Rose's Last Summer [= The Lively Corpse]

25

The house was old but in better repair than most of its neighbors. The wooden steps had been rebuilt and the paint on the four Doric pillars that supported the veranda had been touched up. A twenty-watt bulb lit up the framed sign on one of the pillars, Room and Board, Ladies Only.

Lora pressed the doorbell and then stepped back so that she could get a better view of the front room through the window. Under a blue-beaded chandelier three middle-aged women were playing bridge at a large, old-fashioned, round table. One of them, a plump brunette in a faded blue housedress, was talking and eating potato chips out of a cellophane bag.

Lora rang again and at the second ring the door was opened by a thin pallid-faced woman about forty.

She spoke in a hushed, sibilant whisper like a librarian. “Yes?”

“I was passing by and happened to see your sign.”

“My sign? Dear me, it isn’t my sign, I just board here.” The woman laughed deprecatingly, making it clear that while she might have to live in a boarding house she’d certainly never stoop to running one. “There’s no vacancy anyway, that I know.”

“Oh.”

“There was a room vacant for some time, but only this morning someone came and rented it, an elderly woman. I haven’t seen her myself. She doesn’t come down for meals and I hear she’s not going to. In fact, what I heard is that she’s a little — you know, in the head.” She touched the side of her own head lightly with one forefinger. “Poor soul.”

Lora murmured, “It happens in the best of families.”

“It does for a fact. Only it seems to me that a respectable boarding house isn’t quite the place for such people. I said to Blanche — that’s Mrs. Cushman, the landlady — I said, great Caesar, Blanche, haven’t you enough to do without taking on the burden of carrying trays up and down stairs? Poor Blanche, she just can’t resist trying to help people. Sometimes I think it’s a weakness rather than a strength.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Well, I must go back to the game, I’m dummy this hand. Sorry there’s no vacancy, it would be nice to have a few younger people around. Maybe you’ll try again?”

“It looks like a well-run place.”

“Oh, it is. I’ve lived here since the beginning of the spring semester — we have loads of fun.”

“I’d like to leave my name with Mrs. Cushman.”

“That’s a good idea. Just a sec and I’ll call her. Oh, Blanche. Blanche? Come here, will you? Someone to see you.”

The plump brunette in the blue dress came into the hall, still holding the bag of potato chips as if she didn’t trust the discretion or appetite of her friends in the front room. When she saw Lora she put the bag on the seat of the hall rack and wiped her hands unobtrusively on the back of her dress.

The thin woman looked at her questioningly. “Did we—?”

“We lost,” Mrs. Cushman said.

“Oh dear.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Madeleine. You had no cards.”

“If you only wouldn’t bid so wildly.”

Madeleine returned to the game, shaking her head in sorrow at the folly of wild bidding.

Mrs. Cushman, too, shook her head. “I can’t stand a bum sport.”

“Nor can I.”

“After all, it’s only a game.”

“You don’t play for money?”

“No.”

“I do,” Lora said. “I play for money.”

Mrs. Cushman began to look a little uneasy. “That’s very interesting, I’m sure. I... are you selling something?”

“No.”

“If it’s a room you want, sorry, we’re all filled up.”

“As of this morning, in fact.”

“That’s right.”

“Who moved in here this morning?”

“I can’t see it’s any of your business.”

“It’s my business, believe me,” Lora said. “What room is she in — the front room on the left — Rose’s room?”

Mrs. Cushman was breathing heavily and noisily through her mouth. “It isn’t Rose’s room anymore. Rose is dead. Her stuff was all taken out days ago. I’ve got a perfect right to rent it again.”

“Who rented it?”

“Say, I don’t like the way you’re acting, young woman. You better get out of here.”

“I’ll get out after I see your new boarder.”

“You can’t see her. She’s sleeping. She wasn’t feeling so well.”

“She’ll feel a lot worse when the police arrive.”

“Police?”

“The police are looking for her. So am I. I got here first.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Cushman said heavily. “Yes, I see you did. You’re Rose’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I should of guessed it right away. There’s a resemblance around the eyes and mouth. You’re not as pretty as Rose was in her youth.”

“My mother’s looks never did her much good.”

“No.” Mrs. Cushman turned with a sigh and started up the steps, leaning her weight on the banister. “No, they never did.”

