Alphabet Hicks

Eleven

A blow on the side of the head with a thick club could, certainly, kill a man; at the least it might be expected to crack his skull. But to an owl on a limb the nocturnal tableau there in the somber woods, in the instant following Hicks’s cropper, would have seemed much closer to the burlesque than to tragedy. There was no outcry, even from the girl in thin summer pajamas who stood on a rock manipulating a flashlight. Its quivering beam spotted first a man who from his position might have been saying his prayers, and then another man with his features contorted in an expression of desperate resolve, gripping in his uplifted hand the shattered remnant of a rotted piece of sapling. And as though not to spoil it for the owl by giving it a gravity it did not deserve, the girl called sharply:

“George! Behave yourself!”

Hicks, on his feet again, was momentarily stunned not by the puny blow which had caught him off balance but by surprise. If, as he went down, he had found leisure to guess at the identity of his assailant, certainly the last on the list would have been George Cooper.

Cooper’s uplifted hand slowly came down and the remnant of his club dropped from his fingers. The light swung away from him back to Hicks.

“Have you gone crazy too?” Heather demanded shrilly.

“I’m not crazy,” Cooper said in the tone of a scolded boy denying that his hands were dirty. The tone suddenly changed: “You! You keep away from her!”

Hicks, stepping over stony uneven ground in the dark, paid no attention to him. Heather, in her pajamas, was a pillar of white. Reaching it, Hicks demanded gruffly:

“Let me have that light.”

“I’ll keep the light,” she said determinedly. “I’d like to know—”

“So would I,” Hicks declared. “What’s more, I’m going to.” He snatched the light from her fingers and walked into the brook.

That is, he got one foot in, before she grabbed him. It was not precisely an attack; she didn’t hit or kick or scratch; but she got his coat with both hands and pulled so violently that, with his insecure footing, they nearly went over in a heap.

“Let go,” Hicks commanded. “I’m going to see what you were up to.”

“You are not!” She held on, tugging at him. “Give me — if you dare—”

Something hard and heavy came through the air and hit Hicks on the shoulder and staggered him. Swinging the beam of light, he saw Cooper, not ten feet away, straightening up with a second large rock clutched in his hand. Hurling Heather from him and leaping sidewise with one effort of all his muscles, he got the light on Cooper again just as he was letting the rock go. This time the missile caught him squarely in the chest and knocked the breath out of him. He faltered an instant, recovered, bounded forward, and landed on Cooper’s jaw just as he was coming up with another rock. The rock dropped to the ground with a soggy thud; Cooper, merely sinking in a heap, made no sound.

Hicks whirled with the light to Heather. She stood with one hand clutching her pajamas where they had been torn from her shoulder, unblinking against the light, her lips parted, like a wild thing in the woods.

“You hurt him,” she said harshly. “How much did you hurt him?”

“That’s a darned shame,” Hicks said sarcastically. He felt himself and took a deep breath and decided his ribs were intact. “He’ll survive. I might have got killed being romantic. I could have held you in my arms close to me and let the next one hit you.” He went and got her coat and held it behind her. “Put this on before you start sneezing.”

She let her arms go in and he pulled the coat around her and then flashed the light on her feet and saw that they were shod.

“Give me that light,” she demanded.

“When I get through with it. I’m going to see what it was you put in the brook. And don’t try any—”

“I didn’t put anything in the brook.”

“You had something in your hand. And you didn’t throw it in, you rolled up your pajamas and waded in. The most sensible thing you can do—”

“Listen.” She had his sleeve, was close to him, her face lifted to his. “Please listen! Will you listen to me?”

“Not all night.”

“What that was — what I put in the brook — it’s absolutely silly! It has nothing to do with anything!” She shook his arm. “You must believe me! It’s just simply absolutely nothing!”

“Okay, I’ll wade in and see if I can find nothing. I’ve already got one shoe full of water. And if you undertake anything like rock throwing, I’ll tear your pajamas into strings and tie you up, which is meant literally.”

