Turret Room Read online

  Granny’s voice began to tremble. “In the tree?” she quavered. “The tree? I have never really been comfortable with that tree.…” She was remembering the fright that Wendy had given her. Her thin hand came to cover her eyes. Edie saw Ron swing to the old lady. He was going to stand over her, distract her, keep her from looking. She heard him say, “The tree?” Too loud. To Edie?

  Well, of course. The Tree! Edie nodded understanding. The draperies had been drawn. Lucky! Harold could swing out of the turret room by the route of the tree limb. Could do, in reverse, what they were all so sure he had done, were afraid that he might do. The guard, at least, could not see any part of the big window from where he was, near the cellar door.

  But the guard was not near the cellar door. Edie heard his call and looked down. He was directly below her, looking up. “Where is the key to the cellar door, miss?”

  Ron said, “I’ll find it. Can you hear him, down there, now?”

  Ron veered away from Granny to shepherd the guard back around the curve of the wall. Edie, on her toes on the balcony, her hand sweating on the knob of the door to the turret room, heard a sound she was not making. Latch click?

  Ron had reappeared below and was gazing up. Everything was frozen—except the front door of the Whitman house, which was swinging open.

  Edie said, in a false bright voice, with the ridiculous inflections of some ancient stage-piece, “Here come Cousin Ted and Mr. Tyler now!”

  “Find the key,” called Ronnie Mungo. “If you can. Maybe you can. The tree?”

  Nobody noticed that he had not said “key” a second time. Except Edie, who thought, Nothing could be worse than it is—so why not? They’ll be distracted, too. This is better.

  “If I can,” she promised gaily.

  Cousin Ted was entering slowly, as became a man bent under a great sorrow. Before he and Charles Tyler had come down into the big room, Edie had turned the knob and slipped from their sight.

  She had to explain to Harold very quickly. She had to get him to move, to go, to understand—very quickly.

  He had heard the phone ring, a couple of times, but Edie hadn’t come. He had heard her speaking to the guard again, just now. Outside. He hadn’t caught it all. He’d heard the word “cellar” so he knew she hadn’t been mentioning where he was. He was alerted, though. Something was up. So when she came, on such a wave of urgency, he was ready to listen closely.

  “The guard’s inside. Everybody’s there. You’ve got to get out, by this window. By the limb of the tree. Slide down the trunk. Can you do it, Harold? There’s a red car, parked near the front door. Scrunch down and don’t let the other guard see you. Get into the back seat and lie on the floor. Quickly. Right away. Ronnie Mungo’s going to drive off with you. You have got to get out.”

  He was making a kind of token hesitation. He was going to do it. He’d be glad to. Right away. But she added, “Myra is dead. Now, they think you murdered her. I know you didn’t. Do this for me?”

  It shook him. It really shook him up. He turned, under her pushing hands, and by the strength of his own first impulse. Then he was crouching in the narrow embrasure. His bad foot held him well enough. The window was slightly open. He pulled it open all the way. There was no guard below. Not far above his head was the limb of the tree, in easy reach. He glanced at the big window below. The draperies were closed. He wondered if Wendy was standing the other side of them. If he thought once more of Wendy, he couldn’t do it. And he wanted to get out.

  The limb of the tree was very thick. He must cup his hands well over the top of it. It wouldn’t do to fall. He would break his foot again, or a leg. If his arms didn’t feel so heavy, in themselves, if he wasn’t feeling so rotten, lousy, altogether, it would be a piece of cake. But he could do it.

  The girl was saying behind him, “Quick. Quick. Quick.”

  So there was no time to think whether he should.

  Ted Whitman reached the floor of the big room just as his mother screamed, a tiny, dainty “Oh,” but a scream, even so.

  “What?” said Ted. “What?”

  Mungo was there and he said, “There’s someone in the cellar.” Old Mrs. Whitman, from her chair, was hanging to his sleeve.

  Charles Tyler pushed past, saying with relish, “That so?”

  And the old lady said in a shrill quaver, “Now, Teddy, don’t you get killed. Let somebody else go.”

  “Oh, Mother …”said Ted.

  Edie, cracking the door of the turret room, heard Cousin Ted saying, “Myra … Mother, did they tell you?”

