Unexpected Night (14 page)

“It was the last thing I should have expected him to do.”

“He was so careful of himself. But he was awfully nice. George liked him, didn't you, George?”

“Yes, I did; the poor kid.”

“He did want to come up here with us this summer. I suppose he really couldn't have stood it.”

“You can stand a good deal, if you're happy,” said Gamadge.

Miss Baker watched Mrs. Atwood get up from her stump and wander down towards the gangway. The others also had dispersed; the state policeman stood for a few moments alone and undecided, and then wheeled his motorcycle under a tree, and sat down.

“Mrs. Atwood is nice,” said Miss Baker. “She's ever so much nicer than she looks.”

Sanderson smiled, but Gamadge replied, seriously: “She is nice; I agree with you.”

“Amby was fond of her. Oh, it's too bad he couldn't live to do all the things he was going to do, Mr. Gamadge! He was going to buy us real scenery, and help Mr. Callaghan to put on good plays. If the season had turned out well, he was going to pay us younger ones salaries.”

“You don't get salaries now, Miss Baker?”

“Oh, no; just our board and keep, while we're learning. We get the experience, you see.”

“I see. Then you all go back to New York in the fall, and get Broadway engagements.”

“Yes,” replied Miss Baker, simply. “I will, anyway. George and some of the others are only doing it for fun, in their vacations. He didn't plan to come at all, but Mother thought it would be nice for me to have somebody here that I knew.”

“And Mr. Rogers agreed with her.”

Young Rogers muttered something. Susie, after a glance at him, explained:

“He wants me to—he thinks I ought to—oh, dear! It does seem so mean.”

“What does?”

“Telling on anybody, and Mrs. Atwood has been so nice to me.”

Rogers said: “You go ahead and tell that detective.”

“I hate to do it. All you think about is my interests, but I have to consider other things. I'll ask Mr. Sanderson what he thinks.”

“If you do, he'll simply go and tell the man himself.”

“You won't, Mr. Sanderson, will you? Not if I ask you not to?”

“Not unless you bumped this poor Miss Lake off yourself, or anything like that,” Sanderson assured her.

“It has nothing to do with me; or not much of anything. You see, last night there was a dance up at Tucon, in one of the studios. I know some of the people up there, and they asked me to go. Two boys that paint and draw. They've done some of our scenery.”

“We've met them,” Sanderson told her, grimly. “At least we have if they own the ‘Spotted Pig.'”

“‘The Pottery Pig,' you mean. They don't own it, Mr. Sanderson; Mrs. Gootch owns it. They just rent some of it from her.”

“Bums,” said Rogers.

“No, they're very nice boys, only last night they both took too much to drink, and there wasn't anybody to bring me home.”

“Where was Rogers?” Sanderson looked at him reproachfully.

“He wasn't asked, because he's always telling me it's time to go home, or something. I didn't tell him a word about the party; I just went up by myself, on foot.”

“That's a nice way to treat your chaperon, I must say.”

“You can laugh,” growled Rogers. “See what she got herself into, before you decide it's so funny.”

Gamadge said: “Now, now. Of course it's funny—so far. What happened, Miss Baker? You had to tackle that lane alone, late on a foggy night. Deplorable experience; it must have been a brute of a walk.”

“It was. I was never so scared in my life. If I'd known that she was dead, in that trailer!…”

“Perhaps she wasn't, then.”

“But I realise now that she didn't make a sound. It was too quiet! Well, they're small, you know, those trailers are; you can't help bumping around inside them; so I thought I'd undress outside, so I shouldn't disturb her. I took my clothes off, behind the trees just next to the step; and then, just as I was going in, I heard a car.”

She stopped, looking so frightened that Rogers placed a huge hand on her arm, and bade her take it easy.

“I wasn't scared then; I thought somebody else had sneaked off, just as I had. You see, Mr. Callaghan won't let us go off the place and stay up late, without permission. He's always afraid something will happen to interfere with the opening. He said he'd fire anybody that wasn't at the Cove by ten o'clock. Well, this car came out of the lane, and I peeked round the tree to see who it was. It hardly made any sound, and its lights were off, and the fog was thick; but I recognised his old Ford.”

“Whose old Ford?” asked Gamadge.

“Mr. Atwood's. He drove across and left it on the lane, and he never even shut the door, for fear he'd make a noise. He just left it hanging open, and slid over to his tent.”

“What time was this, Miss Baker?”

“Nearly three o'clock.”

Gamadge and Sanderson exchanged a look. The latter asked: “You're sure it was Atwood?”

“Well, he went into Mr. Atwood's tent, and it was his car.”

There was a pause. Then Sanderson asked: “Mightn't he have been off on the quiet, at some party of his own?”

“The rules don't apply to the Atwoods. They're partners, or something. They come and go as they like. I just wondered whether he did go down there to meet Amby, and—and—”

“Young Cowden seems to have died a natural death, Miss Susie,” said Gamadge, gently. “And Atwood doesn't seem to have gained anything by it.”

“I know.”

“But you don't understand why Atwood should deny being off the place, and you don't like him, and you want to get at the bottom of what happened to your friend. Quite right. Well, you haven't asked my advice, but I'm going to offer it, just the same. Tell Mitchell.”

“That's my advice, too,” said Sanderson. “And Rogers', I believe.”

“She'd be crazy to keep it to herself,” said Rogers.

“Yes, but Mr. Atwood will be sure to find out who told. He always finds out everything. He knows the ‘Pottery Pig' boys, and he'll hear that I came home alone from that party.” Susie Baker was almost trembling; certainly the hand that seized Rogers' sleeve was not steady.

