Lesley Frost

“ He remained breathlessly still, until at last—it seemed forever—Joel, almost invisibly at 225 first, and then visibly, drew a breath, stirred, and faintly stiffened with renewed life as a Japanese pulp flower opens to water. Then, in unison with her, Belknap too breathed, stirred, shifted his position. Berry saw, and as he quietly lifted Joel into Julian’s arms, felt a pang of sympathy for the great man he had so long admired and envied. How are the mighty fallen. But he had only to look at Joel’s face, and Julian’s, to lose every iota of it. ”

“ Half an hour later found the atmosphere of the library anything but comfortable—indeed strained almost to the breaking point. Whittaker’s slow poison was beginning to take effect. Ignoring the ominous rolling up of clouds, he had quietly but firmly gone ahead with the plan to read aloud a few pages of the Diary. With malicious casualness he had suggested the withdrawal of anyone who felt more in the mood for billiards or bridge: “You know the billiard room, Blake. Do get up a game if it suits you. There’s nothing particularly thrilling about an old man mumbling over his memories of other days. ”

“ Romany Video, in a great fluff of feathery negligee, lay face downward, a vibrant, hysterical 57 puff-ball, on the bed. She was a mere speck of worried humanity troubling the white waste spaces of Whittaker’s four-poster; but an insistent speck, like a mosquito at a screen. Whittaker regarded her for a moment with an expression of mingled amusement, pity, contempt, and the faintly suggestive what-can-I-do-for-you look certain men always have for a fair damsel in distress. Thoroughly as Whittaker knew this particular damsel, no distress of hers would quite leave him indifferent. ”

“ Nothing, thought Berry, had ever seemed to him more hollow-still than Thorngate that Saturday evening: fog outside, and illness, depression, and possibly guilt inside. Like the central vacuum of a cyclone it seemed to augur as much trouble ahead as behind. He wished for a moment that he and Belknap had let Sergeant Stebbins carry out his obstinate desire, which had been to run the whole lot down to the Blue Acres lockup for the night. ”

“ Belknap regarded him intently through puffs of his own smoke, and being a keen student of men when he cared to be, or found it necessary, he remarked a new hardness in the hard grey face. Whittaker was a grey man: iron-grey hair, granite skin, grey-blue eyes, gun-metal suits, and plenty of grey matter. He was a man too able, too willfully brilliant, for the cramped position in which he had to work. So he put the extra energy into deviltry. “That’s just what he is doing now,” 12 thought Belknap, “and God help somebody. Somehow I think it’s God help him for a change.” ”

“ Belknap walked away from her and back, restlessly.
“Nadia,” he said slowly, “I have things to say to you I never intended saying. But I see I must be honest with you to bring you to your senses. You have got to be shocked into fighting if we are going to save ourselves for each other. Which is all that’s left that matters—our having each other—isn’t it?” ”

“ Some of the rankest cowards in an open fight have been known to be excellent stabbers-in-the-back. And if everyone else had a secret murder in his past, whoever got away with the Diary was getting a wonderful thrill—probably reading it now by flashlight in a cupboard or under the shrubbery (one of Julian’s most persistent fears was that Dorn, instead of having gone straight up to town, was haunting the grounds with murder in his heart) , trembling at every creak of the floor or rustle of leaves. ”

“ I publish my Diary. It’s a substantial, well-filled, truthful Diary, packed with sensations. In a period when confessions and revelations are in such demand, it seemed a pity not to keep abreast of the times. Hearst gives me a small fortune for mine, sight unseen, and it goes, in my will, with whatever else I possess, to my niece Joel—unless, of course, this week-end makes it useless to her; in which case—”
“Joel Lacey! See here, Whittaker, you’re insane! I’ve cared for Joel, and you know it, since she was too young to know the meaning of the word love. She is incapable of murder. ”

“ It took Joel to break the stillness in the room. With a face like a death-mask she gazed at the dark spot on the wall.
“I know now,” she said. “I know who killed Colonel Blake and Romany and Uncle Bertrand. But it can’t be true. It can’t be true that—” Julian didn’t let her finish. He crushed his hand over her mouth as Belknap came in from the butler’s pantry, with the sergeant and Berry.
“Hush! you little fool. Don’t go saying things. Don’t you be responsible for hanging somebody. Let Mr. Belknap take care of that.” He shook her desperately. ”

