Alphabet Hicks

Fifteen

When he left the Dundee apartment at a quarter to six, Hicks was bound for Katonah. With a double purpose; he meant to get Heather Gladd away from there, and he wanted certain information from her or Mrs. Powell or both of them.

If he had started for Katonah immediately, and driven recklessly, a life might have been saved; but he did neither. First he stopped at a haberdasher’s and procured a cardboard box and tissue paper for packaging the sonograph plate; next he drove to Grand Central and checked the package in the parcel room; and then he went to Joyce’s on 41st Street and ate baked oysters and arranged his mind.

By that time it was too late. At the moment, twenty-five minutes past six, that Hicks was spearing his second oyster, Heather Gladd was sitting in the kitchen of the house at Katonah, finishing a lamb chop and drinking tea, and trying to pretend to listen to Mrs. Powell. The usual dinner hour was seven, but Heather, not wishing to join any gathering, however small, at the table, was anticipating it. The sun, she thanked heaven, was getting low; the day would soon be over; perhaps she would be able to sleep tonight...

The door from the dining room swung open and Ross Dundee was there. Heather glanced at him, and sipped her tea; the hand that held the cup was quite steady and she frowned at it. Ross looked at her uncertainly, stood hesitant, and blurted:

“You’ve been dodging me.”

“Leave her alone!” Mrs. Powell snapped.

“I wasn’t aware,” Heather said, “that I was dodging anybody.”

“But you—” Ross stopped himself. “There I go. Damn it, I never do say anything right! I mean to you. What I meant, I only wanted to ask you—” He stopped again, cocked an ear to listen, and strode across the room to peer through a window screen at a car that was coming along the drive.

“My father,” he said. “Fine. You dodge me and I dodge him.” Three swift paces took him to the door and he had gone.

“It’s terrible,” Mrs. Powell asserted disapprovingly. “A son and father like that! No wonder things happen!”

Heather had no comment. She went to the garbage pail with her plate and disposed of the scraps, put the plate in the sink, and returned to her chair.

“You look terrible,” Mrs. Powell said. “You look like a cabbage plant that needs watering. Go up and go to bed.”

“I’m going to.” Heather sighed. “It’s hot up there.”

A voice came bellowing from within the house: “Ross! Ross!”

Mrs. Powell started for the door to the dining room, checked herself at the sound of footsteps, and the door came swinging in, bringing R. I. Dundee with it. He glanced from one to the other and demanded:

“Where’s my son?”

“He’s not in here,” Mrs. Powell declared.

“I see he isn’t. I’m not blind. Is he at the laboratory?”

“I don’t think so. I guess he’s outdoors.”

“Is Brager back from White Plains?”

“Yes, he got back about an hour ago. I think he’s over at the laboratory.”

“Has anyone else been here?”

“You mean police.” Mrs. Powell’s tone plainly implied that if he meant police he ought to be straightforward enough to say police. “Not since you left.” She turned at a sound behind her — the back door opening with a complaining squeak — and announced as if she had accomplished something:

“Here’s Mr. Brager.”

Brager, entering, looked around at them, ending with Dundee.

“Oh, you’re back,” he said. He seemed more popeyed, and hence more bewildered, than usual. “Just get back?”

Dundee nodded. “Is Ross at the laboratory?”

“No.”

“What took you so long at White Plains?”

“Fools.” Brager was wiping sweat from his face with his handkerchief. “Fools!” he repeated. “Nothing but foolishness. I shall tell about it later.” He looked at Heather. “Miss Gladd, that transcript is all wrong. There are sections missing. You will please come and look at it.”

“Leave her alone!” Mrs. Powell snapped. “She’s going to bed.”

Brager glared at her, but Heather stopped the argument before it got started by arising and saying that it would only take a few minutes and she would rather go and get it done. Brager opened the door and they went out. Mrs. Powell, muttering, got a pan from a drawer and deposited it on the table with a savage bang. Dundee stood and scowled at her a moment and then disappeared by way of the dining room.