“You’re a fine romantic, you are—”

Hicks pulled loose and stepped into the brook. A stone turned under his foot beneath the water. When he had recovered his balance he glanced over his shoulder at Heather, but apparently she intended no assault from the rear, so he went on. The water, nearly up to his knees, felt ice cold as it sloshed around his calves. Facing upstream, he got the light at the proper angle to make the bottom visible, and began the search. Bottom, consisting of brown rocks of various shapes and sizes, was all he saw. After some minutes he took bearings again from the big flat rock on the bank where she had previously left the flashlight, moved a few feet downstream and a little to the right, bent closer to the water for another/try, and saw a rock under the water of a different shape and color from any other. He peered at it. It was a rock — no, it was not a rock. He plunged his hand under the surface to feel it, and knew immediately, from its smoothness and circular edge, what it was — or rather, what they were; and in their middle, holding them down, was a heavy rock. He removed the rock, grasped the circular edge firmly, and came up with it.

An exclamation came from Heather.

Hicks waded back to the bank.

“You see?” Heather said through her teeth. “I told you it was nothing. You see?”

“I wouldn’t say that a dozen sonograph plates are simply absolutely nothing,” Hicks said dryly.

“It’s not a dozen, it’s eight,” Heather took a step. “Listen, Mr. Hicks. You were nice to me. I thought you liked me. Don’t you like me?”

“Sure, I’m crazy about you.”

“Don’t be like that. Please don’t. Give them to me. Or put them back where they were. Just put them back. Don’t you trust me? Do you think I’m a liar? I swear to you—”

“Save it,” Hicks said curtly. “We’re all going to catch pneumonia. Here’s the program. It’s a nice night for a concert — wait a minute.”

He put the light on Cooper, who was sitting on the ground staring blankly around.

“You, Cooper!” Hicks said. “George Cooper! Recognize the name?”

“Go to hell,” Cooper muttered. “Who are you?”

“He’s all right,” Hicks asserted. “Here’s the program. I’ll get him to the laboratory. I can manage without the light. You take it and go to the house and get the key to the office and bring it over. Then you can go back and go to bed.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Have a concert. Listen to these plates.”

“You are not!”

“I am.”

“I won’t get the key to the office.”

“Then I’ll wake Brager and get it from him.” Hicks patted her on the shoulder. “Use your head, dearie. You say you want these plates under a rock at the bottom of the brook, God knows why, but that’s what you want. Maybe after I listen to them I’ll put them back there. Maybe I won’t, but maybe I will. One thing sure, I’m not going to turn loose any of them before I hear what’s on them. As much as I like you. And you ought to put on some warm stockings. Take this light and go get the key.”

She took the light. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said fiercely. “I don’t like you. What about George? Why did you bring him back here? When you promised you wouldn’t?”

“I didn’t promise I wouldn’t. But I didn’t. He got away from me.”

“You’re lying!”

“All right, I’m lying. Which I am not. Ask him, but not now. Go get that key.”

She went. For a minute he watched the light bobbing along the path, then, stepping with care in the pitch dark, he moved toward the dim white blob that was Cooper’s face.

“What did you do with that candy?” he demanded.

“By God.” Cooper’s voice was a hoarse rumble. “So that’s who you are.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I ate it.”

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe it. You’d be as sick as a dog.”

“I am as sick as a dog.”

“Good. Get up. Can you stand up?”

“I don’t know.” Cooper made no movement. “Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Hicks.”

“Hicks?” A pause. “Are you the one that pulled me away from her and pushed me in the house?”

“No.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know. Come on, get up. Here, grab my hand.”

“I’ll get up in a minute.” Cooper groaned. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Sometimes my head is as clear as a bell. Now it’s like — I don’t know. I wish to God I was dead. I thought I was dead. Did you ever think you were dead?”

“Often,” Hicks said.

