Wall of Eyes

Chapter 8

Though it was not yet eight o’clock and Sands had been up most of the night he caught the phone on its third ring. He lifted the receiver and said softly, “Sands?” as if he wasn’t quite sure whether he was Sands or not, or whether it mattered if he was or not.

He had no strong sense of identity. He lived alone with no wife or child or friend to call attention to himself or to look up or down at him. Because he lived in a vacuum he was able to understand and tolerate and sometimes to like the strange people he hunted. As insidiously as a worm burrows into an apple he burrowed into the lives of criminals and lay at the core, almost a part of it, yet remaining secretly and subtly himself.

“Sands?” he said.

“Sergeant D’Arcy speaking, sir. Sorry to bother you, sir.”

“Go on.” The apartment was cold and D’Arcy’s zealous stupidity irritated him.

“A Dr. Loring just called in. He said he was at 1020 St. Clair. A girl committed suicide with a knife.”

“Send McPhail up.”

“Yes, sir, but I thought I’d better tell you first. The doctor doesn’t think it was suicide. There’s no blood on the girl’s hands and the blow seemed too violent for a suicide. I thought you’d like to know.”

“I like it very much,” Sands said dryly. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. Round up Joe and the rest of them and tell them to come up. Got that?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

Sands hung up. Shivering slightly he turned on the light and took off his pajamas. He dressed quickly, avoiding the sight of his own body because its frailty annoyed him. There were no mirrors in his apartment except the small shaving mirror in the bathroom, and even when he shaved he did not look at his face, only the patch of it he happened to be shaving. He would have preferred to be without face or body, if other people would conform. Since this was impossible he did the next best thing and ignored his possession of both to such an extent that he could not have described himself accurately on a police bulletin. He knew roughly that he was middle-sized and middle-aged but appeared taller because he was thin, and older, because he was constantly tired.

The tiredness was a nuisance in several ways. The wives of the other policemen thought Sands should have someone to look after him. They invited him frequently for meals and gave him ties for Christmas. Sands always wore the ties and in return got more ties.

He picked one at random off the rack, remembering instantly that it had been given to him last Christmas by Mrs. Lasky, wrapped in blue tissue paper with silver stars and fat angels of peace and good will pasted over the surface. Mauve was Mrs. Lasky’s favorite color, and freely striped with deep red she found it irresistible. Inspector Lasky had died last spring, not from Mrs. Lasky’s taste in ties, but from a bullet in his chest. Lasky had always handled the big robbery cases in the city and no one had been found to take his place. So now even Sands, who preferred more intellectual crimes, was sometimes called in to take charge of a robbery. He had just spent half the night at a small tavern in West Toronto.

The tavern-keeper himself had not been anxious to call the police, since the attempted robbery had taken place long after the legal closing hour. But one of the customers had called, and eventually Sands had gone to bed thinking of the fingerprints on the glasses that matched the fingerprints of an ex-convict who had been honest, or discreet, for ten years. Though Murillo had been young when convicted of peddling marihuana and his sentence had been light, he was listed as potentially dangerous because he was an addict and carried a knife.

Hardly dangerous any longer, Sands thought knotting his tie. Stupid enough to sit around drinking and scattering his fingerprints all over the place. The last entry on Murillo’s card had been made five years ago and stated that he was living with a singer, Mamie Rosen, and had no visible means of support.

Sands went into the kitchen and plugged in the coffee percolator. While he was waiting he wrote some memos in the small book he always carried in his vest pocket: “Get Higgins to pick up Tony Murillo. See Mamie Rosen. Insist D’Arcy’s adenoids.”

He drank his coffee, looking at the last note, and then stroked it out reluctantly. It was surprising how many large irritations a man could tolerate, yet find himself overwhelmed by a pair of whistling adenoids.

He rinsed out the coffee cup and began to wonder about the girl who had committed suicide at 1020 St. Clair.

“Detective-Inspector Sands,” he told the butler. His voice was a little surer when he used his official title, as if the mere placing of himself within a group had strengthened his own identity.

“Yes, sir,” Maurice said. “Will you come in, sir?”

“I believe I will,” Sands said. He had a trick of sounding slightly surprised which made his listeners think uneasily that they had said something very obvious or stupid.

Flushing slightly, Maurice stepped back from the door and Sands came inside.

“Doctor still here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’s a telephone?”