  And Ron say to him sharply, “The cellar, sir. The cellar.” So Cousin Ted was turned and directed toward the cellar door.

  “Now is the time,” said Ronnie loudly, “to be a brave girl.”

  Edie was past being brave. Harold was already launching himself upon the tree. She could not help him. She might, by helping Ronnie get away. She started down.

  The guard said from around the curve, “No key, sir.”

  Tyler said, “Where is the key?”

  She saw that Ron was gazing high above her head. She knew that the glass was bare, high in the pointed arch. She knew that the leaves of the big tree would be shaking, there.

  No one else must look. No one else must see. What could they do with Cousin Ted, who hadn’t gone far enough, who wasn’t out of the way yet. He might see.

  “Cousin Ted, you must have a key to the cellar door,” Edie sang out.

  So Cousin Ted began to pull his key case out of his pocket. “What? Key? To the cellar? Why yes. Naturally, I have a key.”

  So he went, in almost his normal gait, around the curve to where the other two men were standing. From there, none of them could see the window or the shaking of the tree.

  Edie found herself clinging to the newel post, not daring to look behind and above her.

  Granny, grasping Ronnie’s sleeve with a tight little hand, was bridling and babbling. “I am neither brave nor a girl, young man, but it is kind of you. What I shall do is sit. I can’t help thinking that if one were to die in any sudden public way, one’s limbs …”

  The tree limb shook. The eastern sun was shifting southerly. Edie could see the shadows. Leaves were dancing on the carpet, over there. Over there.

  “… may be tumbled about and one’s clothing disarranged …” Granny went on and on … and one might look perfectly vulgar and unable to do a thing about it. And after a long life, during which one has struggled to behave with decorum, at least …”

  Edie let go of the newel post and raced to Ron’s side, where he was trying to disengage the old woman’s clutch upon his sleeve. Edie must take over here. Ron had to get out of the house too. And into his car, in order to drive away. Quickly.

  She could see the group of three now, around the curved wall, near the cellar door. The guard said, “I guess you gimme the wrong one, Mr. Whitman.”

  Cousin Ted said, “What? Oh, dear …”

  And Tyler said, “Get on with it.”

  Granny tightened her fingers and said, “Ronnie Mungo? There was something I was going to say to you. But this is not the time …”

  “No, no,” said Edie. “Let me …” She put her hand on Granny’s little claw and began to work, to loosen those fingers.

  “When I was young,” said Granny, “there were so many strong young men. Where are they now?”

  “Sssh, Granny … let me …”

  Tyler said, warningly, “Stand away, Ted.”

  The guard must have found a key that worked and he must have turned it. Ted stumbled backward.

  And the tree shook. The shadows danced on one bright patch of carpet. The leaves were dancing against the high glass. A twig scratched? It scratched on Edie’s ear like a scream.

  But the two men, Tyler and the guard, had their guns out and they stood concentrated and waiting upon the exact right second to open the cellar door. It’s going to work, thought Edie. It’ll be all right. We’ll do it.

  Ronnie Mungo moved
his arm abruptly and tore the sleeve of his jacket out of the old lady’s grasp. Edie was bent to take over here, to stand by the old lady. He was turned toward the window. He could go, now. Ron’s left arm came up and his hand fell upon her shoulder.

  She knew it fell, signifying doom. She looked behind her. Wendy was coming down the stairs. She was wearing a summer suit in peacock blue, with a turtle-necked white blouse. Her head was bare. She was lugging her small white train case. She was stepping to the balcony. Her tiny pretty feet twinkled in bright blue.

  Edie could feel the old lady’s hand like a nest of trembling wire, she could feel Ron’s hand heavy and warm and ominous on her shoulder. The shadowed leaves made a dancing pattern, all around the three of them, that Wendy could not help but see.

  Oh, Wendy, let him go.

  But Wendy, staring downward, had seen the dancing shadows. Slowly, she turned her head. “There is somebody in the tree,” she said promptly, loudly, but with an air of perfect calm, and no hysterics whatsoever.

  “What? What’s that, sweetheart?” Cousin Ted stepped back still farther. Now he could see.

  “He is getting out, Daddy,” said Wendy, in that same matter-of-fact manner. “By the tree. See?”

