The Hangman's Whip (5 page)

Search read the letter; doubting her eyes, she read it again. It stated simply and directly that Miss Abbott had had arsenic poisoning; their laboratory tests had proved it. It named the tests briefly and technically and the probable amount of arsenic she had “accidentally consumed.” It was really merely a laboratory report put into a letter. There was only one sentence which in any way indicated a certain doubt or alarm on the part of the doctor. “Inasmuch,” he wrote succinctly, “as another such attack might prove fatal, I feel it my duty to strongly advise you to take every precaution against a recurrence of accidental poisoning.”

Accidental. He’d repeated it, as if to stress the fact that while, humanely, he had to warn his patient, still he was making it definite in black and white that he was accusing no one of attempted murder.

Attempted murder!

“But it isn’t possible!”

“That’s what I thought. But you see—”

“Have you told anyone?”

Ludmilla shook her head.

“No. I—I didn’t know what to do.”

“Not even Diana?”

“No. I wrote to you the day I got the doctor’s letter.”

“But why—”

Ludmilla replied gently: “Don’t you see, dear? They were here at the time. All of them. Calvin, Diana, Richard. Eve. And if someone’s really trying to poison me …”

There was a long pause. Then Search said : “Servants …”

Again Ludmilla shook her head. “They’re all new. The second time it happened, when I was so sure what it was, I— I got rid of the others—the whole batch. Except the gardener, old Jonas.”

Jonas had been on the place at least twenty-five years; he lived in the village; he turned up during the summer months at some mysteriously early hour not far from dawn, was about the place all day and vanished again mysteriously after dark. Winter months he came at least once a day, to see that marauders hadn’t broken into the then closed and shuttered house or that the pier hadn’t been swept away by ice. It was fantastic to consider Jonas in the role of arsenic poisoner.

But if not Jonas—Search refused to finish it.

“How did you get rid of the other servants?”

“I told Diana they were wasteful,” said Ludmilla, displaying an unexpected canniness. She sighed and flushed a little. “Three times I went down and turned on the electric range and let it burn all night; twice I turned over perfume—the most expensive Diana had. I—I did several little things like that. After a few days she dismissed the whole lot of them and sent to Chicago for a new set. But—but it didn’t make any difference.” The guilty, half-ashamed flush left her face and it looked a little bleak and something frightened and childlike peered from her china-blue eyes. “It was two weeks after that that—it happened again. That was when I sent for the doctor. It isn’t the servants. And—and I’m afraid it isn’t accident, Search. Nobody else was sick.”

Search moistened her lips. Presently she said rather huskily: “How was it—done?”

“I think it was put in my food when I had meals, as I so often do, on a tray. I—I don’t know how, unless the tray was left, every time, on the hall table for a moment. Arsenic—they say arsenic hasn’t much taste.”

“Didn’t the doctor advise you to—to do something? The police …”

Ludmilla’s small hands closed over her own again. Suddenly the childishness left her eyes; she said soberly and sadly, like an old woman: “How could I go to the police? Diana, Calvin, Richard? Richard’s wife.”

Search said slowly: “Eve has come back. She arrived a few minutes ago.”

Ludmilla sat up straight. “Eve! But she was going to divorce him. I was so glad.”

“She’s changed her mind.”

“You don’t mean …” Ludmilla’s eyes were sharply anxious. “But she’s ruining his life! We can’t let her do this. She doesn’t love him. She—oh, Search, his marriage was a terrible mistake. I love Richard. I love you. I brought you up—you and Richard and Diana. Diana”—she lifted her plump shoulders—“Diana’s life is exactly right for her. And she’s very generous with her money. She supports me; she gives me anything I want; I live entirely on her bounty, and she never reminds me of it.”

“Her money came from your brother,” Search reminded her. “And we all owe you—Richard and Diana and I—”

“Well,” said Ludmilla, “I’m not ungrateful to Diana. But—she’s happy. She loves the things she has—money and power and—and possessions. She loves to do things for people,” said Ludmilla a little dryly. “And she’s very ambitious for Calvin. But—I wanted you and Richard to have a different kind of happiness. Diana’s coldly and perfectly satisfied; she’s got everything she wants and intends to keep it. But Richard and you”—there was a wistful look in Ludmilla’s face—“I wanted other things for you both. Eve is a tragedy for Richard. Yet you are all grown now, and I’m an old woman. There’s nothing I can do.” Her eyes darkened and she said: “You see, Search, why I couldn’t go to the police. Diana who supports me; Calvin; Richard and—Richard’s wife.”