“ His appraising eye passed down the table, appreciating beauty and distinction where he found it, and paused at Joel—dear Joel, not beautiful perhaps, but dear looking. Belknap, in his fashion, had loved her; but for his own bachelor’s sake (he was not an unselfish man) , as well as for her youth’s sake, he had never spoken of it to her. Looking unwaveringly ahead into a night that might well be terrible for them all, he felt a particular pang for her. She was talking sotto voce with Julian:
“Hush, dear, people are listening.”
“Then darling, more darling, most darling.” ”

“ Whittaker said, and said the one thing in creation that, instead of aggravating them, could have stopped Romany’s hysterics dead in their tracks. Romany was quiet; desperately quiet. She lifted her head from the foam of maribou and looked at Whittaker with wide, distraught eyes, and parted lips.
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
“What I say,” he mocked her whisper by imitating it. “Even if you escape tonight, Romany (for death, whose name you so often take in vain, is on the qui vive in the house tonight) , you have Durian’s death to answer for.” ”

“ Only Julian and Joel, looking worlds at each other, plus suns and moons and stars, still seemed a little stupidly blind to what was happening.
As Whittaker arranged his stage setting—chair and lamp just so, and a pillow at his back—the ritual of after-dinner coffee proceeded with its usual calm and efficiency. A robot maid, pretty and slim-figured in black and white, brought the service, and John passed the cups. He then quietly opened the windows of the terrace to the warm May night, asked his master was there anything further, and retired. ”

“ Since the weeks when he had kept his name and face headlined, together with Stanton’s and Violet Mowbray’s, Belknap had had several months of comparative quiet. He had given the police some assistance in a few minor matters, but had really fastened his teeth into nothing worth the candle. And at the moment he felt particularly in need of violent distraction. He was surfeited with a week of burning sun; weary of women; stale with an overdose of detective fiction ”

“ And Belknap turned back to continue, with Berry and Stebbins, the heated interrogation of Nadia Mdevani by which they hoped to run her to earth by her own admission, and so, clearing the decks of legal red-tape, hasten and simplify her path that led but to the grave as best you looked at it. For, admitted or not admitted, denial could no longer stand against a sealed order to kill Blake, a gun left lying on the scene of Whittaker’s murder, and a poisoned sleeping drug administered to Crawford. ”

“ May I ring?” He tried to rise, staggered, and said, “Help me, Sydney.”
It seemed that Sydney had not heard him or was unable to move. She didn’t stir, or move her eyes. But Romany, from a huddled, shivering figure on the divan, came to life and ran to him.
“Durian, Neil, my beloved, my only love. What is he doing to you? I can’t bear it. I won’t let him do things like this—I don’t care—”
Romany didn’t finish—Sydney had heard, and had struck Romany a blow that threw her against the table. Nadia was laughing terribly as Blake came across toward Whittaker with murder on his face. ”

“ Berry.” Nadia stepped forward and stood near him. “I hereby place myself wholly in your charge. Whether I am guilty or innocent of all of which I am accused has yet to be determined. Until it is determined I am confident you will extend me fair play. Mr. Belknap, I regret to say, is now as assured of my guilt as he recently claimed to be of my innocence. Such variable winds cannot fail but be ill winds for one in my delicate position.”
“Cool and tricky!” thought Berry, putting the room to a quizzical scrutiny. “What a perfectly worded appeal. No male could resist it.” ”

“ How devastating it sounds—to start over after eight years. It can’t be done, and the soul still live. As if one were told, after a terrible day of sled-pulling in an Arctic storm, that one had to retrace one’s steps without rest or food. It couldn’t be done, and the body live. That’s how I feel.”
“Sydney, quiet. Quiet, dear, you must stop. And help me plan. I must find Giordano. I see it clearly. I must find him tonight. He will deal with Whittaker.”
“Oh no, no, no, no. You mustn’t get in touch with those men again. You are finished forever if you try that. Neil, don’t do anything rash. ”

