OCR Text |
Show 'MZm&Si Bj U..ore gienn ,flffl)figij CHAPTER VI THE STORY THIS FAK: Returning, from visit wild Dyka MrKlnnna, hi nrle, Todd Mrkinaoa. (leorfina Wjeth ad email daughter, llarliy, lupprd la Ylalt Mrs. I'eauody, a trirod el Dyke's. CHAPTER VI Somehow, that evening, Virdette was telling them again about the afternoon of Miss Tillsit's death. She had been sitting at the piano all afternoon, beginning at half-past half-past one; doggedly playing over and over the scales of every key and the chromatic, up and down the whole keyboard, while her eyes searched the empty street outside. "Nobody went in for a long time," aid Virdette dreamily. "I thought once or twice maybe old Mis' La-bare La-bare was workin" round in the basement, because that side door 'ud open and shut. I couldn't see because the door was between her ''n' me, and anyhow, those trees almost hit It. Then about three Mr. Gilbert Peabody drove up. So he stayed In there a while" "You don't remember how long, I suppose," Todd said as if Idly. "Just about, because I got up to get a drink and stretch, but I didn't dast to stop practicing for long," said Virdette with reminiscent reminisc-ent gloom. "It was only about ten minutes, and he was just comln' down the front walk when I sat down again, walking slow with his hands in his pockets and lookin' at the ground." "Did he usually drive when he came to see his aunt?" Todd murmured. mur-mured. "Him? No, he gener'ly walked, he just lived three-four blocks down the street and over one. An' then there wasn't a darn thing more until about ha'past four, and then whoo!" said Virdette with enjoyment. "There was old Mis Labare poppin' her head in and out the front room she just icoots, she's In a hurry and in bout two seconds here comes Mr. Gilbert back again, an' Horace over from the drugstore he'd come so fast he was still pullin' his Jacket on while he went up the steps; and Mary Helen, she pretended pre-tended she wasn't In a hurry, but the went In the house awful fast Just the same. "And a while after, Rose, that's my sister, came home. 'Where's Mom?' she says. 'Horace has got word Miss Tillsit's sinkln'.' I says, Ho, I knew that before you did,' I says, and I told her about It. And she said she'd been In the drugstore drug-store all afternoon she and Martin Mar-tin was awful mushy before they got married, she'd go in there and when there wasn't any customers they'd sit and hold hands, and Horace used to go In the prescription prescrip-tion room and leave 'em alone. Well, she said he was in and out a couple times that afternoon, answered an-swered the telephone once or twice, end then trade kind of fell off and he left 'em alone; and then just before she left he answered It gain an' It was old Mis' Labare. Eo we really knew about It before anybody in town, only I knew Irst," Virdette wound up with iccp satisfaction. They ncared the door of another ne of those tiny frame bungalows; bunga-lows; and under the porch light the could read the words on the brass plate by the door. "Dr. John Crane. I I'm. McKinnon, have you no shame?" Dr. John Crane was In; for a wonder, as he said to himself, after shooing the last of his office patients pa-tients out of the side door. The taking of blood samples lasted only a minute, but he would not hear of his patients' departure Immediately after. "I know who you are, heard all about you today," to-day," he said, his fatigue-heavy eyes lighting up with a nice smile. "1 hope Nella's house guests will accept a drink 7 I could use one myself." She liked the doctor's long thin face, his dark eyes and graying hair. He'll be old before his time within a year, If this keeps up, she thought; the one doctor for a big farming community and a town of fifteen hundred people. "I want to consult you on something more, Dr. Crane," she said at a pause In the war talk which Invariably opened men's conversations. "You know, of course, that we're staying with Mrs. Peabody? She spoke of a heart condition, and If It's not prylrui Into your patients' affairs won't It be too much for her to have three extra persons quartered quar-tered on her? She won't let me help very much." "No, no, Mrs. Wycth. Good for her. The heart wouldn't be much by Itself, Just something that had to be watched; but It's easy to aggravate ag-gravate