Wall of Eyes

Chapter 9

When Mr. Heath woke up in the morning the sun was pushing in at his window like a big bold blonde.

He opened his eyes and lay suspended between the two worlds of sleeping and waking, a man floating in air with nothing to clutch at. There was no returning to the safe world of sleep. It had been shattered by the sun, it had exploded like a bomb, and he was going up, up, up... A scream formed inside his throat — “No! No! No!” — the protest of a corpse thrust into life again.

But it was only a little scream after all, barely a whisper, the plea of a man who recognized the uselessness of his pleading. His ears and eyes denied this new world but his mind crept toward it, painfully, gradually, and he began to be aware of himself, almost as if he were watching the birth of a grown man and the screams were screams of pain as he squeezed out of the womb. Yet when the birth was over he was complete. He had a body and a name, he had a house to live in and two daughters and a son, and once he had had a wife.

His hands fumbled out of the blankets and he reached over to touch her.

“Isobel?”

She was not there. He wasn’t surprised that she wasn’t there, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had been. Anything was possible in this strange world. There was no harm in saying, “Isobel?” to make sure, because there was no one else there to make time relative for him. His mind knew no years or hours, only Isobels and Kelseys and Maurices.

“No! No!” The scream was nearly gone from his throat, it had fled before its own futility.

Because here he was, awake and living, here was the body, the house, the sun, the curtains blowing in and Cut as if they were breathing-. Like an oxygen tent — in and out, in and out. That was how they made Isobel breathe in the end, they had pumped oxygen in and out of her all night, and in the morning Alice had come into his room and said, “She just died, Father.”

“Father...”

Here was Alice, standing beside his bed. She had come to tell him all over again. That was a little surprising if you knew Alice, but not very surprising. Perhaps Alice had lost her place in time, as he had, or had come to realize that it wasn’t very important after all.

“Father, are you awake?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’m awake. I know. You don’t have to tell me again. You’ve just lost your place, Alice.”

“Wake up, Father,” she said. “I have something to tell you.”

“I know what it is.”

“You... you heard the noise?”

“No. No noise,” he said. “It was very quiet.”

“Kelsey is dead.”

She sat down on the bed as if she were going to try and comfort him with her touch. But her hands remained motionless in her lap. “I’m sorry I had to wake you, Father, but she didn’t die — naturally.”

“Kelsey?” He blinked at her, trying to blink away the mist in front of his eyes. Alice looked funny through the mist, as if she had grown fur which blurred her outlines. “You’re sure?”

He knew what a silly question that was. Alice was always sure of everything. You could depend on Alice for facts, but for nothing else, nothing else at all.

“She was killed,” Alice said. “The police are here and they say she was killed. They want to talk to you.”

“Now? Before breakfast?”

“I’ve asked Maurice to bring you your coffee up here.”

Ah, that was better. Once you had your coffee you knew where you were. You became adjusted to this world of waking, you were prepared for anything. Kelsey was dead. After coffee he would think about that, he would get used to the idea. You simply had to subtract one daughter and familiarize yourself with the remaining sum. Merely a problem in arithmettic.

“Thank you, Alice,” he said.

She recognized her dismissal and rose from the bed. “Is there anything I could get you?”

“No, thank you.”

“Father,” she said, but the moment for weeping, for mingling tears, for the touch of hands in love and understanding and sorrow — that moment was gone. She turned to the door, her head drooping a little to one side in a gesture of hopelessness and submission. The moment had gone, no use trying to bring it back. There was only the faintest echo in her mind of the questions she had asked as a child: “Why are we like this? Why must we be? Why can’t we change?”

To a child’s questions there could only be a child’s answer, “Because.” The answer had walked across her mind so often that the track was worn deep, the “Because,” was there without even the “Why?”

These things are, have been, will be, must be. Let yourself be acted upon by the fates, keep your face blank, don’t squirm, if you move, the finger will move after you.

She closed the door of her father’s room and walked away. She made no conscious attempt to forget that moment of uncertainty when she had almost reached over to comfort her father and demand comfort in return. But she did forget. The skin of her heart was loose like a lion’s skin, and when the lion is wounded, the skin moves to cover the wound and stop the bleeding.

At the bottom of the stairs she met Maurice carrying a silver tray with a pot of coffee and a little pitcher of Cream and a silver fingerbowl, floating two yellow rosebuds. He saw her staring at the rosebuds.

“I... I hope you don’t mind, ma’am.”

