The Devil Loves Me

5

There had been frost during the night. The trees were mottled with silver and the grass lay smothered and gray with death.

The milkman shivered as he swung off his truck and up the driveway to the tune of clanking bottles. Soon it would be winter, he thought, and the raw winds would be blowing from Lake Ontario, and the milk would freeze and push out the top of the bottle like a growing plant.

Yes, it was a hard life. His step had slowed; he seemed to be already fighting his way through snow. He put out his hand to brush away some of the hoarfrost from the cedar hedge that lined the driveway. Under the warmth of his hand the frost melted and disappeared. The gesture made him feel better. It was as if he had done his bit to stop the approach of winter.

Then through the hedge he saw Duncan lying at the bottom of the steps.

He set down his wire basket of bottles with a sharp clank, parted the hedge, and crawled through it. His hands were scratched, but he didn’t notice the scratches because the young man with his head resting on a flagstone seemed to be dead.

It required only a touch of that rigid, outstretched hand to convince the milkman that Duncan was dead.

He’s fallen, the milkman thought, and he couldn’t get up so he froze to death. No, he can’t have frozen, it isn’t winter yet. But blast me if he doesn’t look frozen.

Duncan’s hair was silvered by the frost. His black coat had turned to rich gray plush and the tips of his eyelashes were pointed with diamonds.

The milkman crouched and touched him again.

Why, he looks like someone carved him out of silver and scattered a few rubies around for good measure.

Oh hell, thought the milkman, standing up again, I got too much imagination.

He went up the steps and rang the bell. The discovery had excited him, had warmed him. Beside the coldness of death he felt very quick and alive; his limbs had become very flexible.

The bell pealed again, and soon Jackson, an old bathrobe flung over his pajamas, opened the door and came out.

“There’s a dead man out here,” the milkman said. The warmth born out of the contrast with cold had affected even his voice.

But Jackson had already seen for himself. He still had his hand on the doorknob and he gripped it a little more tightly.

“Does he belong here?” the milkman said.

“You’d better come inside,” Jackson said, “while I phone the police.”

“I got my rounds to make. I got to be finished at nine o’clock.”

“What’s your name?”

“James Harrison, Goldenrod Dairy, number fifty-five. If you think I should stick around maybe I could get my brother-in-law—”

“As long as I have your name,” Jackson said. “The police may want to get in touch with you.”

“Well, that’s my name all right, James Harrison, number fifty-five.”

The door closed on Jackson. James Harrison took another look at Duncan, then he went through the hedge again and picked up his wire basket of milk bottles. The clock on the dashboard of his truck said six minutes past six.

“At approximately six o’clock,” James Harrison said aloud, “I was making my usual rounds when I chanced to discover the deceased corpse at 197 River Road, one of my best customers. I sensed immediately that there was something wrong...”

Jackson went into the library and phoned for Inspector Sands, then he sat for a while, shivering under his bathrobe, not thinking anything at all. Afterward he went back to his room on the third floor.

He paused on the landing of the second floor but he heard no one stirring. They were all as quiet in sleep as Duncan was in death. Jackson thought, I am the only one in the house who’s really alive.

He was lonely and a little frightened. On the third floor he let his step grow heavy and whistled a bar of music to make someone come alive. In his room he changed into his black trousers and tie and put on a fresh linen coat. Someone moved in the next room. There were the creak of bedsprings and a short, hoarse cough.

Through the wall he heard Dennis Williams say, “God!” in a long-drawn-out sigh. He must be looking at the clock, Jackson thought, and seeing how early it is.

He went out into the hall and rapped on Dennis’ door.

“Come in,” Dennis said thickly.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed holding the clock in his hands. His face in the early light had a greenish tinge like old bronze. His black hair was ruffled and it looked thin and rather oily.

“Doesn’t anyone sleep around here?” he demanded. “Is this damn clock right?”

“It’s right, sir,” Jackson said. “I’m sorry the bell awakened you. It rings in my room as well as in the kitchen.”

“Who the hell goes around ringing bells at six o’clock in the morning?”

I don’t like his tone, Jackson decided. I think I’ll let him have it.

“The milkman rang the bell, sir. He found Mr. Stevens lying dead at the foot of the veranda steps.”

Dennis didn’t move at all. There was no sound in the room but the ticking of the clock and the breathing of two men who were rather angry.

“Well, that’s as good a reason as any,” Dennis said finally. “Duncan is really dead?”

“Oh, yes sir,” Jackson said dryly.

“Have you notified the police?”

“Yes sir.”

Dennis put the alarm clock back on the table with slow deliberation.

