Murders for Sale Page 14

  That night she slept well.

  Saturday proved a busy day in the shop and Fredericka decided to keep open all day, mainly because she didn’t want to miss Peter’s half-promised call. But by late afternoon he had not appeared and she was contemplating escape to the inn for supper when there was a dismal shriek like a note of warning from the main road. Fredericka rushed down the front path and looked along Beech Street in the direction of the shops. As she did so a great white ambulance turned the corner and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

  Fredericka’s heart beat furiously and she felt choked with fear. It must be Margie. There couldn’t be any doubt. The ambulance had been coming down Spruce Street from the direction of the Farm, and it had turned into Beech which was the direct route to the County Hospital. She walked back to the house slowly and found Sergeant Brown standing by the door.

  “Ambulance?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “They say Margie Hartwell’s sick.”

  “Yes. Colonel Mohun told me last night that they might have to send her to hospital for tests.”

  All at once the thought of the inn and the gossiping people sickened her. She turned impulsively to Sergeant Brown and said that she was about to get her supper and wouldn’t he like to share it with her? He agreed with such alacrity that she was aware how much she had neglected him.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been too busy to pay attention to you until this moment,” she said apologetically, “and you are good to keep out of sight when the customers are around.”

  “They’d only talk their faces off,” he said cheerfully. “Besides, I take my time off during the day when Chris is here.”

  Fredericka realized suddenly how little thought she had given to his time off. He was now her guardian and she had come to take his presence for granted.

  He followed her into the kitchen and offered his assistance. “My wife says I’m not too bad at this,” he announced as he took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He had just started to make some ham sandwiches when the front door banged.

  Fredericka untied her apron and hurried out into the hall, hoping to find Peter. But it was Philippine and James Brewster who stood in the doorway.

  Philippine began to speak at once and without greeting.

  “Margie’s terribly ill, Fredericka. We’re worried sick, and now they’ve taken her off to hospital.”

  “Yes,” Fredericka said, and then added quickly, “but won’t you come in. Sergeant Brown and I were just getting ourselves some supper. We’d be glad to have you join us—both of you.”

  “Sergeant Brown?” James said.

  “Yes. He’s a sort of bodyguard,” Fredericka explained. She was sorry now that she had mentioned his presence. Perhaps they weren’t planning to stay, and she wouldn’t have needed to. It did seem silly.

  Philippine laughed good-naturedly. “Good thing. I should think you’d hate staying here all alone.”

  “I do. But, please won’t you come in?”

  “No,” Philippine went on quickly. “I really just came by to pick up some things of Margie’s. Mrs. Hartwell’s too upset to—poor woman.” James now came forward from behind Philippine.

  “Don’t include me in that refusal, Phil. If there’s some coffee going, I’ll have some while you do your rummaging.”

  Philippine frowned. “You know we promised to get out to the hospital at once,” she said.

  “I know, but you’ve got to collect the junk, haven’t you?” Fredericka said with more enthusiasm than she felt, “I suppose the things you want are in the storeroom, Philippine. I’ll just go up there with you, and Sergeant Brown can give James his coffee.” She raised her voice to call, “Sergeant Brown,” and when the young man put an embarrassed head around the door, she added, “are you handy enough to give Mr. Brewster some coffee? I’ve just got to go upstairs for a few minutes.”

  When the sergeant agreed to “have a try,” James moved heavily into the kitchen and Fredericka was glad enough to get away from him as she followed Philippine up the stairs. At the top, Fredericka hesitated. She was now a little ashamed of her officiousness. Philippine could find the things herself. She knew where the storeroom was.

  “It’s just some papers Mrs. Hartwell wants—hospital insurance or something, and some of Margie’s things,” Philippine explained.

  “They’re probably in here, then,” Fredericka said. She was unable to resist the temptation to go with her visitor to the storeroom.

  Philippine opened a trunk and looked through a box of papers hurriedly, removing one or two. Then she stared around the room a little vaguely and picked up a few oddments that looked to Fredericka more like toys than anything else. “I don’t know what she does want, except for these papers,” she confessed.

