Night Walk Page 3

  “All right,” said Miss Wakefield.

  “You mean you won’t tell them about my uncle at Edgewood?”

  She burst out laughing, and after a pause Yates laughed too, but restrainedly.

  CHAPTER FOUR At the Carringtons’

  AT ABOUT TEN minutes to eleven something hardly more visible than a shadow made its way towards the Carrington house from the north. The grounds here, on the side next to the Wakefield Inn, were rough and thickly planted with old trees; the house itself was almost hidden by its maples, and apparently quite dark.

  A little gleam like a firefly appeared and disappeared in front of the moving shadow, never showing for more than a moment at a time. It vanished and did not reappear when the shadow rounded the house and mounted the front steps. No light here in any window, and the front door stood open on a dark hall. The shadow crossed the porch, hesitated, and went softly in. There were no screens at the Carringtons’.

  Five minutes later the dark shape came out again, descended the steps, and moved to the right. The firefly danced again, farther and farther away, up the south lawn; then it was no longer to be seen.

  At twelve minutes past eleven Lawrence Carrington, in the library at the back of the house, put down the telephone and looked at his sister Lydia. She had just come in from the dining room, carrying a night-light, a sort of shaded candle, in her hand.

  Carrington, a slight, blond man of forty or more, was frowning a little. He said: “That was Emeline Wakefield.”

  “What in the world does she want at this hour?”

  “She says there’s been a prowler at the Inn.”

  “A what?”

  “Somebody got in and tried a door and took down the fire axe.”

  “Good heavens!”

  “But seems to have left the fire axe and gone away again. She thinks it was some crazy person, and thinks we ought to lock up.”

  “I think so too. But a crazy person? Where on earth from?”

  “Goodness knows. Came in the side door, she says.”

  “And may be still in the Inn somewhere? Hadn’t you better go across and investigate, Lawrence?”

  “I’m not at all sure there was a prowler. If there is, the ones to investigate him are the state police. I suggested calling them. But first we might lock up. I’ll—”

  “The whole house is open.” Miss Carrington hurried back through the dining room; there was no other means of access to the library, which was a built-on wing.

  Carrington followed her to the front hall. He said: “No lights on account of Father?”

  “Sh. He’s been asleep ever since he had his supper. I thought the light might shine through the parlor and disturb him.” She went into the parlor to the left of the front door and listened. “Not a sound. It’s all that aspirin, and his fever.”

  “That quarter degree of fever.” Carrington smiled, and she returned the smile. He went to the big white door and swung it to. “I suppose you had strict orders to leave this wide?”

  “Of course. It’s a stuffy night for the time of year.”

  Lawrence turned the big key and shot the bolt. “These attacks of his—he won’t diet.”

  “Let him have his attacks if he wants them. I think he rather enjoys lying there in bed and being waited on.”

  “And it’s so nice, the view from the parlor-bedroom window.”

  Lydia smiled again. Her brother went to the far end of the hall and locked another door; she said: “Rose is out. You ought to put a lantern for her on the porch.”

  “Bother. Oil on my hands and probably on my dinner jacket.”

  “I’ll get an apron and do it.”

  “Let’s see you try.”

  He opened a door under the stairs, got a lantern from a hook, put it on a table and lighted it. In its soft glow the brother and sister looked alike, family resemblance standing out, minor differences modified. Lydia was a year or so the elder, tall and slim as he was, blond, with fine-drawn features. She was wearing a long flowing dress, brightly flowered and beautifully made.

  As they came back along the hall he asked: “Where’s Rose this evening?”

  “She wouldn’t wait for coffee because she had to see a movie in Westbury.”

  “Do you ever get the use of the small car?”

  “When I want it.”

  They both spoke in quiet, naturally low voices; voices that did not express much interest in what they were saying. A mannerism.

  Lawrence noiselessly unlocked and unbolted the front door and set the lantern to the right of the step. Lydia said: “She’ll be coming up from the garage. Lawrence, do put your mind on poor Rose for once.”

