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CHAPTER 1
I
The night it happened Mother was giving a dinner party for the Mayor. I had no idea why she was giving a party for the Mayor. So far as I knew she had never even seen the man. But I knew what nobody else did that night. It was what you might call her last fling. Although the news wasn't out, she had offered the place to the government for a convalescent home, and after six months it had been accepted.
Mother is just Mother, and my brother Larry and I let it go at that. She has her own idea of how to amuse herself. Once I remember she brought out a part of the circus for a charity benefit, and it took three years to repair the lawns.
I must say the farewell party was quite in character. We managed to seat two hundred people hither and yon, and when a mounted policeman took his place in the driveway and the Mayor drove up with a screaming escort of motorcycle officers, there was a whole battery of photographers outside the gates. They had not been allowed inside, and from a distance it looked like summer lightning, all flash and no noise.
That was the point of the whole business. Nobody was allowed inside the grounds without being identified, and Alma Spencer, Mother's friend, companion, secretary and general watchdog, checked the guests off her lists as they entered the house. It appeared that the Mayor had been threatened with assassination or something of the sort, and he was making the most of it. The result was a policeman at all the doors except the front one, and the mounted policeman was to keep an eye on that.
Not that the Mayor was assassinated. He is still alive and running for office again. But I just want to point out that the house was a fortress that night.
Well, the party ended, as everything must eventually. I had loathed it from start to finish. Larry had been frankly bored, and only Mother seemed her usual self. I can still see her, standing in the wreck of the house after the sirens had shrieked away and the last guest had gone. It was a warmish October night, and she was in the marble rotunda which the architect playfully called our hall. Someone had had the idea of dipping the goldfish out of the basin around the fountain with a soft hat and putting them in a champagne bucket. I remember rescuing them, torpid from the melted ice but still alive.
Mother had stepped out of her slippers, which let her down to her normal five feet two inches, and she had taken off her diamond collar, which has been too tight for the last ten years, and was holding it in her hand.
"I think it went pretty well," she said complacently.
Alma was beside her. She had the usual pad in her hand, and she looked exhausted. Somewhere the caterer's men were folding up tables and extra chairs, and she jumped at every bang. Larry was in the men's room, looking for his hat.
"There has been some breakage," Alma said. "That drunken waiter dropped a tray of cocktails. But the silver is all here."
"What on earth did you expect?" Mother inquired sharply. "I don't invite people who steal spoons."
Alma raised her eyebrows. She had rather handsome eyebrows. And I remember I laughed. Matters were not helped either by Larry, who came back scowling from the men's room. He hadn't found his hat, and he pounced on the one by the fountain.
"Well, for God's sake!" he said. "If that's mine ..."
It wasn't, however. He picked it up and looked at it. It was a dreadful hat. It had been a poor thing even before it had been wet. It had no sweatband in it, and now it smelled of fish. Larry put it down distastefully. But Mother wasn't interested in hats at the moment.
"Where was Isabel tonight, Larry?" she said.
Larry grinned at her. "You know she never comes to your brawls, Mother."
Mother stiffened. "I resent that word," she told him indignantly.
But she is never really angry with Larry. He is tall and very good-looking, especially in full evening dress as he was then.
He stooped over and kissed her. "Sorry," he said. "She didn't feel well. I told Alma in plenty of time. Isabel hasn't been up to much for the last week or two."
Mother glanced at him hopefully. She has always thought she would like a grandchild to dandle on her knee, but personally I thought she would be bored to death with one. Larry however was not looking at her. He went back to look for his hat again, and Mother sat down. The house was quieter by that time. As it is about the size of the White House in Washington there was a lot of it to be quiet. I watched the goldfish. They were beginning to recover.
"I do think Isabel might have made an effort," Mother said rather plaintively. "After all I've done for her and Larry."
Well, of course it hadn't been necessary for her to do anything for either of them. Isabel had a lot of money of her own, and so had Larry. I have always thought that the reason she built them a house on our grounds was to keep Larry close at hand. But she had built the house, and that is the story. Not that she was jealous of Isabel. Deep in her heart she was proud of her. It was not only that she was lovely to look at. I had disappointed Mother in that, having only the usual assortment of features. But Isabel had been a Leland, and to be a Leland meant something.
It meant belonging to the conservative group in town, the people who lived elegantly but quietly in their hideous old redbrick houses, exchanged calls, gave stuffy dinners with wonderful food and — at least until the war — drove about in ancient high limousines.
Not that Mother wasn't wellborn. She was, but our money had come from trade, and to the Lelands trade was simply out. Not even Strathmore House, built on the edge of town on what once had been my grandfather's country place before the city grew up around it, had wiped out the smell of wholesale groceries years ago. It was just as well — Mother would rather have died than be conventional.