  Tyler came quickly to Ted’s side. “Stand still.”

  Now, Charles Tyler could see.

  Granny said, “Is it the wind?” Granny had seen.

  The guard, with his gun drawn, came to where he could see.

  See the leaves shake, unnaturally, in no wind, and shake one last time and then seem to be trembling to stillness.

  Edie was between them all and the window without knowing how. “No,” she was saying.

  She heard her cousin Wendy say, in a note of exasperation, “Why is it that you never believe a word I say?”

  Then, Wendy ran down to the cord, yanked it and the draperies opened.

  Harold Page, in his white coat, with no shoes on, was pasted against the base of the huge trunk, not clinging but limply leaning. As they watched, his foot went from under him, his body began to slide. Slowly he slid and he crumpled. He melted into a silent heap on the ground.

  Chapter Twelve

  HAROLD hadn’t blacked out completely. He had known when the men picked him up, not gently, and when they had half walked him back into the Whitman house. So he hadn’t got away. Psyche or soma, he thought drowsily. Probably I really wanted the attention. (The phrase was a bit of an inside joke, back in the hospital.)

  He was drooping forward in a soft chair, his head hanging, his eyes half-closed. He should be paying attention, listening to their voices, watching their faces. Wasn’t that what he had come for, to get for himself what sense he could of the truth about these people? Break some false old images? The trouble was, he had found out enough already. (Oh, Wendy …) So you broke an image that’s been bugging you. And it bugs you plenty—although differently.

  The room was quiet now. There had been a lot of loud talk and confusion in here until the big man, Myra’s brother, had roared for order. Now, there was order. Myra’s brother was talking on the telephone, giving instructions, asking for people to do things. “And I want a patrol car at the Whitman gates, and fast. I’ve got a couple of Conrad’s men on them, now. No newsmen in here. No exceptions. I’ll give out a story, when I’m ready. And lay on that ambulance. This kook is supposed to be feverish and I’m taking no chances.”

  Harold remembered that Myra was dead. And the whole thing over to her brother? Tough for him, Harold thought, and noticed that he wasn’t afraid for himself. Funny. He’d been afraid. He’d been furious, too. Now, he felt neither. Myra was dead, and that was a terrible thing and there would have to be consequences. He was in the path of the consequences. They were going to happen to him, and he understood that.

  But Harold wasn’t feeling much. Just … like a little tugging, like a whole lot of little arrows being drawn out of his very skin, all pointing across the room, over there, where Wendy was sitting close to that Mungo fellow, sitting quietly, as if she, too, were in a trance, much like his. (Oh, Wendy …)

  He heard Edie speak up. “Please, Mr. Tyler, if you would only …”

  She was sitting on the ottoman at his knees, bright-eyed, watching intently for a chance to fight for him. She was on Harold’s side; he guessed he knew most of her reasons. Some sad, he thought. This was a sad house, altogether.

  Tyler’s deep voice spoke behind his head. “Just be quiet.”

  Ted Whitman said, “Charles, I think you ought to—”

  Tyler barked, “I’m in charge, here.”

  Oh, he was. He had made them all sit down and be quiet. If Harold turned his head a bit he would be able to see Granny, in a chair the other side of the fireplace. He had looked at her once, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. She never had, he mused. Harold couldn’t remember either of his own grandmothers. He had tried, in the days of his marriage, to be very polite and respectful to old Mrs. Whitman, but he had never quite been able to follow what she was saying. The old lady had always confused him and made him feel uncomfortable. Wendy had no respect. Wendy used to laugh and brush her off.

  (Oh, Wendy …)

  Then there was Mr. Whitman, who always seemed to be very very busy and never getting anything actually done. Wendy had either wheedled something out of him or brushed him off, too. Harold had a freakish flash of concern for Mr. Whitman. Myra would have kept his fortune for him. His mother couldn’t live forever. But Myra … being dead … Funny, he used to be afraid of them all.

  Edie said to Mr. Tyler, “If you arrest Harold Page, I don’t think you realize the damage you’ll be doing.”