  “How unfair of you. Haven’t I been helping to clear out the attic?”

  “Wonderful.”

  He shifted the lantern, and closed and fastened the door again. Lydia was still carrying the night-light; by its faint beam they returned through the dining room to the library. He was at the telephone when she said: “I don’t know whether Begbie locks the cellar.”

  He put the receiver down with humorous annoyance, and they went back into the dining room and to the kitchen in the north wing. Lawrence descended the cellar stairs. He came up again dusting his hands off. “Not fastened, of course.”

  As they re-entered the library she said: “I don’t know why I should be following you around like this.”

  “The prowler, the prowler. Made you nervous.”

  “I’d rather like to call Emeline and find out what really happened. There’s a boy there with his family—that Silver boy. He might have been playing around with that axe. It’s too bad to get the state police here and make a fuss if there is no prowler.”

  “Some transient of Emeline’s worked her up.”

  “Transient? At the Inn? What next?”

  Lawrence said: “I don’t know. Very much better to call the barracks if there’s any chance—” He glanced down at a chessboard on the table, and moved a piece. Then he moved it back again. He said: “She’s got me.”

  “Rose has?”

  “What a question! Who else is the expert here? I wonder if there’s profit in professional chess.”

  “I’m glad she’s to have the attic. She ought to have a place of her own to entertain in and play her radio.”

  “Here? Whom can she entertain in Frazer’s Mills? Well, the books are all out, anyhow. That last lot going tomorrow?”

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you. Hattie Bluett sent Hawkins for them at seven o’clock, and there were some in Father’s room, and I actually had to creep in and collect them for Hawkins.”

  “You mean you let Hattie Bluett make you go in and get books away from Father while he was asleep? He will be pleased.”

  “He was just looking some old things over; things he liked when he was a boy. He won’t care.”

  “You let the whole village order you about.”

  “Well, you know Hattie.”

  “She’s in a class by herself, and so is The Mills.”

  “She wants to go off on a bus trip tomorrow over Labor Day, and she wanted to have a full report for the committee on Tuesday. They’re raising money or something.”

  “They’d better. Our Library is an anachronism. It’ll die with Hattie Bluett. She’ll be found disintegrating among the ruins.”

  “She takes it so seriously. She does love it so when she can collect a fine.”

  She sat down near him. He looked up at her. “You’re tired. I wonder how much you do around the house, now that we have nobody sleeping in.”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “You’ve been upstairs all evening, haven’t you? There was no light in your sitting room.”

  “I’ve been upstairs; writing out checks.”

  “Why don’t you get in a nurse for Father when he has rheumatism?”

  “Nurse? He doesn’t need one. He gets about. He’d loathe a nurse.”

  “I bet he would. You’re in and out waiting on him a dozen times an hour, and Rose Jenn
er doesn’t lift a finger. You ought to get somebody extra from the village, somebody he knows—”

  “You find the somebody, Lawrence.”

  A bell tinkled sweetly. Lawrence said: “There she is at last,” and went through to the front door. He opened it. A young girl stood on the threshold, dark hair in a long thick bang over her forehead. She wore a thin raincoat thrown back from her yellow sweater and skirt. She said: “Why all shut up on a night like this?”

  “Sh. Your guardian’s asleep.”

  “Still?” Picking up the lantern, she came into the house.

  “Yes, thank goodness.”

  She followed him back into the library, pushing damp hair back and shrugging out of her coat. She had a wide forehead, yellowish eyes, a wide mouth with a full underlip. She gave the impression of great beauty, although not a single feature taken alone could account for the effect.

  She stood in the library doorway. “Finish the problem?” she asked, looking at the chessboard.

  “No, and I don’t believe you can.”

  “Ha! Want to go on struggling, or shall I show you?”

  “Time enough tomorrow.”

