CHAPTER XII

One thing I am bound to say for Irene: she was eager to tell what she knew. Chris did not wish her to tell. She insisted and got snaky with him for trying to stop her.

She said that, on Monday night, she couldn’t sleep; so she got up—she thought it was then about ten o’clock, though she was not certain—put on her slippers and her wrapper, took a candle, and went downstairs to the sitting room. She said she was going to read, and she was afraid a light in the bedroom would disturb Chris. She said, also, that she was cold, and she thought the fire might still be burning in the sitting-room fireplace.

The fire was burning. She mended it, lighted the hanging lamp, and finished reading her book. She thought that it was close around eleven o’clock when she went upstairs again. The door to her room and Chris’s was locked. She said that she and Chris had had a “trifling quarrel” before Chris had gone to sleep. She thought, in consequence, that he had misunderstood her reason for leaving the room and had locked her out. (That gives a fair notion of her perceptions. She’d been married to Chris for seven months, and yet she could fancy that he was capable of a cad’s trick such as that. Chris is faulty, but he’s no mucker.) She said that this made her very, very unhappy and a little bit angry. She didn’t desire the family to know that Chris could do such a thing; so without making a particle of noise, she tiptoed downstairs again and made a bed for herself on the sofa, with the Indian blankets.

Her next move was to pull the bolts on the doors to the front and back stairways. She did that because, she said, she felt sure Chris would feel ashamed of himself before long and come down and try to make it up with her. I guess she was pretty hot, all right, for she said she thought the bolted doors would show him that two could play at that lock-out game. Locked doors are a mania of hers, anyway. So is insomnia, though she sleeps until noon often enough. This trick of going downstairs to read was, as far as I know, a new one with her. I fancy the trifling quarrel was responsible for that.

After she had locked the doors, she blew out the light, got into her sofa bed, and settled for a long, comfortable weeping spell. Or, as she explained it, she lay down and cried herself to sleep.

She was wakened by the sound of the shot upstairs. The room Father had then—Chris’s old room—is right above the sitting room, you know. She said she thought it was Chris shooting himself because she had been unkind to him. (She is the sort of woman to whom such an action would seem not merely reasonable but also admirable.) She jumped from the sofa, got into her wrapper and slippers, lighted her candle, ran through the rooms, unbolted the door to the front stairway, and ran upstairs. All the noises had begun up there, she said, before she had got the door unbolted. If anyone had been running through the upper hall, or trying to come down the back stairway, there would have been no chance of her having heard him.

She started straight down the hall for Chris’s and her room. She says she is sure she did not get hold of the idea, then, that we were all locked in our rooms. She said that she did hear Grandfather shout, “Let me out of here!” but she was too badly frightened to make any meanings at all.

She passed Olympe’s room and Grandfather’s room on her left, and Aunt Gracia’s, and yours, and Lucy’s on her right before she came to Father’s door. It was standing open. The light was burning, so she ran in there. For the minute, and for the first time, too, she had forgotten about the exchange of rooms.

She said that, when she saw Father lying there in bed, it took her a minute to realize that he was not Christopher. Father was lying with his head tipped back on his pillows, and with blood streaming out over his nightshirt. She ran to him. She put her candle on the table there, and sort of lifted him in her arms. That was when she got her wrapper smeared with blood. She says he turned his eyes toward the open window and murmured, “Got away.” At first, Irene was certain that Father had said, “Got away.” But, when Aunt Gracia questioned her, she admitted that Father spoke indistinctly and that he might have said, “Go away.” But I know that her best impression is that Father said, “Got away.” Then, she declares that Father said, quite distinctly, “Red mask.” There was no shaking her certainty about that. She said that he used his lips to say it, and that she was watching them, and that she would swear that he said, “Red mask.”

It stands to reason, Judy, that Father did not say “Red mask.” Now what could he have said that sounds like red mask? Repeat it over to yourself. I have; but I can’t get it. “Dead” sounds something like “red.” “Dead past.” That’s senseless, isn’t it? “May ask,” sounds like “mask,” and takes the lip pressure that Irene insists he made. But “may ask” is meaningless, isn’t it? I can’t get it. I am hoping that Lucy may be able to, later. She is such a little word wizard.

