Fire Will Freeze

7

They paused in front of the sitting-room door. Crawford kept brushing at the coat absently, and raising little clouds of dust.

“What are you going to do?” Isobel said.

“Wash.”

“About the coat.”

He looked across at her. “What can I do? Put it in a closet, I guess, and forget it.”

“You can’t forget it,” Isobel said hoarsely. “You’ve got some, responsibility.”

“Not a scrap. Me for me is my motto.”

“And you won’t take charge of anything?”

“There’s nothing to take charge of, so far.”

“Isn’t there?” Isobel said. “A bunch of strangers marooned in a house with a crazy woman and the nurse gone?”

“We’ll be out of here as soon as it’s light,” Crawford said.

“Leaving Miss Rudd alone?”

“What do you expect me to do, give her a piggy-back ride?”

“You know we can’t leave her alone here. It would be inhuman.”

“All right, so I’m inhuman — and tired — and dirty... Good night.”

He strode impatiently down the hall and opened the door of the closet where Mr. Hunter had found the snowshoes. He threw the coat inside and closed the door again and made for the stairs. When he was halfway to the top Isobel called softly, “Charles!”

He took two more steps and turned around, frowning.

Isobel said, “You’re not very used to your name. How long have you had it?”

“About twelve hours,” Crawford said easily.

“You look older than that,” Isobel said.

“I am, but don’t tell anybody. Good night.”

Isobel went slowly into the sitting room. Mr. Goodwin had gone to sleep again, so she sat in front of the fire and thought, there’s only one other place Floraine could be.

She could be in Miss Rudd’s room. Probably the rifle that she used is in there, too, since we didn’t find it.

Miss Rudd and a rifle and Floraine, dead or alive, behind one locked door...

But there had been no shot, only the one faint scream. Isobel thought of the balcony along the second floor and wondered if there could be some way of looking into Miss Rudd’s room without unlocking the door. But the balcony was probably unsafe, and she couldn’t go out anyway in this blizzard.

She frowned into the fire and thought, in spite of the cat and the chair flung at Crawford I’m not really afraid of Miss Rudd.

She examined this thought and promptly dismissed it as a lie. I’m afraid of her, she decided, but I can’t accept her actions as purely evil. She doesn’t realize what she’s doing. She can be managed, as Floraine managed her. If I could get sort of unemotionally tough...

She put more wood on the fire, poked it once or twice, and went to the door. When she passed Crawford’s door she heard him snoring already, sleeping the sleep of the just, the pure and the clear of conscience. Highly incensed, she passed on into her own room.

Gracie was sitting up on the bed, looking cheerful.

“Look!” she said brightly.

So Isobel looked and saw Miss Rudd squatting on the floor beside the bed. Miss Rudd, too, looked cheerful. She was chewing the rest of Gracie’s chocolates.

“The poor old thing said she was hungry,” Gracie said. “Reminds me of the aunt I told you about, always hungry she was.” She turned to Miss Rudd. “Now take it easy. One at a time like I told you.”

Isobel said in a faraway voice: “Gracie. How did she...? I mean, how...?”

“Oh. That. Well, there she was, the poor dear, pounding and pounding on that door, just like that aunt of mine again. So I let her out. We get along fine, don’t we, Frances?”

Frances nodded pleasantly.

“Was... was Floraine in there with her?” Isobel said.

“No,” Gracie said. “Just the rifle. She was playing with it, so I took it away from her and threw it out the window. Was that the right thing to do?”

“Oh, yes,” Isobel said, gulping. “Oh, yes, yes.”

“Come on. Sit down. Just like a party practically, isn’t it?”

“Just,” Isobel said, and sat down because she was too weak to stand. Gracie lit a cigarette and let Miss Rudd blow out the match.

There was a silence, friendly on the part of Miss Rudd and Gracie, stupefied on the part of Isobel. She decided that Gracie, in her way, was strongly akin to Miss Rudd, hence the bond between them.

“I told her Floraine was gone,” Gracie said. “She just laughed. I don’t think Floraine was good to her.”

Miss Rudd shook her head violently and made a few unprintable remarks on Floraine’s character.

“See?” Gracie said. “She’s quite sensible.”

“Just like your aunt,” Isobel said. “The three of you ought to get together sometime.”

“What do you think we should do now?” Gracie said. “It’s nearly three. It should be light in five hours. I suppose we could all just sit here and talk.”

“I’m afraid I’d be conscious of some strain,” Isobel said.

Miss Rudd had finished the chocolates. She wiped her mouth on her shawl and came over to the bed. She touched Gracie’s hair with her finger.

“Like it?” Gracie said, without a tremor. “It used to be brown, but brown doesn’t suit me, I’m too vivid. Go on, sit down again, Frances.”