Larry did not find his hat, and came back scowling.
"Nice crowd you had here," he said. "Somebody traded in my new opera hat for that thing on the floor."
Alma looked unhappy.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I suppose it's my fault. I found it on the floor in a back hall and sent it to the men's room. It wasn't wet then, of course."
Larry picked it up gingerly.
"You owe me for a hat," he said to Mother. "I'll take this home to remind you of it. And to show Isabel what she missed!"
Mother yawned.
"She missed a good dinner," she said.
She had relaxed by that time. She put out her feet and inspected them. They looked small and swollen, and vaguely pathetic. Larry saw them, and leaning over patted her bare shoulder.
"All right, old girl," he said. "Forget it. Go to bed and get some sleep."
I went out with him. The driveway was empty now, and the early fall air felt cool. It was dark, because of the dimout. The only light was from the open door behind us. I remember leaning against a pillar, and Larry's putting an arm around me.
"Pretty bad, wasn't it?" he said.
"Awful."
"Don didn't come?"
"No. He's like Isabel. He doesn't like our brawls."
No use telling him I had called Donald Scott myself and asked him. No use telling him the night had been a total loss for me because Don had refused. Politely, of course. Don is always polite. Anyhow, Larry wasn't interested. He stood looking down toward his house, which stood not far from the gate at the foot of the lawn.
"Look, Judy," he said. "You and Isabel get along pretty well, don't you?"
"I like her. I don't know how well she likes me. She's not demonstrative."
"Still, you do go around together."
"Oh, that. Yes. She likes Alma better, you know."
He seemed embarrassed. He got out a cigarette and gave me one.
"Have you noticed any change in her lately?" he asked. "I've thought she was looking tired. She doesn't say anything. You know the Lelands. They don't talk about themselves. But there's something wrong."
"She's thinner. I've noticed that. I'm like Mother. I wondered if she was going to have a baby."
He shook his head.
"It's not that," he said. "I wish to God she'd talk to me if anything is bothering her."
He went off down the drive and I went inside. Patrick, the butler, was reporting when I got back. He looked old, tired, and disapproving. He said there was a hole burned in the Aubusson carpet in the Reynolds room, and someone had spilled a cocktail in the piano. Luckily he had got rid of the drunken waiter without trouble. What he meant, I gathered, was that he hadn't been so lucky with some of the guests.
Like Alma, he seemed exhausted. After all he has been with Mother for thirty years, from birth to brawl, as Larry put it, and he was fully seventy. But his dignity was unimpaired. He looked around at the wreckage of the big drawing room, much as Williams, the head gardener, had looked at his lawns after the circus, and he said much the same thing.
"After all, madam, with a crowd of people like that ..."
Only Williams had said animals.
I sat down on the edge of the pool. I was a casualty too. Someone had stepped on the skirt of my white chiffon and torn it. But I didn't mention it. What was the use? For months I had been trying to get into the WAACS or the WAVES and I was expecting to be called anytime. I supposed there would be hell to pay, but at least I was through with evening clothes. I looked at Mother. She was tired, but she somehow seemed even more complacent than usual. After Patrick had gone she spoke to me.
"I have something to tell you, Judy," she said. "And Alma too. I hope you agree with me. I think you will. The fact is —"
She never finished that sentence. Patrick had left the front door open to air the hall, and we all heard someone running up the drive. It was Larry. When he got to the top of the steps he was staggering, and had to clutch the side of the doorway for support. He looked at us as if he had never seen us before.
"What is it, Larry?" Mother said. "Is something wrong?"
"Isabel!" he said. "She's dead."
Mother stood still. She was quite white under the liquid powder and rouge she insists on using, but her voice was calm.
"I'm sure you're wrong," she said. "She may have fainted. Get him a chair, Judy. And Alma, bring some brandy."
She asked no questions. She simply stood by Larry and waited until he had had the brandy. Even then she was calm, except that her plump small body was quivering. Then she said, "Can you tell me about it, son?"
"She's dead. That's all I can tell you." He got up, and looked around himself wildly. "I've got to call the police."
"The police?"
"She's been murdered," he said, and staggered toward the library.
II
I thought I had seen Mother in action before. The time the boxing kangaroo she had brought for a children's party got excited and began knocking the kids over one by one, for instance. I was one of the kids, so I remember. Before I could speak she told Alma to look after him. Then she was out the front door and running down the driveway in her stocking feet. She almost beat me to Larry's house. I caught up to her finally and yelped at her to remember her blood pressure, and we entered the house together.