“Is Duncan— I mean—”

“It looks like an accident, sir. Will you have your breakfast now? I can wake Mrs. Hogan.”

“Yes,” Dennis said. “Wake Mrs. Hogan.”

By the time Jackson came downstairs again Inspector Sands had arrived. He was standing in the hall with the front door open, examining the lock. He turned his head at the sound of Jackson’s step and motioned to him to walk quietly.

Through the slit in the door Jackson could see four men. One of them had a camera and he was saying in a mild voice, “Get the hell out of the way, Bill. I don’t want a picture of your feet.”

They all seemed to know exactly what to do. Inspector Sands paid no attention to them.

“How do you lock this door at night, Jackson?” Sands asked.

“The self lock is kept on all the time,” Jackson said. “We simply leave it like that at night.”

Sands propped his notebook against the wall and wrote down the name and address of the milkman and the time of his arrival.

“The guests are still sleeping, sir,” Jackson said, “except Mr. Williams. Shall I wake the others?”

The inspector shook his head and returned to his study of the door. He opened it wider to say: “Make it snappy, Tom. The sun’s coming up fast.”

The man with the camera nodded.

Jackson looked puzzled. “What’s the sun got to do with it?”

Sands raised his head. “Frost,” he said enigmatically. “If you could make us a pot of coffee, Jackson, we’d be much obliged.”

Jackson went out to the kitchen. Sands opened the front door wide.

The man with the camera said: “Done, and done prettily, Inspector. Do I develop them right away?”

“As soon as possible, Tom.”

Tom departed with a blithe wave of his hand.

Sands went down the steps. “Well, Bill?” he said to the young man who was touching Duncan’s skull with careful fingers.

Dr. William Sutton, the coroner’s assistant, straightened up and said, “Skull fracture. He landed with his head on this flagstone. As you can see, the flagstone has several sharp edges. What probably happened was this: he got to the top of the steps, lost his balance, and fell down backward.”

“And falling down twelve stone steps would kill him?”

“Apparently,” Sutton said. “He’s dead. The only odd thing about it is the bruise on his chin. If he fell backward how could he have bruised his chin? If he fell forward he wouldn’t normally have fallen in the position he’s in now. Any reason to suspect murder?”

“An excellent reason.”

“That’s fine,” Sutton said. “Makes the whole setup simpler. He was standing at the top of the steps, someone took a swing at his chin, and he fell down backward. If the swing was pretty terrific he might have missed most of the steps and landed at the bottom. If it wasn’t, he’ll have bruises and breaks on the rest of his body.”

“Find that out,” Sands said. “As soon as Joe has gone over his clothes, take him away.”

The man called Joe was busy dusting the outside doorknob with aluminum powder. At the sound of his name he looked up and said sourly, “I can’t go over his clothes for fingerprints here. I’ll need calcium sulphide for the suit and silver nitrate for the shirt and handkerchief.”

“I know that,” Sands said patiently. “I want you to collect the dust from his pocket before he’s moved. The stuff on his hat looks like sawdust.”

Interested, Joe came down the steps. “It is sawdust,” he said.

“Where in hell would he get sawdust?” Sutton asked.

“From a planing mill,” Joe said. “Maybe he’s a lumber king.”

For the next half-hour Joe worked carefully, brushing the sawdust into a sterile bottle with a tiny brush and the dust from Duncan’s pockets into other bottles. He wore close-fitting cotton gloves.

Dr. Sutton was bored after ten minutes of this procedure and went inside to get his coffee. Jackson served him in the dining room with Dennis. Dennis asked a great many questions to which Sutton replied with polite disinterest: “I’m sure I don’t know,” or, “I have no idea.”

Dennis was annoyed. “I suppose you know whether he’s dead or not?” he inquired acidly.

Sutton said, “Oh, he’s dead all right.”

“Do we have to get our information from the newspapers?”

Sutton grinned. “Not even there, Mr. Williams.”

He finished his coffee, thanked Jackson, and strolled outside again. When Dennis followed him out five minutes later there was nothing to prove that the whole thing had not been a dream except the stains on the flagstone and the small gray-beige figure of Inspector Sands hunched over the table in the library.

The library door was open so Dennis went in.

Sands looked up. “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Williams. Come in and close the door.”

Dennis did. “Have they taken away the... the body?”

“Yes. Sit down.”

“No, thanks. I’ll stand.”

“Nervous, Mr. Williams?”

Dennis sat down. “Why should I be nervous?”

“You had a quarrel with Mr. Stevens yesterday, perhaps.”

“I did not.”

“You have a black eye.”