Maurice fixed his eyes on the red and mauve tie and said after a pause, “In the kitchen. This way, sir.”

Sands laid his hat and coat carefully on the table reserved for calling cards and followed Maurice down the hall, smiling faintly at Maurice’s back.

Though the lights were all turned on the house seemed to be deserted, the kitchen shining and spotless as if the cook had cleaned up and vanished without leaving even a footprint on the floor.

“Nice floor,” he said. “What is it?”

“Red concrete,” Maurice said coldly.

“Oh. Hello, Sylvia. Tom up yet? Rout him out, will you, and tell him to read my report at headquarters and pick up Tony Murillo. Murillo will have to be identified so Tom had better prepare a line-up. Thanks.”

He hung up, dialed another number. “D’Arcy? Sands. I’m at St. Clair. Send the usual right away. No, very quiet.”

Maurice said, “The... the body is upstairs.”

“What’s the name?”

“Heath, Miss Kelsey Heath.”

“Heath?” Sands frowned. “Wasn’t there something a few years ago?”

“An accident, sir. Miss Kelsey was in an accident. She was blinded.”

“All right. Let’s go up. What’s your name?”

“Maurice King.”

“All right.”

The second floor was deserted like the first, and all the doors were shut. Behind one of them a man was talking in a low nervous rumble, but there were no sounds of excitement or grief.

“This is the room,” Maurice said.

“Thanks. Anyone touch the knob?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t have to wait.”

Maurice muttered something under his breath and walked unsteadily away from the door. Sands went in alone. His movements were brisk as if he were eager to get started. But the briskness was forced. This was the moment he dreaded, this first sight of a body, the staring eyes, the sagging mouth, the stiffening limbs.

There was a trail of blood on the blue carpet widening at the bed. Sands stepped across it and touched Kelsey’s forehead lightly. It was very cold. He brushed his hand on his coat and moved back from the bed.

The hole in the girl’s breast was wide and deep, the skin jagged as if the person who thrust the knife there could not thrust deeply enough to satisfy his violence and had to rip the skin. A powerful hand had held the knife, a hand driven by hate or rage.

No suicide certainly. It was the wrong weapon and the wrong place. Knives weren’t used for suicide by women, and even men used them to cut their wrists or throats and did not attempt to thrust a knife past the heavy bone that protected the heart. And this girl’s hands were thin and weak-looking and bore no bloodstains. Besides, her very blindness would have made her hand uncertain, and the hand that held the knife had not been uncertain.

Sands walked back to the door, looked around the room again. After a time he moved toward the bureau looking intently at a small silver box which lay on its top. There were several short scratches around the lock. Covering his hand with a handkerchief Sands lifted the lid. The lock had been forced but the box was still crammed carelessly with jewels. A forced lock but the jewels still there. For an instant he had been reminded of something, something recent and puzzling. But it slipped his mind. A new fact was jabbing at his consciousness. It was the smell in the room.

A sick, sweet, cloying smell, more pungent than the odor of fresh blood. A drug, perhaps. Had the girl been sick? If she had, perhaps the lights had been left on in the room. The sureness of the blow argued for that. An easy time the murderer had had — the lights on, and the girl sleeping and blind, without even the frail defense of eyes and ears.

He opened the door into the hall and as he stepped out he caught a glimpse of a woman disappearing around the bend at the back of the hall. Her footsteps were inaudible but he heard the creak of a board in the stairs.

He tensed himself to run after her, had already taken a step forward before he caught himself up. Then he stood quietly, smiling to himself. I’m like a damn dog, he thought, I can’t see anything running away without wanting to run after it.

The smile lingered but he was uneasy. He did not expect to be spied on in this house with its rows of closed doors and its atmosphere of genteel whispers and unobtrusive wealth.

He became aware that something else was watching him. There was a soft thump from the other end of the hall. He turned his head quickly and saw two eyes staring at him carefully but without personal interest. A huge German shepherd dog lay around the bend of the banister with only his head sticking out.

“Hello,” Sands said. Conscious of the inadequacy of this address he added, “Hello, dog.”

The dog blinked slowly.

“All right,” Sands said. “Be nasty then. Where’s Maurice? Go and get Maurice.”

There was no movement at all this time.

Sands smiled cautiously. “So you just don’t give a damn.” He raised his voice.

A door beside him opened abruptly and a girl came into the hall.