“No, of course not,” Alice said. Yet she did mind. The rosebuds were a symbol to her of all the futile gestures that had been made in the house.

“How did he take the news, Miss Alice?”

“Very well,” Alice said automatically. “You must stay with him until he has his coffee and then help him dress. The policeman is waiting to talk to him.”

Maurice made clucking noises of sympathy. “It’s a shame, Miss Alice, for the police to come bothering him at his age.”

Alice looked at him, smiling slightly. “At his age, Maurice? Father is your age, fifty-three, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Maurice returned her smile, but he looked shocked and he unconsciously straightened his shoulders. “Yes, ma’am, I’ll help him dress.”

He went up the steps, trying to sound very brisk and youthful. The springy patter of his steps said, I may be fifty-three but how am I doing?

But when he reached the third floor he was panting and some of the cream had spilled out of the pitcher and the rosebuds had dived and come up gleaming with water. He stopped a minute to catch his breath and wipe away the cream with his handkerchief. There was a damp stain on the napkin but Mr. Heath wouldn’t notice, he was too old.

Mr. Heath didn’t notice the stain or the rosebuds or even Maurice until Maurice cleared his throat loudly and said, “Your coffee, sir.”

“Ah?”

“Your coffee, sir.”

“Coffee?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah.”

Maurice set the tray on the small table beside the bed. He moved calmly, but there was a panic bubbling up inside him. I’m not that old, I’m not that old.

“Cream, sir?”

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Heath said. “Thank you, sir.” Maurice’s hands were shaking. Some more cream jumped out of the pitcher.

“Miss Alice asked me to stay and help you dress,” Maurice said. “If you prefer I’ll wait out in the hall until you finish your coffee.”

Mr. Heath looked at him over the rim of the coffee cup. His eyes were pleasantly puzzled like the eyes of a man who has just heard a joke he doesn’t understand but is willing to laugh anyway.

“Why?” he said.

“Well, I thought you might like to be alone, sir,” Maurice said weakly, “in view of — in view of your grief.”

Mr. Heath bent his head and Maurice saw that he was chuckling silently to himself. He turned his back, flushing with vicarious shame. There was no grief here, there was nothing.

He stood stiffly at the window while Mr. Heath finished his coffee. Then he brought out the clothes from the closet, laying them carefully across a chair, while Mr. Heath watched him with an expression of wary interest. He looked more alive than he had for a long time and he refused to let Maurice help him remove his pajamas.

“Do you think I can’t even dress myself?”

In the end Maurice had to help him with his tie. They went downstairs together, Maurice staying a little way behind. During the whole two flights of stairs Maurice kept his hand out in front of him like a watchful mother ready to rescue a tottering infant. The gesture was partly protective but it was defensive too, another denial: I’m as old as he is but compare the two of us.

Inspector Sands was waiting for them in the drawing room. Alice was with him and Mr. Heath knew when he walked in, shaking off Maurice’s hand, that Alice had been talking about him.

She said, “My father. Inspector Sands.” There was a faint note of apology in her voice, and a half-smug, half-embarrassed expression in her eyes when she looked at Sands. She might have been saying: Here he is, what did I tell you? You’re wasting your time.

“Do you want me to stay with you, Father?”

“No, I don’t.” He glanced at her with distaste and motioned toward the door. When the door had opened and closed again he turned to Sands and smiled.

“Alice talks too much,” he said in a surprisingly strong voice. “Don’t you think so? However. You may smoke if you like. We have all had to give up smoking in this house because of Kelsey, but now that Kelsey is dead, go right ahead.”

It was the longest speech he had made in years. It exhilarated him and whipped the blood into his cheeks. Whatever Alice had told this policeman about him was canceled out now by the urbanity of this speech. Very urbane. Even the policeman was impressed by it, almost awed, in fact.

“Thanks,” Sands said. He did not reach for his cigarettes. “I noticed there were no ashtrays. Your daughter objected to smoking?”

Mr. Heath leaned forward eagerly in his chair. “Yes, and I know why. Nobody else does. But perhaps you’re not interested. It’s difficult to talk when nobody listens to you.”

“I’ll listen.”

“Well, you see my wife didn’t like smoking. It all goes back to Isobel; you will find that nearly everything goes back to Isobel. She was an amazing woman. Kelsey is... was... like her. Isobel objected to smoking but Kelsey objected to Isobel’s objection and smoked anyway. Then when Isobel died Kelsey objected again.” He smiled anxiously at Sands. “You see? Kelsey was carrying on for her mother. There was some nonsense talked about Kelsey objecting to smoking because Philip was lighting a cigarette at the time of the accident. But it really goes back to Isobel, as everything does.”