“Often? I did once. I thought I was dead, and then there I was on a bed and I felt hungry. I never felt hungry like that before. I got up and looked around and found a box of candy in a drawer and sat down and ate it, and my head was as clear as a bell. I remembered everything. Everything! I drank too much. After Martha left me there in the restaurant, I began to drink. The reason I did that, I was getting up my nerve to go out there and have it out with Martha and Heather. I mean out here. We’re out here now. Aren’t we?”

“Sure we are,” Hicks said.

“Sure we are. Certainly we’re out here. Actually I was drunk when I borrowed that car and drove out here. That was the trouble, I was as tight as an owl, because that was why I lost my way and the first thing I knew I was in Croton, and I had to ask how to get here. Now I remember that again. And when I got here Martha was dead. If I had got here earlier she wouldn’t have been dead, and that’s what I mean about being drunk and being too early—”

He stopped abruptly.

“Okay,” Hicks said. “I get you.”

“The hell you do. After I ate that candy my head was as clear as a bell. I remembered everything. I even remembered you taking me up those stairs. It was you that took me up those stairs, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I thought it was. I decided it was you that killed Martha, and you left me there in that room and went back to kill Heather. I was dead sure of that — you went back to kill Heather. So I went out and got a taxi and had him drive me up there. I mean up here. I keep forgetting we’re here. I was there on the terrace where Martha was, only she wasn’t there any more. I heard you coming along on the grass and I could see you through the shrubbery — and then you went to the corner of the house and then Heather came out and you followed her—”

A fit of coughing stopped him.

“Get up off that wet ground,” Cooper complained. “Not by a long shot. To save my soul, I can’t remember what I did with that knife. It was a long knife I got there in the kitchen—”

Hicks stepped around behind him and got him under the armpits and heaved. Once upright, his legs seemed inclined to function, and all Hicks had to do was to steer him by an elbow over the treacherous footing back to the path, and across the bridge. There he balked.

“Where are we going?”

“To Heather’s office.”

“Where’s Heather?”

“She’s coming. She’ll be there.”

Hicks prodded him on. On the narrow path in the black night, they proceeded in single file, slowly, Hicks in the rear making frequent grabs for Cooper when he stumbled. Emerging from the woods, the meadow was under starlight, and it was easier going. At the front entrance of the laboratory building, Hicks sat on a concrete step and took off his shoes and socks. He was wringing all the water he could from the bottoms of his trouser legs when the beam of the flashlight came out of the woods, and in another minute Heather was there. She put the light on Cooper, propped against the steps, and then on Hicks.

“Give me the key,” Hicks said. “You can take the light back with you.”

“I’m not going back.”

Manifestly, by her tone, she meant it; and she had the door unlocked and was inside, and had turned the lights on, by the time Hicks had picked up his shoes and socks. He entered at Cooper’s heels. Cooper flopped on a chair and rested his elbows on his knees, and fastened his eyes on Heather with unblinking intensity. After one keen look at him Heather ignored him. She had changed to a brown woolen dress. Hicks, barefoot, draped his socks over the back of a chair, took out his handkerchief, and started to wipe the sonograph plates. Heather went to a cupboard and came with a roll of paper towels and reached for one of the plates. Hicks intercepted her. “No, thanks,” he said meaningly.

She opened her mouth to retort, choked it off, and went and sat down. Cooper shifted in his chair.

“Quit looking at me like that!” she burst out at him. “Quit it! I can’t stand it!”

“I’m sorry,” Cooper said hoarsely but politely. “I’m trying to remember something.”

“It’s a—” Heather caught her breath with a little quivering gasp. “It’s a nightmare,” she said.

“Right,” Hicks agreed succinctly. He was drying the plates with pieces of the paper towel. Finishing that, he took them to the desk where the record-playing machine was, seated himself, pulled the machine closer, placed one of the plates on the turntable, and looked for a switch.