The door of the front room on the left was closed. On the other side of it someone was humming softly and off-key.

Lora looked grimly at Mrs. Cushman. “Sounds happy, doesn’t she?”

“She is happy. Seems like a cruel shame to bust it up.”

“She’d bust it up herself if nobody else did.”

“You want me to stick around?”

“I can handle her myself.”

“I feel,” Mrs. Cushman said, “I just feel like crying, I do. She came to me for help, poor soul. I didn’t know the police were after her. How was I to know?”

“I wish you’d go downstairs.”

“Well, all right, but you got a real rude way of expressing yourself. Like your mother.”

“I’m tired of being compared with my mother.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Cushman headed for the stairs. “I can see you are.”

On the other side of the closed door the humming had stopped. A woman’s voice, husky and slightly slurred, called out, “Who’s there? That you? Blanche?”

“Yes,” Lora said.

“Come in.”

“I’m coming.” She went into the room, closing the door swiftly behind her as if she was afraid that the older woman would make some protest or outcry.

There was neither. “So you found me. Aren’t you smart!”

“You’re potted.”

“The cup that cheers, Murphy, old girl, the cup that—”

“You can stop calling me Murphy. Everybody knows.” She picked up a black wool coat that was lying across a chair. “Put it on.”

“Why?”

“Every cop in town is looking for you. We’ve got to get out of here.”

The old woman chuckled and clapped her hands like a delighted child. “They’ll never think of looking here.”

“I thought of it.”

“That’s because you’re so smart. I said that before, didn’t I? You’re smart.”

“Put your coat on.”

“All right, all right, don’t nag.” She struggled out of the rocking chair, using her arms like a tightrope walker to keep her balance. “Who’s potted? I’m not.”

“Hurry up, Willett’s waiting for us at home.”

“Is he — mad?”

“What do you think?”

“All right, let him be mad. I can be mad, too.” She managed to get the coat on by herself. Lora didn’t offer to help. “Murphy, listen. I’ve got an idea.”

“Don’t even bother to tell me.”

“Listen. Let’s not go back to that house at all. Let’s run away.”

“Where?”

“Oh, anywhere. Mexico City.”

“How are we going to get there, hitchhike?”

“I don’t want to go back to that house. It’s depressing. I can’t bear it, the two of them watching me all the time.” But even while she was protesting, she was buttoning her coat getting ready to leave. “How much longer will I have to stay there?”

“Two months, maybe a week longer than that so nobody will get suspicious.”

“And then?”

“Then you see a lawyer. Willett will bring him out to the house, and you’ll make a will.”

“I haven’t anything to leave.”

“It isn’t the bequests that are important, it’s the fact that— Oh, for heaven’s sake, we’ve gone into this a dozen times before. We haven’t time right now. Where’s your purse?”

“On the bed.”

“Did you bring anything else? A hat?”

“No.”

“Come on, then.” Lora took her by the arm. “You feel all right?”

“I wish I was dead.”

“You can’t die for two months yet.”

“I wish I was—”

“Stop acting like a baby. Wait.” Lora paused in the middle of the room and listened. From the hall came the sound of heavy footsteps, men’s footsteps, punctuated by the sharp clicking of a woman’s high heels on the hall linoleum.

Then Mrs. Cushman’s voice, swollen with tears: “That’s the room. They’re in there, both of them. How was I to know anything was wrong? Frank, you tell him, tell him I only did my duty, so help me.”

“It’s the police,” Lora said rapidly. “Now listen. You don’t know why you ran away. You didn’t remember a thing until you suddenly recognized me. I persuaded you to go home. Got that?”

“I didn’t remember a thing. Not a thing.”

“That’s right.”

Lora crossed the room and opened the door, adjusting her face to what she hoped was an expression of innocent surprise. “Why, it’s Captain Greer. Isn’t this a coincidence? I was just going to call you and tell you that I’d found her.”

“Thoughtful of you,” Greer said. “Come in, Frank.”

Frank came in, looking pale and embarrassed.

“You’ve been in this room before, haven’t you, Frank?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time?”

“The last time was after Rose’s funeral.”

“And the time before that?”

“It was a week ago last Sunday.”

“What was the occasion?”

“Mrs. Cushman called me and asked me to come over and see Rose and try and straighten her out.”

“Did you straighten her out?”

