Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene Read online

  “Al,” she said, “I’m going aboard. Remain here, please, until I return.”

  The gangplank was down, inviting trespassers. Beneath Miss Withers’ sensible shoes, the deck of the old yacht, once walked by the hallowed feet of Barrymore or Flynn or whoever, rolled ever so gently in quiet water, which made a soft and cadenced slapping sound against vessel and piling. No one challenged her or moved to intercept her as she made her way toward a dim rectangle of light coming amidships from below. The apparent indifference to security combined with the somehow stealthy sounds of the muffled darkness served to increase Miss Withers’ sense of dread. Descending narrow stairs into a narrow passage, she paused and listened, facing aft. The guitar and the singing and the sporadic interjection of raised voices were louder here. They came from behind the closed door of a stateroom on her right. She moved to the door and put her hand on the knob.

  She paused again, diverted by another sound. An alien sound from another source. A sound imposed with a kind of dreadful irrelevance on other sounds. She heard it once and not again, but it came, or so it seemed, from behind a closed door aft, at the end of the brief passage and facing directly up it. What sound? The harsh catching of the breath in someone’s throat? No. Not quite. More, Miss Withers thought, like a truncated whimper of terror or despair.

  Silently and swiftly Miss Withers moved to the door at the end of the passage and tried the knob. The door was unlocked. She opened it without hesitation into a stateroom that was obviously, from its size and location and fittings, the quarters of the owner or captain or both if they happened to be the same man. On a bunk to Miss Withers’ right as she faced into the cabin was the sprawled body of a man, face down, one arm hanging limply over the side, fingers trailing on the floor, and one leg drawn up as if fixed there by death in a contortion of agony.

  For the man, Miss Withers knew with dreadful certainty, was dead. Crouched over his body was a girl. Hearing the door open behind her, the girl straightened slowly and turned around, exposing a face coarsened by terror and drawn by fatigue. Her mouth was slightly open, and her eyes glittered like glass shards. One hand came up slowly to her mouth, as if to stop a scream. In spite of all distortions, it was a face Miss Withers, by dint of photography, recognized at once.

  She had found at last the Lost Lenore.

  6.

  LENORE GREGORY SPOKE. HER voice was an eerie whisper that seemed to originate independently of her body, the merest breath of despair, a ghost of sound that Miss Withers could hardly hear.

  “He’s dead! Oh, God, he’s dead!”

  Miss Withers took a step forward into the room. Without taking her eyes off the girl, she reached behind her and shut the door. The click of the latch was like a clap of thunder in the dead silence of the room. Swiftly, moving without sound, she brushed past the frozen girl and knelt beside the body on the bunk. There was no pulse in the wrist of the dangling arm. The flesh was very warm, almost feverish. The dead man’s head was turned so that she could look into his staring eyes. His jaws were locked, as if he had died grinding his teeth in convulsive agony. Miss Withers stood erect and turned to the girl, whose rigid body seemed at that instant to break up in a massive shudder. With a shrill little whimper, she plunged suddenly across the cabin and into the head, from which came the sounds of violent retching. After a few minutes she reappeared, her face haggard and bloodless but now composed.

  “Why?” Miss Withers said.

  Lenore Gregory’s expression did not change. In her eyes, dark and enormous in her pale face, there was a flicker of something like wonder that died instantly. Her voice was pitched low, so that Miss Withers had to listen intently to distinguish words, but it was under control. She had, it seemed, purged herself by her attack of retching of both nausea and incipient hysteria.

  “I don’t understand,” Lenore said.

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “Kill Captain Westering? I didn’t kill him. Why should I?”

  “For no reason, I hope. It’s just as well to have the matter cleared up at once.”

  “Why do you assume that he was killed at all? He had an attack of some kind. It must have been his heart. When I came back, he was lying face down in his berth. He seemed to be in pain and was having convulsions. He died just then. I didn’t even have time to call anyone.”

