The Door (6 page)

Only later on was I to have the full picture of that tragic discovery; the evidence that the body had been dragged along beside the bridle path for almost a quarter of a mile, a herculean task; the inexplicable fact that the shoes had been removed and thrown in after the body; the difficulty of explaining how that inert figure had been lifted seven feet in the air to the top of the sewer to be dropped as it was found, head down, into that pipe-like orifice; and strangest and most dreadful of all to me, that the very rope with which the dogs had been tied when I found them, had been fastened under her arms and used to drag the body.

The homicide squad, I believe, was early on the scene, a cordon of police thrown out, and the path closed from the Larimer lot to a point beyond the sewer. But the heavy rain and the fact that the path had been used had obliterated all traces save those broken branches down the hillside which apparently proved that Sarah had been killed on or near the Larimer property.

The body had been found at three o’clock, and the medical examination took place as soon as it could be removed. The crime detection unit, a group of specialists, had been notified before that removal, but of the seven only one found anything to do there, and that was the photographer. And a gruesome enough exhibit those pictures made; the waiting ambulance, the mounted men holding back the curious who attempted to break the line, and close-up photographs of that poor body in its incredible resting place.

Inspector Harrison, sitting gravely in my library that night, was puzzled and restless.

“It’s a curious case,” he said. “Apparently motiveless. She was not robbed; the purse was found with the body, although—you say she carried a key to this house?”

“Yes. Inspector, I have been wondering if she did leave her bedroom door unlocked that night when she went out. If that man on the stairs hadn’t already killed her and taken both keys.”

“I think not. And I’ll tell you why. Now the time when you saw that figure on the stairs was at seven-thirty-five, approximately. You’d finished a seven o’clock dinner and had got to your coffee. That’s near enough, anyhow. But Sarah Gittings did not die until around ten o’clock.”

“I don’t understand. How do you know that?”

“By the food in the stomach. It had been in the stomach for approximately four hours before she died. The autopsy showed us that. But it does not show us where Sarah Gittings was between seven o’clock and ten. Three hours between the time she left this house and the time of her death. Where was she? What was she doing during that three hours? Once we learn that, and the identity of this Florence, we will have somewhere to go.”

“I have wondered if a maniac, a homicidal maniac—”

“On account of the shoes? No, I think not, although there may have been an endeavor to make us think that. No. Why did Sarah Gittings take a chair from the laundry and place it in the wood-cellar? Why did she agree to take the dogs, and at the same time take a rope with which to tie them? What was in her room that would justify breaking into this house to secure it? Those are the questions we have to ask ourselves, Miss Bell.

“About this rope,” he went on thoughtfully. “You left it when you untied the dogs and went back for Joseph?”

“I left it by the tree.”

“And when you got back it was not there?”

“No. We searched for it as well as we could. But a rope doesn’t move itself, and it was not where I left it, or anywhere nearby.”

He got up to go, and standing in the hallway stared back at the lavatory door.

“This Florence,” he said, “she may try to get in touch with you. She reads the papers, and God knows they are full of it today. If she does, don’t scare her off. Find out something. Coax her here if you can, and notify me.”

He went back into the lavatory and stood looking up at the ceiling.

“A strong man,” he said, “or a desperate one if he got himself out of that shaft, and he may have; and it took strength to put that body where we found it.”

As an afterthought, on his way out, he turned and said:

“Strange thing. Both those stab wounds were exactly the same depth, four and a quarter inches.”

Wallie and Jim had made the necessary identification, and the coroner’s jury brought in the only verdict possible. After that and pending the funeral we had a brief respite, although hardly to be called a peace. Reporters rang the bell day and night, and the press published sensational stories, including photographs of the house. Camera men even lurked in the shrubbery, trying for snapshots of any of us. One they did get, of Judy.

They had caught her unawares with a cigarette in her hand, and to prevent the picture she had made a really shocking face at the camera. They published it, nevertheless, and Katherine was outraged.

