The Late Clara Beame (18 page)

“Get hold of yourself, Dave,” John said gently.

David took a deep breath. “All right. I’m okay now.” He looked at Henry. It was hard to tell if he were listening.

“We came up here, the three of us, for two reasons, Hank. One, to prove you killed Sam. The second, to stop you from killing Laura. To frighten you, John shot at you, not from the attic window but from the hall window. I made Mrs. Daley promise that if you asked you were to be told that she had used that window herself, to shake a rug. But all this didn’t warn you, and obviously didn’t stop you. You were getting impatient, now. You had gotten away with murder once, and here you had three witnesses who could ‘prove’ you couldn’t have killed your wife. And then you poisoned Laura, with arsenic or whatever it was. We’ll know, soon. And you got away with it again. How you must have felt when I saved Laura the other night! If only we hadn’t heard her scream. You hadn’t counted on us hearing that. You thought she’d die quickly, without making a sound. You poisoned her glass of water at the table, in the flurry of all of us seating ourselves.

“We told you we were leaving on the twenty-sixth. So you had to hurry. Alice had you whirling with her seduction act. You couldn’t wait any longer. You built up a case against Laura by practically making her admit she was an alcoholic, a potential suicide, a depressed and confused person. You forgot one thing that I didn’t remember until it was too late: Laura had never liked brandy. It was her pet hate. But you tried to make us think that you were really astonished because she refused brandy after dinner! So, you did slip up, didn’t you?”

Henry put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head in his hands. His voice was muffled: “Go on, go on. It doesn’t matter. You know it’s a pack of lies. When the police come — ”

“Yes, when the police come,” David agreed. “I have my sample. And, we have a dead girl upstairs. We also have her suicide note. That was part of the letter she’d written to Alice, wasn’t it, Hank? The letter you didn’t mail. I’ve studied that suicide note. The top of it, which seems to begin with ‘Henry’ was cut away. ‘Henry’ was the end of a sentence, not the beginning. Microscopic examination will show it all up better. That was slip number two.

“You must have been opening Laura’s letters for weeks, maybe months, trying to find one whose words would fit what you had in mind. When they didn’t fit, you resealed and mailed them. The letter you didn’t mail to Alice was a plea from the poor girl asking Alice to understand. It fit beautifully. When Laura wrote those words she didn’t know she was writing a suicide note. She never knew anything at all about you, really, did she, Hank? Three murders! Sam, your unborn child, and now Laura!”

Henry dropped his hands and stared at David. His face was suddenly the face of a broken and aged man. “That’s a lie. I never knew she was pregnant.”

“Would it have mattered to you if she had told you?”

“I mailed Laura’s letters to Alice, all of them,” Henry told them. “If there is a murderer here, it isn’t I. Alice denied she received that letter. But she did. And one of you got your hands on it. One of you killed Laura, the same one who killed Sam.”

“No good. No good at all. You see,” David said, “Laura was conscious for a minute or two before she died. It often happens that way — consciousness returning completely just before death. Laura lived long enough to tell me the truth. The fact that she had seen you in Sam’s room the night he was supposed to have committed suicide.”

“Another lie!” Henry cried, clutching the arms of his chair. “I was sleeping in the same room with you!”

The fire had died down to embers. Lamplight played softly on the tense faces in the room, as they watched Henry Frazier.

“And you didn’t get up?” David prodded. “Of course you did! What did you do. Go into Sam’s room and talk to him, confidentially, about your ‘friend’? That’s probably it. You knew Sam was taking capsules I’d given him for heartburn. The bottle was still beside his bed when we found him. It was you who stole my poisonous capsule last June, right out from under our noses. You considerately fed Sam that capsule, knowing he thought it was an antiacid tablet. I suppose you’ll never tell us how long you’ve been plotting these murders.

“But Laura saw you in that room. You knew that. Did you plan to get rid of her immediately? Or, did you so confuse her that she forgot? She did forget, by the way. That sometimes happens after shock, and she was terribly upset over Sam. The brief glimpse she had gotten of your face was driven from her mind by subsequent events. Tonight, before she died, she remembered it. She told Alice and me. And that cook of yours, Mrs. Daley. She had come into the room to see if she could help, and she heard what Laura said. Perhaps that, in the end, was what really killed poor Laura, the knowledge that her husband was a murderer.

“It’s possible, too, that she unconsciously drove the memory of seeing your face out of her mind. How could you explain it to her, if she asked you? Shock, and refusal to believe she had really seen something, combined to make her forget. But death can stir up memories.”