“Yes,” Dennis said, smiling slightly, “but Duncan didn’t give it to me. I scarcely knew him, so we had no reason to fight. The eye is a present from Mrs. Revel.”

“You are, in fact, a stranger here except for your friendship with Mrs. Revel?”

“Not exactly,” Dennis said. “I’ve been here before with Dinah. I knew Mrs. Shane and Nora and Miss O’Shauphnessy. The others I didn’t meet until this week.” He paused, jerking nervously at his tie. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to come here in the first place. The wedding is a family affair. I feel like an interloper.”

“Mrs. Revel wanted you to come?”

“Yes,” Dennis said. “Now I suppose I’ll have to stay.”

Sands shook his head. “Of course not. When you have made a complete signed statement you will be free to leave. Providing, naturally, that no evidence against you turns up. I presume you’re anxious to get back to your business in Montreal?”

“I— Yes, I am.”

“Just what is your business, Mr. Williams? I don’t believe you told me that yesterday.”

“Bonds.”

“The address of your firm, please?”

“George Revel and Company, Rand Building.”

“Is that any relation to Mrs. Revel?” Sands asked.

“Her husband,” Dennis said stiffly. “Her former husband, I mean.”

“Interesting.”

“Yes, it’s damn interesting. But it hasn’t got anything to do with Duncan.”

“Probably not.”

From the room above and the hall outside came sounds of a house coining to life: footsteps and running water and now and then the bang of a door and the sound of voices.

Dennis was sitting on the edge of his chair, listening, his body tense. Sands’ quiet voice startled him:

“I’m fond of Macbeth.”

“I’ve never read it,” Dennis said.

“But yesterday in the drawing room you were quite perturbed when Miss O’Shaughnessy predicted the death of Duncan.”

“Death?” Dennis threw back his head and laughed. “I didn’t know it meant a death. It just said ‘fatal entrance of Duncan!’ ”

Go on.

“And I— Well, frankly, Duncan was a skunk. He threatened to tell George about Dinah and me. Naturally, I don’t want that. I have to earn my living and I have a good job. George Revel would have fired me immediately if he’d found out. He’s still in love with Dinah, I think.”

“And so?”

“And so I thought Aspasia had found out that Duncan was going to tell, and that she was warning me that Duncan’s entrance was fatal for me.”

Sands leaned back, smiling. A plausible young man, he decided, of the genus natural liar. “I understand,” he said aloud. “Now if you’d like to bring Mrs. Shane and her daughter and Miss Stevens in here, I’ll break the news to them. Better bring Dr. Prye too, in case Miss Stevens takes it badly.”

Dennis got up, his face paling. “I’d forgotten about Jane. She’ll be—”

Sands spoke soothingly. “Miss Stevens hasn’t a sensitive, nervous temperament. She will absorb the shock nicely, I think.”

Dennis hesitated, then swung around and went out. He looked angry, the inspector noticed with some surprise.

While he was waiting, he put through two telephone calls. The first was to headquarters asking that Sergeant Bannister and a stenographer be sent out immediately. The second was to the morgue. Dr. Sutton was in the main autopsy room and had left orders that he was not to be disturbed.

Sands replaced the telephone and went to the door. Mrs. Shane was coming downstairs. She wore a silk brocaded housecoat, and Sands knew from the expression on her face that she guessed what he had to tell her. At the bottom of the steps she paused and waited for Jane.

Jane was next. She clung to the banister, murmuring plaintively that it was so early, she hated to get up early. Mrs. Shane took her arm firmly and led her toward the library.

Jane looked at the inspector with reproach. “I told you everything I knew yesterday. You needn’t have come so early.”

She yawned and sighed and curled up on the window seat. Her blond curls were tousled and she looked like a sleepy kitten.

Nora and Prye came in together. Prye shut the door.

“Any news?” he asked.

Jane was wide awake in a second. “Did Duncan come home? Have you found him?”

“We found him,” Sands said. “I’m afraid he’s dead.”

Jane was staring at him blankly. “You don’t mean Duncan. Duncan isn’t dead. You never even saw him. How could you know him if you found him dead? You’ve made a mistake.” Her voice rose shrilly. “Duncan always said that policemen were dumb. Now I know—”

“Be quiet, Jane,” Mrs. Shane said. “It’s true, I suppose?”

Sands nodded.

Mrs. Shane put her arms around Jane. “My poor Janie. You must bear up, Jane. Time heals all wounds and wipes away all tears.”

Her words had a surprising effect on Jane. The girl pushed her away and turned to the inspector.

Sands watched her curiously. Despite her attire and her uncombed hair, she looked very dignified.

“How did my brother die?”