Miss Rudd smiled, almost shyly. “I have something for you,” she whispered in Gracie’s ear. She rolled her eyes.

“That’s swell,” Gracie said. “What is it?”

“Something,” said Miss Rudd.

“Is it a secret?”

Miss Rudd nodded vigorously. “I took it from Floraine. I took it from her desk.”

“Where is it?”

For answer Miss Rudd darted to the door and out into the hall.

Isobel said, “Come back. Frances! Please come back.”

“Let her alone,” Gracie said easily. “She’ll come back. She can even see in the dark like my...”

“Please,” Isobel said.

“I hope it’s a bottle of rye.”

But it was not a bottle of rye. It was a bunch of old newspapers, some of them badly torn.

“Gee, thanks,” Gracie said, taking the newspapers. “Just what I wanted. Something to read. Here, Isobel, have one. You want to read too, Frances?”

Miss Rudd did. She sat down again on the floor holding one of the papers stiffly in front of her.

Gracie looked curiously at the rest of the papers. “Wonder why Floraine would save these.”

“She’s the type who’d save anything. Give me that one.” Isobel reached for it.

That one turned out to be the Montreal Star. It was dated September 3, 1942.

“Quite a little reader, our Floraine,” Isobel said, “Montreal Star. Ottawa Citizen. Quebec Courier... Gracie, what’s the date on yours?”

“September 4, 1942.”

“Look through the others.”

There were twelve papers altogether. Each one bore the date September 3rd or September 4th. Five of them were in French and looked like small-town newspapers and came from places Isobel had never heard of.

“That’s funny,” she said. “Move the lamp closer and we’ll look through them all. Something must have happened on September the third that interested Floraine very much. She’s not the type who saves paper for the war effort.”

“How about “R.A.F. Raid Over Germany” or “Wife Clubbed to Death by Hired Man”? And here’s the picture of kind of a cute man. I’m crazy about little dark mustaches, only he probably hasn’t got his now, he’s in jail.”

Isobel leaned over and looked at Gracie’s cute man. Miss Rudd put down her paper and came over, too. Her mouth moved as if she were reading silently to herself. But Isobel knew she was not reading, her eyes didn’t move but remained fixed on the picture.

“Go on, Frances,” Gracie said. “Stop pushing. Do you want this one? Go on, take it then.” Gracie thrust the paper at her and picked up another one, yawning. “I still wish I had a bottle of rye. I never did like reading.”

“Here’s your cute man again,” Isobel said. “Demoted to page five this time. He looks familiar, doesn’t he?”

“Like Cary Grant,” Gracie said dreamily. “What’s his name?”

“Pierre Jeanneret.”

“I think that’s sweet. I wonder why he’s in jail.”

“He talked too much,” Isobel said. She quoted from the news item: “ ‘Jeanneret, long known as a political agitator, was apprehended at Montreal while leading a student riot against conscription. He was interned for the duration under the Defense of Canada Regulations. As he was led from the court.’ ”

“More chocolates,” said Miss Rudd, who was easily bored.

“Haven’t any,” Gracie said.

“I’m hungry. I’m a poor, hungry, old lady, and I want some more chocolates.”

“Hush. We’ll be having breakfast in a few hours.”

“Harry stole all my food,” Miss Rudd whined. “He comes in the night and Floraine locks me up.”

“Now don’t get excited,” Gracie said pleasantly. “Floraine’s not going to lock you up tonight.”

Miss Rudd giggled suddenly. Isobel didn’t like the sound of it.

“You don’t know what happened to Floraine?” she said, keeping her voice calm.

“She’s gone,” said Miss Rudd, “and she won’t be back.” She came over to the bed and began to stroke Isobel’s coat. “Pretty. Very soft and pretty, like Etienne.”

Isobel sat rigid.

“You give me this coat,” Miss Rudd whispered. “You give it to me, eh?”

“No, no, I can’t. I’d be cold without it.”

“I’m cold. Harry’s friends took all my coal. I heard them. I’ll be very cold without this coat.”

Gracie said, “Look, Frances. I have a pretty necklace for you. You want it?”

Miss Rudd’s hands darted out for the necklace. Then, whispering to herself, she slipped out into the hall again. She was gone a long time.

Isobel said nervously, “I wonder what she’s doing.”

“Hiding it,” Gracie said. “My aunt used to hide everything like that.”

“I’m getting a little tired of your aunt.”

“Well, we did, too,” Gracie said, “but she finally died.”

“I think we should go out and look for Frances. You shouldn’t have let her out of her room. She may be all right when she’s with you, but the rest of us haven’t had your experience.”

