At eight o’clock on Tuesday morning, August the second, Dr. Prye started groggily out of bed and began to dress before Nora could appear with a number of good reasons why he should not. He took a half-grain of codeine to dispel the strong conviction that his head was falling off, and then looked in the mirror to make sure it hadn’t already fallen off.
It was still there, noticeably so. Miss Alfonse had been thorough. The bandages covered his head like a turban, and since this made him resemble a Hindu, he carried out the motif by winding a bright yellow scarf over the bandages, and went down to breakfast.
When Prye entered the kitchen Nora was at the stove frying bacon, and she did not turn around. She said coldly over her shoulder:
“I suppose you think you’re surprising me? Well, you’re not. Once a damn fool always a damn fool.”
“Oh, good morning, Nora,” Prye said, pulling out a chair from the table. “Could that bacon be for me?”
“Certainly,” Nora said bitterly. “I never eat when I know there’s going to be a death in the house.”
She flipped the bacon out of the pan, set the plate in front of Prye, and eyed the yellow scarf coldly. “Disguise? Or a new idea from Esquire? Or is that crack in your skull deeper than I thought?”
Prye crunched bacon. “As a matter of fact, I’m going visiting this morning.”
“Over my dead body,” Nora said.
“If necessary, over your dead body. Since I don’t want to alarm anyone I thought I’d camouflage the bandages.”
“Why go visiting at all? You managed to stir up trouble quite nicely yesterday just by staying at home and perhaps you’ll do even better today.”
“I believe,” Prye said thoughtfully, “that I stirred up more than you realize. Or rather you did.”
“I did!” Nora protested.
“You did. You see, the trouble occurred when I was taking you home. There aren’t any jealous rivals hovering around, are there?”
“Hundreds. The line forms on the left.”
“I asked a serious question.”
“Well, it’s a lousy one,” Nora said warmly. “If I say yes, you’ll think I’m conceited; and if I say no, you’ll think I should have had enough pride to say yes. Well, pride’s not my strong suit. I say no. No rivals.”
“In that case I was assaulted for myself alone.”
“That’s what I figured,” Nora said demurely.
“But who, I ask you, wants to assault me? What have I done? Nothing.”
“Don’t be modest.”
“So,” he went on, ignoring her, “I came to the conclusion that I was put out of the way because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Suppose two people had arranged to meet in that grove of birches—”
“No one would meet there. It’s swarming with mosquitoes.”
“Yes, but isn’t it a nice spot for a murder? Dark, cozy, warm. And the mosquitoes keep away other people.”
“Excluding you,” Nora said. “So the idea is that you walked in on a murder, and in order to teach you not to walk in on murders the murderer tapped you on the head?”
“That’s it,” Prye said. “Good, don’t you think?”
“So where is the body?”
“I’m not that far yet. After all, you can do a lot of things with a body. Bury it. Throw it into the lake. Even put it up a bushy tree. I knew a fellow once who fixed up a pulley, hanged his wife, and left her in a tree.”
“I’ll bet you know lots of lovely, lovely people. Did you go to school with Jack the Ripper and send him valentines?”
Prye got up from the table, grinning. “I’ll be gone for some time. I want to see if anyone is missing. If you’d like to make yourself useful you could organize a search.”
“What do I look for?”
“Everything. Bodies, bloodstains, weapons, signs of recent digging. I lost a collar button here two years ago. You might keep an eye out for that, too.”
“Very funny,” Nora said.
Miss Hattie Brown was never at her brightest in the mornings anyway, and when she opened the back door and beheld an incredibly tall Hindu wearing a yellow turban she let out a shriek and started to close the door. Prye, his hand on the outside knob, smiled winningly at her.
“Why, Hattie. Don’t you remember me? Dr. Prye. I treated your tonsillitis a couple of years ago.”
Remembrance came in a rush. It was difficult to forget a ten percent silver-nitrate solution applied to a tender area.
“I remember you,” she said tartly. “For a minute I couldn’t understand your rigging.” Her expression made it clear that she still didn’t understand it.