those conditions with worry wor-ry and nervousness and uncertainty. uncertain-ty. Not good for Nella to be alone too much, d'you see? I'm very fond of Nella. Wish I could take better tart of her. Horace Tlllsit and his cousin, my uh ex-wife, are nominally staying there to keep her company, but they don't take the responsibility very seriously. Well, Mr. McKinnon, so you're the uncle of the famous sergeant; seems Mary Helen thinks she brought back a scalp from the Stage Door Canteen. He smiled again, and let his eyes rove con- Mrs. Peabodr told about tha death at Adeline Till.it, from whom f.ilbrrt Pea-body Pea-body Inherited the home. Todd and t.ror-gine t.ror-gine drridrd to atajr over and get married. mar-ried. Todd wanted to Invratigata tha murder or death ol Una TilUit. Uo tirtl sideringly around the small bay-windowed bay-windowed parlor which was his waiting-room. "A narrow enough life, .this was, for a girl," he said unemotionally. "It only lasted six or seven months, back in nineteen-forty-one. I don't begrudge her any kind of happiness she can find, now." The two men looked at each other for a moment; then Todd added, with some deliberation, "We didn't come to you, Dr. Crane, to find out anything except the state of our health. I thought I should enjoy meeting you personally. person-ally. That's all." The doctor relaxed slightly, smiling. "Good. Then none of this need be taken too seriously, you know; perhaps you can just enjoy your visit." "The background of Mrs. Crane's family history interests me, of course. No, I don't mean just the family, but the whole region. Am I right in thinking that Judge Tillsit has brought a good many benefits to this town ?" "A great number," said Dr. Crane, "both public and private. The Judge's investments were made according to his own plan; he'd help out young people who wanted a career, at least to the extent of financing their training. A fine old gentleman," said the doctor, looking intently at his class. 5pM is 36! "I hope Nella's house guests will accept a drink." They started homeward, walking walk-ing slowly under the arching trees. There were street lights only at the corners, and those were shrouded, so that the dim glow of lamps behind drawn shades, In the small frame houses they passed, gave the only light. "A nine o'clock town," said Todd dreamily. "And no through tralllc on those streets. Tell me, do you feel a strong sense of the past in this place?" "Oh, yes." "It's funny," said Georgine slowly, slow-ly, "but my sense of the past is concentrated in in June, 1940, and right in the Tillsit house. The setting's unchanged, and I suppose thflt'a whv. If I sit nn that croon sofa, I hear voices upstairs. I've I've got so that when I'm downstairs down-stairs I find myself listening for the old lady moving around on the second floor." He was looking at her attentively. atten-tively. "Do you mind It very much?" "No-o," she said laughing. "And Td better start getting used to your professional research. I hope it stays Uke this!" "Like what?" "Oh just talking politely to people, and then going away and writing It up. I mean, on this purely pure-ly mental plane It's not so bad." "I never can figure out what you expect," Todd replied mildly. "People "Peo-ple chasing me with guns? Anonymous Anon-ymous letters saying, 'Keep out of this or you will die, too'?" "Something like that, I suppose. And yet there doesn't seem any harm In a conversation like the one we Just had. It's especially goofy of me to get worried, when I can't see what you get out of these talks." "Are you kidding?" said Mr. McKinnon. "What the doctor told me, aloud and between the lines, was worth five bucks a word." "Oh, dear. I must have been half asleep." "Not necessarily. You sot It when he Indicated that he himself Is under obligations to the Judge, like a good many others In town? And that the Judge wields a heavy talked to Huaau labare, former aurao al Mia Tillait, who believed that Gilbert artrd mighty strange follow lof Miaa Tillait'a death. Hhe pointed out that he had brea the lat peraoa to (lea) Miaa Tillait befora her death. scepter? I can do something with that," Todd said musingly. "Elegant "Ele-gant old spider sitting in the middle mid-dle of a web, now and then jerking . . . And surely you didn't miss the fact that