Crime is Murder (17 page)

Curran Dawes was an intelligent man. He could follow the pattern.

“But that’s diabolical!” he cried.

“And safe. So very safe, Professor. But is it quick enough—and sure enough? Perhaps Marta has a stronger mind than she’s supposed to have. She doesn’t crack under the strain. She doesn’t destroy herself, or commit any act to prove her insanity. And there isn’t much time left. You told me that the day we talked in the tearoom.”

Now he understood. Suddenly, like the next flash of lightning.

“We’ve got to find that girl!” he exclaimed. “She can’t be left alone tonight when that announcement is made.”

“No,” Lisa said, “she can’t.”

“But where—?”

The question was cut off in another crash of thunder. The storm was too close now to be gambled with any longer. It was time to take to the path, rapidly, as rapidly as a woman with a crippled foot could go. Even with the professor holding to her arm, it was barely fast enough. The first great, splashing drops began to fall as they reached the flagstone outside the study windows. The windows were open, and Johnny waited for them just inside. She had donned her raincoat and was holding a half-opened umbrella.

“I was about to come after you two,” she explained. “Some people just don’t seem to have sense enough to come in out of the rain.”

There was no time to trade banter with Johnny. The train of thought Lisa had started down at the ruins had to be kept on the track.

“Has Tod called?” she asked.

“About ten minutes ago. The whole show’s being moved over to the auditorium. You’re expected on stage no later than seven-thirty for briefing in the change of plans.”

“But what about Marta?” the professor asked. “Has she been found?”

“Not yet. Tod asked me—”

The rain outside the window was drowning out Johnny’s words. She stepped behind the professor’s back and pulled the windows shut.

“That catch isn’t very strong,” she said. “I hope it holds against the wind. Where was I? Oh, yes, Tod asked if we’d located her. He sounded terribly upset, but I suppose that’s only natural.”

And then Johnny stopped talking long enough to take a good look at two tense faces.

“What is it?” she asked. “What were you doing down at the ruins all that time?”

“Adding,” Lisa said. “Adding Gleason to Duval, Duval to Hubbard, Hubbard to—” Lisa was still a little out of breath after her fast hike up the path. She paused and leaned heavily on her stick. “To the legend of Martin Cornish. You were right in the beginning, Professor. There is no present without the past no matter how much we may wish it otherwise. But we can’t just stand here talking. There’s so much to be done, and so little time.”

“I don’t understand,” Johnny began.

Of course she didn’t understand. Lisa waved her to silence.

“The professor can explain while you’re driving down to the auditorium.”

“While
we’re
driving—?”

“Yes, the two of you. I have to change if I’m going to appear on that stage tonight. Leave the station wagon and I’ll come later.”

“But the roads will be treacherous in this storm!”

Johnny shouldn’t have said that, not in that way. Not looking in such a manner at a crippled woman leaning on her cane. Lisa’s jaw came up. It was a formidable jaw to come up.

“I’ll be down later!” she repeated. “Now, there’s no time to lose.”

Curran Dawes knew what she meant even if Johnny didn’t. But he was puzzled.

“The auditorium?” he asked. “Is that where we’re to go?”

“It’s a chance—and a good one, I think. From what you’ve told me of Marta’s actions this afternoon, I think she’s up to her old tricks. She’s afraid of tonight, don’t you see? She’s afraid of being all primed up for something that may not come off. But she’d be less than human not to be curious, and Marta’s all too human. I’ll wager she’ll be in that auditorium when the winner is announced tonight—somewhere in the auditorium. Under a stair, perhaps. High in the balcony.”

“But listening,” the professor said. “I think you’re right, Miss Bancroft. And it’ll be much easier to find her, if she’s there, before the building fills up.”

Lisa had made a convert. She needed one more.

“I don’t know,” Johnny demurred. “I still don’t like the idea of leaving you here alone. Even Carrie’s gone—”

But Johnny was talking to that stone jaw again. She knew when she was licked.

“All right, I’ll go. But I still don’t like it. I never have liked it from the beginning!”

Poor Johnny. There was so much she didn’t like, and so much she didn’t understand. But in the end she went with the professor, because that was the way it had to be. Lisa knew. For a long time now she’d known.

She waited until they were gone—the front door closed and the professor’s small sedan sputtering down the drive. She waited until there was no sound at all except the storm beating against the windowpanes, and then she went out into the hall and found the telephone. She rang a number and waited for the sound of an answering voice; and she smiled as she waited, because it was so easy to put excited people off on the wrong track.

And then the voice she was waiting for answered.