Prye touched the yellow scarf. “This? Merely to protect my head. I find the sun up here too strong for the first day or so. Is Professor Frost up?”
“He’s up, but he’s not down,” Hattie said. “He said good morning to me through the door.”
“How’s Miss Susan?”
Hattie sniffed faintly. “She always goes out half an hour before breakfast for one of them quiet times of hers.”
“Where?”
“In the woods. She’s got a place built there between trees where she sits and thinks.”
“And where’s Joan?”
The air whistled through Hattie’s adenoids. “I don’t know about Miss Joan. I left her tray outside her room as usual, but it’s still there.”
“Did you knock?”
“Sure I knocked, but she didn’t answer. Sometimes she does that just on purpose, but still, after that business about the taxi last night, I don’t like it.”
The story of the taxi driver changed hands.
“I think I’ll see Professor Frost,” Prye said when she had finished.
Hattie showed Prye into the sitting room and went upstairs. In five minutes Professor Frost appeared in the doorway, smiling, his right hand extended.
He was wearing a dark red smoking jacket. His hair was somewhat whiter than Prye remembered it, but otherwise he was the same. His face was deeply tanned and set in a smile that always seemed sardonic though occasionally it wasn’t. His features were almost theatrically handsome except for his left cheek which was swollen and blue. One eyebrow was slightly higher than the other and it gave his face an expression of amused contempt. Prye felt, as he had always felt in Frost’s presence, like a freshman with a theme overdue.
“Hello, Prye.” They shook hands, smiling at each other rather uneasily.
Frost waved him to a chair. “Sit down. It’s good to see you again. You’re looking well, although yellow is not your color.”
Prye sat down. “You haven’t changed,” he said pointedly. “I've always admired your technique of making people uncomfortable.”
Frost spread his hands in a deprecatory gesture. “So few appreciate it, and I like appreciation, so I’m really glad you’ve come. Did you want to see me about anything in particular?”
“I thought you wanted to see me” Prye said.
“Did you?”
“Well, did you?”
“No.” Frost smiled dryly. “Perhaps I’m hypersensitive but the conversation appears rather odd to me. Shall we begin again? First, I take it that this isn’t a social call.”
“That’s right. Miss Bonner’s spotlight was broken last night and I’m trying to find out who did it.”
“That hardly seems worthy of your talents, Prye. Sorry I can’t help you. Immediately after dinner I retired to my study to work.”
“And stayed there?”
“And stayed there.”
“I wonder if Susan heard anything,” Prye said casually.
Professor Frost smiled. “I wonder.”
“You’re fencing.”
“Of course I’m fencing,” Frost said mildly. “I’m waiting for you to be frank with me. You see, there’s about an inch of white cloth protruding from your headdress. It looks like a bandage, though I may be wrong.”
Prye felt himself blushing.
“Apparently,” Frost went on, “you have a head injury. Now if you had sustained it in an ordinary manner, you wouldn’t circumlocute before breakfast. So I infer that someone struck you and you want to know if I did it. I did not. Now perhaps you will allow me to adjust your — ah, turban?”
Prye, his face vividly pink, suffered in silence as Professor Frost deftly tucked the bandages beneath the yellow scarf.
“Ah, that’s better,” Frost said. “One cannot be expected to see the back of one’s own head. Are your injuries serious?”
“No, they’re not,” Prye said crossly. “I’d like to see Joan, if I may.”
“You have my permission, certainly, but I don’t guarantee her availability. It is some twenty hours since I’ve seen her. She intended to leave here last night. Hattie no doubt told you about the cabdriver’s calling?” Prye nodded, and Frost went on. “It leads me to believe that Joan is following her not infrequent custom of locking herself in her room to sulk. Spasmodic hibernation is one of her favorite devices.”
“May I look to make sure?”