“Even the murder?” Sands said.

“Murder?” Mr. Heath repeated. “Kelsey was murdered?”

“She was killed with the fruit knife that lay on the table beside her bed.”

“Murdered in this house?”

“She was in bed,” Sands said. “It was the middle of the night.”

Mr. Heath leaned his head back against the chair. His color was gone and his voice was faint and querulous. “I’m tired. I’m too tired to talk.”

“Your wife left her money all to Kelsey, I understand.”

“Yes. All of it.”

“Outright?”

“No,” Mr. Heath said wearily. “That was not Isobel’s way. She left the money to Kelsey and when Kelsey died the money was to go to all of us.”

“Including Philip James?”

“Philip was to get a little of it, a monthly allowance, as long as he continued with his music. Isobel liked to think of herself as a patroness of the arts.”

“The servants?”

“Bequests for all, except the new girl Ida.”

Sands opened his notebook. There was no evidence of disappointment in his expression, but he thought, Kelsey Heath had no will and couldn’t have made one, so Loring couldn’t have been used for the purpose of overthrowing a will.

A sentence from the notebook struck his eyes: “He went out because I heard him, and he wasn’t in when I went to bed because I looked and he wasn’t.”

He said, “You were out last night?”

“Yes.”

“What time did you leave?”

“I don’t know — early.”

“You weren’t here when Kelsey became ill and the doctor was called about nine or so?”

“I’ll? Doctor? No, no, I wasn’t here.”

“You left before nine,” Sands said, “and returned when?”

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Heath said in a low voice. “I can’t remember.”

“Late?”

“Late, yes. There was something about matches. Out there.” He gestured out the windows to the front of the house.

“Someone was there?”

“Yes.”

“On the driveway?”

“Yes... no, not on the driveway. Driving. Someone was in a car out there.”

“He lit a match and you saw him?”

“No. No, he hadn’t any matches.”

“You talked to him?”

Mr. Heath pressed his hands against his eyes. “He hadn’t any matches. No, he did have some. I remember he had some matches. But I remember the other, too, that he didn’t have any.”

“Don’t try,” Sands said easily. “It will come back. Ever smoke yourself?”

Mr. Heath looked around guiltily. “Well, yes. Sometimes, in my room. I’ve got a room on the third floor.”

“Have one,” Sands said. He held out his cigarette case and Mr. Heath reached out his hand to take one.

“He wanted some matches,” he said suddenly. “Then he discovered that he had some, a whole boxful. He showed it to me.”

“A big box of big wooden matches?”

“No, in paper packets. The kind with advertisements on the cover.”

“Advertisements like dog food, coal, restaurants...”

“Joey’s!” Mr. Heath shouted. “Something about Joey’s!” He was shaking with excitement and could barely hold his cigarette to the match Sands offered.

“Joey’s Nightclub,” Sands said.

“That was it!” Whatever Alice had said about him she’d have to take back now. He had remembered the matches and the young man sitting behind the wheel of the car looking pale and scared.

“He was frightened about something,” Mr. Heath said. “I put my head down and looked in the window because I wasn’t sure what he had asked for. When he saw me he seemed startled as if he’d seen a ghost. And he knew me. The man knew me. He called me by name.”

“He was a stranger to you?” Sands asked quietly.

“Yes, yes, I thought he was a stranger, but if he knew me...” He turned his head away. “Perhaps he wasn’t a stranger. Nobody knows me except the people who come to the house.”

“Your son is well known.”

“Johnny. Yes, everyone knows Johnny. He was captain of the rugby team at McGill for two years.”

“He looks like you.”

“He does? You think he looks like me?”

“Very much.”

“Ah, no. He was Isobel’s son. She wouldn’t have allowed him to look like me.”

“But he does. You don’t know where there’s an ashtray?”

They both looked solemnly around the room but there was no ashtray.

“I usually use my pants cuffs in moments like this,” Sands said. “But I haven’t any cuffs.”

“I haven’t either,” Mr. Heath said. He looked pleased and self-conscious like a schoolboy conspiring with his hero. “There’s that vase over there.”

A Greek black-figured vase stood on the mantel, alone and important. Sands lifted it off the mantel and passed it to Mr. Heath. They both flicked their ashes into it, then Sands placed the vase on the floor between their chairs.

“Isobel,” Mr. Heath said.

“Pardon?”