“Maurice!”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you were here. I was waiting for you. I’m Alice Heath.”

“Inspector Sands,” he told her.

“Come in here, please. Dr. Loring is in here.”

She stood aside and the light fell full on her face for just an instant. Not a pretty face, Sands thought, too bloodless and tight, but its bones were small and beautiful, and it wore an expression of gentleness which might have been real gentleness or the kind that came from rigid control.

He went through the door, noticing her hand on the knob. A firm grip but not too firm. Again the word control came to his mind. He felt then that he was going to admire Alice Heath but never to like her, that she was the kind of woman a man recommended as a wife for his friends but not for himself.

“This is Dr. Loring, Inspector Sands,” she said.

A tall young man rose from a corner of the small sitting room. His face looks as if he had slept in it, Sands thought.

“Glad to know you,” Sands said. He held out his hand but Loring didn’t see it.

He said in a cracked voice, “I... I have been guilty of criminal...”

“Please sit down,” Alice said calmly.

“Criminal negligence,” Loring said. “I expect to be struck off the register when the story gets out. I have no excuse.”

“You’re the family doctor?” Sands said.

“No. No, I’m a psychiatrist. I have no excuse at all except that I was tired and I thought the report could wait until today.”

“What report?”

“The girl was poisoned last night,” Loring said.

“I’m quite sure Dr. Loring is mistaken.” Alice said in a clear cold voice. “Naturally he is upset.”

“Morphine,” Loring said. “A grain or more of morphine. She had talked of killing herself but she was blind. How could she have gotten the stuff? And then this morning — she couldn’t have driven that knife in herself.”

“There are some men in the hall,” Alice said.

Sands said, “Thanks,” and went out.

Three of the men were already in Kelsey’s room. The fourth, carrying a medical bag, was in the hall talking to the dog.

“Hello, Sutton,” Sands said.

“Hello,” Sutton said. “Nice dog.”

“Yes. Nice day, too.”

“I’ve always wanted a dog.”

“Get one in your spare time,” Sands said dryly.

Sutton grimaced and disappeared into Kelsey’s room. Sands stood in the doorway watching the men work. They were well-trained, he had trained them himself, and it was his boast that they could collect more useless information than any group their size in Canada.

Sands went back to the small sitting room. Alice Heath had gone, but Loring was pacing up and down the room smoking. The delay in telling his story had unnerved him completely as Sands had hoped.

“You’ve got to listen to me!” Loring cried.

“Why, of course,” Sands said quietly. “Go ahead.”

“I... I didn’t know whether the girl had taken the stuff herself or not. I intended to hold off my report until I got in touch with Miss Alison. She’s the nurse who was attending Mrs. Heath when she died a year and a half ago. There was some morphine left over, I understand, and that could have been the stuff the girl used.”

“There are other ways of getting morphine.”

Loring shook his head. “This morphine came from a prescription. You know yourself that since the war started bootleg morphine is so doctored with sugar of milk that hundreds of addicts are almost cured and don’t know it. The stuff could hardly injure a cat. Aside from her blindness, Kelsey Heath was in good health and morphine had never been prescribed for her. Or for the rest of the household.”

Sands said, “The rest of the household being...?”

“Alice Heath, her father, her brother John, and Kelsey’s fiancé, Philip James; and the servants, the butler, a nurse Letty, a maid Ida and the cook and another maid who is on holiday. I haven’t seen the cook.”

“I see,” Sands said. “You seem to know the family well.”

“I don’t know any of them!” Loring shouted. “I never even saw any of them until yesterday afternoon! What I know of the family Alice Heath told me. She came to my office yesterday afternoon. She had made an appointment in the morning by phone. She said she wanted to consult me about her sister.”

“Why?”

“She thought her sister was... was becoming unreasonable.”

“Unreasonable,” Sands said, “meaning crazy?”

“Not exactly.”

“But exactly enough. Did you see the sister?”

“When I did she was unconscious from the morphine.”

“You have only Alice Heath’s word for the mental symptoms, then?”

Loring glanced up sharply. “Yes.”

“Nice build-up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Doubt is cast on Kelsey Heath’s sanity and Kelsey Heath conveniently commits suicide as insane people often do. Also conveniently, she dies before a psychiatrist has a talk with her. Verdict: suicide while of unsound mind.”

“But why?” Loring said. “Why?”

