I said, “I understand.”
“The librarian said we wouldn’t be able to if another patron were waiting for her. Only there wasn’t anybody, so we could.”
“And you did. What about the two girls your father brought back?”
“Ricci and Idona? The dead girls? They’re still here.” Chandra paused. “I guess I have to invite you or you won’t sit down, so you’re invited. Sit anyplace.”
I sat down in a wingback chair covered with old and badly tarnished tinbroc. “Millie and Rose weren’t returned to the library. Are they still there, too?”
Chandra nodded.
“That seems to leave us with no fewer than eight suspects—Audrey, your mother, Millie, Rose, Ricci, Idona, Mrs. Heuse, and you.” I sighed. Eight suspects, and all female; the big arrow implied that most women could not have drawn that bow. “You didn’t do it?”
“Kill my own father? Heck no!”
I sighed again. I had been listening for guilt, but there had not been any. I said, “It happens. All right, that leaves seven. Have you a favorite?”
Chandra turned her head to look at me. “Do I get to think first?”
I nodded. “Certainly, go ahead.”
She did, sitting quietly for half a minute or so. Then, “I’ve got two. Idona and Rose.”
“You must know what’s coming next. Why them?”
Chandra shrugged.
“When a married woman is murdered, the murderer is usually her husband. Husbands aren’t killed by their wives quite as often, but it occurs pretty frequently. So why not Adah?”
“Two reasons. Because I know her and she’d use her big knife. Besides, I’d know about it if she had an arrow.”
I said, “Unless she just got it.”
“From where?”
I laughed. “Now you’ve got me. You picked Rose and Idona. Please explain.”
Chandra challenged me. “You don’t like me saying Rose. Want to tell me why?”
“I will in a minute. Why did you name her?”
“You were the one who said there were only women left.”
I had to think about that one. When I had, I said, “You’re right. Rose wants an audience, and not a female audience. If she felt your father didn’t appreciate her and was standing in the way…”
“Bing! Women know how good-looking she is, but mostly we’re jealous. Men are hot for her, or anyway she thinks they are. My father’d had her, but he looked her over a lot just the same. You know?”
“Undressing her with his eyes.”
“Yeah.” Chandra sounded thoughtful. “Sometimes they held hands. I think Rose might, maybe, kill some man who told her to peddle it somewhere else. Or a man who kept all the others away…”
Chandra fell silent. It seemed as if she might talk more without being pushed, so I kept my mouth shut. Someone was walking around upstairs in high heels; I listened to her footsteps and tried to guess who it was.
“Do you want to know about Idona, too?”
I nodded.
Chandra drew a deep breath. “She wants to be queen of the world. Get in her way, and she might kill you. That’s just what I think.”
“And you’d like to be wrong.”
Reluctantly, Chandra nodded.
“Why is that?”
“All right, I’m sure that’s wrong, Mr. Smithe. So why would I want you to believe it?”
“I don’t. Why are you sure it’s wrong?”
“Because none of it makes sense. In the first place, she’d try to get him on her side. It doesn’t matter whether she did or not, because she’d keep trying for a couple of weeks anyway. Probably longer.”
I nodded. “You said you had a lot of reasons. Give me another.”
“All right, why an arrow? If she stabbed him with it, where did she get it? And why not use a kitchen knife? Mrs. Heuse has lots of them, and she could take her pick. If she shot the arrow, she’d have to get rid of the rest of her arrows and the bow.”
I was still digesting what Chandra had told me when the door opened for us and we went inside.
With Dr. Fevre dead, I had expected to find a madhouse, or something close to it. It wasn’t really that bad. It seemed like all the women helped with the housework, even though some worked quite a bit harder than others. I offered to help and did, mostly by moving furniture Adah wanted to rearrange or that Audrey wanted to sweep under.
The light in the windows dimmed, the house began to turn its own lights on, and there was a dinner, with me sitting next to Audrey—or her next to me, if you want to put it like that. We held hands sometimes, keeping our hands below the table so no one could see them. That night she and I slept next to Chandra’s bed. Women always bitch about men falling asleep as soon as the sex is over, and that night I did. We were still holding hands when I dozed off; I don’t believe I will ever forget that.
When I woke it was still pitch-dark in our bedroom and something was in the room with us. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred no one will notice a small animal as long as it keeps quiet. My visitor did, only he was not even close to small. He was as quiet as a shadow, moving very, very slowly. That helped a lot, but the floor was not quiet; it creaked and groaned beneath his weight.
Maybe I should have elbowed Audrey until she woke up, but I didn’t. She might have screamed and for all I knew screaming might get you killed. Sure, I would have tried to protect her; good luck to that, because whoever he was he was so big he seemed to fill the whole room.
The door opened, and for a second or so I could see the rectangle of faint light. Then the doorway was blacked out by somebody one hell of a lot bigger than I am.
Oh so quietly, the door closed behind him.
I had not realized how frightened I was until I tried to sit up. Then I found out—my whole body was trembling.
It seemed like forever before I could make myself sit up. Maybe I was brave, but my body was scared half to death just the same. Getting out of bed was even harder.
I opened the door as quietly as I could and looked out. Our bedroom had been dark, but there were a couple of little lamps in the hall. Whoever it was that had been in our bedroom was gone.
So was the big arrow somebody had pulled out of the doctor’s neck.
Could whoever our visitor had been have climbed out a window? Probably not—he’d been too big. So front door or side door or back door.
I went around to all three. Mrs. Snow bolted them all at night, or so I had been told. I checked them all, and they were all unbolted, the big iron bolts pulled out of their sockets by somebody inside. Maybe he was still inside with us. Maybe he was gone, which I liked one hell of a lot better. I found a lamp in the kitchen and checked out the empty rooms on the second and third floors. Nobody.
Basement? Nobody there, either.
14
OF THE CONTINENTAL POLICE
I’ve been getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a little and fill you in. The natural thing would have been for Adah to take charge, since it was her house. All right, but she wasn’t a good candidate for taking charge of anything. When she was up she was in the same league as Napoleon, sure; but when she was down she couldn’t have run a kid’s playhouse. So it was Audrey, which gave me another reason Chandra had called her the lady captain. Or maybe I ought to say it was Mrs. Heuse in the kitchen and Audrey in the other rooms, which explains it exactly. Could I have taken charge? Maybe, but I didn’t want to be in charge and didn’t try.