It is a pretty house. Mother's taste in people may be catholic, but in houses and furnishings she knows her stuff. And except that Larry had left the front door standing open it looked as quiet and orderly as ever. Mother gave one look around and then climbed the stairs. That is, she got almost up and stopped.
Isabel was lying on the landing, and there was no doubt that she was dead. She lay on her back, her arms outstretched, and except that one of her bedroom mules was off there was no sign of any struggle. Her lovely dark hair was spread over the carpet, making a frame for her face, and one arm was out of her dressing gown, as though she had been putting it on when she met her murderer.
Not that I noticed that then. All I could see was the small spot of blood on the front of her silk nightgown.
Mother stood very still, looking down at her. Then she reached down and touched the hand nearest to her. She drew back, and I knew Isabel really was dead. Neither of us said anything. Then Mother sank down on the stairs, as if she felt faint, and when Larry came pounding back she was still there. She wouldn't move to let him pass.
"There is nothing you can do," she said. "Go down and call the police. I'm here."
I went down to the porch with Larry. Alma was standing there, looking like death, and a few moments later I heard the siren. A police car swung in on two wheels and stopped with the engine still going. Two uniformed men leaped out. One of them touched his cap.
"I understand you've had some trouble here," he said.
Larry braced himself.
"We have. My wife ..." He choked and did not finish.
They pushed past us and into the house, to see Mother sitting on the stairs. She was holding that wretched diamond collar. In her glittering gold-brocade dress and with her bright red hair she completely stopped them. They stood gazing up at her. "My daughter-in-law is here," she said. "I'm afraid somebody has stabbed her."
"Is she badly hurt?"
"She is dead."
She let them pass then, but she stayed where she was. Behind me I heard Larry groan, and I turned and went back to him. I got him into the library, although he would not sit down. He paced the floor, looking like a wild man and saying over and over: "Who would do it? She had no enemies. Who would do it?" I think he didn't even know he was speaking, or that I was there.
It was only a minute or so before one of the officers came down the stairs to the telephone. He hung up and looked at Larry.
"Who found her?" he asked.
Larry tried to explain, but he made so bad a job of it that I took it over. I told about the party for the Mayor, the two hundred people, the orchestra, the forty extra waiters, even the Mayor's screaming escort. And I told about Larry's coming home to find Isabel dead. He looked bewildered.
"What you're saying, miss, is that close to three hundred people were in and out of this property tonight. That right?"
"That's right."
"They all drove in at the gate out there?"
"That's the only way they could get in."
But the knowledge that the Mayor had been among them made him treat us both with more marked consideration.
"Anything missing in the house?" he inquired. "It might have been a burglar. If she woke up and was raising an alarm ... Anything valuable around?"
The idea of a burglar at least gave Larry something to hold to. He said Isabel's jewels were in the house. In the safe in her room. He even listed them, while the officer wrote them down: her diamond and other earrings, her bracelets, her clips and her pearls — although pearls are worth a dime a dozen nowadays. But when the officer came back again he said the safe was closed and locked.
"Maybe if you'd come up and open it ..." he suggested.
Larry however had taken all he could. He shook his head.
Mother was still on the stairs when the homicide squad arrived. They had to push past her. The Inspector came first, with his car jammed with detectives and a uniformed stenographer. Following him came another car with a photographer and fingerprint men, and soon after the captain of our local precinct, a youngish man who said he had been at a fire somewhere and been delayed. The hall and stairs were jammed, but Mother refused to move.
"She was my son's wife," she said. "I was fond of her. And some woman has to stand by her now. She's — helpless."
I had to take my hat off to her, tired as she was. She still had no slippers on her feet; she still hung on to her choker. But she never gave an inch, although she looked pretty sick.
"What I want," she said, "is to know who did this to her. And why?"
That was at half-past twelve on Thursday, the 15th of last October, or rather the early morning of the 16th. There were police all over the house by that time, and to add to the confusion I had a half-dozen hysterical women on my hands. The sirens had wakened the maids, and one or two of them fainted when they heard what had happened. The rest were crying, and I would have given a lot to have slapped some sense into them. As it was, all I could do was force the cook to stop wailing and make coffee, and I took some myself. I was pretty jittery by that time. I was drinking it in the pantry when the photographer came and asked for a cup.
He was a tall, thin young man. He looked tired, and I gave him the coffee quickly. I hardly noticed him, which seems queer now; but he eyed me with interest.
"So you're Judy Shepard," he said.
"Judith," I said. "My mother's answer to my father's wish that I be named for his sister Henrietta."
He gave me a pale sort of grin, as if he understood why I had to talk or go into shrieking hysterics.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Episode of the Wandering Knife"
by .
Copyright © 1950 Estate of Mary Roberts Rinehart.
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