“Memories! Probabilities! You can’t prove anything!” Henry shouted. “I’m a lawyer, and I know. You haven’t evidence that I — killed Sam, or Laura.” He clenched his fists. “You can’t prove this pack of insane lies. Carr — Beame, if he is Beame — admitted he shot at me. And on some flimsy pretext of ‘warning’ me! Do you think I’m a fool?” he demanded, shaking his fist at David. “You all came up here for one thing, to get rid of me or Laura! To get Laura’s money, one way or another! One of you killed her; two of you are accessories before the fact.”

“I really should kill you,” John said thoughtfully. “There’s a chance, after all, unless you confess, that you’ll get away with it. Friendly, kind, responsible Henry Frazier, lawyer, clubman, loving husband. You’ve played it well, I admit. Dozens of people, including your own help, can testify you’ve been the best of husbands. That girl, Edith, would be only too willing to testify that Mrs. Frazier wasn’t in her right mind. She’s hinted at it often enough. But, with all the evidence we have against you, flimsy though you think it is, if you should start struggling with me for this gun — well, we’ll have saved the state some money.”

He lifted the gun, and there was the sharp click of the safety catch. Henry flung himself against the back of his chair. “Don’t! Don’t kill me!” he screamed. “Don’t add another murder!”

They watched him as he stared in terror at the gun. Moments passed. “I don’t know,” David said finally. “Let me think about it for a minute, John.” His gaze rested on Henry. “Relax, you swine. You aren’t going to die immediately. But you are giving me ideas.

“There was another thing Laura told me, before she died. She had gone upstairs because of her cold, to take some aspirin. You, the ever-loving husband, came in briefly, before you rushed out to get wood. Always solicitous, that’s you, Hank. You dissolved three tablets of aspirin in some water for her. But you also dropped in the barbiturates. Perhaps you’d already removed them from the capsules. Only you can tell us that. So you gave Laura her second dose of poison, partly disguised under the strong taste of aspirin. She downed it quickly, she said. There was a bitter taste, she said. But she thought it was only because of the third aspirin tablet. Then she rinsed out her mouth. That’s what she told me, Hank. Just before she died. In the presence of Alice and Mrs. Daley.” He leaned forward and pointed his finger like a gun at the white-faced man. “That’s the only possible way she could have taken the barbiturates. She told me she hadn’t taken anything else, when we took the chocolate up to her. And I believe her. No one will believe it if you say that she swallowed the capsules later, intending suicide. Suicides aren’t anxious about colds; they don’t take aspirins; they don’t sip hot chocolate and chat gaily, as Laura did. Especially not someone like Laura. She’s absolutely unable to cheat, or lie, or pretend. She’s as open as a book. She wasn’t depressed. She was a happy young woman who had gone to bed with a slight cold, waiting for a Christmas Day she’d never see, waiting to see a husband again who had tried to kill her once, had tried to kill her a second time, and then succeeded the third time.”

David sighed wearily, and his voice was becoming husky. “She knew, before she died, what you had done. She knew all about it. That’s an awful thought to die with — that someone you loved had murdered you, had hated you enough to murder you. Good, kind, trusting little Laura, who never harmed a soul in her life.”

Henry remained silent. It was as if he had not heard a word. He was still helplessly watching the gun in John Carr’s hand.

“And to think,” David continued, “that after giving Laura the dose that was to kill her, you could come into this room carrying wood, and grinning! And could sit and chat for hours, while Laura died in agony, her lungs and chest slowly becoming paralyzed. Did you listen for a last cry of help from the wife who loved and trusted you?”

“Liar, liar,” Henry moaned, fascinated by the gun and afraid to look away from it. “You wouldn’t dare kill me, after the other murders. I’m a lawyer. I know defense tactics. I’ll get Alice on the stand, and she’ll admit she played up to me. And she’ll be forced to testify that I never encouraged her for a moment, that I told her I loved Laura. I’ve nothing to fear from the law. But you have.”

Alice came into the room, lines of exhaustion etched on her face. She nodded to her brother, and smiled faintly.

David said softly, “We’ll have another witness, Hank. We’ll have Laura. She isn’t dead.”

Henry took his eyes from the gun, stood up, and looked towards the hall. “Laura? Laura?”

“We walked her up and down,” David said grimly. “Mrs. Daley made coffee; we are pouring buckets of it into her. I gave her a strong stimulant, and Mrs. Daley’s to keep her walking. And then she’ll be all right. She’ll be safe from you. She knows now it was I, not you, who held her the other night, after the first poisoning. I told her. She knows now who really cares for her. And she knows all about you. I think, for a while, she wanted to die. She doesn’t want to see you, Hank. I don’t think she’ll ever want to lay eyes on you again.”

David doubted, even in his medical practice, if he had ever seen a man as pale as Henry Frazier. His features were waxlike, his eyes dead.