“If you must. Joan’s room is on this floor. You might try peering into the windows. Hattie will provide you with a stepladder.” He raised one eyebrow, and Prye’s ears under the bandages began to get warm. “In the interests of knowledge I would gladly offer you my shoulders to stand on, Prye. But I am not a young man, and I am particularly fond of this smoking jacket.”
Prye went out, muttering under his breath. The ladder was located and propped against the side of the house, and Prye, hoping vainly that the earth would swallow him, mounted under the interested gaze of Hattie. He could see nothing of Joan, so he tried the window, found it unlocked, and maneuvered himself into the room.
A gust of heavy perfume hit him and he winced and left the window open.
It was, he thought, just an ordinary female room, with a lot of bottles and jars and a frilly bedspread. Then he saw a suitcase standing on the floor near the bed. It was packed but not closed.
He knelt beside the suitcase and inspected its contents: a few scant pieces of underwear, a negligee, three dresses. All of the dresses looked new and quite expensive.
“Wonder why she was traveling light,” he said aloud. His eye went to the clothes closet, packed tightly with dresses and coats. “If she intended to stay away, why leave behind most of her clothes? Answer: she intended to buy new clothes. Where was she getting the money? Professor Frost? Unlikely. Susan? She hasn’t any. Ralph Bonner? Perhaps. Tom Little? Definitely no. Tom gets his money from his wife and she could hardly be expected to finance his elopement. Miss Bonner seems the best answer.”
He rummaged through the clothes again, and this time his hand came in contact with a small red leather book, and he brought it out. It was the diary of Professor Frost. After a short struggle with his conscience he put it in his coat pocket and got to his feet. The key of the door was still in the lock. He turned it and went out into the hall.
Frost was standing beside the door, waiting. “I heard you talking. She’s in there, is she?”
“I was conferring with myself,” Prye said with dignity. “Joan has gone.”
“I hope your curiosity has been satisfied?”
“Far from it,” Prye said. “She picked a peculiar way to leave — through the window.”
“Joan chose this room, I believe, with such possibilities in mind. She was very... ah, athletic.”
“And she forgot her bag. Packed it and then forgot it. That’s odd, too. Don’t you agree?”
Frost paled, but he said steadily, “We are accustomed to oddities in our family.”
“I hope so,” Prye said grimly.
“What are you implying?”
“Nothing. Many thanks for the ladder. I’ll lend you mine sometime.”
He went out, pleased with himself. Five minutes later he closed Mr. Smith’s gate behind him, not quite so pleased. Mr. Smith, too, was gone, but unlike Joan he had remembered to take his luggage, his car, and his dog.
Prye walked thoughtfully along the lane. There was, he reflected, no reason why Mr. Smith should not leave, but the coincidence was strange. Or was it a coincidence? Two disappearances could equal an elopement.
But Mr. Smith, Nora had said, didn’t even speak to anyone in the community. And Joan’s bag had been left behind.
“I think,” Prye said, “that from now on I shall mind my own business. Starting tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, since he was only a few yards from the Littles’ cottage, he might just as well finish what he had started.
Tom Little opened the door. It was Prye’s first glimpse of Tom. He was no romantic figure that morning. He wore an old blue wrinkled suit, the coat stretched tight across his stomach. Beneath his eyes were two yellow bags of flesh like small shriveled lemons.
An aging Romeo, Prye decided, with a moribund liver.
“Hello,” he said cheerily, inserting his foot neatly in the doorway. “You’re Mr. Little, aren’t you? I’m Dr. Prye. Mrs. Little invited me to come and see her. Is she in?”
Tom looked startled. Turbaned men were not rare in his life, but they were usually very small and appeared before breakfast riding tiny blue elephants across the foot of his bed. He passed his hand across his eyes.
“I must apologize for my getup,” Prye said. “I forgot to bring along my sun helmet and this was the best I could do.”
In spite of Prye’s explanation Tom did not dissolve into amiability.
“My wife can’t see you today. She’s ill.”
“I’ll come in and take a look at her,” Prye said, coming in. “Where is she, upstairs?”