  “How was the movie, Rose?” asked Lydia.

  “All right. I was out by eleven, but I had trouble getting the car out.”

  Lydia said: “You mustn’t drive about so late again until they find the prowler.”

  “The what, Lydia?”

  “Miss Wakefield says there’s a crazy person about. She called up a little while ago.”

  “Is that why you locked up?”

  “That’s why.” Lawrence was again at the chessboard. Rose Jenner stood looking at him and then at Lydia. She said: “I don’t understand about this prowler.”

  “Don’t worry, the state police are coming. Lawrence sent for them,” said Lydia.

  “But is it a tramp? How did Miss Wakefield find out about him?”

  Lawrence rather wearily and sketchily explained.

  “You mean she called up right away?”

  Lydia said: “She’d already called Edgewood and Mrs. Broadbent, hadn’t she, Lawrence?”

  “So she said. So I told them at the barracks.”

  “And then she called you, and then you locked the front door?”

  “And the cellar door, and the kitchen door, and the back door.” Lawrence looked up at her. “Did we do right, please?”

  Lydia said: “Only the back door was shut. The others were—”

  Rose turned and started out of the room. Lydia asked: “What’s the matter?”

  Rose looked over her shoulder. “I just want to see whether my guardian’s all right.”

  Lawrence half got to his feet. “All right! What do you mean?”

  “It only takes a minute or so to get here from the Wakefield Inn.”

  Lydia sprang up. “I listened. I was afraid of waking him.” But Rose had gone. The brother and sister exchanged blank looks.

  Lawrence said, sharp anxiety now in his voice: “She’s so imaginative. Almost unbalanced. Don’t be frightened, it’s nonsense.”

  “I never thought.”

  “Why should you?” But he made for the door. Lydia was close behind him when they met Rose coming out of the dark parlor. They could barely see one another’s faces by the shaded glow of the lantern held in her left hand. Her eyes, normally half closed, were wide open; her features expressionless.

  She said: “I can’t wake him. There was a log of wood on the floor.” Extending her right hand, she held it out.

  CHAPTER FIVE Psychological

  THE YOUNG MAN at the filling station counted out Gamadge’s change. He asked: “You hear about the murder?”

  “Murder?”

  “You’re headed for Frazer’s Mills. I thought—”

  The filling station was at a crossroad. Gamadge had in fact turned his car off the Westbury route, pointing it east. He said: “I thought this branch went to a place called Green Tree.”

  The young man looked dashed. He said: “It goes to Green Tree, all right, but you have to pass Frazer’s Mills. Didn’t you hear about the murder?”

  “That’s so, I read something in the paper. I didn’t realize that Frazer’s Mills was along here. I suppose there isn’t a cordon or anything?”

  “Say, it happened Thursday night. This is Sunday. All over, except they didn’t catch the maniac. I thought you might be from a newspaper.”

  “No, I’m not.” Gamadge tipped the man and put the rest of the change in his pocket. “I just follow this dirt road, do I?”

  “That’s it, no forks except farm tracks and an old road to the pond.”

  “Thanks.” Gamadge drove off between rolling fields full of stacked corn and pumpkins. A mile on he stopped at a lunch wagon and asked for a cup of coffee.

  The man handed it through the car window. “Come about the murder?”

  “Murder?”

  “The atrocity at Frazer’s Mills.”

  “Oh, sure enough, I go through Frazer’s Mills. I’m headed for Green Tree.”

  “Oh well, I guess the curiosity seekers are about through by this time. I’ll be moving back to the route in time for the holiday tomorrow.”

  “Isn’t this your usual pitch?”

  “Wouldn’t get any trade here from one year to another. But you never saw such traffic as we had since Thursday night, durn near tore the old road up. That’s why they never made a good one, I guess the wagon trade stopped when the old mills did.”

  Gamadge drank his coffee, handed the cup back to the man, and paid. He started his engine. “Are they still saying it was a maniac?”