  “I should think some extra nightgowns, if there are any,” Fredericka suggested practically. “There are clothes in that chest of drawers under the window, I think.”

  Philippine kept looking around the room at the collection of objects strewn on the floor, window sills and tops of tables and chairs. But in a moment she went to the chest and, after looking through several drawers, did, in fact, find some pyjamas that looked more like Margie than Mrs. Hartwell. “I’ll just take these, then—and fly,” she announced, slamming the drawer with an air of finality.

  Fredericka closed the door and followed Philippine down the stairs. They found James and the sergeant in earnest conversation. The subject seemed to be taxation. The air in the kitchen was thick with cigar smoke and Fredericka was very glad to see James get up at once when Philippine called to him.

  At the door Fredericka put her arm in Philippine’s. “Give my love to Margie,” she said quietly, “and try not to worry too much. I’m sure things will all come right,” she added with more cheerfulness than she felt.

  Philippine turned and kissed her impulsively. “You are good, Fredericka,” she said. “It’s all so grim at the Farm that it’s been wonderful to see you, even for a moment.”

  “Come back soon,” Fredericka called, as they disappeared down the path.

  “I will.” Philippine’s voice came from the distance—“and thanks,” she added as the car door slammed.

  I suppose she does love that beast, Fredericka thought as she turned back into the house. She returned to the kitchen to find that Sergeant Brown had discovered, and turned on, a ventilating fan that she had never noticed before; and that supper was laid out on the table. She sat down gratefully and was able to enjoy not only Sergeant Brown’s sandwiches and coffee but, somewhat to her surprise, his pleasant, untaxing conversation.

  Chapter 12

  Sunday morning meant no alarm clock but Fredericka was so used to being roused at seven that she woke as usual and hated herself for having become such a tiresome creature of habit. And then, to make matters worse, she couldn’t even enjoy lying in bed once she had awakened. Her mind leapt on to the day ahead and the work undone, even on a Sunday.

  Moreover, this morning there was Sergeant Brown to think of. He was probably pottering around in the kitchen by now and longing for his breakfast. She was troubled that Thane had given him so little relief from the job. It was all very well for him to say that it was a soft one and that Jim Brown had probably had more sleep in the past week than in any other week in his life. But it wasn’t exactly a picnic to spend one’s nights on the narrow couch in the study and to keep getting up at all hours to do a night-watchman’s round. It was true that he had had time off—a good deal of it—during the days. But he had told her last night at supper about his wife and their small baby. It couldn’t be much fun to do a job like this, especially when there wasn’t so much as a compensating flicker of excitement beyond scaring away a handful of mischievous kids.

  As Fredericka dressed she kept stopping to look out at the back yard and her jungle, but her thoughts were still centered on young Brown and then on younger Margie. They both made her feel old and selfish. How easy it was to fall into a neat narrow path whe
n one lived only for oneself. She sighed heavily as she stood for a moment looking out at the brilliant green of the grass against the darkness of the shrubs and trees. She tried to escape her self-criticism by opening her eyes and allowing them to absorb the beauty of this morning. A faint mist lay in patches on the ground, like great spiders’ webs, and above the trees the sky was intensely blue and cloudless. The window was open and the air that touched Fredericka’s face and arms was soft, and laden with the warm sweet scent of full summer. As she stood, the quietness soothed her troubled mind and she was aware of a happiness that she had never known before.

  What had happened to her in these three weeks of horror and fear and strain? It was as though, until now, she had walked safely and quietly along her private pathway, living more and more within herself and for herself. Now suddenly she had become aware of the fullness of life because she had touched death, sensitive to goodness because she had known evil, and, yes, capable of love and of unselfishness, because her eyes had been opened to see…

  Sergeant Brown had the coffee percolating noisily on the stove and he was just lifting eggs and bacon from the frying pan as Fredericka entered the kitchen.

  “Oh, you are good,” she said by way of greeting and then, “Did you get any sleep?”