“Dr. Hazlitt?” Lisa said. “This is Elizabeth Bannister calling.

The auditorium filled early. Johnny and the professor had split up for their search. It was nearly seven-thirty when they found each other again, and there was hardly an empty seat in the house.

“Any luck?” she asked.

The professor shook his head. “No trace of her in the balcony. Let’s each take a side of the main floor and meet backstage. Joel’s covering the dressing rooms.”

The task was hopeless. The auditorium continued to fill until no seats were empty at all. The radio engineers and announcer arrived. The minutes ticked away, and still no Marta. Backstage, Joel reported the same futile story. By this time the area behind the curtains was charged with anticipation, and Tod Graham, briefly buttonholed, was worse than no help at all.

“Marta?” he echoed. “You mean she isn’t here either? I can’t find anyone I want to find. Even Nydia isn’t here yet! Can you imagine that? Here it is just ten minutes before broadcast time and Nydia Cornish isn’t on hand for the award performance! And Miss Bancroft. Where’s she? I thought I left word—”

Johnny had forgotten all about Lisa—and the time.

“She should be here. I hope she didn’t have trouble on the road.”

Tod groaned. “That’s another thing—that damned Pineview Road! At least Stanley’s here, and Miss Oberon.”

“Did someone call me?”

No one had called Miss Oberon, but she was there anyway. In all this mad scene, Miss Oberon was the only one in a state of calm. Or perhaps, Johnny thought, a state of suspended animation.

But had she seen Marta?

“Why, no. Isn’t she here? Couldn’t she face it?”

Miss Oberon was entirely too calm.

“This is serious,” the professor said. “Think now, have you seen the girl at any time this evening?”

“Or this afternoon?” Joel added.

“Well, it does seem—”

Miss Oberon was still thinking when Sir Anthony came up from his dressing room. He looked quite handsome in white tie and tails. He consulted his watch. On stage, the orchestra had finished tuning up. At a signal from the stage director the curtain rose and a roar of applause greeted Sir Anthony as he walked out from the wings. It was time for the overture. No matter how much Tod would have liked to delay the performance, the networks waited for no one.

And Miss Oberon’s mind was elsewhere.

“I belong in the committee’s box,” she insisted. “If Marta doesn’t show up it’s her own fault. I’m not going to miss the performance!”

“Oh, God!” Tod groaned. “If I live through this night—”

The volume of the music drove them farther backstage. There were other things to worry about now. Joel had Marta, Tod had Nydia Cornish, but Johnny had Lisa on her mind.

“I’m worried, Professor. She should be here. And she does have trouble driving, even if she won’t admit it. It’s her lameness. Her braking foot.”

The professor was worried, too. He didn’t speak. His mind seemed too busy sorting out things, trying to understand.

“I should have insisted that she come with us,” Johnny said. “Honestly, if anything happened to Lisa—”

“Has she told you anything?” the professor asked. “About the matter of these stories about Marta, I mean. Has she told you what she’s concluded?”

“Concluded?” The question bothered Johnny. She frowned over it a moment. “If Lisa’s concluded anything, she hasn’t told me,” she said. “I know she’s been trying to track down that insurance money.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“And we did make a trip to the sanitarium at Granite one day.”

“The sanitarium?”

The overture was over. A roar of applause drowned out anything else the professor might have said. And then Tod Graham’s voice came over the loud-speakers. It was time for Sir Anthony to announce the winning composition. Tod was making a few introductory remarks.

“Why the sanitarium?” the professor asked.

“We saw Claude Humphrey.”

“But why? What did he say?”

“Not a thing. He’s a loony, all right. He didn’t say a word until the guide inadvertently lit a match—”

Tod had stopped speaking now and Sir Anthony was at the microphone. No matter who was missing, and no matter why, no one within sound of Sir Anthony’s voice could resist silence now. All must listen. All must know.

“In the past eight years, the Martin Cornish Memorial Award has offered to the world eight distinguished additions to musical literature,” he began, “but this year, a year in which I am proud to have been honored with the responsibility of choosing the winning entry in this splendid competition, I feel that we have discovered a work of such merit that it will live as long as the name of the man we honor here tonight. I take great pleasure in announcing and conducting the first performance of the winner of this year’s Martin Cornish Award,
Nocturne Romantic
, by Miss Marta Cornish.”

There could have been little or no surprise out front. In the flag-draped committee’s box, only Miss Oberon stiffened and turned pale. The professor’s expression was no less incredulous. Johnny was simply speechless.

“And she isn’t even here!” Joel groaned.