“I said, that’s Isobel.”

“Oh. Where?”

“In the vase.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, that’s Isobel.”

Sands looked inside the vase and there, sure enough, was Isobel, pulverized beyond recognition. He replaced the vase carefully on the mantel and brushed his hands on his trousers.

“Well,” he said, “if it’d been me I wouldn’t have minded.”

“Ashes to ashes.”

“Exactly.”

Their voices were grave, but when Sands turned he saw that Mr. Heath was shaking with silent laughter. His whole huge body was convulsed and when the waves of laughter had subsided he had to wipe the moisture out of his eyes with a handkerchief.

His voice was choked. “I... haven’t had — so much fun — in years!”

“Well,” Sands said, smiling. “That’s fine.” He waited for a minute until Mr. Heath was sober again. Then he said, “I’m interested in your stranger with the box of matches. Do you remember his face?”

“I remember that it was young and frightened.”

“Good, bad or indifferent?”

“Good, I think,” Mr. Heath said slowly. “But he had his hat pulled down and I can’t be sure.”

“How did he discover that he had some matches after all? Did he look for some?”

“No. They were there on the seat beside him all the time. That was how I saw the name Joey’s. It was printed across the top of the box. Funny how you’ve made me remember all this.”

“Mnemonic midwifery,” Sands said. “Part of my job. What kind of car was he driving?”

“There was nothing unusual about it that I can recall. Neither new nor old. I don’t notice cars much. I never had a car. I used Isobel’s.”

“I hope I’m not tiring you.”

“No, you’re not! That’s what they’re always saying and never giving me a chance to talk!”

“Do you remember anything else about the young man?”

“His voice. I don’t know much about anything else but I do like to listen to voices,” he said with pride. “I used to be a musician in a small way and I have perfect pitch. I don’t mean that as a boast because actually perfect pitch isn’t much help in the long run. But I use it to amuse myself. Isobel used to talk on middle C. She was a monotone, so much that when she was angry her voice simply rose a whole octave to the next C. It was very interesting.”

“A gift like yours would come in very handy in my profession.”

“Would it?” Mr. Heath flushed with pleasure. “Well, most people talk on just three or four notes normally. Have you heard Philip talk?”

“Yes,” Sands said. “Nice voice.”

“He has a very expressive voice. It changes from second to second and without sounding affected he can use a whole octave to express one idea. If you stand far enough away so you can’t hear his actual words his talking sounds like music played on a bad instrument.”

“And the stranger’s voice?”

“Like Philip’s, but coarser than Philip’s. It was almost a professional voice, strong and husky like a sideshow barker’s.” He glanced up apologetically. “Of course I’m merely guessing. He might have had a cold or he might drink too much.”

Sands’ pen paused over his notebook. His mind went back to the matches. Not long ago he had had a packet of matches, with Joey’s Nightclub printed on the cover. The hat-check girl had given it to him when he was leaving the club. She had taken it out of a box.

What kind of customer received a whole box of them? A friend of the hat-check girl’s? Or a friend of Joey’s? Or a customer who spent very freely?

The young man in the ordinary car wouldn’t belong to the last group. It was odd, if you knew Joey, that anyone at all had been given a whole box. Joey respected the cent and he was still in business while other and better nightclubs had had the life span of a fruit fly.

A young man with a husky voice and an ordinary car and a box of matches...

“Did he drive away after you left?”

Mr. Heath hesitated. “No, I don’t think so. I didn’t hear the sound of a motor.”

“Ignition was turned off, then?”

“Yes.”

“And it was very late?”

“Yes.”

“But he couldn’t have been waiting for you because no one knew you were going out.”

“No one at all. He could have been told, of course, but he’d have no reason to wait for me. I didn’t know him.”

“But he knew you.”

“Yes.”

“You have no way of estimating the time?”

“No... I... but Kelsey’s light was on. Perhaps she hadn’t gone to sleep yet.”

“I think she was already dead then,” Sands said. “Alice had turned the light off at twelve when she went to bed. You heard nothing, no noise, from Kelsey’s room when you went through the hall?”

“No noise... then.”

“Later?”

“Later, yes, when I was on the third floor. I thought I heard — Isobel. She was running along the hall.”

But the fog was coming over him again. Sands could tell that from the uncertainty in his voice, the vagueness in his eyes.

Sands left him sitting in front of the fireplace. He wasn’t comfortable about leaving him alone in the room with Isobel sitting on the mantel. Ashes or no ashes. Isobel wasn’t quite dead.