“He fell down the steps,” Sands said uneasily.

“What steps?”

“The steps of the veranda.”

“And that killed him?” There was some scorn mixed with the dignity now.

“Yes. His skull was fractured. The milkman found him early this morning.”

“The milkman!”

The news was a shock. She began to sob and talk through the sobs: found like that... Duncan would have hated... So undignified... Duncan’s pride

Sands listened, uncomfortable and puzzled. To his astonishment he found that he was also a little angry. It wasn’t that the girl was stupid, but she had the wrong set of standards, Duncan’s standards, obviously. Who in the hell was this Duncan that he shouldn’t be found dead by a milkman?

The sobs continued. Inspector Sands made a motion to Mrs. Shane, and she led Jane out of the room.

Nora said, “Shall I leave too?”

“No. I’d like to talk to you. Sit down. You too, Dr. Prye.”

Prye and Nora sat down beside each other on the window seat, stiffly, like two children newly arrived at a party and still conscious of their Sunday clothes.

“Was it murder?” Prye asked.

Already the question was becoming monotonous to Sands. Before the day is over, he thought, I shall have answered that fifty times, and I have no answer to give.

“I don’t know,” he said. “If the events of yesterday had not occurred I’d say that the young man had taken too much to drink last night and that on reaching the top of the veranda steps he lost his balance and fell, hitting his head on a flagstone. But in view of the poison in his pitcher of water, Duncan’s death seems too — coincidental.”

“The coincidences can be explained,” Prye said, “if Duncan himself wrote that letter to me and poisoned the water and put in the anonymous telephone call. As far as I know he was the only person with a motive for stopping the wedding — he wanted to marry Nora — and the method he chose is consistent with other facts about Duncan. He was a notorious practical joker, for one tiling. I had a long talk with Jane last night.”

“And she said he was a practical joker?” Sands asked, frowning.

Prye smiled wryly. “No indeed. She said that Duncan had ‘such a nice sense of humor,’ and illustrated it by two hair-raising tales, one of them involving a rattlesnake with its fangs removed.”

“He put it in somebody’s piano bench,” Nora explained.

“I should have been told yesterday about this,” Sands said.

“I didn’t know it yesterday,” Prye replied easily. “And I believe Miss Shane had forgotten the episode.”

Sands fastened his eyes on Nora. “When you have guests, Miss Shane, do you usually put supplies of paper and ink in each room?”

“Yes,” Nora replied.

“You read the letter that was written to Dr. Prye warning him of a murder?”

“Yes.”

“Did you recognize the paper and ink?”

“It was the same paper,” Nora said, “but the ink was a different color. We use black, and the letter was written in blue.”

“The ink on the letter was a common brand of nutgall ink sold for use in fountain pens. Nutgall ink changes color slowly until it’s completely dried in about two years. We were able by the use of a tintometer to ascertain that the letter was written very recently. It was written with a gold-nibbed fountain pen by someone who wrote slowly and carefully.”

Nora said with a trace of impatience: “But you don’t know who wrote it?”

“Not definitely. We may in time.”

“Well, I know. Everything about that letter adds up to Duncan. The style is his. He has a fountain pen, he uses blue ink, and it’s the kind of thing he would do.”

“Not very compelling reasons,” Sands said mildly, “since the young man is dead. May I see his room now?”

Wherever Duncan visited he managed by suggestion or demand to get the best room available. He had been given the master bedroom at the front of the house above the drawing room.

Because of its varied uses the master bedroom was sexless. There were no ruffled curtains or lace spread to annoy a male occupant, and no manly leather chairs or strategically placed briar pipes to annoy a female. The curtains were dark blue silk with a wide ivory stripe, the bed was ivory, and the rug dark blue to match the curtains. There was a blond maple desk near the window and it was to this that Inspector Sands first directed his attention.

In the drawer he found the paper and black ink placed there by Nora, as well as a straight pen with a fine nib.

Sands picked up a sheet of the paper and held it against the light. It was, as Nora had said, the same paper as that of the letter to Prye. Sands leafed through the remaining sheets of it. Near the bottom he found a half-finished letter beginning “Dear George.”

Bannister must have missed it yesterday, Sands thought. He said he couldn’t find a sample of Duncan’s writing. I’ll have to give him hell.

He picked up the letter by one corner and read it.

Sands reread it, still holding it by one corner. The writing bore some resemblance to the writing on the letter to Prye. The ink was black and had been used in the straight pen lying in the drawer.

Sands removed two unused sheets of paper, placed Duncan’s letter between them, and folded the three sheets twice. If Duncan wrote it, Sands thought, his fingerprints will be on it somewhere, and on the pen. The pen and the folded papers he placed in his pocket.