  Miss Withers, who was no stranger to the various effects of poisons, was skeptical. Locked jaws and convulsions did not strike her as compatible with a heart attack. Moreover, while kneeling beside the body, she had looked into staring eyes and noted dilated pupils. Detectable to the sharp old nose that had been poked often before into murderous business that was really none of hers, there had been, finally, a pungent odor, faint but unmistakable, that was familiar but elusive. What was it? The answer lurked on the dark edge of her mind, waiting for light. Whatever else it was, it was the smell of murder, but Miss Withers, for the time being, did not make an issue of it. Instead, she pounced like a tabby on a particular word.

  “Back? You say you came back?”

  Lenore Gregory opened her mouth to answer and then closed it suddenly with a snap of teeth. A belated seriocomic expression, equal parts suspicion and astonishment, invaded her face in a delayed reaction to the apparently inexplicable presence of this mysterious and inquisitive apparition who had appeared suddenly, with no warning whatever, as if she had materialized from nothing and dropped in from nowhere. Whoever she was, she was obviously a trespasser and possibly a threat. She was as out of place on this yacht among a ragtag and bobtail collection of amateur Argonauts as a vicar in a fleshpot. No one could possibly have suspected for a moment that the angular and acrid Miss Withers, with her spinsterish aura and her absurd hat, was a tardy pilgrim to the holy lands of Zen.

  “Wait a minute,” Lenore said. “Why are you asking me these questions? Who are you? Where did you come from? What do you want here?”

  “There is no time to go into all that now,” Miss Withers said crisply. “Later I’ll explain everything. Now, if possible, we must see what can be done about extricating you from a very difficult position.”

  “What do you mean? I came in here and found Captain Westering dying in his berth, that’s all. Why should I need to be extricated from anything?”

  “It depends, I should think, on two things. First, how did Captain Westering die? Second, will the police believe your story? Precisely what, by the way, is your story? Perhaps you had better tell it to me briefly. If it is not plausible, we may have to edit it a little.”

  “Oh, nonsense. What we had better do is call a doctor. It’s too late to do any good, of course, but there will have to be a death certificate or something.”

  “That won’t be necessary. The police will supply their own doctor. They call him a medical examiner.”

  “You keep harping on the police. Why should the police be involved at all?”

  “Because, my dear child, Captain Westering did not die a natural death. If you have any such foolish hope, put it right out of your mind. He ingested a lethal dose of some kind of poison. He was murdered.”

  “Murdered!” Lenore’s face, which had begun to recover its natural coloring, went white as chalk again. Her great dark eyes swam with resurgent terror. “What makes you think so? How could you possibly be sure?”

  “You will simply have to trust me. We don’t have time for lengthy explanations, I tell you. Exactly what happened here tonight so far as you were concerned?”

  “Well, Captain Westering asked me to see him in his stateroom tonight. In here, I mean. To discuss things about the voyage we were going to make. It was supposed to be a kind of cooperative voyage, with everyone chipping in whatever he could, and I had more to contribute than some of the others, and so Captain Westering seemed to feel that that gave me a right to sort of be on the inside and have a kind of voice in things. Anyhow, he discussed things with me and asked my advice and all, and that’s why he wanted to see me tonight.”

  “How much h
ave you contributed to this fantastic venture?”

  “It’s not fantastic. Nothing of the sort. At least, it wasn’t until now. I had about a thousand dollars when I arrived, and I got another thousand by selling my Volkswagen.”

  “That’s a considerable sum. What has been done with it?”

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps Aletha would know.”

  “Who’s Aletha?”

  “She’s Captain Westering’s wife. Or was. I have to keep reminding myself that he’s dead.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Living conditions are rather crowded here on the yacht, so she’s been staying with her sister in Sausalito. She’s there now, I guess. I don’t know.”

  “All right. We’ve digressed again, and we haven’t time. Finish telling me what happened. Be as brief as you can.”

  “Nothing much happened, really. After dinner, which mostly came out of cans, Captain Westering asked me to meet him later in his cabin. I said I would, and when I got here he had out the decanter of sherry that he kept for me because I can’t seem to drink strong liquor without getting sick, and not very much of the sherry, but then I remembered that I’d agreed earlier to go ashore with another girl here on the yacht. Rebecca Welch. I told Captain Westering that I’d be back in a short while and went to find Rebecca, to tell her I couldn’t go ashore with her, and finally I found her in the crew quarters. We talked for a while, and then I came back here and found Captain Westering just dying in his berth, and right afterward you were suddenly here too.”