It began softly, hauntingly. It began like the faraway cry of a soul searching for release. The applause and the silence following Sir Anthony’s announcement was lost in the wonder of something precious being born.
“… a work of such merit that it will live as long as the name of the man we honor here tonight.”

Softly, hauntingly.

“But that isn’t it!” Joel gasped. “That’s not Marta’s concerto!”

“It’s the other one,” Johnny marveled.

“The other one?” the professor asked.

“The piece Marta always begins and never finishes. I’ve heard it from across the hill. So has Lisa.”

“And so have I,” Joel said. “But it’s
not
her concerto!”

“Then whose—?”

Curran Dawes didn’t complete his question. The music was answering for him. He listened, and it seemed by his face that he was listening to more than music.

“The past,” he whispered.

“What?” Johnny asked. “Professor Dawes, where are you going?”

He was moving away, and the question didn’t stop him. He was leaving the stage with all that loveliness swelling up from the soul of greatness, and all that dread being born in his eyes. Three important people were missing. He hurried to the stage door, and for a moment the sound of the storm mingled with the orchestra. And then the door closed behind him and only the music remained.

The music filled the study. Lisa sat at her desk, her back to the windows. The lights were on now, all of the lights. The house was like a beacon in the storm-swept darkness. But inside those windows there was no storm except the torrent of sound flowing from the loud-speaker across the room. Lisa closed her eyes and listened. For a time nothing moved in the room except the silent spinning of the discs on the wire recorder on her desk.

And then there was a sound at the windows. The latch loosened and the wind swung one of the panels back against the house and swept into the room; but the wind didn’t enter alone. Lisa knew that even as she turned, smiling, to meet the intruder.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “I was sure that you would come.”

The window banged shut again. The music rose. And on the desk the little discs kept spinning.

When Curran Dawes had heard all of the story on the recorder, he switched the control back to reverse the second time and then waited. He hadn’t long to wait. The call he had sent Johnny to make on the hall telephone was delayed by the storm, but she did get through, finally, and the Pineview Road was still open. When Johnny returned to the study, she wasn’t alone. Sheriff Elliot, a tall man in a wet, black slicker and visored cap, was with her as well as several assistants—deputies, a medical examiner—and Joel and Marta.

The professor hardly noticed the faces of the men, but he looked up sharply at the sight of Marta in the doorway.

“No, don’t let her come in this room, Joel. Don’t let Marta—”

But it was Marta’s voice that answered him, husky with spent emotion and yet strangely calm and determined.

“It’s all right, Professor Dawes. I know what happened. Joel and I met Sheriff Elliot at the scene of the accident.”

“The accident?”

He should have realized. Those faces were grave before they could see what was on the floor near the windows. Sheriff Elliot, who had bent quickly over the body, rose up again and met the professor’s questioning eyes.

“At the bottom of Pineview Road,” he said. “It’s a bad night for driving, especially for someone who didn’t know much about it. That station wagon was going awfully fast, judging from the skid marks. It just couldn’t make the sharp turn onto the highway.”

He still hadn’t answered the professor’s unspoken question. He didn’t seem to want to answer it. His own restless eyes searched the floor until they found the revolver. He whipped out a handkerchief and picked it up gingerly.

“Not much need of fingerprinting this, I guess,” he said. “What’s happened here seems pretty obvious. But why?”

The same question was on every face in the room. Curran Dawes knew the answer now; but there were other things he didn’t know, other things he was only beginning to be aware of. Marta, for instance. Who would have suspected she had such strength? Who but one stubborn woman who wouldn’t believe what all Bellville had been taught to believe? Marta had suddenly grown up. One night of horror, and she’d left the past behind.

“The accident?” the professor asked. “Was it fatal?”

Joel found his tongue before the others.

“It must have been all over in an instant. There wasn’t anything anyone could do.”

“And Marta? Where did you find her?”

Joel’s hand tightened on Marta’s arm, as if to say she’d never get away from him again.

“She found me,” he said. “It was right after Miss Johnson took out after you—I think you made off with Tod’s car, by the way.”

The aside was to Johnny, who didn’t seem to hear. She was still in a state of shock.

“Marta was in the auditorium all the time,” Joel added, “hiding out because she was too afraid of failure to show herself and too curious to stay away. That’s why we couldn’t find her when we searched so hard. It took Sir Anthony’s announcement to bring her out from under the backstage stairway.”

“And the music,” Marta broke in. “I don’t understand. It’s not my music. I never— Professor, do you know what happened? Do you have the answer?”

The same question written on every face, and only one way to satisfy them all. The professor’s hand moved toward the recorder switch.