“Oh, she’ll come back. Anyway, I can’t go skipping around with fur mittens on my feet. Just leave her alone.”

“We left her alone before,” Isobel said, “and something happened to Etienne. I can’t understand you. You’re scared to death to search the house and yet you let Miss Rudd out of her room. You have no sense of proportion.”

“Maybe not,” Grace said.

“Unless you did it deliberately.”

“What?”

“Let Miss Rudd out.”

“Sure, I did it deliberately. It’s not the kind of thing you do in your sleep. I felt sorry for her. She was hungry and...”

“I don’t believe it,” Isobel said.

Gracie turned her head. Her eyes were narrowed and she was smiling. “You don’t believe what? And who cares?”

“You let her out to start trouble.”

“Now who’s starting trouble?” Gracie shrugged her shoulders. “God knows I don’t want any.”

Isobel stared at her a minute, then dropped her eyes.

Perhaps she really is that dumb, she thought, perhaps she didn’t realize what she was doing and actually felt sorry for Miss Rudd.

No, I don’t believe it. She couldn’t have forgotten the dead cat, she was terrified at the blood on her stockings.

Gracie’s voice broke abruptly into her thoughts:

“Since we’re going to be suspicious of each other, would you mind telling me what a dame like you is doing up here?”

“I want to learn to ski,” Isobel said.

“So you had to come all the way up here?”

Isobel blushed and said, “I read an advertisement. They teach by a special method and the ad said you could learn in a week and they have an ex-Austrian ski-meister...”

“His name is Schultz,” Gracie said, “and he comes from a village in Ontario and the nearest he’s been to Austria is the World’s Fair.”

“I don’t believe it!”

“He got me this job,” Gracie said. “You’d better stop reading ads. You’re the type who cries for Castoria when you’re a baby, switches to Ex-Lax at seven, chews Feenamint until you’re twenty-one, and spends the rest of your life eating All-Bran.”

Miss Rudd chose this tense moment to reappear in the doorway. She had been on quite a tour evidently, for she had picked up several stale buns, half a loaf of bread and a man’s tie. The tie Isobel recognized as Mr. Goodwin’s.

“A strange house,” said Mr. Goodwin, fingering the place where his tie had once been knotted. “A very, very, very strange house.”

Mr. Goodwin was a far from ordinary man and had found himself in some far from ordinary places in his thirty-two years, but until today no one had ever shot at him or cut his hat into ribbons or stolen a tie from his sleeping and defenseless neck. Nor, until tonight, had Mr. Goodwin ever been released from the torments of insomnia, nor so deserted by his muse.

The cat, for instance, was well worth a quatrain of blood-imagery, but try as he would Mr. Goodwin could get no further than the title, simple but telling, “Cat.”

He sat up straight on the chesterfield and peered into the darkness for signs of the creeping fingers he had felt around his throat. He saw nothing, which was fortunate, for he was not cast in the heroic mold, and preferred to be a mystic rather than take the trouble to find out facts. Faced with the choice of believing in Miss Rudd or pixies, Mr. Goodwin chose pixies and was the happier for it.

There was, however, the sound of someone walking in the hall and the footfall was rather heavier than you would expect even from the best-nourished pixie.

Still, why seek the disaster of enlightenment? Mr. Goodwin lay down again and closed his eyes. The footsteps were not stealthy, they had a determined briskness about them, which to Mr. Goodwin’s mind meant either Evaline Vista or Isobel Seton. He did not feel able to cope with either of these ladies at present, so he closed his eyes more tightly. This proved to be his undoing.

“You’re not sleeping,” said a cool voice right above his head. “Your eyes are all squinty. You can’t fool me.”

“Obviously not,” said Mr. Goodwin wearily and sat up again.

Joyce Hunter, very bright-eyed and trim in the brown slacks suit she’d worn under her skiing clothes, sat down beside him.

“People,” she said, “have been rushing up and down the hall upstairs. So I thought I’d better get up and see what’s doing, but as soon as I got up the people were gone. Isn’t that funny?”

“No,” said Mr. Goodwin.

“One of them was Miss Seton. She’s very spry for her age, I think. I hope she doesn’t get any ideas about Poppa.”

“Ideas?”

“Marriage. You know. Poppa’s a frightful ass in some ways. I always have to rescue him. I wonder where Miss Rudd is. Somebody let her out.”

“Why don’t you go and look for her?” Mr. Goodwin said coaxingly. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“No,” Joyce said, “and please stop treating me as a child. I’m nineteen. People are fully adult at nineteen. Think back to yourself at nineteen.”

Mr. Goodwin thought back to himself at nineteen and shuddered, with reason.