“No,” Frank said gravely. “I guess not.”

Greer didn’t look at the two women or give any indication that he realized they were still there watching him. “Rose was more than a patient of yours, wasn’t she?”

“I considered her a friend.”

“You knew her well? Very well?”

“I thought I did. As things turned out, I was wrong.”

“How have things turned out, Frank?”

“Say, what is this anyway?” Lora said. “If you two want to have a private conversation, have it some other place. I have to get Mrs. Goodfield home. She’s not well.” She took the older woman by the shoulder. “Are you?”

“No. I’m not well. I can’t remember anything.”

Greer didn’t even turn his head. With his eyes still fixed on Frank he repeated the question: “How have things turned out?”

“You know how. Why do you ask me?”

“It’s more fun to hear it from somebody else.”

“All right. Things have turned out, well, very oddly.”

“Let’s get back to Rose. After you left her that Sunday, you heard from her again?”

“Yes. She phoned me the next afternoon around three o’clock.”

“At the inquest there was considerable doubt about the time on the part of the Sheriff.”

“Not on my part. It was the middle of the afternoon. I couldn’t swear to that at the inquest because the evidence was all against it, but I can now.”

“You had still further news from Rose?”

“Yes. A postcard came the following morning, Tuesday. No message on it, just a rough pencil sketch of a rose.”

“What was the postmark time on the card?”

“Six o’clock. You saw it yourself.”

“According to the evidence, Rose was dead three hours before she telephoned you and several hours before she mailed that postcard. You heard Dr. Severn testify to that?”

“Yes.”

“Did you believe his testimony?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe it now?”

“No.”

“Severn also testified that Rose was suffering from an incurable enlargement of the heart, and that the only reason she had not died before was because she managed to lose a great deal of weight by rigorous dieting. Does this fit in with what you know of Rose?”

“No. She never dieted. She boasted about being able to eat anything and not gain a pound. I didn’t recall this at the inquest but I checked my file on her this morning and then I went directly over to Dr. Severn’s office. He confirmed his own testimony. Within the past three years or so the dead woman had been extremely overweight.”

“You don’t think Severn is a liar, do you?”

“No.”

“Think he made a mistake?”

“No.”

“Some mistake was made. Who made it?”

“I’m afraid Rose did.” For the first time Frank looked directly across the room at the two women. “I don’t believe she realized the gravity of the situation. Her emotional responses were frequently very childish. I think she considered the whole thing as a game or as a play with herself in the leading role.”

“Who wrote the play?” Greer said.

“I don’t know.”

“Miss Dalloway, perhaps you know?”

“Of course I do.” Lora went over to the window and looked down at the street below, listlessly, as if what the people on this street were doing — or any other street — didn’t interest or concern her. “Mrs. Goodfield wrote it. Every line, every stage direction, she wrote.”

“Why?”

“Money. Some people will do anything for money, even after they’re dead.”

“Mrs. Goodfield is dead?”

“She’s dead, all right. I saw them carry her out the back door, the three of them, Willett and Ethel and Rose. They tried to put her in the Lincoln. They intended to drive her away and let her be found someplace else. But she was too stiff by that time; they couldn’t get her through the car door. God, it was funny. It wasn’t so funny at the time, but now when I think of it, it strikes me as hilarious. There were the three of them, Willett bawling and Ethel hysterical and Rose with a load on — there they were, trying to push that skinny little dead woman into the car. You don’t find it amusing, Captain?”

Instead of answering, Greer glanced at the other woman. She was clutching the black wool coat around her as if it were a tent to hide inside. “Did you find it amusing?”

“No.” She spoke in a whisper. “How can she talk like that? It was terrible. She was so stiff. I didn’t know people got so stiff.”

Lora started to laugh. She didn’t turn, she just stood looking down at the people on the streets, laughing softly to herself. Greer told her to stop and she stopped, immediately. It was as if her laughter meant nothing to her anyway, it was merely a way to pass the time, a sound to fill a vacuum.

Greer said, “You couldn’t get the dead woman into the car?”

“No,” Rose said. “Then Willett broke down completely and we had to send him back to the house. Ethel decided we couldn’t carry out the plan, that we’d have to leave her in the garden. So we put her in the chair by the lily pool. Or tried to. She wouldn’t stay in, she was so... so brittle. Like glass.”