  “What else can they say? He tried to get into three or four other houses first. Them monsters don’t always get caught, the papers said.”

  “Not for a long time, if they once get clear.”

  “They say they’re just like anybody else, in between-times.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “The state police let me have a gun.”

  “That’s right.”

  Gamadge drove on; thick woods now pressed down upon the road at the right, and a stream made itself heard just beyond the roadway. He drove slowly, enjoying the warmth and fragrance of late summer.

  A rutted track branched off to his right, and (forgetful it seemed of the filling-station man’s warning) he turned into it. It sloped gently upwards. Trees on both sides of him now; the morning sun came through in patterns that moved on the road. He climbed to a ridge. Below, and some distance away, two ruined stone buildings stood beside a millpond. A bridge crossed the dam; beyond it stood a car, and on the steep bank of the pond a young man waited. He waved an arm.

  Gamadge coasted down, stopped his car and got out. The young man came to meet him. He said: “Gamadge, this is pretty kind of you.”

  “Well, Garry, your call sounded like an S.O.S.”

  “It was. Come on over here and let’s sit down.”

  They sat on a fallen log above the bank; Gamadge lighted a cigarette and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He looked out across the quiet waters of the pond. “Nice up here,” he said.

  Yates glanced at him, aware of an unexpected failure in self-confidence. He had known Gamadge all his life, had played as a child in the Gamadge library, twirling the terrestrial and the celestial globes and building bridges out of books, while Gamadge was a schoolboy and Gamadge’s parents still alive. Later, when the house had been partly remodeled into office, darkroom and laboratory, and Gamadge had set up for himself as book and document expert, Yates had not seen so much of him; and during the past eight years, when he had applied his consideration of old texts and newer forgeries of them to life and the ways of mankind, had practised criminology and warred with murder, Yates had not seen him at all.

  Gamadge had married and acquired a son, had served in a far from publicized capacity in the war. He had taken part in some dozen police investigations. Had all this changed him? Yates remembered him as an easygoing, amusing character, quite unassertiv
e, a good listener; cool-headed at bridge and golf. Clever, of course; he had written some brilliant little books; but had Yates underestimated a personality which now struck the young man as obscurely formidable, certainly to be reckoned with?

  Hindsight, perhaps. Gamadge had responded immediately to Yates’ call, and whatever else he might be he was still casual in manner and without much apparent ego: a green-eyed, tallish man, well dressed, easy mannered, a little stooped from his sedentary occupation.

  He now asked, looking over his shoulder, “Those the mills?”

  “Grist and saw. They didn’t really name the place, you know.”

  “No?”

  “The place was just a few scattered farms at first, had no name; then when these people came here and settled they called it Frazer’s Mills just to call it something.”

  “I gathered that the settlement came into being more or less by accident.”

  “Yes, it did. Five or six families—sporting characters—had their horses and training stables and so on up here, handy for the Westbury races. They liked the place, and they all built country houses—sort of rich men’s hobby. Land was cheap a hundred years ago, though. The gardeners and stablemen and so on had cottages, and their descendants live in the cottages now. It’s a backwater and it never developed; nobody wanted it to.”

  “Sounds delightful.” Gamadge dreamily smoked, listening to the water gurgling over the broken dam. “Lovely place, anyhow.”

  “Yes, it is. I wish I’d known more about its peculiarities before I made such an ass of myself here. But I couldn’t know there was going to be a murder, and I didn’t happen to know that the place was nothing but one street, with that rest-cure place right on it.”

  “Here’s a piece of sound advice from an old campaigner, Garry my boy. Always act as if there were going to be a murder. Then—”

  Yates showed irritation. “Yes, I know. What a wonderful time we’d all have.”

  Gamadge cast a sidelong look at the glum profile of his companion. He asked, cheerfully: “Well, what’s the trouble, apart from your having to stick around in this nice part of the country until after the Carrington inquest?”