“Well, anyway,” Joyce said, “I certainly didn’t feel like staying up in my room all alone with Miss Rudd running around loose. Perhaps I’ll stay here for the rest of the night. We could talk about poetry, unless you’d rather tell me about your affairs.”

“No,” said Mr. Goodwin, “I wouldn’t.”

“I’d be terribly interested. A lot of people confide in me, I’m so close-mouthed. Not even one affair, just to pass the time?”

“Well, perhaps one,” Mr. Goodwin said grudgingly. “Have you heard about Lady Hamilton-Fyske and myself?”

“No,” Joyce breathed, blinking her eyes rapidly.

“Cecily was very impetuous,” Mr. Goodwin mused. “She had everything, beauty, money, figure, honorable mention in Who’s Who and an I.Q. of one-forty. Her husband was in the House of Lords, of course, a big sporting fellow who went in for hunting and drinking. Once when he was hunting in the Congo he shot off all his bearers just for the thrill of trying to get out of the Congo by himself.”

Joyce frowned and said, “Really?”

“Really,” Mr. Goodwin said firmly. “Naturally Cecily had a lot of time on her hands so she took up the study of Sanskrit. That was how I met her. She was in the British Museum sobbing bitterly over the defunct present participle of the verb, to be.”

“You’re making this up,” Joyce said in stiff, dignified tones.

Mr. Goodwin sighed and stared up at the ceiling. “Best I could do.”

“I bet you’ve never even had an affair.”

“Let’s talk about you,” Mr. Goodwin said. “What are you going to be when you grow up?”

Joyce gazed at him sulkily.

“Because if you’ve nothing else in mind,” Mr. Goodwin said gently, “I think there’s a fine career ahead of you as a Public Enemy.”

“Oh, you’re just trying to make me mad,” Joyce said with a sniff, “so I’ll go off to bed. That won’t work. Besides, I’m too hungry to sleep. I wish I had some food. I know where there is some.”

At the mention of food Mr. Goodwin realized that he too was very hungry. A bargain was eventually struck whereby Joyce would procure food in return for being treated as a civilized and intelligent adult. Mr. Goodwin thought he was worsted in the bargain, but when Joyce returned with an opened can of beans and some bread he decided to let it ride. The beans were cold, but they gave Mr. Goodwin a warm glow in the pit of his muse. He produced an item called “Snow,” which, while not first-rate, definitely showed the Goodwin flair.

This was as far as he got. Still, it was definitely encouraging. The muse was not dead, she had merely a touch of hypochondria.

Cheered, Mr. Goodwin recited it to Joyce. Joyce said it stank.

“Really?” said Mr. Goodwin, pleased. “Really stinks?”

“Terribly.”

Mr. Goodwin knew then that he had achieved success. He hastily wrote it down on the back of a bill for Dental Services, Dr. Gratton, fifteen dollars, please remit.

He was interrupted by the breathless arrival of Isobel Seton. Isobel was looking rather worn. When she saw Goodwin her face sagged with relief.

“Thank God,” she said. “You’re all right?”

Mr. Goodwin was fine and said so, feeling extremely pleased at Isobel’s reaction to this announcement.

“I thought you were dead,” she explained. “I mean Miss Rudd came in with your tie and I thought, we thought — maybe you were strangled.”

“Strangled?” said Mr. Goodwin, shaken.

Isobel drew in her breath and began again. “I mean, Miss Rudd came to me with your tie and we didn’t see... Oh, the hell with it!”

She flounced over to a chair and sank into it. “Here, take the thing,” she said, flinging his tie to him. “And for heaven’s sake hang on to your clothes.”

“Who let her out?” Joyce said.

“Gracie Morning.”

“Oh,” Joyce said thoughtfully. “Why?”

“Humanitarian reasons,” Isobel said grimly. “You figure it out.”

“She’s all right, is she? Not homicidal or anything?”

“Not yet.”

“What’s she doing?” Joyce asked.

“Reading. Reading some papers. She stole the papers from Floraine’s desk and brought them as a present to Gracie. And please don’t ask me any more questions, Miss Hunter, because I can’t answer them.”

Joyce said huffily, “Well, if you can’t, who can? You’ve been tearing up and down the hall upstairs all night.”

“Mr. Crawford and I found the bus driver’s coat under the coal.”

Joyce’s eyes gleamed for an instant. “You did? What did Mr. Crawford do with it?”

“Put it in the closet in the hall.”

“May I see it?”

“Why?” Isobel said.

“Can’t I do some snooping as well as you?”

There was a lively argument on snooping powers which ended in Joyce’s going out to look at the coat.

She came back looking cross. “It’s not there,” she announced. “Miss Rudd must have beat us to it.”