He went over to the bureau and opened the top drawer. There was a pair of blue silk monogrammed pajamas, and also — Sands raised his brows in horror — some blue silk underwear faintly redolent of lavender.

He closed the drawer again quickly and went through the others. Most of them were empty except for their lining of white tissue paper. Well, that was natural enough, if Duncan had come merely for a short visit.

What wasn’t natural, however, was the absence of Duncan’s fountain pen. Sands went through the clothes in the closet, examined the three empty suitcases, and even lifted the lavender-scented underwear out of the bureau drawer.

On his way out Sands locked the door and slipped the key in his pocket. He found Hilda in the hall with some fresh towels over her arm.

“Where is Miss Stevens’ room?” he asked her.

She directed him by pointing toward a closed door. Appraising her, Sands decided that she would be giving notice in the near future; she wasn’t the type to stick when there was trouble.

He said politely, “Thanks, Hilda. I shall want to talk to you again later.”

Hilda made no move to go away but stood eying him in silence. Then she blurted out: “I’m quitting.”

Sands smiled at her patiently and waited.

“I got better tilings to do than hop around after dumb blondes.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Sands said pleasantly.

“Well, I have!” She gave the towels a savage jerk. “I’m no ladies’ maid. I’ve got my pride.”

She stamped off down the hall, muttering to herself. Sands walked over to Jane’s door and rapped.

A wan and wasted voice told him to come in. Jane was sitting up in bed, nibbling a piece of toast, now and then giving a long, shuddering sigh. Sands noticed that the breakfast tray was nearly empty.

“I feel beastly to be eating like this,” she said, the tears coming to her eyes again. “Duncan always thought eating was beastly anyway. Duncan was different from other people.”

He was indeed, the inspector thought. But he gave her an encouraging and sympathetic nod.

“Did your brother have a close friend or business associate called George?”

“George,” she repeated. “George. Well, there’s George Bigelow. He plays awfully good tennis. He and I were in the finals last George! You don’t mean George Revel?”

“I might,” Sands said cautiously. “Were he and Duncan on intimate terms?”

She was shocked. “Oh no! George Revel is a dreadful person. Duncan disapproved of him very strongly. Duncan may have had his faults but he certainly didn’t — wasn’t, I mean, promiscuous.”

Sands thought of the scented underwear and said dryly, “No, I can tell he wasn’t. Revel and Duncan knew each other well?”

“They knew each other, naturally. After all, Dinah’s our cousin. But after the divorce George’s name never passed our lips.”

“And Duncan never received any letters from Mr. Revel, for instance?”

“Of course not. We got letters from Dinah, though.” “Addressed to you or to Duncan?”

“To Duncan, usually, but he always told me what was in them.”

I wonder, Sands thought. Aloud he said: “I understand that Duncan and Dinah were not on good terms. Doesn’t an exchange of letters seem odd to you?”

“Odd?” She wrinkled her forehead. “It wasn’t odd in the least. They were cousins.” She paused and added in a gentle but slightly exasperated tone: “I’m afraid you don’t quite understand Duncan. He had a very strict sense of duty.”

“You mentioned seeing Dinah come out of Duncan’s room yesterday morning. Have you talked to her about this?”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I— Am I under oath?”

“No. But you will be later on. Pretend you are now. Make a game of it.”

“You needn’t talk to me as if I were a child,” she said haughtily. “Dinah came to me last night and asked me not to mention that I saw her. She said it wasn’t important. I said I wouldn’t promise. I said the Truth Will Out. And so it will.”

“Very often it does.”

“This time it will.” She flung him a triumphant glance. “You needn’t think I swallowed all that twaddle about Duncan falling down the steps.”

Sands was annoyed but refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing his annoyance.

“Twaddle it may be,” he said pleasantly. “Did your brother have a fountain pen?”

“Yes. It was blue and it had his name on it. Duncan loved to have his name on things.”

“Where did he carry the pen?”

“In his pocket. I think in his vest pocket.”

“Did it have a gold nib?”

She bit her underlip pensively. “Well, I don’t know. If that’s the best kind you can buy, then it did. Duncan believed in always buying the best.”

Still patient, Sands removed from his pocket the letter he had found in Duncan’s drawer. He held it in front of her. “Don’t touch this letter. Read it. Is this your brother’s handwriting?”

She leaned forward and studied it for a long time. When she finally replied she seemed to have forgotten the question.

“Duncan was never at any place called the Windsor,” she said slowly. “He never saw fifty brunettes. He was with me every night and I never saw fifty brunettes!”