will you know the final result?” Caroline was interested.

“Oh—never, perhaps. That's my client's business now; my part of the job is over. But if my client should need my further services, I can easily be got into touch with again.”

“What wonderful things you do.”

Gamadge thought: She won't speak while I'm here. She's waiting for Fenway. I'd better go. He rose, and said: “You'll all forgive me, I hope; I must fly.”

Caroline rose too. “You won't wait for Father? He ought to be here any moment now.”

“I really can't. Don't ring, I can let myself out.”

Mrs. Fenway extended her hot hand, she gave him a last quivering smile; Mrs. Grove lifted her inscrutable face, and the pinched mouth curved upwards. Alden Fenway, engrossed with the colored balls and the cardboard box, did not raise his head.

As Gamadge left the room he told himself that it was magnificent and terrifying. “There she sits, and the other woman's oblivious; doesn't know the game is up. I mustn't be too far away.”

But first he went downstairs, waited a minute, and then opened and closed the front door. He retreated to the passage that concealed the back stairs; Phillips could be heard clinking china in the pantry, the coast was clear. He lingered until the rippling notes of the Bach fugue reached him; Caroline was playing away as though her life depended on it. Thankful that she was well away from the storm centre, he ran up to the second floor.

G
AMADGE WENT THROUGH
into the main hall, and keeping well to the left edged his way as far as Caroline's bedroom. He backed in, and drew the door to a crack; he could see nothing of the group in front of the fire, but he could hear what they said. Mrs. Fenway was speaking: “…warn you for the last time that we've come to the end of this.”

Mrs. Grove replied harshly: “You've said that before.”

“But this time I mean it. You made a great mistake when you thought that you could keep me in this state of torture forever.”

“It was for you to end it.”

“You inhuman creature, do you think nobody has any brains but yourself? I have no pity for you, you have no heart. You don't know what it is to have a child. But it's all over.”

Gamadge heard the front door slam. He thought: Somebody came in with a key, that must be Fenway.

Mrs. Grove said: “You can't frighten me with these threats, Belle.”

Mrs. Fenway's voice rose: “That was Blake. Alice—one more chance—only one! Why must you think of the money? So stupid, so cruel!” Her voice changed. “What are you looking at me like that for? What are you going to do?

“End it.” Mrs. Grove sounded nearer, as if she had risen from her chair and stepped forward. “End it now.”

The sitting-room door moved, and then slammed as Gamadge dashed from Caroline's room to hurl himself against it; he heard the lock turn. There was a shot, a scream, another shot, and silence. Gamadge whirled to see Blake Fenway standing transfixed at the head of the stairs.

“Through Alden's room,” shouted Gamadge, as he ran past Fenway and swung to the left. “This way.”

Fenway was at his heels as he raced through Alden's bedroom, Mrs. Grove's room and the bath, and then across Mrs. Fenway's corner room to the other doorway. There they both stopped.

Mrs. Fenway lay back against the cushions of her chair, mouth open and eyes closed. Blood streamed through the fingers of her right hand, which clasped her wounded left wrist. Alden Fenway stood leaning across the round table, looking down at something on the floor; there was a stupid, frightened, guilty look on his face. He held a little automatic pistol loosely in his right hand, as if he did not know that he was holding it at all. Mrs. Grove lay face downwards in front of the fireplace, blood spreading fanwise from her head and soaking into the hearthrug.

Blake Fenway spoke hoarsely over Gamadge's shoulder: “Great God, what's happened?”

Alden stammered: “She hurt Mother. She—she hurt Mother.”

Gamadge went over to the dead woman, knelt, and turned her on her back. She had been shot full in the forehead. Her glazing eyes stared beyond him as though even in
death she avoided his own. Her small face looked pinched and severe.

He got up, lifted the silk robe from Mrs. Fenway's knees, and covered the body. Then he went around the table and took the little automatic from Alden's fingers; he slipped the safety catch and handed the gun to Fenway. Fenway had come up to take his nephew by the arm.

“My boy,” he asked in a broken voice, “why did you do this?”

“I didn't mean to. She hurt Mother.”

Gamadge asked: “Got a clean handkerchief, sir?”

Fenway, still keeping his nervous hold on Alden's arm, fumbled in a pocket with his other hand and produced a white square. Gamadge took out his own handkerchief and went over to Mrs. Fenway. He gently drew her fingers from her hurt wrist, examined the flesh wound, and began to construct a tourniquet with the help of his own fountain pen.

Fenway said: “She ought to—we must get a doctor.”

“If you'll find some water in that bathroom, sir?”

Mrs. Fenway opened her eyes. She looked at the bandage on her arm, at Gamadge, at her brother-in-law. “Blake!”

“For God's sake, Belle, what happened?”

“She shot me, she would have killed me, but Alden was on her like lightning. I never knew what she was going to do until she had shut and locked the door and got that pistol out of her bag. Alden snatched the pistol away from her and put it up to her forehead. Did he—is she dead?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Will they put him in prison for saving my life?”

“Prison? No!”

There was a loud knocking at the door. Gamadge said: “I'll attend to it, Mr. Fenway, if you'll get that water. And you'd better lock the door from the bathroom.”

Fenway turned blindly away. Gamadge opened the door and confronted Caroline; she was very white. Old Phillips and a woman servant stood behind her. She asked loudly: “Where's Father? I saw him go up. What's the matter?”

“Mrs. Grove has been killed.”

“Mrs. Grove?”

“And your aunt has been shot in the arm. We're calling the police, of course. Your father won't want you in this room, Miss Fenway; will you round the servants up downstairs?”

Still staring, she backed dumbly away. Gamadge closed the door and locked it; he turned to find Blake Fenway approaching his sister-in-law's chair, a tumbler of water in his hand. Gamadge took it from him and held it to Mrs. Fenway's lips. When she had swallowed some of it, he put the glass down and looked at her.