Katherine came down to the funeral. She was shocked and incredulous over the whole affair.

“But why?” she repeated over and over, when we got back from the service. “She had no enemies. She really had nobody, but us.”

“Is there anything phony about any of us?” Judy inquired. “Some family secret, or something she knew?”

“Judy!” said Katherine indignantly.

“But I mean it, mother. If we’re all she’s had for twenty years—”

Fortunately for Judy, Jim Blake came in just then, and I sent upstairs for Mary Martin, who had been left to herself for several days, and ordered tea. It seemed to me that we needed it.

We were five, then, that afternoon after Sarah’s funeral when we gathered around the tea table; Katherine in her handsome black, the large square emerald which was Howard’s latest gift to her on one white slim hand, saddened but controlled; Judy, with her boyish head and her girlish body; Mary, red-headed, pretty, not too sure of herself and resentful of it—it was clear that Katherine rather daunted her; Jim, well valeted and showing in relaxation some slight evidence of too many dinners and too many cocktails; and myself.

Katherine inspected Jim critically as he came in.

“You look tired, Jim.”

“Well, it’s been an uneasy week,” he said evasively.

But she could not let it rest at that. Everything attached to Sarah had grown enormous in her eyes; already she was exalting Sarah in her mind, her virtues, her grievances.

“I didn’t suppose you’d bother much. You never liked her.”

“My dear girl! I hardly knew her.”

“You never liked her, Jim. That’s all I said. Although why you should dislike the poor dear I don’t know.”

It seemed to me that Jim looked annoyed. More than annoyed, indeed; alarmed. Also that Mary was staring at him with a rather singular intentness, and that Judy had noticed this. There was no particular sympathy between the two girls. Judy, assured, humorous and unself-conscious, was downright and frank to the shocking point, and her small artifices were as open as herself. But there was nothing open about Mary Martin and very little that was natural, save the color of her hair.

“Her mind’s always on herself,” Judy had complained once. “She poses her very fingers, if you know what I mean. She’s self-conscious every minute.”

And if there is one crime in the bright lexicon of modern youth it is to be self-conscious.

Katherine, upset and nervous, was gnawing on her grievance like a dog on a bone.

“But you thought Howard was foolish to remember her in his will, Jim.”

“Nonsense, Katherine. Howard’s money is his, to leave where he likes. Anyhow, let’s hope he doesn’t leave it at all for a good many years.”

That silenced her. She sat very still, with her eyes slightly dilated, facing the issue she had herself brought up; Howard gone and herself alone. The years going on and she alone. And into that silence Mary Martin’s voice broke, quiet but very clear.

“I have always meant to ask you, Mr. Blake. Did you receive the letter Miss Gittings wrote you on Sunday, the day before the—the thing happened?”

“A letter?” said Jim. “She wrote me a letter?”

But he was shocked. A child could have seen it. His teacup shook in his hand, and he was obliged to rest it on his knee. I saw Judy’s eyes narrow.

“She did indeed. I went in while she was writing it.”

“A letter?” Katherine asked. “Did you get it, Jim?”

“I received no letter.” He had recovered somewhat, however, and now he turned on Mary sharply. “How did you know it was to me? Did she say so?”

“No. She was addressing the envelope, and she put her arm over it so I could not see. That is how I know.”

“Do speak up,” Judy said irritably. “What’s the sense in being mysterious? God knows we’ve got enough of that.”

“Her uniform is still hanging in the closet, and Mr. Blake’s name is quite clear on the sleeve. Of course you have to take a mirror to read it.”

I do not think any one of us doubted that she had told the truth, unless it was Katherine. And Mary sat there, pleased at being the center of attention, the picture however of demureness, her eyes on her well-manicured hands, which were as Judy had said, carelessly but beautifully posed in her lap.

“I don’t believe it,” Katherine said suddenly. “Please bring it down, Miss Martin.”

I saw the girl stiffen and glance at me. She was taking no orders, said her attitude, except from me.

“Will you, Mary? Please.”