“She’ll make a statement,” David went on, “and she’ll identify that alleged suicide note as a letter she wrote to Alice. She remembers seeing you in Sam’s room. She remembers a lot of things, including your preparation of the aspirin. You won’t talk your way out of these things, Hank. You’ll never talk your way out of anything again.”

Then Henry spoke, slowly, deliberately. “Damn her. Damn her and everything she is. Her childishness, her stupidity. After I married her I thought I could make something out of the cursed situation, after all. There was all that money. But it was no use. Her na
ï
vet
é
, her trusting idiocy, her belief in everything; it used to make me ill. Marriage to a fool is hell. It’s worse than being married to a whore. I might have given it all up, if she’d only grown up. But she never did. How could I live with all that? My God, you don’t know.”

“You never really knew her,” David told him. “You never knew how strong she really is. If she hadn’t been, she’d have died tonight. She hates you, Hank, but she isn’t giving up. She only wants you to be punished for killing Sam. That to her is more than the attempts on her own life. Well. Thanks for the confession, anyway. Before the three of us.”

Henry’s haunted eyes turned involuntarily from the gun. He looked at Alice, his expression unfathomable, and for a moment she returned his look before turning away.

There was the sound of a car outside, the slamming of doors, and men’s voices. “Good for old Evelyn,” David said. “He finally got to the police. Well, Hank. This is it. After they take our statements, and yours, we’ll see you in the county jail. Merry Christmas!”

Three days later Laura was able to come downstairs again. Mrs. Daley had tactfully taken down the tree, and a fire burned brightly on the hearth. Laura’s face was drawn and pale as she sat by the fire. David sat beside her, holding her hand. She forced herself to smile at him.

“As soon as I can,” she said in a tired voice, “I’m going to leave here. I never want to see this house again, even though it was Aunt Clara’s. It was Aunt Clara who really saved me, you know,” she told them seriously. “She woke me up. She made me drop the lamp.”

“I know,” Alice said gently. “I felt her here, myself.” Laura nodded.

“They say the dead can’t come back, but when someone they love is in danger, perhaps God lets them come to help. Or perhaps it is the thought of them, thinking of us, and seeing us from wherever they are. And praying for us. And we ‘feel’ their anxiety. I don’t know, and you won’t believe it, but I have a sort of happiness now, knowing that Aunt Clara came to help me. I know, too, that she doesn’t want me to stay here, now.”

“I don’t think she does,” Alice agreed. “There’s too much for you to remember, Laura. You’d never be happy here again.”

Laura looked at David, and her eyes filled with tears. Her fingers held his hand tightly.

“I’ll go back to New York when I feel stronger. You won’t leave me, will you?” She said it to all of them, but her eyes rested on David.

“We won’t leave without you,” David assured her, admiring her calm acceptance of all that had happened.

“And I won’t have to — He’s confessed about Sam. I won’t — ”

“Testify? I don’t think so,” John said. She looked at him, her dark eyes somber.

“John, I can’t tell you how it makes me feel to know that all at once I have a brother who cared enough about me, though he’d never seen me, to try and save my life.”

“I don’t like murderers, Laura,” John told her. “Frankly, little sister, I didn’t care about you at first. It was a job to be done. Then I got to know you. All about you. My other sister — well, you wouldn’t like her. Neither do I. But now I have a real sister. I’m a lonely guy, myself.”

He looked at Alice. Her blue eyes returned the look warmly and color touched her cheeks. She turned away hastily. “Laura, would you consider selling David and me this house? We haven’t a vast sum of money between us, but we could manage it, somehow.”

Laura appeared to think. There was the faint hint of a smile about her mouth. Then she shook her head. “No, Alice, I won’t sell you the house. But I’ll do this: When you marry — someday, soon perhaps — I’ll give you the house as a wedding present. Aunt Clara would like that. She knows now that she was wrong about you.”

“I couldn’t — ” Alice began.

“You can,” David corrected her. “You always loved this Antarctica. Let’s stop all this infernal pride we’ve been throwing about. We can’t afford it, Alice. I’m now so pride-less that I’m going to look around for a very rich woman who’ll marry me. Very, very rich. I’ve always wanted to live in the manner to which I was never accustomed.”

For a brief moment Laura’s expression was serious. Then she smiled as she leaned against David’s arm. “I hope,” she said, “that you won’t wait too long, David. And then we can come up here to visit sometimes. But not too often, and not for a long time yet.”

She looked about the room where she had been so happy, where she had believed herself cherished and protected, and all at once it was unfamiliar to her. It was as though she had never lived here at all, not even as a child. It was another little girl who had sat near this fire, and some other Aunt Clara. She had nothing to do with the house any longer. She was already a stranger here, preparing to leave after a sad visit, and glad to go.

Good-by, she said to herself. Good-by, Laura Frazier.