  “Good morning,” said Sergeant Brown politely. “As a matter of fact, I slept too well and I’m feeling I ought to earn my keep somehow. So—I got breakfast. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? Never has breakfast looked so good to me. The only trouble is the awful fear I have of losing you. If only something would happen so that it would be essential to keep you here for the length of my stay. But I guess I’d have to be the guilty party if that were to happen. You wouldn’t consider leaving the police force, would you?”

  “No, Ma’am,” Sergeant Brown answered her seriously, and without a moment’s hesitation.

  Fredericka laughed and was aware suddenly that before she came to South Sutton she would have minded—very much—if anyone had gone into her kitchen to help themselves to her food and cook a meal without her permission. And now it was true that she didn’t mind—that she was, in fact, delighted.

  Their meal finished, Sergeant Brown dried the dishes and then Fredericka asked him whether or not his chief had given him the day off. “He didn’t say, Miss Wing. And I thought, seeing as how you’re alone on a Sunday without Chris or any customers, you’d rather I stayed.”

  “Nonsense,” Fredericka said at once. “I’m going to church this morning.” Until that moment the idea of church had not occurred to her and she was a little startled at her sudden decision, but she hurried on: “Then, well then, I’ll probably go to the inn for lunch and I’ll spend the afternoon in the orchard where I can’t be found. So, for heaven’s sake, let me enjoy myself with a clear conscience. You go home to your wife and infant for the day.” She hadn’t quite the courage to offer him the night as well.

  His face brightened. “Gee, swell,” he said and then, “you’re sure it’s O.K.? Hadn’t I better make it all official though?” he added, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “No, I’m sure if Thane Carey didn’t say anything to you, he was leaving it up to me, and there are no two ways about it—I want you to go home and have a good time.” Fredericka was now enjoying her own generosity.

  Sergeant Brown needed no further urging. In one moment he had put on his coat and, in another, he had started for the door. But as Fredericka followed him into the hall, he turned back to say: “Gee—thanks. I’ll be back before dark.”

  “Will you get supper for us?” Fredericka asked, laughing.

  “You bet,” he called as he disappeared down the path.

  At any rate he hasn’t had to live on those awful sandwiches this last week, Fredericka thought, as she went to find a duster and run it systematically along the bookshelves. Wonderful how once a week was enough in the country.

  Then, the house in order, she went to get ready for church and her early morning’s happiness persisted. But, later, sitting upright on the hard wooden pew of the South Sutton Congregational Church and listening to the flat tones of the Reverend Williams’s voice, her old doubts and anxieties returned.

  She was, in fact, alone and a stranger. No one else sat in her pew. She looked around her and it seemed that the whole village was packed solidly into all the other pews. Was it her imagination, or was it not true, that by being in the bookshop’s hammock the murdered body of Catherine Clay had made Fredericka an outcast? What were these people thinking? What were they saying, some of them, with their heads together while their minister droned on in the sleepy midsummer heat? Suddenly a dreadful thought occurred to her. Suppose she was seriously suspected. Suppose Sergeant Brown had been set as watchdog not for her but over her? But then he wouldn’t have taken the day off. Or would he? Did Thane and Peter really suspect her? It couldn’t be so.

  The service over, Fredericka looked around for a familiar face and could not see one. She now regretted the impulse that had made her want to go to church. She hung back as the others crowded past her to the door. There seemed, to her distorted eye, to be hundreds of them, but there weren’t of course. The church was small and the aisles narrow.

  As she emerged into the full glare of the sun she blinked blindly and stopped for a moment at the bottom of the steps to get her bearings. A group of young girls and boys were deep in whispered conversation near her. Catching the word ‘Margie’, she listened without shame.

  “She’s been taken to the hospital,” one of them was saying.

  “My mother says she’s going to die—that nothing will save her now,” another contributed.

  “And my father says we’ll do well to get rid of the stranger in our midst,” an older boy put in. One of them looked around apprehensively and, seeing Fredericka said “Sh-sh” very loudly, at which they all looked at her and then looked quickly away.