Irene knew that Father was dying. She thought that he had shot himself. She did not try to question him. We can’t blame her for that. She wanted to do something for him, but she didn’t know what to do. She attempted to ease his position; to stop the flow of blood with the sheets.

He said our names: “Neal. Judith. Lucy.” She started to leave him, then, to bring Lucy and me to him. He said, more loudly than he had spoken before: “Wait. Father.” She ran back to him, and he said, slowly and plainly: “Bring Father. I must tell _him_.” He repeated, “Must tell Father.” That was the end.

Irene declares that there can be no doubt about it: Father had something that he wished to tell Grandfather and no one else. It seems to me that can mean but one thing: Father knew who killed him. He was willing to tell Grandfather, no one else, who that person was. This would seem to preclude an outsider. Though there may be still some events in Father’s past life of which we children have not been informed.

That ends Irene’s story, in so far as Father is concerned. She left him, then, and ran to the door and back again to get her candle before going into the dark hall. On the table, beside her candle, and in the light ring from Father’s lamp, she saw the keys lying scattered. Then, she thinks, for the first time she made the connection of the noise in the hall with the doors. That is reasonable enough—for Irene. She said she could not get the keys picked up. She kept dropping them. At last she put them in the pocket of her wrapper and, with her candle, came into the hall. Lucy’s door is directly across the hall from Father’s room, as you know. Irene poked one of the keys into the lock and unlocked it.

I asked her how she had known which key to use. She said that she had never thought of that. She took the keys from her pocket, one at a time, and each one fitted the lock she put it in. That is straight. The locks on the upstairs doors are all alike, and so are the keys. Chris made me go with him Tuesday while he proved this to me.

When Irene had finished telling her story, Tuesday morning, Aunt Gracia asked her why she had unlocked Lucy’s door first. She added that Lucy was the one child in the household. It was stupid of Aunt Gracia to ask that, because Irene had just told us how it had happened. I didn’t blame Chris for getting hot.

He said Aunt Gracia was assuming that Irene ran out of Father’s door in full possession of all her faculties; that Irene was in a condition to stop and reason quietly about which door it would be wise to open first, establishing orders of precedence, giving us all a rating as to age and importance. There was tragedy, Chris said. There was a duty for Irene to perform. She performed it, and she deserved high admiration for her composure and courage. We might, or not, give her that admiration, he said. But he would brook no word of criticism.

In a way, I agree with Chris. I wish Irene had got us out sooner; but I can see her position. Father was dying. She felt as if she should do something for him, right there, instead of rushing off and leaving him. When she did start to leave him, he called her back to him—that is, told her to wait. I don’t like Irene. But I guess she did about as well as any of us younger ones would have done.

Aunt Gracia seemed to pay no attention to Chris’s speech. Her next question was downright crumby. She asked Irene why she had thought Christopher had shot himself, when she must have known that Christopher had no gun.

Grandfather settled that in a hurry. He apologized for Aunt Gracia; and then he explained to her that sudden fright, as she knew, precluded rationalization, and that it was natural that Irene’s first anxiety should be for her husband.

Aunt Gracia said, “You haven’t a gun, have you, Christopher?”

“Beginning already?” Chris was ugly about it. “No, Gracia, I have no gun. Have you?”

Aunt Gracia said: “No, I haven’t. But that is an honest question, and you had a right to ask it.”

“Irene,” Grandfather said, “Christopher and Gracia were both locked in their rooms, were they not? You unlocked both their doors?”

“I did, Uncle Thaddeus,” Irene answered. “I swear that I released every member of this family from a locked room.”

It seems to me like this, Judy. Either we have to believe Irene’s story, all of it, or we have to disbelieve it. I am here. I know her. I heard her tell it. I believe it, word for word.

Grandfather believes it, I know. In spite of her actions, I think that Aunt Gracia believes it. Or, perhaps I should say, against her own will, I think Aunt Gracia believes it. Chris must believe it. But here is the crumby thing about Chris. Instead of saying flat, as I can say, that he knows Irene’s story is true, he keeps trying to prove it.