  “You must have come down the passage just ahead of me. We barely missed each other. How long were you gone after leaving Captain Westering?”

  “It must have been half an hour or so. As I said, I had to look for Rebecca, and then we talked.”

  “I see. The story is plausible enough. How many of your collection of Argonauts knew that Captain Westering kept a special supply of sherry for your consumption when you visited him in his cabin?”

  “I don’t know. It was no secret.”

  “Is that it there on top of that chest?”

  “I think so. Yes, I’m sure it is.”

  Miss Withers crossed to the chest and examined the decanter without touching it. With her handkerchief she removed the stopper and sniffed the contents, bending over and poking her nose close to he opening. Lacing the odor of the sherry there was, just barely detectable, the same scent that had bugged Miss Withers’ memory before. A common scent that she should recognize. The scent of death and what else? Miss Withers carefully replaced the stopper. On the chest beside the decanter were two glasses. One of the glasses had been drunk from. The nutty odor of the sherry lingered in it. Captain Westering, waiting for the return of Lenore, had clearly helped himself to a glass while waiting. Too bad for Captain Westering. The sherry had surely killed him.

  “You,” said Miss Withers, “are a very lucky young lady.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Indeed. The poison, whatever it is, is in the sherry. Does that suggest anything to you?”

  Lenore was silent, her breath caught in her throat, and Miss Withers, watching her intently, was forced to give her points. Within that almost fragile loveliness was surely a stout heart. A pulse throbbed in her throat, and her dark eyes flared. Otherwise, she showed no sign of shock.

  “Who would want to kill me?”

  “That’s a very good question. I suggest that you think about it seriously.”

  “It isn’t necessary to think about it at all. I’ve only known these people about a week. A day or two longer. Just since I got here.”

  “I could name a few murderers, my dear, who were complete strangers to their victims. Did Captain Westering make a practice of inviting you into his cabin for sherry?”

  “I told you. We discussed the voyage. While I was here I usually had a glass of sherry.”

  “From this decanter?”

  “Yes. As I said, Captain Westering kept it especially for me.

  “Did he ever have a drink from the same decanter?”

  “I don’t recall that he did. He drank something else. Scotch, I think. He made fun of me a little because of the sherry. Because I couldn’t drink stronger liquors, I mean.”

  “It’s not, I should say, a particularly regrettable deficiency. Never mind that, though. You can surely see that the poison, having been put into the decanter, must have been intended for you.”

  “How do you know it was put into the decanter?”

  “My senses are still quite good, young lady, including my sense of smell. The poison is in the decanter. You may be certain of that.”

  “What kind of poison?”

  “I’m not positive. I can’t quite identify the odor.”

  “Then how do you know it’s poison?”

  Miss Withers had been warned that Lenore Gregory was a headstrong young lady. She was now more than prepared to believe it. Resisting an impulse to shake the girl until her teeth rattled, she answered with a crisp tone of authority, very much as she had used to address an obstreperous small fry back in her days as a schoolma’am.

  “I don’t intend to discuss the matter now. You’ll see for yourself in good time. You don’t seem to understand, young lady, that I’m trying to help you. Can’t you see that your position is perilous? I think someone has tried to kill you, and he has only failed by the merest chance. That, however, may not be the position of the police. I’ve had considerable experience with the police in cases like this, and I’ve observed that they invariably have a powerful penchant for the obvious. I stepped into this stateroom and found you bending over the body of a murdered man. Their first assumption will be that I surprised you in the act of murder.”

  “That’s insane. Absolutely crazy. I admired Captain Westering. Why should I kill him and ruin all our plans?”

  “We’ll get to those plans later. For the moment, I wonder if it would be indelicate to ask just what expression your admiration took?”

  “If you’re asking if we were lovers, we were not.” And lifting her head in a little gesture of pride that struck Miss Withers as being somehow pathetic, she added defiantly, “Not yet, anyhow.”