“ Almost on the instant that the shot was fired Berry struck down Belknap’s hand and twisted the gun from him. There was no flicker of resistance on Belknap’s part. Nor would there have been the chance of any if Stebbins had had his way. For the Sergeant was a prey to impulsive rages and quick on the trigger. If Berry, in tackling Belknap, had not had a strong arm for Stebbins, Belknap would have joined Nadia Mdevani in the dust.
“No!” Berry cried sharply. “Not that way. Shooting’s too good for him. And we want the dope.” ”

“ What’s eating you? Curiosity? Yes, I killed ’em. Do I have to say it? Oh, don’t let it worry your poor weak intellect that you haven’t the right man. You have. How many did I murder? I lost count. You add ’em up. And don’t for God’s sake ask me why. Why the Hell! Look in that rotten little Diary there. It’ll tell you why and then some. One of us had to wipe out the litter before it hatched; to make his world safe—for crime. I got in my licks first, that’s all.” Belknap would have made a waving gesture with his right hand but was checked by its anchorage to his left. ”

“ Yet it quite applied at Whittaker’s table tonight. Every woman in her way was as fair, as vital, as more than willing to play up, as any man could ask. Even Sydney, with a flash of challenging laughter at her husband, was returning Hartley Blake’s sallies in kind. Sydney was obviously fey tonight, with a heightened 40 color, brighter eyes, and a recklessness of sentiment that might mean trouble. Had Neil and Romany failed in discretion?
Blake was in his usual excellent form; and it was plain to see thought his wit of too good a flavor to be entirely spent on a woman, even the excited Sydney. ”

“ He shook her fiercely. “Pull yourself together, Nadia. For God’s sake, don’t stand here talking sentimental nonsense. What we have to do is plan. The enemy is outside that door; can’t you realize that? We’ll have to have every ounce of our wits about us to fend them off. What did you admit? Tell me that.”
“Everything. Every murder. What was the point of haggling over an extra one or two. And, what’s more, I’m sticking to it, darling.” She drew a deep breath. “It’s the only solution. ”

“ You are here to find good sport, but to be a spoil-sport.”
“I don’t mean that, Whittaker.”
“You mean the Diary—why, man alive, it makes something like a hero of you. My admiration is written all over it. Perhaps it shouldn’t be. Have you committed murder?”
Belknap laughed. “It’s not the time to admit it exactly, is it?”
A silence fell between them. Belknap broke it with another question.
“When do you spring it?”
“I thought I might bring it up at dinner. Unobtrusively. Casualness will at first bewilder them. The horror of the situation will dawn on them gradually.” ”

“ Jumping to insane conclusions in the intuitive manner that was his strongest claim to distinction, he put his finger on little Violet Mowbray, a musical comedy dancer, who had had a last-minute invitation as an ‘extra’ for Stanton’s party. Although it was believed that she and Stanton had thereby met for the first time, Belknap discovered a weird series of events that put Stanton in the most blasting light and gave poor Violet a dozen motives for murder. Violet took her sentence of 6 from ten to twenty years with a quiet protestation of innocence that moved the courtroom to tears and hysteria. ”

“ I am not the kind. When I am beaten in fair play I am as willing to dance to the music as I am when I win and the tune is gayer. I only ask one favor before I go with you. May I have a few words with Mr. Belknap in private? That is, if he will condescend to have a few words with me. He may even put me to the indignity of a search for concealed firearms if he so desires.” There was a flicker of the old Nadia as she looked up at Belknap on the last words.
Belknap and Berry exchanged glances, and there was a faint nod of acquiescence on Berry’s part. It didn’t escape Nadia. ”

“ Don’t worry about us.” Berry interrupted gently, trying to conceal a faint embarrassment. “What’s to do now is to get going, isn’t it? Before your friend’s body here has gone cold. Quick, Belknap, snap into it. Every second may count.”
Belknap regarded Whittaker with a swift, half-averted glance, and a spasm of pain twitched the taut little muscles drawn slantwise across his square jaws.
“God be merciful to him,” he said in a lowered key. “Though he doesn’t deserve it, I fear,” he added, hardening instantly, as a man does who dislikes being caught out with an emotion. ”