He got me off and showed me, on Tuesday, that the fire had been mended after we left it the night before. He showed me the oil in the hanging lamp, nearly burned out. He has said, “Irene had no opportunity to get rid of a revolver.” As if Irene could not have done all the things she said she had done—built the fire, burned the oil, made the bed, and then come upstairs later and fired the shot. She could have hidden the gun in the front of her wrapper, and have got rid of it since. Nobody searched her. The only important thing about any of Chris’s “proofs” for Irene is that he thinks it necessary to hunt for them and use them.

On the square, though he is starring himself in the rôle of sleuth, Chris seems to me to be more off his screw than any of us. But, perhaps, I haven’t any right to say that. Chris told me that I should try to brace up, that Lucy, poor little kid, was worrying desperately about me. Grandfather told me that we must be careful for Aunt Gracia; that it seemed to him the tragedy was affecting her more seriously than any of the rest of us. Aunt Gracia thinks that Grandfather is harder hit than any of us. And, of course, Olympe is still flat in bed.

It is queer about Olympe. She must have heard the shot and jumped out of bed and fainted from fright. But she has no memory of having heard it at all. That shows the sort of tricks one’s memory can play. When we found she didn’t know what had happened, we didn’t tell her until Dr. Joe got here yesterday, Wednesday morning. (I started this letter on Wednesday; but I’ve written all night, so it is four o’clock Thursday morning now.) Dr. Joe thought it better to break the news to her gently than to have her keep on fussing and worrying and asking questions. He told her. Leave it to Dr. Joe to take for himself, and put right through, any old disagreeable job that we are all afraid of attempting.

After our merry little breakfast on Tuesday morning, Chris rode to Quilterville to spread the news, send the telegram to Dr. Joe, and to send the crazy lying telegram, which he and Irene had composed together, to you.

Gus Wildoch and Hank Buckerman (he’s coroner now) and a couple of other guys came out to the ranch with Chris. Gus and Hank were as decent as they could be, I guess, under the circumstances. The other guys went about issuing invitations to have their faces punched in; but again under the circumstances—how handy those clichés are—I let them get away with it.

Grandfather took charge of Gus and Hank. Gus’s attitude seemed to be that, if Grandfather would tell him what he wanted done, he’d do it. They stayed around about an hour, holding their sombreros like stomachers and shaking their heads, and then they left. Hank was much embarrassed because there would have to be an inquest. He kept apologizing to Grandfather about it. When Grandfather suggested that, perhaps, the inquest could be discussed later, Hank said sure, whenever we said, and, furthermore, it was nothing but a damn lot of red tape anyway.

Gus and Hank came out again to the ranch when Dr. Joe came, early Wednesday morning. Slim Hyde came, too, with his hearse. Dr. Joe had brought him because he, Dr. Joe, wished to take Father’s body to Quilterville for an autopsy. Hank was a trifle worried about the inquest by this time, but Dr. Joe told him that the family would not be able to be bothered with anything of the sort for several days. The time was finally set for Friday morning. Queer, especially since old Hank is coroner, how I dread that inquest. If I were dog guilty, I couldn’t dread it much more than I do. Hank was decent as could be about it. Insisted, again, that it was a mere formality, and advised Grandfather not to try to attend. Furthermore, he said, that went for any of us who weren’t feeling up to snuff on Friday morning. All he needed, he declared, were one or two folks who could kind of tell a little about how things had happened.

Hank himself, as I nearly forgot to tell you, deduced a theory almost at once which satisfied him completely. Someone, he declared, had shot Father through the open window. Since it did not matter at all to Hank that there is not a tree of any sort near Father’s room, nor that, unless the murderer had been equipped with wings, he should have had to stand on the porch roof to fire, nobody bothered to quarrel with Hank about it, nor about how the fellow had got the window open, nor any of it.

Dr. Joe stayed here until shortly after noon. He had his hands pretty full, what with attending the entire family, and interviewing and dismissing the busybodies who had been streaming up since the day before, like ants to a sugar bowl.

Chris and I could not see much reason for an autopsy. We knew that Father had been shot; and had died from that shot. But Dr. Joe was as stubborn as a mule about it; so we gave in. He and Slim took Father’s body to Quilterville on Wednesday afternoon. It will stay there, now, until after the inquest, and then be brought home for the funeral, which, I believe, the folks have decided to have on Saturday.