  “I’ve no doubt that Captain Westering was a romantic and persuasive man,” Miss Withers said drily. “And you, my dear, are a lovely and impulsive girl. A highly combustible mixture of qualities, if I may say so. Perhaps what your precise relationship was is not important. What may be much more important is what someone thought it was. We’ll know in time. Now we’ve delayed long enough. We must act.”

  “Well, you seem to have taken charge. Tell me what to do.”

  Miss Withers was silent for a minute, thinking. She could hear, coming from the forward stateroom, an undulating drone of sound, voices rising and falling in talk and song, and she realized that the sound had been there all the time as a kind of background to the silence of this grim room, which seemed somehow unbroken even by the hushed and urgent words of the elderly woman and the young woman standing there in the presence of death. It was strange, Miss Withers thought. Strange that a man could die alone in an agony of convulsions a few short yards from company and help. Why hadn’t Captain Westering cried out or staggered into the passage? Had the poison that killed him, whatever it was, been too swift and deadly? Or had he, feeling the poison’s first effects, simply crawled into his berth unsuspecting, thinking they would pass and realizing too late that they would not?

  “On the dock,” Miss Withers said, “you will find a young man waiting for me. His name is Al Fister. Go and tell him to find a phone and call the police. Tell him to return as quickly as he can and to see that no one leaves this vessel before the police arrive. You will, of course, come back aboard to wait with the rest of us.”

  Lenore Gregory turned to go, and at that moment the stateroom door suddenly flew open without a sound to reveal against the background of the short passage one of the most startling male creatures that Miss Withers, fresh though she was from the haunts of hippies, had ever s
een. Tall, perhaps six-six, and thin as a slat, he wore a soiled white robe that flapped around his thin shanks some eight inches above the ankles. On his feet, otherwise bare, were Jesus sandals bound on with leather thongs. His hair was long and grizzled and greasy, hanging to his shoulders, and a grizzled beard, growing like a thicket from most of his face, hung down his front as far as a length of hemp rope that girded his waist. From this encroaching coppice of hair, set tight on either side against a bulbous nose, were two glittering little eyes that glared over Miss Withers’ shoulder at the body of Captain Westering. He looked, Miss Withers thought, like an obscene caricature of Moses. His voice, when he spoke, had a curious hollow sound, as if he were talking into an empty barrel.

  “What are you doing here?” he said. “What have you done to Captain Westering?”

  7.

  MISS WITHERS, LIKE A solid Victorian period piece, stood grimly in a corner, removed slightly in space and immeasurably in spirit from the litter of human odds and ends that shared the stateroom with her. Besides her, there were seven people in the room. Flanking her on either side, casting covert glances of curiosity at each other across her spinsterish bosom, were Al Fister and Lenore Gregory. They had assumed their positions on Miss Withers’ flanks in a kind of mutual and unspoken commitment, prepared on one hand to defend her against all comers, and deriving from her nearness, on the other, a measure of comfort and confidence. By Lenore, as a matter of fact, Al was incited to even more elevated reactions. Her dark, ascetic loveliness had burst upon him like a revelation on the dark dock in salt-scented fog, and he had been feeling ever since all thumping heart and outsized hands and feet. Sensing at once, even before his sense was confirmed, that she was somehow threatened by events, he had begun to burst with Quixotic fancies.

  In another corner, sitting cross-legged on the floor with his thin shanks exposed, was the startling creature who had materialized earlier in the captain’s stateroom like a soiled avenging angel to catch Miss Withers and Lenore in what appeared to be a shocking crime. Now, in his corner, he glared at the floor in front of him and engaged in a running monologue of dire mutterings. Every once in a while he would look up directly at Miss Withers. The sight of her seemed to arouse him to a perfect fury of invective, for his mutterings would rise abruptly in volume and tempo, sound tumbling over sound in a welter of gibberish. Miss Withers could make no sense of any of it. So far as she could tell, he was invoking in his private tongue the wrath of his personal gods. For her incomprehension she was thankful. She had an uneasy feeling that the gibberish, given sense, would have been unfit for the ears of an elderly virgin.