“Inside front right corner,” Heather said.

“Thanks.” He found it and pushed it, and the disk turned. The arm swung over automatically and lowered the needle, and in a moment a voice came:

It was Ross Dundee’s voice. Hicks stared at the whirling disk.

“By God,” Cooper said in a tone of stupefaction.

“Shut if off!” Heather blurted. “Aren’t you proud of yourself? Shut it off!”

Hicks flipped the switch.

“Leave it on,” Cooper said. “I want to hear all of it.”

Heather was on her feet, coming to the desk. “Don’t you dare put on another one! Don’t you dare!”

Hicks put a protecting hand over the stack of plates. “I admit,” he said dryly, “that this is a considerable surprise. Why in the name of heaven you should sneak out at two A.M. to baptize a bunch of plastic love letters in a brook—”

“It’s none of your business why! Don’t you dare do another one!”

“If they bore you,” Hicks said imperturbably, “go outdoors. Or go back and go to bed. I’ll compromise. I’ll run through them first, doing only a sentence of two. Go back and sit down. You know darned well I can tie you up if I want to.”

She took another step forward, hesitated, marched back to her chair, and sat breathing through her nose. Hicks started another plate.

“That’s a sentence,” Heather snapped.

Hicks removed the plate, put another one on, and started the machine.

Hicks took it off and started another.

As Heather started from her chair with a cry of incredulous amazement, Hicks stopped the machine. Cooper was bolt upright, as if suddenly straightened and held rigid by a current of electricity, his jaw hanging.

“Martha!” Heather cried. “That’s Martha!”

“Is it?” Hicks asked quietly. “And how come? In among your love letters?”

“I don’t know!” She was at the desk. “I don’t — let me see it! Let me—”

“No, no.” Hicks held her off. “You’re putting on a good show, but—”

“I’m not putting on a show! It’s a trick! You had it... you put it—”

“Shut up,” Hicks said curtly. “And don’t be silly. You said there were eight plates. Here they are, and this is one of them. You had them. You knew darned well what was on them. You’ve listened to them. And now you pretend—”

“I’ve never listened to that one! I’ve never heard that! I tell you it’s Martha! My sister!”

“You were hiding it in the brook with the others.”

“I wasn’t! I didn’t know it was — there was one I hadn’t — I only got it—”

Heather stopped. She gazed at Hicks, and he saw the change in her eyes.

“Oh,” she gasped.

There was a chair beside her and she dropped onto it.

“I—” She gulped. “I never heard that before. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how it got there. I wish you — I want to hear it — all of it—”

Hicks’s eyes — the eyes which Judith Dundee had called the cleverest she had ever seen — were going straight through her. For a long moment she met them unfalteringly.

“So you don’t know how it got there,” Hicks said softly.

“No. I don’t.”

“You just admitted that you knew there was one of them you hadn’t listened to. How did that one get there?”

“I... it—” Her teeth caught her lip.

“You’re not doing so well,” Hicks said sympathically. “Certainly you know how it got there. I saw you beginning to wonder how Ross Dundee ever got hold of a record of your sister’s voice, and I admit that would take some wondering. Let met try a little guessing. How did Ross get these plates to you? Slip them under your door?”

Heather didn’t answer.

“I’m going to find out. Shall I ask him?”

“Don’t you — dare—”

“Then open up, and wide. Did you find them under your pillow?”

“No. In the racks. At the office. In among the others.”

“You mean you would find one of them in with the regular plates that you were to type from?”

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t know what was on it until you began to run it off, would you?”

“At first, I didn’t, the first time or two. But they were unmarked, and if I came to one that wasn’t marked I would put it aside and later I would — I was just curious — when no one was there—”

“Certainly. And this one you say you never listened to?”

“It was the last one. I just got it — it was in the rack—”

“What day? This week?”

“Wednesday.” She hesitated. “No. Tuesday. Because Monday evening George came, and it was the next day, and I didn’t feel like — I didn’t want to hear it — so I took it and put it with the others—”

“Where? In your room?”