She meant that no one else could have poisoned her; no one else had been there; no one else had had opportunity. And it was a completely untenable stand to take.

A feeling almost of claustrophobia caught at Search. She rose abruptly and went to the window. The screen was studded and alive with insects beating against it. She could see the line of willows along the shore below and the glittering lake, reflecting the moon in silver waves; the end of the pier jutted out into the lake; she thought she could see the black sharp shadow of the bench where she’d sat with Richard. But Richard and Eve were gone.

She could feel Ludmilla watching her. But there was a mistake somewhere, somehow. She turned, intending to beat down the proof of the doctor’s report.

And Ludmilla said quietly: “Yes, that’s the way I felt. I didn’t believe it. Besides—why? I’ve—I’ve injured nobody; I have no money. There’s no reason …”

Something tightened and began to ache in Search’s throat. She ran to Ludmilla and kneeled down in front of her and put her arms around the plump little body.

“Don’t dear,” said Ludmilla. She pushed Search’s hair back from her temples with a gentle, loving gesture. “We’ll find a way. Let’s—let’s not talk any more now, dear. Later—we’ll see what we can do.”

“We’ll do something,” said Search. “We’ll stop it—Diana—”

“Yes. That’s it, you see. Diana, Calvin, Richard. None of them would poison me. Yet—yet I was poisoned. I don’t want it to happen again.”

“It shan’t—I’ll get police—detectives—I want you to tell me everything. Who was here—exactly what circumstance—”

“Not now,” said Ludmilla firmly. “Not tonight.”

She meant it. Ludmilla had always had, under her soft and gentle manner, an indestructible firmness. She took the letter and put it in its envelope and made Search go.

“We can’t talk now,” she said simply. “You’ll have to”—she smiled a little—“get used to the notion. Wait a day or two.”

“No. If there’s really danger “

“I’ve my own methods of protection,” said Ludmilla. “They’ll suffice for the time being. And—when you’ve had time to think of it—then I’ll do anything you want me to do about it. Even the police.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Good night, dear.”

The door closed behind Search and she heard Ludmilla lock it softly.

Somewhere in the house a radio had been turned on and there was static as if a storm was brewing over the lake. But that was wrong, for it was still brilliantly moonlight. She had seen that from Ludmilla’s window. She didn’t know where Diana was; somewhere downstairs, she supposed. There was no sign either of Richard and Eve. She turned abruptly and went to her own room.

She must think, she told herself. And sat down on the edge of the small white bed where she’d slept as a child and couldn’t think.

Richard—and the path of the moon and the gurgle of water under the pier. And then Eve had returned, and Diana had come with her, tall and white in the moonlight.

And now Ludmilla’s incredible story.

The house was quiet—so quiet that later, as she lay trying to sleep, she could hear the little rock and wash of a boat anchored somewhere down near the pier. And then suddenly she went to sleep.

It was long after midnight when she awoke; the moon was bright and still. She lay there listening sharply, for it was as if some sound had awakened her. The moonlight flooded her room by now and lay in bright white blocks on the floor and on her dressing table, so the objects upon it were thrown into sharp relief. Her jars of cold cream and powder, her flat black handbag. Something else ought to be there, she thought, fumbling into consciousness, still half asleep. And then she remembered the package of rum-butter toffee she had brought for Aunt Ludmilla. It was gone.

It was still gone when, after she’d got up and turned on the light and searched the room thoroughly, she returned to bed, shivering a little in her thin white pajamas.

She told herself after a while that Diana had seen it and had known it was intended for Ludmilla, for everyone knew it was Ludmilla’s favorite candy, and so had taken it to her.

It didn’t satisfy her. She lay for a long time watching the white moonlight on the floor of her room. If a sound had awakened her it was not repeated. But birds were twittering in the great old trees outside before she went to sleep again.

So she awakened in the morning very late.

It was a hot, still, oppressive morning with the sun half obscured by a kind of shimmering haze of heat and no breeze anywhere.