“She died at noon?”

“Yes, at noon. In her bed. But we had to wait until dark to arrange — things.”

“You spoke of a plan. Whose plan?”

“Mrs. Goodfield’s. It was all her idea. Don’t blame the others.”

“The ‘others’ include you, Rose?”

“I didn’t mean any harm. I didn’t even want to do it; I wouldn’t listen to her at first. It was such a crazy scheme, and I couldn’t understand the reason for it. The next time I met Lora I told her about it. She was looking for a job anyway, so she decided to plant herself at the Goodfields’ and find out more about them and exactly what the set-up was.”

“And she did?”

“Yes, she kept me posted. The next time Willett phoned and asked me if I’d made up my mind, I told him yes, I’d do it. I couldn’t see anything really wrong about it, not at first.”

“And later?”

“Later, I began to get jittery, cooped up in that room all the time with Ethel and Willett watching every move I made, listening outside my door. They were jittery too, worse than me, I guess. With Mrs. Goodfield dead there was no one to, well, to pull us together. It was like carrying out a conspiracy with the chief conspirator missing and the reason behind it not very clear, not to me anyway. Then came the payoff, a double payoff. Dalloway started hanging around the house and Jack Goodfield was on his way. I realized I had to get out of there, fast. I was good enough to fool strangers like you, but I knew I couldn’t fool a man who was supposed to be my son. And Dalloway, I was afraid Dalloway would recognize me even after all these years. Ethel kept telling me that Jack could be taken in quite easily, because he hadn’t seen his mother for some time and her illness had previously caused great changes in her. But I didn’t believe her. I was scared. Lora hadn’t come back and I was all alone. I waited until Willett and Ethel went to bed and then I put on my coat and sneaked out. I left a note for Willett.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want him searching for me right away. I had to have time to think, figure things out.”

“And have you figured things out?”

“I guess not. But I know I never meant to do anything wrong. It still doesn’t seem to me that what I did was exactly wrong. I didn’t harm anyone, cheat anyone. All I did was lie a little, pretend to be a woman I wasn’t because the woman died too soon.”

“Too soon for what?”

“For the deadline. She had a deadline. I’m not trying to be funny; that’s what it was. Mrs. Goodfield explained the details to me, but I didn’t pay much attention. I’m not,” she added, with a conciliatory little smile, “much of a business woman.”

Greer was not conciliated. “You were paid for your part in the fraud?”

“I hate that word fraud. It sounds—”

“You were paid?”

“No. No. I wasn’t.”

“Expect me to believe that?”

“Well, naturally. It’s true. They didn’t pay me. They were going to when it was all over. Not a lump sum, because I didn’t want it that way and they couldn’t afford it anyway — but just a little each month.” Rose’s eyes were wide and wistful. “It would have been nice for my old age, wouldn’t it?”

“Dandy.”

“You don’t suppose there’s still a chance that I’ll get it?”

“I don’t suppose.”

“Oh well, something will turn up.” She looked across the room at Frank. “Frankie?”

“What do you want?” Frank said.

“You’re mad at me?”

“No.”

“You haven’t spoken a word to me. You must be mad.”

“No.”

“Disappointed, then?”

“A little disappointed, maybe.”

“Oh, what the hell, Frankie, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. It could happen to anybody.”

“But especially to you.”

Rose was delighted by this observation. “That’s the honest-to-God truth, Frankie. I attract disaster.”

Lora turned and addressed her mother coldly: “There wouldn’t be any disaster, there wouldn’t even be any trouble if you hadn’t phoned this guy long after you were supposed to be dead. What a brain wave that was. You—”

“How was I to know she was dead? Ethel didn’t tell me. All she said was to come on over to the house. I didn’t realize there was any great rush about it. So I took my time, I phoned Frank, I bought the postcards and sent him one, little things like that.”

“Little things like that. For Pete’s sake, you’re a birdbrain, a birdbrain.”

“Look who’s calling who a—”

“Ladies,” Greer said, pleasantly. “It’s time to be leaving.”

Rose clutched the black coat around her again, her hands working nervously at the cloth. “Where are we going?”

“To pay a visit to the Goodfields.”

“I don’t want to. I’ve had enough of them.”

“It’s possible,” Greer said, “that they’ve had enough of you, too. But you’re each going to have a little more.”