She went out then, leaving the four of us in a rather strained silence. Jim was staring into his teacup. Judy was watching Jim, and Katherine had put her head back and closed her eyes.

“I don’t like that girl,” she said. “She is malicious.”

“There’s nothing malicious in her giving us a clue if she’s got one,” said Judy with determined firmness. “We don’t know that she sent the letter, but if she wrote one—”

“Well?”

“It looks as if she had had something to say to Uncle Jim which she didn’t care to telephone, doesn’t it?”

Mary came back then, and I daresay all of us felt rather sick when we saw Sarah’s white uniform once more. There is something about the clothing of those who have died which is terribly pathetic; the familiarity, the small wrinkles left by a once warm body. And in Sarah’s case the uniform spelled to most of us long years of loyal service. Katherine I know was silently crying.

Judy was the first to take the garment and examine it. I noticed that Jim did not touch it. Mary had brought a mirror, and I saw that Joseph—who was gathering the teacups—was politely dissembling an interest as keen as ours. Judy however did not help him any. She looked at the ink marks on the cuff which Mary had indicated, and then silently passed both mirror and garment to me.

There was no question of what was there. Somewhat smeared but still readable was the word “Blake,” and while the house number was illegible, the street, Pine Street, was quite distinct.

No one spoke until Joseph went out. Then Jim cleared his throat and said:

“I don’t care what’s there. I never got a letter from her.”

“She put a stamp on it,” said Mary.

Judy turned on her.

“That doesn’t prove that she mailed it.”

But Mary shrugged her shoulders. I thought then, and I still think, that at that moment at least she was sincere enough, and also that she was enjoying the situation she had forced. For once the attention was on her and not on Katherine and Judy, with their solid place in the world, their unconscious assumption of superiority.

“You knew her,” she said laconically. “She wouldn’t waste a two-cent stamp.”

She was unwilling to give up the center of the stage, however. She said that the uniform might or might not have importance, but that she felt the police should see it. If looks could have killed her she would never have left that room, but she had put the issue up to us and what could we do?

“Certainly,” said Judy shrewishly. “You might put on your things now and take it, Mary!”

And with all eyes on her Mary merely looked at her watch and said that it was too late.

When a half hour or so later Inspector Harrison came in he found us all sitting there, manufacturing talk to cover our discomfort, and Mary blandly smiling.

We had to give the uniform to him. But from that time on there was not one of us who did not believe that Mary Martin was a potential enemy, and potentially dangerous; nor one of at least four of us who did not believe that Jim had actually received a letter from Sarah and was choosing to suppress the fact.

I
T IS NOT EASY
to tell of this series of crimes in entire sequence. For one thing I kept no journal. For another, I must contend with that instinct of the human mind which attempts to forget what is painful to remember.

I do know, however, that Sarah was murdered on a Monday, the eighteenth of April, and that the death of Florence Gunther did not take place until the first of May. How she had occupied herself in that interval we cannot be certain; we know that she was terrified, that at night she must have locked herself in her room and listened for stealthy footsteps on the stairs, and that in daytime her terror was of a different order, but very real.

I can find only one bit of comfort. When death did come to her it was sudden and unexpected. She may have been smiling. She must even have been feeling a sense of relief, now that her resolution was taken. She could have had no warning, no premonition.

Yet had she had only a little courage she might have lived.

It is easy to say now what she should have done. She should have gone at once to the District Attorney and told her story. But perhaps she was afraid of that, of being discovered or followed. Then too Mr. Waite was away, and she may have been waiting for his return.

We know now that she was hysterical during most of the interval, hysterical and suspicious, that she had built up the crime to fit what she knew, and that the case as she saw it was precisely the case as the police were to see it later on. But we have no details of those terrible days through which she lived from the eighteenth of April to the first of May.

On the Tuesday following Sarah’s funeral Katherine went back to New York, and on the next day the District Attorney sent for me. He had some of the papers on the case before him, and he fingered them while he interrogated me.