“She’s in bed,” Tom said shortly. “She said she didn’t want a doctor. She gets these spells every once in a while. They’re not serious.”
“Heart?”
“Yes. She has some stuff to take. She doesn’t want a doctor,” he repeated. “She doesn’t believe in doctors.”
“I frequently meet with resistance on the part of my patients,” Prye said easily.
“But she—” Tom stopped, shrugged his shoulders. “Very well. I’ll take you up.”
The curtains had not been drawn in Mary Little’s room and the sun was pouring in the windows, bringing to life the flowers in the chintz curtains and the rag rugs. In contrast the woman on the bed was like a corpse, and Prye drew in his breath at the sight of her.
Her face was the color of dull lead and the thin hands that rested outside the covers were blue. He took hold of one and found it as cold as death. She turned her head at his touch and a strand of drab hair fell across her forehead.
“Hello, Mrs. Little,” Prye said in his professional voice. “What seems to be the matter this morning?”
She pressed her hand silently to her heart.
“Any pain at all?”
“I’m all right,” she whispered.
“Any pain?” he repeated, frowning.
“Under my arm. Not really bad.”
“Down your left arm into your fingertips?”
She nodded.
“Have you had it before?”
She nodded again. She seemed to find it difficult to breathe.
“Is it worse this time?”
“No. The same. Please. I just want to lie here. I’m tired.”
Prye drew Tom out into the hall and closed the door. “How long has she been like this?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Just this morning, I guess.”
“Has she had a shock of any kind?”
Tom’s face turned slightly green. “What do you mean? What would give her a shock?”
“She hasn’t heard any bad news, such as a death?”
Tom put his hand on a table to steady himself. “What do you mean, a death? Has anyone died?”
“I don’t know,” Prye said truthfully. “I merely thought one of her relatives may have died.”
Tom’s relief was obvious. “Oh. No, she has no relatives living.”
“See here, Little. I don’t know much about heart diseases, but your wife looks pretty bad to me. I suggest that you call in your regular doctor immediately.”
“We have no regular doctor. She doesn’t want one. She—”
“Get Dr. Innes from Clayton. He’s a good man.”
“She did go to him last month. He told her she wasn’t to get excited. If I called him now when she doesn’t want him, she’ll get excited and—”
“Are you prepared to face a charge of criminal negligence?”
Tom tried to smile. “You’re joking. You don’t think my wife is going to die.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” Prye said irritably. “That’s why I’m telling you to get Innes and do it right away.”
Prye left him standing in the hall, still clutching the table for support.
The front door of Miss Bonner’s house opened so promptly that Prye suspected Wang of spending much of his time at the windows in anticipation of callers. As always, Wang was as serene and golden as the moon.
“Good morning, Dr. Prye,” he said, breaking into smiles. “The new fashion in hats eminently suits your great handsomeness.”
“Thank you, Wang,” Prye said. “I’d like some information from you.”
“For the inestimable Dr. Prye I would remove my right hand.” He coughed. “If necessary.”
“Very good of you, Wang.”
Wang beamed modestly. “They say of me that my deep loyalty comes next only to my vast wisdom and my fathomless patience.”
“How is Miss Bonner this morning?”
“Miss Bonner,” Wang announced, “is in violent conflict with the young gentleman nephew and the big black nurse.”
Prye looked skeptical and Wang added gently: “My impeccable honesty comes next only—”
“I believe you,” Prye said.
Miss Bonner’s voice bounced down the steps: “Get out! Get out, both of you! I feel faint!”
Wang smiled smugly at this timely corroboration of his impeccable honesty.
“Wang! Wang!” Miss Bonner shouted. “Where is that yellow devil? Wang!”
“She wants you,” Prye prompted.
Wang was unmoved. “My vast wisdom tells me it would not be strategic to approach. Perhaps you would care to—?”
“I would not,” Prye said instantly. “I have what I came for.” Wang’s face fell, and Prye said: “Perhaps I’ll need your help later. Keep your ears open.”