“Yes. I had to put them somewhere. They’re indestructible. I couldn’t just throw them away.”

“Of course not. But that raises a point. The plates have been in your room all the time. The brook has been here all the time. Why did you suddenly get the idea of immersion at half past two in the morning? This morning?”

“Because I did.”

“Why?”

“Because I... I just happened to.”

Hicks shook his head. “It’s an important point. I may have to ask Ross Dundee if he can throw any light on it.”

“You will not,” Heather said fiercely. “You promised you wouldn’t if I told you about it.”

“I promised nothing. But anyway, you aren’t telling me. Maybe I can help. Did Ross tell you that he wanted one of the unmarked plates back? And you pretended you didn’t have them because you didn’t want to admit you had kept them? And apparently he wanted that plate so badly that you figured out a way of getting it to him? Namely. Put them in the brook and then tell him that was where you had been getting rid of them, and he could go and get them. That way he wouldn’t know you had been saving them up. Something like that?”

“You knew—” Heather was gaping at him. “He must have told you — you knew that plate was there—”

“No. I didn’t. Once a year my head works. Did Ross explain why he was so anxious to get one of the plates back?”

“No.”

“Did he ask if you had listened to it?”

“No. I didn’t — I wasn’t admitting that I had listened to any of them.”

“Did he tell you what was on it?”

“No. And I don’t understand — Martha! That’s Martha’s voice! And you knew about it too — you don’t need to pretend you didn’t—”

Heather stood up, her jaw set with determination. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said. “I’m going to find out about this. I don’t expect you to tell me anything — you think I’ve just barely got enough brains to take dictation and run a typewriter — but Ross Dundee will tell me, and he’ll tell me now!”

She started for the door. The barefooted Hicks got ahead of her.

“Get out of my way!”

“In a minute,” Hicks said soothingly. “The idea with brains is to use what you’ve got. You mean you’re going to get Ross out of bed and make him explain where he got that record of your sister’s voice?”

“I certainly am!”

“I offer two objections. First, you’ll have to tell him how you suddenly found out about it in the middle of the night, which will be a little embarrassing, since you have hitherto refused to admit that you were saving his love letters. Second, there is better than an even chance that you’ll be committing suicide.”

Heather goggled at him. “Committing — what?”

“Suicide. That you’ll die shortly.” Hicks, facing her, took hold of her elbows. “Listen, dearie. I am not hell on wheels, but I can add and subtract. It is true I had some knowledge of that sonograph plate, but I didn’t know where it was, and my knowledge was incomplete in other respects, and still is. There’s only one person who knows all about it, and that’s the man who murdered your sister.”

Heather stared, and he saw the horror in her stare.

“No,” Hicks said. “I’m not saying it’s Ross Dundee. I don’t know who it is. You were right that it’s not George Cooper. And I’m right when I tell you that if you let out a word about that sonograph plate, your chances of living out the week are slim. That’s all I can tell you now, but I’m telling you that. And the same goes for Cooper.”

Heather said, “You’ll have to tell me more than that.”

“I will when I can. I can’t now.”

“You have to. I have to know how Ross Dundee got it. And why he wants it.”

“You will.” Hicks released her elbows. “In the meantime, you are not to mention it. To anyone. This is bad.”

“Bad,” Heather said. “My God, bad!”

“Very bad,” Hicks conceded. He went to the chair where he had hung his wet socks, sat down, and started pulling one of them on. “Cooper, too. I wish to heaven they had him at White Plains. I’ll have to take him back to town with me. I need some sleep. So do you. I had better take all the plates, too. If Ross asks about it again, stick to it that you don’t know anything about them. Will you do that?”

“I... guess so.”

“No guessing.” Hicks paused in his tussle with the second sock to look at her. “Promise?”

She met his eyes.

“I promise,” she said.