I have kept at this all night, in order that you and I can start even. I want you to know, when you have read this letter, as much as I knew when I wrote it. I’ll skip through it now and see whether I have left out any points. If not, I’ll ride into Quilterville, as soon as Chris gets up at six, and mail this on number Twenty-two.

I find several points I have not made in connection with Irene’s story. As soon as she had heard the shot, she came through the downstairs rooms and up the front stairway. The door was locked, until she unlocked it. No one could have come downstairs the front way then, or she would have met him. The door to the back stairs was also locked, on the sitting-room side. Someone could have run down the hall and have hidden on the back stairway, or in the bathroom, which was unlocked. Someone could have gone to the attic. The door to the attic was unlocked. Then, while we were all in Father’s room, just at the first there, he might have managed to sneak through the hall, which was dark, and past Father’s door in spite of the fact that it was open, and get to some hiding place without any of us seeing him. Whatever his previous plans had been, they had not included one member of the family, not locked in a room, who could unlock the other doors. Nor, of course, had his plans included the circumstance of his being locked upstairs by means of the bolted stairway doors.

I know how this will be bound to seem to you: the problem was one of discovering some fellow hiding in the house. It would seem so to me, I am sure, if I were not right here. Judy, you’ll have to take my word for it. No one was hiding in this house on Monday night or Tuesday morning. A human being, even a child, takes a good-sized space to hide in. There was not a foot of space, from cellar to attic, which we had not gone over with idiotic thoroughness before it was light on Tuesday morning.

I can see you sitting there and thinking of places where we did not look. It won’t go, dear. Yes, we looked in the old furnace and poked into it, though Lucy could not have crawled into the fire box. Yes, we have looked in the broom closets and the fruit closets. We have looked in the flour and sugar bins, and the wash boilers, and the churns, and the bureau drawers. We have looked as if we were hunting for a collar button instead of a man. And, remember, Aunt Gracia at the time, and since, has been over every square inch of the house. You know that she can always find any missing thing in this house more easily than we can find a word in the dictionary. Irene, I think it was—it sounds like her—who suggested secret passages and sliding panels. They would be convenient, wouldn’t they?

The ground is still covered with snow. Except for the paths from the front and back doors, and the necessary paths to the barns and outhouses, and the tracks the dogs have made, the snow, as far as we can see, is clean and unbroken. That would mean, wouldn’t it, that anyone who had left the house since Monday night had left it through the front or the back door? No one has stepped on the side porch, and the snow from that door to the yard is still unbroken. We could not keep the paths from getting beaten—people coming and going, all that. We have kept the outside doors locked, and Chris has the keys in his pocket. Nobody could pick those locks with a hairpin or a glove buttoner. We have kept Whatof chained by the front door and Keeper chained by the back door. You know, when those dogs have been told to watch, what they would do to some sneaking stranger.

After this, it hardly seems worth while to bother about telling you what Chris discovered when he was looking under Father’s bed that night. But here it is. The bed had been moved three or four inches at the foot—pulled along over the carpet, I mean, as if some fairly hefty weight had been tugging on it. Chris keeps declaring that this must be of importance. How can it be important? Remember, the rope was covered with snow. The snow on the window sill and on the porch roof was unbroken. The snow makes it a certainty that no one had got out of that window during the past hour, let alone the past twenty minutes. Chris maunders about the rope having been used for some purpose before the snowstorm began. Irene suggested that the fellow might have come in that way. Lassoed the leg of the bed, first, I suppose, and then climbed right up.

I think that finishes it all then, except this. The folks here, for some reason, seem to be getting comfort from keeping you and Greg in the dark. Rather often somebody pauses to thank goodness that you two don’t have to know the truth. I am not asking you to lie for me; but, on the level, I wish you would. Things are bad enough around here as it is, without having the folks all sore at me. In time, they will have to tell you the truth. If you could, until they get ready to do so, receive whatever hanky-panky they write to you, and not let them know that you are on, it would help me a lot.

I’ll write you the truth every night—I’m night herding in the house at present. You can write what you please to me, of course. As I have said, I need the benefit of your thinking. Too, and again of course, you can do as you please about giving me away. Perhaps I would better say, you can do what you have to do. It doesn’t matter, really. What does?

Your loving brother, Neal.