Dr. Crane knew very well we were interested, somehow, in Miss Adeline's death? He could not tell us much about it, without destroying the fiction that she died naturally; but, certificate or no certificate, he still thinks something some-thing went on there." "But, speaking of senses of the past," said Georgine, just above a whisper, "I have a strong feeling about the present, too. Someone's been following us." "I heard that step," Todd said, unperturbed. "On the other side of the street, and just the same rate we're walking. Only for the last few minutes, though. Person could hardly have heard what we've been saying." "Maybe not. But it seems to me now that It's been there all the time, like an echo of our steps. You're sure that's not a prelude to being chased with guns?" "Quite sure. We might cross over no, here's the house." The footsteps died away. Maybe it had really been an echo? She glanced over her shoulder, as they went up the Tillsit walk, and tried not to imagine a shadowy figure melting away into the lilac bushes of that yard across the street. The moon had not reached Geor-gine's Geor-gine's window when she went up to prepare for bed. It rose an hour later every night; that meant It would reach the western sky about two or three In the morning. The night before, she had been too sleepy to listen for long to the sounds of the old house. Tonight she lay awake for a while, hearing Barby's untroubled breathing In the cot across the room, and nothing noth-ing else. How odd that there was nothing else. Why did the rats perform one night and not the next? Had It something to do with the position of the moon on the skylight, and were they waiting until its light fell in a barred rectangle across that dusty bare floor above her? And then would they come out to dance up and down, making that slow, regular tapping, shaking little lit-tle showers of plaster down the spaces between walls? The moon waked her again, very late; or was it the subdued scram-blings scram-blings from the cot? "You all right, Barby?" Georgine said drowsily. "I haff to go to the bathroom," Barby informed her, and proudly snapped on her new flashlight. Georgine wouldn't have put it past her to have waked up on purpose. "Shan't I go with you?" "No, Mamma! You said when I was eight I was grown up " "Shush, darling, don't wake everyone. All right, go by yourself. your-self. I suppose it docs seem like a treat." Georgine nearly drowsed off, waiting for her. After a long time, there was the sound of a door, cautiously cau-tiously opening; then another A muffled clatter woke the night, and a loud thud followed. Georgine shot out of bed, barely stopping to put on the bedside lamp, and wai out In the hall In a split second. She could see across its dimness, Into the entry of the back stairs, Barby was on her hands and knees, sprawling across the handle of s fallen mop. Probably from surprise, sur-prise, she seemed unable to get up. Her mother flew across the hall "Darling, did you hurt yourself?" She turned her child Into a sitting position, and found nothing worst than dust on her knees. "You are 1 silly," she commented In a sharf whisper. "Did you think this wai the door of our room? What good'i your f 1 a s h 1 1 g h t, f or heaven'i sake?" "I guess I was kind of asleep," Barby muttered. "I got turned around, Mamma. That thing fel down on me, and I sort of fell ovei It, an' I couldn't think where ) was." "It's all right, Todd," Georglm whispered to the figure that had materialized behind her. Shi moved modestly out of the shafi of light that streamed from thi door of her room. "Nothing slnie ter at all." Todd picked up Barby, took hei across the hall and put her in bed and was back with Georglne's roN within forty seconds, 'What Is It?' he said quietly. "Did you reallj hear something that frightened you?" "No," she said after a moment "Close the door to those stairs, wit you, Todd ? I've I've outdone ever myself, this time. What scared mi was that I didn't hear anything.' "Say that again!" Todd n quested. There's nothing up there to night, nothing at all, and la night there was." She cast a cau tlous glance around the hall; ft! was cloudily dark. "Last night' there was. Tonight, subconsciously, subconscious-ly, I suppose, I waited for the moot to rise. (TO Bt CONTINUED) |