“I already possess great information of a private nature.” He added tactfully: “I could not divulge except to persons of discretion with the mouth of a clam like Dr. Prye.”
He bowed Prye out of the door.
In the sitting room of Prye’s cottage a slim, middle-aged man with white hair was reciting Euripides to calm himself. The treatment was effective, for when Prye came in he was able to say in an impersonal voice:
“I’ve come for my diary, Dr. Prye.”
Prye, about to make a reply both innocent and crushing, was waved to silence.
“You may read it if you like,” Professor Frost went on, “if you haven’t already done so. But I should like it back. It contains a number of notes I shouldn’t care to lose. Another small matter: don’t allow Joan’s disappearance to mislead you. This is not the first time my daughter has quit my roof.”
“Without her luggage?”
“Yes.”
“Did she have any money with her?”
“Joan has sources of money other than myself.”
“You don’t want to call in the police?”
Frost shook his head. “No.”
“Suppose I call in the police to investigate the assault on me?”
“That’s your affair. Although I know no reason why Joan should attack you and break Miss Bonner’s spotlight I don’t find it impossible to believe she did. You are wondering at my lack of paternal feeling?”
“Oh no,” Prye said politely.
“There are two reasons, I suppose. I have a mind that is dispassionate by nature and by training. And Joan is not my daughter.” He sat back in his chair, completely at ease. “You know, I’ve always wanted to say that to someone. I suppose vanity prevented me. But it is difficult to retain one’s vanity in the presence of a man who has one’s diary in his pocket. I hope it won’t tempt you to blackmail, Prye.”
“No. Blackmail is too dangerous,” Prye said easily.
“It depends on the blackmailee, I suppose. I don’t think I’d be very dangerous. I have a horror of violence. Perhaps that is why I am such an ineffectual person.”
“Are you proffering me a psychological alibi? If so, I must refuse it. Many people have a horror of violence until they’re faced with the necessity for it.”
“I see,” Frost said, amused. “In the event that my diary contains enough evidence to hang me I should leap at your throat, eh?”
“My head is more vulnerable at present,” Prye said with a grin. “To get back to Joan, what were her relations with Tom Little?”
“Intimate.”
“Does Mrs. Little know of the affair?”
“She’d be a fool if she didn’t. But I’m prepared to believe she is a fool.”
“Did you ever speak to Little about Joan?”
Professor Frost shuddered delicately. “God forbid.”
“How did Susan and Joan get along?”
“By extraordinary sadist-masochist teamwork. Joan gives it and Susan takes it. On the surface, that is. Sometimes I suspect Susan of having an infinitesimal spark of fire, although I’ve never seen it.” He rose from his chair. “You have asked me a great many questions, Dr. Prye. I believe I have acquitted myself nobly under the circumstances.”
Prye smiled. “The circumstances being that it’s none of my business?”
“Exactly. Good morning.”
During the walk home Professor Frost said “O popoi” a number of times. Prye, not being a classicist, simply said “Nuts!” But the spirit was the same.
Shortly afterward Nora appeared dragging her trophies behind her: a moth-eaten bathing suit, a pair of sun glasses with one lens, and five buttons. Her slacks were dotted with burs and dirt. Her opening words were to the effect that she didn’t care whether every man, woman, and child in Muskoka had disappeared, she was going swimming.
“There are a lot of bloodstains,” she added casually.
“Where?” Prye shouted.
“Where you were hit.”
He sat on a rock and watched her dive. When she was out of wind and tricks she swam to the shore and came toward him, her body shining in the sun like a new penny.
“Souvenir of Muskoka,” she said, holding out her hand. “Our own special brand of flotsam and jetsam.”
Prye stared. “Where did you get that?”
She stared, too, her eyes widening. “I don’t know. I just grabbed it under the water.”
It was a thin strand of yellow she held in her hand, and as she spoke a drop of water trickled off the end of it and the end writhed into a small yellow curl.
Lake Rosseau slapped his shores with a chuckle, like a fat evil old man slapping his thighs...