“The fellow certainly has an extraordinary faculty for inspiring terror,” said Gamadge. “At first glance, you'd call him a moderately clever little exhibitionist.”

“More than that, I think,” said Sanderson.

“Well, I haven't really had my second glance yet. If you're afraid of him, Miss Baker, you know what to do; stay with the crowd from now on. Don't wander off by yourself, not for a minute. Hang on to young Rogers here like grim death. Where are you sleeping, now?”

“I'm going to be in with Mrs. Atwood.”

“Does that arrangement satisfy you?”

“Oh, yes. Besides, there's another girl in there already. I'm going to sleep on the floor.”

“Good. And don't forget that Mitchell's leaving a trooper here for the present.”

“If I tell Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Atwood will see me talking to him.”

“I'll tell Mitchell myself.”

Gamadge strolled down to the last trailer, against the side of which Callaghan leaned, sunk in dismal contemplation.

“Too bad this had to happen to you, Mr. Callaghan,” he said.

“You don't know half of it. If her relations don't get my telegrams, or don't come forward, who's to pay the funeral expenses?”

“Had Miss Lake no money?”

“She was always hard up, poor girl. If she had had any money she wouldn't have been here, living in a caravan. It was no life for her, at her age; but she asked me for the job, to tide her over. She was Irish, you know. She'd played in these plays all her life.”

“I saw her in one, once. Quite a distinguished actress, at one time, wasn't she?”

“She was, but the poor creature had her troubles. Well, she has a niece in the pictures, and her brother travels in wallpaper; I got their addresses out of her little bag, and the medical examiner goes on as if I'd robbed the corpse.”

“You didn't do that.” Dr. Cogswell's large head protruded from the little window above their heads. “We found fifty dollars under her pillow.”

“Fifty—what are you telling me? Didn't she borrow five dollars yesterday from little Susie Baker?”

“Then she put one over. I'm keeping this money, Callaghan, but you'll get a receipt for it.”

“Will it pay for a decent funeral, Doctor? I can add a little to it, but we're not made of money, up here. I don't want her buried on the parish.”

“Don't worry; we'll fix her up some way. Would you say she might have got sick of the whole business, and taken an overdose of this stuff on purpose?” He exhibited a small bottle, containing a few tablets and a lump of cotton.

“God forbid! I don't think so. She was interested in our theatre here, and she was an old trouper, and liked her parts. Her toothache was wearing her down, but she meant to go on with her work when the swelling left her.”

Mitchell's face appeared beside Cogswell's. “Did you say you saw Miss Lake on the stage?” he asked Gamadge.

“Yes. Long ago.”

“Come in and see her now.”

As he spoke, Cogswell's two assistants came down the steps and went off in the direction of the hearse. Gamadge entered the little house on wheels, and walked up to the end of it, where one narrow shelf-like bunk hung out from the wall. Cogswell and Mitchell stood beside it, and Cogswell turned the sheet back from a small, darkly coloured, peaceful face.

“She's had morphia,” he said, “and plenty of it. See that colour? See those pupils?” He turned back an eyelid. “She's been dead, going on twelve hours.”

Gamadge looked down at what remained of Miss Adrienne Lake. She had been, as he remembered her, a coquettish type of actress; but she had cast off ancient coquetries at Seal Cove. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved flannel nightdress, and her sparse brown hair was tied up in a bandanna handkerchief; she looked old, tired and poor. The left side of her face was slightly swollen.

“You can identify her?” asked Mitchell.

“Certainly. She's a finer-looking woman at this moment, if you can believe it, than she ever was; but perhaps I think so because I never did care for her type of face. Small, wide across the top, pointed chin, big eyes, short nose, full mouth. Rather sly, I thought she looked; but that's gone now. She has dignity.”

“You'd be surprised how many of 'em have, when it's all over.”

The two assistants arrived with a stretcher, and Gamadge left the trailer. Mitchell followed him. As they joined Callaghan, Cogswell put his head again out of the window.

“That myocarditis case, Mitchell,” he said. “Baines is on it.”

“Good.”

“We'll have a full report for you in a couple of hours, now.”

“Thanks.”

“Angel of death seems to be operating in this vicinity at a great rate. Did you say one of those actors is a cousin of the Cowden boy?”

“Yes.”

“Quite a coincidence.”

“Quite.”

Callaghan interrupted this colloquy. “We're opening to-night, you know. Don't tell me we can't open to-night.”

“Nobody wants to create unnecessary hardships for you.”

“If they're turned back to-night, they won't come again. Hardships! It'll be ruin. Why won't you arrange to keep the thing quiet for twelve hours?”

“We can't shove her into the ground and forget about it, Callaghan; this wasn't a natural death. You show people do beat all.”

“She'd be the last to want the season ruined, God rest her soul.”

“Go ahead with your entertainment; but I'm leaving a man to guard this trailer till we get it printed, and another at the top of the lane. I want your people to stay on these premises for the present. There'll be an inquest, of course.”

“One or more,” said Callaghan.

“What do you mean?”

“They say these things go by threes. Wasn't I telling you it might make a superstitious man worry? Not that there's any connection between poor old Adrienne Lake and that dead boy.”

“Your show and that dead boy are connected. I want your troupe to stay right here on the spot.”

“What for, in the name of nonsense? Oh, well; have it your own way. They're not likely to get off the place, with all they have ahead of them now. We do our own scene-shifting.”

Gamadge conducted Mitchell across the clearing to his car. He there unfolded Susie Baker's story, which Mitchell received with a grunt of bafflement.