Brager and Heather skirted the corner of the house, crossed the lawn, and entered the woods at the path. She was swinging along in front and he with his short legs was trotting to keep up. Her weary and harassed consciousness, grateful for the excuse, was concerned with the problem of the transcript. Had she skipped a whole plate? But she always checked them back...

Her mind slid off that wretched little hummock, back into the morass of reality, when, nearing the bridge over the brook, the grotesque events of the night were recalled. She broke her stride as she glanced aside at the scene of that nocturnal face, then went on, crossing the bridge and turning with the path...

“Miss Gladd! Stop a minute!”

She halted and turned. Brager was right there, close enough to touch her.

“That was a lie,” he said. “About the transcript. That wasn’t what I came after you for.”

Suddenly and preposterously Heather began to tremble. She felt it in the muscles of her legs, around her knees. She had not, at least not consciously, been alarmed by Hicks’s warning of a possible danger to her person; certainly she had not been frightened; and if she had entertained any thought of peril the source last to be suspected would have been the popeyed flustery Brager. Yet now, suddenly and inexplicably, there in the depth of the woods alone with him, her knees were shaking and she wanted to scream. She nearly did scream. She wanted to back away from him and couldn’t. But she knew, she saw, that there was nothing threatening or sinister in the expression of his face, his comical round face.

She made her knees rigid. “This is ridiculous!” she said sharply.

Brager nodded. “Everything is ridiculous,” he agreed. “I have all my life been ridiculous, except in my work. Now I cannot work. All this—” He made an odd little gesture. “This disturbance. It is impossible! The trouble is, I tell you frankly, I am sentimental. I always have been, but I suppress it. Science and work cannot be sentimental. But I cannot work. So I become sentimental, and therefore a fool. Cooper is there and wants to see you. Your sister’s husband. But I think I should be with you.”

Heather’s eyes were wide. “Where is he?” She looked around as though expecting to find him behind a tree.

“No, no. In the office. I told him I would bring you. He is unhappy. I have never seen a man so unhappy, and he is not guilty. He is absolutely not guilty!”

“He’s waiting in the office?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go on alone, Mr. Brager. You go back.”

Brager shook his head. “No,” he said stubbornly, “enough things have happened here already.”

Heather looked at him, decided it was useless to argue the matter, turned and resumed her course along the path. The senseless momentary panic that had seized her was entirely gone. As for George, she had no desire to see George, but there was something she wanted to say, a question she wanted to ask him...

The late afternoon sun was full in her eyes as she crossed the meadow, with Brager at her heel, until they were in the shadow of the oak trees and the laboratory building. She ran up the steps and opened the door to the office and entered. A breeze from an open window had scattered sheets of paper over the floor from her desk basket. She noticed that before she saw that there was no one in the room. No George was visible. She turned to Brager inquiringly. His eyes were bulging in astonishment.

“He’s not here,” Heather said.

“He was here,” Brager said complainingly. “In that chair!” He pointed. “I wonder if he—” He trotted to the door leading to the laboratory and disappeared within. Heather jumped when one of the sheets of paper, caught in an eddy from the window, flapped against her ankle. She gathered up the sheets, returned them to the basket, and put a weight on them.

Brager came back. “Not there!” he said angrily. “Not anywhere!” He faced Heather as if she had subjected him to a personal affront. “I tell you this is finally too much! Where is he?”

Heather was going to laugh. She knew she was going to, and she knew she must not. All day she had not cried, and now she was going to laugh, because the sight of Brager being mad at her on account of George not being there was irresistibly funny. She set her teeth on her lip.

“It is outrageous!” Brager insisted. “Outrageous! It is at last too much! He sat in that chair and said he must speak to you! Did I telephone? No! I would not telephone because I thought someone might hear! I leave him here and I go after you! Because I thought he was unhappy! Because—”

He stopped because the air exploded. Cracking, shattering the air, came the sound of a gunshot.