  They fell silent, and Fredericka decided that it would be wise to move off and leave them to it. As she did so, she heard a very audible stage whisper. “It’s true,” the voice said, “nothing like this ever happened in South Sutton before she came. I remember Margie saying—”

  Fredericka could not catch the final words and did not want to. The morning’s glory had faded and she felt old and tired. The worst of it was that she probably deserved this attack. She was faced with the bitter truth that she hadn’t been kind to Margie she hadn’t even been decent. As she walked back to the bookshop, she was so troubled by her own thoughts that she forgot her plan to go to the inn. But, once inside her own quiet kitchen, the vision of more people, gossiping and unfriendly people, sickened her. She looked blankly into the refrigerator to find something for lunch and then decided not to eat anything. The sound of the door slamming in the empty house seemed to announce her loneliness and isolation, not only from South Sutton but from all human beings. She stood up quickly and made an effort to fight back a sudden rush of self-pitying tears.

  Taking herself firmly in hand, she was able to remember that she had been happy before she went to Church. She reminded herself of the comforting friendliness of Sergeant Brown, of Philippine, of Thane Carey and, above all, of Peter. And then she wished that she hadn’t thought of Peter because to think of him increased her loneliness. Why had he stayed away so long? That night on the porch—was it only Friday?—now seemed an eternity of time away. Of course he hadn’t promised to come in and, of course, he and Thane must be frantic with Margie’s illness and the dead-end feeling he’d confessed to. He couldn’t really suspect Fredericka, herself. That was madness. Why, he had said that she had helped him. Could that be true or was she now reaching for any little straw that she could cling to?

  She returned with determination to the refrigerator but the salad concocted from leftovers was tasteless and she was conscious of the heat and the smell of frying that must have clung to the room since Sergeant Brown’s breakfast. Then she remembered that he had discovered a ventilator and went to turn it
on. The loud whirring noise was, at first, irritating, and then comforting, because it forbade all thought. She finished her lunch and decided to retreat to the orchard as she had promised Sergeant Brown. Perhaps this afternoon she would be able to substitute writing for sleeping. She looked up at the clock and saw Peter Mohun standing in the doorway.

  She stared at him blankly as he came in and snapped off the ventilator fan. “Good God!” he said. “Anyone could shoot you and no one hear a sound above that damn thing. I was determined this time to announce my arrival and I’ve been banging on the front door for a good ten minutes. You scared the wits out of me—you and your blasted fan.”

  He sounded really annoyed, a fact which gave Fredericka some unexpected pleasure, but before she could think of anything to say he asked, “Where’s Jim?”

  “Jim? Oh, you mean Sergeant Brown. He’s—he’s—”

  “Come clean, Fredericka.” He paused, then went on rapidly, “Never mind, I can guess. You let him off for the day, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes, I did. As a matter of fact, I’ve been suffering from a guilty conscience, having given the wretched young man precious little thought all week.”

  “You’re not supposed to think about him. He’s Thane’s business, not yours.”

  “But I’ve discovered that he’s a very nice young man, with human feelings just like yours and mine—oh, Peter, don’t scold me. I’ve been sick about how I treated Margie. I’ve got to make up for it somehow.”

  Peter smiled at her. Then he pulled out the other chair from the table and sat down.

  “Wouldn’t you rather go outside?” Fredericka asked.

  “No. I’m afraid I can’t stay. As a matter of fact, Carey’s dropping by any minute to drive me to the airport.”

  “The airport?” Fredericka found it hard to hide her distress.

  “Yes. I am going to Washington, there’s no getting out of it. I can’t tell you more now because, for one thing, there isn’t time, and for another, it isn’t wise. But you must listen to me. You are not to do any more New England conscience acts of kindness to Jim Brown or anyone else. If all goes as I think it’s going to, then he and the rest of us can return to our normal lives very soon. Until then we’re not going to take any chances.” He reached across the table and took her thin shoulder in his large hand. “Look at me,” he said severely.