After a cold shower in the tiny bathroom adjoining her room, she dressed in the coolest things she had brought—thin white slacks, red sandals, a white thin silk shirt. She tied a scarlet ribbon around her hair, holding it back coolly from her face, and touched her mouth with scarlet lipstick.

She must see Richard. She must know what he had said to Eve, what Eve had said to him.

And she must tell Richard about Ludmilla; Richard would know what to do. In the morning light her talk with Ludmilla had taken on a faint but welcome unreality.

Breakfast was a buffet meal—served from eight to eleven; dishes were kept hot in electric containers on the sideboard, and when anyone rose and was ready for breakfast he strolled into the dining room and served himself. No one was in the room when Search entered, and she’d met no one in the hall or on the stairway.

But as she poured herself black coffee and sat down at the table there was a sound of quick footsteps along the hall and Eve came into the room.

Search put down her coffee.

Eve was as golden, as beautiful with her fair hair and her great blue eyes, as she had been in the moonlight the night before. She wore blue silk lounging pajamas, wide trousers and short straight coat. Her golden hair was pinned up high in curls on top of her head. She was older than Richard, six or seven years older, but she looked girlish although she was not as ethereally slender as Search remembered her. She came into the room, saw Search and stopped for a moment before she came toward her. Her eyes were a soft gentle blue, like the pajamas she wore; her rather thin lips were geranium pink, and she stopped again at the table and put one little hand on it, its fingernails sharply oval and pink too, like her lips.

She leaned toward Search and said: “Oh, there you are. I was looking for you. There’s something I have to tell you; it— it’s horribly difficult, but I think it’s always better to be frank. Richard told me he wants a divorce; he says he wants to marry you. But I’m his wife. Divorce—it’s such an ugly thing. The wreck of a marriage …” She gave a little shudder. “It hurts me to think of it. It hurts me so much that nothing, he can say—or you can say—would induce me to consent to it. There’s not going to be a divorce.”

I
T SEEMED TO SEARCH
even then that it was rather singular that she felt no sense of guilt. Actually, technically, literally, she was in the wrong; she was in the position of a woman trying to take another woman’s husband, and it was not a nice position.

Yet she felt deeply, instinctively, in a way that had nothing to do with reasoning, that Eve was the interloper.

“Well,” said Eve gently, “do you understand? I thought I’d better tell you.”

“You are quite wrong, Eve.” Search’s voice in her own ears was clear and hard. “You can’t hold Richard against his will.”

Eve’s soft eyes became a little fixed.

“It was wrong of me to think of divorce. I’ve explained it all to Richard. I am not going to divorce him, and he can’t divorce me.”

“You heard what he said last night. His marriage to you is ended.” Inwardly she was trembling; she heard her own voice almost with astonishment, it sounded so steady.

“Not legally, darling,” said Eve softly. “And that’s so important, isn’t it?” She blinked so her eyelashes made a soft black line on her smooth, almost childish cheek. She said: “No matter what you offered me—you and Richard—I still wouldn’t consent.” And opened her eyes and looked hard at Search. “Not even a cash settlement—a large cash settlement—would tempt me to fall in with your plans.”

She stopped then and waited. Almost as if she expected Search to say, “We’ll give you a cash settlement.”

It was such a curious and unexpected impression that it took Search by surprise. There was a little silence. Then Search said slowly: “Eve, why did you come back?”

“Why? Because I’m his wife, of course.”

“You went away because you wanted a divorce.”

“Suppose I did! I changed my mind. I won’t divorce him, and he can’t divorce me. I—I think it would be wrong. Dear Richard; he needs me.”

After a moment Search said: “Do you love him, Eve? Is that why?”

A flash of real surprise crossed Eve’s pretty face. Then unexpectedly, very softly and delightedly, like a child, Eve laughed. “Are you going to be very noble, darling, and give him up to me?” She laughed again and said softly: “I’m Richard’s wife. I insist on my full legal rights. Richard—is going to see a lawyer. But I’ve already seen one. How do you intend to get rid of me?” She laughed gently.

Search’s cheeks were hot; she rose to face Eve squarely.

“I don’t know. But there are ways. Make no mistake about that.” Her voice cut clearly into the bland quiet of the old-fashioned room. “If you had ever loved him, if you’d been a wife to him—even if you loved him now—it would be different. But you don’t love him. And I do.”