“It’s all on this machine,” he said. “I’ll play it if you’re sure that you really want to listen.”

His words were for everyone, but his eyes were only for Marta. And it was Marta who made the decision.

“Play it,” she said.

It began with nothing but the sound of the music, the soft, haunting music that had just been announced as the first performance of the Cornish Award composition. For some minutes this was the only sound, and then came other sounds: the sound of a window panel wrenched open in the wind, the brief wail of the storm, and then, calmly, Lisa’s voice.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “I was sure that you would come.”

The window banged shut again. The music rose.

“You’re out of breath,” Lisa said, “and so wet! You must have run out without a coat.”

And then Nydia answered.

“Who are you?” she gasped.

The music was still playing, softly, sweetly. The music had no fury in it. Lisa’s voice was like the music.

“I’m a novelist, Mrs. Cornish. I’ve come to do a book based on your husband’s life, don’t you remember? You offered to help me the first day we met.”

Nydia didn’t seem to understand. She didn’t answer.

“It was very kind of you,” Lisa’s voice continued, “but I really haven’t needed your help until tonight. That’s why I telephoned Dr. Hazlitt this evening. I knew he would be certain to relay my message, just as I knew you would listen to the concert from inside your citadel tonight. There was no reason to leave it and go down to the auditorium, was there? No reason at all for the queen to preside over the festivities, knowing in advance that her daughter couldn’t possibly win a competition she hadn’t entered.”

There was a moment of silence behind Lisa’s words. A pause in the music coming from the loud-speaker across the room, and then three words that seemed almost to be torn from Nydia’s throat.

“Who
are
you?”

The musk rose again, and Lisa’s voice with it.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Mrs. Cornish, but you must be patient. Storytellers must tell stories in their own way and in their own time. I realized that as soon as I came to Bellville and met Marta, and heard of Marta from every tongue and from every direction—Marta the terrible, Marta the dangerous, Marta the insane.”

“That’s not true!”

“Of course it isn’t true, but Bellville will believe it—that’s the important thing. Bellville is only too willing to believe any evil about the mad daughter of mad Martin Cornish. It already believes that she drove Howard Gleason to his death; it believes that she pushed Pierre Duval down those stairs.”

“Fantastic!” Nydia protested.

“Yes, quite fantastic,” Lisa agreed. “You and I know that, but we must convince Bellville—and Marta. Because Marta is a sensitive and talented girl—not the genius her father was, perhaps, but not the fraud Miss Oberon likes to think and will encourage everyone else to think on the slightest provocation. And there was to have been plenty of provocation after tonight, wasn’t there? One more story to add to the collection, but not a rumor this time. Not a gossip’s tale about old Claude Humphrey or Alistair Hubbard’s medicine. Not even the subtle poison of a tale of two dead suitors. No, tonight’s mischief would have been the final blow. Mad Marta Cornish submitted blank music sheets in the award competition she so needed to win. If the disappointment of losing didn’t crush her, the talebearers would at least have enough evidence to convince even the most skeptical that Marta is mentally unfit to manage the estate she inherits in September. And that’s what all of this mystery was created to achieve, isn’t it, Mrs. Cornish?”

The music was thin, ethereal, like a soft veil that barely covered the silence. There should have been cymbals after Lisa’s words, but the music was thin.

Nydia Cornish’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

“Are you accusing me—?”

“No,” Lisa answered, “I don’t have to accuse. I planned this night very carefully, once it became inevitable—and I didn’t want it to be inevitable. I tried to avoid—” Lisa’s voice broke. For a moment there was only the music and then, “I tried to avoid the truth. I tried in every way. I think that I tried the hardest with Tod Graham. I wanted him to be behind this horrible scheme. I clung to the thought that it was he who promoted the Cornish Memorial in the first place, he who sold the idea first to you and then to Alistair Hubbard. After Hubbard’s death, Tod managed the estate. He knew how low the fund was running, and he knew, too, that if the festival had to be abandoned it would mean the end of Bellville and all of his hopes, not to mention his investments. Oh yes, I tried hard to fit the crime on Tod, and then on Dr. Hazlitt, who has a bank account in another town and too many memories for his own peace of mind. I even tried to fit it on Stanley Watts. But there was always something left over. Always something left out.”

Lisa’s voice had been low and deliberate, but not too low for Nydia to catch that one damaging word.

“Crime!” she gasped.