“I just gave you one reason, a build-up for suicide. There might be a second reason, connected with Kelsey Heath’s will.” He smiled briefly. “Loring, you’ve been used.”

“For the love of God,” Loring whispered. He stumbled into a chair.

“It is a cruel world, yes,” Sands said. “Still, you’re a pretty big boy now and a psychiatrist as well as a big boy.”

“I hadn’t any idea, any remotest idea...”

Sands said dryly, “You were told that Kelsey Heath talked of killing herself, I suppose?”

“Yes. But I thought that was natural enough. She was young and pretty and engaged to be married, and then suddenly she was blinded. It would produce a terrible emotional conflict, especially in a girl of her type, who was used to having everything. It would be more than enough to cause suicide in her case though perhaps not in a normal girl brought up in normal surroundings by well-adjusted parents.”

Sands let him talk about emotional conflicts and the Heath family. After a time he interrupted. “What did Alice Heath want you to do about her sister?”

“Just talk to her,” Loring said. “Reason with her.”

“And eventually put her away some place?”

“Nothing was said of that,” Loring replied stiffly. “Miss Heath was aware that the atmosphere in the house was unhealthy for both her brother and Mr. James and she wanted me to arrange it so they would leave.”

He tugged at his collar. “I know it sounds fantastic today but I’m used to things that sound fantastic. I had no suspicions. If you only wouldn’t make comments in that voice...”

“What voice?”

“Cold reason. You can’t explain everything if you use cold reason.”

“Have you ever tried?” Sands asked grimly.

Loring flushed. “I realize I’m not appearing at my best in this affair. But you can’t think straight when your career is due to blow up any minute.”

“Any other doctor involved?”

“Hale of the General helped me but I consulted him and it was my duty to report the poisoning, not his.”

“And why didn’t you? You said you were too tired, you thought it would wait until morning. Were you too tired to pick up a phone?”

“No.”

“Do you have to be coaxed?” Sands said coldly.

“I... I intended to wait and come back this morning to question the girl. If I found that she had taken the morphine herself with the help of Ida I wouldn’t have reported it at all. I don’t like the laws governing attempted suicides and I was prepared to try and help the girl myself without reference to the police and without having her committed to an institution.”

“You sound as if you thought that one up all by yourself. But you didn’t. It’s been done before and will be done again. Who’s Ida?”

“A maid.”

“Why should she help the girl kill herself? Love or money?”

“A dash of both,” Loring said grimly. “Ida has spiritual contacts with tea leaves and the tea leaves revealed that Kelsey Heath was going to die. To a person of Ida’s class the teacup is as omniscient as the newspaper is to the class above Ida’s. If the death was inevitable, why not help it along and preserve your contacts?”

“Is Ida fat?” Sands said.

Loring frowned at him. “Why? Yes, she is.”

“I think I’ve met her, at a distance.”

He took out his notebook and wrote a concise report of the poisoning and Loring’s part in it. He did not ask Loring to sign a formal statement of the facts. Loring noticed the omission.

“What do you intend to do about me?” he asked.

“Not a thing,” Sands said, “closing the book and replacing it in his pocket. Yet.”

“You have to report me.”

“Do I?”

“I’d rather you did it right away.”

“You seem anxious,” Sands said. “Don’t you like being a psychiatrist?”

“I don’t know what...”

“Watch those emotional conflicts,” Sands said and closed the door behind him. From Kelsey’s room came the busy sounds of men at work. Waste of time to go in, he thought. The men knew more than he did about what to do. He hesitated, not wanting to go downstairs and listen to Alice Heath and her brother and her father and Philip James. They would all claim to be in bed and asleep when the girl was killed in the middle of the night.

“Hssst!”

Sands turned his head quickly.

“Hssst!”

The whistle came from the back of the hall. Sands could see nothing but a whitish shape. He walked toward it.

“Yes?” he said.

“Hush.”

When he came to the end of the hall the white shape emerged as a fat girl in a uniform. She was, leaning against the banister of the back stairs sucking her finger. She took her finger out of her mouth and wiped it on her apron. Then she looked up again and smiled slyly at Sands.

“Hello,” she said softly.

“Hello.”

“I’m Ida.”

“Well, hello, Ida,” Sands said.

“I found her.”

“Well?”

“Sure.”

“How nice,” Sands said, thinking that monosyllables were a pleasant change but they didn’t get you anywhere. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Why, sure,” Ida said.