  But Charles Tyler knew exactly what he was doing. He had come here, in Ted Whitman’s car, part the kindly brother-in-law and joint mourner. He now awaited the arrival of assistance, because he was the Chief of Police with a job to do. There was a little more to the apprehension of a criminal than the physical matter of putting him in one place rather than another. Tyler knew evidence when he saw it, testimony when he heard it. It was up to him to “get” the murderer and that was exactly what he was going to do This little twerp from out of town, this social worker, wasn’t going to tell him how to do it.

  He said, “Harold Page is under arrest, right now.”

  “But I told you. He wasn’t here on Wednesday.”

  Tyler hadn’t told her anything yet, but he remembered all she had told him. Crazy. Not that crazy things didn’t happen. On the contrary, they often did. It was a crazy thing, for instance, that his sister was dead, the way she was.

  But he had what it took, right now, to arrest the kook at least for attacking Myra on Wednesday night. “Seen running from the scene.” He’d get what it took to put him on the scene of the actual murder. And it wouldn’t be “crazy.”

  Tyler moved to where he could look down on the kook. Clean enough looking kid, which didn’t mean a thing. Noticed with anger what he was wearing. Noticed what he was not wearing. Noticed the gray socks.

  “You tell me he walked seventy-five miles?” said Tyler blandly. Disbelief was deep enough to sound polite.

  “Ridiculous!” piped Ted.

  “Nobody would do such a thing,” pronounced old Mrs. Whitman, “not even a madman!”

  They were gnats in Tyler’s ears. He paid no heed.

  It wasn’t too wise for him to touch this kid, but he wanted to see the eyes. He put his palm on the boy’s forehead and shoved the head back. The eyes were a little sad and cloudy.

  “That’s right? You walked seventy-five miles, did you?” Tyler was loud, as to a foreigner.

  The boy’s eyes brightened and widened as if with an impulse to smile and then saddened. He said, “Yes, sir.”

  He didn’t try to explain. He can’t explain, thought Tyler, who didn’t want an explanation, anyhow. It would only be kookie. The question was, Had he walked? He limped. The Chief had seen that.

  “You can prove you walked? You can prove you were someplace else on Wednesday night? E
h?”

  The boy blinked. He seemed to search his memory. “I don’t think so,” he said. “There was only this dog …”

  “Dog!” Tyler exploded.

  “He slept on a lawn swing,” Edie was saying rapidly. “A vacant house. Somebody may have seen him.”

  Tyler shut her up with one look. He supposed he’d have to waste somebody’s time, someday, to go wherever this lawn swing was supposed to be, see if there was a lawn swing. Interview a dog? Augh.…

  He looked down at the boy, who bore his gaze, not seeming to be too nervous. Kooks often were not, especially when they ought to be.

  Tyler could hear the Whitman girl murmuring, across the room, “Can’t we go now? To Mexico?”

  And Ronnie Mungo’s quick, “No, no.”

  Go to Mexico? thought Tyler with an inner snort. That was a Whitman for you. This kid, Wendy, was a witness; she couldn’t go. As for Mungo—well, Mungo was no kook. Tyler had some questions for Mungo. There were things Tyler knew about Mungo, and there were some things he was going to want to know. He would find out, all right. But not now.

  Now, think about the evidence against Harold Page. Also, about the testimony in his favor. Here was this girl social worker. Was she some kind of kook, too? “You say you’ve had him hidden, in this house, since yesterday afternoon at about two o’clock?”

  “Yes, sir.” She didn’t explain, either.

  The Whitman twitter began. Ted said, “Impossible!” The old lady said, “Preposterous!”

  But, although unlikely, it was not impossible. Tyler had heard of cases. He himself had known one attic case, where a woman had hidden a deformed child from her second husband, in the same house, some eleven years. The Whitmans might not have known that Harold Page was in their house for one night.

  They didn’t know much, in his opinion.

  The old lady was a relic. Oh, she was smart, in her way. She kept her status. It had not diminished. People tended to kowtow. She had both social and economic power in the town. She watched over the Whitman money, or watched her hired hands watch it. But she didn’t know anything about the world at the bottom of the hill, and never had, he reflected. As for Ted, there was a joke in the town. The Estate man-agers were said to pay one man a handsome salary to do one thing only—keep Ted Whitman’s fingers out of any and all pies. Ted was an idiot.