“Yes, crime,” Lisa repeated. “Cruel, ruthless, diabolical crime. Think of it, Mrs. Cornish. Reflect for a moment on the nature of this crime. There’s nothing honest about it, nothing risky. There’s no act of violence involved. An old man dies for the lack of his medicine. Was it withheld from him or not? Who knows? Who needs to know? A story is there for the gossips. Make the most of it. And Pierre Duval. You had several years to work on him, several years in which to make him believe in the possibility of love so much that he’d sign away his life on an insurance policy. And that’s exactly what he did, didn’t he? An accident. There would have to be an accident, sooner or later. If Duval, with his dangerous handicap, didn’t succeed in destroying himself soon enough, something could be arranged. Perhaps it was arranged; perhaps not. There was no risk to you in any event. The gossips would talk about Marta, and ten thousand dollars was enough to keep the fund alive for two more years.

“But you must have been desperate for money when Howard Gleason came into the picture. What did you tell him? How did you manage? Oh, I can imagine. ‘Stay on in Bellville, young man. You love my daughter and she loves you. She just needs a little time to realize that. Stay on in Bellville, Howard, and in the meantime perhaps I could borrow that award money. Just a loan, of course. Just until Marta accepts you.’ But it couldn’t go on, could it, Mrs. Cornish? There couldn’t always be an obliging Howard Gleason ready to blow out his brains over a lost love and a lost opportunity? One day Marta would really fall in love, and one day, very soon, she would inherit the money you must have in order to preserve the borrowed glory of Nydia Bell.”

The music was growing louder. Lisa’s voice, strong and clear now, rose above it.

“The Nydia Bell Cornish Memorial—that’s what it really is! You care no more for art than you care for humanity. It’s the glory that you love, Nydia, that annual obeisance to the widow of greatness.”

“That’s a lie!” Nydia cried. “Everything you’ve said is a lie! You can’t prove anything!”

“Prove what, Mrs. Cornish?”

Only the music answered Lisa. Only the music and then, finally, her own voice again.

“No, I can’t prove anything. No one can. There’s no law on the statute books to cover mental assassination, and no evidence of any overt act. You’re much too clever for that. I’ve watched you in action; I know. That day we met in Stanley Watts’s office, for instance. You didn’t have to mention Marta’s attack on Carrie in front of a witness, and you didn’t have to apologize so humbly and uncharacteristically. But it was good timing, wasn’t it? You knew that Stanley would bear the tale, and it made such fine grist for the mill. I’ve watched you at other times, too—clinging to Joel’s arm, winning, winnowing, being the gracious mother-in-law-to-be for the third time. You play too many parts, Nydia, and you play them too well. You play the tyrant much too well. But do you know what a tyrant really is? A coward, that’s all. Someone who is just much more afraid of life than any one else. But why, Nydia Cornish? Surely there has to be some reason for so great a fear. There must be roots. Is it possible, I wonder, can it be that the great fear of the Queen of Bell Mansion runs as deep and is as old as the roots of Claude Humphrey’s fear of fire?”

There was a silence after Lisa’s words. Even the music had paused, as if in preparation for the great finale. Against the silence Nydia’s question came once more:
“Who are you?”

Professor Dawes stopped the machine. The instant of silence in the room was unbearable. Everyone was waiting. No one seemed to breathe.

He looked at Marta. Her face was very white, but her eyes were waiting for the rest. He looked at Joel. Joel’s arm was about Marta’s shoulder now. It tightened protectively. Then he looked at Johnny.

“I knew,” Johnny half-whispered. “Somehow, I knew all along that Lisa had been here before.”

“Shall I play the rest, Miss Johnson? Here?”

Johnny clung to the edge of the desk. For a few moments she didn’t answer.

“It’s on the recorder,” she said, at last. “She must have wanted it that way. She said that she’d planned this night—”

Professor Dawes released the stop and the little discs began to spin once more.

When Lisa answered, the music behind her, louder, stronger, climbing to the summit of its song, her voice was very clear.

“My name,” she said, “is Elizabeth Bannister. That name doesn’t mean anything to you, Mrs. Cornish. You were never one to fraternize outside your own social circle. But it does mean something to Dr. Hazlitt. It’s been worrying him, as I’ve been worrying him, ever since the day we met at the board meeting. But Dr. Hazlitt doesn’t like to remember things. He once committed an old man to an asylum because he babbled too much, and I rather suspect that he almost believed what the old man babbled. But he doesn’t have the courage to speak. It’s easier to forget. It’s easier not to question anything that happens at Bell Mansion and just forget. What could he prove anyway? What can I prove? Perhaps the fire was an accident. Perhaps Claude Humphrey was careless with the insecticide.